Gordon Ingram

The Welfare Costs of Urban Outdoor Water Restrictions

Outdoor water restrictions are usually implemented as bans on a particular type of watering technology (sprinklers), which allow households to substitute for labour-intensive (hand-held) watering. This paper presents a household production model approach to analysing the impact of sprinkler restrictions on consumer welfare and their efficacy as a demand management tool. Central to our empirical analysis is an experimentally derived production function which describes the relationship between irrigation and lawn quality. We demonstrate that for a typical consumer complete sprinkler bans may be little more effective than milder restrictions policies, but are substantially more costly to the household.

Overview of applications and developments in the harmony search algorithm

The Harmony Search (HS) algorithm appeared around the year 2000 and it now has a substantial literature. The aim of this chapter is to inform the reader of the diversity of HS applications and the range of modified and hybrid HS methods that have been developed. The chapter contains five sections. In the first, the different types of optimisation problem are described. Section two provides an overview of the growth in the literature, a chronology of some HS highlights and a breakdown of HS work by discipline. In the third section, HS applications in nine discipline areas are reported. The fourth section classifies the types of modifications that have been made to the original HS method and summarises the innovations in many of the modified algorithms. Lastly, we take a step back and reflect on the current state of the HS literature.

Capitalized Amenity Value of Urban Wetlands: A Hedonic Property Price Approach to Urban Wetlands in Perth, Western Australia

Up to 60 per cent of potable water supplied to Perth, Western Australia, is extracted from the groundwater system that lies below the northern part of the metropolitan area. Many of the urban wetlands are groundwater-dependent and excessive groundwater extraction and climate change have resulted in a decline in water levels in the wetlands. In order to inform decisions on conserving existing urban wetlands, it is beneficial to be able to estimate the economic value of the urban wetlands. Applying the Hedonic Property Price approach to value urban wetlands, we found that distance to the nearest wetland and the number of wetlands within 1.5 km of a property significantly influence house sales price. For a property that is 943 m away from the nearest wetland, which is the average distance to the wetland in this study, reducing the wetland distance by 1 m will increase the property price by AU

A survey of industrial process modelling across the product and process lifecycle

42.40. Similarly, the existence of an additional wetland within 1.5 km of the property will increase the sales price by AU

Formulation and comparison of alternative multiscale models for drum granulation

6976. For a randomly selected wetland, assuming a 20 ha isolated circular wetland surrounded by uniform density housing, the total sales premium to surrounding properties was estimated to be around AU

An Unreacted Shrinking Core Model for Calcination and Similar Solid-to-Gas Reactions

140 million (AU

Solid oxide fuel cell reactor analysis and optimisation through a novel multi-scale modelling strategy

40 million and AU

Structural analysis of the computational properties of QP-DAE systems

230 million).

Classification and analysis of integrating frameworks in multiscale modelling

Abstract Modelling has become a central activity in most major corporations and SMEs. Modern processing and manufacturing is a “model centric” activity that pervades the whole product and process lifecycle. Within organizations there is a wide range of modelling practices that determine the efficacy of the modelling tasks in providing crucial information for decision making across the lifecycle. In order to inform modelling practitioners and developers of modelling and simulation systems, an international survey was carried out to ascertain the current state of play in process modelling practice in industry. The results presented here show some significant challenges exist for developers of modelling systems, but more importantly for internal organizational practices in corporations, to ensure that process modelling is efficient and derives maximum benefit for the organization.

Electrospun PLA: PCL composites embedded with unmodified and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (ASP) modified halloysite nanotubes (HNT)

Continuous granulation of powders is a unit operation that poses both operational and modelling challenges. We discuss the formulation of several alternative multiscale models for a drum granulator. All combine a vessel scale population balance model with a granule scale discrete element method (DEM) model, but they are linked using different multiscale integration frameworks. The inter-scale flow of information and the potential applications of the alternative models are outlined.