Production

This paper gives a survey of the infrastructure currently being developed in the MUSITECH project. The aim of this project is to conceptualize and implement a computational environment for navigation and interaction in internet-based musical applications. This comprises the development of data models, exchange formats, interface modules and a software framework. Our approach is to integrate different information and media types like MIDI, audio, text based codes and metadata and their relations, especially to provide means to describe arbitrary musical structures. We attempt to connect different musical domains to support cooperations and synergies. To establish platform independence Java, Extensible Markup Language (XML), and other open standards are used. The object model, a framework and various components for visualization, playback and other common tasks and the technical infrastructure are being developed and will be evaluated within the project.

This volume has been prepared under the auspices of the project entitled, ‘Competition Reforms in Key Markets for Enhancing Social & Economic Welfare in Developing Countries’ (CREW Project). This project was implemented by CUTS in four countries: Ghana, India, Philippines and Zambia, and across two common sectors: Staple Food and Bus Transport with the support from DFID (UK) and BMZ (Germany) facilitated by GIZ (Germany). The aim of the project was to highlight the relevance of competition reforms for social and economic welfare in developing countries, and motivate other countries, governments and development partners to accord greater attention to the subject of competition reforms. In view of this overall aim of the project, with inputs from the project advisers CUTS designed the final conference of the CREW project on a broader theme to talk about ‘Relevance of Competition & Regulatory Reforms in Pursuing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Developing Countries’. The theme was thought to be both contemporary and relevant in view of the adoption of the SDGs a couple of months before this final conference. In addition to the support it received from DFID (UK), BMZ (Germany) and GIZ (Germany), the conference also received support from the World Bank, G-77 Secretariat and the OECD. CUTS is grateful to all the above organisations for supporting the conference, and indeed also the production of this volume. We acknowledge the support from the members of the Project Advisory Committee of the CREW project, who contributed to make this conference a grand success. Special thanks to Clement Onyango and colleagues at CUTS Nairobi for their support and tireless efforts in the run-up and during the conference. We gratefully acknowledge the hard work and patience of all the paper authors for contributing extremely interesting individual chapters to this volume. We are also thankful to those friends of CUTS who reviewed the draft papers – Eleanor Fox, Tania Begazo/Martha Licetti (World Bank), Rafaelita Aldaba, R S Khemani, Frederic Jenny, Payal Malik, Allan Fels, David Ong’olo, Ashwini Swain, Peter Holmes and John Davies/Lynn Robertson (OECD). We are indebted to Mukhisa Kituyi, Secretary General, UNCTAD for writing an encouraging Foreword – and we hope to continue to receive his and UNCTAD’s support. We greatly appreciate the diligence of Madhuri Vasnani and Garima Shrivastava for editing and Mukesh Tyagi for preparing the layout of this report. Special thanks are due to Ashutosh Soni for his excellent coordination of communication with authors and reviewers of papers of this volume. We acknowledge the efforts of all the members of the CREW team, especially Cornelius Dube, Shreya Kaushik and Neha Tomar. Last but not the least, this report would not have seen the light of the day without the skillful direction, and overall guidance of Pradeep S Mehta, Secretary General, CUTS. He took special interest in this volume and went through each and every paper carefully himself. Words alone cannot convey our sincere gratitude to each and every individual who have contributed in every small way towards bringing out this volume. But it is only words that this world thrives on. We express our sincere gratefulness to all such individuals, without whom the publication of this volume would not have been possible.

This article analyses service quality in nonprofit organizations. Based on a literature review and a case study, it discusses the differences in applying the service quality concept (customer expectations X perception) in the nonprofit sector, in comparison to for-profit companies. It concludes that nonprofits don't present a single type of customer, but several stakeholders playing that role. Each of those actors has different expectations towards the organization and presents different criteria when evaluating service quality. It should also be pointed that, due to values such as "justice" and "solidarity", essential in that type of organization, the service deliver process assumes special importance in nonprofits and, sometimes, become as or even more important than the results obtained.

The principles and recent progress in the research and development of photobiological hydrogen production are reviewed. Cyanobacteria produce hydrogen gas using nitrogenase and/or hydrogenase. Hydrogen production mediated by native hydrogenases in cyanobacteria occurs under in the dark under anaerobic conditions by degradation of intracellular glycogen. In vitro and in vivo coupling of the cyanobacterial photosynthetic system with a clostridial hydrogenase

One of the approaches suggested for sequestering C02 is by injecting it in coalbed methane (CBM) reservoirs. Despite its potential importance for C02 sequestration, to our knowledge, C02 injection in CBM reservoirs for the purpose of sequestration has not been widely studied. Furthermore, a key element missing in most of the existing studies is the comprehensive characterization of the CBM reservoir structure. CBM reservoirs are complex porous media, since in addition to their primary pore structure, generated during coal formation, they also contain a variety of fractures, which may potentially play a key role in C02 sequestration, as they generally provide high permeability flow paths for both CO2 and C&. In this report we present an overview of our ongoing experimental and modeling efforts, which aim to investigate the injection, adsorption and sequestration of CO2 in CBM reservoirs, the enhanced C& production that results, as well as the main factors that affect the overall operation. We describe the various experimental techniques that we utilize, and discuss their range of application and the value of the data generated. We conclude with a brief overview of our modeling efforts aiming to close the knowledge gap and fill the need in this area. ..

This paper presents and compares an exact and a heuristic approach for scheduling of printed wiring board assembly in surface mount technology (SMT) lines. A typical SMT line consists of several assembly stations in series and/or in parallel, separated by finite intermediate buffers. The objective of the scheduling problem is to determine the detailed sequencing and timing of all assembly tasks for each individual board, so as to maximize the line's productivity, which is defined in terms of makespan for a mix of board types. The limited intermediate buffers between stations result in a scheduling problem with machine blocking, where a completed board may remain on a machine and block it until a downstream machine becomes available. In addition, limited machine availability due to scheduled downtimes is considered. The exact approach is based on a mixed integer programming formulation that can be used for optimization of assembly schedules by using commercially available software for integer programming, whereas the heuristic approach is designed as a combination of tabu search and a set of dispatching rules. Numerical examples modelled after real-world SMT lines and some computational results are provided to illustrate and compare the two approaches.

Up till now, there has not been one specific correlation published to directly estimate the bubblepoint pressure in the absence of PVT analysis and, at the moment, there is just one published correlation available to estimate the bubblepoint oil FVF directly in the absence of PVT analysis. The majority of the published bubblepoint pressure and bubblepoint oil FVF correlations cannot be applied directly. This is because the correlations require the knowledge of bubblepoint solution GOR and gas specific gravity as part of the input variables, both of which are rarely measured field parameters. Solution GOR and gas specific gravity can be obtained either experimentally or estimated from correlations. In this study, multiple regression analysis technique is applied in order to develop two novel correlations with which to estimate the bubblepoint pressure and the bubblepoint oil FVF. These new correlations can be applied in a straightforward manner by using direct field data. Additional correlations or experimental analyses are unnecessary. Separator GOR, separator pressure, stock-tank oil gravity and reservoir temperature are the only key parameters required to predict bubblepoint pressure and bubblepoint oil FVF using the proposed correlations.

A numerical algorithm for computing necessary conditions for performance specifications is developed for nonlinear uncertain systems. The algorithm is similar in nature and behavior to the power algorithm for the p lower bound, and doesn't rely on a descent method. The algorithm is applied to a practical example.

This paper aims to develop and test methods for spatial mapping of population, food production, consumption, and marketed quantities in Africa. As an initial, exploratory exercise, the paper examines the spatial pattern of population, food production, consumption, and trade in the three countries of Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique. This largely descriptive initial work will lay the empirical foundations for future analytical work modeling regional trade flows of food staples. By mapping population, food production, and trade flows, the paper aims to help policy makers better understand and anticipate spatial interactions in staple food markets. Through visual presentation of market information, these spatial mapping tools offer prospects for animating an ongoing dialogue among public and private stakeholders on key market flows, key bottlenecks, and key opportunities for improving food security in good and bad harvest years.

This paper aims at illustrating the compared results of the application of two different approaches-respectively parametric and artificial neural network techniques-for the estimation of the unitary manufacturing costs of a new type of brake disks produced by an Italian manufacturing firm. The results seem to confirm the validity of the neural network theory in this application field, but not a clear superiority with respect to the more ''traditional'' parametric approach: in particular, the ANN seems to be characterised by a better trade-off between precision and cost of development, while a critical point-especially in the specific application context-is represented by the reduced possibility of interpreting output data (which is critical for the ''optimisation'' of design solutions during the new product development process). r

We have previously reported the identification of a small, basic and cysteine-rich antifungal peptide (AcAFP) secreted by Aspergillus clavatus and shown its ability to prevent growth of various human-and plant-pathogenic filamentous fungi. In this study, we sought to determine the physiological/microbiological requirements to enhance the AcAFP production and the conditions influencing its stability. The maximum of AcAFP production was obtained when A. clavatus was grown on 2% glycerol as sole carbon source and 100 mM NaCl. The AcAFP expression was shown to be influenced by pH, being suppressed under acidic (pH 5) and strongly induced under alkaline conditions. The activity of the purified AcAFP was not affected by temperature; it loosed approximately 20% of its activity after 3 h at 100°C and was efficient through a large pH range (pH 5-12) with an optimum at pH 8. AcAFP activity decreased at high ionic strength and in the presence of 10 mM of divalent cations (Mn 2+ , Fe 2+ and Ca 2+ ).

In this paper we introduce a new algorithm for simplification of polygonal meshes. It generates a variable resolution structure called hierarchical 4-K mesh. This structure is a powerful representation for non-uniform level of detail that, among other things, allows simple and efficient extraction of conforming meshes.

Photovoltaic (PV) system performance can be degraded by a series of factors affecting the PV generator, such as partial shadows, soiling, increased series resistance and shunting of the cells. This concern has led to greater interest in improving PV system operation and availability through automatic supervision and condition monitoring of the PV system components, especially for small PV installations, where no specialized personnel is present at the site. This work proposes a PV array condition monitoring system based on a PV array performance model. The system is parameterized online, using regression modeling, from PV array production, plane-of-array irradiance, and module temperature measurements, acquired during an initial learning phase of the system. After the model has been parameterized automatically, the condition monitoring system enters the normal operation phase, where the performance model is used to predict the power output of the PV array. Utilizing the predicted and measured PV array output power values, the condition monitoring system is able to detect power losses above 5%, occurring in the PV array.

This paper intends to present a contribution to the development of techniques of decision-making in international projects of exploration and production of petroleum. A case study of the Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) was developed and applied to define priorities among ten offshore exploration investment opportunities around the world offered to a Brazilian petroleum multinational company, according to decision-makers' preferences. The MAUT model proposed shows for the first time a combination of operational, political and technological risks, resulting in a quite complete formulation to describe quantitatively the decision-making process. It is important to emphasize that this paper presents an unpublished model to evaluate political risks whose detailed analysis is currently of extreme importance for international investments in petroleum projects.

In this paper the production of laccase and the decolouration of the recalcitrant diazo dye Reactive Black 5 (RB5) by the white-rot fungus Trametes pubescens immobilised on stainless steel sponges in a fixed-bed reactor were studied. Laccase production was increased by 10-fold in the presence of RB5 and reached a maximum value of 1025 U/l. Enhanced laccase production in the presence of RB5 in this fungus is an added advantage during biodegradation of RB5-containing effluents. The decolouration of RB5 was due to two processes: dye adsorption onto the fungal mycelium and dye degradation by the laccase enzymes produced by the fungus. RB5 decolouration was performed during four successive batches obtaining high decolouration percentages (74%, 43% and 52% in 24 h for the first, third and four batch, respectively) without addition of redox mediators. Also, the in vitro decolouration of RB5 by the concentrated culture extract, containing mainly laccase, produced in the above bioreactor was studied. The decolouration percentages obtained were considerably lower (around 20% in 24 h) than that attained with the whole culture.

There has been a rapid increase in the number and demand for approved biopharmaceuticals produced from animal cell culture processes over the last few years. In part, this has been due to the efficacy of several hu-manized monoclonal antibodies that are required at large ...

Bacillomycin Lc, a newantifungal antibiotic of the iturin class, was isolated from a strain of Bacillus subtilis as a set of five congeners. The structure as determined by chemical and spectrometric analyses has been shown to differ from that of bacillomycin L by sequence changes from aspartate-1 to asparagine-1 and from glutamine-5 to glutamate-5. The five congeners differ from each other only in the structure of the aliphatic side chain of the constituent /?-amino acid. The hydrophobicity of the /?-amino acid affects the antifungal activity of the congener, as activity increased in the order of increased congener retention on a reversed-phase HPLCcolumn.

This paper discusses what is known about the life-cycle burdens of lithium ion batteries. Constituent-material production and the subsequent manufacturing of batteries are emphasized. Of particular interest is estimation of the impact of battery material recycling on battery manufacturing. Because some materials come from comparatively less plentiful resources, the recycling of lithium ion batteries and the potential impact on battery-production life-cycle burdens are discussed. This effort represents the early stage of lithium ion battery life-cycle analysis, in which processes are characterized preparatory to detailed data acquisition. Notwithstanding the lack of data on production of battery materials, it is estimated that the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions associated with battery manufacturing make up only a small percentage of a plug-in hybrid vehicle's total life-cycle energy use. Further, the recycling of battery materials potentially can significantly reduce the...

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a surge of demand for medical supplies and spare parts, which has put pressure on the manufacturing sector. As a result, 3D printing communities and companies are currently operating to ease the breakdown in the medical supply chain. If no parts are available, 3D printing can potentially be used to produce time-critical parts on demand such as nasal swabs, face shields, respirators, and spares for ventilators. A structured search using online sources and feedback from key experts in the 3D printing area was applied to highlight critical issues and to suggest potential solutions. The prescribed outcomes were estimated in terms of cost and productivity at a small and large scale. This study analyzes the number and costs of parts that can be manufactured with a single machine within 24 h. It extrapolates this potential with the number of identical 3D printers in the world to estimate the global potential that can help practitioners, frontline workers, a...

Various systems of anther and microspore cultures were studied to establish an efficient doubled haploid production method for Indonesian hot pepper (Capsicum annuum L.). A shed-microspore culture protocol was developed which outperformed all the previously reported methods of haploid production in pepper. The critical factors of the protocol are: selection of flower buds with more than 50% late unicellular microspores, a 1 day 4°C pretreatment of the buds, followed by culture of the anthers in double-layer medium system for 1 week at 9°C and thereafter at 28°C in continuous darkness. The medium contained Nitsch components and 2% maltose, with 1% activated charcoal in the solid under layer and 2.5 μM zeatin and 5 μM indole-3-acetic acid in the liquid upper layer. All the ten genotypes of hot pepper tested, responded to this protocol. The best genotypes produced four to seven plants per original flower bud. This protocol can be used as a potential tool for producing doubled haploid palnt sfor hot pepper breeding.

This paper proposes a scheme for scheduling disk requests that takes advantage of the ability of high-level functions to operate directly at individual disk drives. We show that such a scheme makes it possible to support a Data Mining workload on an OLTP system almost for free: there is only a small impact on the throughput and response time of the existing workload. Specifically, we show that an OLTP system has the disk resources to provide a consistent one third of its sequential bandwidth to a background Data Mining task with close to zero impact on OLTP throughput and response time at high transaction loads. At low transaction loads, we show much lower impact than observed in previous work. This means that a production OLTP system can be used for Data Mining tasks without the expense of a second dedicated system. Our scheme takes advantage of close interaction with the on-disk scheduler by reading blocks for the Data Mining workload as the disk head "passes over" them while satisfying demand blocks from the OLTP request stream. We show that this scheme provides a consistent level of throughput for the background workload even at very high foreground loads. Such a scheme is of most benefit in combination with an Active Disk environment that allows the background Data Mining application to also take advantage of the processing power and memory available directly on the disk drives.

Demand driven material requirements planning or DDMRP is a recent and promising material management method that has been developed and implemented in the practitioner world. Essentially, DDMRP represents a rethinking of the basic MRP logic. By incorporating elements drawn from Lean Systems and the Theory of Constraints and by introducing new features such as dynamic buffers, DDMRP modifies the basic MRP logic so that it is better able to satisfy customer demands in an increasingly demanding, turbulent and dynamic environment. Claims have been made by firms that DDMRP represents a superior planning approach. In this paper, we introduce and explore DDMRP. In addition, we evaluate its effectiveness relative to two other widely accepted approaches-MRP II and Kanban/Lean productionthrough a series of structured computer simulation experiments. The results strongly indicate that DDMRP does represent a superior approachone that warrants further academic study.

This article aims at proposing some elements for a grounded theor y of the network society. The network society is the social structure characteristic of the Information Age, as tentatively identi ed by empirical, cross-cultural investigation. It permeates most societies in the world, in various cultural and institutional manifestations, as the industrial society characterized the social structure of both capitalism and statism for most of the twentieth centur y. Social structures are organized around relationships of production/consumption, power, and experience, whose spatio-temporal con gurations constitute cultures. They are enacted, reproduced, and ultimately transformed by social actors, rooted in the social structure, yet freely engaging in con ictive social practices, with unpredictable outcomes. A fundamental feature of social structure in the Information Age is its reliance on networks as the key feature of social morphology. While networks are old forms of social organization, they are now empowered by new information/communication technologies, so that they become able to cope at the same time with exible decentralization, and with focused decision-making. The article examines the speci c interaction between network morphology and relationships of production/consumption, power, experience, and culture, in the historical making of the emerging social structure at the turn of the Millennium.

Thirty native (Turkish origin) strains of Streptococcus thermophilus and 24 strains of Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus were isolated and identified. These strains were examined for their technologically important properties such as acidification, proteolysis, acetaldehyde production and antimicrobial activity. By taking into consideration their phage resistant properties, two strains of S. thermophilus (St.7.7, and St.26.2) and one of L. bulgaricus , numbered as 2004, were found to have the potential to be starters for yogurt production.

Bifidus milk powder was prepared by supplementing cow's milk with predetermined level of additives to obtain slurry of desired concentration. The slurry was sterilized, cooled and inoculated with 24-h-old bulk culture of Bifidobacterium bifidum at 10% and incubated at 37C for 24 h, ...

Several wastes from agro-industrial activities were mixed in different ratios to evaluate the co-digestion process. Methane yield ðY CH 4 Þ, specific methanogenic activity (SMA) and a kinetic parameter (k 0) were determined. A second feeding was also performed to examine the recovery of bacterial activity after exhaustion. Mixture ratios of 1:1:1:1 and 1:3:4:0.5 (w/w) showed the best performance, with Y CH 4 of 664; 582 NmL CH 4 /gVS substrate , as well as SMA of 0.12; 0.13 gCOD NmLCH 4 =gVS inoculum =d, respectively, during the digestion of the first feed. It was possible to relate synergetic effects with enhancement in Y CH 4 by up to 43%, compared with values calculated from Y CH 4 of the individual substrates. All batches started up the biogas production after an exhaustion period, when a second feed was added. However, long lag phases (up to 21 days) were observed due to stressed conditions caused by the substrate limitation prior to the second feed.

This paper presents an experimental study on the homogeneous dispersion of nanoparticles in nanofluids. In this study, various physical treatment techniques based on two-step method, including stirrer, ultrasonic bath, ultrasonic disruptor, and high-pressure homogenizer were systematically tested to verify their versatility for preparing stable nanofluids. Initially carbon black and silver nanoparticles dispersed in base fluids with the presence of surfactant were found to be highly agglomerated with the hydrodynamic diameter of 330 nm to 585 nm, respectively. After both CB and Ag nanofluids were treated by various two-step methods, stirrer, ultrasonic bath, and ultrasonic disrupter was found to do a poor performance in deagglomeration process for the initial particle clusters. However, the high-pressure homogenizer produced the average diameter of the CB and Ag particles of 45 nm and 35 nm, respectively, indicating that among various physical treatment techniques employed in this study, the high-pressure homogenizer was the most effective method to break down the agglomerated nanoparticles suspended in base fluids. In order to prepare another nanofluid with much smaller primary nanoparticles, we also employed a modified magnetron sputtering system, in which the sputtered nanoparticles were designed to directly mix with the running surfactant-added silicon oil thin film formed on a rolling drum (i.e. one-step method). We observed that Ag nanoparticles produced by the modified magnetron sputtering system were homogeneously dispersed and long-term stable in the silicon oil-based fluid, and the average diameter of Ag nanoparticles was found to be~3 nm, indicating that the modified magnetron sputtering system is also an effective one-step method to prepare stable nanofluids.

The design of #exible manufacturing systems (FMSs) is an essential but costly process. Although FMS design appears to be an excellent area for applying arti"cial intelligence (AI) and computer simulation techniques, to date there have been limited investigations on integrating AI with the modular simulation software available for FMS design. In this paper an integrated approach for the automatic design of FMS is reported, which uses simulation and multi-criteria decision-making techniques. The design process consists of the construction and testing of alternative designs using simulation methods. The selection of the most suitable design (based on the multi-criteria decision-making technique, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP)) is employed to analyze the output from the FMS simulation models. Intelligent tools (such as expert systems, fuzzy systems and neural networks), are developed for supporting the FMS design process. Active X technique is used for the actual integration of the FMS automatic design process and the intelligent decision support process.

By allowing the estimation of forest structural and biophysical characteristics at different temporal and spatial scales, remote sensing may contribute to our understanding and monitoring of planted forests. Here, we studied 9-year time-series of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on a network of 16 stands in fast-growing Eucalyptus plantations in São Paulo State, Brazil. We aimed to examine the relationships between NDVI time-series spanning entire rotations and stand structural characteristics (volume, dominant height, mean annual increment) in these simple forest ecosystems. Our second objective was to examine spatial and temporal variations of light use efficiency for wood production, by comparing time-series of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (APAR) with inventory data.

... KUSIAK, A,, 1983, Part families selection model for flexible manufacturing systems. Proceedings of the 1983 Annual Industrial Engineering Conference, Louisville, Ken-tucky, pp. 575-580. ... KU~IAK, A., 1985c, The part families problem in flexible manufacturing systems. ...

In this work, an indirect method for estimating the total amount and concentration of oxidative radicals in aqueous and slurry-phase Fenton's systems was developed. This method, based on the use of benzoic acid as probe compound, was applied for evaluating the effect of the operating conditions on the radicals amount produced, their production efficiency (i.e. moles of radicals generated per mole H 2 O 2) and their concentration. A Rotatable Central Composite design (RCC) was used to select the operating conditions in order to get a statistically meaningful data set. Hydrogen peroxide and ferrous ion concentrations ranged between 0.2-1 mM and 0.2-0.5 mM, respectively; humic acid concentration between 0 and 15 mg/L, whereas the soil/water weight ratio in slurry-phase systems between 1:10 and 9:10. The probe compound concentration was 9 or 0.1 mM in experiments aimed to evaluate the total amount or concentration of oxidative radicals, respectively. The obtained results indicated that the amount of radicals generated in both aqueous and soil slurry Fenton's system increased with higher H 2 O 2 concentration and, more specifically, that their production efficiency increased with increasing Fe(II):H 2 O 2 molar ratio. Addition of dissolved organic compounds as humic acid did not notably affect the oxidative radicals amount and concentration. On the contrary, a one order of magnitude reduction in both radicals amount generated and concentration was observed when soil was added to the reaction environment.

An automatic method for generating assembly instructions using CAD files is presented in this paper. Algorithms for extracting geometrical information of objects stored in a non-proprietary format, ISO-10303, STEP-CAD data file are explained. The developed algorithms form an important link between design and manufacturing. In our previous work, we designed a hierarchical assembly model that allows designers to evaluate products for manufacturing cost using a structured assembly coding system (SACS). Each SACS code represents a sequence of assembling/disassembling operations for mating two parts. The developed algorithms in this paper will generate the required SACS codes based on the geometrical and topological information extracted from the STEP files of a product in a CAD environment. Based on the generated SACS codes, the proper assembly operations can then be derived for assembling the designed product. An example of assembly with simple parts is presented to verify the method.

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the experiences from four major recipients of food aid (India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Zambia) in normal time and after a natural disaster and draw implications for the design of effective food aid and food security policies in Africa. The study summarizes the food and agricultural policies and medium-term outcomes regarding food production, trade, markets, consumption and safety nets, as well as the policy responses to food emergencies. The experiences of the study countries suggest that food aid that supports building of production and market enhancing infrastructure, is timed to avoid adverse price effects on producers, and is targeted to food insecure households can play a positive role in enhancing food security. However, food aid is not the only, or in many cases, the most efficient means of addressing food insecurity. In many cases private markets can more effectively address shortfalls in food availability and cash transf...

We obtained callus, cell suspension and hairy root cultures of Tropaeolum majus and we demonstrated their ability to produce glucotropaeolin and myrosinase. In hairy roots glucotropaeolin content and myrosinase activity were higher in comparison with callus, cell suspension and leaves of intact plants. In hairy root cultures the highest glucotropaeolin contents were detected on the 9th day of culture. In

Vegetation condition index (VCI) is a popular index widely used in vegetation-related analyses. Traditional VCI products are fixed on temporal extent and unchangeable for common users. Customized VCI products, which contain a lot of new information that is unavailable in traditional VCI products, are usually difficult to generate. A new method to automate the generation of customized and near-real-time (NRT) VCI products is in great demand but remains a big challenge. Recent advances in Cyberinfrastructure (CI) have shown promise to meet this challenge. This paper presents a new approach using CI-based geoprocessing workflows to automatically generate VCI products at customized and NRT conditions. The utility of customized NRT VCIs in agriculture-related analyses is also discussed. The approach has been implemented as a new function in the Global Agricultural Drought Monitoring and Forecasting System (GADMFS). The experiment results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach in facilitating the customization of VCI products and accelerating the generation of VCI products into NRT level. Index Terms-Customized product, cyberinfrastructure (CI), geoprocessing workflow, near-real-time (NRT), vegetation condition index (VCI). I. INTRODUCTION V EGETATION condition index (VCI) [1], which is calculated based on satellite data, reflects the relative status of vegetation in a place at a specific period by comparing with the worst status in multiple historic years. The index is one of the most popular indices used in agricultural drought monitoring Manuscript

When it comes to graphing data, most professionals show little method or creativity. They typically limit themselves to a small repertoire of graph types and select from it on the basis of habit, if not sheer ease of production. Similarly, the many books on graphing devote much attention to graphical integrity and readability, but little or none to graph selection. We developed a methodology to help engineers, scientists, and managers choose the "right graph" on the basis of three criteria: the structure of the data set in terms of number and type of variables, the intended use of the graph, and the research question or intended message. The first and third criteria allow one to construct an effective two-entry selection table.

The application of technologies in the teaching-learning processes is increasingly common. One of the current strategies is the use of virtual and augmented reality, which generates a learning condition in a virtual environment and provides the enhancing cognitive performance of the students. This article presents a review of the literature on the application of technologies for engineering education and in production engineering application gaps and impacts on competitiveness. According to Kaliská (2012), learning processes can occur in many ways, such as practicing, listening, visualizing, and discussing. Each teacher varies their teaching methods, choosing discussions, demonstrations, exercises. Gil (2010) explains that the approach that interconnects students and teachers in the process of more significant interaction is cognitivist. The cognitivist approach has, as its primary objective, to privilege mental processes and cognitive skills. The contents should be tailored to students' experiences, and methodologies need to be selected so that they can learn by doing. The teacher does not assume a central position; the student is the one who should be focused on being the center of the learning process, thinking, and building their knowledge (Gil, 2010).

Recent studies point to the promise of rain forest extraction for more sustainable rural development in Amazonia but often overlook important differences within traditional communities in terms of relative economic reliance upon speci®c forest resources. This paper reports on a study of charcoal production among forest peasants in an Amazonian river community, near Iquitos, Peru. In-depth household interviews (n36) provided information on household economic activity, demographic composition, and access to land, labor and capital as well as on the nature, role and economic importance of charcoal in the household economy. Our results indicate that peasant charcoal production Ð often cast as a rapacious, wasteful use of the forest Ð can provide signi®cant cash income for forest peoples and high returns per hectare, particularly when integrated into swidden-fallow agroforestry systems, without causing notable forest destruction. Low returns to labor, however, limit prospects for peasants to prosper by charcoal production. Variations in household output of charcoal are explained by differential access to intra-and extra-household labor. Among those households most reliant upon charcoal, two subgroups are found Ð`charcoal-dependent' households and`charcoal-specialized' households Ð both of which rely on charcoal production, but for different reasons and with distinct outcomes. These two subgroups are divided by differences in nonmarket mediated access to local land and labor. Clearly, to be successful, initiatives aimed at promoting rain forest conservation and management among`resource-reliant' households must be informed by careful attention to the underlying conditions that give rise to differential rain forest reliance.