The Impact of Financial Risks on the Firms’ Performance

Firms are exposed to a variety of risks including credit risk, liquidity risk, foreign exchange risk, market risk and interest rate risk. An efficient risk management system is needed in time in order to control these risks. Managing risk is one of the basic tasks to be done, once it has been identified and known. The risk and return are directly related to each other, which means that increasing one will subsequently increase the other and vice versa. Financial risks have a great impact on firm’s performance. The study also assessed the current risk management practices of the firms and linked them with the firms’ financial performance. The findings confirm whether financial risks can be contained or managed in order for firms to achieve profit maximization for its shareholders. Keywords: Financial Risk; Firm’s Performance; Interest rate parity; Liquidity gap; Liquidity risk; Risk Management

Installation of a family drip irrigation system for the improvement of the livelihood of small-scale farmers in comparison with surface irrigation

Drip irrigation is one of the most efficient methods of water use for crop production. Family drip systems are suitable for small land areas ranging from 10-2000 m2 to irrigate horticultural crops. The system is a complete drip irrigation unit. It operates by gravity from a tank placed one meter high. It is a closed pipe-gravity system, and solid seasonal installation, for growing vegetables, flowers and other horticultural crops on flat or minor slope land. This experiment was established to evaluate a family drip system in comparison with surface irrigation for onion production under north Kassala conditions (Talkouk Locality). The results indicated that family drip system saved irrigation water by 67% and 59%, and increased the total yield of onion by 43% and 34% in sites one and two, respectively, as compared to local surface irrigation. The highest irrigation water productivity (2.98 and 2.73 kg/m3) was obtained under family drip system and the lowest values were 1.25 and 1.28 kg/m3 under surface irrigation in sites one and two, respectively. Moreover, the family drip system scored higher net return and benefit cost ratio compared to the surface irrigation system.         الري بالتنقيط هو أكثر الطرق كفاءة في استخدام المياه لإنتاج المحاصيل. نظام الري بالتنقيط العائلي هو نظام يناسب  المساحات الصغيرة التي تتراوح مساحتها بين 10 الي 2000  متر مربع, لري المحاصيل البستانية. النظام هو وحدة ري بالتنقيط  كاملة؛ يعمل بالجاذبية من خزان وضع علي ارتفاع 1 متر. هو نظام ذو انابيب مغلقة للجاذبية ويمكن تركيبة كل موسم بسهولة لزراعة الخضرواتِ والزهور والمحاصيل البستانية الأخرى على الأراضِي المنحدرة والمستويةِ أَو البسيطةِ. تأسست هذه التجربة لتقييم نظام الري بالتنقيط العائلي مقارنة مع الري السطحي المحلي لإنتاج البصل تحت ظروف شمال كسلا محلية تلكوك. اشارت النتائج إلى أن نظام الري بالتنقيط العائلي حفظ مياه الري بنسبة 67٪ و 59٪، وزيادة الانتاجية بنسبة 43٪ و 34٪ في الموقع الاول والثاني على التوالي مقارنة مع الري السطحي المحلي. ايضا تم الحصول على أعلى إنتاجية لمياه الري (2.98 و2.73 كيلوجرام متر مكعب) تحت نظام الري بالتنقيط العائلي وكانت أقل القيم   (1.25 و 1.28 كيلوجرام متر مكعب) تحت الري السطحي في الموقعين الاول والثاني. علاوة على ذلك، سجل نظام الري بالتنقيط العائلي اعلي عائد ومنفعة مقارنة لنظام الري السطحي

The effects of road transportation on some physiological stress measures in goats

A study to assess the physiological stress responses in goats that were subjected to road transportation was carried out using 10 Kacang crossbred does. Five does were transported in the morning with another five transported in the afternoon covering a distance of 46 km in an open-truck at an average speed of 55 km/h. Immediately following the road transportation, there were dramatic increases in neutrophi:lymphocyte ratios and plasma glucose concentrations but plasma cholesterol concentrations and body temperature were not affected. The neutrophil:lymphocyte ratios and plasma glucose concentrations appear to be reliable indicators of stress in goats

Electricity and Water Cogeneration Utilizing Aluminium Furnaces Waste Heat Integrating Thermal Storage Organic Rankine Cycle

High energy-intensive industries, including steel, chemicals, cement, and aluminium, contribute to about 75% of the industrial emissions of carbon dioxide globally and expelling large amounts of unrecovered waste heat into the atmosphere. Yet, there has been a challenge of studies that are conducted on recovering waste heat in the aluminium industry, especially in cast-house facilities, due to technical difficulties such as energy fluctuations in mass flow rate and temperature. In this study, the waste heat to power system is designed to generate power and freshwater in a cast-house facility with 18 furnaces by evaluating three methods in which the temporal waste heat from holding furnaces can be damped and exploited. These methods are: (1) implementing a temporal air injection, (2) optimising furnaces operation time shift, and (3) integrating sensible thermal heat storage. Organic Rankine Cycle is used for the waste heat to power conversion. The appropriate thermal energy storage design and a thermodynamic model of an Organic Rankine Cycle are investigated using temporal flue gas data that are collected on site from three furnaces. Reverse Osmosis technology is applied to produce water using the generated electricity. Results show that sensible heat thermal energy storage is the most suitable technology for damping the fluctuations of waste heat. By utilising waste heat from 18 remelting furnaces, a net power output of 323 kW can be produced to operate a Reverse Osmosis plant supplying 2419 m3 of fresh water daily, saving up to 2000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. This study gives a comprehensive approach to deal with temporal waste heat in aluminium furnaces for smooth cogeneration

Feasibility Study for Water-Electricity Cogeneration Using Integrated System of Concentrated Solar Power and Biofuel as Renewable Energy

Although Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is one of the promising renewable energy technologies, several technical and economic challenges should be addressed. One of the major issues associated with Concentrated Solar Power technologies is the reliability limitation of the plant in the stand-alone configuration. Therefore, Concentrated Solar Power systems can be integrated with either thermal energy storage (TES) or a fossil-fuelled power assist FFPA). However, initial and maintenance costs and emission production are the main challenges for the developing countries. Integrating biofuel/biogas with CSP increases the renewability while solar irradiation is in absent. The paper main objective is to perform a feasibility study of integrating a biofuel based gas turbine power units in a Concentrated Solar Power plant for electricity and water cogeneration. The study includes the thermodynamics analysis and assessment of three biofuels, namely, Jatropha oil, castor oil, and palm oil. In addition, a cost lifecycle, sensitivity, and Monte Carlo analyses were performed. The results showed that Castor oil had a better performance in terms of efficiency and carbon dioxide emissions with a maximum daily freshwater production of 181,000 m3/day. The proposed integration resulted in a levelized cost of water that is lower than the water tariff in the UAE by $1.39/m3 with a payback period of 5 years

Chilled Water Storage Feasibility with District Cooling Chiller in Tropical Environment

The difficulties of efficiently operating a chiller cooling system are manifest in the high-energy consumption under partial-cooling loads. The performance of a chiller cooling system declines when operating away from the optimal design conditions, which is typically 75% of chiller capacity. One pathway has been found to overcome this problem using multiple smaller chillers within the same chiller plant, accompanied by a smart control system that is designed and constructed based on the cooling demand profile. Thermal energy storage integration with chiller cooling system is proposed to shave the cooling peak demand. This can be achieved by storing chilled water during the lower electricity-tariff period by the thermal energy storage system, which will then be discharged during the higher tariff-rate, thus, aiming for sustainable operating cost. The present paper studies the feasibility of sensible thermal energy storage to be integrated with two chillers, of 30-ton capacity each, under hot-and-humid climates. A computational model validated with experimental results is developed for three chiller cooling system case scenarios. The smart control scenario, as well as the thermal energy storage scenario results, showed great potential for energy and electricity cost saving. In addition, the carbon dioxide emissions reduction is calculated based on the amount of energy saving