Fine Sediment Analysis and the Impacts of Fine Sediment Pollution in Brampton Arm of River Nene

All right Sediment Analysis and the Impacts of Fine Sediment Pollution in Brampton Arm of River Nene Introduction:All right deposits are recognized as the most common and important beginning of pollution in the riverine system ( Robinson, 1973 ) . The sediment burdens delivered to watercourses starts from a figure of upstream primary and secondary deposit beginnings, including cultivated Fieldss and bank eroding ( Collinset Al.1997 ) . Erosion procedures and sediment bringing are the built-in portion of aquatic systems that influence the geomorphology, habitat distribution and H2O quality. The aquatic communities are besides extremely adapted and they are able to get by with the natural baseline deposit inputs. Whereas, the healthy fresh water ecosystems besides require the proper inputs of deposits into the system to keep the home ground and alimentary fluxes ( Collinset Al.1997 ) . At the planetary graduated table suspended solids concentrations in many rivers has increase dramatically in the recent old ages ( Walling, 2006 ) . Existing grounds suggests that natural deposit burdens have been well exceeded in many catchment countries in the UK, peculiarly since World War II ( Evans, 2006 ) . The deposit lading into the rivers and channels may be due to some natural procedure and some are due to anthropogenetic activities. The anthropogenetic activities which are majorly involved in the sediment pollution of the rivers are: addition in the countries of cultivable cultivation, taking to the greater countries of bare and exposed dirts susceptible to erodings by winter rainfall ( Greig,et Al.2005 ) ; mechanized farm patterns which compact the dirt increases overflow and dirt eroding ( McMellinet Al.2002 ; Bilotta,et Al.2007 ) ; Intensification of agribusiness patterns by the usage of multiple cropping on cultivable land technique ( Heanetet al. ,2001 ) and increased bank eroding due to the loss of natural hydrology. Excessive all right deposits in suspension or deposited can hold negative impacts upon all the life phases of fish, peculiarly salmanid in many parts of United Kingdom ( Collins and Walling, 2007 ; Collinset al. ,2008 ) . The impacts upon the ecosystems will depend on several cardinal factors like: the concentration of all right deposits in the suspension ; the continuance of exposure to the deposits ; and the chemical composing of the sediment atom size ( Bilotta and Brazier, 2008 ) . These all factors can do the finding of the impacts of mulct suspended atoms on the vegetations and zoologies of the river and watercourse. Effectss of Higher Fine Sediment contents:the relationship between the higher mulct suspended deposits on fish varies mostly, as it depends upon the life phase, clip of twelvemonth, size of the fish, and the composing of the all right deposits and handiness of off-channel home ground ( Bashet al. ,2001 ) . The exposure magnitude and the continuance and the frequence of exposures ( Servizi and Martens, 1992 ) are other countries of concern. For illustration, in reappraisal of the published literature the threshold degrees of the mulct suspended deposits are based on the dose-response experiments which examines the impaired growing, reduced eating and mortality, i.e. 27-80,000 mh/l for Mollusca and 4-330,000mg/l for assorted fish species ( Berryet Al.2003 ) . These scopes of the badness of consequence of SS concentration are map of associated stressors which includes atom size, species life, phase of life, temperature, the presence of certain deposit associated contaminations and the s ediment burden continuance ( Swietliket al. ,2003 ) . Due to the complex nature of the interaction of such stressors, it is improbable that a comprehensive list of genus-based critical suspended deposit concentration marks can be developed in the short term ( USEPA, 2003 ) . The higher content of the finer suspended can besides ensue in the decreased reproduction and the growing of the fish through the debasement of engendering home grounds and surrounding eggs and yolk-sac Fry. For illustration Salmonid eggs requires clean and good oxygenated environment during the embryologic development phase, so eggs are laid in permeable crushed rock beds with interstitial pore infinites which allow the transition of oxygenated H2O, inordinate all right deposits in the H2O can choke off these interstitial pores, blockading the circulation of the fresh oxygenated H2O, which may cut down the egg endurance ( Carling, 1984 ; Mageeet al. ,1996 ) . Furthermore, other effects of the higher all right deposit contents in the river watercourse on the fish biology includes: gill irritation/traumas, tumours and gill flaring ( Berg, 1982 ; Schleiger, 2000 ) ; addition in the plasma glucose in their blood systems ( Servizi and Martens, 1987 ) ; cut downing the migrating population of fish ( Newcombe and Macdonald, 1991 ) , the turning away reaction of the fish compels them to travel off from the country of higher pollution ( Sigleret al. ,1984 ; Bashet al. ,2001 ) ; all right deposits exerts an of import control on the transportation and destiny of a broad scope of agricultural and industrial contamination ( Warrenet al. ,2003 ) , so the deposits can act as vectors for the transportation of the pollutants in the H2O organic structures, many of the pollutants which are transferred by the all right deposits have abilities to poison the H2O system, and do it unsuitable for the aquatic life to last ( Nealet al. ,1999 ) The above treatment can be summarized by stating that the high concentration of the mulct suspended deposits can negatively impact the fish population by cut downing ; 1 ) the diverseness of sensitive species, 2 ) overall population copiousness, 3 ) the proportion of the omnivores within the overall population. All these factors can hold impacts even at sub deadly concentrations of the mulct suspended solids, cumulatively cut downing the resiliency of fish species and hence their opposition to environmental emphasiss including other signifiers of the H2O pollution, marauders, disease and over development. The cause and effects of biological and chemical debasement are good documented ( Fozzard, 1994 ) . Soulsby et Al. ( 2001 ) carried a prelimary survey on the engendering home ground utilized by Atlantic Salmon ( Salmon Alar ) and Sea Trout ( Salmo trutta ) . The high contents of the suspended mulct deposits in the crushed rocks provide cheques on the pink-orange productions in the low-land watercourse ( Sear, 1993 ; Brogan and Soulsby, 1996 ; Acornely and Sear, 1998 ) . The addition in the all right deposits in fresh water ensuing from the anthropogenetic activities and inordinate urban development is the possible stressor for fish and therefore may do population diminution. Additionally it can be said that the turbid H2O and to a great extent silted bed deposits can degrade the watercourse home ground for unattached immature salmonids in affected watercourses ( Lisle and Lewis, 1992 ) . The UK criterions for the mulct suspended deposits were set up by the EU Freshwater Fish Directive ( FFD ) . The FFD defined some bounds for the all right deposits in the fresh water i.e. the suspended deposits should non transcend the average one-year value of 25 mg/l ( EU, FFD ) . This was the lone criterion guideline which should be achieved where possible. No imperative criterions ( the criterions which must be met ) were in being for the all right deposits in the UK ( S & A ; T Briefing Paper ) . A assortment of sediment grain size fractions have been considered by the environmental directors and research workers in their attempts to place aquatic impacts in past. There is immense figure of documents published in past that gave different criterions of the all right deposit content in the aquatic systems, some of them are mentioned below: After the amendment of the British Columbia Water Quality Guidelines for turbidness, suspended and benthal deposits, the new guidelines recommended that streambed composing at Salmonid engendering sites should non transcend 10 % of & lt ; 2mm, 19 % of & lt ; 3mm, and 25 % of & lt ; 6.35mm ( Caux et al. , 1997 ) ; McNeil and Ahnell ( 1964 ) , they suggested that an addition in sediment volume of atoms less than 0.833 millimeter would ensue in both reduced permeableness and generative success ; Whereas, harmonizing to Chapman ( 1988 ) silver salmon and buddy salmon endurance was reciprocally relative to increase in particle size less than 3.3 m illimeter. Furthermore, he besides reported that any per centum of 6-12 millimeter atoms above 15 % or of atoms less than 6mm above 25 % reduces the opportunities of endurance of salmon eggs. Reasoning the above treatment, irrespective of the specific grain size of the deposits, it is readily evident that an surplus of all right grain deposit has possible to negative impacts on the biodiversity of the aquatic ecosystems. It has already been discussed that big figure or surplus of all right deposits would impair the reproduction behaviour of the fish and other life signifiers in aquatic ecosystems. Purposes of present survey:the chief purpose of the present survey is to happen out the all right deposit content of the Brampton Arm of the River Nene, and to compare the all right deposits in the watercourse with the above literature. The criterions proposed by Caux et Al. ( 1997 ) , would be used as mention for this survey. Furthermore, on the footing of the consequences of the experiment, we would hold a clear image of the all right deposit contents of the river watercourse under survey, to pull a decision whether the all right deposits would impact the fish biodiversity in the river watercourse or non. Methods:The method employed for the aggregation of the all right river bed deposits was simple Mac Neil Sampling technique. Three pails of the Mac Neil samples were collected at the site. The samples were dried and so sieved through the BS criterion screens in research lab to hold the clear image of the sediment contents of the subsurface river bed. For the surface grain size appraisal, Wolman technique was used to acquire an estimation for the surface grain size proportions. Consequences:the consequences are attached as graphs in annexures of this study. The analysis of the consequences which are attached asGraph 1shows that the riffle sample of the Bramptom arm of the river Nene was ill sorted ; the deposits were flaxen class crushed rock. It had big sum of class crushed rock and low measure of the really all right sand. The statistics of the sample are attached asTable 1in the annexures of this study. The measure of the really all right sand is below 2 % , whereas, it had big proportion of the medium crushed rock nowadays in it. The analysis of the ripple sample shows that the part of the river watercourse had really low all right deposits in it, which would impact the biodiversity and the fishing home grounds and angling community in the river. TheGraph 2,attached as an annexure, shows the consequences of the analysis of the 2nd sample which was attained at the Pool/Riffle Glide subdivision of the river watercourse. Again the sample was ill sorted and there was a loss of 1.2 % of the sample during the sieving operation. The sample showed the belongingss of sand crushed rock. There was a big proportion of the crushed rock nowadays in the sample, whereas, the sand is merely approximately 25 % . Further grain size distribution shows that the sample contained all right sand of approximately 2.9 % , and the really all right sand is below 1 % . As the sample can be classified as flaxen Gravel, it had major proportion of class crushed rock atoms, whereas, the all right crushed rock is non in important per centums. TheTable 2attached as the annexure shows the sum-up of the sample which was analyzed. Uniting both the samples, the loss of weight on sieving is 3.3 % . The comparative hapless sorting and the loss of weight of sample, h as decidedly impacted the consequences of the analysis. The loss may be termed as general sieving mistakes and mistakes related to the human carelessness. Discussions:on the footing of the consequences, certain decisions are drawn to acquire clearer image of the type of the river deposits present in the Brampton Arm of the river Nene. There was an overall loss of 3.3 % of the sample during the sieving operations. The mistake impacted the consequences of the analysis. Furthermore, the samples were ill sorted, which may be as a consequence of general human mistakes or deficient clip for screening operations. The tabular arraies and Graphs have been attached with this study to back up the treatment which was carried out in the literature above. As there are no perfect empirical criterions available by which we can compare the consequences of the experiment to happen out the measure of the all right deposits present in the river watercourse. For the interest of convenience, the criterions put frontward by British Columbia Water Quality Guidelines for turbidness, suspended and benthal deposits were used to compare the sum of all right deposits in the river watercourse. As mentioned above in literature part of the study, the all right deposits & lt ; 2mm should non transcend 10 % by proportion in the river watercourse. Sediments mensurating & lt ; 2mm if exceeds in the per centum proportion would hold hurtful impacts upon the fish home grounds and the other biodiversity nowadays in the river H2O. The overall consequences drawn from the experiments, and by graphs and tabular arraies, we came to a decision that the entire per centum of the atoms and the deposits less than 2mm were 12.2 % . The per centum is rather higher than the criterions proposed by the British Columbia Water Quality Guidelines. The dirt fish life in the country under survey may be held responsible for the addition in the all right deposits in the river system. Another ground behind this scenario may be that the country from where the Brampton arm of river Nene base on ballss had a big arable land around it, so any agricultural activity transporting out may be able contributes the all right deposit pollution in the river watercourse.

Project Report on Cost Analysis of Rice Mill in India Essay

1.1 Introduction Rice is the staple food for 65% of the population in India. It is the largest consumed calorie source among the food grains. With a per capita availability of 73.8 kg it meets 31% of the total calorie requirement of the population. India is the second largest producer of rice in the world next to China. The all India area, production, and yield of rice in the year 2001-02 was 44.62 million hectares, 93.08 million tons and 2086 kg/ ha respectively. In India paddy occupies the first place both in area and production. The crop occupies about 37 % of the total cropped area and 44% (2001-02 position) of total production of food grains in India. West Bengal is the leading producer of paddy in the country. It accounts for 16.39% of the total production, and the other leading states are Uttar Pradesh (13.38%), Andhra Pradesh (12.24%), Punjab (9.47%), Orissa (7.68%) and Tamil Nadu (7.38%); the remaining states account for 33.45% of the production. India is also one of the leading exporters of rice in the world market. India’s export of rice stood at 23.89 lakh MT in 1997-98. The corresponding value of foreign exchange earned was to the tune of Rs. 3371.00 crore in 1997-98. Indian Basmati Rice has been a favorite among international rice buyers. Following liberalization of international trade after World Trade Agreement, Indian rice will become highly competitive and has been identified as one of the major commodities for export. Look more:  capital budgeting examples essay This provides us with ample opportunity for development of rice based value-added products for earning more foreign exchange. Apart from rice milling, processing of rice bran for oil extraction is also an important agro processing activity for value addition, income and employment generation. Many of the rice processing units are of the traditional huller type and are inefficient. Modern rice mills are having high capacity and are capital intensive, although efficient. Small modern rice mills have been developed and are available in the market but the lack of information is a bottleneck in its adoption by the prospective entrepreneur. The present model will go a long way in bridging the information gap. 1.2 Description of Rice Milling Operations Paddy in its raw form cannot be consumed by human beings. It needs to be suitably processed for obtaining rice. Rice milling is the process which helps in removal of hulls and barns from paddy grains to produce polished rice. Rice forms the basic primary processed product obtained from paddy and this is further processed for obtaining various secondary and tertiary products. The basic rice milling processes consist of: 1. Pre Cleaning: Removing all impurities and unfilled grains from paddy 2. De-stoning: Separating small stones from paddy 3. Parboiling (Optional): Helps in improving the nutritional quality by gelatinization of starch inside the rice grain. It improves the milling recovery percent during de-shelling and polishing / whitening operation 4. Husking: Removing husk from paddy 5. Husk Aspiration: Separating the husk from brown rice/ unhusked paddy 6. Paddy Separation: Separating the unhusked paddy from brown rice 7. Whitening: Removing all or part of the bran layer and germ from brown rice 8. Polishing: Improving the appearance of milled rice by removing the remaining bran particles and by polishing the exterior of the milled kernel 9. Length Grading: Separating small and large brokens from head rice 10. Blending: Mixing head rice with predetermined amount of brokens, as required by the customer 11. Weighing and bagging: Preparing the milled rice for transport to the customer The flow diagram of the various unit operations are as follows: Figure 1: Block Diagram of Rice Processing 1.3 Status of Rice Milling Units in India Rice milling is the oldest and the largest agro processing industry of the country. At present it has a turnover of more than 25,500/- crore per annum. It processes about 85 million tons of paddy per year and provides staple food grain and other valuable products required by over 60% of the population. Paddy grain is milled either in raw condition or after par-boiling, mostly by single hullers of which over 82,000 are registered in the country. Apart from it there are also a large number of unregistered single hulling units in the country. A good number (60 %) of these are also linked with par-boiling units and sun -drying yards. Most of the tiny hullers of about 250-300 kg/hr capacities are employed for custom milling of paddy. Apart from it double hulling units number over 2,600 units, underrun disc shellers cum cone polishers numbering 5,000 units and rubber roll shellers cum friction polishers numbering over 10,000 units are also present in the country. Further over the years there has been a steady growth of improved rice mills in the country. Most of these have capacities ranging from 2 tons /hr to 10 tons/ hr. 1.4 Need for Improved Rice Mills The recovery of whole grains in a traditional rice mill using steel hullers for dehusking is around 52-54%. There is excessive loss in the form of coarse and fine brokens. Further loss of large portion of endosperm layers during the dehusking operation further accentuates the problem. Against it, the recovery percent of whole grains in modern rice mills using rubber roll shellers for dehusking operation is around 62-64%. The whole grain recovery percent further increases to 66-68% in case of milling of parboiled paddy. Thus it can be seen that there is an overall improvement of recovery of whole grains by about 10-14% if one uses rubber roll shellers for rice milling operations. The conversion ratio (i.e. recovery % of various final product and byproduct for every 100 kg feed of raw paddy) for these improved rice mills are can be as follows: 1. Percent of milled rice : 62-68%2. Percent of rice bran : 4-5% 3. Percent of rice husk : 25% 4. Percent of germ wastages : 2%-8% It has been observed that dehusking using rubber roll shellers reduces the risk of breaking the grain because husk is pulled off almost at once and pressure is applied by means of resilient surfaces across the width of the grain, where kernels, generally are much more uniform than they are by length. Moreover, the process does not remove the internal epidermis of the husk. Thus the deshelled grains with their silver skin envelope are protected against scratches and keep longer and better while the silver skin and the germ increases the quantity of bran which is produced while whitening. The improved rice mills have a better husk and rice bran aspiration system. The same prevents mixing of fine brokens with rice bran. Therefore the quality of rice bran obtained is better. It has also been observed that the location of rice mills are confined to a few selected production centers. Their development as a village level agro processing unit is yet to take a proper shape. In the absence of village level rice milling unit, the farmers have to travel great distances for milling the rice. This leads to increased transportation and handling losses. Thus there is a need to develop improved rice mills as a village level agro processing unit for bringing about technical up-gradation and development of the sector. Value addition and generation of gainful and sustainable employment opportunities are the other possible benefits arising out of this agro processing industry. The Central Govt. is also providing a big boost towards the development of this industry. It has since repealed w.e.f. May 27, 1998 the Rice Milling Industry (Regulation) Act, 1958 and Rice Milling Industry (Regulation and licensing) Rules, 1959. Further, rice milling sector which was earlier reserved for the small scale sector, have now been de-reserved. As such, no license/ permission is now required for setting up a rice mill. 1.5 Rice Husk Gasifier A rice husk gasifier aims at using wastes from rice mills to fuel a spark-ignition engine that will drive a generator to produce electricity. Instead of dumping rice husks along roadsides, it can now be converted into valuable fuel that can help in substituting the energy required at the mill itself. The gasifier basically employs a moving-bed downdraft gasifier reactor developed by CRHET in combination with a gas-conditioning device that removes impurities from the gas thereby making it highly suitable fuel for heat engines. The gasifier produces a clean gas with a very low amount of black carbon (i.e., only 50 um/m3of gas), and so the gas coming out of the muffler of an engine is also clean. CO2 emission is Operation of the likewise relatively low of about 0.6 kg per ton of rice husks. Figure 2: Block Diagram of Rice Husk Gasifier 1.6 Problem Description The Rice milling is the process that helps in removal of hulls and bran’s from paddy grains to produce polished rice. Rice is rich in genetic diversity with thousands of varieties grown throughout the world. Rice has been one of man’s most important foods. Today, this unique grain helps sustain two-thirds of the world’s population. It is life for thousands of millions of people. It is deeply embedded in the cultural heritage of their societies. About four-fifths of the world’s rice are produced by small-scale farmers and are consumed locally. The major portion of the paddy is being processed through hullers. The hullers are usually low capacity mills. In these hullers, both shelling and polishing operations are carried out simultaneously. Hence, there is no control on the polishing of rice, bran and a higher breakage of rice occurs. Today the number of middle class people is rising who want good quality of food. Thus a number of small, technically advance rice mills are being set up to meet the quality needs of the people and substitute for huller mill, to get polished rice, rice bran and paddy husk. In this project, profit analysis of a small scale technically advance rice mill is carries out using the business case of Jay Laxmi Rice Mill, Bazpur in Udham Singh Nagar district in the state of Uttarakhand. It has a nominal capacity of 4000kg/hr. It has been built for the production of raw rice. The relation between the cost of capital and the net present value of the project was developed. The internal rate of return was determined by finding the appropriate discounting rates for which the net present value is zero. Sensitivity analysis of various factors like paddy price, raw rice price, bran price versus internal rate of return and the net present value of the project were done to estimate profit. Also, the owner want to know the effect on internal rate of return and net present value if the husk produced is used for generating electricity for the plant. What is the minimum percentage of electricity consumption that should be substituted by rice husk gasifier such that the process is profitable? There are a lot of bottlenecks and unforeseen problems in estimating it. The owner needs to know the fixed and variable costs for operating this. The market forces decide the price/unit of raw rice in the market. Thus, the owner has to follow the supply demand dynamics and price its product. To maintain a pre-defined profit margin the owner should know its revenue and costs and aim to increase its revenue and decrease its costs. These problems are discussed and solved in this report. 1.6 Objectives On the light of the above discussion the following objectives will be addressed in this investigation: * Obtaining an exhaustive asset list along with its initial cost, life and salvage value to compute the Net Present Value, Payback Period and Internal Rate of Return of the project. * To create a programme in C and obtain a relationship between Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and yearly cash flow generated. * To obtain relationship between Net Present Value and Cost of Capital * To obtain relationship between Net income, Internal Rate of Return and Net Present Value * To perform sensitivity analysis for the owner on the basis of: * Buying price of Paddy versus Internal Rate of Return and Net Present Value * Selling price of Raw Rice versus Internal Rate of Return and Net Present Value * Selling price of Bran versus Internal Rate of Return and Net Present Value * Salvage value versus Internal Rate of Return and Net Present Value * To find the minimum percentage of total electricity consumption that should be generated from Rice Husk Gassifier so that the process is economic and obtain a relationship between percentage electricity substituted from the husk gassifier, Internal Rate of Return and Net Present Value. Chapter 2: Review of Literature ————————————————- This is a specific case study partening to Jay Laxmi Rice Mill at Bazpur in Udham Singh Nagar district in the state of Uttarakhand. This case study is an analysis of the establishment and functioning of small scale modern rice mill in India. It is neither a story of spectacular success, nor of a spectacular failure as case studies usually are. Rather, it is written with a purpose of illustrating the complexity of factors that enter into the establishment and functioning of an enterprise in a low income economy. These factors often distort both the factor and the product prices and make it difficult to measure the efficiency of an enterprise with the usual yardsticks of cost-benefit analysis. In conducting the analysis the classical analytical tools have been used. These tools take into account the Time Value of Money and are the core topics in books on Engineering Economics. The equations used in the analysis of the project have been taken from the book on ‘Essentials of Engineering Economics’ by James L. Riggs and Thomas M. West. The current market price of the assets used in the rice mill has been obtained from Satake, Japanese manufacturer and supplier of rice mill machinery. The Kolkata representative of Satake recommends the market price and setting up cost. The list of assets used in Rice Husk Gasifier, their current market price and salvage value were obtained from the various sites. The papers on ‘Electricity generation from rice husk in indian rice mills’ and ‘Rice husk gasifier for melting and reheating process’ helped me in detailed understanding of the rice husk gassifier. Keeping all these study in mind, I have perform the sensitivity analysis of various factors like paddy price, raw rice price, bran price versus the internal rate of return and the net present value of the project. Also found out the relationship between factors like Cost of Capital, Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return. Chapter 3: Problem Solving ————————————————- 3.1 Important Terminology Time Value of Money: * It is the idea that money available at present time is worth more than the same amount in the future due to its potential earnings capacity. * Thus any amount of money is worth more the sooner it is received. For example, assuming a 5% interest rate, $100 invested today will be worth $105 in one year ($100 multiplied by 1.05). Cash Flow Diagram: * A cash flow diagram is a tool used to represent the transactions which will take place over the course of a given project. * Transactions can include initial investments, maintenance costs, projected earnings or savings resulting from the project, as well as resale salvage value of equipment at the end of their lives. * Cash inflow is positive e.g. – revenue, resale salvage value * Cash outflow is negative e.g. – cost of equipments and set-up, disbursements etc. Figure 3: Cash Flow Diagram Resale Salvage Value: The estimated value that an asset will realize upon its sale at the end of its useful life. The salvage value is used in conjunction with the purchase price and accounting method to determine the amount by which an asset depreciates each period. For example, with a straight-line basis, an asset that cost $5,000 and has a salvage value of $1,000 and a useful life of five years would be depreciated at $800 ([$5,000 – $1,000]/5 years) each year. Within the tax system, when a person donates a car he or she receives a tax deduction. The value of this deduction depends on the salvage value of the car. This salvage value is determined to be the current fair market value that could be obtained had the car been sold on that day rather than donated. Disbursements: Money paid out in the discharge of a debt or expense. Disbursements can include money paid out to run a business, spending cash, dividend payments, and/or the amounts that a lawyer might have to pay out on a person’s behalf in connection with a transaction. When money is disbursed, it is a cash outflow. Cash flow is a measure of the cash inflow, revenue, and cash outflows, or disbursements. Ideally, there will be more money flowing in than flowing out. If cash flow is negative (in other words disbursements are higher than revenues), it can be an early warning of potential insolvency. Internal Rate of Return (IRR): The discount rate often used in capital budgeting that makes the net present value of all cash flows from a particular project equal to zero. Generally speaking, the higher a project`s internal rate of return, the more desirable it is to undertake the project. As such, IRR can be used to rank several prospective projects a firm is considering. Assuming all other factors are equal among the various projects, the project with the highest IRR would probably be considered the best and undertaken first. IRR as the rate of growth a project is expected to generate. While the actual rate of return that a given project ends up generating will often differ from its estimated IRR rate, a project with a substantial higher IRR value than other available options would still provide a much better chance of strong worth. IRR can also be compared against prevailing rates of return in the securities markets. If a firm cannot find any project with IRRs greater than the returns that can be generated in the financial market, it may simply choose to invest its retained earnings into the market. IRR (before tax) of a business venture / commercial project can be computed when all the cash flows (P, R, D, F) and lives (n) of assets are given. It is calculated by equating the Net Present Value (NPV) to zero. The corresponding value of ‘i’ is the IRR. Payback period: Payback Period in capital budgeting refers to the period of time required for the return on an investment to â€Å"repay† the sum of the original investment. For example, a $1000 investment which returned $500 per year would have a two year payback period. The time value of money is not taken into account. Payback period intuitively measures how long something takes to â€Å"pay for itself.† All else being equal, shorter payback periods are preferable to longer payback periods. Payback period is widely used because of its ease of use despite the recognized limitations described below. Useful Life: Period during which an asset or property is expected to be usable for the purpose it was required. It may or may not correspond with the item`s actual physical life or economic life. The length of time that a depreciable asset is expected to be usable is its useful life. Cost of Capital: The required return necessary to make a capital budgeting project, such as building a new factory, worthwhile. Cost of capital includes the cost of debt and the cost of equity. It determines how a company can raise money (through a stock issue, borrowing, or a mix of the two). This is the rate of return that a firm would receive if it invested in a different vehicle with similar risk. The cost of capital is a term used in the field of financial investment to refer to the cost of a company’s funds (both debt and equity), or, from an investor’s point of view â€Å"the shareholder’s required return on a portfolio of all the company’s existing securities†. It is used to evaluate new projects of a company as it is the minimum return that investors expect for providing capital to the company, thus setting a benchmark that a new project has to meet. For an investment to be worthwhile, the expected return on capital must be greater than the cost of capital. The cost of capital is the rate of return that capital could be expected to earn in an alternative investment of equivalent risk. If a project is of similar risk to a company’s average business activities it is reasonable to use the company’s average cost of capital as a basis for the evaluation. A company’s securities typically include both debt and equity, one must therefore calculate both the cost of debt and the cost of equity to determine a company’s cost of capital. However, a rate of return larger than the cost of capital is usually required. Market Price: Market price is the economic price for which a good or service is offered in the market place. Market pricing is primarily determined by the interaction of supply and demand. Price is interrelated with both of these measures of value. The relationship between price and supply is generally negative, meaning that the higher the price climbs, the lower amount of supply is demanded. Market price is just the price at which goods and services are sold. Price, the amount of goods for which a product is sold, may be seen as a financial expression of the value of the product. Setting the right price is an important part of effective marketing, being the only part of the marketing mix that generates revenue, as product, promotion, and place are all about marketing costs. Price is also the marketing variable that can be changed most quickly. Collin Ta’eed’s ‘Making Money’ describes pricing strategy as a difficult task that depends on nine major factors. They are as follows: 1. Total Costs: If the market price doesn`t include enough just to break-even, one is heading for trouble. The best thing to do is sum up all costs and divide by the number of hours that can be billed a year. This doesn`t include sick days, holidays, and hours working on the business, hours with no work and so on. All hidden costs must be factored. E.g.: insurance, invoices that never get paid for one reason or another, and taxes. 2. Profit: The aim of every business is to make money. Profit is the target money one wants to make above breaking even. Profit is affected by the revenue generated which in turn depends on market price. 3. Market Demand: The concept of demand – supply states that if what one does is in high demand, then make your services more expensive. Conversely if there`s hardly any work around, then decide the market price based on competitors pricing strategy. Signs that demand are high include too much work coming in, other freelancers being overloaded and people telling you they`ve been struggling to find someone to do the job. Signs that demand are low include finding yourself competing to win jobs, a shortage of work and fellow freelancers re-entering the workforce. 4. Industry Standards: It is a technical standards used in business. It is based on the industry market price, value for money, services offered etc. in order to fit in the market, one must adhere to industry standards. 5. Skill Level: Different people, depending on the result they produce, possess a different skill level. When applies to companies, it implies that the market price must be commensurate with the company`s skill. 6. Experience: Although often bundled with skill, experience is a different factor altogether. Experience affects how much a company must charge. E.g.: You may have two very talented photographers, but one with more experience might have better client skills, be able to foresee problems (and thus save the client time and money), and intuitively know what`s going to work for a certain audience and so on. 7. Business Strategy Adopted: Business strategy or angle will make a huge difference to the pricing strategy. E.g.: Think about the differences between Revlon and Chanel, the two could make the same perfume but you would never expect to pay the same for both. Pitching oneself in front of the target customers helps define a company as cheap and cheerful, high end or somewhere in between. This largely affects the market price as people are ready to pay a premium for high end goods. 8. Service Offered: Services are an intangible equivalent of economic goods. Service provision is often an economic activity where the buyer does not generally, except by exclusive contract, obtain exclusive ownership of the thing purchased. The benefits of such a service, if priced, are held to be self-evident in the buyers` willingness to pay for it. Public services are those societies as a whole pays through taxes and other means. The services that a company provides for its clients make a big difference to its price tag. For example you might be a freelancer, who will do whatever it takes to get a job just right, or perhaps you are on call 24-7, or perhaps you provide the minimum amount of communication to cut costs. Whatever the case, adjusting the pricing to the type and level of service provided is a must. 9. Market Segment: Prices will often vary for different clients. This happens for a few reasons. Some clients require more effort, some are riskier, some are repeat clients, some have jobs you are dying to do, some you wouldn`t want to go near with a stick. Thus these factors must be taken into account while pricing a commodity. Fixed Costs: A cost that does not change with an increase or decrease in the amount of goods or service produced. Fixed costs are expenses that have to be paid by a company, independent of business activity. It is one of the two components of the total cost of a good or service, along with variable cost. Fixed costs are defined as expenses that do not change as a function of the activity of a business, within the relevant period. E.g. rent, property tax, insurance, or interest expense. An example of a fixed cost would be a company`s rent on a building. If a company has to pay $10,000 each month to cover the cost of the rent but does not manufacture anything during the month, the rent payment is still due in full. In economics, a business can achieve economies of scale when it produces enough goods to spread fixed costs. For example, the $100,000 lease spread out over 100,000 widgets means that each widget carries with it $1 in fixed costs. If the company produces 200,000 widgets, the fixed cost per unit drops to 50 cents. Variable Costs: A corporate expense that varies with production output. Variable costs are those costs that vary depending on a company`s production volume; they rise as production increases and fall as production decreases. Variable costs differ from fixed costs such as rent, advertising, insurance and office supplies, which tend to remain the same regardless of production output. Variable costs can include direct material costs or direct labor costs necessary to complete a certain project. For example, a company may have variable costs associated with the packaging of one of its products. Conversely, when fewer of these products are sold the costs for packaging will consequently decrease. Marketing Costs: It is the amount of money spent on advertisement, distribution and selling of finished goods in the market. It has components of fixed and variable costs. It is difficult to obtain an estimate of the marketing cost. Hence, it is taken as a percentage of total costs and added to it. Total Costs: Total costs (TC) describes the total economic cost of production and is made up of variable costs, which vary according to the quantity of a good produced and include inputs such as labour and raw materials, plus fixed costs, which are independent of the quantity of goods produced and include (capital) that cannot be varied in the short term, such as buildings and machinery. Total cost in economics includes the total opportunity cost of each factor of production as part of its fixed or variable costs. If one assumes that the unit variable cost is constant, as in cost-volume-profit analysis developed and used in cost accounting by the accountants, then total cost is linear in volume, and given by: total cost = fixed costs + unit variable cost * quantity. Figure 4: Total Cost = Fixed Cost + Variable Cost Revenue: In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. Revenue may refer to business income in general, or it may refer to the amount, in a monetary unit, received during a period of time. Profit: It is the difference between a firm`s total revenue and all costs. It is the positive gain from an investment or business operation after subtracting for all expenses. It is the opposite of loss. Profit = Total Revenue – Total Costs Profit is the money a business makes after accounting for all the expenses. Regardless of whether the business is a couple of kids running a lemonade stand or a publicly traded multinational company, consistently earning profit is every company`s goal. The path toward profitability can be long. For example, online bookseller Amazon.com was founded in 1994 and did not produce its first annual profit until 2003. Many startups and new business fail when the owners run out of capital to sustain the business. Profit Before Tax: A profitability measure that looks at a company`s profile before the company has to pay corporate income tax. This measure deducts all expenses from revenue including interest expenses and operating expenses, but it leaves out the payment of tax. This measure combines all the company`s profits before tax, including operating, non-operating, continuing operations and non-continuing operations. PBT exists because tax expense is constantly changing and taking it out helps to give an investor a good idea of changes in a company`s profits or earnings from year to year. 3.2 Data Procurement Data required for analysis * List of Assets * Cost Spent on assets at t=0 * Useful life of each asset * Resale salvage price of each asset * Average repair and maintenance cost per year * Administrative cost per year * Fixed expenses incurred per year like rent, wages etc. * Variable costs involved in rice production * Quantity of rice, bran, husk produced * Unit price of raw material (paddy) and products (rice, bran, husk) The current asset price, useful life and salvage value was provided by Satake. Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.1. Data Description Each asset has a list of the following variables (whichever is applicable) * Quantity * Model type * Capacity * Electrical Rating * Market Price Data required for analysis of Rice Husk Gassifier * List of assets * Cost Spent on assets at t=0 * Useful life of each asset * Resale salvage price of each asset It is obtained from various sites online. Refer: Appendix B, Table 2.1. 3.3 Specifications and Assumptions Some specific data: * Capital Expenditure incurred = Rs. 9,05,04,240 * Capacity of Rice Mill = 4 tons per hour * Maximum Run = 270 days * 16 hours * Annual Requirement of Paddy at installed capacity = Capacity*Maximum Run = 17280 Metric Tonnes per year * The yield of rice is Particulars| Yield Percentage| Annual Yield (in MT)| Raw Rice| 65| 11232| Husk| 21| 3628.80| Broken Rice| 4| 691.20| Rice Bran| 8| 1382.40| Rejected Rice| 1| 172.80| Impurities| 1| 172.80| * Price of Paddy in the market = Rs. 1250 per quintal * Market Price of Raw Rice = Rs. 2000 per quintal * Market Price of Broken Rice = Rs. 1400 per quintal * Market Price of Bran = Rs. 1500 per quintal * Market Price of Husk = Rs. 320 per quintal Assumptions: * The plant is assumed to run for 270 days (approximate value for the rice mill) for calculations pertaining to profitability of rice mill. * The salvage cost is unknown and is taken as 10% of total assets cost. * Quantity of raw rice produced = Quantity of raw rice sold. No inventory is utilized. * No wastage of products and byproducts. 3.4 Solution Approach Payback Period Payback Period Internal Rate of Return Internal Rate of Return Net Present Value Net Present Value Solutions Solutions Net Present Value: * It is the algebraic sum of all cash flows pertaining to the project discounted to present time (t=0) at a chosen rate (i.e. Cost of Capital) NPV= -P+R-DÃâ€"1+in-1i*1+in+SÃâ€"11+in Where, P = Cost of Asset spent at time t=0 R = Revenue Income D = Disbursements S = Resale Stock Salvage Value i = Cost of Capital n = Number of Periods (Useful life of asset) Internal Rate of Return: The internal rate of return on an investment or project is the â€Å"annualized effective compounded return rate† or â€Å"rate of return† that makes the net present value (NPV) of all cash flows (both positive and negative) from a particular investment equal to zero. Payback Period: It is calculated by calculating Cumulative Cash Flow = (Net Cash Flow Year 1 + Net Cash Flow Year 2 + Net Cash Flow Year 3 †¦ etc.) Accumulate by year until Cumulative Cash Flow is a positive number: that year is the payback year. k= ln⠁ ¡(R-DR-D-P*i)ln⠁ ¡(1+i) Where, K = Payback Period P = Cost of Asset spent at time t=0 R = Revenue Income D = Disbursements i = Cost of Capital For calculation of Profit obtained Profit Function = Revenue generated – Cost Incurred Revenue generated = ∑(Qi*pi) Where, Qi = Quantity of commodity i sold per year pi = Unit Price of commodity i in the market Cost Incurred = Fixed Costs (FC) + Variable Costs (VC) Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.3 and Table 1.4. Chapter 4: Results and Discussions ————————————————- Result 1: For initial estimated values of input parameters * Initial Project Cost incurred at t=0 (P) = Rs. 90504240 (Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.2) * Gross Revenue Income (R) = Rs. 266664960/year (Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.4) * Operating Expenditure/ Disbursement (D) = Rs. 223860420/year (Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.3) * Salvage Value /Resale Value (S) = Rs. 6707544, * Useful life of assets (n) = 20 years, * Cost of Capital (i) = 15% Figure 5: Cash Flow Diagram at estimated values of input parameters Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.5. Using engineering economics equations (Refer Chapter 3, section 3.4 – Solution Approach), we have found * NPV= -90504240+266664960-2435595801+0.1520-10.15*1+0.1520+6707544[11+0.1520] = Rs. 54529825.06 * IRR = 25.27% at NPV = 0 * Payback period, k= ln(266664960-243559580266664960-243559580-90504240*0.15)ln(1+0.15) = 6.34 years Figure 6: C programme for calculating IRR Refer: Appendix C. This is the C programme return to calculate the IRR of any cash flow correct upto two decimal places. This programme can be used for any type of cash flows. Result 2: The following two graphs depict the relation of Cost of Capital with NPV and Payback Period. Figure 7: Effect of Cost of Capital on NPV Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.6. This graph helps obtain an estimate of the NPV based on the Cost of Capital. In order to get higher NPV, the Cost of Capital should be less. With a variation of 10% in the Cost of Capital, from 11% to 20% the NPV decreases substantially from 94 million INR to 22 million INR. Figure 8: Effect of Cost of Capital on Payback Period Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.6 This graph helps obtain the estimate of the Payback period based on the Cost of Capital. In order to get lesser Payback Period, the Cost of Capital should be less. With a variation of 11% in the Cost of Capital, from 10% to 20% the Payback Period increases substantially from 3.56 years to 10.95 years. Discussion: The value of Cost of Capital is varied over a feasible range of 10% to 20% and the corresponding values of NPV and Payback period. If the Cost of Capital decreases, the NPV of the firm increases while the Payback Period of the firm will reduce as expected from the formulae of NPV and Payback Period – Refer Chapter 3, section 3.4 – Solution Approach. Result 3: The following two graphs depict the relation of cost of unit amount of paddy (raw material cost) with NPV and IRR. 1 Unit = 1 Quintal Figure 9: Effect of unit Paddy Price on NPV Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.7. This graph helps obtain an estimate of the NPV based on the cost of unit amount of paddy. The graph shows more or less a linear variation as expected. In order to get higher NPV, the cost of raw material should be less. A large variation could be seen in the NPV i.e. from 324 million INR to -216 million INR, when the price of paddy varies from 1000 INR per quintal to 1500 INR per quintal, keeping all other market price and other factors constant. In India, the Government of India fixes the minimum paddy price to save the interests of the farmers. So, if the price of the paddy goes above 1300 INR per quintal, the firm will not be beneficial at all instead will start incurring a loss. Figure 10: Effect of unit Paddy Price on IRR Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.7 In the graph the effect on IRR for different unit price of Paddy is shown. As the price of paddy increases from 1000 INR per quintal to 1350 INR per quintal, the IRR decreases substantially from 73.26% to 2.99% in eight uniform steps. Discussion: For a fixed market price of Raw Rice, NPV and IRR decreases substantially with increase in unit price of Paddy. This is an obvious conclusion from the NPV equation – Refer Chapter 3, section 3.4 – Solution Approach. As the unit price of paddy rises, the operating cost also starts increasing thus our annuity per year will decrease. With decrease in NPV and IRR, the payback period also increases. Result 4: In the following two graphs the unit price of Raw Rice (product) is varied to see the effect on the NPV and IRR. 1 Unit = 1 Quintal Figure 11: Effect of unit Raw Rice Price on IRR Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.8 This graph helps obtain the NPV of the firm based on the unit market price of Raw Rice. As the unit market price of Raw Rice increases, the Gross Revenue Income increases substantially which leads to increase in NPV. This graph shows linear variation with unit price of Raw Rice as expected. A large variation could be seen in the NPV i.e. from -191.5 million INR to -441.2 million INR, when the price of raw rice varies from 1650 INR per quintal to 2550 INR per quintal, keeping all other market price and other factors constant. With 1% increase in the unit market price of Raw Rice, the NPV of the firm increases substantially by 25.784%. If the unit market price of Raw Rice is above 1920 INR per quintal, the firm will be beneficial and below that price it will be running in loss. Figure 12: Effect of unit Raw Rice Price on IRR Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.8 In the graph, the variation of IRR for different unit market price of Raw Rice is studied. The unit market price of Raw Rice is varied in a feasible range of 1850 INR to 2550 INR, to estimate the effect on IRR. The IRR of the firm increases substantially from 3.71% to 93.79% in twelve uniform steps. This happens because as the unit market price of Raw Rice increases, the gross revenue income also increases which increases the IRR of the firm and reduce the payback period. Discussion: The unit market price of Raw Rice is required to estimate the profit that can be earned. As the unit price of Raw Rice increases, the gross revenue income increases and thus the NPV and IRR of the firm increases substantially. If the revenue increases, the payback period of the firm will reduce. If the unit market price falls beyond a certain point i.e. 1920 INR per quintal, the firm will start incurring loss. These graphs help in setting competitive market price of Raw Rice. Result 5: The following two graphs show the effect of unit market price of Bran (byproduct) on the NPV and IRR of the firm. 1 Unit = 1 Quintal Figure 13: Effect of unit Bran Price on NPV Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.9 This graph helps obtain the NPV of the firm based on the unit market price of Bran. The NPV of the firm increases from 11.27 million INR to 141 million INR in fifteen equal steps assuming 50 INR hike in unit market price of Bran at every step. This graph shows linear variation with unit price of Raw Rice as expected. With 1% increase in the unit market price of Bran, the NPV of the firm increases substantially by 2.38%. Figure 14: Effect of unit Bran Price on IRR Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.9 Since with the increase in the unit market price of Bran the NPV of the firm increases, therefore IRR of the firm also increases. With 1% increase in the unit price of Bran the IRR increases about 0.24%. This graph shows more or less a linear variation. The IRR of the firm increases from 17.20% to 40.76% as the price of Bran increases from 1000 INR per quintal to 2500 INR per quintal. Discussion: The unit market price of Bran, a byproduct, also has substantial effect on gross revenue income as it forms 8% part of the total outcome which is about 1382.40 Metric tons. Today market price of Bran is about 1500 INR per quintal through which 20.736 million INR revenue is generated per year. Since, an increase in unit market price of Bran increases the gross revenue income, the NPV and IRR of the firm also increases. With increase in revenue, the payback period of the firm decreases. Result 6: Figure 15: Effect of Salvage on NPV Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.10 Figure 16: Percentage change in NPV with percentage change in Salvage Value Refer: Appendix A, Table 1.10 Basic Assumption: Salvage value is hard to define as it is the future value of 20 years down the line from now. Hence it is assumed to be certain percentage of the total assets cost. It is assumed to be 10% of the total assets cost incurred and is discounted to today’s value at a rate of 15% to find the Net Present Value of the firm. The salvage value can vary over a range of 5% to 20% of the total assets cost. The NPV changes from -0.5% to 0.75% i.e. from 54.32 million INR to 54.94 million INR by changing the salvage value by -5% to 10% i.e. from 5% to 20% of the total assets cost. Discussion: The NPV of the firm doesn’t increases substantially with increase in the salvage value of the assets. The graph shows a straight line variation as expected. With 1% increase in salvage value the NPV increase by 0.075%. This increase in the NPV is negligible, therefore, even if the assumed resale value of the assets change in the future, it will not affect the calculations done in this case study for the profitability analysis of Jay Laxmi Rice mill. Result 7: The following two graphs will help in assessing the economy of generating electricity from husk (by product) using Rice Husk Gassifier. Figure 17: Effect of percentage of Total electricity requirement that is substituted by Rice Husk Gasifier on NPV Refer: Appendix B, Table 2.3 The graph shows that the NPV of the firm increases linearly as the amount of electricity produced by the husk Gasifier increases as expected. The NPV of the firm increases from 51 million INR to 89 million INR as the amount of electricity that is substituted by the Rice Husk Gasifier increases from 65% to 100% of total electricity requirement. The minimum amount of total electricity that should be produced from husk so that the firm has the same NPV as before implanting the husk gasifier is 68.8% Figure 18: Effect of percentage of Total electricity requirement that is substituted by Rice Husk Gasifier on IRR Refer: Appendix B, Table 2.3 This graph shows the variation of the IRR of the firm with respect to the percentage of the total electricity requirement that is substituted by Rice Husk Gasifier. The graph shows an expected linear increase in IRR as the amount of electricity produced by the husk Gasifier increases. The IRR of the firm increases from 24.52% to 31.32% as the amount of electricity that is substituted by the Rice Husk Gasifier increases from 65% to 100% of total electricity requirement. Discussion: To be economic at least 68.8% electricity requirement needs to be generated from Husk Gasifier i.e. the minimum amount of total electricity requirement that should be substituted by the Rice Husk Gasifier so that the firm profit as before setting up of the Rice Husk Gasifier. If the amount of electricity produced is more than this amount than the plant will earn more profit than before but if it is less, then the rice husk gasifier should not be set up, because the plant will be earning less than before. The plant may be beneficial but will be in loss as comparison to the current scenario. The following figure 19 shows the cash flow diagram when 68.8% of electricity requirement is generated from Husk Gasifier. Figure 19: Cash Flow diagram with Rice Husk Gasifier Refer: Appendix 8, Table 2.2 Chapter 5: Summary and Conclusions ————————————————- 5.1 Summary The main aim of this study was was to analyze the Jay Laxmi Rice Mill, Bazpur in Udham Singh Nagar district in the state of Uttarakhand, from its business point of view. It has a nominal capacity of 4000kg/hr. It has been built for the production of raw rice. Some estimates were required to analyze its profitability. The economic analysis of the project was carried out using engineering economics equations. The sensitivity of NPV, IRR and Payback period with respect to various factors like Cost of Capital, paddy price, raw rice price, bran price and salvage were studied. Also the economy assessing of generating electricity from husk (by product) using Rice Husk Gassifier was done. The minimum electricity requirement that needs to be generated from Rice Husk Gasifier for economic purposes was calculated. The following conclusions are drawn from the study: * For initial estimated values of input parameters (P = Rs. 90504240, R = Rs. 266664960/year, D= Rs. 223860420/year, S = Rs. 6707544, n = 20 years, i = 15%) * NPV = Rs. 54529825.06 * IRR = 25.27% * Payback period = 6.34 years * With a variation of 10% in the Cost of Capital, from 11% to 20% the NPV decreases substantially from 94 million INR to 22 million INR and Payback Period increases from 4.03 increases to 10.95 years. * A large variation could be seen in the NPV i.e. from 324 million INR to -53.5 million INR, when the price of paddy varies from 1000 INR per quintal to 1350 INR per quintal while IRR increases from 73.26% to 2.99%. * NPV increases from -50.9 million INR to -441.2 million INR and IRR increases from 3.71% to 93.79%, when the price of raw rice varies from 1850 INR per quintal to 2550 INR per quintal. * As the price of Bran increases from 1000 INR per quintal to 2500 INR per quintal, the NPV and IRR of the firm increases from 11.27 million INR to 141 million INR and 17.20% to 40.76% respectively. * With 1% increase in salvage value the NPV increase by 0.075%. This increase in the NPV is negligible, therefore, even if the assumed resale value of the assets change in the future, it will not affect the calculations done in this case study for the profitability analysis of Jay Laxmi Rice mill. * To be economic at least 68.8% electricity requirement needs to be generated from Husk Gasifier i.e. the minimum amount of total electricity requirement that should be substituted by the Rice Husk Gasifier so that the firm profit as before setting up of the Rice Husk Gasifier. References ————————————————- * James L. Riggs 2004, Engineering Economics, 4th edition, Tata Mc Graw Hill Education Private Limited, pp 67-147. * Chandra P. 2011, Fundamentals of Financial Management, 11th edition, Tata Mc Graw Hill Education Private Limited, pp 150-167. * T. Kapur, T. C. Kandpal and H. P. Garg, Electricity Generation from Rice Husk in Indian Rice Mills: Potential and Financial Viability, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi (1995). * Alexis Belonio, Victoriano Ocon, and Antonio Co, Garbage-In Fuel-Out: Small-Scale Rice Husk Gasifier Plant for Community Street Lighting, Suki Trading Corporation, Philippines (2011). * Email from Gaurav Vashisht (gaurav@satakeindia.com) working at Satake, kolkata.

If You Cant Stand the Fat, Stay out of the Restaurant Term Paper

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Drug abuse - Essay Example Drug abuse is common especially among the youth in the underprivileged societies and the effects of drugs, though many can be successfully combatted and dealt within the community. The major aim of the essay is to investigate the effects of drug abuse in the poor neighborhoods and come up solutions to counter this problem in any way possible. Drug abuse is most common among the poor societies. Poor people get involved in drugs due to various reasons and the major reason is peer pressure especially among the youth. Most youths believe that taking drugs make them look and appear cool among their peers. They feel the pressure to take drugs so that they can fit in with the rest of their friends. They mostly get into drugs without looking into the repercussions. Others are influenced by their family member especially in families with a history of drug abuse. The child in a poor society does not get to have proper role models to advise them and to lead them to a more peaceful and drug-free life. Other people take drugs so that they can forget their problems if only temporarily. Drugs offer a temporary solution to forgetting the deeper issues that they need to deal with. According to Fiellin and Sindelar, drug abuse causes a lot of problems where the medical and psychological impacts of drug abuse are very obvious. A drug addict cannot operate and function in the same way that other human beings do. The effects of drugs cloud their judgment and they are bound to make mistakes and wrong choices in the society. For instance, a drug user is likely to engage in crime in order to buy drugs. Alternatively, they are also likely to engage in sexual activities that they would not engage in under normal circumstances. Drug users do not take care of their families and they do neglect their duties such as taking care of their children. The urge to take drugs takes precedence over everything else in their lives. If the drug addict is the bread winner of the house, then the

CSR and Ethics on Northern Bank Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

CSR and Ethics on Northern Bank - Essay Example CSR thought that leaders are not a homogenous group nor they do not even predict one of the evolutionary tracts for over the next decade. It is so interesting to speculate the way on how to prosper in future according to cultural view in the social welfare and social economic in relation to political changes within the company. Regulation of Executive and Shareholders of Northern Rock The regulations of the executives pay desirable because it has exposed the regulatory failings whereby the global official has responded with the regulatory fixes, including some that could have made a difference. It sounds so ethical that taking in to account the interests and contributions of the people who interact becomes the basis for ethical behavior and the governance. The shareholders are completely being divested by the ruling European company. They are in reality opting for fairness and justice in order for them to feel faithful in running the system of the business (Sims 2010). The regulation , including the rule of the corporations can be structured to reduce the impact on society and in their working place. The shareholders should have a democratic society which can be controlled the acceptable corporate behavior. There are factors that have made the vulnerable business collapse. For example, the northern rock rapid growth which has been fuelled by the aggressive of lending to dubious borrowers. Again, the tough new liquidity standards aimed at forcing the banks to hold some of the shares because of compensation from the banks. The rationale for the shareholders has not been beneficial from the sale of the bank, this is because of investors from the banks who have not favored the nationalism and then the judgment on the damage based on the economy. According to Joel Bakan puts that, â€Å"no one should seriously suggest that the individual should regulate themselves that the laws are against murder, assault and theft are unnecessary because of people are socially resp onsible (Nelson 2012). This shows that, corporate people who lack the whole world should be left free to rule them selves. The business case for the CSR in some parties is affected by the ability to create wealth for themselves and the community. It sounds so ethical that taking in to account the interests and contributions of the people who interact becomes the basis for ethical behavior and the governance. In business cases for CSR, it is essentially a strategic plan fort he firms which anticipates and address the issues associated with the interactions with others and also through out the business in their future endeavors. Deontology Theories of Corporate Social Responsibility According to the philosophers, Deontology simply means the theory of duties carried by people in an organization. Deontology theory entails the commitment, obligation and duties based on ethics. Kant argues that, people should act in the right way and must act to their duties. The motive, as in Kantâ€℠¢s view of ethics states that, it is right regardless of what the solution or the result is. One of the roots of the crisis in Northern Rock lay in the difficulties of the American sub prime market. Loans were provided to people because of their low income, or lack of assets, or the type of property being purchased, could not obtain a loan or mortgage. The fact to deontological theory is that,

Theories of Imperalism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Theories of Imperalism - Essay Example The object of acquiring a colonial empire was usually to raise it to the status of a world power,† (Mommsen, 1977, p.5) as he quotes Chamberlain in 1897: â€Å"It seems to me that the tendency of the time is to throw all power into the hands of the greater empires, and the minor kingdoms – those which are non-progressive – seem to be destined to fall into a secondary and subordinate place,† (p. 6). This is the State Oriented theory of Imperialism and its main connection is with the territory and it is connected with the British patriotism. The whole idea of this imperialism was that British people had to acquire more and more territories in unsuspecting and underdeveloped countries to show their patriotism towards the country and Crown. The expansion of territory went on unabatedly for at least two centuries, till Britain owned one third of the world, arrogantly claiming that Sun never set in British Empire. The original meaning of Imperialism was simply one powerful ruler ruling over many territories and regions either inside European continent, or anywhere else in the world. It meant the all-powerful British crown making policies for colonies in the distant East and West of the globe. He says this position at home strengthened the situation of Conservative party of England. Classic political theory of Imperialism developed in the other half of the nineteenth century. German scholars like Heinrich Friedjung are at the helm of this theory. The colonial expansion ambitions of Napoleon III, no doubt ended in total disaster; but it gave credence to the grandeur of imperialism, the legitimate and magnificent rule of a mighty ruler over lesser mortals. Mommsen says that Friedjung did tremendous amount of work to establish the classical theory of imperialism by combining the nationalistic ideology working for the domination of far-flung areas for the sole purpose of national gratification. The days were conducive and any victory over the natives of colonies was

Entomology. insect. Sexual Selection Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Entomology. insect. Sexual Selection - Essay Example The two point mandibles found in the male beetle are because of sexual selection. In the case of stag beetles, the males fight and the females choose the strongest. This ensures that the female choose and reproduce with males who posses their favourable characters. Sexual selection is only for male and that is why the male develop adaptive and non-adaptive features to attract the female. The male beetle genital morphology comprises of two outstanding and general models of morphological variation. This morphological variation includes swift evolutionary divergence both in shape and in complexity as well as poor relationship with body size as suggested by Simmons, Tomkins and Hunt (1999). The aspect of sexual selection causes these variations. Some of the variations are non-adaptive, for instance, the reduction of the scaling relationship between the genital size and the body size. The idea that evolution of new traits is followed by trade-offs is important in evolutionary studies. The weapons used by the male stag beetle in fighting can be physiologically expensive and are mostly trade offs with investment in other characters, like spermatogenic investment and wings. This investment into other weapons results in the evolution of mating strategies for the male beetles. For instance, the enlarged mandibles used for male-to-male competition. The male-male fight in sexua l selection accounts for the evolution of exaggerated traits used as weapons in male competition. The exaggerated characters can be responsible for the dispersal and ejaculatory strategies. The change of investment into other traits or weapons for competition can lead to evolutionary changes in life history characters. Since investment in exaggerated traits can cause trade-offs alongside other traits related to fitness, life history tactics are affected by evolution of sexually selected behaviour. During evolution, the males’ population

Information Searches Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Information Searches - Term Paper Example A low involvement product can also be one that requires less effort in decision making because it is constantly bought. A regular buying behavior normally occurs if the involvement is low and there is a small brand difference. (Sandhusen, 2000) In this case therefore, the consumer of the product selects it because it is familiar to him or her. A man’s perfume is a good example of a product in this category. Medium involvement purchase is defined as a situation whereby the consumer would not care when selecting a product for purchase. For instance when booking a holiday hotel room, the consumer may not mind about the nature of services at the hotel because he or she there for a short time. Most products and services in this category are normally impulse because there is normally no prior consideration to buy them. An example is the purchase of new dresses, blouse and jewelry for a night out. High involvement purchases are those whereby the buyer spares much time and effort in s earching for the products. Involvement in any type of purchase gets high for those products that are costly and are much significant to ones’ life. (Evans, 1982). Consumer behavior is the study of individual or groups and how they choose, secure and dispose products and services in order for them to get satisfied. ... (Kotler,1986). Consumers normally carry out both internal and external search. Internal search is normally a psychological process that involves a buyer’s perception about a certain product. The consumer may want to know about their direct experiences about a certain product in the market: The feelings, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors about a certain product in the market. For instance, a lady may not want to use certain soap because it dries her skin. Information search is also a tool to determine consumer behavior which is affected by the buyer’s learning, attitude, perceptions and risk.(Kotler,1986). Manufacturers of products will normally come up with the necessary actions which make consumers search for information about their purchases. These include processes such as, standardization of prizes for the products, advertising which creates awareness to customers for them to make the appropriate decision about a product. Again, they can offer promotions and free sam ples in order to motivate the buyers. Thirdly, manufacturing companies of these products should at times brand their products so that the customers can notice something new about the products and buy them. In the production of a lady’s perfume for instance, makers need to pay attention to the above marketing strategies. (Kotler,1986). Problem recognition helps consumers feel a discrepancy about the number of brands of a product in the market. The principles regarding problem recognition and reaching the consumer’s desired state include the following. First is the issue of product analysis. This is whereby makers of products look keenly in to the product before selling it to consumers. Again, the makers need to

Basic Practices Essay Example for Free

Basic Practices Essay Their basic practices consist of what they call the Five Pillars and the Jihad. The Five Pillars of Islam are: Beliefs and witness; Daily prayers; Zakat; Fasting; and Hajj. Beliefs and witness Every Muslim, without resorting to the use of force or intimidation, are obliged to spread the words of Islam so that other people may know about it, understand it, and use the knowledge to guide them in choosing their faith. They are convinced that once non-Muslims acquire enough knowledge, they would voluntarily embrace Islam (Fisher, 2005). Daily Prayers Prayers should be recited five times a day while facing the direction of Mecca. It is believed that requiring every Muslim to face Mecca symbolizes unity among the devotees of Islam around the world, while the daily prayer emphasizes Islam’s teaching that every Muslim should remember God everyday of his or her life (Fisher, 2005). Their daily prayer is called salat and consists of the Fajr, or the morning prayer; the Zuhr, or the noon prayer; the ‘Asr, or the afternoon prayer; the Maghrib which is the sunset prayer; and the Isha, or the night prayer which is said at night just before going to bed (Robinson, 2007). Zakat Zakat, the third pillar, means â€Å"spiritual tithing and almsgiving. † Muslims are enjoined to help the poor by donating part of their annual income to charities of their choice at the end of each year. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for example, channels its contribution through the Islamic Relief Organization which aids people around the world regardless of their religion. Other Muslims could give their contribution to their local mosques (Fisher, 2005). Fasting Every year, the first Qur’anic revelation is celebrated with a month-long fasting called Ramadan. All able Muslims are required to abstain from â€Å"food, drink, sexual intercourse, and smoking† from dawn to dusk. Although fasting during Ramadan is an obligation, fasting, per se, is advised from time to time because it provides an individual with â€Å"a Transparent Soul to Transcend, a Clear Mind to think and a Light Body to move and act† (Fisher, 2005). Ramadan is considered as their holiest period which every Muslim who is over 12 years old is expected to observe. However, a Muslim could be excused from observing Ramadan because of reasons of health. This was expressly provided for in chapter 2, verses 183 and 185 of the Qur’an, viz: O ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that ye may (learn) self-restraint Ramadan is the (month) in which was sent down the Quran, as a guide to mankind, also clear (Signs) for guidance and judgment (between right and wrong). So every one of you who is present (at his home) during that month should spend it in fasting (Robinson, 2007). Hajj The last Pillar – the Hajj – is a pilgrimage which every Muslim is expected make provided that he or she is financially and physically capable. It should be done even only once during his or her lifetime to honor Allah. Their pilgrimage destination is Mecca, where their holiest sanctuary, the Ka’bah, was built by Abraham with the help of his son Isaiah (Fisher, 2005). The Hajj was described by the Council of Islamic Education as consisting of several ceremonies, meant to symbolize the essential concepts of the Islamic faith, and to commemorate the trials of prophet Abraham and his family Prophet Muhammad had said that a person who performs Hajj properly will return as a newly born baby [free of all sins]. The pilgrimage also enables Muslims from all around the world, of different colors, languages, races, and ethnicities, to come together in a spirit of universal brotherhood and sisterhood to worship the One God together (Robinson, 2007). Jihad Jihad means struggle. It is often misinterpreted by non-Muslims because it has often been portrayed by the media in the west as another term for a â€Å"holy war† which is waged by Muslims against non-Muslims. However, for Muslims, Jihad is actually a personal struggle to excel in one’s work or achieve a noble objective. It also means a Muslim’s struggle for â€Å"self-purification† (Robinson, 2007). Impact of Muhammad’s life on Islam The birth, life, and death of Muhammad impacted the world of Islam differently. His birth in 570 CE signaled the resurgence of the religion which had already sank into obscurity for centuries because the people of Meca rejected the monotheistic religion preached by Abraham. His life as a preacher which began three years after the start of the revelations resulted to a rejuvenated Muslim world. The flight of the Muslims to Medina (or the hijrah) which he orchestrated in order for them to escape persecution from the hands of the Qurayshites of Mecca was what strengthened Islam as soon as they had settled in Medina. Their newfound strength later enabled them to raise a strong army to recapture Mecca from the hands of the Qurayshites. However, while he re-established Mecca as the holy sanctuary of Islam, Muhammad himself chose to live in Medina (Fisher, 2005). While his birth signaled the rebirth of Islam and his life rejuvenated their religion, his death in 632 CE in Medina rocked the Muslim world. It caused a serious split among the followers of Islam. The Shi’a and Sunni Muslims became irreconcilably separated because of the issue of succession after Muhammad died. Most of the surviving Muslims believed that although Muhammad was able to leave explicit instructions telling his followers what to do after his death, they contended that he failed to anoint his successor. Thus, for the said majority, the issue of who should succeed Muhammad became an issue which should be settled satisfactorily in order to prevent dissension among the Muslims. After only discussing the problem briefly, they decided to settle the issue of succession by election. Unfortunately, the minority group insisted that it was not true that Muhammad failed to name his successor. They declared that several weeks before he died, Muhammad held the hand of his son-in-law, Ali, and uttered the following words: â€Å"Whoever I protect, ‘Ali is also his protector. O God, be a friend to whoever is his friend and an enemy to whoever is his enemy† (Fisher. 2005). The issue of succession was ultimately decided according to the wishes of the majority – by election – but the two factions have never reconciled up to this day. The Shi’a Muslims now form the majority faction in Iran, while the Sunnis are the majority in â€Å"Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, northern African countries, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asian countries of the former Soviet Union, and Indonesia† (Fisher, 2005). The minority, the Shi’a Muslims or the Shi’ites, interprets the Qur’an strictly and adheres rather closely to the teachings embodies in the Qur’an. The Sunnis, or the majority, constitutes almost 90% of all Muslims who are considered traditionalists and secular. Because of their secularity, they are more adaptable than the Shi’ites (Robinson, 2007).

Sport Psychology Case Study

Sport Psychology Case Study DOING SPORT PSYCHOLOGY1 INTRODUCTION Performing optimally on any level is daunting, but when your next paycheque depends on your performance, it adds a whole new dimension to the stress and challenges faced. By adopting more effective ways and tools to deal with these obstacles, these athletes are able to overcome these challenges and perform at their best. SECTION A – Initial contact with athlete At the beginning of January I walked into the Dojo, ready to start a new year of training, and saw a new face, sweating it out in the cage. Roeloff â€Å"the Wolf† Scheepers, Professional EFC Fighter, had joined our Dojo. Roeloff is 28 years old and has been training in various forms of Martial Arts since he was in primary school. Roeloff relocated to Mossel Bay in December 2013 from Rustenburg, where he trained with Teammendes for about four years. After school he joined the South African Air Force and served in Iraq with the United States Marine Corp from 2005 to 2006. A few years ago he lost his job and had to take on professional fights in order to try make a living. Our Dojo has a lot of students and many different classes running simultaneously, and with him training for EFC 30, and me training and instructing it was quite a while before I had a chance to strike up a conversation with him. I had heard via the grapevine that he had suffered a bad loss last year due to injury, so I used this to strike up a conversation with him one night while he was taking a break. We became fast friends, and often discuss the ups and downs and challenges of fighting professionally. Roeloff had a very hectic training schedule so he was at the Dojo at least 6 days a week, morning and night. I instruct on a Monday and Wednesday, and train Mondays to Thursdays, so I was able to chat to him at least 4 days a week. Our interactions and conversations were very casual, usually before, during and after training. As we trained under the same instructor and in the same Dojo I had plenty of opportunities to observe him training. I was also privileged enough to go to Cape Town to watch him fight at EFC 30 in June. I found Roeloff very open and eager to chat to me about his training and challenges. He is always looking for ways to learn more and improve on his existing techniques and training and was eager to hear if I had any advice for him. One of the biggest challenges faced by professional MMA fighters is the mental aspect of the training. The physical side of fight preparation is brutal, and if you are not mentally strong, the training can easily get the better of you. When training for a fight, cutting weight, incessant sparring, rolling, weight training and cross-fit training can really work a number on you mentally and physically. Roeloff maintains that if you are not mentally prepared and strong enough you will not make it. One of his biggest challenges was the weight cut. Professional fighters get paid per fight, R5000 for a loss and R10000 for a win. If at the weigh in, a fighter does not make weight, his opponent has the choice of whether to fight him or not. If the opponent chooses to continue with the fight, the fighter that did not make weight has to pay his opponent 75% of his fight purse, win or lose. Because of this, some fighters go to extreme measures to cut their weight, and there is such a fine balance between healthy methods that enhance energy and performance, and unhealthy methods that can totally sabotage the fighter. It is also very tough being on such a strict diet while your friends can eat as they please. It takes a huge amount of self-control and discipline to stick to the eating plan, and sometimes Roeloff lacks this self-control when he is not being monitored closely. He also has the tendency to get despondent when he feels he is not performing up to standard. He sets high standa rds for himself, and he trains and fights for his Dojo†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦his instructor and fellow students†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.and he does not want to disappoint us. So he puts a lot of pressure on himself. I really enjoyed this stage of the process. Getting to know Roeloff and observing him was very interesting, and I have made another good friend as a result of it. It was very informative and a great learning curve, and allowed me to look at fighting from a different perspective. SECTION B – Literature review I did a search through various literature on enhancing performance by setting goals in order to give Roeloff some advice. Most of the studies that have been done over the years regarding goal setting and performance have been in the industrial context. It is only in the last 20 years or so that studies have been done on the relationship between goal setting and performance in sports and these studies have shown a positive correlation between goal setting and performance in sports. Goal setting is important otherwise the athlete will not know what he is working towards. This can be demotivating in itself. Goal setting theory is based on what Aristotle called â€Å"final causality† (Locke, E.A., 1996). According to Locke (1996) there are internal and external aspects to goals. Internally they are ideas, while externally they refer to the object or condition sought, therefore the idea guides the action to attain the object. In a study conducted with 5 rugby players, Hanton et al (2006) found that goal setting was effective in improving the rugby player’s performance. Smith Ward (2006) found that after Football players had set goals they performed better than they did during their baseline testing. In a study conducted by Weinberg, Bruya, Longino and Jackson (1988) they found that the group of athletes that were given specific goals performed better than the group that was told to â€Å"do their best†. Specific goals facilitate behaviour change more effectively than general non-specific, â€Å"do your best† goals do. By setting specific explicit goals, the athlete knows exactly what is expected of them and what they want to achieve. This is what I believe Roeloff needs in order to deal more effectively with the challenge of trying to cut weight. Goals should also be difficult but not unrealistic. Often for a professional fighter, the amount of weight they have to lose may seem to be impossible. Due to this impossible amount of weight to be cut, the fighter might even start believing it is impossible even before he starts his eating program, causing him to lose motivation before he even starts. This is counterproductive for any athlete trying to achieve a particular goal. It is argued by Locke (1990) that if goals are to difficult and result in failure, the athlete will lose motivation which in turn will lead to a decrease in performance, therefore goals need to be attainable and not too difficult. SECTION C – Intervention After I had gotten to know Roeloff a bit better, I spoke to him about my assignment and studies, and that I would like to observe him and could maybe offer some advice for him to try out. He was very eager for any feedback that could help him in any way. He also feels that I would maybe see things from a different perspective than him or our instructor that could be helpful. As we both spent a lot of time at the Dojo I got plenty of opportunity to observe him while training. We often socialise outside the Dojo, so I got to know him on a personal level. I often found that just by watching and listening, I gleaned a lot of information about how he thinks and feels, and what challenges he faces. One of his biggest issues is rigidly sticking to the eating plan set up by his nutritionist for his required weight cut. Cutting weight is a long hard process that can go on for months. It is easy to lose sight of the reason for the diet, so I suggested to Roeloff that maybe he should focus on his goals and goal setting. According to Locke and Latham (2002), a goal is â€Å"an objective or aim of action defined as attaining a specific standard of proficiency on a task, usually within a specified time limit†. McClements (1982) has made a distinction between different types of goals, namely subjective, general objective and specific goals. Evidence suggests that certain types of goals are more useful in changing behaviour than other types of goals. Studies have also shown that explicit goals are more effective than general ‘do your best’ goals. Roeloff’s subjective goal is to do his best, his general objective goal win his fight and his specific goal was to make a specific weight by a specific date and to win with a knock out. Roeloff’s fight preparation started in earnest about 6-8 months before his scheduled fight. This is a long time to stay focused on your main goal. I suggested to Roeloff that maybe he can set himself smaller, specific, explicit goals that will lead to his main goals. Some sports psychologists (Bell, 1983; Carron, 1984; Gould, 1983; Harris Harris, 1984; O’Block Evans, 1984) emphasise that setting more immediate short-range goals is important. In their meta-analysis Kyllo Landers (1995) showed the superiority of combining short- and long-term goals. Recent research has also revealed that both short- and long-range goals are needed to maintain motivation and performance (Weinberg, Butt Knight, 2001) By setting short-range goals, Roeloff will be able to see immediate improvement and this should enhance his motivation. By setting smaller weight cutting milestones, he will be able to see what he has done so far, and that he has achieved his short-range goal, and motivate him to make the next milestone or goal, and not lose sight of his main goal, making weight at the EFC weight in. My interactions with Roeloff have always been in the form of casual conversations. On one particular Wednesday Roeloff and I had just finished instructing the juniors and were discussing the class when we got on the topic of his upcoming fight. I mentioned that I had been thinking about his biggest obstacle and suggested to him that he set himself smaller goals, which in turn will help him achieve his main goal. Roeloff was very responsive to my suggestions and was eager to try it out. I found it was easy to approach Roeloff with my observations and ideas and he is always open to someone else’s ideas and views. SECTION D – Feedback A few months after giving Roeloff my suggestions he came to me one night and said that he had done a little research of his own about my suggestions. He decided to give it a shot and see what happens. After all, he had nothing to lose. He set himself smaller goals that would ultimately tie in and lead to his long term goal, and while keeping his eye on the main goal, focused mostly on his short-range goals. He found that it worked well for him. He found it easier to stay more focused, and managed to resist more temptation in the process, and sticking to his eating plan more strictly. By doing this, his weight loss was better, and he felt more motivated, and gained a little more self-confidence in his ability to achieve his goals. By being able to stick to his short-range goals, he felt far more positive about achieving his long-range goal. Roeloff said that this is something he will be implementing on a regular basis. It helps him define his goals better and have a clearer picture of what he needs to do in order to achieve what he sets out to do. SECTION E – Overall reflection I have really enjoyed this project and the subject as a whole. I feel that I am very blessed in the fact that I train at Tiger Kai. My head instructor is friends with many professional fighters as well as some of the top trainers in the country, and this has given me the opportunity to get to know so many fine athletes. And I was very blessed to have Roeloff relocate to Tiger Kai and allow me to use him for my project. It was a great experience getting to work with a professional fighter on such a close level, and being given access behind the scenes of an event like EFC and the inner workings of a fighters fight camp. It has been an amazing learning experience and has deepened my interest in Sports Psychology. I have had no illusions about the mental and physical aspects of being a fighter (as I have done martial arts myself for 13 years now), but I now I have a deeper understanding of some of the aspects that are not quite so visible to others around the fighter, and how these can also affect a fighters performance. CONCLUSION There are many factors, both mental and physical, that affect the performance of athletes. An athlete faces many challenges, both physically and mentally, which need to be overcome in order to achieve their goal, which is to be the best at their chosen sport. Sometimes, these challenges may seem insurmountable to some athletes, but with the right type of assistance, these challenges and obstacles can be overcome. REFERENCES Locke, E.A. Latham, G.P. (1990). A theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall Hanton, S., Melleliu, S.D. O’Brien, M. (2006). The effects of goal setting on rugby performance: Journal of Applied Behaviour Analysis, 39, 257-261. Smith, S.L. Ward, P. (2006). Behavioural interventions to improve performance in collegiate football. Journal of Applied Behaviour Analysis. 39, 385-391. Weinberg, R.S. (2003). Goal setting in Sport and Exercise: Results, Methodological issues and further directions for Research. Weinberg, R., Bruya, L., Longine. J. Jackson, A. (1988). Effect of Goal proaximity and specificity on endurance performance of primary-grade children. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 10, 81-91 Williams, J.M. (Ed.). (2009). Applied Sport Psychology: Personal growth to peak performance (6th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.