Energy consumption, economics, and environmental impacts of canola production were assessed using... more Energy consumption, economics, and environmental impacts of canola production were assessed using a combined technique involving an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and a multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA). Data were collected from canola farming enterprises in the Mazandaran province of Iran and were used to test the application of the combined modeling algorithms. Life cycle assessment (LCA) for one ha functional unit of canola production from cradle to farm gate was conducted in order to evaluate the impacts of energy, materials used, and their environmental emissions. MOGA was applied to maximize the output energy and benefit-cost ratio, and to minimize environmental emissions. The combined ANFIS–MOGA technique resulted in a 6.2% increase in energy output, a 144% rise in the benefit-cost ratio, and a 19.8% reduction in environmental emissions from the current canola production system in the studied region. A comparison of ANFIS–MOGA with the data envelopment a...
This paper peresents a mathematical model for the thin layer drying of the Viliamz cultivar of so... more This paper peresents a mathematical model for the thin layer drying of the Viliamz cultivar of soybean. The thin layer drying behaviour of soybean was experimentally investigated and the mathematical modelling performed by using thin layer drying models provided in the literature. Experiments were conducted at inlet drying air temperatures of 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70ºC and at a fixed drying air velocity of 1 m s-1. Thirteen different thin layer mathematical drying models were compared according to their r values, RMSE, χ χ χ χ 2 and EF by non-linear regression analysis. The effect of drying air temperature on the model constants and coefficients was predicted using multiple regression analysis. According to the results, the Midilli et al. model was found to be the best mathematical equation for modelling thin layer drying of soybean.
Drying is an important operational step in pistachio processing. There is a decrease in moisture ... more Drying is an important operational step in pistachio processing. There is a decrease in moisture content of pistachio nuts from 56-57% (d.b.) to 5-6% during the drying process. Drying conditions affect the quality of dried pistachio nuts, therefore, this calls for an accurate description of the drying trend in the process. In this study finite element formulation and solution of diffusive moisture transfer equation was presented to improve the drying simulation of nut as an axisymmetric body. The Fick's diffusive model was solved with effective moisture diffusivity of 5.24×10-10 m 2 s-1 for 55° ° ° °C and 7.01×10-10 m 2 s-1 for 70° ° ° °C. For experimentation, thin layers of pistachio nut, 'Ohadi' variety, were dried at high drying air temperatures (55 and 70°C), three replications for each treatment, along with drying air velocity and relative humidity of 0.5 m s-1 and 20%, respectively. Good agreement was observed when the output of model was compared with the experime...
Mass is often required for designing of postharvest equipment of agricultural products. Grading o... more Mass is often required for designing of postharvest equipment of agricultural products. Grading of fruit based on its weight is important and in nearly all cases of agricultural products grading is based on weight. In this study, mass of date (cv. Zahedi) was predicted by applying different physical characteristics with three different linear classifications as: (1) Single or multiple variable regressions of date dimensional characteristics, (2) Single or multiple variable regressions based on projected areas, (3) Estimating mass based on measured (actual) volume and volumes of assumed shapes (oblate spheroid and ellipsoid). In the first classification of mass modeling, the highest determining coefficient was obtained as R =0.70 based on length with a relation as 2 M = 0.3783L-5.8761. It was found that among systems that sort dates based on one dimension, the system that applies its length is better suited. The best determining coefficients for single and multiple variable regressio...
The aim of this study was to determine energy consumption and the relationship between energy inp... more The aim of this study was to determine energy consumption and the relationship between energy input and output in peanut production. Also, the sensitivity of energy inputs and cost inputs were estimated using the marginal physical productivity (MPP) method and partial regression coefficients on peanut yield. Data used in this study were obtained from 120 randomly selected peanut farms using a face to face survey. The average energy consumption and yield were calculated as 19248.04 MJ ha -1 and 3488.39 kg ha -1 , respectively. The results revealed that chemical fertilizer and diesel fuel were the main energy consuming inputs. The energy used efficiency ratio, energy productivity and net energy were found as 4.53, 0.18 and 67937.21 MJ ha -1 , respectively. Econometric assessment results revealed that the energy inputs of human labor, machinery and seed had significant influence on the yield. The results of sensitivity analysis of the energy inputs showed that the MPP value of seed was...
Terminal velocity of fruits in water is a means of hydro-sorting of them. In this study, the term... more Terminal velocity of fruits in water is a means of hydro-sorting of them. In this study, the terminal velocity of fruits in water was theoretically formulated and then determined experimentally using water column. Some effective characters of two varieties of apple and Hayward kiwi fruit on terminal velocity were determined using standard methods. The effective of fore fruit characteristics on terminal velocity was investigated. The best models for terminal velocity of studied fruits were obtained using SPSS, 13, software. It was concluded that on online sorting systems; terminal velocity has potential to remove poor quality fruit from fruits.
Physical properties are often required for designing post harvest handling/processing equipment f... more Physical properties are often required for designing post harvest handling/processing equipment for agricultural products. Bergamot is a species of citrus fruit. Physical properties of bergamot are necessary for equipment used in activities such as transportation, storage, grading, packing, and in food production processes like drying, jam production and so on. In this study some physical properties of bergamot were determined. Properties which were measured included fruit dimensions, mass, volume, projected area, fruit density, shell ratio, geometric mean diameter, sphericity and surface area. Bulk density, porosity and also packing coefficient were measured for three groups of small, medium and large category of bergamots. Experiments were carried out at moisture content of 84.9% w.b. for bergamot shell and 87.34% w.b. for its meat. Result showed that average mass and volume were 291.9 g and 456.83 cm 3 , respectively. Dimensions increased from 78.7 to 160 mm in length, 64.2 to 12...
b s t r a c t. Orange is among the popular fruits and of a high economical value. Sizing and grad... more b s t r a c t. Orange is among the popular fruits and of a high economical value. Sizing and grading of orange is needed for the fruit to be presented to local and foreign markets. A study of orange physical properties is therefore indispensable. Some physical properties of grade one (large), two (medium) and three (small) oranges were investigated. These properties included: dimensions, mass, volume, surface area, porosity and coefficient of static friction. The major, intermediate and minor diameters of the grade two orange were 84.1, 77.4 and 75.5 mm, respectively. Volume and mass of the grade two orange were 217.8 cm 3 and 215.4 g, respectively. As for grade two orange piles, the bulk density and fruit density were respectively calculated as 0.44 and 1.03 g cm-3. Porosity of grade one, two and three oranges was 44.64, 49.39 and 51.2%, with their sphericity being 0.948, 0.931 and 0.923, respectively. The static angle of friction of grade two orange on galvanized, glass and plywoo...
This study applies a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to analyze the technical and scale ... more This study applies a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to analyze the technical and scale efficiencies of farmers with respect to energy use for oilseed sunflower production in Golestan province, Iran. This study also helps to segregate the efficient and inefficient farmers, identify the wasteful usage of energy by inefficient farmers and to suggest reasonable saving of energy. The results revealed that total operational energy of 6771.1 MJ ha was consumed for sunflower production and the irrigation operations had the highest share. About 64% of farmers were technically efficient and the mean efficiency of farmers was found to be 0.85 and 0.94 under constant and variable returns to scale assumptions, respectively. The results also revealed that, by raising the performance of inefficient farmers to the highest level, on average, about 9.3% of total operational input energy could be saved. Moreover, energy saving from irrigation operation had the highest share (76.9%). From thi...
This research evaluates and estimates biogas (methane) production potential from cow manure throu... more This research evaluates and estimates biogas (methane) production potential from cow manure through anaerobic digestion processes in some dairy farms of Iran. The gas can be used to produce electricity, to heat water for farm use, or for other business ventures that use energy. By measuring the manure production in each dairy farm and the electricity use, the biogas production and consequently the electricity generating potential was assessed. Few previous researches and projects have been carried out on this subject. As the result of this study, there is the potential of 15190.3 m 3 day -1 biogas production which is equal to 7595.15 m 3 day -1 methane (CH 4 ) gas in the region for 47 dairy farms with 11862 head cows. This amount of biogas has the potential to generate electricity as 77428.3 kWh day -1 , which is more than the total electricity requirements of the target dairy farms. Based on the results and the environmental benefits of utilizing biogas, educating farmers through e...
In this research work, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is broadly connected in assessing the prod... more In this research work, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is broadly connected in assessing the productivity of banks since it may be a strategy able of assessing the proficiency of choice making units in utilizing different inputs to deliver numerous yields. Be that as it may, a few yields of banks, in truth, have Fuzzy property, whereas ordinary DEA approach can as it were evaluate productivity with a fresh esteem and is incapable to assess loose information. Hypothetically, the Fuzzy Data Envelopment Analysis (FDEA) approach can assess banks' productivity more reasonable and exact since it can take the fuzzy property of inputs and/or yields into thought. The comes about appear that the FDEA approach could not as it were successfully differentiate instability, but too may have a better capability to segregate banks' effectiveness than the ordinary DEA method.
Abstract In this study energy and economic analyses and environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)... more Abstract In this study energy and economic analyses and environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of canola production in Mazandaran province of Iran were conducted and then an intelligent system of three level Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) was implemented to predict three mentioned indices based on energy consumption from different inputs. The functional unit was considered to be one hectare of canola production. Energy use efficiency and energy productivity were found to be 3.73 and 0.14 kg MJ −1 , respectively. The LCA results indicated that total emissions of canola production was 2488.72 pPt ha −1 , from which off-farm emissions and on-farm emissions contributed as 1780.43 and 708.29 pPt ha −1 , respectively. Emissions due to production and application of chemical fertilizers, especially nitrogen, had the pivotal role on environmental burdens. Coefficients of determination for predicting output energy, benefit to cost ratio and environmental emissions final score (EEFS) were estimated to be 0.90, 0.87 and 0.92, respectively. It is concluded that chemical fertilizer is one of the main energy consuming inputs and emission sources, in particular, for impact categories of global warming, acidification and eutrophication. Optimization of fertilizer application in canola production in the region is generally beneficial from energy, economic and environmental points of view. It is proposed that implementation of multi-level ANFIS is a useful tool in helping to predict the energy, economic and environmental indices of agricultural production systems.
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
PurposeDiminishing fossil resources and environmental concerns associated with their vast utiliza... more PurposeDiminishing fossil resources and environmental concerns associated with their vast utilization have been in focus by energy policy makers and researchers. Among the different scenarios put forth to commercialize biofuels, various biorefinery concepts have aroused global interests because of their ability in converting biomass into a spectrum of marketable products and bioenergies. This study was aimed at developing different novel castor-based biorefinery scenarios for generating biodiesel and other co-products, i.e., ethanol and biogas. In these scenarios, glycerin, heat, and electricity were also considered as byproducts. Developed scenarios were also compared with a fossil reference system delivering the same amount of energy through the combustion of neat diesel.Materials and methodsLife cycle assessment (LCA) was used to investigate the environmental consequences of castor biodiesel production and consumption with a biorefinery approach. All the input and output flows from the cultivation stage to the combustion in diesel engines as well as changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) were taken into account. Impact 2002+ method was used to quantify the environmental consequences.Results and discussionThe LCA results demonstrated that in comparison with the fossil reference system, only one scenario (i.e., Sc-3 with co-production of significant amounts of biodiesel and biomethane) had 16% lower GHG emissions without even considering the improving effect of SOC. Moreover, resource damage category of this scenario was 50% lower than that of neat diesel combustion. The results proved that from a life cycle perspective, energy should be given priority in biorefineries because it is essential for a biorefinery to have a positive energy balance in order to be considered as a sustainable source of energy. Despite a positive effect on energy and GHG balances, these biorefineries had negative environmental impacts on the other damage categories like Human Health and Ecosystem Quality.ConclusionsAlthough biorefineries offer unique features as promising solutions for mitigating climate change and reducing dependence on fossil fuels, the selection of biomass processing options and management decisions can affect the final results in terms of environmental evaluations and energy balance. Moreover, if biorefineries are focused on transportation fuel production, a great deal of effort should still be made to have better environmental performance in Human Health and Ecosystem Quality damage categories. This study highly recommends that future studies focus towards biomass processing options and process optimization to guarantee the future of the most sustainable biofuels.
The main aim of this study was to determiner modeling and sensitivity analysis of rice production... more The main aim of this study was to determiner modeling and sensitivity analysis of rice production based on energy inputs and farm sizes using artificial neural networks in Guilan province of Iran. For this purpose the initial date were collected from 120 rice farmers by a face-to-face questionnaire in Astaneh Ashrafiyeh city of Guilan province of Iran. Total energy consumption and output energy was 51430 and 66387 MJ ha-1 , respectively. Diesel fuel with 44.61% had the highest energy use among all of the inputs. Medium farms had the best condition in three group sizes from average of total energy consumption point of view. The Levenberg-Marquardt Learning Algorithm was trained for calculation of prediction models for rice yield based energy inputs and area. The results of the ANN model revealed the 12-13-1 structure belonged to the best topology with highest R 2 and lowest RMSE and MAPE. The rate of R 2 , RMSE and MAPE was computed as 0.972, 0.153 and 0.007, respectively. With respect to sensitivity analysis human labor had the highest sensitivity with 0.311. It indicates that using an additional of 1 MJ either for human labor or seed energy would result in increasing the yield by 0.311 and 0.286 kg, respectively.
Agricultural Engineering International Cigr Journal, Sep 24, 2012
Apple is one of the most popular fruits and of high economic value. Sorting and grading of apple ... more Apple is one of the most popular fruits and of high economic value. Sorting and grading of apple is needed for the fruit to be presented to local and foreign markets. A study of apple physical properties therefore is imperative. In this work, some physical properties of apples (Golab variety) such as main diameter, mass, volume and fruit density were determined and relation between mass and other parameters were modeled by using artificial neural networks. In this study, we used Feed-Forward Back Propagation (FFBP) network with training algorithms, Levenberg-Marquard and Momentum. The results show that Levenberg-Marquard algorithm give better result than Momentum algorithm do, and Feed-Forward Back Propagation
The well-to-wheel environmental impacts of olive pomace oil biodiesel (B20 and B100) and conventi... more The well-to-wheel environmental impacts of olive pomace oil biodiesel (B20 and B100) and conventional petroleum diesel were compared using life cycle assessment. Moreover, energy and economic analyses of olive pomace oil biodiesel production was conducted throughout its life cycle. Human Health, Ecosystem Quality, Climate Change and Resources were the selected end-point impact categories. Comparing biodiesel with petroleum diesel, significant environmental tradeoffs exist between the Climate Change and Resources damage categories. Moreover, biodiesel was found to require some corrective practices (in the view of agricultural and combustion stages) in order to be more eco-friendly in all the mentioned damage categories. Having pursued the suggestions of this study, for the B100, the minimum reduction rates of 30–32% and 24–26% in the Human Health and Ecosystem Quality damage categories could be expected, respectively. While for the B20, these reduction rates would be at least 19–22% and 14–16%, respectively. This could be promising especially for the B20 blend as a good alternative for petroleum diesel. On the other hand, lifecycle energy assessment revealed promising energy indices (e.g., fossil energy ratio of 1.22–1.33). Finally, economic analysis showed a benefit-to-cost ratio of 1.45 revealing the economic viability of olive pomace oil biodiesel production.
African Journal of Agricultural Research, Nov 30, 2013
In this study, a data envelopment analysis approach was used to determine the efficiency of farme... more In this study, a data envelopment analysis approach was used to determine the efficiency of farmers, rank the efficient and inefficient ones and to identify the wasteful uses of energy by inefficient farmers with respect to energy use in different operations of soybean production in Golestan province, Iran. Data used in this study were obtained from 94 randomly selected soybean farms using a survey method. From this study, the following results were obtained: From total operational energy consumption in soybean production (22235 MJ ha-1), the greatest part was used in irrigation operation (73%); also, harvesting and tillage were the other main energy consumer operations. The technical, pure technical and scale efficiency scores of farmers were found to be 0.88, 0.91 and 0.96, respectively. Total energy requirement in target condition was calculated as 17937.7 MJ ha-1 ; accordingly, about 19.3% from the total input energy in present condition could be saved if the farmers follow the input package recommended by the study. Energy saving from irrigation (81.8%) had the highest share from total saving energy (4296.8 MJ ha-1). Also, the contributions of tillage, transportation and harvesting operations were found to be 4.7, 4.2 and 3.9%, respectively.
Energy consumption, economics, and environmental impacts of canola production were assessed using... more Energy consumption, economics, and environmental impacts of canola production were assessed using a combined technique involving an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and a multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA). Data were collected from canola farming enterprises in the Mazandaran province of Iran and were used to test the application of the combined modeling algorithms. Life cycle assessment (LCA) for one ha functional unit of canola production from cradle to farm gate was conducted in order to evaluate the impacts of energy, materials used, and their environmental emissions. MOGA was applied to maximize the output energy and benefit-cost ratio, and to minimize environmental emissions. The combined ANFIS–MOGA technique resulted in a 6.2% increase in energy output, a 144% rise in the benefit-cost ratio, and a 19.8% reduction in environmental emissions from the current canola production system in the studied region. A comparison of ANFIS–MOGA with the data envelopment a...
This paper peresents a mathematical model for the thin layer drying of the Viliamz cultivar of so... more This paper peresents a mathematical model for the thin layer drying of the Viliamz cultivar of soybean. The thin layer drying behaviour of soybean was experimentally investigated and the mathematical modelling performed by using thin layer drying models provided in the literature. Experiments were conducted at inlet drying air temperatures of 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70ºC and at a fixed drying air velocity of 1 m s-1. Thirteen different thin layer mathematical drying models were compared according to their r values, RMSE, χ χ χ χ 2 and EF by non-linear regression analysis. The effect of drying air temperature on the model constants and coefficients was predicted using multiple regression analysis. According to the results, the Midilli et al. model was found to be the best mathematical equation for modelling thin layer drying of soybean.
Drying is an important operational step in pistachio processing. There is a decrease in moisture ... more Drying is an important operational step in pistachio processing. There is a decrease in moisture content of pistachio nuts from 56-57% (d.b.) to 5-6% during the drying process. Drying conditions affect the quality of dried pistachio nuts, therefore, this calls for an accurate description of the drying trend in the process. In this study finite element formulation and solution of diffusive moisture transfer equation was presented to improve the drying simulation of nut as an axisymmetric body. The Fick's diffusive model was solved with effective moisture diffusivity of 5.24×10-10 m 2 s-1 for 55° ° ° °C and 7.01×10-10 m 2 s-1 for 70° ° ° °C. For experimentation, thin layers of pistachio nut, 'Ohadi' variety, were dried at high drying air temperatures (55 and 70°C), three replications for each treatment, along with drying air velocity and relative humidity of 0.5 m s-1 and 20%, respectively. Good agreement was observed when the output of model was compared with the experime...
Mass is often required for designing of postharvest equipment of agricultural products. Grading o... more Mass is often required for designing of postharvest equipment of agricultural products. Grading of fruit based on its weight is important and in nearly all cases of agricultural products grading is based on weight. In this study, mass of date (cv. Zahedi) was predicted by applying different physical characteristics with three different linear classifications as: (1) Single or multiple variable regressions of date dimensional characteristics, (2) Single or multiple variable regressions based on projected areas, (3) Estimating mass based on measured (actual) volume and volumes of assumed shapes (oblate spheroid and ellipsoid). In the first classification of mass modeling, the highest determining coefficient was obtained as R =0.70 based on length with a relation as 2 M = 0.3783L-5.8761. It was found that among systems that sort dates based on one dimension, the system that applies its length is better suited. The best determining coefficients for single and multiple variable regressio...
The aim of this study was to determine energy consumption and the relationship between energy inp... more The aim of this study was to determine energy consumption and the relationship between energy input and output in peanut production. Also, the sensitivity of energy inputs and cost inputs were estimated using the marginal physical productivity (MPP) method and partial regression coefficients on peanut yield. Data used in this study were obtained from 120 randomly selected peanut farms using a face to face survey. The average energy consumption and yield were calculated as 19248.04 MJ ha -1 and 3488.39 kg ha -1 , respectively. The results revealed that chemical fertilizer and diesel fuel were the main energy consuming inputs. The energy used efficiency ratio, energy productivity and net energy were found as 4.53, 0.18 and 67937.21 MJ ha -1 , respectively. Econometric assessment results revealed that the energy inputs of human labor, machinery and seed had significant influence on the yield. The results of sensitivity analysis of the energy inputs showed that the MPP value of seed was...
Terminal velocity of fruits in water is a means of hydro-sorting of them. In this study, the term... more Terminal velocity of fruits in water is a means of hydro-sorting of them. In this study, the terminal velocity of fruits in water was theoretically formulated and then determined experimentally using water column. Some effective characters of two varieties of apple and Hayward kiwi fruit on terminal velocity were determined using standard methods. The effective of fore fruit characteristics on terminal velocity was investigated. The best models for terminal velocity of studied fruits were obtained using SPSS, 13, software. It was concluded that on online sorting systems; terminal velocity has potential to remove poor quality fruit from fruits.
Physical properties are often required for designing post harvest handling/processing equipment f... more Physical properties are often required for designing post harvest handling/processing equipment for agricultural products. Bergamot is a species of citrus fruit. Physical properties of bergamot are necessary for equipment used in activities such as transportation, storage, grading, packing, and in food production processes like drying, jam production and so on. In this study some physical properties of bergamot were determined. Properties which were measured included fruit dimensions, mass, volume, projected area, fruit density, shell ratio, geometric mean diameter, sphericity and surface area. Bulk density, porosity and also packing coefficient were measured for three groups of small, medium and large category of bergamots. Experiments were carried out at moisture content of 84.9% w.b. for bergamot shell and 87.34% w.b. for its meat. Result showed that average mass and volume were 291.9 g and 456.83 cm 3 , respectively. Dimensions increased from 78.7 to 160 mm in length, 64.2 to 12...
b s t r a c t. Orange is among the popular fruits and of a high economical value. Sizing and grad... more b s t r a c t. Orange is among the popular fruits and of a high economical value. Sizing and grading of orange is needed for the fruit to be presented to local and foreign markets. A study of orange physical properties is therefore indispensable. Some physical properties of grade one (large), two (medium) and three (small) oranges were investigated. These properties included: dimensions, mass, volume, surface area, porosity and coefficient of static friction. The major, intermediate and minor diameters of the grade two orange were 84.1, 77.4 and 75.5 mm, respectively. Volume and mass of the grade two orange were 217.8 cm 3 and 215.4 g, respectively. As for grade two orange piles, the bulk density and fruit density were respectively calculated as 0.44 and 1.03 g cm-3. Porosity of grade one, two and three oranges was 44.64, 49.39 and 51.2%, with their sphericity being 0.948, 0.931 and 0.923, respectively. The static angle of friction of grade two orange on galvanized, glass and plywoo...
This study applies a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to analyze the technical and scale ... more This study applies a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to analyze the technical and scale efficiencies of farmers with respect to energy use for oilseed sunflower production in Golestan province, Iran. This study also helps to segregate the efficient and inefficient farmers, identify the wasteful usage of energy by inefficient farmers and to suggest reasonable saving of energy. The results revealed that total operational energy of 6771.1 MJ ha was consumed for sunflower production and the irrigation operations had the highest share. About 64% of farmers were technically efficient and the mean efficiency of farmers was found to be 0.85 and 0.94 under constant and variable returns to scale assumptions, respectively. The results also revealed that, by raising the performance of inefficient farmers to the highest level, on average, about 9.3% of total operational input energy could be saved. Moreover, energy saving from irrigation operation had the highest share (76.9%). From thi...
This research evaluates and estimates biogas (methane) production potential from cow manure throu... more This research evaluates and estimates biogas (methane) production potential from cow manure through anaerobic digestion processes in some dairy farms of Iran. The gas can be used to produce electricity, to heat water for farm use, or for other business ventures that use energy. By measuring the manure production in each dairy farm and the electricity use, the biogas production and consequently the electricity generating potential was assessed. Few previous researches and projects have been carried out on this subject. As the result of this study, there is the potential of 15190.3 m 3 day -1 biogas production which is equal to 7595.15 m 3 day -1 methane (CH 4 ) gas in the region for 47 dairy farms with 11862 head cows. This amount of biogas has the potential to generate electricity as 77428.3 kWh day -1 , which is more than the total electricity requirements of the target dairy farms. Based on the results and the environmental benefits of utilizing biogas, educating farmers through e...
In this research work, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is broadly connected in assessing the prod... more In this research work, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is broadly connected in assessing the productivity of banks since it may be a strategy able of assessing the proficiency of choice making units in utilizing different inputs to deliver numerous yields. Be that as it may, a few yields of banks, in truth, have Fuzzy property, whereas ordinary DEA approach can as it were evaluate productivity with a fresh esteem and is incapable to assess loose information. Hypothetically, the Fuzzy Data Envelopment Analysis (FDEA) approach can assess banks' productivity more reasonable and exact since it can take the fuzzy property of inputs and/or yields into thought. The comes about appear that the FDEA approach could not as it were successfully differentiate instability, but too may have a better capability to segregate banks' effectiveness than the ordinary DEA method.
Abstract In this study energy and economic analyses and environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)... more Abstract In this study energy and economic analyses and environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of canola production in Mazandaran province of Iran were conducted and then an intelligent system of three level Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) was implemented to predict three mentioned indices based on energy consumption from different inputs. The functional unit was considered to be one hectare of canola production. Energy use efficiency and energy productivity were found to be 3.73 and 0.14 kg MJ −1 , respectively. The LCA results indicated that total emissions of canola production was 2488.72 pPt ha −1 , from which off-farm emissions and on-farm emissions contributed as 1780.43 and 708.29 pPt ha −1 , respectively. Emissions due to production and application of chemical fertilizers, especially nitrogen, had the pivotal role on environmental burdens. Coefficients of determination for predicting output energy, benefit to cost ratio and environmental emissions final score (EEFS) were estimated to be 0.90, 0.87 and 0.92, respectively. It is concluded that chemical fertilizer is one of the main energy consuming inputs and emission sources, in particular, for impact categories of global warming, acidification and eutrophication. Optimization of fertilizer application in canola production in the region is generally beneficial from energy, economic and environmental points of view. It is proposed that implementation of multi-level ANFIS is a useful tool in helping to predict the energy, economic and environmental indices of agricultural production systems.
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
PurposeDiminishing fossil resources and environmental concerns associated with their vast utiliza... more PurposeDiminishing fossil resources and environmental concerns associated with their vast utilization have been in focus by energy policy makers and researchers. Among the different scenarios put forth to commercialize biofuels, various biorefinery concepts have aroused global interests because of their ability in converting biomass into a spectrum of marketable products and bioenergies. This study was aimed at developing different novel castor-based biorefinery scenarios for generating biodiesel and other co-products, i.e., ethanol and biogas. In these scenarios, glycerin, heat, and electricity were also considered as byproducts. Developed scenarios were also compared with a fossil reference system delivering the same amount of energy through the combustion of neat diesel.Materials and methodsLife cycle assessment (LCA) was used to investigate the environmental consequences of castor biodiesel production and consumption with a biorefinery approach. All the input and output flows from the cultivation stage to the combustion in diesel engines as well as changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) were taken into account. Impact 2002+ method was used to quantify the environmental consequences.Results and discussionThe LCA results demonstrated that in comparison with the fossil reference system, only one scenario (i.e., Sc-3 with co-production of significant amounts of biodiesel and biomethane) had 16% lower GHG emissions without even considering the improving effect of SOC. Moreover, resource damage category of this scenario was 50% lower than that of neat diesel combustion. The results proved that from a life cycle perspective, energy should be given priority in biorefineries because it is essential for a biorefinery to have a positive energy balance in order to be considered as a sustainable source of energy. Despite a positive effect on energy and GHG balances, these biorefineries had negative environmental impacts on the other damage categories like Human Health and Ecosystem Quality.ConclusionsAlthough biorefineries offer unique features as promising solutions for mitigating climate change and reducing dependence on fossil fuels, the selection of biomass processing options and management decisions can affect the final results in terms of environmental evaluations and energy balance. Moreover, if biorefineries are focused on transportation fuel production, a great deal of effort should still be made to have better environmental performance in Human Health and Ecosystem Quality damage categories. This study highly recommends that future studies focus towards biomass processing options and process optimization to guarantee the future of the most sustainable biofuels.
The main aim of this study was to determiner modeling and sensitivity analysis of rice production... more The main aim of this study was to determiner modeling and sensitivity analysis of rice production based on energy inputs and farm sizes using artificial neural networks in Guilan province of Iran. For this purpose the initial date were collected from 120 rice farmers by a face-to-face questionnaire in Astaneh Ashrafiyeh city of Guilan province of Iran. Total energy consumption and output energy was 51430 and 66387 MJ ha-1 , respectively. Diesel fuel with 44.61% had the highest energy use among all of the inputs. Medium farms had the best condition in three group sizes from average of total energy consumption point of view. The Levenberg-Marquardt Learning Algorithm was trained for calculation of prediction models for rice yield based energy inputs and area. The results of the ANN model revealed the 12-13-1 structure belonged to the best topology with highest R 2 and lowest RMSE and MAPE. The rate of R 2 , RMSE and MAPE was computed as 0.972, 0.153 and 0.007, respectively. With respect to sensitivity analysis human labor had the highest sensitivity with 0.311. It indicates that using an additional of 1 MJ either for human labor or seed energy would result in increasing the yield by 0.311 and 0.286 kg, respectively.
Agricultural Engineering International Cigr Journal, Sep 24, 2012
Apple is one of the most popular fruits and of high economic value. Sorting and grading of apple ... more Apple is one of the most popular fruits and of high economic value. Sorting and grading of apple is needed for the fruit to be presented to local and foreign markets. A study of apple physical properties therefore is imperative. In this work, some physical properties of apples (Golab variety) such as main diameter, mass, volume and fruit density were determined and relation between mass and other parameters were modeled by using artificial neural networks. In this study, we used Feed-Forward Back Propagation (FFBP) network with training algorithms, Levenberg-Marquard and Momentum. The results show that Levenberg-Marquard algorithm give better result than Momentum algorithm do, and Feed-Forward Back Propagation
The well-to-wheel environmental impacts of olive pomace oil biodiesel (B20 and B100) and conventi... more The well-to-wheel environmental impacts of olive pomace oil biodiesel (B20 and B100) and conventional petroleum diesel were compared using life cycle assessment. Moreover, energy and economic analyses of olive pomace oil biodiesel production was conducted throughout its life cycle. Human Health, Ecosystem Quality, Climate Change and Resources were the selected end-point impact categories. Comparing biodiesel with petroleum diesel, significant environmental tradeoffs exist between the Climate Change and Resources damage categories. Moreover, biodiesel was found to require some corrective practices (in the view of agricultural and combustion stages) in order to be more eco-friendly in all the mentioned damage categories. Having pursued the suggestions of this study, for the B100, the minimum reduction rates of 30–32% and 24–26% in the Human Health and Ecosystem Quality damage categories could be expected, respectively. While for the B20, these reduction rates would be at least 19–22% and 14–16%, respectively. This could be promising especially for the B20 blend as a good alternative for petroleum diesel. On the other hand, lifecycle energy assessment revealed promising energy indices (e.g., fossil energy ratio of 1.22–1.33). Finally, economic analysis showed a benefit-to-cost ratio of 1.45 revealing the economic viability of olive pomace oil biodiesel production.
African Journal of Agricultural Research, Nov 30, 2013
In this study, a data envelopment analysis approach was used to determine the efficiency of farme... more In this study, a data envelopment analysis approach was used to determine the efficiency of farmers, rank the efficient and inefficient ones and to identify the wasteful uses of energy by inefficient farmers with respect to energy use in different operations of soybean production in Golestan province, Iran. Data used in this study were obtained from 94 randomly selected soybean farms using a survey method. From this study, the following results were obtained: From total operational energy consumption in soybean production (22235 MJ ha-1), the greatest part was used in irrigation operation (73%); also, harvesting and tillage were the other main energy consumer operations. The technical, pure technical and scale efficiency scores of farmers were found to be 0.88, 0.91 and 0.96, respectively. Total energy requirement in target condition was calculated as 17937.7 MJ ha-1 ; accordingly, about 19.3% from the total input energy in present condition could be saved if the farmers follow the input package recommended by the study. Energy saving from irrigation (81.8%) had the highest share from total saving energy (4296.8 MJ ha-1). Also, the contributions of tillage, transportation and harvesting operations were found to be 4.7, 4.2 and 3.9%, respectively.
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Papers by Shahin Rafiee