Maintenance Price Research Articles

The Insulation for Machines Having a High Lifespan Expectancy, Design, Tests and Acceptance Criteria Issues

The windings insulation of electrical machines will remain a topic that is updated frequently. The criteria severity requested by the electrical machine applications increases continuously. Manufacturers and designers are always confronted with new requirements or new criteria with enhanced performances. The most problematic requirements that will be investigated here are the extremely long lifespan coupled to critical operating conditions (overload, supply grid instabilities, and critical operating environments). Increasing lifespan does not have a considerable benefit because the purchasing price of usual machines has to be compared to the purchasing price and maintenance price of long lifespan machines. A machine having a 40-year lifespan will cost more than twice the usual price of a 20-year lifetime machine. Systems which need a long lifetime are systems which are crucial for a country, and those for which outage costs are exorbitant. Nuclear power stations are such systems. It is certain that the used technologies have evolved since the first nuclear power plant, but they cannot evolve as quickly as in other sectors of activities. No-one wants to use an immature technology in such power plants. Even if the electrical machines have exceeded 100 years of age, their improvements are linked to a patient and continuous work. Nowadays, the windings insulation systems have a well-established structure, especially high voltage windings. Unfortunately, a high life span is not only linked to this result. Several manufacturers’ improvements induced by many years of experiment have led to the writing of standards that help the customers and the manufacturers to regularly enhance the insulation specifications or qualifications. Hence, in this publication, the authors will give a step by step exhaustive review of one insulation layout and will take time to give a detailed report on the standards that are linked to insulation systems. No standard can provide insurance about lifespan, nor do any insulation tests incorporate all of the operating conditions: thermal, mechanical, moisture and chemical. Even if one manufacturer uses the standards compliance to demonstrate the quality of its realization; in the end, the successful use in operation remains an objective test. Thereafter, both customer and manufacturers will use the standards while knowing that such documents cannot fully satisfy their wishes. In one 20-year historical review, the authors will highlight the duration in insulation improvements and small breakthroughs in standards writing. High lifespan machines are not the main interest of standards. A large part of this publication is dedicated to the improvements of the insulation wall to achieve the lifespan. Even if the choice of raw materials is fundamental, the understanding of ageing phenomena also leads to improvements.

Software Defined Networking: Research Issues, Challenges and Opportunities

Objectives: This paper focuses on challenges, opportunities and research issues of software defined networking (SDN), as well as how to select the best possible SDN controller, which in result will help to reduce the complexity of a network, price of implementation and maintenance of the network in any big organization. Methods/Statistical Analysis: In order to meet the objective, the review of literature has been carried out in the following contexts; Software defined networking, SDN protocol (Open Flow) and SDN research challenges. Software defined networking is one of the most discussed topic these days. This technology is being considered one of the favorable technologies for isolation of control plane and data plane and logical placement of centralized control from SDN controller. This research focuses on major issues, challenges and current requirements of network implemented in any big organization where traditional network is being implemented. Findings: To solve the issues of multiple located branch networks, cost, technical resources at each location, expertise, separate control plane for configurations, decentralized visibility of network devices, separate VLANs for each branch, complex traffic engineering, limited physical access of branches w.r.t working hours, bandwidth bottleneck at each branch, we surveyed literatures and web resources for the existing SDN controllers like NOX, POX, Ryu, Floodlight, and Open Daylight etc. All these controllers are based on Open Flow protocol. The primary concern is that a conventional system develops gradually, it has a generally abnormal state of operational expenditure and moderately static in nature. SDN holds the guarantee of overcoming those confinements. Major issues which are being faced are increasing requirements from user side, bandwidth availability, hardware (switches requirement at every place), technical resources are required at remote site for configurations, scalability issues, cost, high level processing power at each device, traffic engineering, resiliency against failures, decentralized visibility of hardware devices etc. SDN will helps to improve centralized visibility as all the underlying open flow switches are connected to controller, all switches can be configured from SDN controller without accessing individual switches. Research papers referred in this paper provide a bird eye view of what may cause hurdles further in development and technology integration of technology. Application/Improvements: This research will help how to select the best possible SDN controller which in result will help scalability, less hardware and software requirements, less technical resources requirements, centralized visibility, hassle free traffic engineering and high availability of network.

Application of a Regenstrief RELMA V.6.6 to Map Russian Laboratory Terms to LOINC.

Manual mapping of laboratory data to Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC) requires a major effort. Application of the LOINC mapping assistant RELMA V.6.6 can reduce the effort required for mapping. The goal of the paper is to perform a semi-automated mapping of Russian laboratory terms to LOINC. A semi-automated mapping of the 2563 terms from two clinics in Russia was performed. The first step was automatic mapping using RELMA V.6.6 and LOINC V.2.48 Russian translation by Yaroslavl state medical academy. The second step was a manual expert mapping. To evaluate the correctness of mapping all the mapped terms were reviewed by two experts. The paper presents the results of semi-automatic mapping of Russian laboratory terms to LOINC. Two clinics (A and B) and a laboratory service participated in the project. The following results were achieved: mapping of 86% terms from Clinic A and 87% from Clinic B. It has to be mentioned that 99% of terms used in 2014 were mapped. In total 2398 out of 2563 were mapped. The required effort was reasonable and the price of mapping and maintenance was considered as relatively low in comparison to manual methods. RELMA V.6.6 and LOINC V.2.48 offer the opportunity of a low effort LOINC mapping even for non-English languages. The study proved that the mapping effort is acceptable and mapping results are on the same level as the manual mapping.

A Novel Intervention to Reduce Bronchoscopy Lab Costs

New endoscopic technology has advanced the field of bronchoscopy. With these innovations comes the increased price of maintenance and repair, and the current literature offers few interventions for reducing such costs. We identified increased maintenance costs despite standard physician and technician endoscopic training, which warranted further intervention. An on-site visit by an industry provided endoscopy support specialist team provided direct observation and feedback regarding daily operating procedures as well as bronchoscope handling, processing, and storage. Our intervention resulted in subsequent reduction of maintenance costs by 67%. The use of endoscopy support specialists may help identify and implement daily practices that can reduce bronchoscopy maintenance and repair costs when endoscopy units are faced with unexpectedly high maintenance expenditures.

A Simplified Anaerobic Bioreactor for the Treatment of Selenium-Laden Discharges from Non-acidic, End-Pit Lakes

Selenium (Se) contamination of aquatic resources and its mitigation is of global concern. Anaerobic bioreactors are the most promising method for treating Se-laden water in end-pit lakes resulting from intensive coal mining and waste rock leachate in the Canadian Rockies. This study assessed the suitability of a bioreactor system to treat non-acidic, coal mine effluent containing 85 μg/L of Se, near Grande Cache, AB, Canada, while making the system as cheap as possible using locally available materials. We successfully used a sediment inoculum from the same end-pit lake as the effluent source to obtain sulfur/Se-reducing bacteria and mixed the inoculum with mulch, manure, gravel, limestone, and bone meal to comprise the ‘active substrate’ for the bioreactors. The anaerobic bioreactors reduced >95 % of the total Se in the inflow water with a flow rate of ≈0.2 m3/h. Se removal was not related to water temperature, which declined from 17 to ≈2 °C in November, suggesting water can be treated regardless of temperature. The use of manure as a bacterial carbon/nitrogen source introduced Escherichia coli into the downstream environment, but after a short elevated concentration, the abundance of E. coli dropped below water quality guidelines. We were able to show that successful Se reduction can be achieved using an anaerobic bioreactor design and locally available material. This design kept the building and maintenance price lower than previous reactors, making the approach promising for larger scale applications and making bioreactors a more cost accessible remediation technology for non-acidic end-pit lakes.

To modernize or not: Ecological–economical assessment of multi-dwelling houses modernization

Nowadays modernization of multi-dwelling houses appeals greatly to those from landlords to politicians. The key problem that drives the issue is maintenance price, which mainly consists of two elements: (1) huge energy consumption during heating season, and (2) simultaneously rising greenhouse gas emissions from fuel combustion. Currently, most of the studies highlight particularly an economical aspect although on a global scale an ecological element becomes even more important. Hence the present paper combines both parts but mainly investigates an ecological compound, i.e. greenhouse gas emissions. Although it has been revealed that the binding targets of the Kyoto Protocol were very easily achievable for Lithuania, it is obvious that in the context of climate change a constant decline of emissions is necessary. Therefore, the paper seeks to establish an unconventional treatment of the Kyoto Protocol and its practical application on multi-dwelling modernization. The method aims at decreasing emissions significantly. The two scenarios have been investigated according to which modernization could help cut emissions by 8% or 20% of 1990 levels. Modernization scenarios were evaluated using multi-criteria decision making methods, i.e., COPRAS, WASPAS and TOPSIS according to which optimal option was revealed. The final results have revealed that a complete replacement of windows would help decline total emissions approximately by 30% and thus greatly fulfilled initial expectations.

정보보안 소프트웨어 유지보수 대가기준을 위한 보정계수 산정에 관한 연구

최근 정보보안과 관련한 심각한 사태가 발생하면서 정보보안에 대한 사회적 관심이 매우 높아지고 있으며, 사이버 보안 강화는 국가 및 기업의 인프라를 보호하고 경쟁력을 갖기 위해 중요한 부분이 되었다. 그러나 현재 국내 정보보안 소프트웨어 대가기준은 정보보안의 특수성은 배제된 채 일반 소프트웨어 유지보수의 기준으로 대가기준이 산정 되고 있다. 따라서 현실에 맞는 적절한 정보보안 소프트웨어 유지보수 대가 산정 기준이 필요한 실정이다. 본 연구에서는 합리적이고 현실성 있는 정보보안 소프트웨어의 적정 대가기준 산정 방법을 제안하여, 사용자 및 공급자에게 적정한 대가 지급 기준을 수립함으로써 더 나아가 정보보안 소프트웨어 기업의 경쟁력 향상을 도모하고자 한다. The maintenance prices in information security industry between Korean companies and foreign companies have been a big difference. Korea Information Security SW maintenance standards were not adequate for the rate, and there was disagreement between domestic companies and governments. This research, therefore, surveyed a standard of information SW and the status of maintenance payment rates. The study suggests an estimation method and verifies the method and an appropriate maintenance cost rate. According to the results of the study, the current maintenance cost should be increased or decreased independent with a kind of information security systems. Based on the study, Korea government is able to change the maintenance policy in information security. And the domestic companies get a theoretical ground for improving the rates of maintenance costs in information security systems and are able to allot the resources effectively.

A fuzzy TOPSIS method to rank effective fuel reduction factors: A case study of aviation companies

Aviation fuel of aircrafts is one of the most important and predominant expenditures in air companies. The recent jump on petroleum price has increased the price of equipments and maintenance. Therefore, many aircraft companies look for different ways to reduce their expenditures as much as they can. In this article, we study effective factors to reduce the fuel consumption. The proposed study of this paper gathers different criteria, which are important for cost reduction plans based on experts' point of view. We take advantages of quantitative and qualitative characteristics of criteria and experts' ideas using fuzzy decision making. Finally, a list of effective factors to reduce the fuel consumption is presented based on order of their importance.

Performance Evaluation of Telecom Equipment Maintenance Outsourcers Based on Statistical Distance with Weight

It’s important to control telecom equipment maintenance outsourcers’ performance in outsourcing decision-making process by selecting the proper evaluation indexes. This paper sets up a new comprehensive evaluation method based on statistics distance with weight to assess outsourcer’s performance. Ten indexes are choosed to determine which are good service providers from the ability and effort degree of their work, including failure rate, failure loss, service level, maintenance price, management fee, arrive time, repair time, customer relationship, maintenance engineer and tool machine. Each index has its own expert’s weight. We classify different service grades and calculate the real distance of every maintenance outsourcer by Euclidean distance. Then the performance of each equipment maintenance outsourcer can be inspected from the calculation result. Through the application in telecom company we testify its advantages compared with other evaluation methods.

A Cheap Minimally Painful and Widely Usable Alternative for Retrieving Ureteral Stents

Objective: To describe a cheap, minimally painful and widely usable method for retrieving ureteral stents by using an ureteroscope. Subjects and Methods: Sixty-seven patients with ureteral stents were enrolled in this study. The patients were randomized into a cystoscopic (35 patients) and a ureteroscopic (32 patients) group. All stents were retrieved by a flexible cystoscope in the first group and by a ureteroscope in the second group under local anesthesia. Patients in each group were assessed for stented time, stent side, cause of stent placement, operative time, peroperative pain, postoperative pain, irritative voiding symptoms and hematuria. Also costs of instruments were calculated. Results: Stents were successfully retrieved in 67 patients. There were no statistical differences in the two groups regarding patient gender and age or stent side, operative time, stented time, mean operative pain score, irritative voiding symptom scores and hematuria. Total selling price was USD 20.399 for flexible instruments and USD 10.516 for rigid ones. Total maintenance price was higher in flexible instruments than in the rigid ones (USD 197.8 and 51.7 per use, respectively). Conclusion: Ureteroscopic stent retrieval is a minimally painful, safe and highly tolerable method under local anesthesia as well as flexible cystoscopic retrieval. Also, it is a cheap and widely usable method.

The changed legality of resale price maintenance and pricing implications

From 1911 until 2007, minimum resale price maintenance agreements between manufacturers and resellers were illegal under federal antitrust law. This handicapped manufacturers which sought to exert control over how their products were priced and promoted through the distribution channel. In June 2007, the United States Supreme Court—via the Leegin case—ruled that bilateral minimum resale price maintenance agreements would no longer be automatically illegal. Rather, they would be legal if their net impact is pro-competitive, and illegal only if the net impact is anti-competitive. This ruling empowers manufacturers to use resale price maintenance to create value for their customers and consumers. However, not all stakeholders—including some state legal systems—have embraced the Leegin ruling, thereby creating uncertainty regarding its final impact. Despite this uncertainty, the opportunities created by Leegin are worth exploring and acting upon. Since the Leegin ruling 3 years ago, a new landscape for resale pricing maintenance has been evolving. We discuss this landscape and the considerations for using resale price maintenance within its ambit. For many manufacturers, the chance of benefitting from Leegin outweighs any potential risks.

Resale Price Maintenance and Resale Prices: Paying to Support Competition in the Market for Heavy Trucks

Expectations about the price effects of resale price maintenance (RPM) must play a central role in evaluating its impact. But those expectations must account for the behavior of a supplier that chooses to compensate its dealers for their promotional efforts through protected margins higher than those that would prevail under unrestricted intrabrand competition. Interbrand competition will pressure such a supplier to reduce the wholesale price it charges dealers. This article illustrates this process by examining two cases involving the sale of heavy trucks. Virtually identical pricing policies designed to compensate only those dealers that expanded brand sales were treated differently by the courts depending on whether the policy was interpreted as price discrimination or RPM. This article shows that RPM was implemented to enhance interbrand competition and that its price effects are mismeasured when a focus solely on intrabrand competition ignores the feedback on supplier policy that such competition entails.

Cooperation of induction squirrel-cage generator with grid connected AC/DC/AC converter

Cooperation of induction squirrel-cage generator with grid connected AC/DC/AC converter The paper presents a squirrel-cage induction machine operating as a generator principally designed for use in small wind and hydroelectric power stations. The main advantages of such a generator are its high reliability, low price and costs of operation and maintenance. The asynchronous generator coupled to the grid through the AC/DC/AC converter is capable of generating energy even at low turbine speed. The results of investigations on the AC/DC and DC/AC converters controlled by linear and nonlinear current regulators are also discussed.

Maintenance price book

Maintenance price book

Housing maintenance prices

Housing maintenance prices

Building Maintenance Price Book

Building Maintenance Price Book

Building maintenance price book

Building maintenance price book

Building maintenance price deflation

Building maintenance price deflation

Building maintenance price deflation

Building maintenance price deflation

Building maintenance price inflation

Building maintenance price inflation