What suppliers seek from their downstream buyers

The results of a study undertaken in the Western Australian apple industry suggest that what growers want from their downstream buyers and what they actually receive as a result of their transactions with their preferred trading partners are vastly different. While most growers want a return that is commensurate with the effort they put in, the prices offered by market intermediaries generally leave the growers dissatisfied. In order to reduce the risk and the uncertainty associated with the exchange, growers will invariably seek to establish long-term relationships with preferred trading partners. However, many customers prefer to maintain arms-length transactions and seem generally unwilling to provide the growers with either market information or technical advice

Growers' perceptions towards the needs of their downstream customers in the western Australian apple supply chain

To succeed in an agribusiness, growers must understand what is required by their downstream customers. This paper explores the perceptions of apple growers in Western Australia towards the needs of their downstream customers. The results indicate that the most important factors that are perceived by growers to influence their downstream customer's choice of supplier are quality, price and continuity of supply. On the other hand, for downstream buyers, quality, price and a favourable long-term relationship were the most important factors that they used in selecting their preferred supplier. The growers' perception of their downstream customer's needs, and indeed, the criteria by which customers evaluate their alternative suppliers, are closely aligned. Both growers and downstream intermediaries identified quality and price as the major factors in selecting their preferred trading partners

Nd:YAG laser welding of stainless steel 304 for photonics device packaging

Although pulsed Nd:YAG laser welding has been widely used in microelectronics and photonics packaging industry, a full understanding of various phenomena involved is still a matter of trials and speculations. In this research, an ultra compact pulsed Nd:YAG laser with wavelength of 1.064 µm has been used to produce a spot weld on stainless steel 304. The principal objective of this research is to examine the effects of laser welding parameters such as laser beam peak powers, pulse durations, incident angles, focus point positions and number of shots on the weld dimensions: penetration depth and bead width. The ratio of the penetration depth to the bead width is considered as one of the most critical parameters to determine the weld quality. It is found that the penetration depth and bead width increase when the laser beam peak power, pulse duration and number of shot increase. In contrast, the penetration depth decreases when the laser beam defocus position and incident angle increase. This is due to the reduction of the laser beam intensity causing by the widening of the laser spot size. These experimental results provide a reference on an optimal laser welding operations for a reliable photonics device packaging. The results obtained shows that stainless steel 304 is suitable to be used as a base material for photonics device packaging employing Nd:YAG laser welding technique

The schur multiplier of pairs of nonabelian groups of order p4

Let (G,N) be a pair of groups where G is any group and N is a normal subgroup of G, then the Schur multiplier of pairs of groups is a functorial abelian group. The notion of the Schur multiplier of pairs of groups is an extension from the Schur multiplier of a group G. In this research, the Schur multiplier of pairs of finite nonabelian groups of order p4, where p is an odd prime, is determined

A study of potential Load Bearing Masonry (LBM) system in Malaysia construction industry

To overcome the problems in increasing of material prices, land prices, shortage of skilled workers, equipping low cost housing demands and maintained the cost of the constructing at an affordable price, there is a need to find the alternative solution for constructing method.The use of the load bearing masonry system (LBM) has been identified as a sustainable and an effective alternative method for the construction industry.The system offers several advantages in term of cost and speed of the construction, durability, strength, environmentally friendly practices and aesthetic qualities.Despite these advantages, unfortunately, this system has not been widely used in Malaysia compared to reinforced concrete (RC) frame construction. Therefore, this paper aims to discuss the advantages and potential of the system implementation to Malaysia construction industry in the future

Numerical studies of ion beam in NX2 plasma focus for different applied voltage

Plasma focus device gives simultaneous interaction between magnetic and electric field which results in exhibiting multi-radiation properties. Ion beam radiates from the system is significant for experimenting target material of interest in plasma focus research. Lee code model is used to simulate the numerical experiments on NX2-plasma focus device system using different applied voltage in the range 10 to 14 kV. The system is operating in Neon filled at an optimum pressure depending on the applied voltage used in the experiment. Results obtained are analysed and fitted with the experimental results for system validation. Good fitting on the numerical with the experimental results is obtained by incorporating mass shedding effects and current shedding factor. The range of current density obtained is in the range 1.6 × 108 to 7.3×109 Am-2whilst the maximum ion beam energy is estimated to be 156 J

An Overview of Project Delivery Methods in Construction Industry

The selection of project delivery method is one of the factors that can influence the success of a construction project. Therefore, understanding each of the primary project delivery methods used in construction industry; Design-Bid-Build (DBB), Construction Manager at Risk (CM at Risk) and Design-Build (DB) are important before the decision-making. This paper is a theory based and the objectives are to develop a new definition of project delivery method by synthesizing the existing definitions and to describe the project delivery methods aforementioned. Their advantages, disadvantages and comparison in terms of delivery phase and performance are also presented. There is no project delivery method that appropriate to be used for any construction project therefore, the development of new ideal methods is important to achieve a successful construction project

The Study of Green Building Application Awareness

The Green Building, or known as Environmentally Friendly Building is not only closely examined in terms of its design, but also the capacity of the building and its surrounding in reducing the impact to the environment, saving energy, water, safeguarding the internal air quality, and further mitigating the number of health problems to the inhabitants. The study involves 80 respondents, whereby 20 respondents are developers/contractors; 20 respondents are consultants; 20 respondents from the Local Authority and 20 respondents are academicians in the northern part of the Peninsula. Through the technique of principal axis factoring, 10 items had successfully been placed in the screening analysis. Two components that had been formed are namely i) main issue and ii) government’s effort. It is anticipated that the key players (the developers, consultants, contractors, and academicians) understood and realised the importance of the environment and what is going around them in the world today

Development of a novel corrugated polyvinylidene difluoride membrane via improved imprinting technique for membrane distillation

© 2019 by the authors. Membrane distillation (MD) is an attractive technology for desalination, mainly because its performance that is almost independent of feed solute concentration as opposed to the reverse osmosis process. However, its widespread application is still limited by the low water flux, low wetting resistance and high scaling vulnerability. This study focuses on addressing those limitations by developing a novel corrugated polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) membrane via an improved imprinting technique for MD. Corrugations on the membrane surface are designed to offer an effective surface area and at the same time act as a turbulence promoter to induce hydrodynamic by reducing temperature polarization. Results show that imprinting of spacer could help to induce surface corrugation. Pore defect could be minimized by employing a dual layer membrane. In short term run experiment, the corrugated membrane shows a flux of 23.1 Lm-2h-1 and a salt rejection of > 99%, higher than the referenced flat membrane (flux of 18.0 Lm-2h_asuf and similar rejection). The flux advantage can be ascribed by the larger effective surface area of the membrane coupled with larger pore size. The flux advantage could be maintained in the long-term operation of 50 h at a value of 8.6 Lm-2h-1. However, the flux performance slightly deteriorates over time mainly due to wetting and scaling. An attempt to overcome this limitation should be a focus of the future study, especially by exploring the role of cross-flow velocity in combination with the corrugated surface in inducing local mixing and enhancing system performance