Maragro Group : equity valuation

The aim of this dissertation is to estimate the fair value of the equity of Maragro Group, an enterprise located in Romania and operating in the Farming segment. The valuation has been performed by taking into consideration the latest financial information available as well as predictions made by the management team regarding the 2017-2018 campaign. For these reasons, the value of the company shall be intended as of the 31.12.2017. Methods used for the valuation include the discounted Cash-flow methodology and more specifically the Adjusted Present Value approach, whereas multiples have been taken into consideration as to analyze the possible differences that characterize the Group as opposed to the companies representing the peer group. The outcome of this study is that Maragro Group shall be attributed a total enterprise value of 254.343.809 RON and an Equity value of 177.437.682 RON.O objetivo desta dissertação é estimar o valor das ações do Grupo Marago, uma empresa localizada na Romênia que opera no setor agrícola. A avaliação foi realizada levando em consideração os últimos balanços financeiros assim como previsões realizadas pela equipe de gestão considerando os levantamentos de 2017-2018. Por essas razões, o valor da companhia será o estipulado em 31.12.2017. Os métodos usados para a avaliação incluem a metodologia do discounted Cash-flow e mais especificamente o valor presente ajustado, enquanto múltiplos fatores foram levados em consideração para analisar a possíveis diferenças que caracterizam o grupo como diferenciado dos demais. O resultado deste estudo é que ao Grupo Magoro deverá ser atribuído o valor total de 254.343.809RON e com valor de ação de 177.437.682 RON

Cyclic Response of Clay Deposits: Developing a Constitutive Model

This study aims at developing a generalized elasto-plastic constitutive model for clays able to describe stress-strain response, accumulation of permanent deformations, and excess pore pressure in monotonic and cyclic loading. This constitutive model takes advantage of the nonlinear elasticity and bounding surface plasticity concepts to mimic generation of excess pore pressure and plastic deformation within the yield surface upon cycles of unloading and reloading during cyclic excitation. The generalized formulation of the model also facilitates the prediction of multi-directional cyclic response of the fine-grained material. Capabilities of the model are evaluated using the available experimental database on Boston Blue Clay (BBC). The model is successful to mimic a wide range of monotonic drained and undrained stress paths as well as the complicated cyclic response of clays. Implementation of the model in numerical packages will facilitate the simulation of different boundary value problems under various loading conditions.United States National Science Foundation CAREER grant (NSF Award No. CMMI-0449021

Modelling tertiary creep in geomaterials using a continuum damage mechanics approach.

Tertiary creep is often observed in soft rocks and it represents a problem in a mining environment. Tertiary creep behaviour appears due to progressive micro cracking of the material and would result in a loss of strength and stiffness, which may eventually lead to failure and a complete loss of load carrying capability of the material. In this paper, the authors combined the continuum damage mechanics within the framework of hyperplasticity, thus encompassing viscoplasticity and damage within a single theory. The authors present a family of models which obeys the laws of thermodynamics. The entire constitutive behaviour is derived from two scalar potentials; a free energy potential which provides the elasticity law, and a dissipation potential which provides the yield function, the direction of plastic flow and the evolution of a damage variable. No additional assumptions are required. These new models require only few parameters which have physical meanings and are capable of capturing tertiary creep observed in soft rocks

The development of shear strain in undrained multi-directional simple shear tests

Actual earthquakes apply horizontal shear forces on soil in a multi-directional manner. The effects of multi-directional seismic loading on the undrained behaviour of medium dense Hostun sand was recently studied with stress-controlled undrained cyclic multi-directional simple shear tests. The development of shear strain in several tests with uni-directional, oval and circular loading paths is compared and the preliminary results are reported here. The general geometry of the strain paths resembles that of the loading paths. But strain paths are diverted when excess pore pressure ratio exceeds a certain threshold (0.6-0.7 in this study). The existence of static shear stresses further complicates the development of shear strain. Downhill shear strain happens no matter what direction the cyclic shearing is applied in. The shear strain in the perpendicular direction is limited if the static shear stress is large enough to eliminate stress reversal. The knowledge regarding the development of shear strain in multi-directional loading conditions remains scarce and more efforts are needed to advance the understanding of this topic

Soil strength from geophysical measurements for soft clays

Knowledge of seabed soils is essential if offshore and nearshore structures are to be safely designed and properly built. A large part of the commercial and operational risk involved relates to uncertainties about the soil properties at the site. It is therefore important to perform sufficient investigation to evaluate these risks thoroughly. Geophysical surveys are required to understand the nature and characteristics of the seabed. Site specific correlations between soil strength and various geophysical measurements can be developed, but a controlled laboratory study is required to highlight variability in these correlations for a range of geotechnical material. This work presents the development of a framework for correlating sediment strength, undrained shear strength, for soft clays to geophysical measurements, primarily shear wave and body wave velocities. Small strain measurements using elastic waves provide valuable soil information without altering the soil fabric. The small strain shear modulus (Gmax) is an indicator of many soil properties such as density, soil stiffness, sample disturbance, and can be calculated using the shear wave velocity (Vs) values measured by bender elements. Influence of variables such as soil density, confining stress, and stress history on shear modulus are also examined.The authors would like to acknowledge the Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center (NAVFAC ESC) and the project Material Uncertainties in Assessing Soil Strength from Geophysical Surveys, BAA number: N6258312R0708.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://www.isope.org/publications/proceedings/ISOPE/ISOPE%202015/index.htm

Tensile Strength of Artificially Cemented Sandstone Generated via Microbially Induced Carbonate Precipitation.

Funder: bp International Centre for Advanced Materials (bp-ICAM)Artificially bio-cemented sands treated with microbially induced calcite precipitation are weakly cemented rocks representing intermediate materials between locked and carbonate sands. Variations in cementation significantly affect the strength of sample, particularly tensile stregth. The modes of fracture and the surface characteristics resulting from the indirect tensile strength tests (Brazilian tests) are strongly correlated with the specimen strength and consequently the degree of cementation. This study examines the tensile strength of bio-cemented fine and coarse sands (average particle diameter 0.18 and 1.82 mm, respectively) and investigates failure modes by recording fracture evolution at both sides of specimen and surface characteristics of the reconstructed surfaces. The dimensionless slope parameter Z2 provided the best fit with respect to tensile strength while the power spectral density was a good indicator of surface anisotropy. Finally, wavelet decomposition allowed for comparison of fracture surface characteristics of the two sands ignoring the grain size effects

Editorial

N/

Undrained sliding resistance of shallow foundations subject to torsion

While the behavior of shallow foundations under vertical load combinations has been the subject of numerous studies, the response of shallow foundations subjected to combined horizontal and torsional loading has received considerably less attention. New offshore applications of shallow foundations for LNG facilities and other subsea structures have underscored the importance of the behavior of shallow embedded foundations subjected to combined in-plane translation and torsion. This study investigates the undrained bearing capacity of rectangular and square shallow foundations under eccentric horizontal loads through comparisons of various limit equilibrium and plastic limit analysis solutions to 3-D finite element solutions. In general, the plastic limit approach considered in this paper agrees well with the finite element solutions, although it has some tendency to over-predict capacity at greater embedment depths. The studies revealed a general insensitivity in the shape of the yield envelope to variations in embedment depth, which permits a simplified analysis suitable for first order estimates of load capacity. The variables considered in this study include footing aspect ratio, embedment depth, and load direction in addition to eccentricity.This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final version can be found published by ASCE in the Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering here: http://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/(ASCE)GT.1943-5606.0001138

General report of TC103 numerical methods in geomechanics

This paper presents a General Report on 46 contributions, including poster presentations, submitted for the parallel sessions organized by TC 103: Numerical Methods in Geomechanics. The authors come from various regions of the world and the topics of the submitted papers are diverse. These contributions are reviewed from the viewpoint of the current research directions in relation to the numerical schemes and their key results. The overview of the latest work is provided in this general report, dividing the broad paper topics into several important subjects

Functional validation of miRNAs targeting genes of DNA double-strand break repair to radiosensitize non-small lung cancer cells

Abstract DNA-Double strand breaks (DSBs) generated by radiation therapy represent the most efficient lesions to kill tumor cells, however, the inherent DSB repair efficiency of tumor cells can cause cellular radioresistance and impact on therapeutic outcome. Genes of DSB repair represent a target for cancer therapy since their down-regulation can impair the repair process making the cells more sensitive to radiation. In this study, we analyzed the combination of ionizing radiation (IR) along with microRNA-mediated targeting of genes involved in DSB repair to sensitize human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells. MicroRNAs are natural occurring modulators of gene expression and therefore represent an attractive strategy to affect the expression of DSB repair genes. As possible IR-sensitizing targets genes we selected genes of homologous recombination (HR) and non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) pathway (i.e. RAD51, BRCA2, PRKDC, XRCC5, LIG1). We examined these genes to determine whether they may be real targets of selected miRNAs by functional and biological validation. The in vivo effectiveness of miRNA treatments has been examined in cells over-expressing miRNAs and treated with IR. Taken together, our results show that hsa-miR-96-5p and hsa-miR-874-3p can directly regulate the expression of target genes. When these miRNAs are combined with IR can decrease the survival of NSCLC cells to a higher extent than that exerted by radiation alone, and similarly to radiation combined with specific chemical inhibitors of HR and NHEJ repair pathway