State of the Industry 4.0 in the Andalusian food sector

The food industry is a key issue in the economic structure of Andalusia, due to both the weight and position of this industry in the economy and its advantages and potentials. The term Industry 4.0 carries many meanings. It seeks to describe the intelligent factory, with all the processes interconnected by Internet of things (IOT). Early advances in this field have involved the incorporation of greater flexibility and individualization of the manufacturing processes. The implementation of the framework proposed by Industry 4.0. is a need for the industry in general, and for Andalusian food industry in particular, and should be seen as a great opportunity of progress for the sector. It is expected that, along with others, the food and beverage industry will be pioneer in the adoption of flexible and individualized manufacturing processes. This work constitutes the state of the art, through bibliographic review, of the application of the proposed paradigm by the Industry 4.0. to the food industry.Telefónica, through the “Cátedra de Telefónica Inteligencia en la Red”Paloma Luna Garrid

Digitally enhanced quality management for Zero-Defect Manufacturing

Though the idea of Zero Defect Manufacturing is not new, it remains a disruptive concept that is able to entirely reshape the manufacturing ideology. Existing literature suggests that Zero Defect Manufacturing can be implemented in two different approaches – namely product- (defective parts) and / or process-oriented (defective equipment) approaches. The recent onset of Industry 4.0 presents organizations with a plethora of technologies that promise to further enhance the quality of both products and processes, but also adds a third dimension to Zero Defect Manufacturing - people. Therefore, in this paper, we add the people-oriented approach as a third dimension to Zero Defect Manufacturing and draw on practical insights to present a framework for digitally enhanced quality management.publishedVersio

The links between poverty and the environment in Malawi

Deforestation arising from conversion of forest areas into agriculture is a serious problem in Malawi. Cultivation of subsistence and cash crops is often cited as a major cause of this problem. This paper applies the von Thunen model to firstly, discuss competition for agricultural land and secondly, establish why the poor are closely associated with forests. Further, a regression analysis is conducted to examine the effects of changes in crop land use on changes in forest cover. Results indicate that cultivation of different crops has varying effects on deforestation. Cultivation of maize, primarily by the poor, appears to be the principal cause of deforestation while tobacco and pulses stand at second and third positions, respectively. Finally, a simple methodology is developed to estimate the extent of poverty-driven deforestation in Malawi

Constructing living buildings: a review of relevant technologies for a novel application of biohybrid robotics

Biohybrid robotics takes an engineering approach to the expansion and exploitation of biological behaviours for application to automated tasks. Here, we identify the construction of living buildings and infrastructure as a high-potential application domain for biohybrid robotics, and review technological advances relevant to its future development. Construction, civil infrastructure maintenance and building occupancy in the last decades have comprised a major portion of economic production, energy consumption and carbon emissions. Integrating biological organisms into automated construction tasks and permanent building components therefore has high potential for impact. Live materials can provide several advantages over standard synthetic construction materials, including self-repair of damage, increase rather than degradation of structural performance over time, resilience to corrosive environments, support of biodiversity, and mitigation of urban heat islands. Here, we review relevant technologies, which are currently disparate. They span robotics, self-organizing systems, artificial life, construction automation, structural engineering, architecture, bioengineering, biomaterials, and molecular and cellular biology. In these disciplines, developments relevant to biohybrid construction and living buildings are in the early stages, and typically are not exchanged between disciplines. We, therefore, consider this review useful to the future development of biohybrid engineering for this highly interdisciplinary application.publishe

Mass-Market Receiver for Static Positioning: Tests and Statistical Analyses

Nowadays, there are several low cost GPS receivers able to provide both pseudorange and carrier phase measurements in the L1band, that allow to have good realtime performances in outdoor condition. The present paper describes a set of dedicated tests in order to evaluate the positioning accuracy in static conditions. The quality of the pseudorange and the carrier phase measurements let hope for interesting results. The use of such kind of receiver could be extended to a large number of professional applications, like engineering fields: survey, georeferencing, monitoring, cadastral mapping and cadastral road. In this work, the receivers performance is verified considering a single frequency solution trying to fix the phase ambiguity, when possible. Different solutions are defined: code, float and fix solutions. In order to solve the phase ambiguities different methods are considered. Each test performed is statistically analyzed, highlighting the effects of different factors on precision and accurac

An Introduction to Temporal Optimisation using a Water Management Problem

Optimisation problems usually take the form of having a single or multiple objectives with a set of constraints. The model itself concerns a single problem for which the best possible solution is sought. Problems are usually static in the sense that they do not consider changes over time in a cumulative manner. Dynamic optimisation problems to incorporate changes. However, these are memoryless in that the problem description changes and a new problem is solved - but with little reference to any previous information. In this paper, a temporally augmented version of a water management problem which allows farmers to plan over long time horizons is introduced. A climate change projection model is used to predict both rainfall and temperature for the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area in Australia for up to 50 years into the future. Three representative decades are extracted from the climate change model to create the temporal data sets. The results confirm the utility of the temporal approach and show, for the case study area, that crops that can feasibly and sustainably be grown will be a lot fewer than the present day in the challenging water-reduced conditions of the future

How does poverty decline? Evidence from India, 1983-1999

This paper attempts to assess the relative contributions of the farm and non-farm sectors to the increase in agricultural wage earnings in India between 1983-1999. Cross-section analysis of NSS data for 1983 and 1993 confirm the importance of farm productivity growth, consistent with the predictions of our theoretical model. A counterfactual exercise that attempts to estimate the relative contribution of the non-farm sector to the increase in the agricultural wage earnings during the period 1983-1999 suggests that this figure is no more than 25 at the all-India level, though it is higher in some states. Thus the bulk of the growth in wage earnings and the attendant decline in poverty during this period appears to be due to the farm sector.Farm and non-farm productivity growth, non-farm employment, poverty, wage earnings

Advancements in combining electronic animal identification and augmented reality technologies in digital livestock farming

Modern livestock farm technologies allow operators to have access to a multitude of data thanks to the high number of mobile and fixed sensors available on both the livestock farming machinery and the animals. These data can be consulted via PC, tablet, and smartphone, which must be handheld by the operators, leading to an increase in the time needed for on-field activities. In this scenario, the use of augmented reality smart glasses could allow the visualization of data directly in the field, providing for a hands-free environment for the operator to work. Nevertheless, to visualize specific animal information, a connection between the augmented reality smart glasses and electronic animal identification is needed. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to develop and test a wearable framework, called SmartGlove that is able to link RFID animal tags and augmented reality smart glasses via a Bluetooth connection, allowing the visualization of specific animal data directly in the field. Moreover, another objective of the study was to compare different levels of augmented reality technologies (assisted reality vs. mixed reality) to assess the most suitable solution for livestock management scenarios. For this reason, the developed framework and the related augmented reality smart glasses applications were tested in the laboratory and in the field. Furthermore, the stakeholders’ point of view was analyzed using two standard questionnaires, the NASA-Task Load Index and the IBM-Post Study System Usability Questionnaire. The outcomes of the laboratory tests underlined promising results regarding the operating performances of the developed framework, showing no significant differences if compared to a commercial RFID reader. During the on-field trial, all the tested systems were capable of performing the task in a short time frame. Furthermore, the operators underlined the advantages of using the SmartGlove system coupled with the augmented reality smart glasses for the direct on-field visualization of animal data

The Dynamic Hedging Effectiveness for Soybean Farmers of Mato Grosso with Futures Contracts of BM&F

Paper presented in the VII PENSA CONFERENCE, November/2009, FEA/USP, São Paulo, Brazil.Dynamic hedge, effectiveness, soybeans, Mato Grosso, Agribusiness, Marketing,