High-level Supply Research Articles

The responsiveness of tamasha potatoes to biological fertilizers

The article presents the results of research work carried out in the direction of studying the influence of biological fertilizers on the yield and qualityof the Tamasha potato variety on heavy loam dark chestnut soils of Central Kazakhstan. It was carried out on a land plot with a humus content of 2.73-2.79 %, total nitrogen - 0.147-0.172 %, total phosphorus - 0.20- 0.25 %, a high level of supply of mobile phosphorus and potassium, a low content of nitrate nitrogen, a weakly alkaline soil pH. The research work carried out showed that potatoes have a high need for biological fertilizers, which, according to the types of fertilizers, gave an additional yield of up to 20 %, and also had a positive effect on quality indicators. It was shown that the effectiveness of biological fertilizers depends not only on its composition, but also on the influence of external factors, including first the soil conditions and the supply of potatoes with macronutrients.

Dynamic evolution and spatial difference of public health service supply in economically developed provinces of China: typical evidence from Guangdong Province

ObjectiveThe outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention from all sectors of society to the level of public health services. This study aims to investigate the level of public health service supply in the four major regions of Guangdong Province, providing a basis for optimizing health resource allocation.MethodsThis article uses the entropy method and panel data of 21 prefecture-level cities in Guangdong Province from 2005 to 2021 to construct the evaluation index system of public health service supply and calculate its supply index. On this basis, the standard deviation ellipse method, kernel density estimation, and Markov chain are used to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution trend of the public health service supply level in Guangdong Province. The Dagum Gini coefficient and panel regression model are further used to analyze the relative differences and the key influencing factors of difference formation. Finally, the threshold effect model is used to explore the action mechanism of the key factors.ResultsOverall, the level of public health service supply in Guangdong Province is on an upward trend. Among them, polarization and gradient effects are observed in the Pearl River Delta and Eastern Guangdong regions; the balance of public health service supply in Western Guangdong and Northern Mountainous areas has improved. During the observation period, the level of public health services in Guangdong Province shifted towards a higher level with a smaller probability of leapfrogging transition, and regions with a high level of supply demonstrated a positive spillover effect. The overall difference, intra-regional difference and inter-regional difference in the level of public health service supply in Guangdong Province during the observation period showed different evolutionary trends, and spatial differences still exist. These differences are more significantly positively affected by factors such as the level of regional economic development, the degree of fiscal decentralization, and the urbanization rate. Under different economic development threshold values, the degree of fiscal decentralization and urbanization rate both have a double threshold effect on the role of public health service supply level.ConclusionThe overall level of public health service supply in Guangdong Province has improved, but spatial differences still exist. Key factors influencing these differences include the level of regional economic development, the degree of fiscal decentralization, and the urbanization rate, all of which exhibit threshold effects. It is suggested that, in view of the actual situation of each region, efforts should be made to build and maintain their own advantages, enhance the spatial linkage of public health service supply, and consider the threshold effects of key factors in order to optimize the allocation of health resources.

Research on the Supply-side Structure Reform of China's Company Law

At present and in the future, China's economic development faces some problems about supply and demand, but the main contradiction lies in the supply side. Facts have proved that China's problem is that the supply cannot change with the changing demand, that is, the lack of effective supply capacity leads to a large number of "demand spillovers", leading to a serious outflow of consumption capacity. To solve these structural problems, people must make efforts from the supply side and find the right position in the world supply market. In other words, Chinese government must take improving the supply side structure as the main direction of attack, and realize the leap from the low level of supply and demand balance to the high level of supply and demand balance. Among them, the company system plays a vital role in the company's survival and supply-side structural reform. In 1993, after 30 years of double-digit growth, South Korea ranked among the "four Asian dragons" from the poorest country in the world, and its per capita income rose from 82 to 8449 dollars. In this process, all countries in the world clearly believe that the supply-side structural reform of the Jin Yongsan government is indispensable. At present, some problems faced by Chinese companies are also unprecedented. The reform of China's company law is not simply a change of departmental rules, but more importantly, it can improve the competitiveness of the country and social reform and development through the revision of the company law. In this case, this paper uses the methods of comparative study and case analysis to analyze the common problems of the company system, in order to deepen the supply-side reform of the system and promote the comprehensive modernization of the company law.

Food waste management for the UK grocery retail sector—a supply chain collaboration perspective

Food waste is a consequence of the contemporary retail environment, where maintaining high product availability and customer choice is considered the basis of competition. It has become an especially focal issue in recent years for grocery retailers. Despite the evidence of retailers adopting many good practices to mitigate food waste, there are still many challenges facing the sector. This paper thus conducted a qualitative study drawing on secondary data on the big four UK supermarkets and twelve in-depth interviews with high-level supply chain (SC) managers in one of those four supermarkets to investigate UK retailers’ waste management practices and develop SC collaboration strategies for preventative waste management. The findings show that SC collaboration on the waste management needs to focus on forecasting, product range management, case size changes, performance measurement, information systems, and multi-stakeholder collaboration. This study recommends that retailers enhance their institutional collaboration with SC partners and social collaboration with other stakeholders.

The Aga Khan Development Network’s (AKDN) approach to supply chain carbon foot printing for healthcare providers

Very few examples of footprints exist for lower-middle-income countries and none for low-income countries. Where footprints do exist, they suggest that healthcare in LMICs is more carbon intensive per unit of expenditure than in high-income or upper-middle-income countries. At the same time, delivery of global commitments on Universal Health Coverage implies that healthcare provision in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) must grow more rapidly than anywhere else in the word.There has been little or no access to appropriate, comprehensive but affordable support to enable operations in LMICs to calculate full Scope 1,2 and 3 footprints. Without this it has been challenging for operations in LMICs to effectively target actions to reduce their emissions.With this in mind this paper sets out to demonstrate an approach to carbon foot printing healthcare in LMICs that is sufficiently robust to support targeted action, while using tools, resources and data that are freely accessible in all countries.This paper describes and discusses a 4-tiered ‘hybrid’ approach, developed using the international Greenhouse Gas Protocol. The approach was used successfully by staff to generate carbon footprints for healthcare organisations in 8 LMICs in South and Central Asia and East Africa. The organisations covered all fall within the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN); specifically, the Aga Khan Health Services (AKHS) and the Aga Khan Universities (AKU)The principles discussed in this paper, have been used to build a comprehensive carbon management tool in Microsoft Excel. The use of the approach and the tool has enabled AKDN healthcare providers to effectively, baseline, target and structure their carbon reduction activity.This work has had to pragmatically balance accuracy with deliverability in an LMIC context. While footprinting for Scope 1 and 2 has followed standard protocols, proxy data has been used to generate high level supply chain footprints, this has then been refined with data from suppliers.The tool and its accompanying guide are published and available, free to use, from AKDN to support other healthcare organisations in footprinting and reducing their own carbon emissions.

Construction ideas for supply chain management major under the background of new liberal arts education

In response to the problem of a lack of high-level supply chain management professionals, under the background of new liberal arts education, this article takes the construction of the supply chain management major at Wuhan Institute of Technology as an example. It explores the talent cultivation system for supply chain management professionals from seven aspects: talent cultivation mode construction, teaching content and characteristic course system construction, textbook construction and teaching method reform, practical teaching system construction, faculty construction, teaching quality assurance system construction, and reform evaluation system construction. Through the exploration of professional teaching in teaching practice, relevant references can be provided for the cultivation of supply chain management professionals.

THE RESEARCH FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURAL RECOVERY TECHNOLOGY OF STERILE LANDFILLS RESULTING FROM THE CURRENT EXPLOITATION OF LIGNITE

The research was organized on the Balta Unchiașului tailings dump, Rovinari, Gorj county, a dump covered with 30 cm of fertile soil, aiming to establish the effect of fertilization with fertilizers, cattle manure, compost, lignite –based fertilizer and liquid fertilizer based on humates extracted from lignite on sunflower production and followed the effect of fertilization with mineral fertilizers, manure, compost and liquid fertilizers based on humates extracted from lignite, on the sunflower crop). The chemical characteristics of the crop substrate had a large variability and consisted of: pH values between 8.08 and 8.35, so a slightly alkaline reaction, humus values between 2.50 -3.52%, being valued as a low-medium level of supply, the level of nitrogen total between 0.101 and 1.60%, therefore a low-medium level of supply, mobile phosphorus between 25 and 44 mg/kg, therefore a medium-high level of supply. The most high values is recorded in the variants fertilized with manure and compost, mobile potassium between 152 and 315 mg/kg, so a medium - high supply level, copper between 18 and 23 mg/kg, so normal supply values, nickel between 30 and 37 mg/kg, so an average load, lead between 7 and 12 mg/kg, values that highlight a normal level of load, manganese between 473 and 595 mg/kg, so normal values, zinc between 48 and 66 mg/ kg, showing normal values and cadmium 0.17 AND 0.32 mg/kg so normal values. The sunflower plants can be used as copper hyperaccumulators.

Systemic hemodynamic and cardiac biomechanics changes induced by peripheral ECLS in a total closed chest cardiogenic shock sheep model

Veno-arterial ExtraCorporeal Life Support (VA-ECLS) is proposed as an efficient device to treat refractory cardiogenic shock (CS). If VA-ECLS restores systemic hemodynamics and thus end-organ perfusion, its consequences on native failing myocardium remain more questionable. Besides an increase in left ventricular (LV) afterload induced by retrograde blood flow, an increase in LV preload, LV wall stress, myocardial working as well as a decrease in coronary blood flow have been reported. Most of these cardiac biomechanics changes have been identified as triggers of myocardial remodeling pathways in a myocardial infarction model. Test the hypothesis that VA-ECLS during CS restores systemic hemodynamics but also provokes significant changes in cardiac biomechanics, which could initiate cardiac remodeling processes. A CS sheep model induced by percutaneous intra-coronary alcohol infusion was instrumented to assess cardiac biomechanics (conductance and Swan-Ganz catheter) and systemic hemodynamics. After a one-hour period of stability, a VA-ECLS was implanted through femoral access and blood flow was increased from 25% to 100% of baseline cardiac output by 30 min. Data are mean ± SEM and one-way ANOVA was used to assess the effects of ECLS on different parameters (vs. CS state). CS was characterized by a significant decrease in mean arterial pressure (−32 ±3%), cardiac index (−44 ±4%), and an increase in LVEDP (+86 ±24%). ECLS induced a significant and flow-dependent increase in MAP, carotid blood flow, and venous oxygen saturation. ECLS from 75% to 100% induced a significant decrease in central venous and mean pulmonary arterial pressures while a substantial increase in LV end-diastolic and end-systolic volumes, and arterial elastance was observed. Only ECLS 25 and 50% induced a significant decrease in pressure-volume area, stroke work, potential energy, and maximal elastance. At the high level of supply, all these parameters did not significantly differ from the CS state (Fig. 1). The ECLS restores systemic hemodynamics but also provokes significant changes in cardiac biomechanics. Whether such changes may be triggers of ventricular remodeling remains to be demonstrated by further experiments.

Optimal policy of ordering blood units in the hospital according to compatibility and priority transfers between blood groups under uncertainty conditions: A case study

In spite of significant advancements in medicine, there is still a shortage of human blood in the world. At present, there is no alternative chemical process or product that can produce blood, and only humans are capable of doing so. It is for this reason that blood is such an important component of our healthcare system. Due to the perishability of blood, managing blood inventories can be challenging. The challenge is to maintain a high level of supply while minimizing loss due to expiration. The purpose of this study is to present a mathematical model that reduces inventory costs, determines the optimal ordering policy in hospitals, and prevents the loss of blood units. To determine the optimal inventory level and order volume, a mixed integer programming model is presented in both deterministic and non-deterministic conditions. In order to address the uncertainty in the problem, a robust optimization approach is used. This model minimizes the transfer of blood groups and transmission between hospitals by considering compatibility and priority. A sensitivity analysis has also been conducted on the model. Based on a case study, it is demonstrated that the costs of buying, storing, ordering, and wasting two important RBCs and platelets can be reduced.

GEOMATICS VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN CHINA: CURRENT SITUATION AND RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Abstract. Geomatics vocational education (VE) is very important for the high-quality development of geomatics industry and high-level supply of skilled talents. Firstly, the paper briefly introduced the development history of geomatics VE in China, and summarized the current status of geomatics VE. Secondly, the paper analysed the issues and problems of geomatics VE, including insufficient input, ambiguous orientation, slowly technology updating, weak teaching staff and closed communication environment. Next, the paper reported the recent reforms of geomatics VE, including the revision of discipline catalog, training objectives and requirements and recommended curriculum standards at different levels. Then, latest developments of teaching resources and training platform are discussed. Finally, the paper proposed an outlook of geomatics VE in China.

A geographical dimension of resource endowment of Ukrainian territories


 
 
 Given the multidisciplinary nature of this research, it is important to develop a common understanding of the security and complexity of the rational consumption of available minerals. Considerations for the availability and depletion of minerals are part of a diverse range of research focused on sustainable development, in areas such as resource critical shortage, life cycle assessment and material flow analysis. Mineral resources are non-renewable resources that provide humanity with a wide range of goods and services. Although their value has been recognized for millennia, their large-scale industrial production did not grow until after World War II due to efficient industrial production processes and rapidly growing demand due to demographic growth, urbanization and economic wealth growth in developed countries. The proposed research confirms the high level of supply of the territory of Ukraine with mineral resources. The objective idea of mineral and self-sufficiency of Ukraine, its inclusion in the top groups of the states most provided with the most valuable types of minerals is strengthened and the high level of availability of mineral resources in Ukraine in terms of its economic and geographical areas and regions is confirmed. At the same time, a number of mineral deposits in modern social and economic conditions are preserved and not used. For the first time, a cartographic interpretation of the periodic table of chemical elements (D. I. Menedeleev's table) is given, which is reinforced by data on the distribution of mineral resources and minerals in terms of selected groups of regions within the administrative regions of Ukraine. There are 33 chemical elements extracted from more than 100 mineral deposits. The provisions and conclusions of the article testify the mineral self-sufficiency of Ukraine and can act as a lever for developing strategies for socio-economic development of the United Territorial Communities (UTC) of Ukraine, which today are the new centers of management of territories and its resources. D. I. Mendeleev's table and its mineral content are positioned as an objective factor in the specialization of Ukraine and the international geographical division of labour. It is noted that the main advantages of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements, including its structure, logic, objectivity, a system in relation to the economic and geographical regions of Ukraine are considered as an element of monitoring the mineral component of natural resources of the country, the lever of further development of exploratory geology and geomorphology. The information obtained from this research ultimately influences the future policies of the territories and its plans for the balanced use of available mineral reserves and can be used to promote the sustainable use of mineral resources in the regions.
 
 

AOSR 2.0: A Novel Approach and Thorough Validation of an Agent-Oriented Storage and Retrieval WMS Planner for SMEs, under Industry 4.0

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0), with the help of cyber-physical systems (CPS), the Internet of Things (IoT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI), is transforming the way industrial setups are designed. Recent literature has provided insight about large firms gaining benefits from Industry 4.0, but many of these benefits do not translate to SMEs. The agent-oriented smart factory (AOSF) framework provides a solution to help bridge the gap between Industry 4.0 frameworks and SME-oriented setups by providing a general and high-level supply chain (SC) framework and an associated agent-oriented storage and retrieval (AOSR)-based warehouse management strategy. This paper presents the extended heuristics of the AOSR algorithm and details how it improves the performance efficiency in an SME-oriented warehouse. A detailed discussion on the thorough validation via scenario-based experimentation and test cases explain how AOSR yielded 60–148% improved performance metrics in certain key areas of a warehouse.

No tillage with previous plastic covering increases water harvesting and decreases soil CO2 emissions of wheat in dry regions

In arid and highly populated areas, water shortage and soil CO2 emission (CE) are seriously threatening the sustainability of agriculture. Optimization of tillage, irrigation, and nitrogen (N) application within cropping systems are keys to reducing CE. We hypothesized that an integrated system could increase crop yields and improve water harvesting, while reducing CE and enhancing C sequestration potential from crop production. In 2016–2018, this hypothesis was tested under spring wheat of maize-wheat rotation in field experiments in the arid inland irrigation of China. This research evaluated how no tillage, reduced the supply levels of irrigation and N affect crop yield, water harvesting, and CE, C sequestration potential of following spring wheat after plastic-mulched maize. Across the three study years, tillage practice, irrigation level, and N level individually had a significant effect on grain yield, water harvesting, and CE characteristics of wheat in each year, but the interaction among the three factors was hardly significant. No tillage with previous residual plastic covering (NTP), reduced irrigation, and reduced N application increased grain yield, improved water harvesting of wheat, but decreased CE. On average, NTP practice combined with a reduction of 20 % in irrigation and N supply levels (i.e., the optimized system, NTPI2N2), increased grain yield, soil water storage between pre-sowing and post-harvesting (wheat harvesting), and the ratio of transpiration to evaporation (T/E) by 13.6, 150.0, and 79.7 % (P < 0.05), respectively, compared to conventional tillage with local conventional high supply level in irrigation and N (i.e., the control, CTI2N3). The optimized system reduced CE and carbon emission intensity (CEI) by 31.3 % and 39.0 % (P < 0.05) compared to the control treatment, respectively. However, the optimized system had 7.5, 12.6, 7.5, and 57.4 % (P < 0.05) greater net primary production (NPP), net ecosystem production (NEP), carbon in harvested wheat (harvest-C), and the ratio of NPP/CE than the control. It indicates that the optimized system had greater potential for enhancing soil C sequestration. Therefore, no tillage with previous residual plastic covering from the previous maize combined with a 20 % reduction in both irrigation and N levels is a promising strategy to improve water harvesting, reduce CE, and enhance soil C sequestration potential of wheat production in dry regions.

A 6.9-μm2 3.26-ns 31.25-fj Robust Level Shifter With Wide Voltage and Frequency Ranges

This brief presents an area- and energy-efficient level shifter (LS) with wide voltage and frequency ranges. The proposed LS removes the static current with a cut-off head PMOS. The LS also provides a robust internal node compared to other state-of-the-art LSs, where the internal node is floated. To reduce the delay and energy consumption in the proposed LS, the contention between the pull-up and pull-down networks at the internal node is reduced by using a `low' to `high' transition error correction circuit (LtH ECC), which also enables high frequency operation at near- and sub-threshold voltages. The proposed LS is implemented in 65 nm CMOS technology, having the smallest area of 6.90 μm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2 </sup> among state-of-art LSs. The measurement results demonstrate that the minimum low-level supply voltage ( V <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> DDL,MIN</sub> ) values are 120 mV and 300 mV with input frequency ( f <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> IN</sub> ) of 1 MHz and 100 MHz, respectively, at a high-level supply voltage of 1.2 V. The delay and energy consumption at V <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">DDL</sub> of 120 mV and 300 mV are 207 ns and 1040 fJ, and 3.26 ns and 31.25 fJ, respectively. The static power consumption is less than 3 nW at V <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">DDL</sub> ranging from 120 mV to 700 mV.

Actually Getting Some Satisfaction on the Job: Need-Supply Fit of Fundamental Motives at Work.

The fit between employees’ needs and the opportunity to satisfy them in the workplace is an important predictor of job satisfaction. To make full use of this concept in career development, a fine-grained assessment of needs is necessary to allow for a straightforward interpretation. Fundamental motives provide a theoretically meaningful, self-contained framework of 16 fine-grained explicit motives, including, for instance, Social Acceptance, Curiosity, and Autonomy. Based on a series of response surface analyses in a German online sample of 723 working people, we examined the impact on job satisfaction of three different combinations of fundamental motives and their supply: exact congruence, an excess in the supply, and a shortage in the supply. For an excess in the supply, the results suggest that job satisfaction was highest for Social Acceptance, Status, Autonomy, Sex, and Retention. For a congruence of high motive levels and high supply levels, the levels of job satisfaction were highest for Curiosity, Idealism, and Social Participation. Concerning a shortage in the supply, low levels of job satisfaction were observed for Social Acceptance, Status, Sex, Retention, Curiosity, and Idealism. The results can be useful in coaching and career developments to provide information about potential sources of low job satisfaction and provide guidance to clients on how to enhance their job satisfaction.

HPPT-NoC: A Dark-Silicon Inspired Hierarchical TDM NoC with Efficient Power-Performance Trading

Networks-on-chip (NoCs) acquired substantial advancements as the typical solution for a modular, flexible and high performance communication infrastructure coping with the scalable Multi-/Manycores technology. However, the increasing chip complexity heading towards thousand cores, together with the approaching dark-silicon era, puts energy efficiency as an integral design key for future NoC-based multicores, where NoCs are significantly contributing to the total chip power. In this paper, we propose HPPT-NoC, a dark-silicon inspired energy-efficient hierarchical TDM NoC with online distributed setup-scheme. The proposed network makes use of the dim silicon parts of the chip to hierarchically connect quad-routers units. Normal routers operate at full-chip-frequency at high supply level, and hierarchical routers operate at half-chip-frequency and lower supply voltage with adequate synchronization. Routers follow a proposed TDM architecture that separates the datapath from the control-setup planes. This allows separate clocking and operating supplies between data and control and to keep the control-setup as a single-slot-cycle design independent of the datapath slot size. The proposed NoC architecture is evaluated versus a base NoC from the state-of-the-art in terms of performance and hardware results using Synopsys VCS and Synopsys Design Compiler for SAED90nm and SAED32nm technologies. The obtained results highlight the power-frequency-trading feature supported by the proposed hierarchical NoC through the configurable data-control clock relation and maintained over the different technology nodes. With the same power budget of the base NoC, the proposed architecture provides up to 74% setup latency enhancement, 32% increased NoC saturation load, and 21% higher success rates, offering up to 78% improved power delay product. On the other hand, with 38% power savings, the proposed NoC provides up to 37% enhanced latency and 15% higher success rates, with 72% enhanced power delay product. The proposed design consumes almost double the area of the base NoC, however with an average of 56% under-clocked (dim) silicon area operating at half to quarter the maximum chip frequency. This results in reduced power density as a main concern in the dark-silicon era down to 24% of the base NoC.

Overall supply level, not the relative supply of nitrogen and phosphorus, affects the plant community composition of a supratidal wetland in the Yellow River Delta

Human activities have altered the environmental nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) supply from both aspects of overall supply level and relative supply ratio. However, the effects of the two aspects on plant community composition are still not clear. In this study, a field manipulation experiment combining 3 overall nutrient supply levels (Low, Medium and High) and 3 N:P supply ratios (5,1, 15:1 and 45:1) was conducted in a supratidal wetland in the Yellow River Delta from 2015 to 2018. The effects of the two aspects on soil properties, performance of dominant species and plant community diversity were examined. The results showed that the N:P supply ratio and overall supply level both affected the concentration of soil inorganic N and available P, and N:P ratio significantly, while only overall supply level exerted a significant effect on the importance value of the dominant species, species richness and Shannon diversity. There were big gaps in the N and P supply amounts among the treatments that having same overall supply level with different supply ratio, but the plant composition displayed no significant difference among these treatments, which suggested that P may be also very important in affecting plant community composition in the study area. The species richness and the Shannon diversity were negatively correlated with the importance value of Suaeda glauca. With the rise of overall supply level, S. glauca became increasingly dominant and suppressed other species. Compared with the control treatment, the species richness and the Shannon diversity declined significantly only at high supply level (minimum N supply amount of 26.01 g m−2 yr−1), indicated that the supratidal wetland had high resilience to nutrient enrichment. Our results revealed that the N:P supply ratio has little influence on plant composition, compared with overall supply, in relative short-term in the supratidal wetland.

Where and how to get started with Blockchain in the supply chain : Beyond the hype, navigating the trough of disillusionment

There is a lot of excitement around Blockchain in the supply chain but, according to Gartner, we are moving beyond the peak of expectations into the trough of disillusionment. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of research to support managers navigating this stage. There is research on use case considerations1 and research that confirms that use cases can contribute to high-level supply chain objectives,2 but what is missing is research on pilot design and implementation considerations. We have been at this crossroad before, however, with other technologies in the supply chain, and lessons learned from earlier efforts to digitise the supply chain might inform decision making. This paper considers the lessons learned in three case studies of Blockchain adoption in the supply chain. Findings reveal that some lessons learned with older technologies apply to Blockchain, including the need to clean up master data and fix processes. There are also clear differences that make Blockchain different. For example, it is actually fairly inexpensive to get started with Blockchain and, provided a targeted scope, the process can move fairly quickly. Additionally, Blockchain can leverage data from existing technologies, rather than replace those technologies. This paper aims to support managerial consideration of Blockchain adoption and to extend research beyond the exploration of use cases with lessons learned about piloting and implementing Blockchain in the supply chain. We do so by extending the Verhoeven et al. framework3 for use case considerations with pilot design considerations and factors to consider when scaling from pilot to larger-scale adoption.

ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ РАЗВИТИЯ РЕГИОНАЛЬНОГО ПРОИЗВОДСТВА МАСЛОСЕМЯН ПОДСОЛНЕЧНИКА

For 2010 - 2018 the role of sunflower in the agricultural production of the region has increased significantly, due to the high payback of this crop. Against the background of expanding acreage and yield growth, there is a significant increase in gross harvest of oilseeds. However, a high level of supply slows down the growth rates of the selling price and the efficiency of the industry. As a result, it is necessary to search for reserves to increase the profitability of sunflower oil seed production in the region. In order to study the influence of a number of factors on the profitability of sunflower production, agricultural organizations of the Ulyanovsk region carried out a correlation and regression analysis. The sample was carried out on 74 organizations involved in the cultivation of sunflower. The quantitative characteristics obtained in the course of the correlation-regression study indicate a significant impact on the efficiency of the industry on the level of yield of sunflower. Thus, with an increase in crop yield by 1 centners per hectare, the profitability of production increases by 2.11 percentage points. Seed costs and selling prices have a significant impact on the growth of profitability of sunflower production. With an increase in the selling price of 1 rub. The industry’s efficiency increases by an average of 0.11 ppt. Increase in the share of seed costs in total production costs by 1 percentage point leads to an increase in the effective trait by 0.1 percentage points. The dynamic development of sunflower oil seed production in the region is possible only on the basis of the activation of innovative processes that affect the efficiency and competitiveness of the industry. A possible innovation in the development of the oilseeds production and storage system in the absence of its own modern elevator capacities is the use of prefabricated storage facilities, the system of which provides for active ventilation, air cooling, and product quality control.

Reduction in cadmium accumulation in japonica rice grains by CRISPR/Cas9-mediated editing of OsNRAMP5

Cadmium (Cd) intake is harmful to human health and Cd contamination in rice grains represents a severe threat to those consuming rice as a staple food. Knockout of Cd transporters is a promising strategy to reduce Cd accumulation in rice grains. OsNRAMP5 is the major transporter for Cd and manganese (Mn) uptake in rice. Nevertheless, it is uncertain whether knockout of OsNRAMP5 is applicable to produce low Cd rice without affecting plant growth and grain yield. In this study, we adopted CRISPR/Cas9-based gene editing technology to knock out OsNRAMP5 in two japonica varieties. We generated three independent transgene-free osnramp5 mutants and investigated the effect of osnramp5 mutations on Cd accumulation and plant growth. Hydroponic experiments showed that plant growth and chlorophyll content were significantly reduced in osnramp5 mutants at low Mn conditions, and this defective growth in the mutants could be fully rescued by supply of high levels of Mn. Cd and Mn accumulation in both roots and shoots was markedly reduced in the mutants compared to that in wild-type plants. In paddy field experiments, although Cd in flag leaves and grains was greatly reduced in osnramp5 mutants, some agronomic traits including plant height, seed setting rate, and grain number per panicle were affected in the mutants, which ultimately caused a mild reduction in grain yield. The reduced plant growth in the mutants can be attributed to a marked decrease in Mn accumulation. Our results reveal that the manipulation of OsNRAMP5 should be treated with caution: When assessing the applicability of osnramp5 mutants, soil pH and soil water content in paddy fields need to be taken into consideration, since they might affect the levels of available Mn in the soil and consequently determine the effect of the mutation on grain yield.