Delay is the leading challenge in completing Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) projects. Delay can cause excess costs, which reduces company profits. The relationship between subcontractors and the main contractor is a critical factor that can support the success of an EPC project. The problematic financial condition of the main contractor can cause delay in payments to subcontractors. This research will set a model that combines the system dynamics and earned value method to describe the impact of subcontractor advance payments on project performance. The system dynamics method is used to model and analyze the impact of interactions between variables affecting project performance, while the earned value method is applied to quantitatively evaluate project performance and forecast schedule and cost outcomes. These two methods are used complementarily to achieve a holistic understanding of project dynamics and to optimize decision-making. The designed model selects the optimum scenario for project time and costs. The developed model comprises project performance, costs, cash flow, and performance forecasting sub-models. The novelty in this research is a new model for optimizing project implementation time and costs, adding payment rate variables to subcontractors and subcontractor performance rates. The designed model can provide additional information to assist project managers in making decisions.

The present work shows an application of the Chan-Vese algorithm for the semi-automatic segmentation of anatomical structures of interest (lungs and lung tumor) in 4DCT images of the thorax, as well as their three-dimensional reconstruction. The segmentation and reconstruction were performed on 10 CT images, which make up an inspiration-expiration cycle. The maximum displacement was calculated for the case of the lung tumor using the reconstructions of the onset of inspiration, the onset of expiration, and the voxel information. The proposed method achieves appropriate segmentation of the studied structures regardless of their size and shape. The three-dimensional reconstruction allows us to visualize the dynamics of the structures of interest throughout the respiratory cycle. In the future, it is expected to have more evidence of the good performance of the proposed method and to have the feedback of the clinical expert, since the knowledge of the characteristics of anatomical structures, such as their dimension and spatial position, helps in the planning of Radiotherapy (RT) treatments, optimizing the radiation dose to cancer cells and minimizing it in healthy organs. Therefore, the information found in this work may be of interest for the planning of RT treatments.

Adsorption is a widely used method for the treatment of dissolved contaminants. Various agro-industrial wastes have been explored as potential adsorbents, showing high efficiency in dye removal. Each adsorbate-adsorbent pair needs kinetic, and equilibrium models to scale up this process. In this work, the equilibrium, kinetics and thermodynamics of the corn Tuza-Red 40 system were evaluated under batch system at ph = 2.0 at temperatures of 25, 40, and 55 °C. The Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin models were selected for the isotherm representation, while the Lagergren, Ho, and Elovich equations for the kinetics of the process. The Freundlich model presented the best fit to the isotherms, the adsorption kinetics was best described by the Ho equation, and the values for Gibbs free energy and entropy indicated the spontaneity and feasibility of the process.