250 research outputs found
The Near Future of Parcel Delivery: Selecting Sustainable Solutions for Parcel Delivery
No full textThe GHG-emissions of the transport sector are still increasing. This trend isaccompanied by the strong growth of the e-commerce sector, leading to moretransport movements on our road networks. In order to mitigate theexternalities of the e-commerce related parcel delivery market and try tomake it more sustainable, the following research question has been drafted:How could the last mile parcel delivery process become more sustainable,i.e. how to minimise traffic impacts and emissions, while maintaining thesocial and economic benefits of e-commerce and home deliveries?To answer the research question, this study follows a Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Approach (MAMCA), which is defined especially for large projectsthat require high stakeholder involvement. Based on a stakeholder analysisand an analysis of their points of view, a sustainability framework has beendefined. This framework consists of a set of criteria along which several‘more sustainable’ last mile alternatives have been assessed. The mostimportant criteria are the reduction of GHG emissions, delivery time, costsand customer satisfaction.This study assesses the costs and benefits of the implementation of cargobikes, electric vans, Urban Consolidation Centres (UCCs), crowdsourcingsystems, and evening and night time deliveries. First, a Simple Multi-Attribute Rating Technique (SMART) method is applied to identify thealternative(s) that offer the highest utility (most benefits). According to theSMART analysis, parcel lockers, UCCs (with electric transport) and nightdelivery are the most beneficial alternatives for a sustainable last mile in alldifferent cases (best-, middle- and worst-cases). After implementing thesealternatives in a Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) model and conductingcarefully designed experiments with it, the conclusion can be drawn thatimplementing or expanding the parcel locker infrastructure significantlyenhances the operational efficiency. Furthermore, these lockers can easily bereplenished by night, which reduces the traffic impact of parcel delivery evenfurther.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Transport and LogisticsPolicy Analysi
COLOR OF CREATORSHIP - Author\u27s Response
No full textThis essay is the author\u27s response to three reviews of The Color of Creatorship written by notable intellectual property scholars and published in the IP Law Book Review
Measuring microfinance access : building on existing cross-country data
Get PDFGiven the acknowledged need for a new effort to expand the set of available data on direct access to financial services, including a focus on access by those at low income, Honohan provides a selective review of the diverse sources of data that exist and considers how best to build on them. He proposes a basic framework within which to consider the analysis of the interesting questions: (1) How does access affect poverty and productivity? and (2) What hinders access? The author discusses existing and potential contribution of household and business user surveys, surveys of providers and their regulators, and surveys of experts, and assesses their relative strengths.Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Poverty Assessment,Governance Indicators
Diversity and disparity?: motherhood wage gaps, attainment and assimilation levels for first- and second-generation immigrants
No full textThis dissertation examines gender- and immigrant nativity-based inequalities in educational and occupational attainment, earnings and wages. It uses an intersectional theoretical framework. The first chapter asks whether mothers have lower wages than women without children, and whether any disparities vary by mothers’ nativities. The second chapter asks how second-generation immigrants’ educational and occupational attainment and earnings compare to their parents’ generation, and to a group of their nonimmigrant peers. Findings are that both first-generation immigrant and nonimmigrant mothers experience wage gaps. Corrections for additional characteristics that might differ between mothers and nonmothers reduce the sizes of gaps. Corrections for characteristics linked to decisions to immigrate increase gaps for a group of recent immigrants. Within most second-generation pan ethnic Latino and Asian groups and country of origin groups from Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, China and India, women’s outcome attainment levels exceed those of their mothers by more than men’s outcome attainment levels do compared to their fathers. However, gender earnings gaps persist, with men having higher earnings than women across pan ethnic groups. Additionally, despite some assimilation across generations, many disparities remain between second-generation immigrants and nonimmigrants.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Anjali Srivastav
Studies on camel hair - merino wool blended knitted fabrics
No full text317-319Effect of
blending camel kid hair with merino wool on performance of resultant yarn and
fabric has been studied. Camel hair (CH) has been blended with merino wool (M)
in three different ratios, viz. 25:75, 75:25 and 50:50 on khadi hand spinning
system. Knitted fabric samples are then prepared on circular hand knitting
machine. Properties of yarn and knitted fabric are also evaluated. It is found
that the blending of merino wool with camel hair improves fineness and strength
of yarn. Performance of CH75:M25 knitted fabric is found better in terms of
strength and warmth, whereas CH25:M75 fabric shows higher abrasion resistance
and better knitting performance and hand
An analysis of drug migration during drying of granules as an underlying cause of content non-uniformity in wet granulation
No full textGranulation is an integral step during pharmaceutical manufacturing of solid doses, which is usually followed by unit operations such as drying, milling, tableting and coating. Granulation is typically carried out to alleviate problems in powder handling, content non-uniformity, segregation and poor flow properties of powders. However, previous work carried out by Oka et. al. (Oka, Emady et al. 2015) points out that sometimes a wet granulation process might fail to give us a robust product, especially in case of a low dose drug product. Multiple factors such as segregation, wettability properties of formulation ingredients and active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) solubility in the binder solution were found to impact the distribution and consequent availability of the drug in the finished dosage form. The focus of this work is to understand the effect of the solubility of an API on its distribution within granule cores and across granule size classes upon drying. When a wet granule containing a water-soluble API is dried, it is likely that the dissolved API will migrate towards the periphery of the granule as the solvent evaporates. Consequently, the migrated active can deposit itself on the outer crust of the granule upon recrystallization from the evaporating binder solvent. Subsequent powder handling may lead to attrition of this deposited active, thereby creating super-potent fines and resulting in severe non-homogeneity and product losses (Oka, Emady et al. 2015). In the case of pharmaceutical granulation, a greater extent of API migration can not only compromise the structural integrity of the granules (Poutiainen, Honkanen et al. 2012) but also lead to poor flow and incomplete granulation resulting in content nonuniformity. This thesis investigates the extent of drug (active) migration in granules made via high shear wet granulation subject to the viscosity of the binder solution, particle size of the excipient and granule porosity. X-ray micrtomography was used to analyze the spatial distribution of the recrystallized API. Due to the complexity of a qualitative comparison between granules having different sizes, shape and porosities, a quantification technique that is independent of these differences is warranted. The extent of capillary migration in the resulting granules was analyzed by dividing the μ-CT images into conical sections and quantifying the distribution of the active across these conical cross-sections. Computational tools have been used to define a dimensionless radial distribution function (RDF) to quantify the spatial distribution of the active ingredient in granules produced under different processing conditions. Statistical analysis was performed to quantify the extent of aforementioned variables on the extent of migration. Thus, a comprehensive investigation into the causes of drug migration was carried out in this study to ascertain which factors or combination of factors have the most prominent effect on the extent of migration of a water soluble API during granule drying. Hence, this study aims to identify the optimal operating conditions and drying parameters to design a robust wet granulation process and subsequently address content non-uniformity issues in pharmaceutical processes.M.S.Includes bibliographical referencesby Anjali Katari
The state of the art of strategic leadership
Get PDFStrategic leadership is a rich yet fragmented area of research. To address this gap, this article aims to consolidate
and provide a state-of-the-art overview of strategic leadership research. To achieve its aim, this article conducts a
bibliometric-temporal analysis of strategic leadership using bibliometric data of relevant literature available
through Scopus, the largest scientific database for review endeavors. Using 6024 documents of strategic leadership
research identified and retrieved from Scopus, this article reveals the performance (e.g., year, article,
journal, author, country) and science (e.g., topics, themes) of strategic leadership research across four decades.
Noteworthily, strategic leadership is inherently grounded in digital transformation, innovation, and the upper
echelons, with a growing footprint that spans across basic management and organizational activities; competitive
advantage capabilities and strategies; the multiple roles of managers; the leadership, innovative, and strategic
functions of management and upper echelons, including those specific to top management teams; the strategic
leader; strategic choices; strategic teams; as well as strategic succession. More importantly, the review herein this
article, to the best knowledge of the authors, represents the largest consolidation effort and review of strategic
leadership research using scientific methods adopted from information science in the form of a bibliometrictemporal
analysis, and thus, providing a state of the art of strategic leadership
Psychometrics for Forensic Fingerprint Comparisons
Get PDFForensic science often involves the evaluation of crime-scene evidence to determine whether it matches a known-source sample, such as whether a fingerprint or DNA was left by a suspect or if a bullet was fired from a specific firearm. Even as forensic measurement and analysis tools become increasingly automated and objective, final source decisions are often left to individual examiners’ interpretation of the evidence. Furthermore, forensic analyses often consist of a series of steps. While some of these steps may be straightforward and relatively objective, substantial variation may exist in more subjective decisions. The current approach to characterizing uncertainty in forensic decision-making has largely centered around conducting error rate studies (in which examiners evaluate a set of items consisting of known-source comparisons) and calculating error rates aggregated across examiners and identification tasks. We propose a new approach using Item Response Theory (IRT) and IRT-like models to account for differences in examiner behavior and for varying difficulty among identification tasks. There are, however, substantial differences between forensic decision-making and traditional IRT applications such as educational testing. For example, the structure of the response process must be considered, “answer keys” for comparison tasks do not exist, and information about participants and items is not available due to privacy constraints. In this paper, we provide an overview of forensic decision-making, outline challenges in applying IRT in practice, and survey some recent advances in the application of Bayesian psychometric models to fingerprint examiner behavior.The following proceeding is published as Luby, Amanda, Anjali Mazumder, and Brian Junker. "Psychometrics for Forensic Fingerprint Comparisons." In Quantitative Psychology, pp. 385-397. Springer, Cham, 2021. Posted with permission of CSAFE
Novel controlled ionic gelation strategy for chitosan nanoparticles preparation using TPP-β-CD inclusion complex
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