Physical oceanography

The physical oceanography component of the AMLR program provided the means to identify contributing water masses and environmental influences within the AMLR study area, as well as to log meteorological and sea surface conditions annotated by the ship's position. The instrumentation and data collection programs served as host to the other scientific components of the program. AMLR 96 is the seventh field season for the collaboration of physical measurements with biological studies.Marine Scienc

AMIE: An annotation model for information research

The objective of most users for consulting any information database, information warehouse or the internet is to resolve one problem or the other. Available online or offline annotation tools were not conceived with the objective of assisting users in their bid to resolve a decisional problem. Apart from the objective and usage of annotation tools, how these tools are conceived and classified has implication on their usage. Several criteria have been used to categorize annotation concepts. Typically annotation are conceived based on how it affect the organization of document been considered for annotation or the organization of the resulting annotation. Our approach is annotation that will assist in information research for decision making. Annotation model for information exchange (AMIE) was conceived with the objective of information sharing and reuse

Trade Facilitation in EAC Customs Union: Its Achievement and Implementation in Tanzania

This study addresses trade facilitation in the East African Community Customs Union (EAC CU) by tracking the achievements and implementation using Tanzania as a case. The study uses descriptive research design and data for the study were mainly secondary data; unstructured interviews with key stakeholders complemented data for this study. The study found that as a result of implementation of trade facilitation initiatives, performance in trade, FDI inflows and trade taxes collection in all EAC countries have improved significantly. Tanzania performs better than other EAC countries in FDI inflows and contribution of export to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The study found a significant positive relationship between countries’ trade facilitation and export performance. Facilitation was found to have no significant relationship on FDI flows. The major setbacks of trade facilitation are non-tariff barriers, transport infrastructure, inadequate human resources capacity, and low level of automation. Addressing these challenges will enhance EAC countries benefits from trade. Keywords: trade facilitation performance, trade facilitation and logistics indicators, EAC Customs Unio

Effect of Knowledge Management on Firm Competitiveness: Testing the Mediating Role of Innovation in the Small and Medium Enterprises in Kenya

Knowledge and innovativeness are have been recognized as the main sources of competitive advantages in the economy. Small and medium-sized firms need to increase attention on knowledge management and innovativeness so as to be competitive. The study examined knowledge management, innovativeness and firm competitiveness. The study is conducted on the results based on 252 small and medium manufacturing enterprise managers in Nairobi, Kenya. The data obtained from the questionnaires were analyzed using the SPSS statistical packaged software. The study results showed that knowledge management processes influence innovativeness positively, innovativeness enhances firm competitiveness while innovativeness is a mediator between knowledge management and firm competitiveness. The study demonstrated that knowledge management and innovation should be integrated to enhance firm competitiveness. The viewpoint proposed is that knowledge management is an important element for small and medium enterprises in today's dynamic and competitive environment. Keywords: knowledge management, firm competitiveness, innovativeness, Kenya, SMEs

Pooling problem: Alternate formulations and solution methods

Copyright @ 2004 INFORMSThe pooling problem, which is fundamental to the petroleum industry, describes a situation in which products possessing different attribute qualities are mixed in a series of pools in such a way that the attribute qualities of the blended products of the end pools must satisfy given requirements. It is well known that the pooling problem can be modeled through bilinear and nonconvex quadratic programming. In this paper, we investigate how best to apply a new branch-and-cut quadratic programming algorithm to solve the pooling problem. To this effect, we consider two standard models: One is based primarily on flow variables, and the other relies on the proportion. of flows entering pools. A hybrid of these two models is proposed for general pooling problems. Comparison of the computational properties of flow and proportion models is made on several problem instances taken from the literature. Moreover, a simple alternating procedure and a variable neighborhood search heuristic are developed to solve large instances and compared with the well-known method of successive linear programming. Solution of difficult test problems from the literature is substantially accelerated, and larger ones are solved exactly or approximately.This project was funded by Ultramar Canada and Luc Massé. The work of C. Audet was supported by NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council) fellowship PDF-207432-1998 and by CRPC (Center for Research on Parallel Computation). The work of J. Brimberg was supported by NSERC grant #OGP205041. The work of P. Hansen was supported by FCAR(Fonds pour la Formation des Chercheurs et l’Aide à la Recherche) grant #95ER1048, and NSERC grant #GP0105574

Risk factors of gastrointestinal nematode parasite infections in small ruminants kept in smallholder mixed farms in Kenya

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Helminth infections in small ruminants are serious problems in the developing world, particularly where nutrition and sanitation are poor. This study investigated the burden and risk factors of gastrointestinal nematode parasite infections in sheep and goats kept in smallholder mixed farms in the Kenyan Central Highlands. Three hundred and seven small ruminants were sampled from 66 smallholder mixed farms in agro-ecological zones 1 (humid) and 3 (semi-humid) in the Kenyan Central highlands. The farms were visited once a month for eight months during which a health and production survey questionnaire was administered. Fecal samples were collected at each visit from each animal. Fecal egg counts (FEC) were performed using the modified McMaster technique. Associations between potential risk factors and FEC were assessed using 3-level Poisson models fit in SAS using GLIMMIX macro. Correlations among repeated observations were adjusted for using three different correlation structures.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A rise in FEC was observed two months after the onset of rains. Farmer education, age category, de-worming during the preceding month and grazing system were significant predictors of FEC. Additionally, there were significant interactions between grazing system and both de-worming and age category implying that the effect of grazing system is dependent on both de-worming status and age category; and that the effect of de-worming depends on the grazing system. The most important predictors of FEC in the study area were grazing system, de-worming status and education of the farmers.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Since several factors were important predictors of FEC, controlling gastrointestinal helminths of small ruminants in these resource-poor smallholder mixed farms requires a sustainable integrated helminth control strategy that includes adoption of zero-grazing and more farmer education probably through extension services. Achieving improved helminth controls in these resource-poor farming systems offers an opportunity to increase small ruminant productivity and hence has a potential of improving the livelihood of the resource-poor farmers.</p

AMIE: An annotation model for information research

The objective of most users for consulting any information database, information warehouse or the internet is to resolve one problem or the other. Available online or offline annotation tools were not conceived with the objective of assisting users in their bid to resolve a decisional problem. Apart from the objective and usage of annotation tools, how these tools are conceived and classified has implication on their usage. Several criteria have been used to categorize annotation concepts. Typically annotation are conceived based on how it affect the organization of document been considered for annotation or the organization of the resulting annotation. Our approach is annotation that will assist in information research for decision making. Annotation model for information exchange (AMIE) was conceived with the objective of information sharing and reuse

Annotation and its application to information research in economic intelligence

International audienceAnnotation tools are becoming increasingly important in information research, information management and collaborative works. Annotation can be conceptualized to assist in the “collection, processing and distributing of useful information for the economic actors” (Economic intelligence) with the aim of facilitating the integration of two fields of information systems and decision making. This paper described the theory and concept of applying annotation in the process of information research for decision making. The specificities of this concept were compared to other concepts behind other annotation tools. Our study considered annotation in the light of three parameters of document, user and time. We observed that (a) different document requires different annotation; (b) two or more users may not make the same type of annotation on the same document (c) a specific user may not annotate the same document the same way at different time. Information research for decision making integrating an annotation database can be founded on these three parameters