Product Performance Evaluation Research Articles

Evaluation of physiological responses and production performance of spiny lobster with different density treatments in floating net cage

The weak in survival rates and low productivity of spiny lobster are influenced by stock density. Thus it is necessary to find the optimum stock density to minimize stress levels and increase productivity. This study was consisted of 2 treatments, consisting of a 25 individuals/m2 and 50 individuals/m2 with a sheltered environment. The research analysis used descriptive analysis. The lowest stress levels was found in treatment of 25 lobsters/m2 (cortisol 1.17±0.14 nmol/L and glucose level 8.34±0.5 mg/dL) and the highest weight gain (26.29±1.69%) as well as the specific growth rate (0.77±0.014%). However, the highest value of survival rate of spiny lobsters (95±0.03%) with lowest specific growth and weight gain was found in 50 lobsters/m2 treatments.

In vitro conditions for performance evaluation of products for intravascular administration: Developing appropriate test media using Amphotericin B as a model drug

Currently, there are no compendial in vitro release tests specifically indicated for parenteral formulations. Consideration of biorelevant and clinically relevant test media represents a valuable approach for the development of in vitro tests that ideally can provide information on the formulation performance in vivo. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different media components on the solubility of Amphotericin B (a poorly soluble highly protein-bound drug) in order to develop biorelevant and clinically relevant media for future in vitro release testing from its liposomal formulation. Three categories of media were considered in the development approach: Category 1 media: effect of albumin concentration; category 2 media: effect of biorelevant concentrations of plasma components (bile salts, phospholipids, cholesterol, albumin); category 3 media: attaining clinically relevant solubility with biorelevant and synthetic surfactants with and without albumin and setting the basis for the development of a simulated hypoalbuminaemic plasma medium. All the surfactants tested increased Amphotericin B solubility while the simultaneous presence of albumin had a negative effect on solubility. Clinically relevant media with the use of biorelevant or synthetic surfactants and albumin were developed. One medium in which the solubility of Amphotericin B was reduced was identified as potential candidate medium to simulate hypoalbuminaemic plasma. The development of biorelevant and clinically relevant media and understanding the effect of media components and their interactions, supports future development of meaningful in vivo predictive release tests for parenteral formulations.

Evaluation of Production Performance and Some Qualitative Characteristics of Eggs in the Late Stages of Laying Hens Using Some Pro- and Anti-Inflammatory Strategies

Evaluation of Production Performance and Some Qualitative Characteristics of Eggs in the Late Stages of Laying Hens Using Some Pro- and Anti-Inflammatory Strategies

Determinants of Consumers’ Retention and Subjective Well-Being: A Sustainable Farmers’ Market Perspective

Farmers’ markets have received much attention in many countries, and the amount of research on farmers’ markets is gradually increasing. The consumption process of consumers at farmers’ markets include both economic and social aspects, but most past studies have only focused on a single aspect. The economic perspective mainly focuses on transaction issues such as purchase motives, quality, satisfaction, purchase behavior, and post-purchase behavior, whereas the social perspective focuses on the social relations and psychological feelings created when consumers go to markets. This study aimed to integrate the economic and social perspectives and analyze the relationships among product performance evaluation, relational capital, repurchase intention, and subjective well-being of consumers at farmers’ markets after their purchase experiences. I chose three recurrent farmers’ markets in Taiwan, obtained 358 valid samples, and performed structural equation modelling analysis. The results indicated that the economic product performance exerted a significant and positive influence on repurchase intention, but its influence on subjective well-being was not significant. In contrast, the social relational capital was found to be a positive and significant factor of both repurchase intention and subjective well-being. On the whole, relational capital is more important than product performance. The suggestions for practice were as follows. First, farmers’ markets have economic and social value and are thus worth being promoted by government agencies. Second, the managers of farmers’ markets should implement a set of management mechanisms to ensure product performance and also create a market atmosphere that facilitates social interactions between farmers and consumers.

Supplementation levels for pre-weaning grazing beef heifers during the rainy-dry transition season

This study was undertaken to examine production performance, pasture and milk intakes and nutrient digestibility in heifers supplemented with different levels of energy in a creep-feeding system on Urochloa decumbens Stapf pastures during the rainy-dry transition season. Fifty-one heifers with predominant Nellore genetic composition (average initial age and weight: 120 days and 133.4 ± 3.12 kg) and their respective dams were used in an evaluation of production performance, intake, and diet digestibility. Four treatments were evaluated, namely, MM - mineral mixture; T250 - 0.250 kg of supplement per head per day; T500 - 0.500 kg of supplement per head per day; and T750 - 0.750 kg of supplement per head per day, totaling three groups with 13 animals each and one group with 12 animals. All supplements were balanced to provide 100 g of CP animal-1 day-1. LIPE® and chromium oxide were used as external markers to estimate fecal excretion and individual DM and supplement intakes, respectively, whereas iNDF was used as an internal marker for pasture DM intake. Production performance did not differ between the supplemented and unsupplemented animals. Total DM intake and pasture DM intake were higher in the group supplemented with concentrate, and the same was observed for the digestibility of DM and NDFap consumed by the animals. The average cow milk yield was 5.33 kg/day, with average protein and fat contents of 3.51% and 4.85%, respectively. In conclusion, compared to the use of mineral mixture only, multiple supplementation at different levels containing 100 g of CP does not significantly improve performance in lactating beef heifers grazing on Urochloa decumbens Stapf and supplemented during the rainy-dry transition season.

La curva de aprendizaje y su contribución al desempeño del talento humano en las organizaciones: una revisión teórica

Este documento presenta una revisión sobre el concepto de curva de aprendizaje, sus orígenes, modelos y principales aplicaciones. Se realizó una investigación documental, para la cual se consultaron bases de datos especializadas, abordando los principales autores y los aspectos característicos de cada modelo. Los hallazgos indican la importancia del estudio de las curvas de aprendizaje, tanto a nivel individual, grupal y organizacional. Estas últimas pueden ser fuente para la toma de decisión en las empresas, ya que los distintos modelos de curva de aprendizaje pueden brindar información, referente a: metas de producción, evaluación de rendimientos, estimación de mano de obra, optimización de precios y costos, para crear ventajas competitivas. Los trabajos revisados destacan el beneficio de las curvas de aprendizaje en temas como: la planeación, la capacitación y el control de procesos. Se concluye que las curvas de aprendizaje, si bien iniciaron en la industria de la aviación, se han difundido a diversos sectores industriales, con la aportación de nuevos modelos matemáticos para su estimación.

Data fusion based on‐line product quality evaluation of ternary cathode material cyber‐physical systems

In the manufacturing process of ternary cathode material, batching, mixing, loading, and sintering procedures play decisive roles in product quality, and data generated by these procedures are collected by the ternary cathode material cyber-physical system (TCM-CPS). However, the data of the process are heterogeneous and have different properties, and sampling of key quality variables is difficult. On this basis, on-line evaluation of product quality is hard. In this study, a data fusion based on-line product quality evaluation method of TCM-CPS is proposed. Data features of each procedure are firstly extracted and fused by combining feature indices and kernel principal component analysis. Then, in order to establish the model between the extracted data features and the key quality variables such as particle size and surface-free lithium content, a semi-supervised double-weighted probabilistic principal component regression is proposed. After that, a distance cost index is brought to cluster and grade the two quality variables, which are predicted by the semi-supervised model. Moreover, the on-line evaluation of product performance is achieved by setting a rule table in accordance with production experience. Finally, an industrial application verifies the proposed method, of which the effective and accuracy can be acquired from results.

Performance evaluation of lean production based on balanced score card method using ANP and SIR: a case from Iranian home appliance industry

Lean production is a productive philosophy with systematic perspective which takes steps toward eliminating waste materials by applying continual improvement in the sophisticated business processes. Appropriate implementation of this philosophy results in significant changes within a business. Despite the ample efforts devoted to lean production’s evaluation and implementation, this system’s efficient evaluation and implementation are still experiencing countless issues, which seem to be due to absence of a comprehensive model for examining and evaluating lean production within manufacturing companies. Having knowledge of the companies’ performance status, provides us with the possibilities of discovering weakness and strengths, allowing lead strategic managers to have higher performance comparing to their competitors by allocating more volume of market share to themselves. Balanced score card is an important management system which it will be explained using the following four dimensions: management system, exclusive reliance on financial criteria is incomplete and defective. This paper aims at performance evaluation of lean production using balanced score card (BSC), analytic network process (ANP) and inferiority and superiority based ranking (SIR) approaches where, four dimensions have been considered including financial performance, customer, internal business processes and innovation and learning. The expert questionnaire was used to evaluate lean production’s performance based on BSC, DEMATEL survey—for recognizing element’s internal relationships—and TOPSIS survey—for evaluating leanness of production line. To aid us in ranking the production line, data analysis was completed based on Super Decision and Visual PROMETHEE where, the fourth production line with total score of 0.77 stood in the first order, meaning the internal operations with the least level of cost which proves its leanness. The first and sixth line were placed in next ranks with total score of 0.72 and 0.36 which demonstrates leanness level respectively.

Performance evaluation of satellite-based rainfall products on hydrological modeling for a transboundary catchment in northwest Africa

The scarcity of rainfall data is one of the main problems affecting the use of hydrological models. Several model satellite-based rainfall estimates (SREs) have been developed to provide an alternative to poorly or ungauged basins. The aim of this work was to evaluate the suitability of SREs for hydrological modeling using a semi-distributed model in the transboundary basin of Medjerda, shared by Tunisia and Algeria. Two satellite-based rainfall products (PERSIANN-CDR and CHIRPSv2) were first compared to rain gauge observations based on sub-basin and point-to-pixel analysis. The selected SREs products were then used as inputs to simulate discharge at a daily time-step over the 1996–2016 period. The simulated streamflows were compared to data measured at four runoff gauging stations and at the outlet of two dams. It was first shown that both SRE products perform weakly at daily scale but that the CHIRPSv2 product performs better at monthly scale. Second, comparison at sub-basin scale led to a better correlation with rain gauge observations than point-to-pixel analysis. Third, direct sampling can be reliably used to fill gaps in discharge time series by using auxiliary stations highly correlated with the target station. Finally, the CHIPRSv2 daily satellite rainfall product is more efficient and more suitable than the PERSIANN-CDR product for hydrological modeling. Thus, CHIRPSv2 can be used as an alternative or as a complementary source of information to simulate hydrological models in arid and semi-arid regions and can successfully solve the issue of missing rainfall data in transboundary catchments.

Production Performance Evaluation of Multifractured Horizontal Wells in Shale Oil Reservoirs: An Analytical Method

Hydraulic fracturing stimulation has become a routine for the development of shale oil and gas reservoirs, which creates large volumes of fracturing networks by helping the hydrocarbon to transport quickly into the wellbore. However, the optimal fracture spacing distance and fracture conductivity are still unclear for the field practice, even though the technique has improved significantly over the last several years. In this work, an analytical method is proposed to address it. First, the analytical production rate for a single fracture is proposed, and then, we apply Duhamel principle to obtain the production rate of a horizontal well with multifractures. Based on this model, the flow regimes and essential affecting factors including fracture spacing, fracture conductivity, and skin factor are analyzed in this work. The optimal values and suggestion are provided based on the simulation results.

Clinical Performance Evaluation of a Personal Sound Amplification Product vs a Basic Hearing Aid and a Premium Hearing Aid

Hearing loss is a highly prevalent condition with multiple negative associated outcomes, yet few persons with hearing loss have hearing aids (HAs). Personal sound amplification products (PSAPs) could be an alternative low-cost solution to HAs, but data are lacking on the performance of PSAPs. To evaluate the clinical efficacy of a PSAP by comparing its performance with that of a basic HA and a premium HA in participants with mild, moderate, and moderately severe hearing impairment. A prospective, single-institution cohort study was performed with a total of 56 participants, including 19 with mild hearing loss, 20 with moderate hearing loss, and 17 with moderately severe hearing loss. All participants underwent 4 clinical hearing tests with each of the PSAP, basic HA, and premium HA, and all completed an evaluative questionnaire. All hearing devices (PSAP, basic HA, and premium HA) were applied by a clinician to prevent bias and order effects; participants were blinded to the device in use, and sequence of devices was randomized. The study used the Korean version of the hearing in noise test, the speech intelligibility in noise test, listening effort measurement using a dual-task paradigm, pupillometry, and a self-rating questionnaire regarding sound quality and preference. These tests were administered under the following 4 hearing conditions: unaided hearing, use of PSAP, use of basic HA, and use of premium HA. The study included 56 participants with a mean age of 56 years (interquartile range, 48-59 years); 29 (52%) were women. In the mild and moderate hearing loss groups, there was no meaningful difference between PSAP, basic HA, and premium HA for speech perception (Cohen d = 0.06-1.05), sound quality (Cohen d = 0.06-0.71), listening effort (Cohen d = 0.10-0.92), and user preference (PSAP, 41%; basic HA, 28%; premium HA, 31%). However, for the patients with moderately severe hearing loss, the premium HA had better performance across most tests (Cohen d = 0.60-1.59), and 70% of participants preferred to use the premium HA. The results indicate that basic and premium HAs were not superior to the PSAP in patients with mild to moderate hearing impairment, which suggests that PSAPs might be used as an alternative to HAs in these patient populations. However, if hearing loss is more severe, then HAs, especially premium HAs, should be considered as an option to manage hearing loss.

Performance evaluation of CMORPH satellite precipitation product in the Zambezi Basin

ABSTRACT For evaluation of the Climate Prediction Center-MORPHing (CMORPH) satellite rainfall product in the Zambezi Basin, daily time series (1998–2013) of 60 rain gauge stations are used. Evaluations for occurrence and rain rate are at sub-basin scale and at daily, weekly, and seasonal timescale by means of probability of detection (POD), false alarm ratio (FAR), critical success index (CSI) and frequency bias (FBS). CMORPH predicts 60% of the rainfall occurrences. Rainfall detection is better for the wet season than for the dry season. Best detection is shown for rainfall rates smaller than 2.5 mm/day. Findings on error decomposition revealed sources of Hit, Missed and False rainfall bias. CMORPH performance (detection of rainfall occurrences and estimations for rainfall depth) at sub-basin scale increases when daily estimates are accumulated to weekly estimates. Findings suggest that for the Zambezi Basin, errors in CMORPH rainfall should be corrected before the product can serve applications such as in hydrological modelling that largely rely on reliable and accurate rainfall inputs.

Peptides stimulating synthesis of extracellular matrix used in anti-ageing cosmetics: Are they clinically tested? A systematic review of the literature.

Peptides stimulating synthesis of extracellular matrix are now commonly used in the production of anti-ageing cosmetics. However, much uncertainty still exists about the methodology of their clinical assessment. The aim of the study was to review the literature for clinical study designs assessing the efficacy of these peptides. The authors searched systematically publications indexed in PubMed, Scope and Web of Science, according to the PRISMA protocol. Altogether 12 scientific papers, reporting results of 15 independent studies were identified. Out of these 15 studies, only six used a placebo control. Double-blinding was applied in five out of 15 studies. Nine studies were based on female-only populations. For the product performance evaluation, most of the studies (10 out of the 15) used image-based methods. The literature on the topic is sparse. The studies carried out so far have many methodological limitations. Most of the clinical experiments hitherto conducted were non-double-blind and used no placebo control. There is a need for better planned and controlled clinical trials in this area.

On the performance evaluation of a hierarchical-structure prototype product using inconsistent prior information and limited test data

Performance evaluation or parameter estimation for a hierarchical structure prototype product is an imperative yet difficult task. The challenge comes from both inaccurate prior knowledge and insufficient data acquisition at its early usage period. In this paper, we propose an innovative Bayesian inference framework for the uncertainty quantification of the performance of a newly developed product with hierarchical structure characteristics. We focus particularly on the presence of inconsistent prior distributions on one quantity. An adaptive Bayesian melding method is investigated to aggregate multi-source information in a flexible way. We realize this method via a modified sampling importance re-sampling algorithm. This algorithm is designed to substitute for the MCMC methods and is computationally efficient. We use a practical engineering case to validate our proposal.

OptCAMD: An optimization-based framework and tool for molecular and mixture product design

Chemical product design determines the structure and constitution of products that satisfies all desired properties and functions. Molecular products are usually employed as the main active ingredient, or manipulated to obtain a specific function for chemical-based products, while mixtures are one of the most widely used chemical products. Therefore, the design of molecular and mixture products is the foundation of all chemical product design problems. In this paper, the development of an optimization-based framework for molecular and mixture product design is presented. The design work-flow consists of three steps involving preliminary design, CAMD (Computer Aided Molecular-Mixture Design), as well as product evaluation and verification. In the preliminary design step, the product attributes are collected and converted into a set of desired physico-chemical properties with associated targets to formulate the CAMD problem. In the CAMD step, an optimization-based mathematical programming model is established and solved to generate feasible molecules and/or mixtures together with optimal product candidates. In the product evaluation and verification step, final selection of the optimal chemical product is made based on evaluation of in-use product performance attributes and additional properties not included in the CAMD step. The three steps have been implemented within a molecular-mixture design toolbox called “OptCAMD”, which is integrated in ProCAPD, a versatile tool for chemical product design and evaluation. Case studies highlighting different aspects of OptCAMD involving the design of various types of chemical products are presented.

System of Performance Evaluation of Rice Paddy Production with Data Envelopment Analysis

Agriculture is one of the important factors in the development of the economy in Indonesia as an agricultural country because most of Indonesia's population has work in the field of agriculture or planting. Concepts and elements to understand and apply the performance calculations of evaluation of rice production using Data Envelopment Analysis. In this article convey and receive the evaluation of paddy production performance to know the value of efficiency and support in the process of paddy production in 2 planting seasons to find out the optimization of paddy production through performance evaluation Production to improve quality and be able to enrich the people. Input and output processes that have significance to improve the optimization of rice production and level to efficiency in rice production. This article will discuss the performance analysis of rice production and the results that will be given to know the efficiency in production and to help agricultural officers and farmers to produce an optimal and efficient product. Decision Making Unit (DMU) which has an efficiency value of fewer than 1 means inefficient whereas Decision Making Unit (DMU) whose value is 1 means efficient.

Fat Supplementation in Diet of Friesian Sahiwal Crossbred Bulls: A Novel Study on Productive and Reproductive Performance and Bio-chemicals Evaluation of Semen Quality Under Hot Summer Sub-tropical Conditions

Fat Supplementation in Diet of Friesian Sahiwal Crossbred Bulls: A Novel Study on Productive and Reproductive Performance and Bio-chemicals Evaluation of Semen Quality Under Hot Summer Sub-tropical Conditions

Influencing factors on gelatin matrix for chlorhexidine delivery

Objective: The objective was to evaluate the influencing factors in the fabrication of gelatin matrix (gelatin chips) for drug delivery. The attributes affecting drug release characteristics of the gelatin products were examined.Significance: Understanding the attributes that affect drug release from gelatin matrix could provide the knowledge base for the development, manufacturing, and performance evaluation of gelatin-based drug products for sustained drug delivery.Methods: Chlorhexidine (CHX) was the model drug in the gelatin-product testing. The gelatin products were fabricated by two methods: a single-pot mixing of all the components and a two-step gelatin crosslinking followed by drug loading. Different gelatin types (Type A porcine and Type B bovine), glutaraldehyde (GTA) crosslinking conditions, glycerin concentration, and CHX concentration in drug loading and loading time were used to fabricate the products. The cumulative amounts of CHX release from the gelatin products were determined using in vitro release testing (IVRT).Results: The attributes affecting CHX release from the gelatin products were gelatin type, GTA crosslinking, and CHX loading concentration. The fabrication methods (two-step method of gelatin crosslinking and drug loading by equilibration vs. direct mixing of the components) also affected CHX release. Other attributes such as glycerin and CHX loading time did not show significant effects on drug release under the conditions studied. In addition, the results in the two IVRT methods employed in this study were comparable.Conclusion: Gelatin products of qualitative (Q1) and quantitative (Q2) differences could lead to different drug release behaviors. Drug release was also affected by the ingredient mixing steps during gelatin chip fabrication.

Rate Decline Analysis for Horizontal Wells with Multiple Sections

The widely used application of horizontal well makes it significant to effectively evaluate rate performance of horizontal well in oil and gas reservoir. However, most models in previous work only focus on rate decline analysis (RDA) of horizontal well with single section (HWSS); they hardly address the problem that production rate distributes nonuniformly along horizontal wellbore in analyzing rate transient behaviors. However, only some horizontal segments contribute to the total production rates, and the production of each section along horizontal wellbore is not the same in fact, which may be caused by reservoir heterogeneity, selective completion, and nonuniform formation damage along horizontal wellbore. Therefore, the effect of these phenomena on rate decline characteristics cannot be ignored. The aim of this paper is to propose an analytical model to investigate transient rate response of a horizontal well with multiple sections (HWMS). The compound type curves, including the normalized production curve, the normalized production integral curve, and the production integral derivative curve, are developed to distinguish the different cases. The influences of some sensitive parameters on decline curves are further discussed. Results show obvious differences on the decline curves between the HWMS and HWSS. The parameters are sensitive on decline curves, which explore the feasible application on production performance evaluation and parameters interpretation through history matching the production data with the compound type curves in this paper.

Productive performance and economic evaluation of tambaqui roelo in excavated fishponds, Manaus, Brazil

Tambaqui is the most widely-cultivated native fish species in Brazil. Although most production
 occurs in fish ponds, the species is also raised resevoirs, stream channels and net tanks. Despite its high
 yield and productive potential, cultivation of this species is not always economically viable. Consequently, the
 current study aimed to provide a technical and economic evaluation of tambaqui (Colossoma macropomum)
 production in the metropolitan region of Manaus. Eight projects were selected and, through a semi-structured
 questionnaire, production phases, production cycles, management adopted, infrastructure used, productive
 indexes and fiscal investment were analysed. Together this allowed total operational cost (TCO) and profitability
 indicators to be calculated. Stocking density used influenced apparent feed conversion, specific growth
 rate and final mean weight. Feed was the key item in the TOC, comprising 69.63%, followed by labor and
 depreciation. Producers sell to: cold-store companies (R$ 4.10 kg-1), markets (R$ 7.30 kg-1), direct consumers
 (R$ 10.00 kg-1), supermarkets (R$ 6.20 kg-1) and intermediates (R$ 5.50 kg-1). In general, the production of
 tambaqui proved to be fiscally viable, with a profitability index higher than 20%, and success being strongly
 related to the marketing channel used, sale price and price of feed.