Costing method

Blown Film. The blown or tubular film process provides a low cost method for production of thin films (Fig. 3). In this process, the hot melt is extmded through an aimular circular die either upward or downward and, less frequently, horizontally. The tube is inflated with air to a diameter... 

Top Goats. The selection of a top coat depends on cost, method of appHcation, and product use and performance requirements, among other factors. As a result of increasingly stringent air quaHty standards and increased solvent costs, approaches to reduction of solvent emissions are being sought. 

In both the average-cost and the standard-cost methods of valuing inventory, materials are not charged out at actual cost. Thus, the amount of profit or loss for the period may be varied by the method chosen to value the inventoiy. For this reason, accountants usually insist that the method of inventory valuation be consistent from period to period. This causes inertia but does not prevent a change of method men it can be justified. In such cases, it is usual to inform stockholders of the change because the influence on declared profits can be large. 

The unit-cost method can give a quick and accurate estimation, provided it is based on accumulated data from many jobs on various types of plant. The ac tual data are analyzed to provide unit-cost information for elec trical components as follows ... 

Optimal economic insulation thickness may be determined Iw various methods. Two of these are the minimum-total-cost method and the incremental-cost method (or marginal-cost method). The minimum-total-cost method involves the actual calculations of lost energy and insulation costs for each insulation thickness. The thickness producing the lowest total cost is the optimal economic solution. The optimum thickness is determined to be the point where the last dollar invested in insulation results in exactly 1 in energy-cost savings ( ETI— Economic Thickness for Industrial Insulation, Conservation Pap. 46, Federal Energy Administration, August 1976). The incremental-cost method provides a simplified and direcl solution for the least-cost thickness. 

Huiidal, M. S. 1997 Product Costing a comparison of conventional and activity based costing methods. Journal of Engineering Design, 8(1), 91-103. 

The general strategy embodied by this table is to select the most accurate calculation that is computationally practical for a given size system. Note that for the lower-cost methods, you will also need to add diffuse functions and/or additional polarization functions on the hydrogen atoms as appropriate for the systems you are studying. 

Capital investments can also be selected on the basis of other measures of performance such as return on investment, internal rate of return, and benefit-cost ratio (or savings-to-investment ratio). Flowever, care must be taken in the application of these methods, as an incremental analysis is required to ensure consistent comparison of mutually exclusive alternatives. Also, rather than requiring a separate value to be calculated for each alternative, as in the case of the life-cycle cost method, these other methods incorporate the difference between two mutually exclusive alternatives within a single measure. For example, the net benefits measure directly pressures the degree to which one alternative is more economically desirable than another. 

Probing, driving a rod or pipe into the soil and measuring the penetration resistance, obtains initial subsurface information. This is a low-cost method, but in general it is likely to supply inadequate information about subsurface conditions, especially on the depth and nature of bedrock. 

For the case where the departure is more severe than this example, the holographic approach would probably be applied to the test plate method. Particularly if small holograms placed near the focus of the returning rays were used, and this would certainly be the less costly method, ahgnment features could be built into the hologram that would help keep the segment in the correct lateral position and rotational orientation about the 2 axis relative to the test plat and hologram. 

The friction cost method (Koopmanschap et al. 1995) assumes that the human capital approach has a tendency to overestimate the indirect household costs. If a worker is seriously sick or dies, his job will be vacant for some time until a new person is hired or trained. However, the loss will not be there for many years. Therefore, the loss of human capital is calculated not until the time of retirement, but until the time of replacement. This approach is correct for unskilled labor in a situation of unemployment. It fits neither to a fully employed economy nor to a subsistence farmer society where there is no substitution of a father who died. 

There is a growing body of literature on the costs of HIV/AIDS (Homberger et al. 2007), but all studies address only one branch of the COI tree (Fig. 1). Until now there is not a single publication fully covering all aspects of COI of HIV/AIDS, and different methodologies (such as human capital approach vs. friction cost method) make comparison difficult. In addition, the time lag between the year of the study and the publication is between 3 and 10 years. That is one reason why we know so little about the costs of the last 5 years results are not yet published. 

In most studies, phytoestrogen intake has been estimated by direct methods that evaluate food intake either by recall (food-frequency questionnaires -FFQs) or by record (food diary), and subsequently by composition databases based on information of this kind. Food-frequency questionnaires are widely administered to subjects involved in epidemiological studies. Their validity and reproducibility is considered sufficient when statistically correlated to data obtained from dietary records (a properly-completed and comprehensive food diary) and from analysis of blood and urine samples (Kirk et ah, 1999 Huang et al, 2000 Yamamoto et al, 2001 Verkasalo et al, 2001). FFQs can be repeated several times a year and may be administered to large populations. Such an approach provides an easy and low-cost method of assessing the... 

Despite being a fast and relatively low-cost method, thin layer chromatography shows low resolution as it involves a large surface in contact with air, promoting photoxidation. Acidity of silica gels should be neutralized because it may trigger chlorophyll degradation by pheophytinization. ... 

Prior to a method trial, the FDA strongly recommends that a second analyst or independent laboratory perform the method. The independent analyst is asked follow the method SOP as written. This analyst should not have been involved in developing the method or be familiar with it in any way. The purpose of the independent analysis is to determine if a qualified chemist can perform the method described without input other than that provided in the written instmctions. This trial mn will typically identify problems with the SOP that are not apparent to the method developer. Although not required by the FDA, the independent assessment can identify potential problems with the method SOP prior to the lengthy and costly method trial. A trial mn offers the method developer an opportunity to correct problems and to increase the probability that subsequent method trials will be successful. Finally, the method developer should realize that the variability achieved in his/her laboratory is often less than that realized by less experienced analysts. If a method cannot achieve a suitable degree of repeatability in the developer s laboratory, it should not be expected to do any better in other laboratories. 

In this chapter the various components that make up the capital cost of a plant and the components of the operating costs are discussed, and the techniques used for estimating reviewed briefly. Simple costing methods and some cost data are given, which can be used to make preliminary estimates of capital and operating costs at the flow-sheet stage. They can also be used to cost out alternative processing schemes and equipment. 

The performance of a biotreatment system ultimately depends on optimization of the activity of microbes and the ability to control the process parameters of the treatment system [157]. In this respect, the ability to monitor gene copy numbers and gene expression is highly useful for real time optimization of the efficiency of a biotreatment system. Advanced molecular techniques as well as low cost methods (e.g., antibody detection of enzymes based on color reaction strips fluorescence i.e., GFP marked organisms with UV light detection) can also be applied to monitor the microbial community structure, persistence of the added bacteria, and their interactions with indigenous populations. 

Kapur, V. K. Basol, B. M. Tseng, E. S. 1987. Low cost methods for the production of semiconductor films for CuInSe2/CdS solar cells. Solar Cells 21 65-72. 

Methanol and ethanol are alcohol fuels that can be produced from various renewable sources. Alcohol fuels are converted from biomass or other feedstocks using one or several conversion techniques. Both government and private research programs are finding more effective, less costly methods of converting biomass to alcohol fuels. Methanol was originally a by-product of charcoal production, but today it is primarily produced from natural gas and can also be made from biomass and coal. 

Figure 13.12. Shares of added value of the individual components of a fuel cell (by the target costing method) and a combustion engine drive system (Schirrmeister et al., 2002).

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