323,328 research outputs found
AN ECONOMETRIC MODEL OF EMPLOYMENT IN ZIMBABWE¡¯S MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES
No full textThis paper is concerned with the estimation of employment relationship and employment efficiency under production risk using a panel of Zimbabwe¡¯s manufacturing industries. A flexible labour demand function is used consisting of two parts: the traditional labour demand function and labour demand variance function. Labour demand is a function of wages, output, quasi-fixed inputs and time variables. The variance function is a function of the determinants of labour demand and a number of production and policy characteristic variables. Estimation of industry and time-varying employment efficiency is also considered. The empirical results show that the average employment efficiency is 92%.Labour demand, Variance, Efficiency, Manufacturing, Industries, Zimbabwe
Upgrading wineries to biorefineries within a Circular Economy perspective: An Italian case study
No full textIn the challenge of transforming waste into useful products that can be re-used in a circular perspective, Italian wine industry can represent a suitable model for the application of the bioeconomy principles, including the valorisation of the agricultural and food waste. In the present study, a comprehensive environmental assessment of the traditional production of wine was performed and the potentiality of a biorefinery system, based on winery waste and aimed at recovering useful bio-based products, such as grapeseed oil and calcium tartrate, was examined through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The wine company "I Borboni", producing Asprinio wine in the Campania Region (Italy), was proposed as a case study. The hotspots of the linear production system were identified and the bottling phase, in particular the production of packaging glass, resulted to contribute to the generation of impacts at 63%, on average, versus 14.3% of the agricultural phase and 22.7% of the vinification phase. The LCA results indicated human carcinogenic toxicity, freshwater eutrophication and fossil resource scarcity impact categories as the most affected ones, with normalized impacts amounting to 9.22E-03, 3.89E-04 and 2.64E-04, respectively. Two side production chains (grapeseed oil and tartrate production) were included and circular patterns were designed and introduced in the traditional production chain with the aim of valorising the winery residues and improving the overall environmental performance. By implementing the circular approach, environmental impacts in the global warming, freshwater eutrophication and mineral resource scarcity impact categories, in particular, resulted three times lower than in the linear system. The results achieved demonstrated that closing the loops in the wine industry, through the reuse of bio-based residues alternatively to fossil-based inputs within the production process, and integrating the traditional production system with new side production chains led to an upgrade of the wineries to biorefineries, towards more sustainable production patterns. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
Harnessing intellectual property for development : some thoughts on an appropriate theoretical framework
No full textIntellectual Property (IP) law is expected to provide equitable protection for eligible kinds of works in virtually all industries; to achieve fair treatment of creator, user and societal interests; and to contribute to a country's efforts to achieve economic development. This is a tall order and debates pertaining to IP law tend to be heated and heavily contested due to the tensions caused by these high expectations. In an effort to move such debates forward, this paper advances a nuanced framework through which contested IP issues may be resolved and upon which national IP policy and legislation may be based
Circular Economy and Green Chemistry: The Need for Radical Innovative Approaches in the Design for New Products
No full textThe idea of a circular economy (CE) has gained ground over the past ten years as a means of addressing sustainable development and getting around the limitations of the current and linear dominant production and consumption patterns. The primary goal of a CE is to encourage the adoption of closing-the-loop production methods to improve resource use efficiency, modify chemical processes, and increase product and material lifespan. According to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which focuses on 17 Sustainable Development Goals, 14 of which call for the appropriate application of green chemistry (GC) concepts and patterns, the role that chemistry may play in the shift toward more sustainable models is critical. By serving as the foundation for novel products made from renewable feedstocks and designed to be reused, recycled, or recovered with the associated minimum energy requirements, green and sustainable chemistry could be the key to unlocking the economic potential of the CE toward new product design and ultimately solving waste management problems. The aim of this perspective paper, while using a variety of literature sources, is to essentially capture the main issues associated with the CE and GC paradigms and how these two approaches can merge toward sustainable business models and the production of new materials. This integration focuses on reducing waste, conserving resources, and minimizing negative environmental impacts, while also considering economic viability. However, the obstacles to achieving implementation of the CE and GC principles are investment, environmental education, and legislation. To advance toward the circular economy and green chemistry, international agreements should be reconsidered to provide an appropriate framework, including the creation of incentives for businesses and individuals to adopt circular practices, the establishment of education programs to promote the benefits of circular practices, and the development of regulations to support the transition to sustainable production and consumption patterns
Moving towards resource efficiency and circular economy in the brick manufacturing sector in Zimbabwe
No full textThe life cycle assessment of the ABC (Pvt) Ltd brick manufacturing plant has considered land use, fossil resource scarcity, water consumption, global warming and fine particulate matter formation as the impact categories for assessment, with clay mining and coal as the input flows with the highest significant contributions to environmental load. The phase of clay mining (65.8%) is significantly impacting on all the investigated impact categories followed by brick moulding (24.8%) and brick roasting (9.4%) phases, respectively. Hotspots were assessed to identify potential for resource efficiency and circular economy at ABC bricks, Zimbabwe. It can be concluded that ABC is severely polluting the air with emissions above the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) standards for SO2, CO, PM and NOx thus putting kiln workers at risk of respiratory diseases. The calculated Air Quality Index (AQI) ranks CO as the most affecting pollutant with an average score of ∼600. Clay production efficiency was also determined, and an analysis revealed that extrusion and clamping stage contributed highly to the clay losses during brick moulding. Therefore, focus must be placed on these process steps to reduce raw material losses. Furthermore, an environmental waste (fly ash) was used in different weight percentage ratios of 10%, 20% and 100% to substitute clay. The increase of the fly ash content in the brick making process proved to significantly reduce the environmental load among the selected impact categories. ABC uses clay as its main raw material hence the high demand for clay. Strategies should include accounting of used clay daily and raw materials substitution. If ABC uses fly ash from its brick kilns and from other thermal power plant boilers to mix with clay in brick production, then the quantity of clay demanded will be reduced. Using fly ash will reduce rate of clay extraction while at the same time solving the problem of fly ash disposal in Zimbabwe. This circular option will ultimately result in reduced pit expansion, hence reducing top-soil loss and environmental degradation. It should not be disregarded that top-soil loss in turn affects food security. By adopting appropriate technologies, implementing resource efficiency, and designing circular economy patterns, the brick manufacturing sector in Zimbabwe may not only reduce production waste but also comply with enforced environmental protection legislation
Potential energy savings from circular economy scenarios based on construction and agri-food waste in Italy
No full textIn this study, our aim was to explore the potential energy savings obtainable from the recycling of 1 tonne of Construction and Demolition Waste (C&DW) generated in the Metropolitan City of Naples. The main fraction composing the functional unit are mixed C&DW, soil and stones, concrete, iron, steel and aluminium. The results evidence that the recycling option for the C&DW is better than landfilling as well as that the production of recycled aggregates is environmentally sustainable since the induced energy and environmental impacts are lower than the avoided energy and environmental impacts in the life cycle of recycled aggregates. This LCA study shows that the transition to the Circular Economy offers many opportunities for improving the energy and environmental performances of the construction sector in the life cycle of construction materials by means of internal recycling strategies (recycling C&DW into recycled aggregates, recycled steel, iron and aluminum) as well as external recycling by using input of other sectors (agri-food by-products) for the manufacturing of construction materials. In this way, the C&D sector also contributes to realizing the energy and bioeconomy transition by disentangling itself from fossil fuel dependence
Upgrading wineries to biorefineries within a Circular Economy perspective: An Italian case study
No full textIn the challenge of transforming waste into useful products that can be re-used in a circular perspective, Italian wine industry can represent a suitable model for the application of the bioeconomy principles, including the valorisation of the agricultural and food waste. In the present study, a comprehensive environmental assessment of the traditional production of wine was performed and the potentiality of a biorefinery system, based on winery waste and aimed at recovering useful bio-based products, such as grapeseed oil and calcium tartrate, was examined through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The wine company “I Borboni”, producing Asprinio wine in the Campania Region (Italy), was proposed as a case study. The hotspots of the linear production system were identified and the bottling phase, in particular the production of packaging glass, resulted to contribute to the generation of impacts at 63%, on average, versus 14.3% of the agricultural phase and 22.7% of the vinification phase. The LCA results indicated human carcinogenic toxicity, freshwater eutrophication and fossil resource scarcity impact categories as the most affected ones, with normalized impacts amounting to 9.22E−03, 3.89E−04 and 2.64E−04, respectively. Two side production chains (grapeseed oil and tartrate production) were included and circular patterns were designed and introduced in the traditional production chain with the aim of valorising the winery residues and improving the overall environmental performance. By implementing the circular approach, environmental impacts in the global warming, freshwater eutrophication and mineral resource scarcity impact categories, in particular, resulted three times lower than in the linear system. The results achieved demonstrated that closing the loops in the wine industry, through the reuse of bio-based residues alternatively to fossil-based inputs within the production process, and integrating the traditional production system with new side production chains led to an upgrade of the wineries to biorefineries, towards more sustainable production patterns
Computing Eigenvalues And Eigenvectors Of A Dense Real Symmetric Matrix On The Ncube 6400
No full textThis report demonstrates parallel versions of the Eispack [Smith 76] functions TRED2 and TQL2 for finding all eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a dense, real symmetric matrix on the Ncube 6400. The real symmetric eigenvalue problem can be posed as follows: Given a real symmetric n \Theta n matrix A, compute a diagonal matrix D and an orthonormal matrix Q such that
Diffusive author(s), cohesive author: Analysis of S/N (1994)
No full textThis study indicates the ways in which various aspects of the author(s) are brought forth in Dumb type’s performance art, the S/N production. Previous research has suggested a non-hierarchical organization of Dumb type and the absence of a “privileged author” in Dumb type’s collaborative work, S/N. However, the results that I have investigated from member’s interviews on the creative process of S/N along with my analysis of the recorded images of S/N, indicate a different aspect of the author(s). First, S/N was created through, so to speak, the collective ideas of the members of Dumb type. Further, S/N has at least nine quotations from previous performances, installations, and printed writings, besides the work-in-progress technique. Explicating one of the “author functions” as given by Michel Foucault, each text has plural subjects of the author. However, it has been revealed from members’ interviews that Teiji Furuhashi had a decision-making role in selecting the members’ ideas within the performance. Since then, S/N has had plural subjects of creation; however, Furuhashi is one of the subjects of creation along with the “privileged author.” S/N has plural authors (diffusive authors) yet at the same time, it has a “privileged author,” Teiji Furuhashi (cohesive author)
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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