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The objective of this paper is to develop and test a model of cost estimating for the shell and tube heat exchangers in the early design phase via the application of artificial neural networks (ANN). An ANN model can help the designers to make decisions at the early phases of the design process. With an ANN model, it is possible to obtain a fairly accurate prediction, even when enough and adequate information is not available in the early stages of the design process. This model proved that neural networks are capable of reducing uncertainties related to the cost estimation of a shell and tube heat exchangers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of electrical power utilities in the world are required to ensure that electrical energy requirement from the customer is served smoothly in accordance to the respective policy of the country. Despite serving the power demands of the country, the power utility has also to ensure that the electrical power is generated within minimal cost. Thus, the total demand must be appropriately shared among the generating units with an objective to minimize the total generation cost for the system in order to satisfy the economic operation of the system. Economic dispatch is a procedure to determine the electrical power to be generated by the committed generating units in a power system so that the total generation cost of the system is minimized, while satisfying the load demand simultaneously. This paper presents the economic power dispatch problems solved using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) technique. ACO is a meta-heuristic approach for solving hard combinatorial optimization problems. In this study, the proposed technique was tested using the standard IEEE 26-Bus RTS and the results revealed that the proposed technique has the merit in achieving optimal solution for addressing the problems. Comparative studies with other optimization technique namely the artificial immune system (AIS) were also conducted in order to highlight the strength of the proposed technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automatic Process Control (APC) based on Design of Experiment (DOE) is an efficient approach to further improve the manufacturing quality. The process changes both in mean and variance due to online parameter adjustment make it hard to apply traditional SPC chart in DOE-based APC applied process. This paper develops an alternative design of adaptive control charts to give a solution for this problem. Adaptive control chart parameters are adjusted online to better track the process changes and to gain the possible SPC run cost reduction. An example is provided to illustrate the proposed adaptive control chart design approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years many countries have embarked on various types of health and mental health reform. These reforms have in large part been driven by governments' concerns for cost containment which has, in turn, been driven by an increasing process of global marketization and the need to control national deficits. A critical issue in these reforms is the increased emphasis on the use of "market mechanisms" in the delivery of health and mental health services. This paper uses a policy analysis framework to compare recent developments in the mental health sector in Canada, the United States, Britain and Australia. The common framework to be used for this will focus on: the defining characteristics of the society; legislative mandate; sectorial location (within or separate from health sector); funding streams; organising values of the system; locus of service delivery; service technologies; the role of social work; interprofessional dynamics; the role of consumers; and evaluation of outcomes at multiple levels. This analysis provides an opportunity to explore similarities and differences in mental system reform and in particular identify the challenges for social work in the field of mental health in the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chapter 24 of the book "2001 Innovative Ways to Save Your Company Thousands by Reducing Costs: A Complete Guide to Creative Cost Cutting and Boosting Profits," by Cheryl L. Russell is presented. It discusses how to reduce the costs of office supplies by using electronic mails and making employees informed and accountable. It provides tips on how to reduce costs on office machines such as printers, photocopiers and faxes by selling on an online auction or by donating to a charity.

This chapter presents some methods of time series analysis, both univariate and multivariate time series. The attention is put on two approaches, extreme value analysis and copula analysis. The presented methods are illustrated by examples coming from Poland's financial market. The analysis of the distribution of the extremum is simply the analysis of the random variable, defined as the maximum or minimum of a set of random variables.