Search results for "11"

Exploring the application of blockchain to humanitarian supply chains: insights from Humanitarian Supply Blockchain pilot project

2021

PurposeSome studies and reports have recently suggested using blockchain technology to improve transparency and trust in humanitarian supply chains (HSCs). However, evidence-based studies to display the utility and applicability of blockchains in HSCs are missing in the literature. This paper aims to investigate the key drivers and barriers of blockchain application to HSCs and explore whether evidence could support that the application of blockchain improves transparency and trust in HSCs.Design/methodology/approachThis paper puts forward a two-stage approach to explore the blockchain application in HSCs: an initial exploration of humanitarian practitioners and academicians interested in b…

Conditional Versus Joint Probability Assessments

1984

AbstractThe assessment of conditional and / or joint probabilities of events that constitute scenarios is necessary for sound planning, forecasting, and decision making. The assessment process is complex and subtle, and various difficulties are encountered in the elicitation of such probabilities such as, implicit violations ofthe probability calculus and some meaningfjilness conditions. The necessary and sufficient as well as meaningfulness conditions that the elicited information on conditional and joint probabilities must satisfy are evaluated against actual assessments empirically. A high frequency of violation of these conditions was observed in assessing both conditional and joint pro…

Aesthetic considerations for the min-max K-Windy Rural Postman Problem

2017

[EN] The aesthetic quality of routes is a feature of route planning that is of practical importance, but receives relatively little attention in the literature. Several practitioners have pointed out that the visual appeal of a proposed set of routes can have a strong influence on the willingness of a client to accept or reject a specific routing plan. While some work has analyzed algorithmic performance relative to traditional min-sum or min-max objective functions and aesthetic objective functions, we are not aware of any work that has considered a multi-objective approach. This work considers a multi-objective variant of the Min-Max K-Vehicles Windy Rural Postman Problem, discusses sever…

Heat Pump Induction Motor Faults Caused by Soft Starter Topology — Case Study

2021

This paper presents a case study of electrical machine faults, emerging in heat pump systems. In Nordic countries, heat pumps have been gaining popularity during the past years and have become one of the leading ways of heating in households and smaller public buildings. Although not a very complicated setup, the devices used are still prone to unexpected failures, especially if wrongly chosen, installed or maintained. The paper presents a study conducted on five real-life cases with very similar outcomes and failure modes. The setup of the systems is explained, faults are listed and presented, causes of the faults including modeling and measurement data are provided. The suggestions are gi…

Special issue on "Cutting and Packing"

2013

A flexible robotic cell for in-process inspection of multi-pass welds

2020

Welds are currently only inspected after all the passes are complete and after allowing sufficient time for any hydrogen cracking to develop, typically over several days. Any defects introduced between passes are therefore unreported until fully buried, greatly complicating rework and also delaying early corrections to the weld process parameters. In-process inspection can provide early intervention but involves many challenges, including operation at high temperatures with significant gradients affecting acoustic velocities and, hence, beam directions. Reflections from the incomplete parts of the weld would also be flagged as lack-of-fusion defects, requiring the region of interest (ROI) t…

A Novel Border Identification Algorithm Based on an “Anti-Bayesian” Paradigm

2013

Published version of a chapter in the book: Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40261-6_23 Border Identification (BI) algorithms, a subset of Prototype Reduction Schemes (PRS) aim to reduce the number of training vectors so that the reduced set (the border set) contains only those patterns which lie near the border of the classes, and have sufficient information to perform a meaningful classification. However, one can see that the true border patterns (“near” border) are not able to perform the task independently as they are not able to always distinguish the testing samples. Thus, researchers have worked on thi…

Pricing Sovereign Contingent Convertible Debt

2016

We develop a pricing model for sovereign contingent convertible bonds (S-CoCo) with payment standstills triggered by a sovereign's credit default swap CDS spread. One innovation is the modeling of CDS spread regime switching which is prevalent during crises. Regime switching is modeled as a hidden Markov process and is integrated with a stochastic process of spread levels to obtain S-CoCo prices through simulation. The paper goes a step further and uses the pricing model in a Longstaff-Schwartz. American option pricing framework to compute state contingent S-CoCo prices at some risk horizon, thus facilitating risk management. Dual trigger pricing is also discussed using the idiosyncratic CD…

Measurement and Prediction of Centrifugal Compressor Axial Forces During Surge—Part II: Dynamic Surge Model

2017

The force acting on centrifugal compressors is an important parameter to be considered throughout the operating life of these turbomachines. When the compressor is operating in surge conditions, these forces can become highly dangerous for the mechanical and aerodynamic structures. This instability is usually avoided in industrial applications, but the antisurge system may not react in time when emergency shutdowns or power failures take place. During these rapid transients, surge can develop, generating unsteady forces which can harm the close clearance components of the compressor. Therefore, the capability to predict the characteristics and the dynamics of these surge forces would allow …

Grading investment diversification options in presence of non-historical financial information

2021

Modern portfolio theory deals with the problem of selecting a portfolio of financial assets such that the expected return is maximized for a given level of risk. The forecast of the expected individual assets’ returns and risk is usually based on their historical returns. In this work, we consider a situation in which the investor has non-historical additional information that is used for the forecast of the expected returns. This implies that there is no obvious statistical risk measure any more, and it poses the problem of selecting an adequate set of diversification constraints to mitigate the risk of the selected portfolio without losing the value of the non-statistical information owne…