The extraction-condensing cogeneration system is a popular technology for heat and power integration which can be used by petrochemical process. To compare with back pressure system, extraction-condensing system has better flexibility for process control. However, the thermal efficiency of extraction- condensing system could be affected by the amount of effective heat to process. If the effective heat to process and the plant power demand were not well designed, the cogeneration system may violate government regulation of ¡§qualified cogeneration system¡¨ by MOEA, or the system economics can not meet investor¡¦s requirement. From another point of view, if the cogeneration system bias original design operating condition or it has to run under low loading, the energy efficiency will move away from the target. A 94.9 MW extraction-condensing system of a petrochemical plant was selected as an example. For the purpose of data requisition, the author established a model to predict main steam flow, extraction steam flow, and power generation load. Moreover, a set of equations for the calculation of heat rate of turbine plant was developed. Besides, a Microsoft Excel calculation sheet was programmed to compute real time plant thermal efficiency. The actual operation data was compared with computer simulation. Results show (1) To meet the regulation, the process steam shall exceed 100 t/h with rated power generation. (2) For the minimum generator load (about 20 MW), the effective heat to process must exceed 78% in order to ensure a 52% overall thermal efficiency. (3) Low load means low thermal efficiency of this system. Some energy conservation ideas of this cogeneration system were assessed. Four ideas were presented, including (1) Increase boiler feed water temperature during low evaporation load. (2) Recovering of flash steam vented from blow down tank for the heating of boiler combustion air. (3) Control of cooling tower fans speed by using frequency inverter. (4) Utilization of hydraulic coupled forced draft fan. The total benefit of these energy conservation ideas is 2,546.44 kilo-liter fuel oil equivalent.

Nowadays premium promotion has caused a stir in many industries. Sales promotion comprises a multitude of marketing tools designed to stimulate the purchase of goods and services by providing an incentive. Among those promotion tools, premium occupies a very important place. It belongs to non-monetary promotion which is different from the monetary one that we generally know. Many experts address that in long term, monetary promotion might have imposed negative impact on their own brand. However, premium promotion is one of non-monetary promotion, and it brings up consumers the ¡§gains¡¨, not the ¡§reduced losses.¡¨ The academic research on the subject in Taiwan or even in other countries is scarcely seen, although premium-based sales promotions are commonly used on marketing practice. It is a kind of multifunctional promotion tool. For example, attractiveness, the linkage with main product, immediacy, mention of value, and free/self-liquidating product etc. are needed to highly care about. Premium promotion may avoid some negative influences from price promotion. However, if marketers cannot operate premium well, it might still cause some problems. This study does not only discuss Consumers¡¦ Overall Appreciation, but also try to find out Perceived Manipulation Intent beyond consumers. This thesis is 2¡]high/low attractiveness¡^x 2¡]high/low perceived fit between the premium and the product¡^x 2¡]direct/delayed¡^x 2¡]mention/not mention of the premium¡¦s value¡^mixed experiment design ANOVA. Mentioning the value of the premium and immediacy are between-subject factors and attractiveness and perceived fit between the premium and the product are within-subjects factors. The purpose of this study is the effect of four premium independent variables on Overall Appreciation and Perceived Manipulation Intent of Consumer Reaction. The study shows: 1. High attractiveness, high product-premium fit, and direct premium all have significantly positive effects on consumer¡¦s overall appreciation. 2. Attractiveness and product-premium fit has an interaction effect on overall appreciation, and fit is like a moderator. 3. Product-premium fit and mention of value has an interaction effect on overall appreciation. 4. Attractiveness, product-premium fit, and immediacy has an interaction effect on overall appreciation. 5. Attractiveness, product-premium fit, and immediacy has statistically significant on perceived manipulation intent.

Abstract Promoting management efficiency is always a big concern either to profit-making or non-profit-making organizations. An efficient firm indicates that the leader manages well. To a profit-making unit, the term ¡§efficiency¡¨ means ¡§rapid production¡¨, ¡§the offer of distribution¡¨ and ¡§related services¡¨ which could save time and the good use of manpower and resources are also included. Therefore, the promotion of management efficiency becomes an important issue for the organization to survive successfully and to fight with other competitors. This study was to present the evaluation of management efficiency of some commercial banks in Taiwan. Some factors were selected as the ¡§input items¡¨ and ¡§output items¡¨from the financial reports of these commercial banks in Taiwan from 1999 to 2001. It evaluated the efficiency performance of these commercial banks according to the evaluation theory of Farrell and Data Envelopment Analysis. The relative efficiency in the process of the transferring from ¡§input items¡¨ to ¡§output items¡¨ was also concerned. From the changes in ¡§input items¡¨, it could show how efficiency value changes. By these two analyses (Slack Variables Analysis and Scale Efficiency Analysis), the results could show a direction in order to improve the efficiency of all these commercial banks. 38 commercial banks were selected and evaluated in this research. The information collected from financial reports was to construct a model in order to evaluate management efficiency of all subjects. This investigation involved ¡§overall efficiency ¡¨, ¡§overall technical efficiency¡¨, ¡§pure technical efficiency¡¨, ¡§scale efficiency¡¨, and ¡§allocative efficiency ¡¨. Apart from these calculation, all subjects were grouped into three parties: namely ¡§old commercial banks¡¨, ¡§new commercial banks¡¨ and ¡§commercial banks upgraded from credit cooperative¡¨; by cross and vertical analysis the result provided the comparison of management efficiency among these three groups. Using the CCR and BCC models, the overall efficiency value and technical efficiency became available. The Return to Scale was derived by the use of CCR model. The first finding from financial reports in 2001 showed that the top five as the most efficient banks among 38 subjects were Cathy United Bank, Taishin International Bank, Taipei Bank, Fubon Commercial Bank and Bank of Kaohsiung respectively. The bottom five subjects were Chung Shing Bank, Kao Shin Commercial Bank, Cota Commercial Bank, Pan Asia Bank and Union Bank of Taiwan. The Second finding showed that the ¡§old commercial banks¡¨ represented the highest efficiency value in the analysis, which was based on 2001 financial reports. Both the ¡§new commercial banks¡¨ and ¡§commercial banks upgraded from credit cooperative¡¨ had efficiency value, which was below the average efficiency value of all subjects. This was different from the result based on financial report in 2000, which showed that the ¡§new commercial banks¡¨ had the highest efficiency value. This represented the overall efficiency of the ¡§old commercial banks¡¨ was improving and that of the ¡§new commercial banks¡¨ was getting worse. Thirdly, through ¡§Slack Variables Analysis (SVA)¡¨, the result would indicate a direction for these ¡§less-efficient¡¨ subjects for improvement. The decision-maker could follow this direction to restructure or reallocate resources, and refer to the allocation of resources and strategies application of those subjects, which with overall efficiency, in order to improve its management efficiency and reach the optima production. The fourth, using "Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)" to test whether the efficiency values were different between these three groups. The result showed that the efficiency values between these three groups were significantly different in 2001. According to Scheffe's S method, the difference was derived from the scale efficiency between the groups of "new commercial banks" and "commercial banks upgraded from credit cooperative". Finally, according to the regression analysis, the result showed that the overall efficiency measure is negatively related to overdue loans but positively related to BIS ratio. The other items, such as the numbers of branch, the numbers of employee, capital and the numbers of ATM, which were non-related to the overall efficiency.

This paper starts from the single tube condensation theory of shell side inferred by Nusselt , and then analyzes the coefficient of heat transfer of the shell side and the overall heat transfer coefficient of the tube bundle. Referring to the overall heat coefficient of surface condensers and the calculation means of pressure decrease, the HEI, the most exploited one in the commerce is used by combining the basic theory of condenser heat transfer based on the Delphi function language to develop a set of assistant designing software. The software can be used to evaluate the performance of condensers, calculate the sizes of tube materials, and predict the pressure of condensers when the different tube materials are used. When the units are in using, this software also can calculate the cleanliness factor and determine the suitable time to clean the condenser tubes. There are four common used tube materials to compare their performance. They are Al- Brass tubes, 70-30 Cu-Ni tubes, Sea-Cure tubes and Ti tubes. This paper use the software to analyze the performance of the heat transfer of these four different kinds of tube materials and also to calculate the sizes of tubes .And use research papers to analyze the reason of anti-corrosion of these four. In addition, the HEI method can analyze the anti-vibration ability of these four. After comparing with all the performance of the tube materials, and then choosing the best tube material to provide an example for condenser design of new electricity plants or for old electricity plants to change the tube materials.

A scaled-up gas turbine vane model was constructed in such a way to achieve a Biot number (Bi) representative of an actual engine component, and experiments were performed to collect temperature data which may be used to validate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes used in the design of gas turbine cooling schemes. The physical model incorporated an internal impingement plate to provide cooling on the inner wall surface, and film cooling over the external surface was provided by a single row of holes located on the suction side of the vane. A single row of holes was chosen to simplify the operating condition and test geometry for the purpose of evaluating CFD predictions. Thermocouples were used to measure internal gas temperatures and internal surface temperatures over a range of coolant flow rates, while infra-red thermography was used to measure external surface temperatures. When Bi is matched to an actual engine component, these measured temperatures may be normalized relative to the coolant temperature and mainstream gas temperature to determine the overall cooling effectiveness, which will be representative of the real engine component. Measurements were made to evaluate the overall effectiveness resulting from internal impingement cooling alone, and then with both internal impingement cooling and external film cooling as the coolant flow rate was increased. As expected, with internal impingement cooling alone, both internal and external wall surfaces became colder as the coolant flow rate was increased. The addition of film cooling further increased the overall effectiveness, particularly at the lower and intermediate flow rates tested, but provided little benefit at the highest flow rates. An optimal jet momentum flux ratio of I=1.69 resulted in a peak overall effectiveness, although the film effectiveness was shown to be low under these conditions. The effect of increasing the coolant-to-mainstream density ratio was evaluated at one coolant flow rate and resulted in higher values of overall cooling effectiveness and normalized internal temperatures, throughout the model. Finally, a 1-dimensional heat transfer analysis was performed (using a resistance analogy) in which overall effectiveness with film cooling was predicted from measurements of film effectiveness and overall effectiveness without film cooling. This analysis tended to over-predict overall effectiveness, at the lowest values of the jet momentum flux ratio, while under-predicting it at the highest values. / text

PhD / Abstract: The objective of this research is to investigate the interaction of local and overall flexural buckling in cold-formed stainless steel columns. Literature study exposes a lack of understanding of this subject and a need for experimental data, particularly on the local-overall interaction buckling of stainless steel open sections. Two separate experimental programs were therefore carried out. The first program included 36 tests on pin-ended lipped channel columns. Three alloys were considered: AISI 304, AISI 430 and 3Cr12. The specimens were designed to fail by local-overall interaction buckling in the inelastic stress range, thus highlighting the non-linear behaviour of stainless steel. Half of the specimens were tested under a concentric load. The other half had the load applied with a nominal eccentricity of Le/1500. The test results demonstrate the imperfection sensitivity of local-overall interaction buckling and illustrate the shift in effective centroid in pin-ended columns with singly symmetric cross-section. The second experimental program studied local-overall interaction buckling in 24 pin-ended stainless steel I-section columns. The specimens consisted of plain channels connected back-to-back using sheet metal screws. Two alloys were considered: AISI 304 and AISI 404. Local and overall imperfections were carefully measured in both experimental programs. Extensive material testing was carried out on the alloys employed in the experimental program, in order to determine tensile and compressive material properties, anisotropic parameters and enhanced corner properties. A detailed finite element model is presented, which includes non-linear material behaviour, anisotropy, increased material properties of the corner areas and local and overall imperfections. The model was verified against the two aforementioned experimental programs and against additional data available in literature on stainless steel SHS columns. The model yielded excellent predictions of the specimen failure mode, ultimate strength and load-deformation behaviour. The finite element model was used to generate additional data for stainless steel columns with lipped channel, plain channel, SHS and I-shaped cross-section, failing by local-overall interaction buckling. The parametric studies covered the practical ranges of overall and cross-sectional slenderness values. The Australian/New Zealand, European and North American standards for stainless steel were evaluated using the available data. The comparison reveals an inability of the design codes to properly account for the interaction effect as the cross-sectional slenderness increases. Predictions are unsafe for I-section columns with intermediate or high cross-sectional slenderness. A direct strength method is proposed for stainless steel columns, accounting for the local-overall interaction effect. The method offers a simple design solution which fits within the framework of the current Australian and North-American standards.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Poor oral health is associated with pain, decreased chewing function, negative social perceptions, and reduced quality of life. Low-income adults disproportionally have worse oral health and use dental services at lower rates than higher-income adults. This disparity is associated with individual demographic and socioeconomic factors, cost and coverage barriers, as well as the supply and location of dental providers. Although the full causal pathway remains elusive, evidence suggests an association with poor oral health and an exacerbation of chronic diseases symptoms. Thus, adequate provision of dental care has important population health implications. Despite this importance, dental care use among low-income adults is particularly underexplored. Furthermore, existing research lacks robust methodological designs to mitigate bias from unobserved confounders. Dental coverage for low-income adults through Medicaid is emerging as a way to provide services to this population. However, given state budget constraints, comprehensive public dental benefits are uncommon or at risk of being cut. Therefore, it is important to quantify the individual and economic value of dental care use among adult Medicaid enrollees. This dissertation examines factors and outcomes associated with dental care use among Medicaid-enrolled adults in Indiana. This dissertation includes three studies 1) a pooled cross-sectional analysis that measures the association of individual and community level factors with dental care use, 2) a repeated measures study with individual fixed effects to examine whether receipt of preventive dental care is associated with fewer subsequent non-preventive dental visits and lower total annual dental expenditures, and 3) an empirical study that utilizes an instrumental variable estimation method to examine the effect of preventive dental visits on medical and pharmacy expenditures. Overall, this dissertation attempts to understand the correlates of dental care use, the effectiveness of preventive dental care, and the association between preventive dental care and medical expenditures.

The current study applies a newly proposed mechanical combination method along with four traditional mechanical combination methods to assessment center scoring. These comparisons were made for two job levels (Fire Lieutenant and Fire Captain). The study further assesses the level of adverse impact for the various methods at three cut-off scores. Results indicated that the new contingency-based scoring method was successfully implemented in the assessment center. Results were mixed regarding whether the contingencies developed for the two job levels were different. Further, results indicated that although the various combination methods were highly correlated as expected, there were clear distinctions in the decisions made based on the different combination methods. Specifically, the various combination methods resulted in different candidates comprising the qualifying cut-off ranks. Finally, results showed that the contingency-based method had less adverse impact overall when compared to the other four methods. Future research is proposed in addition to a discussion of the limitations of the study. The main limitation was a lack of criterion data.

This thesis focuses on practical and quantitative methods for measuring effectiveness in naval ship design. An Overall Measure of Effectiveness (OMOE) model or function is an essential prerequisite for optimization and design trade-off. This effectiveness can be limited to individual ship missions or extend to missions within a task group or larger context. A method is presented that uses the Analytic Hierarchy Process combined with Multi-Attribute Value Theory to build an Overall Measure of Effectiveness and Overall Measure of Risk function to properly rank and approximately measure the relative mission effectiveness and risk of design alternatives, using trained expert opinion to replace complex analysis tools. A validation of this method is achieved through experimentation comparing ships ranked by the method with direct ranking of the ships through war gaming scenarios. The second part of this thesis presents a mathematical ship synthesis model to be used in early concept development stages of the ship design process. Tools to simplify and introduce greater accuracy are described and developed. Response Surface Models and Design of Experiments simplify and speed up the process. Finite element codes such as MAESTRO improve the accuracy of the ship synthesis models which in turn lower costs later in the design process. A case study of an Advanced Logistics Delivery Ship (ALDV) is performed to asses the use of RSM and DOE methods to minimize computation time when using high-fidelity codes early in the naval ship design process. / Master of Science

Submitted by Patrícia Valim Labres de Freitas (patricial) on 2016-03-30T19:29:12Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Gustavo Adami.pdf: 2445130 bytes, checksum: d010b74234328835418d4d0ff2a01f40 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-30T19:29:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gustavo Adami.pdf: 2445130 bytes, checksum: d010b74234328835418d4d0ff2a01f40 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-23 / Nenhuma / Características existentes no processo de produção da indústria de fluxo contínuo, particularmente a petroquímica, requerem que a medição de eficiência inclua características diferentes da indústria de produção intermitente, tais como a maneira de quantificação dos produtos finais e a natureza das perdas que são consideradas no cálculo da eficiência de produção. Indicadores de eficiência global de produção tipicamente são derivados do OEE (Overall Effective Equipment), proposto por Nakajima (1988) para a indústria de produção intermitente e, por vezes, são utilizados em indústrias de produção contínua sem uma análise prévia de suas limitações. Doze indicadores identificados na literatura foram analisados e comparados com características do processo de produção da indústria petroquímica, obtidos a partir da revisão teórica e de entrevistas com profissionais e pesquisadores dessa indústria. Dessa análise identificou-se que o indicador OAE (Overall Asset Efficiency) apresenta maior aderência em relação à classificação de perdas e às características do processo de manufatura da indústria petroquímica. Os resultados de eficiência global de produção obtidos através da utilização do OAE foram confrontados com os provenientes do OEE e do TEEP (Total Effective Equipment Productivity), com base em dados reais de uma empresa localizada no Pólo Petroquímico do Rio Grande do Sul. Os resultados obtidos através do cálculo de eficiência utilizando o indicador selecionado OAE, se mostraram mais descritivos da realidade da empresa quando comparados com aqueles atualmente utilizados. Outras práticas que geram interferências sobre o cálculo do OEE também foram identificadas nas entrevistas. Ainda, foi identificada a necessidade de uma discussão mais ampla no sentido de melhor definir os conceitos de capacidade e nível de atividade na indústria petroquímica e sua estimação operacional para fins de análise de eficiência, bem como, a incorporação de termos relativos à eficiência de insumos e custeio na análise de eficiência operacional global dessa indústria. / Due to singular characteristics present in the production of continuous flow process industry, especially petrochemical, efficiency measurement require different features of intermittently producing industry, such as how to quantify the final products and the cause of the losses that are considered in the calculation of production efficiency. Production efficiency indicators are typically derived from the OEE (Overall Equipment Effective) proposed by Nakajima (1988) for intermittent production industry, they are sometimes used in continuous manufacturing industries without a prior analysis of their limitations. Twelve indicators identified in the literature were analyzed and compared with features of the petrochemical industry production process, obtained from theoretical review and interviews with professionals and researchers in this industry. This analysis identified that the indicator OAE (Overall Asset Efficiency) has a better production losses structure and fits the characteristics of petrochemical manufacturing process. The results of overall production efficiency obtained using the OAE were compared with results from OEE and TEEP (Total Effective Equipment Productivity), based on manufacturing data from a company located in Rio Grande do Sul petrochemical complex. The results obtained from the efficiency calculation utilizing the selected indicator OAE, are more descriptive of the company situation when compared to those currently used. Other practices that causes interference on the calculation of OEE were also identified in the interviews. It was also identified the necessity for a broader discussion in order to better define the concepts of capacity and activity level in the petrochemical industry and also the operational way define them in order to make analysis of efficiency as well as the incorporation of terms concerning the efficiency of inputs and costing the analysis of overall operational efficiency of this industry.