Technical Cost Research Articles

Transition pathway for China to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060

<p indent="0mm">Faced with the pressure of global warming, China has pledged to peak its CO₂ emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Realizing the carbon-neutral transition of the energy system under the contradiction between economic growth and CO₂ emission reduction is an urgent and realistic problem. This study proposes a methodology for constructing a carbon-neutral energy system that considers renewable energy, energy conservation, and electrification potential in the energy sector and emissions from industrial processes. Based on the proposed methodology, this study takes China’s energy system as an example and formulates a business-as-usual pathway, three low-carbon transition pathways according to the 2°C warming goal, 1.5°C warming goal, and the carbon-neutral goal to explore the feasibility of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 and the corresponding technical support and cost requirements. In terms of energy supply and technological applications, China’s energy system can realize all the emission-reduction goals by 2060 or even earlier with renewable energy sources and energy conservations pushed to the maximum constraints. The results show that the low-carbon transition can help improve the economy of the future energy system. Compared with the business-as-usual pathway, the 2°C and 1.5°C pathways can reduce the energy system costs by 19.2% and 21.1%, respectively, in 2060. Despite the large-scale introduction of renewable and carbon capture technologies in the carbon-neutral pathway, its cost is only 86.4% of the business-as-usual pathway. In addition, this study discusses several key issues, including biomass use, cross-sectoral technologies, and carbon capture technology deployment. To sum up, the carbon-neutral energy system construction methodology proposed in this paper can be applied in any region to build low-carbon transition pathways for the local energy system and provide reliable and effective support to achieve the emission-reduction targets.

Analysis on quality of learning in e-Learning platforms

This paper plans to introduce a model that concerns e-Learning quality management systems under two phases: (i) Questionnaire preparation and (ii) Predicting the impact of e-Learning quality. To analyze the quality of learning in an e-Learning platform, initially, the questionnaire will be prepared with respect to various drivers such as (i) Degree of flexibility and adaptability, (ii) Degree of supportability (students and staff) (iii) Staff qualification and experience, (iv) Performance assessment and (v) Learner's interest. The first driver includes factors like learner control, learner activity, motivation and feedback. The second driver includes factors like technical skills, cost and technical crisis and internet access. The third driver includes factors like awareness of new technology, whether the team includes instructional designers, multimedia procedures and so on. The fourth driver (Performance assessment) includes the impact of a performance evaluation using Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods. Finally, the fifth driver includes course materials, gaming and learners' self-interests. The prepared questionnaire is distributed to different age groups of people and is demanded to fill up the precise information as much as possible. These responses from the people are then taken for analysis purposes. In this research work, the analysis is carried out based on SEM analysis, which identifies the learning quality in the e-Learning platform.

Ageism in healthcare technology: the older patients' aspirations for improved online accessibility.

ObjectiveTo identify concerns, barriers and facilitators impacting the use of patient portals by older patients as well as desired features in future updates.Materials and MethodsThis is a cross-sectional study consisting of 2 focus group discussions culminating in an anonymous survey administered to women who were 65 years and older receiving urogynecologic care in Northwest Ohio.ResultsOf the 205 women surveyed (91% response rate), providers and healthcare systems play the primary 2 roles (73% and 69%, respectively) in facilitating patients’ use of patient portal systems and telehealth applications. Barriers to use revolved around technical difficulties (50%), privacy concerns (45%), and cost of technology (24%). The most important features desired were the ability to modify the text size within the application (47%) and an intuitive, simple interface (46%). Additional assistance for navigating technical challenges was suggested, specifically set-up of accounts (36%), saving and sharing information with caregivers (35%), and sign-in and navigation of portals (32%).ConclusionThe paucity of age-aligned medical access software and products may lead to worsening of digital exclusion and disparities in healthcare. Portal application developers and healthcare systems must advance efforts that consider the needs of those who may be older when designing patient portals.

Study of the Influence of Cutting Edge on Micro Cutting of Hardened Steel Using FE and SPH Modeling.

Micromachining allows the production of micro-components with complex geometries in various materials. However, it presents several scientific issues due to scale reduction compared to conventional machining. These issues are called size effects. At this level, micromachining experiments raise technical difficulties and significant costs. In this context, numerical modeling is widely used in order to study these different size effects. This article presents four different numerical models of micro-cutting of hardened steel, a Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) model and three finite element (FE) models using three different formulations: Lagrangian, Arbitrary Eulerian–Lagrangian (ALE) and Coupled Eulerian–Lagrangian (CEL). The objective is to study the effect of tool edge radius on the micro-cutting process through the evolution of cutting forces, chip morphology and stress distribution in different areas and to compare the relevance of the different models. First, results obtained from two models using FE (Lagrangian) and SPH method were compared with experimental data obtained in previous work. It shows that the different numerical methods are relevant for studying geometrical size effects because cutting force and stress distribution correlate with experimental data. However, they present limits due to the calculation approaches. For a second time, this paper presents a comparison between the four different numerical models cited previously in order to choose which method of modeling can present the micro-cutting process.

A Practical Approach to Launch the Low-Cost Monitoring Platforms for Nearly Net-Zero Energy Buildings in Vietnam

Buildings with solar rooftops have become vital objects in the energy transition in Vietnam. In this context, the demand for research on energy management solutions to use energy efficiently and increase PV energy absorption capacity is rising. In this paper, we present a practical route to developing a low-cost monitoring platform to meet the building energy management in the country. First, our project built a monitoring architecture with high-density wireless sensors in an office building in Vietnam. Next, we discussed the influence of significant obstacles such as technical issues, users, and cost on the resilience and reliability of the monitoring system. Then, we proposed essential solutions for data quality improvement by testing sensors, detecting wireless sensor network errors, and compensating for data losses by embedding machine learning. We found the platform’s potential in developing a rich database of building characteristics and occupants. Finally, we proposed plans exploiting the data to reduce wasted energy in equipment operation, change user behaviors, and increase auto-consumption PV power. The effectiveness of the monitoring platform was an approximate 62% energy reduction in the first year. The results are a cornerstone for implementing advanced research as modeling and real-time optimal control toward nearly zero-energy buildings.

Trends, Advantages and Disadvantages in Combined Extracorporeal Lung and Kidney Support From a Technical Point of View.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) provides pulmonary and/or cardiac support for critically ill patients. Due to their diseases, they are at high risk of developing acute kidney injury. In that case, continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) is applied to provide renal support and fluid management. The ECMO and CRRT circuits can be combined by an integrated or parallel approach. So far, all methods used for combined extracorporeal lung and kidney support present serious drawbacks. This includes not only high risks of circuit related complications such as bleeding, thrombus formation, and hemolysis, but also increase in technical workload and health care costs. In this sense, the development of a novel optimized artificial lung device with integrated renal support could offer important treatment benefits. Therefore, we conducted a review to provide technical background on existing techniques for extracorporeal lung and kidney support and give insight on important aspects to be addressed in the development of this novel highly integrated artificial lung device.

Does the Expansion of Farmers’ Operation Scale Improve the Efficiency of Agricultural Production in China? Implications for Environmental Sustainability

China’s agricultural development urgently needs dynamic transformation and green transformation, from a traditional extensive mode of production to a moderately intensive mode of production that meets the requirements of the new era, with efficiency improvement as the guide to promote green, low-carbon, and sustainable development. Based on the micro-data of farmers in Hunan province from 2015 to 2020, this paper uses the data envelopment analysis method to measure the cost efficiency of rapeseed production and then decompose the cost-efficiency. The Tobit model is used to analyze the influencing factors and cost-efficiency differentials. First, there is considerable room for improvement in the overall cost efficiency of Chinese rapeseed production. The technical efficiency (TE), allocation efficiency (AE), and cost efficiency (CE) of rapeseed production in the survey area are 0.869, 0.701, and 0.609, respectively. Second, allocative efficiency is an important factor affecting the improvement of cost efficiency. The expansion of farmers’ operation scales does not necessarily improve their allocative efficiency, but increases their input of chemical fertilizer and other elements, which may lead to agricultural non-point source pollution. This is not conducive to sustainable environmental development. Third, the relationship between the cost efficiency of crop production and farmers’ operation scale is of an “inverted U-type” curve. That is to say, with the expansion of farmer operation scale, cost-efficiency shows an “increasing first and decreasing later” trend peaking at (6.67,13.33) hm2. Fourthly, the distinguishing factors which affect cost efficiency show obvious similarities while reserving differences. Finally, we also suggest countermeasures and suggestions from the perspective of R &amp;amp; D investment, industrial support, regional exchange and cooperation, reasonable input of resource factors, and awareness of agricultural green production to promote green and low-carbon development of the rapeseed industry in China.

A Power Line Lightning Protection Method for Television and Radio Stations

The existing research on lightning protection focuses on risk assessment or equipment selection. There has not been any thorough research about lightning protection including risk assessment for a building in order to identify the risks when selecting lightning protection equipment according to technical requirements and cost optimization. The objective of the current paper is to propose a new risk computational method of damages by lightning for a Television and Radio Station (TRS). The new computational method consists of nine steps for identifying two risk indices, human life loss (R1) and service loss (R2). If the value of R1 is higher than the regulatory limit value RT1 and the value of R2 is higher than the regulatory limit value RT2, the damage risks due to lightning are very serious. Therefore, the TRS is necessary to select lightning protection solutions to reduce these risks. In addition, the paper proposes a six-step procedure for selecting and testing surge protective devices. The proposed calculations are then applied to a real TRS in Vietnam, and some testing results are simulated in Matlab-Simulink.

Forecasting technical performance and cost estimation of designed rim wheels based on variations of geometrical parameters

Abstract Rim wheel testing through the SAE standard is necessary for driving safety. This study focused on rim wheel tests carried out using the dynamic radial fatigue test method, which has been included in the SAE standard using Fusion360 for the design and ANSYS for the simulation. With different parameters for the rim wheel type, only some parameters of the tested rim wheels were able to pass the standardization by SAE; 16 rim wheels passed the test, while the other 11 rim wheels did not pass. Simulation results suggested that variations in the thickness, geometry, and material affected the displacement of the safety factor, which was inversely proportional. In addition, the variation in the rim wheel produced a change in the safety factor due to changes in its mass and cost, which were directly proportional. The results of this study will aid in rim wheel design, not only in terms of achieving the best performance but also with regard to cost efficiency.

Semiquantitative naked-eye detection of synthetic food colorants using highly-branched pipette tip as an all-in-one device

The existing strategies for the determination of synthetic food colorants (FCs) in manufactured foods are highly relied on specialized instruments and skilled personnel which are limited by the high technical threshold and instrumentation cost. Herein, highly branched pipette tips (PTs) were fabricated as a robust all-in-one device for high-performance extraction and visual detection of FCs via handy aspiration and dispensing procedures of pipette controller. The density of extraction groups and inner specific surface area of PTs greatly increased after facile physical coating and subsequent layer-by-layer branching reactions, and the maximum increment in binding capacity of PTs was exceeded 300 times at 8–10 iterations of branching layers, enabling the PTs to be colored just by short-time extraction of FCs and to achieve the instrument-independent visual detection of FCs by virtue of their outstanding PT-SPE performance. As a proof-of-concept, the in-situ PT-based solid phase extraction (PT-SPE) with high recoveries (from 91.73 ± 4.76% to 99.90 ± 4.14%) and semiquantitative naked-eye detection of FCs (Allura red and brilliant blue) in real beverages were experimentally demonstrated to be highly feasible by comparison with classical techniques like spectrophotometry, HPLC, and mass spectrometry.

Perancangan Sistem Pengelolaan Engineering Order pada Lini Produksi

&lt;p class="abstract"&gt;Production line is a place for production activities that consists series of workstations. The product moves from one workstation to the next in sequence to go through the stages of the process. Products are composed of components, sub-assemblies, or assemblies. During production activities, it is possible to change materials which are part of a product structure. This happened because of the proposal from the company staff which is submitted through an engineering order. Submissions are made for technical reasons or production costs. The decision to approve or reject the engineering order is determined by designer. The approved engineering order resulted in changes to the product structure and material requirements at the workstation where the material was changed. The process for handling new materials can also change depending on the designer's decision whether to use the old or new process. It is necessary to determine whether the old process is still used or not if designer decides to use a new process. Therefore, a system is needed to manage engineering orders so that changes can be updated automatically. The engineering order management system media is a web-based application. It is vital to model the system based on real-world situations before designing a web application. The object-oriented modeling concept, which is expressed in a class diagram, is used to model the system. Web development using the Python programming language and the Django framework has been carried out successfully. Every web feature has worked as expected.&lt;/p&gt;

Large-scale CO2 transport and storage infrastructure development and cost estimation in the Netherlands offshore

A plan was developed for large-scale transport and storage of CO2, inspired by the measures in The Netherlands Climate Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. The main focus was on reduction of CO2 emissions captured from large industrial sources in the Rotterdam harbour area (Rijnmond region). CO2 storage potential is available within depleted gas fields in the Dutch sector of the North Sea. Specific attention was given to the potential for re-use of existing oil and gas infrastructure and the costs and development time of the re-used or new build infrastructure for CO2 transport and storage.The study revealed that depleted gas fields in The Netherlands offshore provide ample storage capacity to accommodate a supply of 10 million tonnes (Mt) CO2 per year by 2030 and for a subsequent period of 40 years. An average total unit technical costs for compression, transport and storage was calculated at €8.6 per tonne CO2. Concurrent operation of four to five reservoirs will be needed if the required 5 Mt annual injection rate in the base case scenario is to be met and eight to nine reservoirs need to be in operation simultaneously with a target rate of 10 Mt per year. In the accelerated case of injection of 10 Mt per year individual reservoirs will be brought on-stream much earlier than in the base case scenario. This can be up to several decades earlier for the reservoirs deployed in the final phase of CO2 storage activities.

Evaluating Energy Storage Systems for Renewable Energy Integrated Urban Community Microgrids

Energy Storage Technologies (ESTs) play an important role in the ever-increasing reliance of renewable energy technologies, especially in deregulated energy grids. There are many promising stationary ESTs in the market or in development. However, not all are suitable for an urban community microgrid (UCM) primarily because of resource constraints, such as land requirements. A UCM is characterized as a completely off-grid microgrid installed in a city environment connected with its community through physical placement and owned by said community. This research explores available, and developing, ESTs from an academic and industrial perspective to find those viable for a UCM in the United Kingdom. Technologies are evaluated on their technical suitability, environmental fairness, cost efficiency, and market readiness. This evaluation finds, a combination of ESTs, with Lithium-ion batteries installed in communal areas for electricity and hot-water energy storage tanks in residential dwellings for heat energy, as the most suitable option.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGY FOR THE PILOT-SERIES DESIGN OF TECHNOLOGICAL EQUIPMENT AT THE ENTERPRISES OF THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

The article is devoted to the choice of mechanisms of technical systemogenetics when performing experimental design work in the conditions of pilot production, taking into account the specific complexity and novelty of the product being developed, the scale and timing of the work, the material and technical support of the project, the qualifications of designers and technologists. Management of the production process, especially in the conditions of pilot production, is impossible without the design of new technological equipment. The time that is spent on the production of technological equipment significantly determines the timing of the production of products. Out of the total number of necessary technological equipment, the largest percentage is made up of dies and press forms, since they directly allow you to get fairly accurate parts. A functional model of the die was constructed in matrix form. This model is necessary to identify "redundant" elements of the product. In addition, you can clearly see how the costs are distributed by function. Based on the model, it is possible to identify defective functional zones and determine the level of functional organization. The proposed method of comparing costs and scores of the significance of functions is based on the fact that the normalizing condition for the distribution of costs is the importance of the function. If a function has a discrepancy between the significance of the function and the cost of its implementation, then you should consider and try to eliminate the causes of the disparity. The use of methods of technical systemogenetics and cost management at the design stage of technological equipment in pilot production at the enterprises of the military-industrial complex will significantly improve the quality of finished products and reduce the production time.

A suspension technique for efficient large-scale cancer organoid culturing and perturbation screens

Organoid cell culture methodologies are enabling the generation of cell models from healthy and diseased tissue. Patient-derived cancer organoids that recapitulate the genetic and histopathological diversity of patient tumours are being systematically generated, providing an opportunity to investigate new cancer biology and therapeutic approaches. The use of organoid cultures for many applications, including genetic and chemical perturbation screens, is limited due to the technical demands and cost associated with their handling and propagation. Here we report and benchmark a suspension culture technique for cancer organoids which allows for the expansion of models to tens of millions of cells with increased efficiency in comparison to standard organoid culturing protocols. Using whole-genome DNA and RNA sequencing analyses, as well as medium-throughput drug sensitivity testing and genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 screening, we demonstrate that cancer organoids grown as a suspension culture are genetically and phenotypically similar to their counterparts grown in standard conditions. This culture technique simplifies organoid cell culture and extends the range of organoid applications, including for routine use in large-scale perturbation screens.

Capillary array electrophoresis imaging of biochemicals in tissue sections.

It is of great significance to reveal the molecular distribution images in biological tissues, which has led to the bloom of mass spectrometry imaging. Unfortunately, its application is encountering the resistance of high technical barriers and equipment cost, as well as the inability to image substances that cannot be desorbed or ionized, or cannot be separated by their mass-to-charge ratios. Herein presented is a complementary and cost-effective method called capillary array electrophoresis (CAE) imaging. To have the information of molecules and their spatial location, a gridding cutter was fabricated to orderly dissect a tissue section into a leakproof array of micro wells enclosed by the grid-blade arrays. After in situ extraction and fluorophore-labeling of analytes, the samples in the wells were directly subjected to CAE-LIF (laser-induced fluorescence), and the molecular distribution images were depicted with the separated peaks. The practicability was demonstrated by CAE imaging of rat brain tissue sections with amino acid neurotransmitters (e.g., glutamine, 4-aminobutyric acid, alanine, glutamic acid and aspartic acid) as targets. The resultant images showed the global differences of molecular distributions, with a spatial resolution of 1000μm that was presently determined by the well width but ultimately by the bore size of capillary (down to 10-50μm). CAE imaging can hence be promising for its low cost, low technical barriers and abundant mechanisms to separate the charged and non-charged, chiral and non-chiral substances.

Design on a Low Cost IoT Architecture for Greenhouses Monitoring

Currently, conventional agriculture has been modified by new quality and quantity requirements and also by changes in climatic factors. In this context, it is necessary to implement emerging technologies that help to optimize natural and economic resources. One of the technological alternatives for the agricultural sector is the implementation of automated greenhouses using the Internet of things concept. One of the difficulties in implementing automated greenhouses is the technical difficulty and cost associated with building these new approaches. This work presents an internet of things architecture to monitor the variables involved within a greenhouse, using wireless connection and internet communication to publish the collected data. The system evaluation was conducted using a mesh covered greenhouse and demonstrated that it is possible to develop low-cost architectures that can connect to the cloud via WiFi or GSM / GPRS technology to upload data to a web server. This information is the input for new approaches that enable the automatic management of greenhouses.

Strategies of Teaching and Learning Process for Young Learners during the Pandemic

This study was conducted to investigate the strategy and activities in the teaching and learning process during the pandemic in Aura Sukma Insani Kindergarten and to investigate the teachers’ problems during the process of teaching English to Young Learners during the pandemic. This research used a descriptive qualitative method, i.e., case study. The research data are derived from observation, interview, documentation, and document analysis. The subject of this research was 3 classes (with 18-21 students each class) in B level (age 5-7). The interview is semi-structured with three teachers and a school principal as informants. The theory used in this research is the teaching and learning theory from Brown (2001). This study concluded that Aura Sukma Insani Kindergarten applied blended learning and applied both synchronous and asynchronous modes of learning during pandemics. Besides, to support the teaching and learning process, the school has a special program namely, orientation and induction programs, and reflection and follow-up program. In addition, the problems of teachers are mainly about the adaptation, emotional bonding, limited time allotment, students’ mood and focus, students’ social skill and characters, teachers’ preparation, parents’ involvement, lack of facilities and technical skill and cost. The results of this study have important implications for classroom practice as it can be used as a resource and as the foundation for more detailed information strategy of the teaching and learning process during the pandemic.

To the problem of optimization of criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of providing the national security of the State

It has been argued that the evaluation of the effectiveness of Ukrainian national security is the activities of authorized entities carried out in the prescribed manner, which aims to establish the extent to which measures implemented by the state in the relevant direction, as well as related financial, material technical and human costs, meet the goal.&#x0D; It has been performed the classification of the relevant criteria, which is most appropriate to divide into the following groups: 1) financial and economic, which include: the level of shadowing of the economy; the level of GDP per capita; the ratio of public debt to GDP; the average level of wages in the state; 2) socio-cultural, in particular: the demographic situation in the country (depopulation rate); the level of legal consciousness of society and cultural development; national consent and unity; a sense of personal security; the level of support of the population of the state; 3) political: stability and effectiveness of public policy (domestic political stability); resilience to ensure a high level of readiness of society and the state to respond to a wide range of threats; the level of democracy, the formation and effectiveness of the legal framework of the rule of law; 4) indicators of combat readiness of the army: the state of the armed forces, their combat capability and combat readiness; logistical, financial support of troops; adequacy of staffing.&#x0D; Emphasis has been placed on the fact that the list of these criteria is not exhaustive, as they can be expanded by a number of indicators that depend directly on the direction of national security. These criteria are an objective reflection of how effective the legislator is in this area. In addition, the implementation of appropriate evaluation requires the use of various methods: surveys, mathematical modeling, forecasting and more.

Role of nanomaterials in enhanced ethanol production through biological methods – Review on operating factors and machine learning applications

Renewable energy sources based on biomass are identified as sustainable solution to balance the carbon footprint and fuel requirements. The characteristics of bioethanol make it an ideal fuel additive due to its eco-friendliness and calorific value. Fermentation technology is used to convert carbohydrate-rich biomass into biofuel, but technical glitches and high costs have been identified as drawbacks. Nanomaterials have contributed significantly to bioethanol synthesis in terms of enhanced surface activity and selectivity. By using nanoparticles, various steps in the production of bio-alcohol can be made more efficient and cheaper. Based on the extensive review carried out, the best bioethanol yield reported were: dolomite at 121 °C (106%), methyl-functionalized cobalt ferrite– silica at 37 °C (126.9%) and calcium alginate at 37 °C (100%). Magnetic iron oxide covered cellulase yielded 60% in the temperature range of 24–96 °C and Silica-immobilized cellulase yielded 32 g/L at 25–60 °C. Methyl-functionalized cobalt ferrite–silica emerged as an efficient nano-bio catalyst as it gives highest ethanol yield at moderate temperature (37 °C) and pressure (1–2 atm). The mechanism of action of the nanoparticles is discussed in this research and the future directions of research are proposed. Machine learning applications for the prediction of bioethanol yield were discussed in detail.