Growth Rates Preservation (GRP) temporal benchmarking: Drawbacks and alternative solutions

Benchmarking monthly or quarterly series to annual data is a common practice in many National Statistical Institutes. The benchmarking problem arises when time series data for the same target variable are measured at different frequencies and there is a need to remove discrepancies between the sums of the sub-annual values and their annual benchmarks. Several benchmarking methods are available in the literature. The Growth Rates Preservation (GRP) benchmarking procedure is often considered the best method. It is often claimed that this procedure is grounded on an ideal movement preservation principle. However, we show that there are important drawbacks to GRP, relevant for practical applications, that are unknown in the literature. Alternative benchmarking models will be considered that do not suffer from some of GRP\u2019s side effects

Inkuilen van eendenkroos als veevoer met verschillende additieven = Ensiling Duckweed for feed with different additives

Ferment duckweed as silage is a cheap and sustainable alternative for drying. Without an additive, no satisfying preservation result was reached. Molasses gave a good preservation result and is relatively cheap and practical. Common methods of forage ensilaging are not suitable for duckweed as they have too little product structure to facilitate wrapping. The use of an airtight container or silo may lead to good preservation results, and prevent losses

Assessment of consumer acceptance of kilishi of African carp (Labeo coubie Rueppell) and Elephant snout (Hyperopisus bebe occidentalis, Guenther)

This study was carried out to assess consumers' acceptance of kilishi prepared from Labeo coubie and Hyperopisus bebe occidentalis in Sokoto. The organoleptic properties (texture, odour, taste and flavour) of kilishi in its fresh form and under storage for 16 weeks were determined. The mean scores for the organoleptic assessment (6.90 and 7.19 for kilishi of Labeo and Hyperopisus respectively) showed that fish kilishi was highly acceptable. Hyperopisus kilishi recorded slightly higher mean scores for the tested organoleptic properties. The declining pattern of the sensory assessment scores with length of storage indicated that the optimum storage period under the room temperature for kilishi made from the experimental fish species in the study area was 6-8 weeks. Further research on appropriate storage methods is desirable. However, preparation of fish kilishi could be explored as alternative preservation technique to reduce fish spoilage especially during the glut in supply and to diversify fish product

Hybridizing old downtown Suwon City: how new urban fabric may save the past

In response to paradigm shifts of environmental, social and economic methods at the local and global scales, new approaches are required for creating alternative urban models which emphasize sustainability and landscape productivity. The Old Downtown of Suwon City, South Korea, which is encompassed by the Hwaseong Fortress and designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, is currently experiencing challenges between preservation and development – past and future. This thesis investigates sustainable and productive urban tactics to mediate this conflict. The primary focus of these tactics is the re-organization of land use towards more efficient and productive models born of contemporary science, technology, and culture, while simultaneously embracing and preserving key aspects of the city’s heritage

Incomplete pairwise comparison matrices and weighting methods

A special class of preferences, given by a directed acyclic graph, is considered. They are represented by incomplete pairwise comparison matrices as only partial information is available: for some pairs no comparison is given in the graph. A weighting method satisfies the linear order preservation property if it always results in a ranking such that an alternative directly preferred to another does not have a lower rank. We study whether two procedures, the Eigenvector Method and the Logarithmic Least Squares Method meet this axiom. Both weighting methods break linear order preservation, moreover, the ranking according to the Eigenvector Method depends on the incomplete pairwise comparison representation chosen

A Complexity Preserving Transformation from Jinja Bytecode to Rewrite Systems

We revisit known transformations from Jinja bytecode to rewrite systems from the viewpoint of runtime complexity. Suitably generalising the constructions proposed in the literature, we define an alternative representation of Jinja bytecode (JBC) executions as "computation graphs" from which we obtain a novel representation of JBC executions as "constrained rewrite systems". We prove non-termination and complexity preservation of the transformation. We restrict to well-formed JBC programs that only make use of non-recursive methods and expect tree-shaped objects as input. Our approach allows for simplified correctness proofs and provides a framework for the combination of the computation graph method with standard techniques from static program analysis like for example "reachability analysis".Comment: 36 page

Kriopreservasi Untuk Konservasi Plasma Nutfah Tanaman: Peluang Pemanfaatannya Di Indonesia

Increasing rate of plant germplasm lost inIndonesia has promoted the implementation of variousmethods for their conservation. Cryopreservation is a techniqueapplicable for a long-term preservation (base collection)of plants possessing non-orthodox (recalcitrant andsemi-recalcitrant) seeds and those propagated vegetatively.The technique can be used as an alternative method fororthodox seed plants preservation in the ex situ conservationsystem. Although field and in vitro collection methods canbe applied for the non-orthodox seed plants, a number ofdisadvantages possesed by these methods, especially in thetropics or the developing countries, deny their use for theestablishment of a long-term germplasm collection. Successfulimplementation of the cryopreservation technique issupported by the development of protocols, which are ableto provide a high recovery rate for species understudy, usingvitrification based methods which are simple, economical,applicable to complex organs, and able to implement a highnumber of explants per experiment. The availability of infrastructuresincluding in vitro culture laboratories, continuesupply of liquid nitrogen is highly supporting the use ofcryopreservation technique in Indonesia

Coverage of exposed hardware after lower leg fractures with free flaps or pedicled flaps

Abstract. – OBJECTIVE: The placement of osteosynthetic materials in the leg may be complicated by hardware exposure. Successful soft tissue reconstruction often provides a critical means for limb salvage in patients with hardware exposure in the leg. Free flaps are currently considered the standard surgical procedure for soft tissue coverage of the wounds with internal hardware exposure. However, to date, no conclusive literature shows the superiority of a specific type of flap. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The current review compares data from the literature concerning outcomes and complications of free and pedicled flaps for exposed osteosynthetic material preservation in the leg. RESULTS: A total of 81 cases from twelve different articles presenting internal hardware exposure of the leg were analyzed in our study. Thirty-two patients underwent immediate reconstructive surgery with pedicled flaps, while forty-nine patients underwent free flap reconstruction. The overall survival rate for pedicled flaps was 96.77%, while for free flaps it was 97.77%. The overall implant preservation rate was 78.12% for pedicled flaps and 53.33% for free flaps. With reference to postoperative complications, the overall complication rate was 46.87% for pedicled flaps and 10.20% for free flaps. CONCLUSIONS: No significant difference was found in terms of overall flap survival. However, a significant difference was found regarding successful implant preservation (78.12% in the pedicled flap group vs. 53.33% in the free flap group). In particular, the first observation appears to be in contrast with the current trend of considering the free flaps the first choice procedure for soft tissue coverage of the wounds with internal hardware exposure. Nevertheless, a higher occurrence of postoperative complications was observed in the pedicled flap group (46.87% vs. 10.20%). The choice of the most appropriate reconstructive procedure should take into account several issues including the size of the wounds with internal hardware exposure, the possibility of soft tissue coverage with pedicled flaps, the availability of recipient vessels, general conditions of the patients (such as age, diabetes, smoking history), patients’ preference and presence of a microsurgical team. However, according to the results of this review, we believe that pedicled flap reconstruction should be reconsidered as a valid alternative procedure for skin tissue loss with hardware exposure whenever it is possible