International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / The White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) Water Supply Control System (WSCS) controls and monitors the water wells, tanks and booster pumps located at the southern end of the missile range. Figure 1 is an overview of the WSMR water supply system. The WSCS provides water for approximately 90 square miles of the 3,700 square mile missile range. The WSCS was designed and installed in 1990 and in need of upgrading and repair. The system was evaluated and found to be only moderately functional. The WSCS consists of an IBM compatible personal computer (PC) based user interface, located at the WSMR Water Plant and Fire Dept. and industrial-type computers called Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) based stations at the Water Plant, water wells and tanks. The stations communicate over a 400 MHz radio half-duplex link. The serial message utilizes the Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) and Block Check Character (BBC) type of error checking. The Master station controls pumping by downloading pump settings to the slave stations. The slave stations upload data to the master such as tank level, pump status, energy usage, gallons of water pumped and various alarms. The system was analyzed and the design was found to be sound. The system did require improvements. These improvements include adding surge suppressors, software upgrades, absolute reading flow rate sensors, and providing adequate environmental cooling for the control system. Procedures for periodic maintenance and calibration of the sensors and schedules for radio equipment maintenance were also developed. Software modifications to reduce WSMR energy usage by reducing pumping during peak energy demand times are being integrated into the WSCS. The peak energy demand times are determined by historical energy usage data.

Thesis (MScAgric (Agricultural Economics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Regional food security is considered one of the major challenges for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. SADC is one of the regions in the world currently facing widespread transitory and chronic food insecurity (malnutrition), as well as persistent threats of acute food insecurity (famine). The objective of this thesis, therefore, was to investigate and assess the prevailing causes of food insecurity in Southern Africa. The research revealed that transitory and chronic food insecurity (malnutrition) in the SADC region exists due to the problems experienced with both the supply and demand sides of the food security equation. However, though SADC has made limited attempts to tackle the problem of food insecurity in the region, the Community did not appear to learn from the 1991/92 food insecurity crisis when it recurred in 2001/02. This study consequently recommends that further investigations take place into the primary data available in an attempt to address various issues relating to the causes of food insecurity in Southern Africa in order to ensure long-term food security. Such issues include the following: mobilising agriculture to increase food production rapidly enough to meet the needs of the growing population of the region; bridging the prevailing gap between the public actors, on the one side, and the private and informal actors, on the other, in order to deliver effective food security services to the needy in the region; the designing of well-targeted food pricing policies as an interim compromise between the social concerns relating to high and volatile food prices and long-term economic growth and food security in the region; and the identification of the role of women as food producers and agents of food security in the region. On the supply side, the main food availability problems in the region lie on the agricultural level. Low productivity and frequent disasters have been of a cyclic nature in SADC, leading to additional difficulties with supplies. Such difficulties have been compounded by the inadequate political support of the sector; a lack of investment therein; the instability of the world market; and an increasingly unfair trade environment. Other major dimensions of the problem include: the imposition of trade barriers, such as tariff, non-tariff and technical barriers, particularly the complex and confusing tariff structure imposed by the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) countries against other non-SACU SADC countries; the high cost of transport, especially in landlocked countries, which has come about as a result of the weakening of the capacity and efficiency of the transport system in the region, due to a lack of investment in, as well as the poor performance of, the transport sector. A lack of a diversified production structure in the SADC region was cited as the main obstacle to the successful trade integration and economic development of the region. Looking at the demand side, the main food access problems in the region consisted of a lack of food entitlement (poverty) due to the weak economic growth resulting from unsuccessful macroeconomic policies; a poor balance of payments situation; highly skewed patterns of income and wealth distribution, resulting from maladministration due to short-sighted past colonial policies; high levels of unemployment and land tenure insecurity; the failure of governance, both as regards a lack of accountability and opposition to democratisation; and financial mismanagement. Rapid population growth in the region resulted in an escalation in the demand for agricultural products, in particular foodstuffs, and the reduced availability of arable land. The widespread preponderance of Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) infection was complicating the task of fighting hunger and undermining any attempts to strengthen the livelihoods of the poor by depleting the adult agricultural labour potential in Southern Africa. A lack of financial resources and institutional capacity (in the form of policy gaps) were the main constraints to the implementation of successful poverty and food insecurity alleviation programmes in the region, as comprehensive government intervention aimed at maintaining food security in the region for most Southern Africans was unfeasible in the near future. The research was conducted using the qualitative method of literature study, which proved a useful descriptive and analytical framework for revealing significant causes of food insecurity prevailing both in individual, households and at national levels in the SADC region. The study focused mainly on the availability, and the ability to acquire, food, in an attempt to see how balance could be achieved between the supply and demand sides of the food security equation by means of relevant investigations. Documentary data were consulted in investigating the problem, in the light of the fact that publications, such as books, academic journals and documents, illustrate the problem most clearly. In the planning of policy interventions, food insecurity in Southern Africa appears open to improvement in the long term only if the actual income of households is increased, so that they can afford to obtain enough food. Such improvement can take place in two ways: Firstly, by giving the people who face transitory and chronic food insecurity the opportunity to earn enough to ensure that they can maintain an adequate food supply through domestic production, by improving agricultural yield, and hence ensuring food security, at household level, and secondly, by means of the facilitation of trade (in the form of food imports), by eliminating tariff, non-tariff and technical barriers, and investing in the development of the transport infrastructure in the SADC region.

<p><strong>Authors:</strong></p><p>Waqas Mehmood, Yasir Liaqat, Nauman Iftikhar, Raza Syed Hassan</p><p><strong>Tutor:</strong></p><p>Petra Andersson</p><p><strong>Examiner:</strong></p><p>Helena Forslund</p><p><strong>Title:</strong></p><p>Managing Supply Chain Risks in Fresh Food Items – a case study on Makro-Habib Pakistan Limited – a wholesales chain in Pakistan</p><p><strong>Background:</strong></p><p>In today’s era, businesses are facing various types of risks which can be legal/political, social, operational/technical, natural and economic in nature. For this purpose, companies need to have effective risk management process to mitigate these risks. Especially companies like Makro-Habib who heavily rely on effective and efficient supply chain can gain competitive advantage if they manage the risks within their supply chain network.</p><p><strong>Research Questions:</strong></p><p>RQ-1: What are the most significant supply chain risks in fresh food items at Makro-Habib?</p><p>RQ-2: How can significant supply chain risks in fresh food items of Makro-Habib be mitigated through proposed action plan?</p><p><strong>Purpose:</strong></p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the knowledge on how to manage risks in the fresh food supply chain</p><p><strong>Method:</strong></p><p>The empirical data and the conclusions which are drawn from it are based on qualitative facts that are gathered through interviews and questionnaires. The results/conclusions drawn from responses of the interviews of fresh food section heads of Makro-Habib and the literature. This thesis is written from a positivistic perspective with a deductive approach.</p><p><strong>Conclusion:</strong></p><p>Various risk mitigation strategies at strategic, operational and visibility level are suggested like coordination, information sharing, training, monitoring to counter the most significant fresh food supply chain risks which are wrong ordering, contamination of products and FIFO (loose practice).</p>

In an effort to determine empirical cost functions for municipal water supplies in the United States, the writer found it necessary to specify an acceptable mathematical form to represent the cost equation. A preliminary search yielded no theoretically consistent expression adaptable to the problem. The primary concern in the studstimay thus became one of identifying theoretically sound statistical etion procedures for interrelated long- and short-run cost functions. Criteria were established to recognize a mathematical form qualified to function as a generalized cost equation. The prescribed path wound its way through a traditional overview of economic production functions, cost theory literature, and curve estimation procedures; then it moved into a comprehensive review of empirical cost studies. This empirical section first identified studies of short-run cost relationships and gave examples of declining, constant, and increasing marginal costs. Theoretical literature, addressing possible reasons for these diverse shapes, was then cited. The same format was maintained for long-run studies reporting diverse shapes. Theoretical explanations followed. The last part of the literature review inspected the explicit model structure of those studies combining long- and short-run cost curves. When no econometric model was found in the literature which satisfied the pre-specified criteria for a generalized cost equation, the study assumed the task of developing such a framework. The resulting econometric structure exhibited the following properties: (1) The adopted equation generates both long- and short-run cost curves. (2) Two cost groups are retained in both the long- and short-run—costs which vary proportionately with output (i.e., operating costs), and costs which are independent of output (i.e., plant costs). (3) Plant capacity is strictly defined, and all short-run production of a plant is constrained to a quantity not to exceed that capacity. (4) Operating cost is a function of production and plant utilization while plant cost is a function of plant capacity. Once the general econometric structure was developed it was then adapted to an empirical study of the cost for supplying water to municipalities. A survey of operating data for water utilities, collected by the American Water Works Association for the year 1965, was used as the principal data source for the application. Other independent variables, considered potentially important in determining cost, were evaluated and added to or omitted from the model. These characteristics included alternative treatments, types of customers, sources of water, city density, etc.. The resulting regression equations indicated the following industry structure: (1) Although the major portion of the industry is facing economies-to- scale, the long-run cost curve turns distinctly upward for large water suppliers. (2) Over 95 per cent of the plants face downward sloping short-run average cost curves. (3) With the available data no statistical evidence could be found to indicate a plant's operating cost is affected by the level of plant utilization. The municipal water example was used to demonstrate the versatility of the generalized cost function in accommodating cost studies and hypothesis testing. The author therefore asserts that the econometric structure developed in this study is qualified to fulfill the pre-selected requirements of a theoretically sound statistical estimation procedure for interrelating long- and short-run cost functions. / Graduation date: 1978

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I explore whether inter-firm linkages affect firms' credit risk. After controlling for the endogeneity between a firm's credit risk and its dependence on customers and suppliers, I find that supply-chain relationships affect firms' credit risk. My results indicate firms with exposure to major customers have lower ratings, and the level of firm dependence on major customers is negatively associated with firms' credit ratings. Further, I show when a firm's customers also depend on it, this mitigates the negative effect of dependence on credit risk. Finally, I document a negative association between a customer's reliance on its dependent suppliers and the customer's credit rating. Overall, my results provide insights regarding how inter-firm relationships between corporate customers and suppliers affect credit risk.

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