Meeting Report: The 2nd Annual Argonne Soils Workshop, Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago Illinois, USA, October 6-8, 2010

This report summarizes the proceedings of the 2nd Annual Argonne Soils Workshop held at Argonne National Laboratory October 6–8, 2010. The workshop assembled a diverse group of soil ecologists, microbiologists, molecular biologists, and computational scientists to discuss the challenges and opportunities related to implementation of metagenomics approaches in soil microbial ecology. The overarching theme of the workshop was “designing ecologically meaningful soil metagenomics research”, which encouraged presentations on both ecological and computational topics. The workshop fostered valuable cross-discipline communication and delivered the message that soil metagenomics research must be based on an iterative process between biological inquiry and bioinformatics tools

GIS- BASED APPLICATION FOR GEOTECHNICAL DATA MANAGING

The need to provide data management capabilities in geotechnical projects, makes data visualization in a more understanding way vital, while improvements in computer science, have created an opportunity to rethink the manner in which such data is archived and presented. Geographic Information Systems are considered nowadays as principal methods for analysis, utilizing their ability of manipulating, compiling and processing spatial data, such as geotechnical one. In this paper, the development of Borehole Analysis System (BAS) a specific Graphical User Interface (GUI) application is proposed to access geotechnical data with the aim of a relational database and an open source GIS platform, embodied in the application. The BAS, is able to integrate multiple layers of gathered information and to derive additional knowledge by applying statistical and data mining algorithms with the use of spatial query tools. These can give reasonable conclusions and better representation in 2-D and 3-D environment. The presented application is illustrated with an example from field practice, testifying its ability to be a useful tool for management and presentation of geological and geotechnical borehole data

Aquaculture systems modeling: an introduction with emphasis on warmwater aquaculture

An introduction to modeling is presented. The basic concepts of systems and models and various types of models and their use in research and in management are described. Guidelines for modeling aquaculture systems are presented: empirical models for the analysis of multivariate datasets and theoretical models based on knowledge of the various processes underlying a system. Examples of two modeling approaches to the production of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) in ricefields are given in an appendix.Aquaculture systems, Warm-water aquaculture, Modelling

CLASSIFICATION MODEL FOR DISCOVERING THE TYPE OF CROP TO PLANT USING ENSEMBLE TECHNIQUES

Farming plays a role in ensuring survival, especially with the growing need for increased agricultural output. It is vital for farmers to efficiently choose the crops to cultivate. By using crop recommendation systems farmers can make decisions on what crops to plant leading to yields and improved resource management. The success of crop production depends on maintaining the balance of soil nutrients and favorable weather conditions. In this research project, we created a crop recommendation system utilizing learning methods to predict the appropriate crops based on essential soil nutrients and weather patterns. We worked with a dataset sourced from Kaggle, which included 2,200 entries featuring elements like Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Temperature, Humidity, pH levels, and Rainfall data in CSV format. We compared two techniques: bagging and boosting. For bagging, we utilized base estimators such as Decision Tree, Random Forest, and Support Vector Classifier (SVC). Our analysis revealed that the Random Forest classifier attained an accuracy rate of 99% after optimizing parameters, emerging as the effective model for our dataset. Additionally, the boosting approach using the Gradient Boosting classifier also performed well, with an accuracy rate of 98%. These findings underscore how ensemble methods can significantly improve accuracy in crop recommendation systems. The bagging model based on Random Forest showed effectiveness in this scenario, providing insights for making decisions in agriculture

The chemical mechanisms of plant-soil interactions

The interaction between plants and soils is too often oversimplified for its importance to life on earth. The chemical complexity of this interaction is enormous, but many soil scientists, ecologists, and biogeochemists reduce it to single compounds. This dissertation looks to explore the complexity of the interface of plant roots and soils, termed the rhizosphere, in an effort to better understand the chemical forces that shape terrestrial ecosystems. In two chapters I explore how small genetic differences in plants can lead to vast differences in surrounding soil enzymes and thousands of other metabolites. I show that the trait variation within a plant species can alter pedogenesis (The formation of soils) that may have feedbacks on future generations of plants. In the third chapter I explicitly explore this feedback by examining how plant chemical phenotypes change when exposed to live soils which have been conditioned by populations of a plant with unique phenotypes. As soil metabolomics is a new field, I used my final chapter as a review of the current methods of data analysis with the hope that future soil scientists will join me in exploring the chemical complexity of the soil instead of ignoring it

Ecology and the Common Good: Sustainability and Catholic Social Teaching

In recent years official Roman Catholic documents have addressed the ecological crisis from the perspective of Catholic social teaching. This expansion of Catholic social thought addresses the social and ecological question. This paper links environmental and human ecology with the concept of sustainability and proposes an interpretation of the common good and a definition of sustainability within Catholic social teaching. Our treatment of sustainability and Catholic social teaching includes: an analysis of the ecological processes that sustain nature; insights from human ecology, and an examination of models of sustainability as a foundation for re-structuring society to promote the common good. The paper provides a summary of the historical expansion of the common good within modern Catholic social thought, and concludes with an ecological interpretation of the common good and a definition of sustainability within the Catholic understanding of justice

Beyond immediacy and transparency. A semiotic approach to discursive and rhetorical strategies in media visualization and data visualization

Media visualization based on big cultural data, as “visualization without reduction” (Manovich 2010) is supposed to make data immediately and completely available, in contrast to classic data visualization, which visually translates information by means of “graphical primitives.” On the other hand, from a pure functionalist point of view, also the visual form of diagrams, charts, and graphs, being fully proportional to the data values it conveys, is transparent with respect to its object (cf. Tufte 1990, 1997, 2001, and Card, Mackinlay, Shneiderman 1999). In this paper we will try to consider both media visualization and data visualization (across several examples, including some Manovich’s and Accurat’s projects and New York Times graphics) as complex visual communication artifacts, not only from a purely informational point of view but from a semiotic point of view, by introducing a semiotic reflection on what we have proposed to call “discourse of data” (Manchia 2020a). From our perspective, situated in the methodological framework of visual semiotics, and of the semiotics of scientific discourse, it might be interesting to pay attention to the whole process of constructing knowledge (and visual information) from data, understood as a chain of “devices of visualization” (Bastide 1985a, 1990 [1985b], 2001), investigating data as a channelled result, and also visualization strategies of specific–and oriented–discourses across data

Trying to break new ground in aerial archaeology

Aerial reconnaissance continues to be a vital tool for landscape-oriented archaeological research. Although a variety of remote sensing platforms operate within the earth’s atmosphere, the majority of aerial archaeological information is still derived from oblique photographs collected during observer-directed reconnaissance flights, a prospection approach which has dominated archaeological aerial survey for the past century. The resulting highly biased imagery is generally catalogued in sub-optimal (spatial) databases, if at all, after which a small selection of images is orthorectified and interpreted. For decades, this has been the standard approach. Although many innovations, including digital cameras, inertial units, photogrammetry and computer vision algorithms, geographic(al) information systems and computing power have emerged, their potential has not yet been fully exploited in order to re-invent and highly optimise this crucial branch of landscape archaeology. The authors argue that a fundamental change is needed to transform the way aerial archaeologists approach data acquisition and image processing. By addressing the very core concepts of geographically biased aerial archaeological photographs and proposing new imaging technologies, data handling methods and processing procedures, this paper gives a personal opinion on how the methodological components of aerial archaeology, and specifically aerial archaeological photography, should evolve during the next decade if developing a more reliable record of our past is to be our central aim. In this paper, a possible practical solution is illustrated by outlining a turnkey aerial prospection system for total coverage survey together with a semi-automated back-end pipeline that takes care of photograph correction and image enhancement as well as the management and interpretative mapping of the resulting data products. In this way, the proposed system addresses one of many bias issues in archaeological research: the bias we impart to the visual record as a result of selective coverage. While the total coverage approach outlined here may not altogether eliminate survey bias, it can vastly increase the amount of useful information captured during a single reconnaissance flight while mitigating the discriminating effects of observer-based, on-the-fly target selection. Furthermore, the information contained in this paper should make it clear that with current technology it is feasible to do so. This can radically alter the basis for aerial prospection and move landscape archaeology forward, beyond the inherently biased patterns that are currently created by airborne archaeological prospection

Sustainable forest management using decision theaters : rethinking participatory planning

Involving stakeholders in the decision-making process can be very complex and time consuming. Decision theater (DT), which enables the combination of visualization and decision modeling capabilities together with human capacity of insight and interaction, is proposed for addressing this challenging problem in the forest sector. A generic framework for designing DTs to support participatory planning in the forest sector is proposed. To enable DT implementation and support decision-making in the DT in the province of Québec, Canada, the conceptual design of a decision-support system called Forest Community-DSS (FC-DSS) has been developed. Implementing FC-DSS along with other technologies in a DT environment can contribute to engage the stakeholders in the decision-making process by increasing participation frequency, collecting more inputs from the stakeholders, supporting the development and evaluation of alternative options and the selection of preferred alternatives. A DT-based collaboration approach would contribute to address the multiple issues of the stakeholders involved in participatory planning in Québec. Other Canadian provinces and other countries facing similar issues can benefit from the proposed approach