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Comparison of the performance of a trained and an untrained sensory panel on sweetcorn varieties with the panelcheck software
77-83Views:713In this paper the results of trained and untrained sensory panels are compared on five Hungarian commercial sweet corn samples. The two evaluations were carried out in a sensory laboratory (ISO 6658:2005), with the same experimental design, with two replicates, and the panels consisted of 10 panelists. In both cases the panels assembled the profiles of the samples according to the vocabulary chosen by the trained panelists. The results show that the untrained panel has higher standard deviation, weaker repeatability and less significant parameters (ISO/DIS 11132). However 10 of the 17 sensory attributes were significant in the case of the untrained panel, the trained panel has 15 significant parameters with lower standard deviation and good repeatability. During the statistical investigation we focused on the panel performance and used the PanelCheck open source software package to achieve this goal. We followed the workflow suggested by the researchers of the Nofima, the developers of the PanelCheck. According to the examined parameters the trained panel has better discrimination ability (F values) for attributes ’yellow color’, ’hue’, roughness’, ’freshness’, ’juiciness’, ’tenderness’. There was not an attribute evaluated by the untrained panel where all the panel members reached the line representing the 5% significance level. Furthermore the trained panel has better agreement between its assessors (Tucker-1 plots) and the repeatability is much better according to the MSE plots. This examination confirms that it is necessary to train the panels in order to get reliable and consistent results.
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Diversification strategies and their impact on farm performance
57-61Views:166The objective of this study is to identify factors determining the economic performance of agricultural holdings in Italy, with specific attention to the impact of the adoption of on-farm diversification strategies, namely income diversification and product differentiation. The adoption of these kinds of strategies has been increasingly recognised as a viable business option in agriculture as they allow better allocation of farm resources and an increase in the quota of value added retained on farms and therefore not passed on to other agents operating at the end of the food supply chain. By using a panel of professional Italian farms over the time period of 2003-2009, we estimate random effect, ordinary least square and quantile regression models to estimate the impact of income diversification and product differentiation strategies on the levels of farm income per unit of labour income. Our findings show that scale economies are important positive determinants of farm economic performance. On the contrary, when the family play an important role in the farm business, economic performance is worse. Finally, we do not find evidence of a statistically significant impact of the adoption of income diversification and product differentiation strategies. This latter result may be interpreted as a signal that farms use these strategies as risk management tools rather than as income increasing ones.
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Determinants of dividend payout policy: An empirical study of banking sector of Pakistan
101-106Views:505One good way to communicate financial performance of a bank to its shareholders is the payment of dividend. The present study is attempted to explore the influence of financial efficiency, safety, risk and profitability on dividend policy using panel data of 10 commercial banks listed at Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) for a period of 9 years between 2006 to 2014. The panel regression technique is used to analyze the data. The analysis shows a positive relationship of dividend payout ratio with safety and profitability in banking sector of Pakistan. The study identifies a negative association of dividend payout measure with financial efficiency and risk. The results show the statistically significant association of safety, risk and profitability with dividend payout ratio. Based on these findings it is concluded that safety, risk and profitability measures are relatively strong measures for defining dividend policy. The results are strongly indicating that safer the banks, the greater payout ratio the bank has. Moreover; banks with higher profitability and lower non-performing loans (NPLs) are believed to pay more dividends.
JEL code: G21, G23, G35
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Carbon dioxide emission trends and environmental problems in Central Europe
Views:274In this research, the effect of CO2 emission was measured in two different land-use types (Crop and Grassland) in Central European and V4 countries. The primary aim of this study is to identify the significant output of CO2 emissions from cropland and grassland. Secondary data collected from FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) between 2010 and 2017. Mann-Whitney U test and odds ratio used to study the differences between the two country groups, and Principal Component Analysis was applied to create a performance map regarding the emission. A General Additive Panel model has analyzed the influence of area sizes and the regional differences on emissions. Results showed that the effect of grassland size is the primary factor in CO2 emission. A significant difference can only be found between CEU and V4 countries regarding grassland size effect on CO2 emission under grassland, which was rather small in the case of the V4 group but explained a larger part of the variance the of CEU countries. The odds of having higher CO2 from cropland to grassland was 2.43 times in the case of V4 compared to CEU countries.
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