Search results for: yield quality.

Authors: M. Sivaiah, R. Parmar, S. K. Majumder

Abstract:

This article reports on hydrodynamic, mass transfer performances of fine bubble in a modified reactor. The quality of mixing in the modified reactor is discussed in the paper. Mass transfer efficiency based on quality of mixing is enunciated. To interpret the gas phase volume fraction and the quality of mixing is the empirical models for the modified system are developed.

Keywords: Downflow, bubble, hydrodynamics, gas-liquid, mixing, mass transfer, gas holdup

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Authors: Dayang Nailul Munna Abang Abdullah, Francine Rozario

Abstract:

The main objectives of this study were to identify attributes that influence customer satisfaction and determine their relationships with customer satisfaction. The variables included in this research are place/ambience, food quality and service quality as independent variables and customer satisfaction as the dependent variable. A survey questionnaire which consisted of three parts to measure demographic factors, independent variables, and dependent variables was constructed based on items determined by past research. 149 respondents from one of the well known hotel in Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA were selected as a sample. Psychometric testing was conducted to determine the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. From the findings, there were positive significant relationship between place/ambience (r=0.563**, p=0.000) and service quality (r=0.544**, p=0.000) with customer satisfaction. However, although relationship between food quality and customer satisfaction was significant, it was in the negative direction (r=- 0.268**, p=0.001). New findings were discovered after conducting this research and previous research findings were strengthened by the results of this research. Future researchers could concentrate on determining attributes that influence customer satisfaction when cost/price is not a factor and reasons for place/ambience is currently becoming the leading factor in determining customer satisfaction.

Keywords: Ambience, Customer Satisfaction, Food Quality, Service Quality.

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Authors: St. Subaedah, A. Takdir, Netty, D. Hidrawati

Abstract:

Maize development at the rainfed lowland after rice is often confronted with the occurrence of drought stress at the time of entering the generative phase, which will cause be hampered crop production. Consequently, in the utilization of the rainfed lowland areas optimally, an effort that can be done using the varieties of early maturity to minimize crop failures due to its short rainy season. The aim of this research was evaluating the potential yield of genotypes of candidates of maize early maturity in the rainfed lowland areas. The study was conducted during May to August 2016 at South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The study used randomized block design to compare 12 treatments and consists of 8 genotypes namely CH1, CH2, CH3, CH4, CH5, CH6, CH7, CH8 and the use of four varieties, namely Bima 3, Bima 7, Lamuru and Gumarang. The results showed that genotype of CH2, CH3, CH5, CH 6, CH7 and CH8 harvesting has less than 90 days. There are two genotypes namely genotypes of CH7 and CH8 that have a fairly high production respectively of 7.16 tons / ha and 8.11 tons/ ha and significantly not different from the superior varieties Bima3.

Keywords: Evaluation, maize, early maturity, yield potential.

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Authors: Sunny Arora, Meghal A. Desai

Abstract:

An impetus towards green consumerism and implementation of sustainable techniques, consumption of natural products and utilization of environment friendly techniques have gained accelerated acceptance. Butein, a natural colorant, has many medicinal properties apart from its use in dyeing industries. Extraction of butein from the flowers of flame of forest was carried out using ultrasonication bath. Solid loading (2-6 g), extraction time (30-50 min), volume of solvent (30-50 mL) and types of solvent (methanol, ethanol and water) have been studied to maximize the yield of butein using the Taguchi method. The highest yield of butein 4.67% (w/w) was obtained using 4 g of plant material, 40 min of extraction time and 30 mL volume of methanol as a solvent. The present method provided a greater reduction in extraction time compared to the conventional method of extraction. Hence, the outcome of the present investigation could further be utilized to develop the method at a higher scale.

Keywords: Butein, flowers of flame of forest, Taguchi method, ultrasonic bath.

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Authors: Marzieh Moosavi-Nasab, Behnaz Layegh , Ladan Aminlari, Mohammad B. Hashemi

Abstract:

Levan, an exopolysaccharide, was produced by Microbacterium laevaniformans and its yield was characterized as a function of concentrations of date syrup, sucrose and the fermentation time. The optimum condition for levan production from sucrose was at concentration of 20% sucrose for 48 h and for date syrup was 25% for 48 h. The results show that an increase in fermentation time caused a decrease in the levan production at all concentrations of date syrup tested. Under these conditions after 48 h in sucrose medium, levan production reached 48.9 g/L and for date syrup reached 10.48 g/L . The effect of pH on the yield of the purified levan was examined and the optimum pH for levan production was determined to be 6.0. Levan was composed mainly of fructose residues when analyzed by TLC and FT-IR spectroscopy. Date syrup is a cheap substrate widely available in Iran and has potential for levan production. The thermal stability of levan was assessed by Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) that revealed the onset of decomposition near to 49°C for the levan produced from sucrose and 51°C for the levan from date syrup. DSC results showed a single Tg at 98°C for levan produced from sucrose and 206 °C for levan from date syrup.

Keywords: Date syrup, Fermentation, Levan, Microbacteriumlaevaniformans

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Authors: Agnieszka Misztal

Abstract:

The popularity of quality management system models continues to grow despite the transitional crisis in 2008. Their development is associated with demands of the new requirements for entrepreneurs, such as risk analysis projects and more emphasis on supervision of outsourced processes. In parallel, it is appropriate to focus attention on the selection of companies aspiring to a quality management system. This is particularly important in the automotive supplier industry, where requirements transferred to the levels in the supply chain should be clear, transparent and fairly satisfied. The author has carried out a series of researches aimed at finding the factors that allow for the effective implementation of the quality management system in automotive companies. The research was focused on four groups of companies: 1) manufacturing (parts and assemblies for the purpose of sale or for vehicle manufacturers), 2) service (repair and maintenance of the car) 3) services for the transport of goods or people, 4) commercial (auto parts and vehicles). The identified determinants were divided into two types of criteria: internal and external, as well as hard and soft. The article presents the hard – technical factors that an automotive company must meet in order to achieve the goal of the quality management system implementation.

Keywords: Automotive industry, quality management system.

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Authors: Weicai Yang, Xianfeng Dong, Dapeng Zeng, Bo Lin, Jun Tang

Abstract:

Low oxygen content vanadium powder was prepared by hydrogenation dehydrogenization (HDH). The effect of purification treatment on hydrogen absorption kinetics of dendritic vanadium was tested, and the effects of milling technique on powder yield and grain size were studied. The crystal phase, oxygen and nitrgen content, and grain size of prepared powder were characterized and analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), oxygen and nitrogen analyzer and grain size analyzer. The results show that the alkaline cleaning can improve the hydrogen absorption of vanadium. The yield of vanadium hydride powder can reach as high as 90% by 4h ball-milling, The resultant product also have an oxygen content less than 600μg/g, and the grain size is smaller than 37μm. Meanwhile, the XRD results show that the phase of hydride vanadium powder is mainly VH0.81. After a hydrogen desorption treatment in vacuum at 700Ôäâ, the phase of the powder converts into V and a little of V2H.

Keywords: V-5Cr-5Ti alloy, HDH, microstructures, mechanical properties.

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Authors: Shatha A. Yousif, Qasim M. Zamil, Hasan Y. Al Muhi, Jamal A. Al Shammari

Abstract:

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the major vegetable crops that are grown world –wide because of its economic importance. This experiment investigated the effect of local sands (River Base, Al-Ekader and Karbala) on number and total weight of minitubers. Statistical analysis revealed that there were no significant differences among sand cultures in number of stem/plant, chlorophyll index and tubers dry weight. River Base sand had the highest plant height (74.9 cm), leaf number/plant number (39.3), leaf area (84.4 dcm2⁄plant), dry weight/plant (26.31), tubers number/plant (8.5), tubers weight/plant (635.53 gm) and potato tuber yields/trove (28.60 kg), whereas the Karbala sand had lower performance. All the characters had positive and significant correlation with yields except the traits number of stem and tuber dry weight.

Keywords: Correlation, Potato, Sand Culture, Yield.

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Authors: Ng Yee Luon, Mohd Zamri Yusoff, Norshah Hafeez Shuaib

Abstract:

Meshing is the process of discretizing problem domain into many sub domains before the numerical calculation can be performed. One of the most popular meshes among many types of meshes is tetrahedral mesh, due to their flexibility to fit into almost any domain shape. In both 2D and 3D domains, triangular and tetrahedral meshes can be generated by using Delaunay triangulation. The quality of mesh is an important factor in performing any Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations as the results is highly affected by the mesh quality. Many efforts had been done in order to improve the quality of the mesh. The paper describes a mesh generation routine which has been developed capable of generating high quality tetrahedral cells in arbitrary complex geometry. A few test cases in CFD problems are used for testing the mesh generator. The result of the mesh is compared with the one generated by a commercial software. The results show that no sliver exists for the meshes generated, and the overall quality is acceptable since the percentage of the bad tetrahedral is relatively small. The boundary recovery was also successfully done where all the missing faces are rebuilt.

Keywords: Mesh generation, tetrahedral, CFD, Delaunay.

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Authors: M. S. M. El-Bady

Abstract:

Water quality and heavy metals pollution of the Damietta Nile Branch at Damietta governorate were investigated in the current work. Fourteen different sampling points were selected along the Damietta Nile branch from Ras EL-Bar (sample 1) to Sheremsah (sample 14). Physical and chemical parameters and the concentrations of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Fe, Al, Hg, Pb and Zn were investigated for water quality assessment of Damietta Nile Branch at Damietta Governorate. Most of the samples show that the water is suitable for drinking and irrigation purposes. All locations of samples near the sea are unsuitable water but the samples in the south direction away from the sea are suitable or good water for drinking and irrigation.

Keywords: Water quality indices, Damietta Governorate, Nile River, pollution.

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Authors: Yilmaz Bayhan, Emin Güzel, Ömer Barış Özlüoymak, Ahmet İnce, Abdullah Sessiz

Abstract:

In this study, determining of reduced tillage techniques in green bean farming as a second crop after harvesting wheat was targeted. To this aim, four different soil tillage methods namely, heavy-duty disc harrow (HD), rotary tiller (ROT), heavy-duty disc harrow plus rotary tiller (HD+ROT) and no-tillage (NT) (seeding by direct drill) were examined. Experiments were arranged in a randomized block design with three replications. The highest green beans yields were obtained in HD+ROT and NT as 5,862.1 and 5,829.3 Mg/ha, respectively. The lowest green bean yield was found in HD as 3,076.7 Mg/ha. The highest fuel consumption was measured 30.60 L ha^-1 for HD+ROT whereas the lowest value was found 7.50 L ha^-1 for NT. No tillage method gave the best results for fuel consumption and effective power requirement. It is concluded that no-tillage method can be used in second crop green bean in the Thrace Region due to economic and erosion conditions.

Keywords: Soil tillage, green bean, vegetative, generative, yield.

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Authors: Bingchun Liu, Pei-Chann Chang, Natasha Huang, Dun Li

Abstract:

Machine Learning and Data Mining are the two important tools for extracting useful information and knowledge from large datasets. In machine learning, classification is a wildly used technique to predict qualitative variables and is generally preferred over regression from an operational point of view. Due to the enormous increase in air pollution in various countries especially China, Air Quality Classification has become one of the most important topics in air quality research and modelling. This study aims at introducing a hybrid classification model based on information theory and Support Vector Machine (SVM) using the air quality data of four cities in China namely Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Tianjin from Jan 1, 2014 to April 30, 2016. China's Ministry of Environmental Protection has classified the daily air quality into 6 levels namely Serious Pollution, Severe Pollution, Moderate Pollution, Light Pollution, Good and Excellent based on their respective Air Quality Index (AQI) values. Using the information theory, information gain (IG) is calculated and feature selection is done for both categorical features and continuous numeric features. Then SVM Machine Learning algorithm is implemented on the selected features with cross-validation. The final evaluation reveals that the IG and SVM hybrid model performs better than SVM (alone), Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN) models in terms of accuracy as well as complexity.

Keywords: Machine learning, air quality classification, air quality index, information gain, support vector machine, cross-validation.

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Authors: Lāsma Cielava, Daina Jonkus, Līga Paura

Abstract:

The age of first calving (AFC) is one of the most important factors that have a significant impact on cow productivity in different lactations and its whole life. A belated AFC leads to reduced reproductive performance and it is one of the main reasons for reduced longevity. Cows that calved in time period from 2001-2007 and in this time finished at least four lactations were included in the database. Data were obtained from 68841 crossbred Holstein Black and White (HM), crossbred Latvian Brown (LB), and Latvian Brown genetic resources (LBGR) cows. Cows were distributed in four groups depending on age at first calving. The longest lifespan was conducted for LBGR cows, but they were also characterized with lowest lifetime milk yield and life day milk yield. HM breed cows had the shortest lifespan, but in the lifespan of 2862.2 days was obtained in average 37916.4 kg milk accordingly 13.2 kg milk in one life day. HM breed cows were also characterized with longer calving intervals (CI) in first four lactations, but LBGR cows had the shortest CI in the study group. Age at first calving significantly affected the length of CI in different lactations (p<0.05). HM cows that first time calved >30 months old in the fourth lactation had the longest CI in all study groups (421.4 days). The LBGR cows were characterized with the shortest CI, but there was slight increase in second and third lactation. Age at first calving had a significant impact on cows’ age in each calving time. In the analysis, cow group was conducted that cows with age at first calving <24 months or in average 580.5 days at the time of fifth calving were 2156.7 days (5.9 years) old, but cows with age at first calving >30 months (932.6 days) at the time of fifth calving were 2560.9 days (7.3 years) old.

Keywords: Age at first calving, calving interval, longevity, milk yield.

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Authors: Y. S. Zhou, C. R. Li, L. L. Tang, C. X. Gao, D. J. Wang, Y. Y. Guo

Abstract:

Triangular trihedral corner reflector (CR) has been widely used as point target for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) calibration and image quality assessment. The additional “tip” of the triangular plate does not contribute to the reflector’s theoretical RCS and if it interacts with a perfectly reflecting ground plane, it will yield an increase of RCS at the radar bore-sight and decrease the accuracy of SAR calibration and image quality assessment. Regarding this problem, two types of CRs were manufactured. One was the hexagonal trihedral CR. It is a self-illuminating CR with relatively small plate edge length, while large edge length usually introduces unexpected edge diffraction error. The other was the triangular trihedral CR with extended bottom plate which considers the effect of ‘tip’ into the total RCS. In order to assess the performance of the two types of new CRs, flight campaign over the National Calibration and Validation Site for High Resolution Remote Sensors was carried out. Six hexagonal trihedral CRs and two bottom-extended trihedral CRs, as well as several traditional triangular trihedral CRs, were deployed. KOMPSAT-5 X-band SAR image was acquired for the performance analysis of the hexagonal trihedral CRs. C-band airborne SAR images were acquired for the performance analysis of the bottom-extended trihedral CRs. The analysis results showed that the impulse response function of both the hexagonal trihedral CRs and bottom-extended trihedral CRs were much closer to the ideal sinc-function than the traditional triangular trihedral CRs. The flight campaign results validated the advantages of new types of CRs and they might be useful in the future SAR calibration mission.

Keywords: Synthetic Aperture Radar, calibration, corner reflector, KOMPSAT-5.

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Authors: Yu-Chun Lin

Abstract:

We identify clawback triggers from firms- proxy statements (Form DEF 14A) and use the likelihood of restatements to proxy for financial reporting quality. Based on a sample of 578 U.S. firms that voluntarily adopt clawback provisions during 2003-2009, when restatement-based triggers could be decomposed into two types: fraud and unintentional error, and we do observe the evidence that using fraud triggers is associated with high financial reporting quality. The findings support that fraud triggers can enhance deterrent effect of clawback provision by establishing a viable disincentive against fraud, misconduct, and otherwise harmful acts. These results are robust to controlling for the compensation components, to different sample specifications and to a number of sensitivity.

Keywords: Accruals quality, Clawback provisions, Compensation, Restatements.

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Authors: H. Iranmanesh, M. R. Skandari, M. Allahverdiloo

Abstract:

Project managers are the ultimate responsible for the overall characteristics of a project, i.e. they should deliver the project on time with minimum cost and with maximum quality. It is vital for any manager to decide a trade-off between these conflicting objectives and they will be benefited of any scientific decision support tool. Our work will try to determine optimal solutions (rather than a single optimal solution) from which the project manager will select his desirable choice to run the project. In this paper, the problem in project scheduling notated as (1,T|cpm,disc,mu|curve:quality,time,cost) will be studied. The problem is multi-objective and the purpose is finding the Pareto optimal front of time, cost and quality of a project (curve:quality,time,cost), whose activities belong to a start to finish activity relationship network (cpm) and they can be done in different possible modes (mu) which are non-continuous or discrete (disc), and each mode has a different cost, time and quality . The project is constrained to a non-renewable resource i.e. money (1,T). Because the problem is NP-Hard, to solve the problem, a meta-heuristic is developed based on a version of genetic algorithm specially adapted to solve multi-objective problems namely FastPGA. A sample project with 30 activities is generated and then solved by the proposed method.

Keywords: FastPGA, Multi-Execution Activity Mode, ParetoOptimality, Project Scheduling, Time-Cost-Quality Trade-Off.

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Authors: Manal A. Mohsen, Ahmed Tawfik

Abstract:

Hydrogen production from cake wastewater by anaerobic dark fermentation via upflow anaerobic staged reactor (UASR) was investigated in this study. The reactor was continuously operated for four months at constant hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 21.57 hr, PH value of 6 ± 0.6, temperature of 21.1°C, and organic loading rate of 2.43 gCOD/l.d. The hydrogen production was 5.7 l H₂/d and the hydrogen yield was 134.8 ml H₂ /g COD_removed. The system showed an overall removal efficiency of TCOD, TBOD, TSS, TKN, and Carbohydrates of 40 ± 13%, 59 ± 18%, 84 ± 17%, 28 ± 27%, and 85 ± 15% respectively during the long term operation period. Based on the available results, the system is not sufficient for the effective treatment of cake wastewater, and the effluent quality of UASR is not complying for discharge into sewerage network, therefore a post treatment is needed (not covered in this study).

Keywords: Cake wastewater industry, chemical oxygen demand (COD), hydrogen production (HP), up-flow anaerobic staged reactor (UASR).

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Authors: Mahmoud M. Tash, S. Alkahtani

Abstract:

The present study was undertaken to investigate the effect of pre-aging and aging parameters (time and temperature) on the mechanical properties of Al-Mg-Zn (7075) alloys. Ultimate tensile strength, 0.5% offset yield strength and % elongation measurements were carried out on specimens prepared from cast and heat treated 7075 alloys. Aging treatments were carried out for the as solution treated (SHT) specimens (after quenching in warm water). The specimens were aged at different conditions; Natural aging was carried out at room temperature for different periods of time. Double aging was performed for SHT conditions (pre-aged at different time and temperature followed by high temperature aging). Ultimate tensile strength, yield strength and % elongation as a function of different pre-aging and aging parameters are analyzed to acquire an understanding of the effects of these variables and their interactions on the mechanical properties of Be-treated 7075 alloys.

Keywords: Duplex Aging Treatment, Mechanical Properties, Al-Mg-Zn (7075) alloys.

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Authors: K.Manimala, Dr.K.Selvi, R.Ahila

Abstract:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods are increasingly being used for problem solving. This paper concerns using AI-type learning machines for power quality problem, which is a problem of general interest to power system to provide quality power to all appliances. Electrical power of good quality is essential for proper operation of electronic equipments such as computers and PLCs. Malfunction of such equipment may lead to loss of production or disruption of critical services resulting in huge financial and other losses. It is therefore necessary that critical loads be supplied with electricity of acceptable quality. Recognition of the presence of any disturbance and classifying any existing disturbance into a particular type is the first step in combating the problem. In this work two classes of AI methods for Power quality data mining are studied: Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and Support Vector Machines (SVMs). We show that SVMs are superior to ANNs in two critical respects: SVMs train and run an order of magnitude faster; and SVMs give higher classification accuracy.

Keywords: back propagation network, power quality, probabilistic neural network, radial basis function support vector machine

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Authors: Itgel Bayarsaikhan, Jimin Lee, Sejong Oh

Abstract:

Classification is one of the primary themes in computational biology. The accuracy of classification strongly depends on quality of a dataset, and we need some method to evaluate this quality. In this paper, we propose a new graphical analysis method using 'Membership-Deviation Graph (MDG)' for analyzing quality of a dataset. MDG represents degree of membership and deviations for instances of a class in the dataset. The result of MDG analysis is used for understanding specific feature and for selecting best feature for classification.

Keywords: feature, classification, machine learning algorithm.

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Authors: M. M. Mashhadi, K. Mohajeri, M. D. Nayeri

Abstract:

Positioning the organization in the strategic environment of its industry is one of the first and most important phases of the organizational strategic planning and in today knowledge-based economy has its importance been duplicated for higher education institutes as the centers of education, knowledge creation and knowledge worker training. Up to now, various models with diverse approaches have been applied to investigate organizations- strategic position in different industries. Regarding the essential importance and strategic role of quality in higher education institutes, in this study, a quality-oriented approach has been suggested to positioning them in their strategic environment. Then the European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM) model has been adopted to position the top Iranian business schools in their strategic environment. The result of this study can be used in strategic planning of these institutes as well as the other Iranian business schools.

Keywords: Strategic planning, Strategic positioning, Quality, EFQM model, Higher education institutions.

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Authors: Manjie Li, Xiangju Cheng, Yongcan Chen

Abstract:

With rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, water environmental deterioration is widespread in majority of urban rivers, which seriously affects city image and life satisfaction of residents. As an emergency measure to improve water quality, clean water diversion is introduced for water environmental management. Lubao River and Southwest River, two urban rivers in typical plain tidal river network, are identified as technically and economically feasible for the application of clean water diversion. One-dimensional hydrodynamic-water quality model is developed to simulate temporal and spatial variations of water level and water quality, with satisfactory accuracy. The mathematical model after calibration is applied to investigate hydrodynamic and water quality variations in rivers as well as determine the optimum operation scheme of water diversion. Assessment system is developed for evaluation of positive and negative effects of water diversion, demonstrating the effectiveness of clean water diversion and the necessity of pollution reduction.

Keywords: Assessment system, clean water diversion, hydrodynamic-water quality model, tidal river network, urban rivers, water environment improvement.

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Authors: Swati Khanna, Arun Goyal, Vijayanand S. Moholkar

Abstract:

Batch fermentation of 5, 10 and 25 g/L biodiesel derived crude glycerol was carried out at 30, 37 and 450C by Clostridium pasteurianum cells immobilized on silica. Maximum yield of 1,3-propanediol (PDO) (0.60 mol/mol), and ethanol (0.26 mol/mol) were obtained from 10 g/L crude glycerol at 30 and 370C respectively. Maximum yield of butanol (0.28 mol/mol substrate added) was obtained at 370C with 25 g/L substrate. None of the three products were detected at 45oC even after 10 days of fermentation. Only traces of ethanol (0.01 mol/mol) were detected at 450C with 5 g/L substrate. The results obtained for 25 g/L substrate utilization were fitted in first order rate equation to obtain the values of rate constant at three different temperatures for bioconversion of glycerol. First order rate constants for bioconversion of glycerol at 30, 37 and 45oC were found to be 0.198, 0.294 and 0.029/day respectively. Activation energy (Ea) for crude glycerol bioconversion was calculated to be 57.62 kcal/mol.

Keywords: activation energy, Clostridium pasteurianum, crude glycerol, immobilization

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Authors: Germán Santos-Boada, Jordi Domingo-Pascual

Abstract:

Recently, in some places, optical-fibre access networks have been used with GPON technology belonging to organizations (in most cases public bodies) that act as neutral operators. These operators simultaneously provide network services to various telecommunications operators that offer integrated voice, data and television services. This situation creates new problems related to quality of service, since the interests of the users are intermingled with the interests of the operators. In this paper, we analyse this problem and consider solutions that make it possible to provide guaranteed quality of service for voice over IP, data services and interactive digital television.

Keywords: GPON networks, multioperator, quality of service, triple-play services.

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Authors: Franklin Nantui Mabe, Samuel A. Donkoh, Seidu Al-Hassan

Abstract:

Rice yields among agro-ecological zones are heterogeneous. Farmers, researchers and policy makers are making frantic efforts to bridge rice yield gaps between agro-ecological zones through the promotion of improved agricultural technologies (IATs). Farmers are also modifying these IATs and blending them with indigenous farming practices (IFPs) to form farmer innovation systems (FISs). Also, different metafrontier models have been used in estimating productivity performances and their drivers. This study used the two-step stochastic metafrontier model to estimate the productivity performances of rice farmers and their determining factors in GSZ, FSTZ and CSZ. The study used both primary and secondary data. Farmers in CSZ are the most technically efficient. Technical inefficiencies of farmers are negatively influenced by age, sex, household size, education years, extension visits, contract farming, access to improved seeds, access to irrigation, high rainfall amount, less lodging of rice, and well-coordinated and synergized adoption of technologies. Albeit farmers in CSZ are doing well in terms of rice yield, they still have the highest potential of increasing rice yield since they had the lowest TGR. It is recommended that government through the ministry of food and agriculture, development partners and individual private companies promote the adoption of IATs as well as educate farmers on how to coordinate and synergize the adoption of the whole package. Contract farming concept and agricultural extension intensification should be vigorously pursued to the latter.

Keywords: Efficiency, farmer innovation systems, improved agricultural technologies, two-step stochastic metafrontier approach.

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Authors: H. Iranmanesh, M. R. Skandari, M. Allahverdiloo

Abstract:

Project managers are the ultimate responsible for the overall characteristics of a project, i.e. they should deliver the project on time with minimum cost and with maximum quality. It is vital for any manager to decide a trade-off between these conflicting objectives and they will be benefited of any scientific decision support tool. Our work will try to determine optimal solutions (rather than a single optimal solution) from which the project manager will select his desirable choice to run the project. In this paper, the problem in project scheduling notated as (1,T|cpm,disc,mu|curve:quality,time,cost) will be studied. The problem is multi-objective and the purpose is finding the Pareto optimal front of time, cost and quality of a project (curve:quality,time,cost), whose activities belong to a start to finish activity relationship network (cpm) and they can be done in different possible modes (mu) which are non-continuous or discrete (disc), and each mode has a different cost, time and quality . The project is constrained to a non-renewable resource i.e. money (1,T). Because the problem is NP-Hard, to solve the problem, a meta-heuristic is developed based on a version of genetic algorithm specially adapted to solve multi-objective problems namely FastPGA. A sample project with 30 activities is generated and then solved by the proposed method.

Keywords: FastPGA, Multi-Execution Activity Mode, Pareto Optimality, Project Scheduling, Time-Cost-Quality Trade-Off.

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Authors: Mohammad Saeri, Noor Rizkiyah, Kambang Vetrani Asie, Titin Apung Atikah

Abstract:

The study aims to assess efficient specific-location soybean farming technology assembly by assisting the farmers in applying the suggested technology. Superimposed trial was conducted to know NPK fertilizer effect toward soybean growth and yield and soybean improved variety test for the dissemination of improved variety. The assessment was conducted at the farmers group of Sumber Rejeki, Kepulungan Village, Gempol Sub-district, Pasuruan Regency as the soybean central at Pasuruan area. The number of farmers involved in the study was 38 people with 25 ha soybean area. This study was held from July to October 2012.  The recommended technology package agreed at the socialization time and used in this research were: using Argomulyo variety seeds of 40 kg/ha, planting by drilling, planting by distance of 40x10 cm, deciding the seeds amount of 2-3 seeds per hole, and giving fertilization based on recommendation of East Java AIAT of 50 kg Urea, 100 kg SP-36 and 50 kg KCl.  Farmers around the research location were used as control group. Assessment on soybean farming system was considered effective because it could increase the production up to 38%. The farming analysis showed that the result collaborator farmers gained were positively higher than non-collaborator farmers with RC ratio of 2.03 and 1.54, respectively. Argomulyo variety has the prospect to be developed due to the high yield of about 2 tons/ha and the larger seeds. The NPK fertilization test at the soybean plants showed that the fertilization had minor effect on the yield.

Keywords: Farming system, soybean, variety, location specific farming.

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Authors: P. Konvalina, I. Capouchová, Z. Stehno

Abstract:

The organic farmers use wider range of crop varieties than the conventional farming. Bread wheat is the most favorite and the most common food crop. The organic bread wheat is usually of worse technological quality. Therefore, it is supposed to be an attractive alternative to the hulled wheat species (einkorn, emmer wheat and spelt). Twenty-five hulled bread wheat varieties and control bread wheat ones were grown on the certified organic parcel in České Budějovice (the Czech Republic) between 2009 and 2012. Their baking quality was measured and evaluated with standard methods, and in accordance with ICC. The results have shown that the grain of hulled wheat varieties contain a lot of proteins in grains (up to 18 percent); even the organic hulled bread wheat varieties are characterized by such good baking quality. Einkorn and emmer wheat are of worse technological quality of proteins (low values of gluten index and Zeleny test), which is a disadvantage of these two wheat species. On the other hand, spelt wheat is of better technological quality and is similar to the control bread wheat varieties. Mixtures consisting of bread wheat, among others, are considered good alternatives; they may contribute to wider range of use of the hulled wheat species. It is one of the possibilities which may increase the proportion of proteins in bread wheat grains; the nutrition-rich hulled wheat grains may be also used in such way at the same time.

Keywords: Baking quality, organic farming, einkorn, emmer wheat, spelt.

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Authors: Hirich A., Choukr-allah R., Jacobsen S-E., Hamdy A., El youssfi L., El Omari H.

Abstract:

An experiment was performed in the south of Morocco in order to evaluate the effect of deficit irrigation by treated wastewater on chickpea production. We applied six irrigation treatments on a local variety of chickpea by supplying alternatively 50 or 100% of ETm in a completely randomized design. We found a highly significant difference between treatments in terms of biomass production. Drought stress during the vegetative period showed highest yield with 6.5 t/ha which was more than the yield obtained for the control (4.9 t/ha). The optimal crop stage in which deficit irrigation can be applied is the vegetative growth stage, as the crop has a chance to develop its root system, to be able to cover the plant needs for water and nutrient supply during the rest of cycle, and non stress conditions during the flowering and seed filling stages allow the plant to optimize its photosynthesis and carbon translocation, therefore increase its productivity.

Keywords: chickpea, crop stages, drought stress, water productivity

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Authors: Nedeljko Cvejic, Artur Łoza, David Bull, Nishan Canagarajah

Abstract:

In this paper, we present a novel objective nonreference performance assessment algorithm for image fusion. It takes into account local measurements to estimate how well the important information in the source images is represented by the fused image. The metric is based on the Universal Image Quality Index and uses the similarity between blocks of pixels in the input images and the fused image as the weighting factors for the metrics. Experimental results confirm that the values of the proposed metrics correlate well with the subjective quality of the fused images, giving a significant improvement over standard measures based on mean squared error and mutual information.

Keywords: Fusion performance measures, image fusion, non-reference quality measures, objective quality measures.

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