Electricity generation around the world is mainly produced by using non-renewable energy sources especially in the commercial buildings. However, Rooftop solar Photovoltaic (PV) system produced a significant impact on environmental and economical benefits in comparison to the conventional energy sources, thus contributing to sustainable development. Such PV’s system encourages the production of electricity without greenhouse gas emissions that leads to a clean alternative to fossil fuels and economic prosperity even in less developed areas. However, efficiency of rooftop solar PV systems depends on many factors, the dominant being geographical (latitude, longitude, and solar intensity), environmental (temperature, wind, humidity, pollution, dust, rain, etc.) and the type of PV (from raw material extraction and procurement, to manufacturing, disposal, and/or recycling) used. During the feasibility analysis of the environment, geographical conditions are keep in well consideration, but the pollution level of the city is always overlooked, which significantly influences the performance of the PV installations.     

Therefore, this research work focused on the performance of rooftop solar PV installed in one of the most polluted city in India. Here, the loss in power generation of rooftop solar PV has been studied for the effect of deposited dust particles, wind velocity before and after the cleaning of the panels. The actual data has been utilized for the calculation of the energy efficiency and power output of the PV systems. According to the results, it has been concluded that dust deposition, wind speed and pollution level in city significantly reduces the efficiency of solar photovoltaic panel. Hence, an overview of social and environmental impacts of PV technologies is presented in this paper along with potential benefits and pitfalls.

This project is carried out to assess the remediation effect on soil contaminated by molybdenum (Mo), one of heavy metals, through the use of an energy crop, sunflowers. This project explores the integration of phytohormones and chelates in the phytoremediation of soils contaminated by heavy metals, and further assesses the operational measures of remedying heavy-metal contaminated soil with sunflowers, in addition to the related environmental factors. Then the project explores phytohormones and heavy metals on the growth scenario explants (explants morphological analysis) through the experiment. The results indicate that GA₃ can increase the growth rate of the plants. The average incremental growth of the heavy-metal-added-only group is 21.0 cm; of the GA₃-added group it is 21.9 cm; of the EDDS-added group, it is 20.3 cm; of the GA₃+ EDDS-added group, it is 21.7 cm. Compared with the conventional methods of phytoremediation, these integrated measures can actually spur the growth of plants.

Japan’s investment in the domestic construction industry has fallen to less than half its peak in 1992. Given the country’s declining population, Japanese construction companies must go global to remain profitable. To what extent the Japanese government and Japanese companies can contribute to meeting the growing infrastructure needs in the region is unclear as Japanese companies have long been operating primarily in Japan. The Japanese government has in recent years passed a series of new laws that encourage private sector participation in financing, building and operating public infrastructure. Through involvement in such public projects, Japanese companies have developed the skills and technologies to build a variety of infrastructures that are resilient to natural disasters and adaptable to various geographical conditions and social and economic development. But the major challenge for Japanese companies is to transform their business model drastically from one that relies on the domestic market to one that contributes to the social and economic development of third countries.

This paper uses Public Choice analysis to examine the case for and experience with Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). A PPP is a contractual platform which connects a governmental body and a private entity. The goal is to provide a public sector program, service, or asset that would normally be provided exclusively by a public sector entity. This paper focuses on PPPs in developed countries, but it also draws on studies of PPPs in developing countries. The economics literature generally defines PPPs as long-term contractual arrangements between a public authority (local or central government) and a private supplier for the delivery of services. The private sector supplier takes responsibility for building infrastructure components, securing financing of the investment, and then managing and maintaining this facility.

However, in addition to those formed through contracts, PPPs may take other forms such as those developed in response to tax subvention or coercion, as in the case of regulatory mandates. A key element of PPP is that the private partner takes on a significant portion of the risk through a schedule of specified remuneration, contingency payments, and provision for dispute resolution. PPPs typically are long-term arrangements and involve large corporations on the private side, but may also be limited to specific phases of a project.

The types of PPPs discussed in this paper exclude arrangements which may result from government mandates such as the statutory emission mandates imposed on automobile manufacturers and industrial facilities (e.g., power plants). It also excludes PPP-like organizations resulting from US section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, which provides tax subsidies for certain public charities, scientific research organizations, and organizations whose goals are to prevent cruelty to animals or erect public monuments at no expense to the government. This paper concludes that an array of Public Choice tools are applicable to understanding the emergence, success, or failure of PPPs. Several short case studies are provided to illustrate the practicalities of PPPs. 

Six Sigma is an organized and systematic method for strategic process improvement that relies on statistical and scientific methods to reduce the defect rates and achieve significant quality up-gradation. Six Sigma is also a business philosophy to improve customer satisfaction, a tool for eliminating process variation and errors and a metric of world class companies allowing for process comparisons. Six Sigma is one of the most effective advanced improvement strategies which has direct impact on operational excellence of an organization. Six Sigma may also be defined as the powerful business strategies, which have helped to improve quality initiatives in many industries around the world. With the use of Six Sigma in casting industries, rejection rate is reduced, customer satisfaction is improved and financial benefits also increased. Six Sigma management uses statistical process control to relentlessly and rigorously pursue the reduction of variation in all critical processes to achieve continuous and breakthrough improvements that impact the bottom-line and/or top-line of the organization and increase customer satisfaction. In this paper author reviewed some of the significant previous published papers and focused on the general overview of publication in casting industries.

Using a newly-developed data set for Portugal, we analyze the industry-level effects of infrastructure investment. Focusing on the divide between traded and non-traded industries, we find that infrastructure investments have a non-traded bias, as these shift the industry mix towards private and public services. We also find that the industries that benefit the most in relative terms are all non-traded: construction, trade, and real estate, among the private services, and education and health, among the public services. Similarly, emerging trading sectors, such as hospitality and professional services, stand to gain. The positive impacts on traded industries are too small to make a difference. These results highlight that infrastructure-based strategies are not neutral in terms of the industry mix. Moreover, with most of the benefits accruing to non-traded industries, such a development model that is heavily based on domestic demand may be unsustainable in light of Portugal’s current foreign account position.