Economic benefits and costs of Sustainable Land Management Technologies: An analysis of WOCAT's global data

Perceived profitability is a key factor in explaining farmers' decision to adopt or not adopt sustainable land management (SLM) technologies. Despite this importance, relatively little is known about the economics of SLM. This paper contributes to the literature by analysing data on costs and perceived cost/benefit ratios of SLM technologies. Data are taken from the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies technology database and cover 363 case studies conducted in a variety of countries between 1990 and 2012. Based on an in-depth descriptive analysis, we determine what costs accrue to local stakeholders and assess perceived short-term and long-term cost/benefit ratios. Our results show that a large majority of the technologies in our sample are perceived as being profitable: 73% were perceived to have a positive or at least neutral cost/benefit ratio in the short term, while 97% were perceived to have a positive or very positive cost/benefit ratio in the long term. An additional empirical analysis confirms that economic factors are key determinants of land users' decisions to adopt or not adopt SLM technologies. We conclude that a wide range of existing SLM practices generate considerable benefits not only for land users, but for other stakeholders as well. High initial investment costs associated with some practices may, however, constitute a barrier to their adoption; short-term support for land users can help to promote these practices where appropriate.

Management technologies - are they worth it? A normative study of ISO 9001 and project management

This research inquires into the value of two common ‘management technologies’, namely ISO 9001 and project management. To avoid certain methodological problems, we study the value of these micro-level practices by inductively analysing macro-level data, specifically the intensity of project management and ISO 9001 certification (termed project management score and ISO 9001 score) in different countries against national measures of wealth and innovation. There is no correlation between ISO 9001 score and innovation, while high ISO 9001 scores are correlated with decreasing levels of wealth. The project management score is positively correlated with wealth and with innovation, though very high project management scores are negatively correlated with innovation. The study includes a cluster analysis which finds that, with one exception, countries tend to adopt either project management or ISO 9001 but not both. The analysis indicates that project management is more likely to be associated with high innovation and high wealth than ISO 9001.

DETERMINANTS OF THE ADOPTION OF INTEGRATED SOIL FERTILITY MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGIES IN MBALE DIVISION, KENYA

The agro-climatic conditions in western Kenya present the region as a food surplus area yet people are still reliant on food imports, with the region registering high poverty levels. Depletion of soil fertility and the resulting decline in agricultural productivity in Mbale division has led to many attempts to develop and popularize Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) technologies that could restore soil fertility. These technologies bridge the gap between high external inputs and extreme forms of traditional low external input agriculture. Some of the ISFM components used by farmers are organic and inorganic inputs and improved seeds. However, the adoption of these technologies is low. The study aimed to examine the factors that influence the adoption of ISFM technologies by smallholder farmers in Mbale division, Kenya. The study was conducted in 9 sub-locations in Mbale division. Purposive sampling was used in selecting the 80 farmers to get the data based on a farm-household survey. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data on the determinants of the adoption of ISFM technologies from the sampled farmers in the study area. The study sought to answer the research question: What factors influence the uptake of ISFM technologies by farmers in Mbale division? The hypothesis tested was that the adoption of ISFM technologies is not influenced by age, education, extension services, labour, off-farm income and farm size. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Cross tabulation was used for examining the relationship between categorical (nominal or ordinal) variables, and the bivariate correlations procedure was used to compute the pair wise associations between scale or ordinal variables. Probit regression was used to predict the socio-economic factors influencing the adoption of ISFM technologies among smallholder farmers. Results of the study indicated that education of household head, membership in social groups, age of the household head, off-farm income and farm size were the variables that significantly influenced the adoption of ISFM technologies. The findings show that there is need for a more pro-poor focused approach to achieve sustainable soil fertility management among smallholder farmers. The findings will help farmers, extension officers, researchers and donors in identifying region-specific entry points that can help in developing innovative ISFM technologies.

Data management as a part of performance management: Case study about production reporting development project

Because of the increased availability of different kind of business intelligence technologies and tools it can be easy to fall in illusion that new technologies will automatically solve the problems of data management and reporting of the company. The management is not only about management of technology but also the management of processes and people. This thesis is focusing more into traditional data management and performance management of production processes which both can be seen as a requirement for long lasting development. Also some of the operative BI solutions are considered in the ideal state of reporting system. The objectives of this study are to examine what requirements effective performance management of production processes have for data management and reporting of the company and to see how they are effecting on the efficiency of it. The research is executed as a theoretical literary research about the subjects and as a qualitative case study about reporting development project of Finnsugar Ltd. The case study is examined through theoretical frameworks and by the active participant observation. To get a better picture about the ideal state of reporting system simple investment calculations are performed. According to the results of the research, requirements for effective performance management of production processes are automation in the collection of data, integration of operative databases, usage of efficient data management technologies like ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes, data warehouse (DW) and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) and efficient management of processes, data and roles.

Perspectives for using light quality knowledge as an advanced ecophysiological weed management tool

The current knowledge of light quality effects on plant morphogenesis and development represents a new era of understanding on how plant communities perceive and adjust to available resources. The most important consequences of light quality cues, often mediated by decreasing in red far-red ratios with respect to the spectral composition of incident sunlight radiation, affecting weed-crop interaction are the increased plant height and shoot to root ratio in anticipation of competition by light quantity, water or nutrients. Although the concepts related to light quality have been extensively studied and several basic process of this phenomenon are well known, little applications of photomorphogenic signaling currently are related to agricultural problems or weed management. The objectives of this review are to describe how light quality change can be a triggering factor of interspecific interference responses, to analyze how this phenomenon can be used to predict weed interference, to reevaluate the critical periods of interference concept, and to discuss its potential contribution towards developing more weed competitive crop varieties. Knowledge on light quality responses involved in plant sensing of interspecific competition could be used to identify red/far-red threshold values, indicating when weed control should be started. Light quality alterations by weeds can affect grain crop development mainly in high yielding fields. Unlike the traditional concept or the critical period of competition, light quality mediated interference implies that the critical period for weed control could start before the effects of direct resource (water, nutrients and available light) limitation actually occur. The variability in light quality responses among crop genotypes and the identification of mutants insensitive to light quality effects indicate that this characteristic can be selected or modified to develop cultivars with enhanced interspecific interference ability. Knowledge on light quality-elicited responses represents a new possibility to understand the underlying biology of interspecific interference, and could be used in the development of new weed management technologies.

Implementation and role of device management Solutions to the end users

This research is based on consumer complaints with respect to recently purchased consumer electronics. This research document will investigate the instances of development and device management as a tool used to aid consumer and manage consumer’s mobile products in order to resolve issues in or before the consumers is aware one exists. The problem at the present time is that mobile devices are becoming very advanced pieces of technology, and not all manufacturers and network providers have kept up the support element of End users. As such, the subject of the research is to investigate how device management could possibly be used as a method to promote research and development of mobile devices, and provide a better experience for the consumer. The wireless world is becoming increasingly complex as revenue opportunities are driven by new and innovative data services. We can no longer expect the customer to have the knowledge or ability to configure their own device. Device Management platforms can address the challenges of device configuration and support through new enabling technologies. Leveraging these technologies will allow a network operator to reduce the cost of subscriber ownership, drive increased ARPU (Average Revenue per User) by removing barriers to adoption, reduce churn by improving the customer experience and increase customer loyalty. DM technologies provide a flexible and powerful management method but are managing the same device features that have historically been configured manually through call centers or by the end user making changes directly on the device. For this reason DM technologies must be treated as part of a wider support solution. The traditional requirement for discovery, fault finding, troubleshooting and diagnosis are still as relevant with DM as they are in the current human support environment yet the current generation of solutions do little to address this problem. In the deployment of an effective Device Management solution the network operator must consider the integration of the DM platform, interfacing with many areas of the business, supported by knowledge of the relationship between devices, applications, solutions and services maintained on an ongoing basis. Complementing the DM solution with published device information, setup guides, training material and web based tools will ensure the quality of the customer experience, ensuring that problems are completely resolved, driving data usage by focusing customer education on the use of the wireless service In this way device management becomes a tool used both internally within the network or device vendor and by the customer themselves, with each user empowered to effectively manage the device without any prior knowledge or experience, confident that changes they apply will be relevant, accurate, stable and compatible. The value offered by an effective DM solution with an expert knowledge service will become a significant differentiator for the network operator in an ever competitive wireless market. This research document is intended to highlight some of the issues the industry faces as device management technologies become more prevalent, and offers some potential solutions to simplify the increasingly complex task of managing devices on the network, where device management can be used as a tool to aid customer relations and manage customer’s mobile products in order to resolve issues before the user is aware one exists. The research is broken down into the following, Customer Relationship Management, Device management, the role of knowledge with the DM, Companies that have successfully implemented device management, and the future of device management and CRM. And it also consists of questionnaires aimed at technical support agents and mobile device users. Interview was carried out with CRM managers within support centre to further the evidence gathered. To conclude, the document is to consider the advantages and disadvantages of device management and attempt to determine the influence it will have over customer support centre, and what methods could be used to implement it.

Lessons learned on home energy monitoring and management: Smartcity Málaga

The Smartcity Málaga project is one of Europe?s largest ecoefficient city initiatives. The project has implemented a field trial in 50 households to study the effects of energy monitoring and management technologies on the residential electricity consumption. This poster presents some lessons learned on energy consumption trends, smart clamps reliability and the suitability of power contracted by users, obtained after six months of data analysis.

The international diffusion of project management

This paper examines the international diffusion of one business practice, project management, through the prism of prior literature and data on the diffusion of ISO 9000. The study took an inductive approach, building theory through the iterative collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. The findings problematise the central position accorded to the S-curve model and neo-institutional theory in explaining technology diffusion. The research posits three distinct processes driving the diffusion process: utility, institutional isomorphism, and competitive isomorphism, with the latter consisting of three primary mechanisms: competitive imitation, trendslators and fashion retailers. Contrary to prior literature, national, quasi-professional associations are found to be central to the diffusion process and play a key role in advocating and containing management technologies.

Monitoring and analysis of queries in distributed databases

Dissertação de Mestrado em Engenharia Informática

Anàlisi, diseny i implementació d'un aplicació de gestió d'espais fent servir l'arquitectura J2EE

L'objectiu principal d'aquest treball és exposar tots els passos seguits per a desenvolupar un projecte (anàlisi, disseny, implementació i proves) que utilitza una tecnologia determinada: l'arquitectura J2EE, una arquitectura escalable que permet un desenvolupament simplificat dels projectes d'aplicacions. El projecte escollit és una aplicació de gestió d'espais, la finalitat del qual és gestionar els espais que pertanyen a una entitat multiespacial, com ara una universitat o un hospital.

Yield mapping, soil fertility and tree gaps in an orange orchard

The current high competition on Citrus industry demands from growers new management technologies for superior efficiency and sustainability. In this context, precision agriculture (PA) has developed techniques based on yield mapping and management systems that recognize field spatial variability, which contribute to increase profitability of commercial crops. Because spatial variability is often not perceived the orange orchards are still managed as uniform and adoption of PA technology on citrus farms is low. Thus, the objective of the present study was to characterize the spatial variability of three factors: fruit yield, soil fertility and occurrence of plant gaps caused by either citrus blight or huanglongbing (HLB) in a commercial Valencia orchard in Brotas, São Paulo State, Brazil. Data from volume, geographic coordinates and representative area of the bags used on harvest were recorded to generate yield points that were then interpolated to produce the yield map. Soil chemical characteristics were studied by analyzing samples collected along planting rows and inter-rows in 24 points distributed in the field. A map of density of tree gaps was produced by georeferencing individual gaps and later by counting the number of gaps within 500 m² cells. Data were submitted to statistical and geostatistical analyses. A t test was used to compare means of soil chemical characteristics between sampling regions. High variation on yield and density of tree gaps was observed from the maps. It was also demonstrated overlapping regions of high density of plant absence and low fruit yield. Soil fertility varied depending on the sampling region in the orchard. The spatial variability found on yield, soil fertility and on disease occurrence demonstrated the importance to adopt site specific nutrient management and disease control as tools to guarantee efficiency of fruit production.

Automated Purchase to Pay Process Value Modeling and Comparative Process Speeds

The importance of efficient supply chain management has increased due to globalization and the blurring of organizational boundaries. Various supply chain management technologies have been identified to drive organizational profitability and financial performance. Organizations have historically been concentrating heavily on the flow of goods and services, while less attention has been dedicated to the flow of money. While supply chains are becoming more transparent and automated, new opportunities for financial supply chain management have emerged through information technology solutions and comprehensive financial supply chain management strategies. This research concentrates on the end part of the purchasing process which is the handling of invoices. Efficient invoice processing can have an impact on organizations working capital management and thus provide companies with better readiness to face the challenges related to cash management. Leveraging a process mining solution the aim of this research was to examine the automated invoice handling process of four different organizations. The invoice data was collected from each organizations invoice processing system. The sample included all the invoices organizations had processed during the year 2012. The main objective was to find out whether e-invoices are faster to process in an automated invoice processing solution than scanned invoices (post entry into invoice processing solution). Other objectives included looking into the longest lead times between process steps and the impact of manual process steps on cycle time. Processing of invoices from maverick purchases was also examined. Based on the results of the research and previous literature on the subject, suggestions for improving the process were proposed. The results of the research indicate that scanned invoices were processed faster than e-invoices. This is mostly due to the more complex processing of e-invoices. It should be noted however that the manual tasks related to turning a paper invoice into electronic format through scanning are ignored in this research. The transitions with the longest lead times in the invoice handling process included both pre-automated steps as well as manual steps performed by humans. When the most common manual steps were examined in more detail, it was clear that these steps had a prolonging impact on the process. Regarding invoices from maverick purchases the evidence shows that these invoices were slower to process than invoices from purchases conducted through e-procurement systems and from preferred suppliers. Suggestions on how to improve the process included: increasing invoice matching, reducing of manual steps and leveraging of different value added services such as invoice validation service, mobile solutions and supply chain financing services. For companies that have already reaped all the process efficiencies the next step is to engage in collaborative financial supply chain management strategies that can benefit the whole supply chain.

Biopolttoaineiden on-line -laadunmittauksen hyödyt energiantuotannossa

Biopolttoaineet ovat tärkeä energianlähde suomalaisessa energiantuotannossa. Biopoltto- aineille on kuitenkin ominaista laadun vaihtelevuus. Yksi tärkeimmistä laatutekijöistä on kosteus, joka vaikuttaa myös polttoaineen energiasisältöön. Laatutekijät puolestaan vai- kuttavat polttoainekäsittelyyn, polttoprosessiin ja koko laitoksen hyötysuhteeseen. Tämän työn tarkoituksena oli tutkia voisiko biopolttoaineiden online-laadunmittaus tuoda lisäarvoa energiantuotantolaitokselle. Esimerkkinä käytettiin yhtä online-laadunmittaus- sovellusta, InrayFuel-röntgenmittausjärjestelmää. Sillä voidaan seurata biopolttoaineiden kosteutta ja polttoaineen sisältämiä vierasaineita. Työssä on laadittu kustannusanalyysi, jolla pyritään selvittämään, onko nykyisen kertaluontoisen mittausmenetelmän korvaami- nen jatkuvatoimisella kannattavaa. Esimerkkilaitoksena on Etelä-Savon Energian Pur- sialan voimalaitos, jossa röntgenmittausjärjestelmään on testattu. Saatujen tulosten mukaan investoiminen esimerkkimittausjärjestelmään maksaisi itsensä takaisin alle vuodessa. Kun laitoksella pystytään seuraamaan polttoaineen laatua jatkuva- toimisesti, laadunhallinta paranee ja sitä kautta voidaan saavuttaa kustannussäästöjä. Polt- toaineesta johtuvat häiriötilanteet vähenevät, polttoaine on mahdollista optimoida edulli- semmaksi polton kannalta ja poltto-olosuhteita voidaan säätää paremmin, jolloin päästöt vähenevät ja hyötysuhde kasvaa. Työssä käytetty laskenta analysoi kuitenkin hyvin ylei- sellä tasolla, sillä käytössä ei ollut laitoksen omaa taselaskentajärjestelmää. Laskenta siis sisältää paljon oletuksia. Tämän ja rohkaisevien tulosten vuoksi tutkimusta jatkuvatoimi- sen laadunmittauksen hyödyistä kannattaa tehdä enemmän.

Caracterización de la cultura organizacional en empresas colombianas

Ante un mundo globalizado y competitivo es común ver a las empresas implementar tecnologías de gestión para lograr que los procesos operativos y administrativos sean más eficientes. Para aplicar las tecnologías de gestión es importante realizar un diagnostico y saber en sí cuales son los requerimientos o cambios que necesita la organización para planear, construir, desarrollar y evaluar cual es el mejor método para la empresa de aplicar la tecnología de gestión necesaria ya que la metodología que requiere una empresa es diferente a la metodología de las demás. Para dar cumplimiento a lo antes mencionado es necesario que la alta gerencia o la junta directiva tengan un alto conocimiento en la cultura organizacional ya que ante un factor de cambio en la empresa los principales integrantes y participantes son los empleados que además conllevan a saber del clima organizacional, el desarrollo laboral y la satisfacción personal. Cada empresa debe saber cuál es la cultura que se vive y existe dentro de su organización. A partir de esto, la presente investigación pretende realizar una descripción de la Cultura Organizacional en 31 empresas Colombianas de todos los sectores basada en el modelo del profesor Carlos Eduardo Méndez y como objetivo mostrar la caracterización de la Cultura Organizacional dentro de los lineamientos metodológicos y de los vínculos que existen hacia una cultura explicita o humanitaria.