ABS-SmartComAgri: An Agent-Based Simulator of Smart Communication Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks for Debugging in Precision Agriculture

[EN] Smart communication protocols are becoming a key mechanism for improving communication performance in networks such as wireless sensor networks. However, the literature lacks mechanisms for simulating smart communication protocols in precision agriculture for decreasing production costs. In this context, the current work presents an agent-based simulator of smart communication protocols for efficiently managing pesticides. The simulator considers the needs of electric power, crop health, percentage of alive bugs and pesticide consumption. The current approach is illustrated with three different communication protocols respectively called (a) broadcast, (b) neighbor and (c) low-cost neighbor. The low-cost neighbor protocol obtained a statistically-significant reduction in the need of electric power over the neighbor protocol, with a very large difference according to the common interpretations about the Cohen's d effect size. The presented simulator is called ABS-SmartComAgri and is freely distributed as open-source from a public research data repository. It ensures the reproducibility of experiments and allows other researchers to extend the current approach.This work acknowledges the research project "Construccion de un framework para agilizar el desarrollo de aplicaciones moviles en el ambito de la salud" funded by the University of Zaragoza and Foundation Ibercaja with Grant Reference JIUZ-2017-TEC-03. This work has been supported by the program "Estancias de movilidad en el extranjero Jose Castillejo para jovenes doctores" funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport with Reference CAS17/00005. We also acknowledge support from "Universidad de Zaragoza", "Fundacion Bancaria Ibercaja" and "Fundacion CAI" in the "Programa Ibercaja-CAI de Estancias de Investigacion" with References IT24/16 and IT1/18. We acknowledge the research project "Desarrollo Colaborativo de Soluciones AAL" with Reference TIN2014-57028-R funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. The work has also been supported by "Organismo Autonomo Programas Educativos Europeos" with Reference 2013-1-CZ1-GRU06-14277. We also acknowledge support from the project "Sensores vestibles y tecnologia movil como apoyo en la formacion y practica de mindfulness: prototipo previo aplicado a bienestar" funded by University of Zaragoza with Grant Number UZ2017-TEC-02.García-Magariño, I.; Lacuesta Gilabert, R.; Lloret, J. (2018). ABS-SmartComAgri: An Agent-Based Simulator of Smart Communication Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks for Debugging in Precision Agriculture. Sensors. 18(4). https://doi.org/10.3390/s18040998S18

Climate Change Perception and Innovative Mitigation Practices Adopted by Hungarian Farms

Climate change is becoming a growing concern for the agricultural sector. Variable weather events, such as droughts and floods, are expected to have a significant negative impact on agricultural losses, earnings and consumption. The agriculture industry in Europe is not immune to these difficulties. This study focuses on Hungary, a country with a strong agricultural focus that, as a result, is particularly susceptible to climate change. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed to synthesis data about the perspectives of Hungarian farmers on the dangers of climate change. Then, latent variables were employed as explanatory variables in the Logit model to investigate the link between the perceptions of climate change risks by Hungarian farmers and their inclination to adopt innovative ways to mitigate its repercussions. Changes in temperature and precipitation, economic damage, water damage, and insect damage are seen as the most serious repercussions of climate change by Hungarian farmers. These beliefs raise the possibility of adopting new strategies to offset harmful consequences, including (i) the adoption of new varieties, (ii) ice and frost protection, and (iii) the use of agro-meteorological data. The results show that the chance of adopting new varieties is substantially influenced by farmers’ assessments of harm caused by pests, pathogens, and illnesses (2.91***). In contrast, water damage concerns seem to have a significant impact on the adoption of novel approaches to reduce cold and frost damage (2.18***). This study’s findings support the efforts of stakeholders and policymakers to encourage the dissemination of technology to protect crops from climate change in Hungary and imply that governments should provide financial incentives to farmers to boost innovation uptake