Statistical evaluations of sugarcane quality, deterioration and the impacts of weekend logistics in a commercial sugarcane supply chain

2013 ◽  
pp. 30-35
Author(s):  
Milindi S. Sibomana ◽  
Carel N. Bezuidenhout

Crop quality can be used for monitoring the supply chain in agro-industries, although, sugarcane quality also varies naturally and is affected by climate, nutrition, pests and diseases, cane variety and water availability. Harvest-to-crush logistics affect sugarcane quality and present a significant impact on milling efficiency. This research studied commercial sugarcane quality parameters over six years at a large commercial sugar mill in South Africa. f (sucrose content expressed as a percentage of fiber content) was derived as a new parameter that consistently flagged poor quality deliveries during the early part of the week. This is a strong indicator of increased cane deterioration over weekends as a result of logistics inefficiencies. Shewhart quality control charts (X– charts) and a non-parametric statistic confirmed significantly inferior cane qualities after weekends. Statistical techniques were also able, with 95% significance, to identify growers with systemic deterioration of delivered cane. A large number of growers who were exposed to weekend logistics problems were also experiencing significant systemic deterioration problems. These results may enable the generation of a grower performance index that will allow stakeholders to improve operations. The study shows that, although notorious for its variability, commercial cane quality data can be used to drive efficiency improvements in the supply chain, if used appropriately.

Author(s):  
Shefaliben Sureshbhai Patel ◽  
Susmita Sahoo

The seasonal investigation about the water quality from Damanganga river estuary on two habitats downstream and upstream was carried out from January to December 2019 containing three major seasons: winter, summer and monsoon. For this monitoring activity total 29 parameters (24 physico-chemical parameters and 5 heavy metals) were analyzed. Multivariate analyses suggested inter dependency among these studied parameters. Water Quality Index is computed based on the major fluctuated and affected parameters. The calculated values of WQI for all three seasons ranged from 122.84 to 173.82 which suggested poor water quality of the water body. WQI values of the investigation area proposed that the estuarine water quality is deteriorated due to high value of presented heavy metals (Aluminum, Iron, Manganese, Boron and Zinc), Chloride, Ammonium and Sulfate in water sample. In this case, the downstream station is having accessional pollutant contaminations while the upstream station is having diminutive pollutant contaminants. Temporally, the dominant frailty found during the winter followed by summer and monsoon. This study field exhibited poor quality of water; the reason behind this might be the impressive surrounding industrial zone as well as other anthropogenic activities. There is quite normal probability distribution expressed by the represented water quality data at the both habitats. The Bray-Curtis cluster analysis shows different percentage similarity level between the water quality parameters.  


Author(s):  
Shefaliben Sureshbhai Patel ◽  
Susmita Sahoo

The seasonal investigation about the water quality from Damanganga river estuary on two habitats downstream and upstream was carried out from January to December 2019 containing three major seasons: winter, summer and monsoon. For this monitoring activity total 29 parameters (24 physico-chemical parameters and 5 heavy metals) were analyzed. Multivariate analyses suggested inter dependency among these studied parameters. Water Quality Index is computed based on the major fluctuated and affected parameters. The calculated values of WQI for all three seasons ranged from 122.84 to 173.82 which suggested poor water quality of the water body. WQI values of the investigation area proposed that the estuarine water quality is deteriorated due to high value of presented heavy metals (Aluminum, Iron, Manganese, Boron and Zinc), Chloride, Ammonium and Sulfate in water sample. In this case, the downstream station is having accessional pollutant contaminations while the upstream station is having diminutive pollutant contaminants. Temporally, the dominant frailty found during the winter followed by summer and monsoon. This study field exhibited poor quality of water; the reason behind this might be the impressive surrounding industrial zone as well as other anthropogenic activities. There is quite normal probability distribution expressed by the represented water quality data at the both habitats. The Bray-Curtis cluster analysis shows different percentage similarity level between the water quality parameters.  


Methodology ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 89-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Rutkowski ◽  
Yan Zhou

Abstract. Given a consistent interest in comparing achievement across sub-populations in international assessments such as TIMSS, PIRLS, and PISA, it is critical that sub-population achievement is estimated reliably and with sufficient precision. As such, we systematically examine the limitations to current estimation methods used by these programs. Using a simulation study along with empirical results from the 2007 cycle of TIMSS, we show that a combination of missing and misclassified data in the conditioning model induces biases in sub-population achievement estimates, the magnitude and degree to which can be readily explained by data quality. Importantly, estimated biases in sub-population achievement are limited to the conditioning variable with poor-quality data while other sub-population achievement estimates are unaffected. Findings are generally in line with theory on missing and error-prone covariates. The current research adds to a small body of literature that has noted some of the limitations to sub-population estimation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Ali Nasser Hilo

The low level of water in rivers in Iraq leads to poor water quality, on that basis; we need to assess Iraq's water resources for uses of irrigation and drinking water. This study present a model accounts for ground water quality by using a water quality index (WQI) for the region defined between the city of Kut and the city of Badra in Wasit province. this study relies on a system of wells set up along the path through the Badra –Kut  and around it  up to 78 wells. The study showed poor quality of ground water in the region of study and it is unsuitability for irrigation and drinking water, as well as provided a solution to the water accumulated in the Shuwayja to reduce the bad effect on groundwater by using a system of branch and collection canals  then pumping at the effluent  of Al  Shuwayja in seasons of rainy season ..Water quality index calculated depend on the basis of various physic-chemical parameters as PH, Ec , TDS, TSS, Nacl , SO4 ,Na , and  Mg. The resultant and analytical are present with use of Arch GIS program – geostastical analysis for the water index and water quality parameters


2013 ◽  
pp. 532-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Kadwa ◽  
Carel N Bezuidenhout

The Eston Sugar Mill is the newest in the South African KwaZulu-Natal sugar belt. Like most other mills, it can be argued that there are inefficiencies in the supply chain due to systematic issues, which reduce optimum performance. It was alleged that mill processes are slowed, or stopped, on Sundays, Mondays, as well as some Tuesdays and Wednesdays, due to pay-weekends, because of the associated cutter absenteeism. This increases the length of the milling season (LOMS), increases milling costs and reduces the average cane quality for the season. Data on cane deliveries to the Eston Mill, over a period of five seasons, were analysed to study the magnitude of the problem. It was statistically verified that cane shortages occur immediately after payweekends and it was conservatively estimated that cutter absenteeism occurs between 25–29 days per season, which increases the LOMS by six to ten days. The associated cost of this problem equated to an average of US$159,500 (approximately EUR120,000) per milling season. In this paper, an alternative harvesting system scenario is suggested, assuming that mechanical harvesters be used after a pay-weekend, to mitigate the impacts of cutter shortages. However, the solution is calculated to be risky. When the cost of new equipment was considered, only two of the five seasons were able to justify the associated costs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (8) ◽  
pp. 2045-2049
Author(s):  
Catalina Gabriela Gheorghe ◽  
Andreea Bondarev ◽  
Ion Onutu

Monitoring of environmental factors allows the achievement of some important objectives regarding water quality, forecasting, warning and intervention. The aim of this paper is to investigate water quality parameters in some potential pollutant sources from northern, southern and east-southern areas of Romania. Surface water quality data for some selected chemical parameters were collected and analyzed at different points from March to May 2017.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ani Saifuza Abd Shukor ◽  
Muhammad Fadhil Muhammad ◽  
Shamsida Saidan Khaderi ◽  
Faridah Muhammad Halil

The shift to an integrated IBS construction approach requires enhanced supply chain integration to improve the productivity as well as the poor quality of human behavioual aspect in IBS project. This paper is to identify the challenges at each tier between players to facilitate supply chain integration among the IBS players. Findings adopted from semi-structured interview revealed the critical attitude issues of human factors, lack of interaction and sharing knowledge between interdisciplinary people. The findings of this study is useful to improve integration of supply chain and enhance innovation and sharing interaction between players in the IBS Malaysian construction project environment.© 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.Keywords: Construction Environment; Industrialised Building System; Integration and Supply Chain 


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sadik Mahammad ◽  
Aznarul Islam

AbstractIn recent years, groundwater pollution has become increasingly a serious environmental problem throughout the world due to increasing dependency on it for various purposes. The Damodar Fan Delta is one of the agriculture-dominated areas in West Bengal especially for rice cultivation and it has a serious constraint regarding groundwater quantity and quality. The present study aims to evaluate the groundwater quality parameters and spatial variation of groundwater quality index (GWQI) for 2019 using the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) method. The 12 water quality parameters such as pH, TDS, iron (Fe−) and fluoride (F−), major anions (SO42−, Cl−, NO3−, and HCO3−), and cations (Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+, and K+) for the 29 sample wells of the study area were used for constructing the GWQI. This study used the FAHP method to define the weights of the different parameters for the GWQI. The results reveal that the bicarbonate content of 51% of sample wells exceeds the acceptable limit of drinking water, which is maximum in the study area. Furthermore, higher concentrations of TDS, pH, fluoride, chloride, calcium, magnesium, and sodium are found in few locations while nitrate and sulfate contents of all sample wells fall under the acceptable limits. The result shows that 13.79% of the samples are excellent, 68.97% of the samples are very good, 13.79% of the samples are poor, and 3.45% of the samples are very poor for drinking purposes. Moreover, it is observed that very poor quality water samples are located in the eastern part and the poor water wells are located in the northwestern and eastern part while excellent water quality wells are located in the western and central part of the study area. The understanding of the groundwater quality can help the policymakers for the proper management of water resources in the study area.


2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian H. Toby

The definitions for important Rietveld error indices are defined and discussed. It is shown that while smaller error index values indicate a better fit of a model to the data, wrong models with poor quality data may exhibit smaller values error index values than some superb models with very high quality data.


2018 ◽  
Vol 78 (5) ◽  
pp. 1199-1207
Author(s):  
Alanna J. Rebelo ◽  
Willem-Jan Emsens ◽  
Karen J. Esler ◽  
Patrick Meire

Abstract Despite the importance of water purification to society, it is one of the more difficult wetland ecosystem services to quantify. It remains an issue in ecosystem service assessments where rapid estimates are needed, and poor-quality indicators are overused. We attempted to quantify the water purification service of South African palmiet wetlands (valley-bottom peatlands highly threatened by agriculture). First, we used an instantaneous catchment-scale mass balance sampling approach, which compared the fate of various water quality parameters over degraded and pristine sections of palmiet wetlands. We found that pristine palmiet wetlands acted as a sink for water, major cations, anions, dissolved silicon and nutrients, though there was relatively high variation in these trends. There are important limitations to this catchment-scale approach, including the fact that at this large scale there are multiple mechanisms (internal wetland processes as well as external inputs) at work that are impossible to untangle with limited data. Therefore, secondly, we performed a small field-scale field survey of a wetland fragment to corroborate the catchment-scale results. There was a reasonable level of agreement between the results of the two techniques. We conclude that it appears possible to estimate the water purification function of these valley-bottom wetlands using this catchment-scale approach.


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