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Found 6327 publications
Consumer Acceptance and Rejection Regarding Sustainable Wine Packaging
Publication Name: Chemical Engineering Transactions
Publication Date: 2023-01-01
Volume: 107
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: 559-564
Description:
The wine sector is facing a major challenge in wine packaging. The environmental impact of packaging, one of the most CO2-emitting aspects of the wine industry, needs to be addressed. In this study, we investigate how open Hungarian consumers are to buying wine in non-traditional packaging. We showed images of several alternative packaging options to a sample of domestic consumers: 1) a domestic wine bag-in-box and 2) a pouch package and (3 & 4) their internationalized equivalents. We then presented participants with a questionnaire. The questionnaire asked about the following topics: Traditionality, Familiarity, Purchase Intention (PI), Product Appeal, Taste Expectations, and Uniqueness, with participant demographic questions also included. Cluster analysis was conducted for both Hungarian packaging (HP) and International wine packaging (IP) options, suggesting that different consumer groups have different attitudes toward alternative wine packaging options. Overall, consumers are slightly more accepting of Hungarian-packaged wines on average, but at the cluster level, if only those consumers most likely to accept (and purchase) alternative packaging are considered, acceptance is greater for IP wines. Generation Z wine consumers, who are self-reported to be knowledgeable about wine and have above-average incomes, were the most likely to accept international and Hungarian alternative packaging options. The innovators’ cluster group demonstrated the highest intention/willingness to purchase wine in alternative packaging of either the Hungarian or international sort. The mean value of Innovator IP is 4.84 for bag-in-box and 5.01 for pouches, making this group more accepting of pouches than bag-in-box packaging—an inversion of the preference of most other groups investigated. For both bag-in-box and pouch, the mean for the Innovator HP cluster is 5.17. For both Hungarian and international packaging options, it is clear that acceptance is lower for pouches (PI: 3.27; 3.47) than for bag-in-box (PI: 3.62; 3.88). We offer our results to decision-makers so that they may better understand the preferences of the Hungarian wine market and work to improve acceptance of non-traditional packaging options through consumer education and familiarization.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.3303/CET23107094
The effects of foreign direct investment on the performance of small-medium enterprises: The case of Vietnam
Publication Name: Journal of International Studies
Publication Date: 2023-01-01
Volume: 16
Issue: 1
Page Range: 57-70
Description:
Foreign direct investment (FDI) is one of the most important elements influencing countries' international economic integration. FDI establishes direct, consistent, and long-lasting interconnections between economies as well as encouraging innovative technology and know-how transmission across territories while allowing host economies to offer their goods more extensively on global markets. FDI is also a source of investment financing that creates the climate for appropriate policies. Aside from the obvious advantages for all economic sectors, attracting FDI in small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) has a variety of additional benefits. For example, an opportunity to participate in the global supply chain for parts and components; an opportunity not yet wholly established in most developing nations but is critical for industrialization and improving income distribution through job creation for low-skilled employees. This study compared the impact of FDI on the performance of SMEs in Vietnam to that of a group of ASEAN nations with comparable economic structures including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. The empirical evidence indicates that FDI has a negative effect on the performance of SMEs in the group of four ASEAN member countries while having a positive influence on Vietnamese SMEs.
Open Access: Yes
Detection and molecular identification of 'Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris' associated with muscari virescence of three grape hyacinth species
Publication Name: Plant Protection Science
Publication Date: 2023-01-01
Volume: 59
Issue: 4
Page Range: 389-393
Description:
Grape hyacinths are popular perennial, flowering bulbous plants. In 2018, 2019, and 2020, some plants of three Muscari species showed symptoms similar to those associated with phytoplasma infection in commercial ornamental gardens in Hungary. Symptoms included virescence of flowers and yellowing of leaves. Symptomatic and asymptomatic Muscari plants were sampled at two locations to detect and identify the pathogens involved. Total DNA was extracted from the plants and used as a template in polymerase chain reaction assays to amplify 16S rRNA gene sequences and housekeeping genes (tuf, secY) with phytoplasma-specific primers. The resulting PCR products from symptomatic plants were cloned and sequenced bidirectionally. Homology searching of the obtained sequences against the GenBank database indicated the presence of 'Candidatus Phytoplasma asteris' in the three Muscari species. This is the first report worldwide of C. P. asteris phytoplasma infecting M. botryoides and M. comosum, and its first identification in M. armeniacum in Hungary.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.17221/70/2023-PPS
A Big Data Approach to Improve Productivity and Sustainability in the Clothing Manufacturing Industry: Case Study from Bangladesh
Publication Name: Chemical Engineering Transactions
Publication Date: 2023-01-01
Volume: 107
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: 445-450
Description:
The goal of this article is to examine opportunities and show the approach of using big data analytics to boost productivity in the case of clothing manufacturing factories in a sustainable way. The Bangladeshi manufacturing industry is mainly dominated by the apparel and textile sector for a long time now, and this has seen a large growth over the years. However, this industry is still far from using the latest technologies to improve productivity even further and bring sustainability. Usually, manufacturing operations involve the generation of a large amount of structured or unstructured, useful or non-useful data on a daily basis. This huge amount of information is known as big data, which is difficult to handle by using traditional data management and analysis tools. However, with the help of big data analytics used in a proper method, the collected information can be used to track insufficiencies in different areas of manufacturing operations. This research is conducted based on a similar idea where problems are identified, and production data collected from a garments manufacturing plant in Bangladesh are analyzed. Based on real factory data, several hypothetical frameworks were developed to implement and analyse the production data with the help of big data analytics, computerized sewing machines, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and passive infrared sensors. The paper also shows an estimated implementation cost and return on investment of the suggested approach.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.3303/CET23107075
Hungarian Battery Production – Public Opinion on Sustainability, Labor Market and the Environmental Protection
Publication Name: Chemical Engineering Transactions
Publication Date: 2023-01-01
Volume: 107
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: 691-696
Description:
Transportation in the 20th century was linked to hydrocarbons. The first steps of the transition to electric propulsion are currently underway. Technical experts are still debating whether this is the ideal solution while producing the batteries required for the method has begun. One of the main areas of high-speed industrialization is Hungary. The government's intention is clear, primarily to increase GDP and create jobs. The population knows that jobs can only be filled by foreign, immigrant workers and is extremely worried about possible accidents during production and destruction. The research aims to explore the opinions in detail and examine the possibilities of approximating different positions. This quantitative study found that the respondents would like to live at an unrealistically large distance from such facilities. Many people want the battery factories to be banned or the investments to be stopped, and the fact that very few people are informed from the literature plays a significant role. The greatest fear is experienced among the middle-aged, and we justify our findings with social facts and negative events. In order to resolve the tensions, it is recommended to educate the masses on the one hand, and on the other hand, stricter control, and more significant sanctions. These methods ensure that negotiations between the population, civil organizations, and companies end with a compromise created by a debate supported by arguments in civilized conditions.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.3303/CET23107116
Impact of Different Rainfall Intensity and Duration on Flash-Flood Events on a Steep-Sloped Ungauged Watershed
Publication Name: Chemical Engineering Transactions
Publication Date: 2023-01-01
Volume: 107
Issue: Unknown
Page Range: 175-180
Description:
Changing climate conditions increase rainfall intensity and cause a growing number of flash flood events. Due to flash floods, problems with water damage prevention (urban area floods, erosion of natural watersheds) are increasing; these events also make the sustainable maintenance of watersheds more challenging. Hungarian watersheds are ungauged; very little historical or real-time data is available, making it difficult to understand the hydrological processes occurring during flash flood events. When only limited data is available, numerical models help predict peak flows and runoff volume. Additionally, a comparison of different models and parametrizations could be a helpful tool to reduce prediction uncertainty. This paper evaluates the impact of different rainfall intensities and durations on flash flood events at the ungauged watershed of the Morgó-creek on the northern side of Hungary. Land use conditions are primarily natural, with urban areas close to the outlet point. Hydrological and hydrodynamical models were used to apply different scenarios to determine the sensitivity of the whole watershed system based on typical precipitation events in time and intensity. The models predicted different peak flows and timing for flash floods. Using both models for comparison is recommended for flash flood prediction to compensate for the lack of measured data.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.3303/CET23107030
The Methodologies and Main Challenges of Assessment the Multi-Hazard Interaction and Risk Management Associated with Roads Infrastructures and Dam Safety: A Review
Publication Name: International Journal of Integrated Engineering
Publication Date: 2023-01-01
Volume: 15
Issue: 7
Page Range: 174-188
Description:
The idea of multi-hazard interactions and risk assessment, particularly in relation to both natural hazards and hazards triggered by anthropogenic processes, has been widely used, especially in recent decades. Numerous areas worldwide, as well as various sectors, face exposure to multiple hazards. These hazards encompass natural phenomena like floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, and more. In comparison, the human-induced or anthropogenic processes associated with infrastructure development, along with other potential human activities such as, land and cover use change, contribute to the overall hazard landscape. Both natural hazards and anthropogenic-induced directly led to infrastructure collapse and loss of functionality with other consequences for human lives, economy, beside the environment impacts. Limited studies have been conducted on the implementation of the comprehensive multi-hazard interaction approach, which is globally or regionally required, along with detailed studies on the interaction between different multi-hazard sources and their interrelationships in short-term or long-term scenarios. The current research aims to review previous literature and studies on the multi-hazard interaction approach, methodologies of visualization and classification, as well as explores the potential of multi-hazard associated with road networks, infrastructures, and dams. The research utilizes simulation various models and tools such as, Geographic Information System (GIS) beside Remote Sensing (Rs) techniques. The current study concludes that using multi-hazard maps, hazard matrix, and fragility curves represents highly valuable and very useful and flexible tools for implementing and visualization hot spot areas exposure by multi-hazard consequences and vulnerability analysis for short and long-term scenarios. In addition, the current review highlighted for development a holistic conceptual framework for multi-hazard and risk assessment associated with hydraulic structures such as dams, road networks and infrastructures with hazard exposure analysis to be used as tools for a decision support system (DSS) in order to develop urban resilience, risk management and hazard mitigations.
Open Access: Yes
The Ecological Footprint of Construction Materials—A Standardized Approach from Hungary
Publication Name: Resources
Publication Date: 2023-01-01
Volume: 12
Issue: 1
Page Range: Unknown
Description:
Due to the large volume and mass of materials used, the construction industry is one of the sectors with the highest environmental impact. However, to provide good quality, affordable, and low-energy housing, the business case must be maintained. Accordingly, we aimed to develop and test a calculator to measure the ecological footprint of the embodied carbon in materials used in construction projects in a standardized way, without the need for environmental or even civil engineering expertise, and thus in a way that is accessible to SMEs. The novelty of our research is that although there are calculators for measuring the environmental impact (e.g., carbon footprint) of the construction industry, and there is a methodology for calculating the ecological footprint of construction, there is no free, easy-to-use, online calculator for calculating the ecological footprint of embodied carbon in materials available to all enterprises. In other words, this approach extends our previously developed corporate ecological footprint calculator with the environmental impacts of material usage. The study summarises the baseline research for an ecological footprint calculator, tested on two new condominium buildings and the energy renovation of five condominium buildings, built with a prefabricated technology typical in Hungary and other post-socialist countries. Based on our results and in accordance with former literature sources, most of the ecological footprint of new construction projects is determined by materials with high mass and volume, in particular, concrete, steel, and masonry; so it is not necessary to take into account all construction materials in a calculator in a detailed way. We also conclude that renovation and ongoing maintenance, as well as preservation, are recommended for structurally sound buildings, as embodied carbon in materials in the case of an energy upgrade of an existing condominium building has an environmental impact of 0.3–0.8 global hectares per dwelling, depending on the technical content, while in the construction of a new building, this value is between 10.49–14.22 global hectares. Our results can help investors and clients in their decisions, and policymakers in determining urban development directions.
Open Access: Yes
Application of Substructure Techniques to Syntactic Metal Foams in a Finite Element Environment
Publication Name: Periodica Polytechnica Mechanical Engineering
Publication Date: 2023-01-01
Volume: 67
Issue: 4
Page Range: 276-284
Description:
The presented work focuses on the development of a novel method that can numerically describe the properties of metal matrix syntactic foam (MMSF) with low memory requirements and short computational times without losing the properties of the interior structure. In this paper, we propose a novel method that avoids using the homogenization technique and instead rearranges stiffness matrices and constructs specific substructures to perform the overall construction. The two-dimensional cases are discussed in order to focus on the methodology itself. First, the reductions and structural design with solid mesh structures were performed, and then the model was applied on structures filled with iron hollow spheres. So far, the method has been used to evaluate small deformations to see how suitable the subspace technique is for describing metal foams. Aluminum was used as the matrix material, as it is one of the most common materials for MMSFs. The optimal parameters were searched that resulted in the shortest running time for the given construction. Since in the proposed substructure technique only the displacement values at the boundary points are computed, a back-calculation step for each selected substructure was performed to see the interior deformations in the vicinity of an iron hollow sphere.
Open Access: Yes
DOI: 10.3311/PPme.22313
