Can standardisation of the unit costs of wood extraction be applied in the financial system of the State Forests?

The paper presents a method for grouping forest districts that are characterised by similar natural and forest conditions and the results of standardisation of wood extraction costs for forest districts and regional directorates of the State Forests. The adopted standard costs referred to the costs which determine the reasonable level of costs necessary to perform a specific management task in the given natural, forest and economic conditions of forest districts. Forest districts were grouped based on the forest habitat types and the land diversity index (Wtri), which were determined with statistical methods to be the factors that shape wood extraction costs. In order to determine the standard unit costs of wood extraction, source materials for the year 2017 have been used, which had been obtained from the State Forests Information System for all forest districts in the country. The method of standardising wood extraction unit costs on the basis of forest district groups with similar natural and forest conditions was reduced in 2017 to the designation of eight uniform forest district groups in terms of forest habitat type structure and Wtri index. Standard unit costs of wood extraction, determined on the basis of the methodology presented in the paper, should be used in the State Forests’ financial system.

Level gauges. Application features

This paper considers various aspects of application of the most common types of level gauges – magnetostrictive, servo-driven, radar and reflex. Much attention is paid to accuracy of level gauges, expressed in error and uncertainty, including those referred to the legally regulated measuring instruments. Due to the fact that the most of the level gauges are installed on tanks, the requirements for them, given in the standards, and possible ways to improve the accuracy of level gauges installed on tanks have been analyzed. Methods of verification and calibration of level gauges are considered, including both verification on standard units using water, and carried out by the simulation method. The requirements for the metrological control of level gauges with moving parts are stated. It is shown that for verification of such level gauges, it is necessary to carry out measurements when the water moves both up and down. However, there is no need to take measurements, as in determining the variation, at the same points when the water moves up and when the water moves down. Some known caution is needed when using the results of the verification of level gauges by the simulation method. Especially big differences in the results of verification on the standard unit with water and the simulation method are observed for magnetostrictive level gauges. This difference is due to the fact that in these level gauges, the float slides along the pipe with a certain friction, and in the simulation method, the float moves by hand and its movement does not depend on friction.

A Simple Way for Implementing Extraction Columns of Infinite Height in Flowsheet Simulators

A surrogate model to implement an extraction column of in?nite height in pro- cess simulation software is presented. The model consists of three decanters and a few speci?cations which are easy to implement in commercial process simula- tors. Using the model, the minimum solvent ow rate and the limiting product compositions are determined. In an example, the surrogate model for the ex- traction column is combined with standard unit operation models for describing an extraction process with a distillative solvent recycle.

Genetic Relationships Among Physiological Processes, Phenology, and Grain Yield Offer an Insight Into the Development of New Cultivars in Soybean (Glycine max L. Merr)

Soybean grain yield has steadily increased during the last century because of enhanced cultivars and better agronomic practices. Increases in the total biomass, shorter cultivars, late maturity, and extended seed-filling period are frequently reported as main contributors for better soybean performance. However, there are still processes associated with crop physiology to be improved. From the theoretical standpoint, yield is the product of efficiency of light interception (Ei), radiation use efficiency (RUE), and harvest index (HI). The relative contribution of these three parameters on the final grain yield (GY), their interrelation with other phenological–physiological traits, and their environmental stability have not been well established for soybean. In this study, we determined the additive–genetic relationship among 14 physiological and phenological traits including photosynthesis (A) and intrinsic water use efficiency (iWUE) in a panel of 383 soybean recombinant inbred lines (RILs) through direct (path analyses) and indirect learning methods [least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm]. We evaluated the stability of Ei, RUE, and HI through the slope from the Finley and Wilkinson joint regression and the genetic correlation between traits evaluated in different environments. Results indicate that both supervised and unsupervised methods effectively establish the main relationships underlying changes in Ei, RUE, HI, and GY. Variations in the average growth rate of canopy coverage for the first 40 days after planting (AGR40) explain most of the changes in Ei. RUE is primarily influenced by phenological traits of reproductive length (RL) and seed-filling (SFL) as well as iWUE, light extinction coefficient (K), and A. HI showed a strong relationship with A, AGR40, SFL, and RL. According to the path analysis, an increase in one standard unit of HI promotes changes in 0.5 standard units of GY, while changes in the same standard unit of RUE and Ei produce increases on GY of 0.20 and 0.19 standard units, respectively. RUE, Ei, and HI exhibited better environmental stability than GY, although changes associated with year and location showed a moderate effect in Ei and RUE, respectively. This study brings insight into a group of traits involving A, iWUE, and RL to be prioritized during the breeding process for high-yielding cultivars.

A Novel Metric System to Quantify Antibiotic Consumption in Paediatric Population: A Hospital Based, Biphasic Pilot Study

Background: The Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification / Defined Daily Dose (ATC/DDD) system recommended by World Health Organization is accepted worldwide as the standard method of quantification of drug consumption. However, owing to individual variation in body weight, the ATC/DDD system cannot be used for comparison across paediatric population. Objective: This study aimed to develop a novel metric system for standard quantification of antibiotic consumption in paediatric population. Method: The standard unit of drug quantification in adult population is DDD/100 patient days (PD). We conceived a new unit of DDD/1000 kg-days (KD) where KD is the product of the body weight and length of hospital stay of an individual patient. We simulated the quantification and comparison of drugs in a computer model of five virtual paediatric hospitals (H1 to H5, n=100, 200, 100, 100, 100 respectively). We re-applied the metric system on two, real world, hospital-based, time cohorts (TC) (TC18, n=38 and TC19, n=47) of 2 weeks each, in two consecutive years. Results: The body weights (mean±SD) in H1-H5 were 5.7±3.0, 5.7±2.8, 25.3±8.5, 20.6±11.7 and 19.8±11.4 kg, respectively. The antibiotic consumption in terms of DDD/100 PD and DDD/1000 KD in the five hospitals was 1.26, 1.20, 5.52, 4.41 and 2.00, and 2.24, 2.14, 2.22, 2.17 and 1.06 respectively. In TC18 and TC19, the mean body weight, DDD/100 PD and DDD/1000 KD were 12.24±13.17, 30.93, 20.34 and 19.51±12.28, 11.99, 6.23, respectively. Conclusion: DDD/1000 kg-days is a potential standard unit for drug quantification in paediatric population independent of weight distribution and size of the study sample. The universal application and comparison across diverse samples can generate useful information for resource allocation, anti-microbial stewardship, disease burden and drug use, and can help in taking policy decisions to improve healthcare delivery in the paediatric population.

Ludovic McLellan Mann's place in the history of prehistoric metrology

Megalithic metrology, the notion that Neolithic monument builders employed a standard unit of measurement when setting out stone circles, has a long history. William Stukeley was the first to suggest that this standard unit was the druid cubit. He may have drawn on Isaac Newton's 1728 description of the temple of Abydos, which noted that the layout utilised cubits in the design, though the druid cubit was Stukeley's invention. This idea of a standard universal measure seemingly lay dormant for over a century until Edward Duke, Charles Piazzi Smyth and Sir William Flinders Petrie proposed other metrological systems. The subject was taken up again in 1930 when Ludovic McLellan Mann wrote a pamphlet entitled Craftsmen's Measures in Prehistoric Times in which he detailed new measures; the ‘alpha unit’ (0.619 inches) and the ‘beta unit’ (0.55 inches). A special committee formed from members of the Glasgow Archaeological Society and the Glasgow University Geological Society resoundingly disagreed, but Mann found approval from outside the archaeological community when his ideas were taken up by Major F C Tyler, who used them to elaborate on his own version of the lengths of Alfred Watkins’ old straight tracks. More famously, Alexander Thom made megalithic metrology, (the megalithic rod, yard, foot, and inch) an essential part of his thesis, ideas which received an esoteric twist in the New Age writings of John Michell. Was this an original discovery or was Thom influenced by Mann and others before him?

A note on the irrelevance of unit root tests and cointegration tests

SummaryWe show that, in practice, the standard unit root tests, cointegration tests, and similar tests are unreliable. This conclusion is more generally applicable to other related regression-based tests. In particular, these tests attempt to solve a problem by creating another problem.