Operational model for planning the harvest and distribution of perishable agricultural products

This paper presents an operational model that generates short term planning decisions for the fresh produce industry. In particular, the application developed helps the grower to maximize his revenues by making production and distribution decisions during the harvest season. The main motivation for this model comes from the fact that the profitability of producers is highly dependent on the handling of short term planning in the harvest season. Some of the factors affecting profitability include the management of labor costs, the preservation of the value of perishable crops, and the use transportation modes that provide the best trade-off between time (quality of products) and cost. These issues are interrelated, and their judicious management is fundamental for attaining good financial results. The results of the proposed planning model indicate that significant savings can be obtained by managing the trade-off of the freshness at the delivery of the product with the added labor and transportation cost at the grower's side. Moreover the results also show that dynamic, information based, management practices might be preferred over traditional practices based in fixed labor allocation and distribution practices.     

Population,food and agricultural development: A medium-term view

Trends identified in 86 developing countries over the last 15–20 years indicate that the increase in food production was less than that in domestic demand for food in as many as 53, and 34 failed even to keep up with population growth. The author presents the likely perspective for the next 10 years. His analysis focuses on accelerating the increase in food production; an equitable and efficient distribution particularly among the poorer sections of the population; increasing employment in agriculture and related sectors; and increasing the share of developing countries in expanded trade in agriculture products.     

Economic and agricultural development in West Asia and North Africa : The need for agricultural research

This paper analyses the role of agriculture in the economic development of West Asia and North Africa, with special reference to the interactions between oil wealth, population growth, agricultural development and the need for agricultural research. Since the 1960s agricultural supply lagged behind demand, which grew rapidly as a result of population increases and rising incomes. Following the oil recession of the 1980s it was felt that the development of the agricultural sector should be less dependent on other sectors, particularly oil. The possible roles of agriculture in the region's future economic development are outlined, with the implications for agricultural research. Special attention is given to the natural resource constraints affecting the region's agriculture (particularly water), and to the issues influencing the identification of research priorities.     

Centre for European agricultural studies

Conceived in 1972, established in 1974, and housed in its new building by September 1975, the Centre for European Agricultural Studies at Wye College aims to provide research and seminar programmes focused on the study of the food and agricultural industries of Europe.     

Strategic planning for technology products

A DELPHI Questionnaire study was completed that evaluates the relative importance of management of technology (MOT) problems and ranks 24 problems in order of importance, as perceived by MOT expert participants in industry and academia. The problem of 'Strategic Planning for Technology Products' ranked well above all others in terms of its evaluated importance. A follow‐up DELPHI study was completed to clarify the nature and dimensions of the top problem. This second study identifies the 21 top ranked sub‐problems within the Strategic Planning for Technology Products general problem and ranks these sub‐problems in order of importance. The two most important of these sub‐problems are 'Linking Technology Strategic Planning to Corporate Strategic Planning', and 'Linking R&D Strategic Planning to Business Unit Product Development Planning'. Seen as closely related, these two problems are discussed in this article as 'the linkage problem'. The 11 highest ranked problems of this second study are considered individually in this article. This follow‐up study has important implications for both academic researchers and company managers. For researchers the results suggest specific avenues of research that can fruitfully be followed. For technology managers as well as corporate managers the study offers strong indications of areas where company planning performance may be weak, as well as steps that can be taken to deal with any planning weaknesses perceived.     

Integration planning for technology intensive acquisitions

Rapid technological change, growing technological complexity and shortening product life cycles increasingly force companies to source technologies externally. One means of building up competencies and fostering innovation based on external resources such as knowledge is through the acquisition of technology-based companies. However as literature and practice have shown, technologically motivated and intensive acquisitions are highly vulnerable to failure. One of the main reasons for this value destruction lies in the miscarried and inappropriate integration of the technology-based company after the acquisition.
Based on eight in-depth case studies on technology intensive acquisitions in multi-national technology-based companies this paper aims to identify the main causes of failure in internalizing external knowledge during the integration of technology intensive acquisitions. It was derived that a lack of integrative decision-making, of systemic processes and of a holistic change of both companies during the integration hinders successful knowledge sourcing through acquisitions. Based on these findings, a concept for integration planning which is tailored towards the specific characteristics of technology intensive acquisitions is proposed. This concept is embedded in the acquisition process and encompasses the development of an appropriate integration strategy and the determination, assessment and planning of the required integration projects thus fostering successful knowledge sourcing.     

Amazon Mechanical Turk and the commodification of labour

Crowd employment platforms enable firms to source labour and expertise by leveraging Internet technology. Rather than offshoring jobs to low‐cost geographies, functions once performed by internal employees can be outsourced to an undefined pool of digital labour using a virtual network. This enables firms to shift costs and offload risk as they access a flexible, scalable workforce that sits outside the traditional boundaries of labour laws and regulations. The micro‐tasks of ‘clickwork’ are tedious, repetitive and poorly paid, with remuneration often well below minimum wage. This article will present an analysis of one of the most popular crowdsourcing sites—Mechanical Turk—to illuminate how Amazon's platform enables an array of companies to access digital labour at low cost and without any of the associated social protection or moral obligation.     

Induced innovation and agricultural development

Dr Ruttan reviews the five general models in the literature on agricultural development: the frontier, conservation, urban- industrial impact, diffusion and high pay-off input models, and finds them lacking. He outlines a model of agricultural development which treats technical change as endogenous to the development process, rather than as an exogenous factor operating independently of it. This leads to an emphasis on the strong relationship between technological and institutional change and a call for institutional innovation that will result in a more effective realisation of the new technical potential.     

Public health and agricultural practice

Health, ecological and social aspects of agricultural policy are beginning to supplement traditional concerns of productivity and profitability, and underline the interdependence of agricultural and other areas of social and economic policy. This article reviews public health problems arising out of agricultural practices, and discusses some ecologically inspired initiatives which suggest a growing dissatisfaction with current trends.     

A planning procedure for new-product chemical research

RESPRO is a computer-based planning tool for new-product chemical research, particularly in the pharmaceutical and agro-chemical industries. It helps the research manager to make quantitative judgements about the effects of different effort allocations to projects at the stage when large numbers of formulations are being tested. These then serve as the basis for estimating the profitability of any given allocation plan, and for adjusting a given plan to make it more profitable. The paper introduces RESPRO and sets it in the context of other similar procedures.     

A strategic planning network for non-profit organizations

Strategic planning processes are seldom treated from a contingency perspective. As a result, practitioners are unable to select a set of planning techniques for a particular situation they confront. This paper constructs methods, defined as sets of techniques, which are applicable to strategic planning for non-profit organizations. These constructed planning methods are matched to strategic archetypes, defined by the sponsor's expectations for quality, acceptance, and/or innovation in the strategy. The contingency framework is presented as a network which identifies planning methods useful for each strategic archetype application.     

从行业出发 贯彻五个统筹

党的十六届三中全会提出,完善社会主义市场经济体制要贯彻″五个统筹″,即统筹城乡发展、统筹区域发展、统筹经济社会发展、统筹人与自然和谐发展、统筹国内发展和对外开放.″五个统筹"为我国经济树立了全面、协调、可持续的科学发展观.对照行业,我们认为,纺织作为传统支柱行业,在进入新的历史时期,同样要用科学的发展观来引导自身的发展,以达到全面、协调、可持续发展.     

The future labour market for R&D Manpower in The Netherlands

An adequate supply of qualified research and development (R&D) personnel is an important precondition for a government policy that aims for a strongly knowledge-intensive economic growth. As in many other OECD countries, there is great concern in The Netherlands about meeting this crucial condition in the next decades. This article tries to show to what extent this current concern is justified. For that purpose, forecasts of future supply and demand for research manpower in the science and engineering fields (including agriculture and health) have been produced, extending to the year 2010. Sensitivity analyses show that the fore-casts are not very sensitive to alternative assumptions on economic growth, investments, replacement demand and labour supply.
From a methodological point of view the forecasting approach differs from the more traditional manpower forecasting. Firstly, the demand for R&D personnel is split up into an increase in total employment for R&D manpower ( expansion demand ) on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the need for replacements for researchers who retire, die or switch to other occupations ( replacement demand ). Expansion and replacement demand are considered in three sectors of R&D work: universities, research institutes and private enterprises. Expansion demand and replacement demand together determine the job openings for newcomers. These job openings are confronted with the supply of new R&D manpower, which is largely determined by the output of the educational system. The confrontation of demand and supply forecasts shows that, in general, severe shortages of R & D manpower will result if there are not adequate manpower policy adjustment. The article closes with a discussion of the policy implications of the expected disequilibria in the market for R & D manpower.     

Knowledge intensive agriculture : The need for science in labour intensive agriculture

The authors argue that a stronger scientific base is needed for agriculture in low-latitude areas of the world. Northern agricultural methods are not adequate in warmer climates and research is needed to find appropriate farming techniques and tools. At the same time, redistribution of land and water supplies (and a political structure to prevent their being consolidated again in the hands of a few) are necessary so that the increased production goes to those who need it.     

An integrated production planning model for molds and end items

This study develops a mathematical modelling framework for simultaneously generating production plans for molds and the end items that are made with them. The inputs considered are the item demand (assumed constant over an infinite planning horizon), holding costs and shortage costs, together with the molds’ statistical lifetime distribution (in terms of number of uses) and costs pertaining to amortization, preventive replacements and corrective replacements.     

会计评估与税务策划在境外EPC项目中的应用

为控制国际工程总承包（EPC）项目的风险,根据国内、国外的法规制度差异,企业应在项目的会计核算体系、成本控制、税务策划方面,在项目的不同阶段采取有效的措施,以顺利实现效益目标。在市场开拓阶段,应根据目标市场的政治、法律、经济环境,规划未来境外可能的项目实体的运行方式;在投标报价阶段,策划合同方案和税务方案;在项目实施阶段,确定会计核算体系和方法。对于成本控制,应根据项目全面造价管理的数据,制定全面成本管理预算并实施项目预算控制;分阶段、按实施内容对成本控制计划的执行情况进行分析、评估和考核;建立成本管理平台,抓住项目实施全过程的成本控制关键点,动态控制成本费用;分析和控制财务风险,避免不确定成本的支出。在项目涉税事项上,应遵循＂依据法规制度,做好事先规划,合理规避税务风险＂的原则,着重考虑纳税主体与方式、合同、采购方案、工程分包方案、会计核算方法、收入与成本确认时间与依据等,进行税务策划。