1,721,520 research outputs found
An iterative approach for knowledge production in the agricultural systems and insights for is development
No full textThere is motivation in many rural areas and communities to resolve the issues slowing achievement of a sustainable future, and to embrace the concept of the circular economy for agro-food systems. Increased consumption of resources is not an option and therefore best use must be made of capital, incorporating the "reduce, re-use, recycle" mantra. Research projects addressing sustainable land use can help to accomplish this aim, and the studies have demonstrated that stakeholders may be helped to understand and act on new knowledge especially if they are involved in more than one project. This is because they gain confidence to evaluate research ideas in the light of their own experience. In the Basilicata region of southern Italy there has been a succession of research projects since the 1990s to study the processes of land degradation and appropriate technologies to combat the risk of desertification. Most recently, the attitudes and perceptions of groups of cereal farmers included in both the DESIRE and REACT projects, or the REACT project alone, were compared using a Questionnaire, and the results highlighted the success of the iterative approach. This is an important finding, and can encourage understanding and action to overcome constraints and support the circular economy in agro-food systems
Participatory approach to a place-based sustainable rural development: E-market platform for a resilient Agri-food chain
No full textThe paper reports the experience of a participatory process for the definition of a Local Action Group (LAG) rural development strategy in the southern Italian region of Campania, carried out under the RDP 2014-2020. A number of rural labs for resilient communities were organised involving key actors from agri-food chains, the rural tourism sector, consumers and local institutions. As in many rural areas, the principal challenge facing local farms in the territory is accessing larger distribution channels given their small size. The participatory process aimed to address this challenge and achieved two important results; firstly, the creation of a product-local identity environment that led to the conception of a virtual E-market platform, negotiated among the different stakeholders, with an aim to promote direct sales of local agri-food products between quality conscious consumers and local producers via a smartphone app; secondly, a more closely connected agri-food chain as all participants in the chain, including regional policy-makers, agencies and other key stakeholders, have access to up-to-date and explicitly localised information on the key driving forces they need to consider to ensure the sustainability of policies and programmes relating to rural development
Manned-Unmanned Teaming Applied to HEMS Missions: a Path Planning Approach Based on the Pilot's Workload Assessment
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Multi-actor platform as a tool to enhance networking of sustainable socio-ecological food systems
No full textThe sustainability of food systems is a central issue in academic and political debate at a national and global level. Involving the various actors in food systems through a multi-actor platform approach is increasingly recognized as a way to promote sustainability because it is a strategy capable of ensuring resilience and an effective mechanism to guarantee the co-creation of knowledge and the definition and implementation of innovation. In order to ensure that the actors/ stakeholders involved are an authentic reflection of the food system, understood as a socio-ecological system i.e. the result of interactions between the socio-economic and ecological components, it is essential to use analytical tools that allow a multidisciplinary approach and that can act as devices for knowledge co-creation and promoting of collaborative approaches. This paper uses a modified version of the SES framework, designed to allow the integration of a range of collaboration behavioural factors for sustainable agri-food chains. The objective is to strengthen the analysis of the structural aspects of SES with assessment of the behavioural factors that can significantly influence the path of sustainable transformation that the SES could undertake. The study analyses the implementation of a good practice multi-actor collaboration and gives an ex ante evaluation of the adaptive mechanisms needed to activate an effective transfer, considering: - the structural characteristics of the agri-food socio-ecological systems involved in the "re-use of good practice"; - the quality and density of behavioural factors present in the socio-ecological systems involved in the "re-use of good practice". The "re-using" socio-ecological systems are all quite different, which makes the challenge of adapting the innovation more complicated. The wine producing systems involved show different levels of aggregation and capacity for adding value. There is a high risk that the costs of implementing the innovation will fall principally to the farmers, while the increase in value generated will not. For this reason, it is important to guarantee, through the initial design and subsequent implementation of the multi-actor platform, that the platform can express, recognize, and address these kinds of challenges
Analysis of rotorcraft ground resonance with generic inter-blade damper configurations
Full text linkThe paper investigates the effect of inter-blade dampers with generic in-plane and out-of-plane attachment offsets on ground resonance stability proneness. An analytical formulation, considering dampers with radial offsets only is initially proposed. Sensitivity analyses show that the increase of radial offset reduces the cyclic lead-lag damping and stiffness, providing a non-zero contribution to collective terms. The analytical formulation is suitable, in a preliminary design phase, to define the optimal location of the inter-blade attachment points to avoid ground resonance phenomena and to stabilize the engine drive-train dynamics. A more detailed numerical approach is then presented to consider generic in-plane and out-of-plane attachment offsets. Ground resonance stability analyses are performed also for cases with dissimilar dampers. It is found that out-of-plane offset leads to a modification on the blade pitch-lag coupling, acting on the helicopter stability margins. However, to capture these effects it is necessary to include the overall blade motions, considering flap, lag, and pitch dynamics, together with the corresponding generalized aerodynamics forces, usually neglected in classical ground resonance analysis. Finally, the periodic stability with one damper inoperative shows how, with the radial offsets, the hybridized lead-lag collective and cyclic modes may fall into resonance conditions due to super-harmonics
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