Paddock to Reef Monitoring and Evaluation: Economic analysis of ABCD cane management practices for the Mackay Whitsunday region

The economic analysis is based on the A, B, C and D management practice framework for water quality improvement developed in 2007/2008 by the respective natural resource management region. The Mackay Whitsunday ABCD management framework for sugarcane management practices was published in 2009 by the Department of Primary Industries & Fisheries (DPI&F), following the original version that was published in the Water Quality Improvement Plan: final report for Mackay Whitsunday region (2008).

Economic case study of ABCD cane management practices in the Burdekin River Irrigation Area (BRIA) region

A case study was undertaken to determine the economic impact of a change in management class as detailed in the A, B, C and D management class framework. This document focuses on the implications of changing from D to C, C to B and B to A class management in the Burdekin River irrigation area (BRIA) and if the change is worthwhile from an economic perspective. This report provides a guide to the economic impact that may be expected when undertaking a particular change in farming practices and will ultimately lead to more informed decisions being made by key industry stakeholders. It is recognised that these management classes have certain limitations and in many cases the grouping of practices may not be reflective of the real situation. The economic case study is based on the A, B, C and D management class framework for water quality improvement developed in 2007/2008 for the Burdekin natural resource management region. The framework for the Burdekin is currently being updated to clarify some issues and incorporate new knowledge since the earlier version of the framework. However, this updated version is not yet complete and so the Paddock to Reef project has used the most current available version of the framework for the modelling and economics. As part of the project specification, sugarcane crop production data for the BRIA was provided by the APSIM model. The information obtained from the APSIM crop modelling programme included sugarcane yields and legume grain yield (legume grain yield only applies to A class management practice). Because of the complexity involved in the economic calculations, a combination of the FEAT, PiRisk and a custom made spreadsheet was used for the economic analysis. Figures calculated in the FEAT program were transferred to the custom made spreadsheet to develop a discounted cash flow analysis. The marginal cash flow differences for each farming system were simulated over a 5-year and 10-year planning horizon to determine the net present value of changing across different management practices. PiRisk was used to test uncertain parameters in the economic analysis and the potential risk associated with a change in value.

Economic case study of ABCD cane management practices in the Burdekin Delta region.

A case study was undertaken to determine the economic impact of a change in management class as detailed in the A, B, C and D management class framework. This document focuses on the implications of changing from D to C, C to B and B to A class management in the Burdekin Delta region and if the change is worthwhile from an economic perspective. This report provides a guide to the economic impact that may be expected when undertaking a particular change in farming practices and will ultimately lead to more informed decisions being made by key industry stakeholders. It is recognised that these management classes have certain limitations and in many cases the grouping of practices may not be reflective of the real situation. The economic case study is based on the A, B, C and D management class framework for water quality improvement developed in 2007/2008 for the Burdekin natural resource management region. The framework for the Burdekin is currently being updated to clarify some issues and incorporate new knowledge since the earlier version of the framework. However, this updated version is not yet complete and so the Paddock to Reef project has used the most current available version of the framework for the modelling and economics. As part of the project specification, sugarcane crop production data for the Burdekin Delta region was provided by the APSIM model. The information obtained from the APSIM crop modelling programme included sugarcane yields and legume grain yield (legume grain yield only applies to A class management practice). Because of the complexity involved in the economic calculations, a combination of the FEAT, PiRisk and a custom made spreadsheet was used for the economic analysis. Figures calculated in the FEAT program were transferred to the custom made spreadsheet to develop a discounted cash flow analysis. The marginal cash flow differences for each farming system were simulated over a 5-year and 10-year planning horizon to determine the Net Present Value of changing across different management practices. PiRisk was used to test uncertain parameters in the economic analysis and the potential risk associated with a change in value.

Paddock to Reef Monitoring & Evaluation - Economic analysis of ‘ABCD’ cane management for Tully

The economic analysis is based on the A, B, C and D management practice framework for water quality improvement developed in 2007/2008 by the respective natural resource management region. This document focuses on the economic implications of these management practices in the Tully region. A review of the management practices is currently being undertaken to clarify some issues and incorporate new knowledge since the earlier version of the framework. However, this updated version is not yet complete and so the Paddock to Reef project has used the most current available version of the framework for the modelling and economics.

Economic case study of ABCD cane management practices in the Tully region

A case study was undertaken to determine the economic impact of a change in management class as detailed in the A, B, C and D management class framework. This document focuses on the implications of changing from D to C, C to B and B to A class management in the Tully region and if the change is worthwhile from an economic perspective. This report provides a guide to the economic impact that may be expected when undertaking a particular change in farming practices and will ultimately lead to more informed decisions being made by key industry stakeholders. It is recognised that these management classes have certain limitations and in many cases the grouping of practices may not be reflective of the real situation. The economic case study is based on the A, B, C and D management class framework for water quality improvement developed in 2007/2008 by the wet tropics natural resource management region. The framework for wet tropics is currently being updated to clarify some issues and incorporate new knowledge since the earlier version of the framework. However, this updated version is not yet complete and so the Paddock to Reef project has used the most current available version of the framework for the modelling and economics. As part of the project specification, sugarcane crop production data for the Tully region was provided by the APSIM model. Because of the complexity involved in the economic calculations, a combination of the FEAT, PiRisk and a custom made spreadsheet was used for the economic analysis. Figures calculated in the FEAT program were transferred to the custom made spreadsheet to develop a discounted cash flow analysis. The marginal cash flow differences for each farming system were simulated over a 5-year and 10-year planning horizon to determine the Net Present Value of changing across different management practices. PiRisk was used to test uncertain parameters in the economic analysis and the potential risk associated with a change in value.

Paddock to Reef Monitoring and Evaluation - Economic analysis of ‘ABCD’ cane management for the Burdekin Delta region.

The economic analysis is based on the A, B, C and D management practice framework for water quality improvement developed in 2007/2008 by the respective natural resource management region. This document focuses on the economic implications of these management practices in the Burdekin Delta region. A review of the management practices is currently being undertaken to clarify some issues and incorporate new knowledge since the earlier version of the framework. However, this updated version is not yet complete and so the Paddock to Reef project has used the most current available version of the framework for the modelling and economics.

Paddock to Reef Monitoring & Evaluation - Economic analysis of ‘ABCD’ cane management for the Burdekin River Irrigation Area.

The economic analysis is based on the A, B, C and D management practice framework for water quality improvement developed in 2007/2008 by the respective natural resource management region. This document focuses on the economic implications of these management practices in the Burdekin River Irrigation Area (BRIA). A review of the management practices is currently being undertaken to clarify some issues and incorporate new knowledge since the earlier version of the framework. However, this updated version is not yet complete and so the Paddock to Reef project has used the most current available version of the framework for the modelling and economics.

Valuation of reduced eutrophication in the Gulf of Finland : Choice experiment with attention to heterogeneous and discontinuous preferences and respondent uncertainty

Eutrophication of the Baltic Sea is a serious problem. This thesis estimates the benefit to Finns from reduced eutrophication in the Gulf of Finland, the most eutrophied part of the Baltic Sea, by applying the choice experiment method, which belongs to the family of stated preference methods. Because stated preference methods have been subject to criticism, e.g., due to their hypothetical survey context, this thesis contributes to the discussion by studying two anomalies that may lead to biased welfare estimates: respondent uncertainty and preference discontinuity. The former refers to the difficulty of stating one s preferences for an environmental good in a hypothetical context. The latter implies a departure from the continuity assumption of conventional consumer theory, which forms the basis for the method and the analysis. In the three essays of the thesis, discrete choice data are analyzed with the multinomial logit and mixed logit models. On average, Finns are willing to contribute to the water quality improvement. The probability for willingness increases with residential or recreational contact with the gulf, higher than average income, younger than average age, and the absence of dependent children in the household. On average, for Finns the relatively most important characteristic of water quality is water clarity followed by the desire for fewer occurrences of blue-green algae. For future nutrient reduction scenarios, the annual mean household willingness to pay estimates range from 271 to 448 and the aggregate welfare estimates for Finns range from 28 billion to 54 billion euros, depending on the model and the intensity of the reduction. Out of the respondents (N=726), 72.1% state in a follow-up question that they are either Certain or Quite certain about their answer when choosing the preferred alternative in the experiment. Based on the analysis of other follow-up questions and another sample (N=307), 10.4% of the respondents are identified as potentially having discontinuous preferences. In relation to both anomalies, the respondent- and questionnaire-specific variables are found among the underlying causes and a departure from standard analysis may improve the model fit and the efficiency of estimates, depending on the chosen modeling approach. The introduction of uncertainty about the future state of the Gulf increases the acceptance of the valuation scenario which may indicate an increased credibility of a proposed scenario. In conclusion, modeling preference heterogeneity is an essential part of the analysis of discrete choice data. The results regarding uncertainty in stating one s preferences and non-standard choice behavior are promising: accounting for these anomalies in the analysis may improve the precision of the estimates of benefit from reduced eutrophication in the Gulf of Finland.

The process of technological innovations in small enterprises: the Indian way

This paper probes how two small foundries in Belgaum, Karnataka State, India, have achieved technological innovations successfully based on their technological capability and customer needs, enabling them to sail through the competitive environment. This study brought out that technically qualified entrepreneurs of both the foundries have carried out technological innovations, mainly due to their self-motivation and self-efforts. Changing product designs, as desired or directed by the customers, cost reduction, quality improvement and import substitution through reverse engineering are the characteristics of these technological innovations. These incremental innovations have enabled the entrepreneurs of the two foundries to enhance competitiveness, grow in the domestic market and penetrate the international market and grow in size over time.

The process of technological innovations in small enterprises: the Indian way

This paper probes how two small foundries in Belgaum, Karnataka State, India, have achieved technological innovations successfully based on their technological capability and customer needs, enabling them to sail through the competitive environment. This study brought out that technically qualified entrepreneurs of both the foundries have carried out technological innovations, mainly due to their self-motivation and self-efforts. Changing product designs, as desired or directed by the customers, cost reduction, quality improvement and import substitution through reverse engineering are the characteristics of these technological innovations. These incremental innovations have enabled the entrepreneurs of the two foundries to enhance competitiveness, grow in the domestic market and penetrate the international market and grow in size over time.

Subcontracting Relationship of Indian SMEs with a Global TNC: Do SMEs Gain and How?

TNCs having their production bases in developing countries provide increasing opportunity for local SMEs to have subcontracting relationships with these TNCs.Even though some theoretical and a few empirical studies throw light on the nature of assistance provided by TNCs to local SMEs through subcontracting relationships,none of the studies so far analysed the diversity of assistance that subcontracting SMEs of India would be able to obtain from a TNC using quantitative measurement.This paper probes the extent of linkages and diversity of assistance that Indian subcontracting SMEs would be able to obtain from a TNC customer based on primary data from SME subcontractors of a major TNC automobile manufacturer. Statistical analysis of direct assistance revealed that SMEs receive more of product and purchase process assistance. The extent of assistance for their process related,marketing, human resource and financial requirements is low whereas the assistance for their organisational know-how requirements is moderate. The major indirect benefits these SMEs could achieve are knowledge transfer, business volume, superior work culture, reputation and quality improvement.

Dictionary-Learning-Based Post-Filter for HMM-Based Speech Synthesis

Oversmoothing of speech parameter trajectories is one of the causes for quality degradation of HMM-based speech synthesis. Various methods have been proposed to overcome this effect, the most recent ones being global variance (GV) and modulation-spectrum-based post-filter (MSPF). However, there is still a significant quality gap between natural and synthesized speech. In this paper, we propose a two-fold post-filtering technique to alleviate to a certain extent the oversmoothing of spectral and excitation parameter trajectories of HMM-based speech synthesis. For the spectral parameters, we propose a sparse coding-based post-filter to match the trajectories of synthetic speech to that of natural speech, and for the excitation trajectory, we introduce a perceptually motivated post-filter. Experimental evaluations show quality improvement compared with existing methods.

O desempenho da Maternidade da Santa Casa de Angra dos Reis face aos critérios de qualidade do Programa Nacional de Avaliação dos Serviços de Saúde - PNASS.

A Santa Casa de Angra dos Reis é uma Instituição Filantrópica inaugurada em 06 de janeiro de 1839. A Unidade passa por Intervenção Municipal, recomendada pelo Ministério Público, no intuito de garantir o restabelecimento adequado de seus serviços, a eficiência desejável e para resgatar a credibilidade e sustentabilidade do Hospital. Da motivação pelos projetos da nova gestão emergiu a necessidade de conhecer a situação do desempenho desta unidade hospitalar, em especial a Maternidade, ponto de partida do projeto. Este estudo é relevante para a institucionalização da avaliação da qualidade nesta Unidade Hospitalar, bem como condição primária para construção de planos de trabalho. O Programa Nacional de Avaliação dos Serviços de Saúde PNASS é uma proposta do Ministério da Saúde, e é visto como uma ferramenta de gestão para monitoramento e avaliação. O programa pode apontar diversas oportunidades de melhorias e auxiliar a tomada de decisão tornando-se adequado seu emprego no levantamento das informações necessárias para o conhecimento do cenário da Maternidade, como base para um futuro plano de ação. Este estudo tem por objetivo aplicar o programa de avaliação normativa proposto pelo PNASS na Maternidade da Santa Casa, a fim de identificar seu desempenho, como primeiro passo para a construção do plano estratégico de ação em busca do aprimoramento da qualidade em saúde neste setor. Como metodologia, é uma pesquisa quantitativa onde foram utilizados padrões de conformidade, questionários fechados direcionados aos usuários e trabalhadores da Maternidade, e análise de indicadores. Resultados: foram entrevistadas 35 mulheres e 47 profissionais de saúde, num total de 85% da amostra desejada; ficou evidente a necessidade de intervenção e implementação de mudanças na área de Gerenciamento de Risco; e melhorias quanto às condições de trabalho relacionadas à infraestrutura e equipamentos. Os indicadores de internação apontam a necessidade de revisão do número de leitos disponíveis; a taxa de parto cesáreo, 59%, é extremamente alta e muito acima do preconizados pela Organização Mundial de Saúde. Este estudo mostrou um resultado positivo quanto à satisfação das parturientes com o serviço prestado, embora existam áreas carentes de melhorias. Melhorias também são necessárias para o dimensionamento efetivo do quadro de profissionais para atendimento à demanda. A interrupção do lançamento de relatórios sobre atuais avaliações feitas pelo PNASS e a pouca divulgação do mesmo são questões levantadas por este estudo. Considera-se que a aplicação do PNASS na Maternidade da Santa Casa de Angra dos Reis proporcionou embasamento para a elaboração de uma oportuna matriz de intervenção.

植物油脂积累机理和品质改良—利用RNAi改良大豆油脂品质—四合木茎积累三脂酰甘油特征

利用RNAi改良大豆油脂品质 大豆[Glycine max (L.) Merr.]起源于中国，栽培历史悠久，是重要的粮食作物， 同时也是植物油和蛋白的重要来源。随着经济的发展和生活水平的提高，人们不但对大豆的需求量大大增加，同时对大豆的品质也提出了更高的要求。近年来，我国大豆进口量逐年攀升，已远远超过本国生产量。国外转抗除草剂转基因大豆大面积种植大大降低了生产成本，直接影响了我国大豆生产。因此，提高产量和改良品质是当前中国大豆生产所面临的重要课题。基因工程是大豆品种改良更为有效和快速的方法，但是由于历史原因我国的大豆转基因育种与发达国家尚存在一定差距，对我国的大豆生产贡献十分有限。因此，建立高效的大豆转化体系，加强大豆基因工程研究和育种是解决大豆面临困境的关键。 本研究的目的是以我国主要栽培大豆品种（黑农、合丰和东农等）为材料，利用GUS（β-glucuronidase）报告基因和RNAi技术，建立高效的大豆基因转化体系和基因功能研究体系。为大豆产量和品质基因工程改良提供技术手段和理论基础。结果如下： 以大豆下胚轴为外植体，对分生组织产生不定芽的频率进行了研究。培养基中添加高浓度BAP（6-benzylaminopurine）可以诱导外植体分生组织增殖产生不定芽的发生率;在培养基中添加银离子可以明显地促进大豆单个外植体多芽的产生，使得诱导不定芽总数目显著增加;不同基因型大豆再生不定芽能力有着较大区别，黑农44，黑农37，合丰35，合丰39等品种再生能力强;相对于大豆子叶节等再生系统，大豆下胚轴体系具有高效高频的再生特点（总的再生频率高于80%），且重复性好，容易操作。 以大豆下胚轴为外植体，用含有GUS报告基因的根癌农杆菌对其进行遗传转化，并重点对农杆菌菌液浓度、农杆菌侵染时间、乙酰丁香酮（AS）和抗氧化剂浓度等因素对农杆菌大豆转化效率的影响进行了研究。组织化学染色结果显示GUS基因在外植体顶端表达强烈，表达位置主要位于初生芽基部周围的分生组织。 农杆菌浸染时间以 4h 为最佳，此时的GUS瞬时表达频率可达73.0%;培养基中添加浓度为200μmol/L的乙酰丁香酮，可以显著增加GUS瞬时表达频率。抗氧化剂可以显著降低共培养阶段外植体的褐化和坏死率，进而显著提高农杆菌转化效率。用根癌农杆菌转化大豆下胚轴的方法得到了表达GUS基因转基因大豆株系。 利用大豆油酸去饱和酶基因(FAD2-1;Genbank, L43920)在第315-852碱基之间的基因片断构建了反向重复的RNAi表达载体，以农杆菌介导大豆下胚轴转化方法进行转化，并且获得转基因植株。经过PCR，Southern杂交和转基因后代的脂肪酸分析，表明沉默结构已经成功整合到大豆基因组中，并成功抑制了内源基因的表达。与栽培大豆品种相比较，转基因大豆种子的脂肪酸组成发生显著变化，油酸含量由栽培大豆的18.1％增加到71.5％¬-81.9％;亚油酸含量从栽培大豆的46.4％降到了约3.4％。 栽培大豆种子中油酸去饱和比率（ODP, oleic desaturation proportion）为0.76 到 0.84，转基因大豆种子的油酸去饱和比率降为0.06-0.26，表明Δ12-去饱和酶活性降低了74%-94%。上述结果表明，我们构建的RNAi反向重复序列沉默结构高效地抑制了大豆种子FAD2-1基因。 在本研究中，我们通过外源GUS基因的表达和内源FAD2基因的抑制，成功地建立了以大豆下胚轴为外植体的高效农杆菌介导大豆转化体系，并获得了相应的转基因株系。本研究对我国大豆品种基因工程改良以及进一步大豆功能基因组研究有重要参考价值。 四合木茎积累三脂酰甘油特征 四合木(Tetraena mongotica Maxim)是蒺藜科(Zygophyllaceac)四合木属唯一的种，是地球上最具代表性的古老残遗濒危珍稀植物。由于四合木极易燃烧，当地居民称其为“油柴”。 通过对四合木内可能存在的“油”成分进行了分析，我们发现其茎组织含有大量的三脂酰甘油（Triacylglycerols），含量达到46 mg/g DM。在韧皮部中更高，达到90 mg/g DM。我们通过半薄切片对四合木中三脂酰甘油在不同组织的分布和存在形式进行了研究，发现三脂酰甘油主要以油体形式存在于木质部和韧皮部的薄壁组织中。在韧皮部中，几乎所有的薄壁细胞都含有大量的油体。 三脂酰甘油在植物的生长发育中起着非常重要的作用。作为植物生长发育所需的碳源和能量，三脂酰甘油一般储存在植物的种子和果实中。虽然也有关于其在茎和叶中发现的报道，但是含量很少。四合木茎组织含有大量的三脂酰甘油，这种现象可能与四合木茎中存在茎特异油脂合成酶系统有关。因此，克隆相关基因并在作物中表达，将对能源植物的开发具有重要意义。