The Role of Philippine Local Traders in the Domestic and International Market for Quality Seaweeds

Earl Joanne Santos-Ramirez,Paul Joseph B. Ramirez,Orelie B. Delas Alas,Carlos L. Magnaye 한국무역학회 2019 한국무역학회 국제학술대회 Vol.2019 No.08

This paper highlights the important role of traders in the seaweeds value chain in the Philippines. Using rapid appraisal and value chain approaches, the study analyzed the contribution of traders in terms of their value additions and essential activities necessary to bring quality raw dried seaweeds and semi-refined carrageenan to final markets. In the two cases studied, results showed that, on a per kilogram basis, the barangay and large/provincial traders received the least share among value chain players but are compensated commensurately. For both established and emerging seaweeds value chain areas examined, the role of the traders in linking up players and matching the supply and demand by effectively consolidating to meet volume and quality requirements and ensuring competitive prices was found indispensable.

Opportunities for Improving Value in Global Seaweed Products Trade: A Value Chain Analysis for Seaweeds in the Philippines

Paul Joseph B. Ramirez,Earl Joanne Santos-Ramirez,Orelie B. Delas Alas,Carlos L. Magnaye 한국무역학회 2019 한국무역학회 국제학술대회 Vol.2019 No.08

The paper focused on identifying potential upgrading solutions along the seaweeds value chain in the Philippines. Using rapid appraisal and value chain approaches, the study revealed that the seaweeds industry is performing relatively well but there is still room for improvement. Based on two sets of value chain cases analyzed, the industry can capture greater value and revenues by transforming raw dried seaweeds to carrageenan rather than selling the former outright to other countries. The estimated value added in the two cases displayed that the processors in both scenarios receive much better gains, triple at the least of the raw dried seaweed exporters. This can also improve utilization of existing seaweeds processing plants and support the employment of local workers. Apart from the fact that the country has a competitive advantage in producing quality carrageenan, it will save the carrageenan plants from sourcing out their raw dried seaweeds inputs from its competitor countries that would also have impact on the bottom lines of the industry.

Distribution of Public Service and Individual Job Performance in Peruvian Municipality

Ramirez-ASIS, Edwin,Huerta-SOTO, Rosario,Nivin-VARGAS, Laura,Huaranga-TOLEDO, Hober,Valera-AREDO, Julio,Flores-LEIVA, Victor Korea Distribution Science Association 2022 유통과학연구 Vol.20 No.10

Purpose: This research aims to find the link between public service Distribution and individual job performance in the provincial municipality. Research design, data, and methodology: This is a quantitative approach study with a non-experimental and correlational design. The sample consisted of 140 employees appointed and hired by the provincial municipality of Huaraz. For data collection, Two questionnaires with an ordinal Likert-type scale and the Rho Spearman correlation coefficient were used to assess the link between the research variables., For Analysis: two questionnaires with an ordinal Likert-type scale and the Rho Spearman correlation coefficient were used to determine the connection between the research variables. Results: It was determined that both variables have a high degree of correlation (0.725), indicating a direct and significant relationship between the Distribution of public service and skill performance in the provincial municipality (0.614). Conclusion: Finally, this allows us to conclude that the institutional context is essential; that is, there is a significant correlation between the PSM and contextual performance in the provincial municipality of Huaraz, which has a Rho Spearman value of 0.723.

Giant Lipoma of the Breast

Ramirez-Montano, Luis,Vargas-Tellez, Erik,Dajer-Fadel, Walid L.,Maceda, Silvia Espinosa Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surge 2013 Archives of Plastic Surgery Vol.40 No.3

Lipomas are benign mesenchymal tumors that develop in areas of abundant adipose tissue. Due to the fatty composition of the breast, difficulties in diagnosis, treatment, and reconstruction are often encountered. We report a case of a 55-year-old female with a giant tumor of the right breast that comprised most of its mass, causing breast asymmetry. A thorough preoperative evaluation, followed by an uneventful difficult surgical resection and reconstruction, resulted in diagnosis of a benign lipoma. The case prompted this report because of its challenging size, location, diagnosis, and reconstructive solution.

A Novel Parameter-independent Fictive-axis Approach for the Voltage Oriented Control of Single-phase Inverters

Ramirez, Fernando Arturo,Arjona, Marco A.,Hernandez, Concepcion The Korean Institute of Power Electronics 2017 JOURNAL OF POWER ELECTRONICS Vol.17 No.2

This paper presents a novel Parameter-Independent Fictive-Axis (PIFA) approach for the Voltage-Oriented Control (VOC) algorithm used in grid-tied single-phase inverters. VOC is based on the transformation of the single-phase grid current into the synchronous reference frame. As a result, an orthogonal current signal is needed. Traditionally, this signal has been obtained from fixed time delays, digital filters or a Hilbert transformation. Nevertheless, these solutions present stability and transient drawbacks. Recently, the Fictive Axis Emulation (FAE) VOC has emerged as an alternative for the generation of the quadrature current signal. FAE requires detailed information of the grid current filter along with its transfer function for signal creation. When the transfer function is not accurate, the direct and quadrature current components present steady-state oscillations as the fictive two-phase system becomes unbalanced. Moreover, the digital implementation of the transfer function imposes an additional computing burden on the VOC. The PIFA VOC presented in this paper, takes advantage of the reference current to create the required orthogonal current, which effectively eliminates the need for the filter transfer function. Moreover, the fictive signal amplitude and phase do not change with a frequency drift, which results in an increased reliability. This yields a fast, linear and stable system that can be installed without fine tuning. To demonstrate the good performance of the PIFA VOC, simulation and experimental results are presented.

MINERAL CONCENTRATION IN RICE STRAW AND SOIL IN KYONGBUK PROVINCE, KOREA

Ramirez, C.E.,Kumagai, H.,Hosoi, E.,Yano, F.,Yano, H.,Jung, K.K.,Kim, S.W. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 1994 Animal Bioscience Vol.7 No.1

A field survey was carried out in Korea to assess the mineral composition of rice straw since it is a cheap and available cattle feedstuff. Forage and soil samples were collected in 4 localities in the Kyongbuk province. Soil analysis were also carried out in order to establish the relationships between soil composition and mineral content in the rice straw. Based on NRC tables, the rice straw samples provided adequate amounts of Mg, Ca, K, S, Mo, Mn and Zn. Percentages of samples deficient in P, Na, Cu and Se were 83, 50, 67 and 83 respectively. Soil samples, whose mean pH was 5.8 and mean organic matter content was 3.99%, were comparatively acidic and had high organic matter content. They also had high amounts of extractable Fe and Mn. Correlation coefficients between mineral content in soil and rice straw were low, i.e., 0.42 for Me (p < 0.05), and 0.37 for Mo (p < 0.05). The low or nonexistent correlation between soil and forage composition indicates the difficulty of establishing appropriate methods of mineral availability to the plants.

Background Modeling Through Statistical Edge-Segment Distributions

Ramirez Rivera, Adin,Murshed, Mahbub,Jaemyun Kim,Oksam Chae IEEE 2013 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS FOR VIDE Vol.23 No.8

<P>Background modeling is challenging due to background dynamism. Most background modeling methods fail in the presence of intensity changes, because the model cannot handle sudden changes. A solution to this problem is to use intensity-robust features. Despite the changes of an edge's shape and position among frames, edges are less sensitive than a pixel's intensity to illumination changes. Furthermore, background models in the presence of moving objects produce ghosts in the detected output, because high quality models require ideal backgrounds. In this paper, we propose a robust statistical edge-segment-based method for background modeling of non-ideal sequences. The proposed method learns the structure of the scene using the edges' behaviors through the use of kernel-density distributions. Moreover, it uses segment features to overcome the shape and position variations of the edges. Hence, the use of segments gives us local information of the scene, and that helps us to predict the objects and background precisely. Furthermore, we accumulate segments to build edge distributions, which allow us to perform unconstrained training and to overcome the ghost effect. In addition, the proposed method uses adaptive thresholding (in the segments) to detect the moving objects. Therefore, this approach increases the accuracy over previous methods, which use fixed thresholds.</P>

An Improved SVPWM Control of Voltage Imbalance in Capacitors of a Single-Phase Multilevel Inverter

Ramirez, Fernando Arturo,Arjona, Marco A. The Korean Institute of Power Electronics 2015 JOURNAL OF POWER ELECTRONICS Vol.15 No.5

This paper presents a modified Space Vector Pulse Width Modulation Technique (SVPWM), which solves the well-known problem of voltage imbalance in the capacitors of a single-phase multilevel inverter. The proposed solution is based on the measurement of DC voltage levels at each capacitor of the inverter DC bus. The measurements are then used to adjust the size of the active vectors within the SVPWM algorithm to keep the voltage waveform sinusoidal regardless of any voltage imbalance on the DC link capacitors. When a voltage deviation exceeds a predetermined hysteresis band, the correspondent voltage vector is restricted to restore the voltage level to an acceptable threshold. Hence, the need for external voltage regulators for the voltage capacitors is eliminated. The functionality of the proposed algorithm is successfully demonstrated through simulations and experiments on a grid tied application.

COLOGNE BRAND PREFERENCES OF TEENAGERS IN THE PHILIPPINES: MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

Ramirez, Roderick V.,Madamba, Jeanette Angeline B.,Tan, Reynaldo L. KNU The Institute of Management Economy Research 2015 Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Vol.6 No.2

Studies focusing on the constantly changing buying behavior and product preferences of a booming teen market are rare and this is particularly true in the Philippines. To address this gap in the literature, this study focused on the supermarket brands of cologne preferred by teens in the Philippines such as Lewis & Pearl (L&P), Johnson's Baby Cologne, Juicy, Bench, Ellips, Fiona, Bambini and Baby Flo which are manufactured by various competing companies. Essentially, this study presented and described the profile and buying behavior of cologne users and non-cologne users and determined whether preferential differences existed between these brands. The respondents consisted of 473 teens all over the Philippines stratified in terms of general location via the three major groups of islands in the Philippines: Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. Respondents came from selected schools in Quezon City in Metro Manila, Sariaya in Quezon Province, Cebu City, and Digos City to represent the Greater Metro Manila Area, Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, respectively. Findings showed that almost all of the respondents used cologne at varying degrees. In general, teens use several scents and brands of cologne and continually shift from one scent/brand to another scent/brand. This made it difficult for any company to capture loyal consumers. The most popular brands used by teenagers were Bench (61.7%), Lewis and Pearl (59%), Juicy (42%), Afficionado (32%), Fiona (19.3%), Penshoppe (18%), Bambini (12.6%), Ellips (11.3%) and Zen Zest (7.5%). Fragrance or scent is the top priority of teenagers in choosing a cologne brand, followed by brand name, affordability, bottle design and endorser. The spray bottle type of colognes is preferred even if cologne spray bottles are priced higher than the splash cologne bottle type. Managerial implications of these findings for market players, marketing scholars and prospective investors are presented.

중남미 소설에 나타난 독재자 연구

Ramirez R., A. Eduardo 한국외국어대학교 1994 한국외국어대학교 논문집 Vol.27 No.1