A Feasibility Study of Public Private Partnership in Sustainable Ethiopia’s Coffee Quality Improvement Programme

The rainforests of the south western Ethiopian highlands are recognised asthe birthplace of Coffea arabica. Ethiopia is the only country in the worldwhere Coffea Arabica (L.) can be found in the wild. The forests that oncedominated the highlands are considerably diminished during the lastdecades. This poses a massive threat to the survival of the genetic resources of Coffea Arabica, 99.8% of the genetic diversity of which is in Ethiopia. As a result, the diversity at origin of some 2,000 or more coffee varieties – unique in the world – is in danger of being irretrievably lost. The monastery islands and environ of Lake Tana had coffee from the South west forests planted 400 years ago by King Fassil of Gonder. This has created a natural ex-situ gene bank in an area otherwise covered with forest. Civilian population pressure since 1974 has reduced the forest for firewood and timber incomes and coffee has been neglected especially during the low price periods. In order to address these issues with sustainable livelihoods, the feasibility of a PPP programme is being studied, incorporating the governments with NGOs and private partners. This paper comprehensively analyses the approaches to study the feasibility and status of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Amhara region specially Zegey peninsula and Lake Tana Island coffee quality improvement. To collect the required information interviews were conducted with concerned stakeholders and a simple questionnaire also prepared and distributed to coffee producing farmers in Amharic language.Key words: Quality Coffee Berries, Pre & Post Harvesting method, Amhararegion- Zegey Peninsula, Feasibility of PPP assistanc

Data driven safe vehicle routing analytics: a differential evolution algorithm to reduce CO2 emissions and hazardous risks

Contemporary vehicle routing requires ubiquitous computing and massive data in order to deal with the three aspects of transportation such as operations, planning and safety. Out of the three aspects, safety is the most vital and this study refers safety as the reduction of CO2 emissions and hazardous risks. Hence, this paper presents a data driven multi-objective differential evolution (MODE) algorithm to solve the safe capacitated vehicle routing problems (CVRP) by minimizing the greenhouse gas emissions and hazardous risk. The proposed data driven MODE is tested using benchmark instances associated with real time data which have predefined load for each of the vehicle travelling on a specific route and the total capacity summed up from the customers cannot exceed the stated load. Pareto fronts are generated as the solution to this multi-objective problem. Computational results proved the viability of the data driven MODE algorithm to solve the multi-objective safe CVRP with a certain trade-off to achieve an efficient solution. Overall the study suggests 5% increment in cost function is essential to reduce the risk factors. The major contributions of this paper are to develop a multi-objective model for a safe vehicle routing and propose a multi-objective differential evolution (MODE) algorithm that can handle structured and unstructured data to solve the safe capacitated vehicle routing problem

Implementation of lean manufacturing and lean audit system in an auto parts manufacturing industry – an industrial case study

Lean manufacturing is one of the innovative manufacturing concepts being applied in many industries to avoid the wastages of resources and improving the quality of products and help the company to become more effective and productive. It also focuses on continuous improvements with the total involvement of all employees with optimum utilization of man power and machine by reducing idle time and reducing lead time with help of lean tools like value stream mapping and kaizen. This paper presents a case study carried out in a foundry division of an auto parts manufacturing industry, where lean tools are implemented for the defect reduction and productivity improvement. In this paper, a conceptualized implementation of total productive maintenance practices of lean tools: Kaizen or continuous improvement and value stream map in an auto parts industry are presented. The result shows improved performance in terms of average core rejections, sand leakage and air lock problem

Multi-agent system with iterative auction mechanism for master bay plan problem in marine logistics

The support of containerization to trade development demands an efficient solution method for the container loading problem in order to reduce shipment and handling time. Hence, the stowage planning of containers is critical to provide speedy delivery of resources from the area of supply to the area of demand. Moreover, information on container terminal activities, structure of ship, and characteristics of containers is distributed among stowage planners. This information imposes constraints, and so the master bay plan problem (MBPP) becomes NP-hard. Therefore, a multi-agent systems (MAS) methodology is designed to effectively communicate the information and solve the MBPP sustainably. In the designed MAS methodology, an information exchange system (IES) is created for stowage planners to bid for ship slots in each experimental iterative combinatorial auction (ICA) market. The winner in the ICA experiments is provided with the ship slots, and the entire bay plan is prepared. Further, the ship-turnaround time is validated using the data obtained from the benchmark problem

Toxicity characterization and long-term stability studies on copper slag from the ISASMELT process

Detailed studies on the toxicity and long-term stability of copper slag of varying heavy metal concentration generated over a 14-week period in an Indian copper plant through the ISASMELT process was carried out using USEPA's toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP), multiple extraction procedure and sulfuric acid leaching of granulated and mechanically activated slag as a function of pH at two different temperatures. The TCLP, acid leaching and multiple extraction test results carried out on a large number of slag samples of varying compositions derived from the use of several copper concentrates indicate poor leachability of the heavy metals and assures long-term stability even in extreme atmospheres. Leaching tests on mechanically activated samples gives an idea of the resistance to leaching of the heavy metals even upon weathering. The multiple extraction leaching tests indicate that the heavy metals present in the slag are stable and are not likely to dissolve significantly even through repetitive leaching under acid rain in a natural environment. The highest concentration of all the elements is far below the prescribed limits in USEPA 40CFR Part 261

Single Phase Quasi-Z-Source Based Modified Cascaded Multilevel Inverter with Half-Bridge Cell

A new Quasi-Z-Source Modified Cascaded Multilevel Inverter (qZS-MCMLI) with Half-Bridge Cell presents attractive advantages over conventional cascaded MLI with voltage boost ability and reduced switches. The new proposed topology is comprised of cascaded auxiliary units and a full H-bridge inverter, where the auxiliary unit includes half bridge cell with qZS network. With qZS network shoot-through state control, the output voltage amplitude can be boosted, which is not limited to DC source voltage summation similar to conventional cascaded MLI. The performance parameters of qZS-MCMLI with various multicarrier PWM control methods are analysed with simulation results and portrayed here

Barriers to coastal shipping development: an Indian perspective

Coastal shipping has been widely recognised as a sustainable and efficient alternative to road transport. However, the barriers encountered in the industry have not been systematically studied in any region. From an Indian perspective, this study aims to prioritise barriers to coastal shipping development for effective policy interventions. It identifies important barriers through a Delphi study and then quantifies their cause-and-effect relationships by the decision making-trial and evaluation laboratory analysis (DEMATEL) technique. It is interesting that the main barriers, those have most impact on coastal shipping development, are not necessarily the ones most widely recognised. The study also uncovers the hidden cause-and-effect relationships between several barriers. Four main barriers are identified: (1) Indian maritime legislation (especially cabotage rules); (2) issues in the infrastructure and procedures at port and port-centric areas; (3) underdevelopment of small ports; (4) lack of a collaborative culture among the various service providers involved in the logistics supply chain. This study finally recommends relaxing cabotage rules to stimulate the inflow of foreign capital to grow coastal shipping, improving the current port system through joint efforts of the ports, Indian customs and government, and fostering supply chain collaboration

1-(2-Naphth­yl)-3-phenyl-3-(4,5,6,7-tetra­hydro-1,2,3-benzoselenadiazol-4-yl)propan-1-one

In the title compound, C25H22N2OSe, the fused six-membered cyclo­hexene ring of the 4,5,6,7-tetra­hydro-1,2,3-benzoselenadiazole group adopts a near half-chair conformation and the five-membered 1,2,3-selenadiazole ring is essentially planar (r.m.s. deviation = 0.004 Å). There are weak inter­molecular C—H⋯O and C—H⋯π inter­actions in the crystal structure. Inter­molecular π–π stacking is also observed between the naphthyl units, with a centroid–centroid distance of 3.529 (15) Å

The impact of integrated practices of lean, green, and social management systems on firm sustainability performance—evidence from Chinese fashion auto-parts suppliers

To better satisfy various stakeholders, firms are seeking integrated practices that can enhance their sustainability performance, also well known as the Triple Bottom Line (3BL). The fashion industry exhibits potential conflicts with the spirit of sustainability because of the waste created by high levels of demand uncertainty and the extant usage of resources in production. Literature suggests that selected stand-alone practices of lean, green, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) management systems have a positive impact on firm sustainability performance. However, how the combination of selected practices from these three management systems impacts the 3BL remains unclear. Based on case studies, we build an integrated sustainable practices model incorporating the most popular lean, green, and social practices and develop propositions for future tests. Our framework suggests the implementation of integrated practices would have a stronger influence on 3BL performance than individual practice implementation

Composite Performance Index for Sustainability

Abstract