Implementation of a variable costing method to calculate the profitability of a production investment for a textile and clothing start-up

PURPOSE: Production profitability is a key parameter determining the efficiency of the production part of the organization, i.e., how much and what resources it uses to generate income, which in this case is production. The aim of this publication is to show an author's method of using variable costing as a tool for assessing the profitability of a manufacturing investment for a textile and clothing start-up in pre-production planning. The lack of publicly available solutions for calculating the profitability of production is the reason for starting the research.DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The methodology is to use the leverage of the pre-profit factor on the sum of fixed assets and fixed costs for the first year of operation to calculate the amount of profit and determine the corresponding amount for production materials and production volume for a fixed actual unit production cost of two textile products and the selling price of each product.FINDINGS: In the profitability of production, the fact that costs are appropriately included in the unit cost of production, as well as the previously mentioned items such as fixed costs, wages of the team or the amount we have to spend on renting commercial or production space, plays a particularly important role in whether the investment pays off.PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: In this article, the author presents a model calculated in Excel to calculate the profitability of producing two products in a strategy of one basic and one luxury.ORIGINALITY/VALUE: Original work on the practical application of variable costing method in pre-production planning.peer-reviewe

CdS Nanocrystallines: Synthesis, Structure and Nonlinear Optical Properties

We report the synthesis, structure and nonlinear optical properties of cadmium sulphide (CdS) nanocrystallines (NCs) synthesized electrochemically both with and without detergent ATLAS G3300. Relevant structural and morphological features are explored by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. The efficiency of the second harmonic generation (SHG) appears to be strongly dependent on the energy density of the incident fundamental laser radiation and NC sizes.Comment: 2020 IEEE 15th International Conference on Advanced Trends in Radioelectronics, Telecommunications and Computer Engineering (TCSET), Conference Location: Lviv-Slavske, Ukraine, 25-29 February 2020, 5 pages, 8 figures, 3 table

Associations between weather conditions and individual range use by commercial and heritage chickens

Ranging area use by domestic poultry is not always optimal and differences in it exist on the levels of breed, flock and individual bird. Outdoor shelters are usually not protective for all weather parameters and may not fulfil a protective role to all birds within the flock all time, if individuals are sensitive to different weather conditions. The aim of this study was to investigate associations between different weather parameters and the use of the range by individual Green-legged Partridge and Sasso C44 chickens. In August 2018, 60 birds per genetic strain were housed in groups of 10 from wks 5 to 10, under conditions exceeding minimal EU requirements of organic meat chicken production. Birds in each pen had access to an outdoor range that was video-recorded during the experiment to obtain frequencies of individual birds' use of the ranges. Weather data were collected each minute throughout the whole experiment by an automatic weather station. In each pen, birds tagged individually with a laminated color tag, had access to an outdoor range that was video-recorded during the experiment. Frequencies of individual birds' use of the ranges were manually obtained from the recordings. Univariate and multivariate linear regression models were used to investigate the associations between the variables. The results showed significant associations between weather parameters and range use for one third of Green-legged Partridge and Sasso chickens (n = 21 in both breeds). Between breeds, range use associations with different weather parameters were identified. Negative associations with relative humidity occurred most frequently in Green-legged Partridges (n = 8; R-2 from 0.1 to 0.17), while positive associations with atmospheric pressure (n = 7; R-2 from 0.09 to 0.17) were most common in Sasso chickens. Further investigations into the reasons behind individual sensitivity of meat-purpose chickens to specific weather conditions would increase the understanding of their preferences and needs, which over time will improve animal welfare

Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Alumina Composites with Addition of Structurally Modified 2D Ti₃C₂ (MXene) Phase

This study presents new findings related to the incorporation of MXene phases into ceramic. Aluminium oxide and synthesised Ti3C2 were utilised as starting materials. Knowing the tendency of MXenes to oxidation and degradation, particularly at higher temperatures, structural modifications were proposed. They consisted of creating the metallic layer on the Ti3C2, by sputtering the titanium or molybdenum. To prepare the composites, powder metallurgy and spark plasma sintering (SPS) techniques were adopted. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the applied modifications, the emphasis of the research was placed on microstructural analysis. In addition, the mechanical properties of the obtained sinters were examined. Observations revealed significant changes in the MXenes degradation process, from porous areas with TiC particles (for unmodified Ti3C2), to in situ creation of graphitic carbon (in the case of Ti3C2-Ti/Mo). Moreover, the fracture changed from purely intergranular to cracking with high participation of transgranular mode, analogously. In addition, the results obtained showed an improvement in the mechanical properties for composites with Ti/Mo modifications (an increase of 10% and 15% in hardness and fracture toughness respectively, for specimens with 0.5 wt.% Ti3C2-Mo). For unmodified Ti3C2, enormously cracked areas with spatters emerged during tests, making the measurements impossible to perform

Signatures of dephasing by mirror-symmetry breaking in weak-antilocalization magnetoresistance across the topological transition in Pb1-x Snx Se

Funding Information: The International Center for Interfacing Magnetism and Superconductivity with Topological Matter MagTop is supported by the Foundation for Polish Science through the IRA Programme co-financed by EU within SG OP (Grant No. MAB/2017/1). We acknowledge the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin for provision of synchrotron radiation beamtime at UE112 PGM-2a- of BESSY II under the EU CALIPSO Grant No. 312284. W.B. also acknowledges support by Narodowe Centrum Nauki (NCN, National Science Centre, Poland) Project No. 2019/34/E/ST3/00404. G.S. also acknowledges support by Austrian Science Fund, Projects No. P30960-N27 and No. I 4493-N. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 American Physical Society.Many conductors, including recently studied Dirac materials, show saturation of coherence length on decreasing temperature. This surprising phenomenon is assigned to external noise, residual magnetic impurities, or two-level systems specific to noncrystalline solids. Here, by considering the SnTe-class of compounds as an example, we show theoretically that breaking of mirror symmetry deteriorates Berry's phase quantization, leading to additional dephasing in weak-antilocalization magnetoresistance (WAL-MR). Our experimental studies of WAL-MR corroborate these theoretical expectations in (111) Pb1-xSnxSe thin film with Sn contents x corresponding to both topological crystalline insulator and topologically trivial phases. In particular, we find the shortening of the phase coherence length in samples with intentionally broken mirror symmetry. Our results indicate that the classification of quantum transport phenomena into universality classes should encompass, in addition to time-reversal and spin-rotation invariances, spatial symmetries in specific systems.Peer reviewe