Development of a mechatronic sorting system for removing contaminants from wool

Automated visual inspection (AVI) systems have been extended to many fields, such as agriculture and the food, plastic and textile industries. Generally, most visual systems only inspect product defects, and then analyze and grade them due to the lack of any sorting function. This main reason rests with the difficulty of using the image data in real time. However, it is increasingly important to either sort good products from bad or grade products into separate groups usingAVI systems. This article describes the development of a mechatronic sorting system and its integration with a vision system for automatically removing contaminants from wool in real time. The integration is implemented by a personal computer, which continuously processes live images under the Windows 2000 operating system. The developed real-time sorting approach is also applicable to many other AVI systems

Monitoring the effects of impact damages on modal parameters in carbon fiber entangled sandwich beams

The aim is to study the impact toughness of two types of entangled sandwich materials (heavy and light) with the help of vibration testing. A simple case of symmetrical impacts is studied in this article as no literature is available regarding impact tests on entangled sandwich materials. The variation of modal parameters with two levels of damage (BVID and Damage not apparent on the surface) is studied. Vibration test results show that the light entangled specimens possessing good damping capabilities seem more sensitive to impact damage than the heavy ones. Furthermore, damping is found to be more sensitive to damage than the stiffness variations, so it is reasonable to assume that damping may be used instead of natural frequency as a damage indicator tool for structural health monitoring purposes

Implications for South Asian countries for abolishing the Multifibre Arrangement

The authors provide a simple introduction to the economics of the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) and use available empirical evidence to examine its impact on exports of garments and textiles, focusing on India. Their review of the basic economics of the MFA shows the discriminatory character of the Arrangement. While exporting countries can gain from quota rents, much of this gain is likely to be offset by losses in exports to unrestricted markets, through waste resulting from domestic rent-seeking behavior, or shared with industrial country importers. Moreover, the restrictions curtail the ability of countries to generate sorely needed employment in the labor-intensive garment and textile sectors. Recent estimates for India of the export tax equivalents of the quotas suggest that they increased in 1999, after a couple of years around lower levels. The authors also examine the domestic policy distortions affecting the industry in India. While the abolition of quotas on international trade in textiles in 2005 will create opportunities for developing countries, it will also expose them to additional competition from other, formerly restrained exporters. The outcome for any country will depend on its policy response. Countries that use the opportunity to streamline their policies and improve their competitiveness are likely to increase their gains from quota abolition. Modeling results suggest that South Asia as a whole will gain from quota abolition, although different countries may experience different results. Unambiguously, however, the gains from domestic reform will increase after the abolition of the quota arrangement.Economic Theory&Research,Labor Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Markets and Market Access,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Markets and Market Access,Access to Markets

Recent and Prospective Adoption of Genetically Modified Cotton: A Global CGE Analysis of Economic Impacts

This paper provides estimates of the economic impact of initial adoption of genetically modified (GM) cotton and of its potential impacts beyond the few countries where it is currently common. Use is made of the latest version of the GTAP database and model. Our results suggest that by following the lead of China, South Africa and most recently India, adoption of GM cotton varieties by other developing countries – especially in Sub-Saharan Africa – could provide even larger proportionate gains to farmer and national welfare than in those early-adopting countries. Furthermore, those estimated gains are shown to exceed – and reinforce – those from a successful campaign under the WTO’s Doha Development Agenda to reduce/remove cotton subsidies and import tariffs globally.GMOs, cotton biotechnology, computable general equilibrium modeling, economic welfare, subsidy and tariff reform

"Industrial Policy Cuts Two Ways: Evidence from Cotton Spinning Firms in Japan, 1956-1964"

A number of studies have revealed that the effect of industrial policy on productivity growth is negative. Is this because industrial policy fails to control the activities of firms, or because it can effectively control them? This paper attempts to answer these questions, using firm-level data from the cotton spinning industry in Japan for the period 1956-64. It has been determined that industrial policy cut two ways during this period. Industrial policy effectively controlled the output of cotton spinning firms, which contributed to the establishment of a stable market structure during the period. On the flip side, such policy constrained the reallocation of resources from less productive large firms to more productive small firms. Combined with the negative productivity growth of large firms during this period, industrial policy resulted in negative industry productivity growth.

Industrial Policy Cuts Two Ways: Evidence from Cotton Spinning Firms in Japan, 1956-1964

A number of studies have revealed that the effect of industrial policy on productivity growth is negative. Is this because industrial policy fails to control the activities of firms, or because it can effectively control them? This paper attempts to answer these questions, using firm-level data from the cotton spinning industry in Japan for the period 1956-64. It has been determined that industrial policy cut two ways during this period. Industrial policy effectively controlled the output of cotton spinning firms, which contributed to the establishment of a stable market structure during the period. On the flip side, such policy constrained the reallocation of resources from less productive large firms to more productive small firms. Combined with the negative productivity growth in large firms during this period, industrial policy resulted in negative industry productivity growth.

Bidirectional optimization of the melting spinning process

This is the author's accepted manuscript (under the provisional title "Bi-directional optimization of the melting spinning process with an immune-enhanced neural network"). The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright 2014 @ IEEE.A bidirectional optimizing approach for the melting spinning process based on an immune-enhanced neural network is proposed. The proposed bidirectional model can not only reveal the internal nonlinear relationship between the process configuration and the quality indices of the fibers as final product, but also provide a tool for engineers to develop new fiber products with expected quality specifications. A neural network is taken as the basis for the bidirectional model, and an immune component is introduced to enlarge the searching scope of the solution field so that the neural network has a larger possibility to find the appropriate and reasonable solution, and the error of prediction can therefore be eliminated. The proposed intelligent model can also help to determine what kind of process configuration should be made in order to produce satisfactory fiber products. To make the proposed model practical to the manufacturing, a software platform is developed. Simulation results show that the proposed model can eliminate the approximation error raised by the neural network-based optimizing model, which is due to the extension of focusing scope by the artificial immune mechanism. Meanwhile, the proposed model with the corresponding software can conduct optimization in two directions, namely, the process optimization and category development, and the corresponding results outperform those with an ordinary neural network-based intelligent model. It is also proved that the proposed model has the potential to act as a valuable tool from which the engineers and decision makers of the spinning process could benefit.National Nature Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Education of China, the Shanghai Committee of Science and Technology), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

the case of fabrics and yarn import in indonesia

Thesis(Master) -- KDI School: Master of Public Policy, 2022The textile sector is one of the important labor-intensive industries in Indonesia with an integrated supply chain, a high level of employment, and a significant share in manufacturing growth. In 2019, Indonesian government imposed safeguards on fabrics and yarn to protect domestic firms from an excessive number of imported products. This paper examines the impact of the safeguard measures on exports of Indonesian producers. I collected exports and imports data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS) from 2011 to 2021 and employ the Differences in Differences method (DID). The results provide evidence that the imposition of safeguards contributes to decreasing exports value by 31.8 percent and reduces imports value significantly by 26.5 percent. In this study, the safeguards policy is quite effective in slowing down the value of imports but it also has a drawback in decreasing exports. This finding may be used as a reference for the Indonesian government to formulate more effective policies in improving the performance of the local textile industries and decide on the extension of the safeguards for the next three years.I. Introduction II. Literature Review III. Methodology IV. Empirical Analysis V. Result and Discussion VI. Conclusion and Policy implicationsOutstandingmasterpublishedAyu Amalia RACHMA

Export growth and diversification : the case of Peru

The rapid growth of exports since the early 1990s is a central feature in the extraordinary rise of Peru's economy in recent years. This study puts a lens on this export growth episode, with special attention to two issues. The first one is the role of international price levels as well as export volumes in explaining this growth. The second one is whether Peru has seen a diversification of its exports during this growth episode. The empirical analysis finds that although the increase in international mineral prices has exerted a significant impact in recent years, much of the growth of Peru's export revenues has also been related to an increase in volumes. This finding applies to traditional and non- traditional exports, although the importance of volumes is more predominant for the latter. The analysis does not reveal a trend toward greater diversification of Peru's exports since 1993. On the contrary, some of the evidence suggests that the rises in price and volumes in the mining components could be leading to greater concentration. Nonetheless, there is a clear trend toward diversification among non-traditional exports due to the significant emergence of new export products in recent years.Economic Theory&Research,Achieving Shared Growth,Agribusiness&Markets,Markets and Market Access,Tax Law

IMPETUS wearable strategy : competitive advantage in the Portuguese fashion industry

What is in the origin of the competitive advantage that IMPETUS had been crafting over the past 43 years? The Resource-Based Theory defended that a company can obtain its competitive advantage through the internal organization of its critical resources, though failed to deem the changing environment. In a complementary perspective, defining Dynamic Capabilities as the firm capability to internally and externally combine competencies to meet changing environments came to introduce the external dimension to the organization. IMPETUS, apart from being a Portuguese Group in the textile industry, is also the name of a brand specialist in male underwear. Reaching a total turnover of nearly €41,6 million and relying 95% on international markets, IMPETUS has been standing out in the Portuguese fashion industry. Innovation etched in the genetic code with a twist of diversification in its business areas seem to speak for the differentiation strategy settled during the past years. This dissertation purposes a journey into the company history. Aside from acknowledging which are the differentiation factors that this underwear specialist was capable of setting out, one must analyze its performance to identify what are the resources and capabilities that rely on, indeed, its competitive advantage. In this odyssey, one can deeper understand the elements inherent to this established wearable strategy and its dynamics in the textile changing environment.O que é que está na origem da vantagem competitiva que a IMPETUS tem vindo a desenvolver nos últimos 43 anos? A Teoria Baseada nos Recursos argumenta que é através da organização interna dos seus recursos críticos que uma empresa consegue obter vantagem competitiva, apesar de não considerar envolventes em mudança. Complementarmente, ao definir Capacidades Dinâmicas como a capacidade, interna e externa, das empresas combinarem competências para responder às mudanças na envolvente, introduziu a dimensão externa à organização. Representado não só o nome de um grupo português da indústria têxtil, IMPETUS é igualmente o nome da marca especialista em roupa interior masculina. Com um volume de negócios perto dos €41,6 milhões em cerca de 95% de mercados internacionais, a IMPETUS tem vindo a destacar-se na indústria da moda. Inovação assente no código genético com diversificação das áreas de negócio parecem definir a estratégia diferenciadora que a empresa tem vindo a construir. A presente dissertação propõe uma viagem à história da empresa. Para além de reconhecer os fatores diferenciadores que a IMPETUS foi desenvolvendo, deve considerar-se todo o seu desempenho, de modo a identificar quais são os recursos e capacidades em que assenta a vantagem competitiva. Com esta odisseia é possível compreender quais os elementos inerentes a esta, já estabelecida estratégia vestível, bem como a sua dinâmica no ambiente têxtil em mudança