333 research outputs found
Exploring the ecological resilience of smallholder oil palm landscapes
Employing more sustainable farming practices could enhance the ecological resilience of tropical oil palm smallholder farms. Concerns about the environmental impacts of oil palm cultivation has led the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to develop more sustainable management practices. However, it is unclear whether the uptake of such practices will enhance ecological resilience. My study focuses on oil palm smallholdings in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Using questionnaire-led interviews with farmers and ecological surveys of their farms, I examined inter-relationships between farm management practices, oil palm yields and the biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and ecological resilience of farms. Oil palm yields varied widely across smallholder farms (6.9–37.4 t ha−1 yr−1), but there was little evidence that less intensive management reduced farm yields. I surveyed ground dwelling ants on farms to assess species richness and functional diversity (richness and dispersion), and ant-mediated ecosystem functions (scavenging and leaf-litter decomposition). Ant species richness varied among farms (5-30 species), and there were positive associations between native and non-native species (which accounted for 0-40% of ant species on farms). Thus, native ant species persisting in oil palm habitats are resilient to invasion by non-native species, which maintain generalist ecosystem functions on farms. I used Structural Equation Models to investigate the inter-relationships between local factors (e.g., farm management) and wider landscape factors (e.g., proximity to roads and forest) on native and non-native species richness and functional diversity metrics, to make inferences about the ecological resilience of oil palm farms. Both local and landscape factors were important but native and non-native ant species were influenced by different factors. Compared with non-natives, native species contributed most to functional richness and dispersion, occurred on cooler farms, and were associated with higher oil palm yields. Thus, anthropogenic climate warming may reduce the ecological resilience of oil palm farms via its detrimental effects on native species, which may also impact crop yields. I conclude that more efforts should be made to enhance on-farm biodiversity and to develop management practices that support farmer livelihoods, enhance crop yields, and maintain the ecological resilience of oil palm landscapes
The use of videoconferencing and low-latency technologies for instrumental music teaching
Videoconferencing platforms have been used for a number of years in the UK and other countries to facilitate instrumental music lessons between remote parties. However, videoconferencing is typically not optimised for music performance which results in poor audio quality and musicians not being able to play together. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, this led to some resistance to using the technology.
Low-latency technologies such as LoLa and JackTrip offer high-quality audio and facilitate synchronous musical interaction so that remote parties can play music together in real time. However, limited research has been conducted on how effective these technologies are when used for instrumental music teaching. This study aimed to address this gap through the following research questions:
• What changes in the quality of the interactions and the learning and teaching experience between face-to-face, standard videoconferencing, and low-latency environments?
• Are some elements of music instruction more or less effective in these different environments?
• What are the barriers to using these technologies in educational settings, and how can these be overcome?
I deployed a mixed methods concurrent nested design. My research was primarily qualitative and conducted through a series of small-scale trials, interviews, and autoethnographic studies, together with analysis of data from a larger set of LoLa trials in three European conservatoires, and a small-scale quantitative study. Participants included music teachers and students in Higher Education and school settings across a range of instrument types and musical genres.
Several themes emerged from a synthesis of the findings across the 17 studies, including: teachers’ attitudes became more favourable to the various technologies after trialling them; the visual element of technologies was important for musical cues and diagnosing technical and postural problems in students; each learning environment had its own advantages and disadvantages, but participants preferred the face-to-face environment.
My research makes an original contribution to literature by reporting findings showing that: playing together can form a significant element of face-to-face lessons, LoLa and JackTrip low-latency technologies improved musical interactions compared to standard videoconferencing platforms, LoLa can be used in conjunction with an institutional firewall, JackTrip can be used with multiple players on domestic internet connections.
I conclude that low-latency technologies have an important role in the future of music education by offering increased interaction between teachers and students from different institutions, and by offering new teaching and learning possibilities, including collaborative learning, and teaching through playing
Proof-theoretic Semantics for Intuitionistic Multiplicative Linear Logic
This work is the first exploration of proof-theoretic semantics for a substructural logic. It focuses on the base-extension semantics (B-eS) for intuitionistic multiplicative linear logic (IMLL). The starting point is a review of Sandqvist’s B-eS for intuitionistic propositional logic (IPL), for which we propose an alternative treatment of conjunction that takes the form of the generalized elimination rule for the connective. The resulting semantics is shown to be sound and complete. This motivates our main contribution, a B-eS for IMLL
, in which the definitions of the logical constants all take the form of their elimination rule and for which soundness and completeness are established
Revista da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística
N.º 10 (2023) da Revista da Associação Portuguesa de Linguísticainfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Understanding Quantum Technologies 2022
Understanding Quantum Technologies 2022 is a creative-commons ebook that
provides a unique 360 degrees overview of quantum technologies from science and
technology to geopolitical and societal issues. It covers quantum physics
history, quantum physics 101, gate-based quantum computing, quantum computing
engineering (including quantum error corrections and quantum computing
energetics), quantum computing hardware (all qubit types, including quantum
annealing and quantum simulation paradigms, history, science, research,
implementation and vendors), quantum enabling technologies (cryogenics, control
electronics, photonics, components fabs, raw materials), quantum computing
algorithms, software development tools and use cases, unconventional computing
(potential alternatives to quantum and classical computing), quantum
telecommunications and cryptography, quantum sensing, quantum technologies
around the world, quantum technologies societal impact and even quantum fake
sciences. The main audience are computer science engineers, developers and IT
specialists as well as quantum scientists and students who want to acquire a
global view of how quantum technologies work, and particularly quantum
computing. This version is an extensive update to the 2021 edition published in
October 2021.Comment: 1132 pages, 920 figures, Letter forma
3-я Міжнародна конференція зі сталого майбутнього: екологічні, технологічні, соціальні та економічні аспекти (ICSF 2022) 24-27 травня 2022 року, м. Кривий Ріг, Україна
Матеріали 3-ої Міжнародної конференції зі сталого майбутнього: екологічні, технологічні, соціальні та економічні аспекти (ICSF 2022) 24-27 травня 2022 року, м. Кривий Ріг, Україна.Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Sustainable Futures: Environmental, Technological, Social and Economic Matters (ICSF 2022) 24-27 May 2022, Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine
Drones and Geographical Information Technologies in Agroecology and Organic Farming
Although organic farming and agroecology are normally not associated with the use of new technologies, it’s rapid growth, new technologies are being adopted to mitigate environmental impacts of intensive production implemented with external material and energy inputs. GPS, satellite images, GIS, drones, help conventional farming in precision supply of water, pesticides, fertilizers. Prescription maps define the right place and moment for interventions of machinery fleets. Yield goal remains the key objective, integrating a more efficient use or resources toward an economic-environmental sustainability. Technological smart farming allows extractive agriculture entering the sustainability era. Societies that practice agroecology through the development of human-environmental co-evolutionary systems represent a solid model of sustainability. These systems are characterized by high-quality agroecosystems and landscapes, social inclusion, and viable economies.
This book explores the challenges posed by the new geographic information technologies in agroecology and organic farming. It discusses the differences among technology-laden conventional farming systems and the role of technologies in strengthening the potential of agroecology. The first part reviews the new tools offered by geographic information technologies to farmers and people. The second part provides case studies of most promising application of technologies in organic farming and agroecology: the diffusion of hyperspectral imagery, the role of positioning systems, the integration of drones with satellite imagery. The third part of the book, explores the role of agroecology using a multiscale approach from the farm to the landscape level. This section explores the potential of Geodesign in promoting alliances between farmers and people, and strengthening food networks, whether through proximity urban farming or asserting land rights in remote areas in the spirit of agroecological transition.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons 4.0 license
Towards sustainable livestock systems: Developing and applying methods for broad sustainability assessment of pig and cattle systems
Meat and milk are valuable foods from livestock that contribute to quality of life for humans but have negative environmental, social and economic impacts. Measuring such impacts in sustainability assessments requires methods with a broad and deep focus. The overall aim of this thesis was to further develop sustainability assessment methods to broadly evaluate livestock systems and to use these methods to increase knowledge on how future sustainable pig and cattle production systems can be developed. Social life cycle assessment (S-LCA), Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) and the One Health framework were developed further and used to assess the impacts of the different livestock systems i.e. organic and conventional Swedish pig production, future pig production scenarios and three cattle systems (cropland based dairy, grassland based dairy and grassland based suckler beef production) in southern Europe. S-LCA, LCSA and the One Health framework sustainability methods can assess important sustainability aspects for pig and cattle production systems and identify important trade-offs. Organic pig production had lower social risk for negative social impacts for pigs and consumers than conventional pig production but higher environmental impacts per kg for eutrophication, acidification and fossil depletion. Grassland based suckler beef production was more resilient to economic losses due to changes in interest rates, input prices and output prices, produced more protein (in meat) than found in the feed and had higher profitability compared to the other cattle systems. However, grassland based beef production had higher eutrophication, acidification and fossil depletion compared to the dairy systems. Changing the breeding goal of pigs, changing the diet composition by including silage and having other protein sources than soybean, and using renewable energy sources in future pig production can further reduce negative impacts
Automatic generation of software interfaces for supporting decisionmaking processes. An application of domain engineering & machine learning
[EN] Data analysis is a key process to foster knowledge generation in particular domains
or fields of study. With a strong informative foundation derived from the analysis of
collected data, decision-makers can make strategic choices with the aim of obtaining
valuable benefits in their specific areas of action. However, given the steady growth
of data volumes, data analysis needs to rely on powerful tools to enable knowledge
extraction.
Information dashboards offer a software solution to analyze large volumes of
data visually to identify patterns and relations and make decisions according to the
presented information. But decision-makers may have different goals and,
consequently, different necessities regarding their dashboards. Moreover, the variety
of data sources, structures, and domains can hamper the design and implementation
of these tools.
This Ph.D. Thesis tackles the challenge of improving the development process of
information dashboards and data visualizations while enhancing their quality and
features in terms of personalization, usability, and flexibility, among others.
Several research activities have been carried out to support this thesis. First, a
systematic literature mapping and review was performed to analyze different
methodologies and solutions related to the automatic generation of tailored
information dashboards. The outcomes of the review led to the selection of a modeldriven
approach in combination with the software product line paradigm to deal with
the automatic generation of information dashboards.
In this context, a meta-model was developed following a domain engineering
approach. This meta-model represents the skeleton of information dashboards and
data visualizations through the abstraction of their components and features and has
been the backbone of the subsequent generative pipeline of these tools.
The meta-model and generative pipeline have been tested through their
integration in different scenarios, both theoretical and practical. Regarding the theoretical dimension of the research, the meta-model has been successfully
integrated with other meta-model to support knowledge generation in learning
ecosystems, and as a framework to conceptualize and instantiate information
dashboards in different domains.
In terms of the practical applications, the focus has been put on how to transform
the meta-model into an instance adapted to a specific context, and how to finally
transform this later model into code, i.e., the final, functional product. These practical
scenarios involved the automatic generation of dashboards in the context of a Ph.D.
Programme, the application of Artificial Intelligence algorithms in the process, and
the development of a graphical instantiation platform that combines the meta-model
and the generative pipeline into a visual generation system.
Finally, different case studies have been conducted in the employment and
employability, health, and education domains. The number of applications of the
meta-model in theoretical and practical dimensions and domains is also a result itself.
Every outcome associated to this thesis is driven by the dashboard meta-model, which
also proves its versatility and flexibility when it comes to conceptualize, generate, and
capture knowledge related to dashboards and data visualizations
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