Benchmarking Sugarcane Production and Management Technology for Muscovado Sugar in the Province of Antique, Western Visayas, Philippines

Long-term sustainability of industries such as an agri-food production system is essential in the light of pressures to satisfy diverse customer needs, comply with government regulations, and to maintain core competency as in response to stiffer market competition. This has led to the identification of best management practices for highly critical and important commodities as the case of muscovado sugar. This paper attempts to gauge the performance of sugarcane production and management technology for use in muscovado sugar production in the province of Antique vis-á-vis process-specific levels of sugarcane production technology as categorized by the Sugar Regulatory Administration. A survey was conducted in 7 sugarcane-producing municipalities in the Province of Antique with 79 respondents selected using two-stage random sampling. Results show that the industry is at par when it comes to best management practices along the areas of planting practices, planting material selection, closing in timing, harvesting practices, trash management, shuttle shaving, and variety programming. The industry in the province lags behind along the areas of soil preparation and fertilizer application. It is recommended that all interventions geared towards improving the industry performance be anchored on evidence-based research findings. Moreover, it is further recommended that to improve productivity in sugarcane production, the industry in Antique must capitalize on its strengths while working towards the improvement of critical areas mentioned

Assessment of an automated IoT-biofloc water quality management system in the Litopenaeus vannamei’s mortality and growth rate

Climate change greatly influenced aquaculture in the Philippines and the deteriorating water quality; in effect, fish production reduced drastically. Thus, fish farmers and aquaculture researchers have been searching for innovative technologies to address these issues. One technology is the biofloc systems. This technology uses a zero-water exchange and accumulates microorganisms that serves as a food source. In the biofloc, water quality management is highly recommended. This study aimed to assess the technical and operational effect on the shrimp growth and survival of the developed automated water quality management internet of things (IoT) system in a biofloc system. The hardware prototype comes with a mobile application which has features namely: account management, fish/shrimp profile, water quality management, auto feeding and manual controls. This study conducts experimental research which assessed the impact of an indoor pond biofloc with the developed prototype on the Litopenaeus vannamei’s growth and survival rates. Results were favorable to the biofloc system with the developed prototype, having a 10% higher survival rate and 3.2% higher growth rate, compared to the traditional recirculating aquaculture systems. Adapting the biofloc and the IoT prototype, a fish farmer may earn P78,300 pesos for each white leg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) harvesting period

Visibility in multimodal maritime container transport chains - Logistics service providers' perspective

Nowadays, transparency and digitalization of actions in the whole supply chain are emphasized and firms are demanding visibility to better forecast, plan and control the flow of goods. The expectations towards fully real-time traceable cargo flow are high and logistics service providers are recommended to digitize their actions to stay in the highly competitive freight transport markets. When it comes to technology, it has been developed rapidly and can provide very sophisticated solutions to enhance visibility. Information flow is a key for visibility. Therefore, information and communication technology (ICT) is vital to enhance visibility. However, technology alone does not enable visibility. It requires collaboration with other involved actors in the transport chain. Multimodal maritime container transport chains are complex in a sense that they require deep collaboration in a form of IT-compatibility with vast number of players involved within the carriage of goods to enhance seamless and automatized exchange of information. It has been disclosed that the biggest logistics service providers have already been able to form such collaborative relationships with big shipping lines, for instance. Also, market leaders usually arrange the pre- and end-haulage of the transport with own assets and therefore information flow is advanced. However, freight transport industry is highly fragmented and majorly consists of small-sized firms. Margins in the freight transport markets are extremely low as customers do not see added value in freight transportation and therefore transportation is seen as an extra harmful cost for firms. Therefore, the idea of big IT-investments and integration of actions with other players is infeasible for some companies. In this study, visibility in multimodal maritime container transport chains is investigated in a wide sense by conducting semi-structured interviews among different-sized logistics service providers located in Finland. First, the current adoption of visibility is studied, the benefits of it are discussed and the barriers to adopt visibility are discussed. Furthermore, perceptions towards the importance of visibility as a service offering in the creation of competitive strategies are investigated

Big Data Technology And Leveraging Open Data For Electoral Processes In Nigeria

What comes to our minds in Nigerians during electioneering processes are the humongous rallies, colourful campaigning, myriad party symbols and distribution of items and monies now called ” Stomach Infrastructure”. The election results are marred with electoral frauds such as rigging, snatching of ballot boxes and consequent political violence. The political communication with citizens is changing and experiencing serious revolution globally through the use of Big Data and electronic technologies. Nigeria is gradually introducing electronic technologies in the conduct of election but much has not been achieved in this direction. This paper therefore examines Big Data Technologies and how Open Data can be leveraged for electoral processes in Nigeria. The study makes use of secondary data in the form of content analysis of books, journals and internet materials. The paper discovers that the combination of Big Data and computational politics allow for massive, latent data collection and sophisticated modeling. There is an increase in the capacity of those with resources and access to use these tools to carry out highly effective and unaccountable campaign of persuasion and social engineering in political, civic and commercial spheres. It is therefore recommended that, the initiative of Big Data Technology and the leveraging Open Data for electoral processes in Nigeria should be encouraged in order to reduce election rigging and malpractices. However, not only Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should be involved but also by other various bodies, which have well-defined roles for a greater coherence in achieving quality electoral objectives

Current Challenges and Visions in Music Recommender Systems Research

Music recommender systems (MRS) have experienced a boom in recent years, thanks to the emergence and success of online streaming services, which nowadays make available almost all music in the world at the user's fingertip. While today's MRS considerably help users to find interesting music in these huge catalogs, MRS research is still facing substantial challenges. In particular when it comes to build, incorporate, and evaluate recommendation strategies that integrate information beyond simple user--item interactions or content-based descriptors, but dig deep into the very essence of listener needs, preferences, and intentions, MRS research becomes a big endeavor and related publications quite sparse. The purpose of this trends and survey article is twofold. We first identify and shed light on what we believe are the most pressing challenges MRS research is facing, from both academic and industry perspectives. We review the state of the art towards solving these challenges and discuss its limitations. Second, we detail possible future directions and visions we contemplate for the further evolution of the field. The article should therefore serve two purposes: giving the interested reader an overview of current challenges in MRS research and providing guidance for young researchers by identifying interesting, yet under-researched, directions in the field

Innovative Stormwater Treatment Technologies: Best Management Practices Manual

Urban stormwater carries a number of pathogens, nutrients, heavy metals, sediment, and other contaminants as surface runoff flows over land. The increase in impervious or paved surfaces associated with development in urban areas reduces the natural infiltration of precipitation into the ground. With impervious cover, precipitation collects and carries contaminants before draining into nearby surface waters. Stormwater runoff from paved surfaces in developed areas can degrade downstream waters with both contaminants and increased volumes of water. This publication aims to make information on innovative stormwater treatment technologies more available to New Hampshire’s urban planners, developers, and communities. Traditional runoff management techniques such as detention basins and infiltration swales may be preferable, but are not always practical for treating urban stormwater. Lack of space for natural solutions is often a problem in existing developed areas, making innovative treatment technologies an attractive alternative. Mostly designed for subsurface installation, urban “retrofits” use less space than conventional methods to treat stormwater. This manual provides information on the innovative stormwater “retrofit” technologies currently available for use in developed areas in New Hampshire

KBART – improving content visibility through collaboration

In recent years, link resolver technology has become integral to ensuring successful institutional access to electronic content. The corresponding take-up of OpenURL compliance amongst content providers in response has resulted in a global solution to the ‘appropriate copy’ problem. However, this solution is only effective if the knowledge base behind the link resolver is up to date, accurate and comprehensive and this is a factor that is often overlooked in establishing OpenURL compliance.This article explores the importance of OpenURL and knowledge bases to the information community as a whole and provides an overview and update of the role that the KBART (Knowledge Bases and Related Tools) project has to play in improving knowledge base metadata

The Landscape of Salesforce for Nonprofits: A Report on the Current Marketplace for Apps

Do you use Salesforce as a Constituent Relationship Management database at your organization, or are you considering it? Since it launched in 1999, more than 20,000 nonprofits have employed the cloud-based system, which is made available to them for free through the philanthropic Salesforce Foundation. What's the catch? Making such a powerful system work for the particular needs of a nonprofit isn't always straightforward. This report can tell you everything you need to know.What's in it? To learn more about the benefits and drawbacks of Salesforce, we interviewed nine prominent consultants specializing in implementing Salesforce for nonprofits along with several members of the Salesforce.com Foundation about what the platform does well, and what you'll want to add to it to suit your needs. We evaluated some of the constituent management packages built on top of Salesforce, including the Salesforce Foundation's Nonprofit Starter Pack, which is aimed at turning the sales automation platform into a tool for nonprofits. We also took a look at the universe of add-ons to the base Salesforce platform -- called "apps" because of Salesforce's online marketplace, the App Exchange -- to find out which might be useful to support a nonprofit's processes.The goal for this report was to break down misconceptions about the tool and to collect disparate information in one place to help you make informed decisions. Whether you're already using Salesforce, are thinking about adopting it, or have yet to even consider it, there's information here for you.What's more, we've included a directory of consultants or firms with experience working with nonprofits to implement Salesforce and the additional App Exchange modules that we cover in this report to make it easier for you to find the help you'll need