Unpredictable Costs Research Articles

Analysis of the coefficient of unpredictable costs in the construction industry in Slovakia

The main vision of the article is how the current situation in the construction industry affects the cost of construction equipment in Slovakia, because during the implementation, unforeseen costs enter the costs, which are not foreseen in the planning. Current inflation in Slovakia is one of the highest in Europe. The methods used during the research were initial quantitative questionnaires. The output of these was processed using statistical methods and subsequently evaluated. The current situation requires considerable attention in the calculation of individual construction costs. As it is a very challenging process due to the unpredictable market situation in terms of inflation, the price of energy increases, which also causes the rise in the prices of materials and wages. The data obtained can be used by construction companies to calculate the construction equipment. Construction companies in Slovakia can apply the information obtained in the preparation of a quote for construction work that includes construction equipment.

Multi-Objective Model-Predictive Control for Dielectric Elastomer Wave Harvesters

This contribution deals with multi-objective model-predictive control (MPC) of a wave energy converter (WEC) device concept, which can harvest energy from sea waves using a dielectric elastomer generator (DEG) power take-off system. We aim to maximise the extracted energy through control while minimising the accumulated damage to the DEG. With reference to system operation in stochastic waves, we first generate ground truth solutions by solving an optimal control problem, comparing it to the performance of MPC to determine a prediction horizon that trades off accuracy and efficiency for computation. Fixed weights in the MPC scheme can produce unpredictable costs for variable sea conditions, meaning the average rate of cost accumulation can vary vastly. To steer this cost growth, we propose a heuristic to adapt the algorithm by changing the weighting of the cost functions for fulfilling the long-time goal of accumulating a small enough damage in a fixed time. A simulated case-study is presented in order to evaluate the performance of the proposed MPC framework and the weight-adaptation algorithm. The proposed heuristic proves to be able to limit the amount of accumulated damage while improving the energy yield obtained with a comparable fixed-weight MPC.

Performance of Bureaucracy in Implementing the Issuance of Trade Business License

This study discusses the bureaucratic performance of the Investment and One-stop Integrated Services (DPMPTSP) in Banyuwangi Regency in implementing the issuance of Trade Business License (SIUP). The result indicated that the performance as seen from the relevance aspect showed good performance, the bureaucracy consistently implemented organizational strategic planning based on the mission, objectives, and goals of the Regional Medium-term Development Plan (RPJMD) of Banyuwangi Regency, which is further elaborated in the annual work plan. The performance as seen from the efficiency aspect showed the lack of attention to inputs (facilities and infrastructure, human resources, budget, not meeting output targets/SIUP in a certain period of time). In order to obtain SIUP (output), service users had to go through the lowest structure of the government, lengthy processes, and even unpredictable costs. Another effectiveness aspect is that SIUP provided most of the benefits for meeting the socio-economic needs of the service users and contributed to local taxes for the local government. The performance of the SIUP service impacted on gender equality and ethnic groups, impact on increased value of business investment and awareness, especially medium and large enterprises which owned SIUP, and was of use as a business legality. The result reconstructed the theory by Polliit and Bouchart which need to include the novelty of equity which bridged the socio-economic problems and the impacts.

A Survey of Emergencies Management Systems in Smart Cities

The rapid urbanization process in the last hundred of years has deeply changed the way we live and interact with each other. As most people now live in urban areas, cities are experiencing growing demands for more efficient and sustainable public services that may improve the perceived quality of life, specially with the anticipated impacts of climatic changes. In this already complex scenario with increasingly overcrowded urban areas, different types of emergency situations may happen anywhere and anytime, with unpredictable costs in human lives and properties damages. In order to cope with often unexpected and potentially dangerous emergencies, smart cities initiatives have been developed in different cities, addressing multiple aspects of emergencies detection, alerting, and mitigation. In this scenario, this article surveys recent smart city solutions for crisis management, proposing definitions for emergencies-oriented systems and classifying them according to the employed technologies and provided services. Additionally, recent developments in the domains of Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data are also highlighted when associated to the management of urban emergencies, potentially paving the way for new developments while classifying and organizing them according to different criteria. Finally, open research challenges will be identified, indicating promising trends and research directions for the coming years.

Classification of Reserves for Business Accounting Purposes

Due to accumulation of reserves and their appropriate accounting and recording, business enterprises are allowed to increase assets, quickly respond on the occurrence of unpredicted costs and liabilities, and comply with the principle of business continuity. The classification of reserves as objects of accounting is the key to the sound recording and enclosure of information about them in the financial statements of a business enterprise. The research objective is to analyze and sum up classification criteria and types of reserves, and to develop recommendations on improvements in the classification of reserves for business accounting purposes. 
 Approaches of Ukrainian authors to the classification of business reserves as an object of accounting are investigated. It is revealed that the researchers propose a wide range of the classification criteria. The most widespread classification criteria are compulsory accumulation, accumulation sources, and accumulation purpose. But the proposed criteria are diverse to the extent that the system approach to the recognition, valuation and recording of reserves cannot be applicable. The author’s approach to the classification of reserves by various criteria is proposed as a way to resolve the problems of constructing an accounting system for reserves as accounting objects and provide an appropriate information support for business enterprises. The types of reserves and classification criteria proposed by the author on the basis of the research can give multifaceted characteristics of the studied object, and can be used as a framework for accounting and recording of transactions related with accumulation and utilization of reserves.

Time Management & Resource Leveling of Mass Housing Projects Using Incorporation of Building Information Modeling and Metaheuristics

Abstract: In the last few decades, construction industry has faced numerous challenges such as low productivity and low invest return rate compared to other industries, increased cost of labor, unpredicted costs due to lack of coordination between beneficiaries, high time-consumption of managing changes in projects and delayed and inappropriate decisions. These factors led to the development of new fields such as Information Technology (IT) and integrated project delivery systems in this industry. “Building Information Modeling” is one of the most important new concepts in overcoming these challenges. A project’s success is one of the biggest and most important goals and concerns of managers and all the persons involved in that project. Success is what unites all the efforts of team members. Building information models, as one of new technologies in the construction industry, uses precise outcome, visual models and information totally understandable by the members to minimize decision-making errors regarding construction problems. In this study, considering the importance of decision-making in construction workshops and especially projects with mass amount of materials, labor and machinery (such as mass house building projects), the incorporation of building information modeling and metaheuristics has been used in times when the required resources exceed available resources. In order to simplify problem-solving for project’s used resources, concrete was considered as the most used material and in times when requested concrete was more than the produced concrete, the scenario of levelling the resources were considered in order to equalize the requested concrete with the batching’s maximum producible amount. Considering the factors of time and quality that each scenario imposed on the project, this scenario was confirmed by an expert group.

Analysis of Labor Productivity of Brick Masonry Work in Building Construction in Kathmandu Valley

Construction labor productivity is the most determinant of success of any construction project. Labor is considered as more variable and unpredictable cost component for the successful accomplishment of construction projects. The main aim of this research is to develop an artificial neural network (ANN) model to predict the production rate for brick masonry work by assessing the various factor affecting labor productivity. Out of forty-four factors selected from a literature review, the top thirteen factors were selected for model development after the questionnaire survey and ranking them based on Relative Importance Index (RII). The model was developed in Neurosolution version 7.1.1.1 using the various input data set collected from active construction site of brick masonry. 65% of data set were used for training, 20 % of data set were used for cross-validation and remaining 15 % of data set were used for testing. The error between actual productivity and estimated productivity was computed using Mean Square Error (MSE) which was 0.019 which verified that the estimated production rate was within an acceptable range. After the successful testing of model, a sensitivity analysis was performed to analyze the order of most influencing factors affecting labor productivity. The developed ANN model can be used for estimating the labor productivity of brick masonry work for any building construction project by incorporating the influence of selected parameters or factors.

Successful and Cost-Effective Facebook Recruitment: Is It Possible? Results From a Longitudinal Randomized Clinical Trial in Grandmother Caregivers.

Facebook is often cited in health-related research as a practical option to recruit participants into research studies, but issues with recruiting verifiable and qualified participants and unpredictable costs exist. The purpose of this paper is to describe a social network theory-guided, no-cost, Facebook recruitment strategy in comparison to a traditional recruitment campaign for a national online intervention study for grandmother caregivers (n = 348); 211 participants were recruited via Facebook, and 137 through traditional techniques. Participation rates did not vary by recruitment method. Facebook participants were slightly older, higher income, and more likely to be white and married, but did not differ in education levels. Our strategy quickly obtained an engaged and committed participant base. The application of social network theory to traditional recruitment strategies represents a novel way for researchers to recruit through Facebook and yield viable and engaged participants without investing in Facebook ads.

Lightweight task offloading exploiting MPI wait times for parallel adaptive mesh refinement

SummaryBalancing the workload of sophisticated simulations is inherently difficult, since we have to balance both computational workload and memory footprint over meshes that can change any time or yield unpredictable cost per mesh entity, while modern supercomputers and their interconnects start to exhibit fluctuating performance. We propose a novel lightweight balancing technique for MPI+X to accompany traditional, prediction‐based load balancing. It is a reactive diffusion approach that uses online measurements of MPI idle time to migrate tasks temporarily from overloaded to underemployed ranks. Tasks are deployed to ranks which otherwise would wait, processed with high priority, and made available to the overloaded ranks again. This migration is nonpersistent. Our approach hijacks idle time to do meaningful work and is totally nonblocking, asynchronous and distributed without a global data view. Tests with a seismic simulation code developed in the ExaHyPE engine uncover the method's potential. We found speed‐ups of up to 2‐3 for ill‐balanced scenarios without logical modifications of the code base and show that the strategy is capable to react quickly to temporarily changing workload or node performance.

How to Manage the Post Pandemic Opening? A Pontryagin Maximum Principle Approach

The COVID-19 pandemic has wholly disrupted the operation of our societies. Its elusive transmission process, characterized by an unusually long incubation period and a high contagion capacity, has forced many countries to take quarantine and social isolation measures that conspire against national economies' performance. This situation confronts decision-makers in different countries with the alternative of reopening the economies, thus facing the unpredictable cost of a rebound of the infection. This work tries to offer an initial theoretical framework to handle this alternative.

Breast cancer patients’ insurance status correlates with their adherence to endocrine therapy: Analysis of ECOG-ACRIN TAILORx trial.

7041 Background: Cancer patients spend substantial amounts on their healthcare services, and are at high risk for financial toxicity, a patient-reported outcome shown to be associated with care non-adherence. Even with insurance, cancer patients often face unpredictable or unmanageable costs. In women with breast cancer enrolled in TAILORx trial, we investigated the association between study entry insurance status and adherence to endocrine therapy (ET). Methods: Women with hormone-receptor–positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2–negative, axillary node–negative breast cancer enrolled in TAILORx clinical trial who started ET within a year of study entry were included. Early discontinuation was defined as stopping ET within 4 years of start for reasons other than distant recurrence or death, and the rate was calculated using Kaplan-Meier estimates. Cox proportional hazards model was used to analyze association between the patients’ insurance status at study entry and early discontinuation of ET incorporating patients’ treatment, age, race and Recurrence Score in the model. Results: A total of 9,475 patients were included (mean age: 55.6; 84% white; 9% Hispanic). A total of 58.0% had private insurance, while 11.7% had Medicare; 5.8% had Medicaid; 0.98% had military/VA insurance; 3.8% were self-pay, and 19.1% were patient recruited from international sites. The rates of 4-year early discontinuation were highest among self-pay (18.7%) and Medicaid patients (18%) and lowest among patients with military/VA insurance (8.6%) and international sites (9.8%). In multivariable analysis, compared to private insurance patients with Medicaid (HR 1.6; 95% CI 1.3-2.0) and self-pay (HR 1.6; 95% CI 1.3-2.1) had higher probability of discontinuing ET within 4 years of start and those at international sites had lower probability of early discontinuation (HR 0.8; 95% CI 0.7-0.9) (All p values < 0.05). Conclusions: Patients’ insurance status plays an important role in adherence to ET with uninsured and underinsured having a high rate of treatment non-adherence. Early identification of patients at risk and enrollment in insurance optimization programs may improve adherence to therapy. Clinical trial information: NCT00310180 .

E-books: Access vs Ownership

ABSTRACT Over the past several years, e-book ownership has become the preferred acquisitions model, as opposed to subscription models. Vendors and aggregators offer many different models to help streamline and simplify acquiring e-books, including front-file purchases from the vendor, as well as demand-driven/patron-driven acquisitions (DDA/PDA) and a variety of evidence-based plans. With each purchase model, though, come different technical services workflows required to manage not only the plans, but coordinate the purchasing, cataloging, and holdings maintenance. One must also consider the unpredictable costs per year, though deposit accounts make it easier to budget and manage the cost. Subscription resources, however, provide one workflow as well as a known cost component. In addition to this, the maintenance of the collection, including additions, deletions, and weeding out-of-date resources, is handled by the vendor. This article will discuss the pros and cons of both purchase and subscription models (including acquisitions, cataloging, and maintenance) and present the argument that, for small technical services departments, perhaps subscription is a better model than ownership, when available.

Elimination of Tool Failure in Edge Cutting Machine using Quality Tools and Techniques

Increasing cost of consumable materials has put an enormous pressure on the estimating as well as the costeffectiveness of an organization. Therefore, without any conciliation on quality, the unpredictable cost has to be reduced. This demands novel intellectual and creativity for constant improvement in manufacture, resulting in good earnings. Rim is an important component for any wheel and manufacturing of rim involves various stages with each stage involving different machines. The basic idea of the research is to identify the causes of tool failure in edge cutting machine and to find solution for the identified causes. Edge cutting machine is specially used in earthmovers unit for the production of rims for earthmover wheels. The existing tool was replaced with the new tool made of shearing resistant material. The new tool is designed and analysed for production purpose and cost variation are successfully compared.

Toward implementing a fully automated truck guidance system at a seaport: identifying the roles, costs and benefits of logistics stakeholders

The seaport-hinterland access infrastructures become more saturated leading to extra unpredictable costs for logistics operators. To keep their services competitive, infrastructure managers (such as port authorities) seek new approaches in managing and delivering information to their users. Starting from existing technological advancements and exploring the declared opportunities enabled by (near) future ones, a range of solutions (e.g. real-time information platforms, dynamic information boards or digital on-request notification solutions) can be pursued. This research investigates how an advanced truck guidance system (TGS) leverages on technology and leads to more efficient resource (infrastructure, equipment and labour) usage. The current paper merges two perspectives. The first conducts interviews with representatives of different logistics stakeholders to highlight their data needs. The second perspective is given by a review of information communication technology (ICT) innovative trends. These two perspectives provide an up-to-date overview of both needs (demand) and opportunities (supply) that challenge logistics stakeholders. This study proposes a TGS architecture that merges the two perspectives and identifies a stepwise approach to implement it. Therefore, the roles, costs and benefits brought to the logistics stakeholders are highlighted for each step. The key findings of this study show that road transport operators would benefit from operational savings and increased performance, while the other supply chain stakeholders can benefit from setting up a more reliable planning, better managing their infrastructure and developing added-value services for clients. To enable these benefits, the port administration could take the facilitator role and cover the TGS’s development costs.

Inattention and task switching performance: the role of predictability, working memory load and goal neglect

Inattention is a symptom of many clinical disorders including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and is thought to be primarily related to limitations in working memory. In two studies, we investigated the implications of inattention for task switching performance. In study one, we measured task switching performance using predictable and unpredictable conditions in adults who self-rated inattention and other ADHD-related tendencies. Tasks required proactive control and reactive control, respectively, under both high and low working memory loads. Results revealed that inattentive, but not hyperactive/impulsive traits, predicted switch costs when switching was predictable and working memory load was high. None of the ADHD traits were related to unpredictable switch costs. Study two was designed to: (1) de-confound the role of proactive control and the need to keep track of task order in the predictable task switching paradigm; (2) investigate whether goal neglect, an impairment related to working memory, could explain the relationship between inattention and predictable task switching. Results revealed that neither predictability nor the need to keep track of the task order led to the association between switch costs and inattention, but instead it was the tendency for those high in inattention to neglect preparatory proactive control, especially when reactive control options were available.

Foreword

Digital transformation, occurred in the past recent years, impacts many areas: from economics to society and reveal new opportunities, today when half of the world’s population is connected to the Internet but less than half trust that technology will make their lives better[1].“Over half of the global population is connected to the internet and has growing access to the sum total of human knowledge at their fingertips. The internet will increasingly bring about ever more transformational changes for human civilization. However, some of these changes will also bring unpredictable costs. We are just now beginning to better understand this ‘Faustian bargain’ ” says Al Gore, co-founder and chairman of Generation Investment Management.[1] World Economic Forum – Our Shared Digital Future: Building an Inclusive, Trustworthy and Sustainable Digital Society, p.3

Probabilistic aircraft trajectory prediction in cruise flight considering ensemble wind forecasts

The problem of aircraft trajectory prediction subject to wind uncertainty is addressed. In particular, a probabilistic analysis of aircraft flight time and fuel consumption in cruise flight is presented. The wind uncertainty is obtained from ensemble weather forecasts. The cruise is composed of a given number of segments subject to uncertain winds (both along-track winds and crosswinds). The resulting average ground speed of each segment is modeled as a random variable, assuming a Log-Normal distribution. The probabilistic trajectory predictor developed is based on the Probabilistic Transformation Method; the input is the probability density functions of the average ground speeds of the cruise segments, and the output is the probability density functions of the flight time and the fuel consumption. Results are presented for several aircraft of different categories (medium and heavy), for a given trans-oceanic route and a real ensemble weather forecast. The effects of wind uncertainty on flight predictability and on fuel loading are analyzed. A fuel penalty parameter is defined, and the cost of flight unpredictability is quantified. The sample variability of all the results has been quantified by means of standard errors.

Obligations of conduct in the international law on climate change: A defence

An obligation of conduct is an obligation to make an honest endeavour, notwithstanding the outcome. From the no‐harm principle to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, obligations of conduct play a central role in the international law on climate change mitigation. They are not simply the result of political tradeoffs with reluctant States, but they address real concerns with the unpredictable costs of implementing specific mitigation targets over a decade or more. This article retraces the origins of obligations of conduct in the French law of obligations and its reception in international law. It then highlights the prominence of such obligations in the international law on climate change mitigation. Based on this analysis, it contends that obligations of conduct are an effective tool to promote ambition and participation to international efforts on climate change mitigation.

Mechanism design in project procurement auctions with cost uncertainty and failure risk

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Project procurement has two important attributes: cost uncertainty and failure risk. Due to the incomplete feature of such attributes, a novel mechanism incorporating contingent payments and cost sharing contracts is proposed for the buyer. Constructing models of bid decisions for risk averse and risk neutral suppliers, respectively, closed-form solutions of optimal bid prices are derived. By investigating the properties of bid prices in a first-score sealed-bid reverse auction, we find that when the degree of risk aversion or the variance of unpredictable cost is sufficiently small, bid prices of risk averse suppliers could be lower than those of risk neutral suppliers. Yet risk averse suppliers always bid higher than risk neutral suppliers in a second-score sealed-bid reverse auction. An interesting result verified by numerical experiments is that the classical revenue equivalence theorem no longer holds for the proposed mechanism if suppliers involve risk averse behavior. In this case, the buyer's best choice is to adopt a first-score sealed-bid reverse auction. We also provide decision support for the buyer to achieve optimal expected profit.

Productivity of mechanized whip harvesting with the Stemster MkIII in a short-rotation coppice established on farmland

The success of short-rotation coppice (SRC) will rise with increasing biomass prices. One of the main constraints for establishing SRC today is the unpredictable cost of (whip) harvesting. Therefore, the harvest of a 9 ha SRC in Belgium was monitored, in order to develop a whip harvesting cost model to estimate harvesting productivity and costs as a function of various input data. The harvest was executed in February 2017 with a Stemster MkIII, after a three-year rotation of SRC with poplar. A biomass inventory was combined with a time-motion study and an economic analysis. The field stocking (fresh weight basis) ranged from 40 to 100 Mg ha−1. The average load of 2.4 Mg was obtained from a 220 m long double row and took 6.4 min, resulting in an average productivity of 26 Mg h−1 (excluding delays). Genotype, field stocking and their interaction significantly affected the harvester's productivity. Border limited headlands (<8 m width) had a significant impact on turning time and, thus, increased the total harvesting cost by 6%. The offload time was stable at 23 s Mg−1, while the harvesting cost varied from 7 to 22 € Mg−1, depending on work conditions and costing assumptions. Even though the Stemster MkIII produces whips instead of wood chips, its productivity is still lower than the modified foragers' productivity, but the Stemster MkIII is lighter and may offer better mobility. Optimal performance can be obtained with a high field stocking, appropriate spacing and adequate headlands.