Subjective costs

The traditional way to evaluate the hotness in peppers or hot sauces is through a taste panel, measured by the Scoville scale, through a series of comparative evaluations of diluted samples. The taste panel method is subjective, costly, and time consuming. Capsaicins can be analyzed directly (without derivatization) by HPLC. The method is precise and rapid (20 minutes), and requires only a drop of filtered hot sauce. Figure 7.8 shows the... 

An investigation of the costs of occupational accidents for the UK as a whole has considered the costs under two headings resource costs covering lost output, damage to plant, medical treatment and administrative costs, and subjective costs relating to pain and suffering of the victim and his family. 

Resource costs Subjective costs Total costs ... 

To be equally effective to all road users, the risk of apprehension and cost of traffic violations should be the same for all road users. However, this is not easy to accomplish, because the same monitory fine has a different subjective cost for people with different incomes. The most extreme - and psychologically sound - example of attempting to make the punishment equally meaningful to all road users is implemented in Finland, where fines are tied to the violator s income level. This has resulted in a few headline-grabbing fines of over 100,000( ) for speeding (AP, 2002 BBC 2004), However, it is unlikely that Finland s high safety levels are due to these draconian measures. In fact, excessive penalties tend to boomerang because the police are less inclined to issue a citation (Bjomskau and Elvik, 1992) and the drivers are more inclined to contest them. 

In general, people tend to terminate the search when they have found a satisfying solution, rather than searching for more information to find an optimal solution. The subjective cost-benefit evaluation made by the decisionmaker in searching for information is illustrated by Figure 10.3. 

People will terminate the search for additional information when they experience that the subjective costs (time, attention, etc.) exceed the benefits. In practice, SHE-related information has to compete with other types of information to receive the decision-makers attention. We have to design the SHE information systems in a way that minimises the costs of searching for and analysing information and maximises the usefulness of the information. 

These marginal costing approaches to costing steam are unsatisfactory. Within operating companies, few subjects generate more controversy than the value placed on different steam levels. 

For trace quantities of less than 100 ppm, the most successful method — and the most costly— is neutron activation. The sample is subjected to neutron bombardment in an accelerator where oxygen 16 is converted to unstable nitrogen 16 having a half-life of seven seconds. This is accompanied by emission of (J and 7 rays which are detected and measured. Oxygen concentrations as low as 10 ppm can be detected. At such levels, the problem is to find an acceptable blank sample. 

The high C/H ratio for heavy fuels and their high levels of contaminants such as sulfur, water, and sediment, tend to reduce their NHV which can reach as low as 40,000 kJ/kg by comparison to the 42,500 kJ/kg for a conventional home-heating oil. This characteristic is not found in the specifications, but it is a main factor in price negotiations for fuels in terms of cost per ton. Therefore it is subject to frequent verification. 

The example just shown assumed one discount rate and one oil price. Since the oil price is notoriously unpredictable, and the discount rate is subjective, it is useful to calculate the NPV at a range of oil prices and discount rates. One presentation of this data would be in the form of a matrix. The appropriate discount rates would be 0% (undiscounted),.say 10% (the cost of capital), and say 20% (the cost of capital plus an allowance for risk). The range of oil prices is again a subjective judgement. 

Extend the safe useful operation life of major HT/HP power plant items, subject to time-dependent creep and thermal fatigue damage, with benefits in terms of delayed costs for component replacement. 

Type J thermocouples (Table 11.58) are one of the most common types of industrial thermocouples because of the relatively high Seebeck coefficient and low cost. They are recommended for use in the temperature range from 0 to 760°C (but never above 760°C due to an abrupt magnetic transformation that can cause decalibration even when returned to lower temperatures). Use is permitted in vacuum and in oxidizing, reducing, or inert atmospheres, with the exception of sulfurous atmospheres above 500°C. For extended use above 500°C, heavy-gauge wires are recommended. They are not recommended for subzero temperatures. These thermocouples are subject to poor conformance characteristics because of impurities in the iron. 

While the principal value of the book is for the professional chemist or student of chemistry, it should also be of value to many people not especially educated as chemists. Workers in the natural sciences—physicists, mineralogists, biologists, pharmacists, engineers, patent attorneys, and librarians—are often called upon to solve problems dealing with the properties of chemical products or materials of construction. Eor such needs this compilation supplies helpful information and will serve not only as an economical substitute for the costly accumulation of a large library of monographs on specialized subjects, but also as a means of conserving the time required to search for... 

Acetone cracks to ketene, and may then be converted to anhydride by reaction with acetic acid. This process consumes somewhat less energy and is a popular subject for chemical engineering problems (24,25). The cost of acetone works against widespread appHcation of this process, however. 

Vents and flares are intended to take contaminants released from safety valves away from work areas. However, if an elevated vent is at the level of an occupiable platform on the same or an adjacent unit, a worker may, under certain wind conditions, be subject to the nearly undiluted effluent of a vent. Whereas such elevated platforms may rarely be occupied, a heavy exposure from a vent could incapacitate a worker or cause a fall. Tanks that vent only when being filled are common causes of this concern. The usual solution is to raise the vent above any occupiable platform or, at greater cost, to scmb the vent effluent. 

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