High soil salinity is a serious problem for crop production because most of the cultivated plants are salt sensitive, which is also the case for the globally important crop plant maize. Salinity stress leads to secondary oxidative stress in plants and a correlation between antioxidant capacity and salt tolerance has been demonstrated in several plant species. The plant antioxidant capacity may ...

This paper describes the development of a hierarchical planning and scheduling system for a multiple plant, multiple product, seasonal demand situation. In this hierarchical structure, optimal decisions at an aggregate level (planning) provide constraints for detailed decision making (scheduling). Four levels of decision making are used: first, products are assigned to plants (using mixed-integ...

In this paper, an existing model of a multi-period nonlinear bilevel model of an aluminium smelter which allows for the transfer of stocks of raw materials throughout the planning period is extended to allow for the inter-temporal transfer of capacity. The situation arises in reality where a part of the smelter is closed for scheduled maintenance and in order to adhere to the prime directive of...

In recent years there has been significant interest in harvesting renewable fuels and value-added chemicals from plant feedstocks, especially from perennial grasses such as Arundo donax L. [1, 2, 3]. Some reasons why perennial grasses are desirable as next-generation bioenergy feedstock are: (i) their low soil management requirements and growth on marginal land; (ii) their ability to prevent so...