1,720,979 research outputs found
Smart Farm Data Integration
No full textThe scope of this Special Issue are innovations holding the potential to address the underlying information lacks and asymmetries in the food value chain that undermine sustainable and resilient transformation of our food systems.
This SI focuses on IT and data science tools, analytics, and smart data management underpinning the growing wave of innovations focusing the way multiple and various data from food value chain are harnessed and can advantage primary food production
Performance evaluation of a non-chemical weed control machine for vineyards and orchards operating with high pressure cold water
Full text linkIn the last decades, environmental pollution problems due to the extensive use of chemical herbicides caused the introduction of alternative methods to protect the crop. Moreover, a further boost to the introduction of these new methods has been given by the market, where organic products are increasingly requested by the consumers. Regarding vineyards and orchards, one of the most widely used methods of non-chemical weed control is through the mechanical action of appropriate agricultural implements. Commonly these implements are characterized by rotating blades operating inter-row, but this typology of machines could damage plant roots and are subjected to failures in stony soils. To overcome these problems some manufacturers developed flame or steam weeder, but the limited operating speed leads to an increment of management costs. An innovative solution was designed by Caffini S.p.a (Italy) with the implement “Grass Killer” that perform the weed control with high-pressure cold water. The high-pressure water stream (around 1000 bar) is obtained with a piston pump connected to the PTO of the tractor and it is applied on the weed through a rotating inter row disc with nozzles. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performances in terms of weed control efficiency and energy consumption of this implement. Tests have been performed in an orchard connecting the “Grass Killer” to a New Holland T4.110LP equipped with a CAN Logger and a GPS. Moreover, in order to measure the energy required by the piston pump of the implement, a torque-meter was installed on the PTO of the tractor. Furthermore, the weed control efficiency was monitored with a flying drone equipped with an NDVI camera. The results show that the implement removes the majority of the weed with only one treatment. In addition, the power required by the piston pump of the implement is about 27 kW, that is roughly the 60% of the total power needed by the tractor to run the operation
Idling of agricultural tractors
No full textIdling is considered as an operating condition in which the engine is not subjected to any
substantial load and the vehicle is standing. Idling is detrimental for the environment, health
of people due to the fact that fuel is wasted and emissions are produced in vain. Idling is a
very frequent operating conditions for vehicles and especially for agricultural tractors. Indeed,
in a previous study, the idling practice of a fleet of tractors was monitored for a year and it
was reported that agricultural tractors run on idle from 20% up to 50% of the time. However,
no study reported, why such improper use occurs. The aim of the project is to report a meth-
od to analyse in detail the idling practice of agricultural tractors. In a cash-crop tractor, a GPS
and CAN-Bus data logger were installed and data were recorded on real-world conditions.
Idling stops were identified and classified in function of the location of the tractor. The tractor
run on idle for the 17% of the entire operating time and the daily idling durations range from
15min to 70min. Around the 70% of the entire idling activity occurred around the farm area
and in the field. On the farm, idling mostly occurs for connecting the implement, while on the
field for checking the implement status at the end of the headland turns. The results of this
study could be used for designing anti-idling devices on agricultural tractors, so that fuel
waste due to idling can be significantly reduced
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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