Investigation of the regulation mechanisms for bioplastics production from industrial residues

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Biotecnologia

Estandarización de la captura por unidad de esfuerzo (CPUE) de la flota industrial de cerco del stock norte-centro de la anchoveta peruana (Engraulis ringens Jenyns)

Se trabajó utilizando una metodología basada en Modelos Lineales Generalizados (MLG). La CPUE fue expresada en toneladas por duración de viaje. Las variables explicativas utilizadas fueron el año, mes, capacidad de bodega, latitud, inercia espacial y distancia a la costa. El modelo tuvo un coeficiente de determinación de 0,485, explicando casi la mitad de la variabilidad de la CPUE observada. La variable con mayor influencia en el modelo fue la capacidad de bodega (49% de la varianza explicada), debido posiblemente a que la flota anchovetera posee una capacidad elevada de captura y que los recursos pelágicos tienden a hiper-agregarse, incluso cuando están siendo fuertemente explotados. La correlación entre la CPUE estandarizada y biomasa estimada por un modelo de captura a la edad (r=0,74) indica que el método basado en MLG es recomendable para la estandarización de la CPUE. Se propone a esta CPUE como una alternativa para monitorear la biomasa de la anchoveta.

Development of sales invoicing process in industrial services

The objective of this Master’s thesis is to find ways to streamline the invoicing process of the case company. In order to streamline the process, the bottlenecks and development areas of the present invoicing process needs to be identified. The bottlenecks are based on interviews made to personnel. The thesis also offers solutions to overcome the identified bottlenecks. The problem is the slowness of the invoicing process which should get rid off. The slow invoicing process causes delays in obtaining payments. There are many reasons for the slowness and inefficiency of the invoicing process. One of the biggest reasons is that the information systems are not deployed entirely. It causes additional work for everyone. Practices with the customers affect also to the smooth flow of invoicing. The contracts determine when the customer can be invoiced but also work approvals, missing work orders and customer’s own invoicing basis slow the process. The fastest and cheapest solution is to deploy the systems better and do things correctly. Thus duplicated work would decrease and resources would be saved. The work allocation should be modified and the practices with customer should be influenced too. In the future the meaning of IT should be highlighted and new devices exploited.

Industrial Adjustment: Context, Causes, Impacts and Methods for Analysis

Adjustement is an ongoing process by which factors of reallocated to equalize their returns in different uses. Adjustment occurs though market mechanisms or intrafirm reallocation of resources as a result of changes in terms of trade, government policies, resource availability, technological change, etc. These changes alter production opportunities and production, transaction and information costs, and consequently modify production functions, organizational design, etc. In this paper we define adjustment (section 2); review empirical estimates of the extent of adjustment in Canada and abroad (section 3); review selected features of the trade policy and adjustment context of relevance for policy formulation among which: slow growth, a shift to services, a shift to the Pacific Rim, the internationalization of production, investment distribution communications the growing use of NTB's, changes in foreign direct investment patterns, intrafirm and intraindustry trade, interregional trade flows, differences in micro economic adjustment processes of adjustment as between subsidiaries and Canadian companies (section 4); examine methodologies and results of studies of the impact of trade liberalization on jobs (section 5); and review the R. Harris general equilibrium model (section 6). Our conclusion emphasizes the importance of harmonizing commercial and domestic policies dealing with adjustment (section 7). We close with a bibliography of relevant publications.

Studies on the exploratory trawl fishing and significance of selectivity in trawl fishing gear for conservation of marine fishery resources with special reference to the inshore waters off Mangalore

School of Industrial Fisheries, Cochin University of Science and Technology

Echno economic studies on industrial fishing in the upper east coast of India

The present scenario of industrial fishing in India is that most of large trawlers are based at Visakhapatnam and congregate in the potential shrimp ground in the upper East coast of India commonly known as the Sandheads. These are outriggcr vessels operating two or four trawl nets along with a testing trawl called try net. In the early Seventies these vessels were operating on a very high economic return which was evident from the steady increase in number of outriggers over a period of twenty years. Since the total allowable catch has to be shared by all vessels including the increasing fleet, reduction per vessel output is bound to happen. Therefore some of them could not survive the competition and withdrew from the scene. The number of outriggers did not increase subsequently. However, there arose a doubt whether the existing fleet of about 180 vessels are fishing economically or whether there is any scope for further introduction of industrial vessels in the region. This study is focussing to the techno economic aspects of industrial fishing in the upper East coast of India

Time and cost overruns of industrial projects in kerala

Poor project planning, implementation and control and the subsequent cost and time overruns are ubiquitous features that have been posing serious concern at all levels - state, national and international. It results in wastage of the nation's scarce resources and retards the socio-economic progress. Although several studies peripheral on project overruns have been made at the national level, no serious attempt has been made at the state level to identify the magnitude of overruns, their causes and impacts on industrial projects. The present study "Time and Cost Overruns of Industrial Projects in Kerala" is an earnest attempt to probe in depth the time and cost overruns and their impact on industrial projects. The study places emphasise on the identification of the real reasons behind the cost and time overruns. It also covers the present project management practices of industrial projects in Kerala.

A study of industrial co-operatives in kerala with special reference to modern small scale sector

The report of the Steering Committee of the Kerala State Planning Board for the preparation of the VIII five Year Plan on Industry and Hiningzslisted several factors inhibiting and promoting growth of small industrial units. Kerala's educated manpower, the native intelligence of the Keralites best suited for taking up logic—based professions and availability of a Hell—developed and broad~based physical infrastructure particularly in the transport and communications sectors, are a few of the positive factors identified. On the negative side, may be mentioned high wage rates, preference on the part of the educated for white collar Jobs, lack of entrepreneurship, paucity of essential resources for industrial use, high density of population and the distance factor which places Kerala away from the major domestic markets. In this context, it would appear that the industrial co-operative movement could possibly play a vital role in accelerating-the momentum of small industrial development of Kerala which has a Health of highly educated and skilled manpower. However, in spite of the encouragement extended by the Government, the movement does not seem to have.been picking up in the modern small scale sector. The present study is an attempt to analyse the factors that have affected the performance of the industrial co—operatives in the small scale industrial sector of Kerala.

Environomics - A Financial Estimate of Environmental Pollution Control and Abatement Schemes in Eloor-Edayar Industrial Belt

The present study consists of nine chapters including the introductory chapter. Chapter II makes a brief review of environmental literature and examines various measures adopted at the global level to protect the environment. The environmental problems often transgress national sovereignity and geographical boundaries. Therefore, attempts must be made at the national and international levels to protect the environment, the resources of which are the common property of mankind. The protection of the national environment from the ancient till the present forms the content of Chapter III. These chapters together provide a background to understand the issues analysed in the subsequent chapters. Carefully worked out theoretical framework is a pre-requisite for the successful study of a complex subject. Some of the theoretical issues of ‘environomics’ are examined in Chapter IV. The theoretical issues involved in estimating the costs and benefits of environmental protection constitute the theme of Chapter V. The state of environment in Eloor-Edayar Industrial belt andthe impact analysis of pollution of the area are discussed in Chapter VI and VII respectively. Chapter VIII makes the financial estimate of environmental protection of the project And finally, Chapter IX presents the findings of the study

Environmental Resources Assessment of Cochin

In the case of urban centres of the developing countries, corrective measures for the environmental consequences of spontaneous or wrongly planned developments are often prohibitively costly. Hence environmentally planned development alone appears to be the solution for which, a compre-hensive assessment of all the resources is an essential pre—requisite. An under-standing of the prevailing environmental conditions is essential for the effective management and execution of programmes for sustainable development. The present work is a modest attempt at assessing the environmental resources of Cochin, the industrial and business capital of Kerala and a fast developing metropolis.

The prediction of seasonal and inter-annual climate variations and their impacts on the water resources in the eastern seaboard of Thailand

The research of this thesis dissertation covers developments and applications of short-and long-term climate predictions. The short-term prediction emphasizes monthly and seasonal climate, i.e. forecasting from up to the next month over a season to up to a year or so. The long-term predictions pertain to the analysis of inter-annual- and decadal climate variations over the whole 21st century. These two climate prediction methods are validated and applied in the study area, namely, Khlong Yai (KY) water basin located in the eastern seaboard of Thailand which is a major industrial zone of the country and which has been suffering from severe drought and water shortage in recent years. Since water resources are essential for the further industrial development in this region, a thorough analysis of the potential climate change with its subsequent impact on the water supply in the area is at the heart of this thesis research. The short-term forecast of the next-season climate, such as temperatures and rainfall, offers a potential general guideline for water management and reservoir operation. To that avail, statistical models based on autoregressive techniques, i.e., AR-, ARIMA- and ARIMAex-, which includes additional external regressors, and multiple linear regression- (MLR) models, are developed and applied in the study region. Teleconnections between ocean states and the local climate are investigated and used as extra external predictors in the ARIMAex- and the MLR-model and shown to enhance the accuracy of the short-term predictions significantly. However, as the ocean state – local climate teleconnective relationships provide only a one- to four-month ahead lead time, the ocean state indices can support only a one-season-ahead forecast. Hence, GCM- climate predictors are also suggested as an additional predictor-set for a more reliable and somewhat longer short-term forecast. For the preparation of “pre-warning” information for up-coming possible future climate change with potential adverse hydrological impacts in the study region, the long-term climate prediction methodology is applied. The latter is based on the downscaling of climate predictions from several single- and multi-domain GCMs, using the two well-known downscaling methods SDSM and LARS-WG and a newly developed MLR-downscaling technique that allows the incorporation of a multitude of monthly or daily climate predictors from one- or several (multi-domain) parent GCMs. The numerous downscaling experiments indicate that the MLR- method is more accurate than SDSM and LARS-WG in predicting the recent past 20th-century (1971-2000) long-term monthly climate in the region. The MLR-model is, consequently, then employed to downscale 21st-century GCM- climate predictions under SRES-scenarios A1B, A2 and B1. However, since the hydrological watershed model requires daily-scale climate input data, a new stochastic daily climate generator is developed to rescale monthly observed or predicted climate series to daily series, while adhering to the statistical and geospatial distributional attributes of observed (past) daily climate series in the calibration phase. Employing this daily climate generator, 30 realizations of future daily climate series from downscaled monthly GCM-climate predictor sets are produced and used as input in the SWAT- distributed watershed model, to simulate future streamflow and other hydrological water budget components in the study region in a multi-realization manner. In addition to a general examination of the future changes of the hydrological regime in the KY-basin, potential future changes of the water budgets of three main reservoirs in the basin are analysed, as these are a major source of water supply in the study region. The results of the long-term 21st-century downscaled climate predictions provide evidence that, compared with the past 20th-reference period, the future climate in the study area will be more extreme, particularly, for SRES A1B. Thus, the temperatures will be higher and exhibit larger fluctuations. Although the future intensity of the rainfall is nearly constant, its spatial distribution across the region is partially changing. There is further evidence that the sequential rainfall occurrence will be decreased, so that short periods of high intensities will be followed by longer dry spells. This change in the sequential rainfall pattern will also lead to seasonal reductions of the streamflow and seasonal changes (decreases) of the water storage in the reservoirs. In any case, these predicted future climate changes with their hydrological impacts should encourage water planner and policy makers to develop adaptation strategies to properly handle the future water supply in this area, following the guidelines suggested in this study.

Predicting fault inflow in iterative software development processes: an industrial evaluation

This paper addresses the need for accurate predictions on the fault inflow, i.e. the number of faults found in the consecutive project weeks, in highly iterative processes. In such processes, in contrast to waterfall-like processes, fault repair and development of new features run almost in parallel. Given accurate predictions on fault inflow, managers could dynamically re-allocate resources between these different tasks in a more adequate way. Furthermore, managers could react with process improvements when the expected fault inflow is higher than desired. This study suggests software reliability growth models (SRGMs) for predicting fault inflow. Originally developed for traditional processes, the performance of these models in highly iterative processes is investigated. Additionally, a simple linear model is developed and compared to the SRGMs. The paper provides results from applying these models on fault data from three different industrial projects. One of the key findings of this study is that some SRGMs are applicable for predicting fault inflow in highly iterative processes. Moreover, the results show that the simple linear model represents a valid alternative to the SRGMs, as it provides reasonably accurate predictions and performs better in many cases.

Union inclusiveness and temporary agency workers: the role of power resources and union ideology

This article investigates the determinants of union inclusiveness towards agency workers in Western Europe, using an index which combines unionization rates with dimensions of collective agreements covering agency workers. Using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, we identify two combinations of conditions leading to inclusiveness: the ‘Northern path’ includes high union density, high bargaining coverage and high union authority, and is consistent with the power resources approach. The ‘Southern path’ combines high union authority, high bargaining coverage, statutory regulations of agency work and working-class orientation, showing that ideology rather than institutional incentives shapes union strategies towards the marginal workforce.

A interação cultural : estudo de caso em uma empresa coreana no distrito industrial de Manaus

Trata-se de um estudo sobre a cultura organizacional em uma empresa coreana, a Samsung Eletrônica Amazônia S.A,. afiliada da Samsung Corporation, implantada no Distrito Industrial de Manaus, Estado do Amazonas, a partir de 1986, atraída pelos incentivos da Zona Franca de Manaus. A partir de uma pesquisa extensa, realizada em junho de 2001, pelo Setor de Recursos Humanos da empresa, foram selecionadas vinte e seis matrizes cujos resultados comprov_ lm a principal hipótese do trabalho: a de que a cultura da empresa pode ser a responsável pelos problemas existentes em sua área de produção, interferindo na qualidade de seus produtos. Das conclusões da pesquisa, portanto, infere-se que os dirigentes da empresa, todos coreanos, entram em choque com a cultura dos empregados na linha de produção, todos de naturalidade amazonense. Assim, os problemas entre essas duas culturas interferem negativamente em todos os indicadores da pesquisa, a saber: identidade, comunicação, liderança, percepção e interação.

Globalization and the Industrial Revolution

This paper argues that trade specialization played an indispensable role in supporting the Industrial Revolution, allowing the economy to shift resources to the manufacture without facing food and raw materials shortage. In our arti cial economy, there are two sectors agriculture and manufacture and the economy is initially closed and under a Malthusian trap. In this economy the industrial revolution entails a transition towards a dynamic Heckscher-Ohlin economy. The model reproduces the main stylized facts of the transition to modern growth and globalization. We show that two-sectors closed-economy models cannot explain the fall in the value of land relative to wages observed in the 19th century and that the transition in this case is much longer than that observed allowing for trade.