Explore the vast range of titles available.

Acest document se adresează categoriilor de proiecte de construcţii finanţate din fonduri europene şi de stat. Se analizează metodologia şi impactul costurilor în construcţii prin aplicarea formulei de calcul a costului actualizării de preţ pe baza inflaţiei publicate de Institutul National de Statistica. Costul unui proiect este definit de costurile directe şi indirecte, dar în proiectele derulate cu statul apare un cost de actualizare. Costurile directe sunt reprezentate de resursele de materiale, manoperă, utilaj, transport implicate în execuţia proiectului. Costul indirect este reprezentat de toate costurile auxiliare cu implicare directa sau indirecta în execuţia proiectului, cum ar fi dar a nu se limita la: retribuţii ale personalului de conducere, tehnic, economic, de altă specialitate, administrativ, de deservire, protecţia muncii, amenajarea şi întreţinerea şantierului, asigurarea lucrărilor de construcţii. Costul de actualizare este destinate pentru a prelua o creştere de preţuri datorită unor schimbări ce nu ţin de proiect şi ţin de economia de piaţă a industriei în de construcţii. Costul final plătit la finalizarea proiectului este definit de costul direct, indirect şi actualizare. Prin aplicarea metodelor reglementate de Hotărârea Guvernului nr. 1/2018 şi Ordonanţa de Urgenta nr. 15/2021, constatăm o diferenţă în metoda de aplicare. Practic pentru proiectele de construcţii la care se aplică formula de actualizare din H.G. nr. 1/2018 constatăm că se aplică la toată valoarea contractului de execuţie (material, manopera, utilaj, transport şi cheltuieli indirecte), faţă de Ordonanţa de Urgenta nr. 15/2021 care se aplica doar pentru materiale fără a lua în considerare costurile de manopera, utilaj, transport, profit ale proiectului. Rezultatele obţinute în urma folosirii metodelor de actualizare a costului în construcţii pe baza indicilor de cost arată clar o majorare a costului unui proiect de construcţii. Pentru a stabilii un parametru cu caracter general pentru diverse tipuri de proiecte, sunt necesare studii aprofundate şi analize.

PurposeA surplus cost potential (SCP) indicator has been developed as a measure of resource scarcity in the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) context. To date, quality SCP estimates for other minerals than fossils are either not yet available or suffer methodological and data limitations. This paper overcomes these limitations and demonstrate how SCP estimates for metals can be calculated without the utilisation of ore grade function and by collecting primary economic and geological data.MethodsData were collected in line with the geographical distribution, mine type, deposit type and production volumes and total production costs in order to construct cost-cumulative availability curves for platinum group metals (PGMs) and lithium. These curves capture the total amount of known mineral resources that can be recovered profitably at various prices from different types of mineral deposits under current conditions (this is, current technology, prevailing labour and other input prices). They served as a basis for modelling the marginal cost increase, a necessary parameter for estimating the SCP indicator. Surplus costs were calculated for different scenario projections for future mineral production considering future market dynamics, recyclability rates, demand-side technological developments and economic growth and by applying declining social discount rate.Results and discussionSurplus costs were calculated for three mineral production scenarios, ranging from (US$2014/kg) 6545–8354 for platinum, 3583–4573 for palladium, 8281–10,569 for rhodium, 513–655 for ruthenium, 3201–4086 for iridium and 1.70–5.80 for lithium. Compared with the current production costs, the results indicate that problematic price increases of lithium are unlikely if the latest technological trends in the automotive sector will continue up to 2070. Surplus costs for PGMs are approximately one-third of the current production costs in all scenarios; hence, a threat of their price increases by 2070 will largely depend on the discovery of new deposits and the ability of new technologies to push these costs down over time. This also applies to lithium if the increasing electrification of road transport will continue up to 2070.ConclusionsThis study provides useful insight into the availability of PGMs and lithium up to 2070. It proves that if time and resources permit, reliable surplus cost estimates can be calculated, at least in the short-run, based on the construction of one’s own curves with the level of quality comparable to expert-driven consulting services. Modelling and incorporating unknown deposits and potential future mineral production costs into these curves is the subject of future work.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to adopt an in-depth perspective on cost estimation, from the development of the initial idea until the budget is agreed, to obtain new insights into issues of underestimation at the front-end. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses a small sample of projects with exceptional increases in cost estimates during the front-end phase. The authors analyzed the magnitude of cost increases and possible reasons for them. Findings – The paper concludes that underestimation in the front-end phase was significant in the sample and poses a serious problem in that suboptimal projects are approved. The causes of underestimation include underestimating risk, overestimating opportunities, inadequate estimation methods and skills, reliance on weak information, and strategic/deliberate scope creep and division of projects. Research limitations/implications – The study builds on a small sample, and hence further studies should be undertaken to verify whether the findings are generalizable. Practical implications – The sample shows that the projects with the most unrealistic early estimates have disputable relevance. The paper suggests a number of recommendations that might help to counter the problem of unrealistic early cost estimates, which in turn, might allow suboptimal projects to be funded. Originality/value – The underestimation of costs at the front-end is grossly neglected in the literature compared with whether costs comply with the budget. While cost overruns are an indication of failure in terms of the project’s tactical performance, the contention is that the up-front underestimation of costs might result in an inferior project being selected and thus affect the strategic performance of the project.

PURPOSE: In life cycle impact assessment, various proposals have been made on how to characterise fossil resource scarcity, but they lack appropriateness or completeness. In this paper, we propose a method to assess fossil resource scarcity based on surplus cost, which is the global future cost increase due to marginal fossil resource used in the life cycle of products. METHODS: The marginal cost increase (MCI in US dollars in the year 2008 per kilogram per kilogram produced) is calculated as an intermediate parameter for crude oil, natural gas and coal separately. Its calculations are based on production cost and cumulative future production per production technique or country. The surplus cost (SC in US dollars in the year 2008 per kilogram) is calculated as an indicator for fossil resource scarcity. The SC follows three different societal perspectives used to differentiate the subjective choices regarding discounting and future production scenarios. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The hierarchist perspective SCs of crude oil, natural gas, and coal are 2.9, 1.5, and 0.033 US$₂₀₀₈/GJ, respectively. The ratios between the indicators of the different types of fossil resources (crude oil/natural gas/coal) are rather constant, except in the egalitarian perspective, where contrastingly no discounting is applied (egalitarian 100:47:21; hierarchist 100:53:1.1; individualist 100:34:0.6). The ratio of the MCIs (100:48:1.0) are similar to the individualist and hierarchist SC ratios. CONCLUSIONS: In all perspectives, coal has a much lower resource scarcity impact factor per gigajoule and crude oil has the highest. In absolute terms of costs per heating value (US dollars in the year 2008 per gigajoule), there are large differences between the SCs for each perspective (egalitarian > hierarchist > individualist).

The Custom Bus has advantages on punctuality, direct arrival, and economic benefits. It has a good effect on attracting passengers from private cars commuting in city. Due to the unscientific docking stations, the Custom Bus is always ineffective. There are little studies about the optimization of docking stations. Based on the reference to minimum cost maximum flow problem, using the chain of minimum cost increase flow and the Dijkstra algorithm, choosing points by 0-1 planning model, studying the docking forms on multi-origin to multi-destination. Guaranteeing the attendance rate and limited docking stations, to achieve the goals that shortest single path and the highest service rate by arranging the docking stations reasonably. This algorithm has been demonstrated during the process of optimizing Custom Bus docking stations between Guilin’s new and old urban districts.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate increase in the cost of reinforced concrete buildings in Kathmandu valley constructed using earthquake safer features in comparison with that of buildings constructed using conventional approach without earthquake safety features. Design/methodology/approach Five buildings constructed using earthquake safer features and five buildings constructed without using these features are selected. A cost comparison of both types of buildings is done, and the total cost is also compared for structural, nonstructural and service components in the buildings. Findings The cost analysis of buildings constructed in Kathmandu valley shows that there is 10 per cent increase in cost for earthquake safer construction in comparison to construction using conventional approach. This increase in cost can be a deterrent factor for house owners to switch to safer construction practices which ultimately leads to lack of compliance from house owners. A successful implementation of building code in a country like Nepal, where most of the buildings are constructed from informal sector, requires compliance of the code from all stakeholders. Awareness raising can be a deciding factor for success in building code enforcement. Research limitations/implications The study is done for only two types of constructions prevalent in Kathmandu: one using simplified codal method and another using conventional method. Only five samples of each types are taken into consideration. The building sample, however, is typical and representative of the two types of the construction practice. Practical implications The information from this study will be useful for making policy decisions for enforcement of building codes and also for assessment of economic loss in future earthquakes. Social implications This research output will help to redesign building code enforcement projects in Nepal and other countries in the region with similar issues. Originality/value The building samples, analysis and output are original contribution of authors, and it contributes to fulfill the gap for such study.

The media and the public often make claims regarding the excessive cost increases in the development and production of major weapon systems such as fighter planes, submarines or tanks. The purpose of this research is in assessing the cost increase of such weapon systems during their procurement periods with the help of the Paasche price index. In contrast to other approaches, which focus upon either the specific situations of single weapon systems or cost increases relative to planned budgets, we compare several projects of military services and their cost increases over time to reveal generalisable trends. For this purpose, we used a framework model that allows for performance and cost comparisons. This paper primarily emphasises the cost perspective by calculating a Paasche index for each chosen project. As a background case for our analysis, we have used the acquisition projects for major weapon systems in Germany. However, the framework model that this study employs is universally applicable. In contrast to the public perception of cost increases, we could not find any clear trend that would indicate that modern weapon systems have a significantly higher (or lower) cost increase than was the case for projects several decades before. To give brief insight into the empirical findings, the cost increase ratios of the Starfighter and Eurofighter jets have the same level, while cost increase ratios of other weapon systems (APC tanks, submarines) differ significantly (to the worse and to the better) over time. Our findings imply that there is no general trend that today the costs for weapon systems increase more/less than some decades ago. This paper calculates data only from the regarded seven cases therefore we could not question the causes for this observation on basis of our sample. However, it appears that, within a specific service or a specific vehicle type (tank, fighter jet, ship/boat), cost increases may be similar over time.

At the steelmaking temperature, carbon has a strong deoxidation ability. Under the vacuum condition, its deoxidation ability can be further improved, and it can become a stronger deoxidation element than aluminum. The product of carbon deoxygenation is CO, which floats up and detaches from the molten steel in the form of bubbles and does not produce oxide inclusions. Under normal pressure, replacing aluminum with carbon to complete partial deoxidation tasks can not only reduce the generation of inclusions and alleviate the pressure of removing inclusions, but also reduce the consumption of aluminum and save deoxidation costs. In this study, the carbon deoxidation process after the converter was investigated. Firstly, the timing of carbon addition was determined through thermodynamic calculations, and it was found that, in oxygen-enriched molten steel, the priority of the reaction of the deoxidation element was [Al] > [Si] > [C] > [Mn]. Through the carbon and oxygen balance calculation, it is known that the carbon deoxidation effect is greatly affected by the carbon content of the molten steel; for low-carbon steel, carbon can be used for pre-deoxygenation, whereas for medium-carbon and high-carbon steel, carbon can complete most of the deoxidation tasks. Finally, with 45 steel as the research object, the carbon deoxidation process was designed and tested in industry. The results showed that, compared with the aluminum deoxidation process, the number of inclusions in the billet casting of the carbon deoxidation process was reduced by 68.8%, and the carbon deoxidation process had fewer large-sized inclusions in the billet casting. In addition, the carbon deoxidation process uses carbon powder instead of the aluminum block for deoxidation during steel tapping from the converter. The deoxidant cost is reduced by CNY 15.47/ton of steel. From a comprehensive point of view, the application of carbon deoxidation after the converter can reduce aluminum consumption and improve the cleanliness of steel, which is an important way for enterprises to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Vietnam's successes in the health sector are remarkable. Between 2000 and 2005, Vietnam achieved reductions in mortality rates for all ages, while some of its neighbors saw little change or even increases. To date, its infant and under-five mortality rates are comparable to those of countries with substantially higher per capita incomes. According to the data assembled in 'Health Financing and Delivery in Vietnam', the country continues to perform strongly in the sector, but its health care system is facing new challenges, as do those of other countries. By international standards, for example, a large percentage of Vietnamese households make out-of-pocket health care payments that exceed a reasonable fraction of their income. The country has been expanding the breadth of health insurance coverage, but questions remain on how to further expand coverage, how to decrease health care costs, and how to increase the overall quality of care. 'Health Financing and Delivery in Vietnam' reviews the country's successes and the challenges it faces, and suggests some options for further reforming the country's health system. These include the issue of stewardship—what different parts of government (for example, the Health Ministry and the health insurer) should be doing at each level of government, and what different levels of government (for example, the central government and the provincial government) ought to be doing. 'Health Financing and Delivery in Vietnam' will be of interest to readers working in the areas of public health and social analysis and policy.

In view of the requirement of cost reduction and efficiency increase for large-scale wind turbine blades, a medium-reactivity epoxy infusion resin system was developed, which contained 20% fast curing agent and 80% slow curing agent. The properties of medium-reactivity epoxy infusion resin system were evaluated via physical and chemical analysis, application process ability analysis, resin clear casting mechanical properties analysis, and laminate specimens mechanical properties analysis. The results indicated that the mechanical properties of this medium-reactivity epoxy infusion resin system can meet the requirements of blade design, and the pre-curing time of the resin was reduced from 3.0h to 2.3h. The application process ability of medium-reactivity epoxy infusion resin system in large-scale wind turbine blade was also verified. The blade parts pre-curing time was shortened by 0.5-1 hour, which meets the target of blade cost reduction and efficiency increase.