19 research outputs found

    Object Detection and Tracking in Wide Area Surveillance Using Thermal Imagery

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    The main objective behind this thesis is to examine how existing vision-based detection and tracking algorithms perform in thermal imagery-based video surveillance. While color-based surveillance has been extensively studied, these techniques can not be used during low illumination, at night, or with lighting changes and shadows which limits their applicability. The main contributions in this thesis are (1) the creation of a new color-thermal dataset, (2) a detailed performance comparison of different color-based detection and tracking algorithms on thermal data and (3) the proposal of an adaptive neural network for false detection rejection. Since there are not many publicly available datasets for thermal-video surveillance, a new UNLV Thermal Color Pedestrian Dataset was collected to evaluate the performance of popular color-based detection and tracking in thermal images. The dataset provides an overhead view of humans walking through a courtyard and is appropriate for aerial surveillance scenarios such as unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Three popular detection schemes are studied for thermal pedestrian detection: 1) Haar-like features, 2) local binary pattern (LBP) and 3) background subtraction motion detection. A i) Kalman filter predictor and ii) optical flow are used for tracking. Results show that combining Haar and LBP detections with a 50% overlap rule and tracking using Kalman filters can improve the true positive rate (TPR) of detection by 20%. However, motion-based methods are better at rejecting false positive in non-moving camera scenarios. The Kalman filter with LBP detection is the most efficient tracker but optical flow better rejects false noise detections. This thesis also presents a technique for learning and characterizing pedestrian detections with heat maps and an object-centric motion compensation method for UAS. Finally, an adaptive method to reject false detections using error back propagation using a neural network. The adaptive rejection scheme is able to successfully learn to identify static false detections for improved detection performance

    Midline Household Survey Results: Rupandehi, Nepal

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    This report summarizes the main findings from the household midline survey conducted in seven villages of the district of Rupandehi, one of CCAFS site, in Nepal in July 2019. The household survey revisited the 135 households of the 2012 CCAFS baseline survey and used the same standardized household survey tools. The Open Data Kit (ODK) software was used for the data collection. The results show that the majority of households in Rupandehi produce a variety of crops, among which rice, wheat and mustard. Many farmers also rear livestock such as cows, buffalo, chicken, oxen and goat. All members of the family typically engage in the on-farm agricultural work but men are more likely to be also involved in off-farm activities. Households members derive their income from a variety of sources, the main one being payments from the government or other projects/programs. This is followed by remittances and income from businesses as the main alternative income sources for many households. Moreover, most of the farmers have made changes in their agricultural practices since the baseline. Many have introduced higher-yielding crop varieties or have stopped keeping one or more types of animals on the farm. In terms of food security, the majority of the households surveyed in Rupandehi district are food secure throughout the entire year. The households mostly obtain their food directly from their farms. However, some of the households purchase food from other sources, especially during the month of June, July and August. Most farmers are small landholders, almost 75% of the households’ land sizes are marginal (< 1 ha), followed by a minority of smallholders owning between 1 and 2 ha of land. 98% of the households indicated buying seeds and inorganic fertilizers whereas 95% of households reported the purchase of pesticides and insecticides. 70% of households also recorded the purchase of veterinary medicine. According to the survey, television, cell phone and bicycle are the most common assets in the area. Internet access is also common in many households. Women are mostly involved in crops cultivation, mainly vegetables and cereals along with rearing livestock. The farmers have shifted towards higher-yielding and better-quality varieties of rice, and wheat. The survey findings indicate that farmers are well aware of agricultural innovations and tend to use new crop varieties

    Efficacy of commercial insecticides for cowpea pod borer (Maruca vitrata F.) management in Pokhara, Nepal

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    Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata Walp.) is a major grain legume used as vegetables and pulses. Among the several insect pest of cowpea, spotted pod borer is one of the most destructive pest. To evaluate the available chemical pesticides for pod borer management, a set of field experiments on cowpea variety Malepatan-1 were conducted at Horticulture Research Station, Malepatan, Pokhara in years 2019 and 2020. The experiments were laid out in Completely Randomized Block Design (RCBD) having seven&nbsp; treatments viz.Flubendiamide 39.35 % SC @ 0.3 mL/L, Chlorantraniliprole 18.5 % SC @ 0.2 mL/L, Emamectin benzoate 5 % SG @0.3 g/L, Spinosad 45 % SC @0.3 mL/L, Bacillus thuringiensis Kurstaki @2g/L, Azadirechtin 0.03%@ 5mL/L and Control with four replications. Flubendiamide 39.35 % SC @ 0.3 mL/L and Emamectin benzoate 5 % SG @0.3 g/L were found the most effective insecticides in lowering cowpea flower and pod damage with highest benefit cost ratio; however, considering environment, Chlorantraniliprole 18.5 % SC @ 0.2 mL/L and Spinosad 45 % SC @0.3 mL/L being next effective treatments could be viable option to manage spotted pod borer in cowpea production.&nbsp; &nbsp

    Climate Investment Plan for the Agriculture Sector: A Decision Support Tool for Scaling up Climate-Smart Agriculture Technologies and Practices in Gandaki Province, Nepal

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    Gandaki Province is centrally located in Nepal with most of its area being hills and high hills (64%). There are 11 districts in Gandaki Province with one metropolitan city, namely, Pokhara; 26 municipalities and 58 rural municipalities. Gandaki Province contributes about 9% to the GDP of the whole country. In terms of agriculture production, Gandaki Province is food deficit and relies on other provinces for the supply of pulses, fruits, vegetables, and livestock products. Of the total area of the province, 24% of the land area is cultivable; around 24% of the cultivable land is fallow land (117,076 ha), which remains a great challenge for the upcoming days in terms of food production and enabling food security in the province. The prevalent climate is varied in the province starting from the plains of Nawalpur to the high Himalayas of Manang and Mustang. The highest maximum temperature has been recorded in Kaski district (30.7°c) and lowest minimum temperature has been recorded in Manang district (-4.6°c) over the time period 1971 to 2014. Similarly, the highest annual precipitation has been recorded in Kaski district (2,710.5 mm) while the lowest annual precipitation has been recorded in Mustang district (257.8 mm). Varied climatic risks are prevalent in Gandaki Province such as temperature and rainfall risk, ecological risk, flood, landslide, drought and Glacier Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) risk. Lamjung district is very highly prone to the combined risk index of all these risks. Similarly, Gorkha, Tanahun, Manang, Myagdi, Parbat and Baglung districts are highly prone to the combined risk index. The Nepalese economy is highly dependent on the agriculture and forestry sector which contributes around 33% of the national GDP. Agriculture is climate sensitive, which makes the Nepalese economy vulnerable to climatic variability. Although Nepal is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to erratic climate phenomenon, Nepal’s contribution to greenhouse emissions is negligible. Food production and food security are of high concern in the changing climatic scenario as compared to land availability at individual household level. In the Nepalese context, food security is of high importance; despite the fact that agriculture is still subsistence in nature. Food production in these changing climatic/socio-economic situation and people’s access to food are the key indicators of food security. Thus, adoption of CSA technologies at farmers’ field level is of immense importance in order to mitigate the ill effects of climate change while ensuring food production and food security. The Climate Investment Plan (CIP) has been designed as a decision-making tool for agricultural investment in terms of adoption of climate smart agricultural (CSA) technologies. It will act as a yard stick to the government and policy makers to calculate how much investment is needed for attaining certain levels of crop production, thereby enhancing the livelihood of the farming society. Adoption of CSA technologies is expected to improve food production, increase agricultural income, increase technical efficiency of inputs used, enhance climate change adaptation, and produce a low environmental footprint. With the changing weather conditions, decreased farm production and productivity it is of prime necessity to enhance crop/livestock production in the Nepalese context. Adoption of CSA technologies by farming communities is the most appropriate way to do this. CIP will act as a document to guide government authorities to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate agricultural investment targeted to enhance agricultural/livestock production via adoption of CSA technologies. The Climate Investment Plan has been methodologically divided into five steps: The first two steps consist of the formation of a climate risk matrix and risk-CSA matrix. The climate risk matrix was formed at district level to identify climatic risks pertaining to individual crop/livestock. Similarly, the risk-CSA matrix contains the potential CSA technologies addressing the climate risk for each crop/livestock at district level. These two steps help in the identification of climate risk pertaining to each crop/livestock commodity and potential CSA options. Thirdly, cost of cultivation was calculated for normal production and along with CSA technologies with the help of experts. This data was analyzed using Excel Solver in the fourth step and climate investment was carried out in the fifth step. Crop specific CSA technologies were selected from Excel Solver analysis, an Excel based commonly used optimization technique, and a certain area was allocated for cultivation which in general maximized the production/income while minimizing GHG emissions and human labour use in agricultural operations. Individual CSA technologies in each crop/livestock component was treated as a single treatment i.e., no bundling of technologies. Each CSA technology were treated as a single component while looking at the production, productivity and income generation. In the case of rice, a system of rice intensification (SRI), alternate waiting and drying (AWD), improved varieties, effective nutrient management, direct seeded rice (DSR), use of farm yard manure (FYM), and normal rice cultivation were the CSA technologies recommended/identified from the expert’s consultation (representing NARC, DoA and MoALD). Similarly, in wheat production, ICT, minimum tillage, improved varieties, nutrient management and normal production systems were identified. Likewise, different CSA technologies were identified for maize, lentil, black gram, potato, tomato, cole crops, apple, banana, mango, sweet orange, and mandarin orange. In the case of livestock - cow, buffalo, goat and fish were selected and cost benefit was analyzed. Due to lack of cost of production data for these livestock components from government sources, experts in their respective fields were used for the purpose. Gandaki Province needs to invest in seed, fertilizer, mulching materials, pesticide and micronutrients as required for crop commodity production. Investment in building infrastructure i.e., irrigation facilities, can be a long term investment by the provincial government. Similarly, crop/livestock insurance schemes should be a yearly strategic programme in the province. The Climate Adaptation Investment Plan has been developed mainly after considering the input supply needed while adopting the CSA technologies. Provincial government is recommended to provide a 25%, 15% and 5% subsidy on the input cost for the first three years of implementing the plan. From the 4th year onwards, the provincial government should make proper arrangements for collateral/interest free loan to the farming communities via proper channels. The investment amount has been calculated based on CSA technology and districts selected for each crop items. Crop and district specific (selected districts) investment should be done to augment agricultural production/productivity in the province. For livestock production, we lack official data on cost and return and the estimates done in this report are based on experts’ judgement and knowledge. Unlike crops/fruits/vegetables, CSA technologies are very specific in the case of livestock production. In the case of buffalo milk production, high yielding breeds in both the Terai and hill regions are expected to give higher returns from the investment. Similarly, for cow milk, high yielding breeds are expected to give higher return on the investment. Regarding goat farming, high yielding goat breeds need to be introduced in the Nepalese situation to make goat farming a lucrative agri-business. Fish farming can be promoted to make Nepalese fish production enough to feed the population. Rainbow trout is best suited to the cold running water in the hill regions of Nepal. Similarly, polyculture of Carps, Catfish, Pangas and other fish can be produced across both the Terai and hill regions. As the present study is based on secondary data sources and experts’ consultation, the results generated from this study are prone to errors but maximum diligence has been given to make the results more authentic and pragmatic. The investment portfolio generated in this study is based on CSA technologies that are/can be relevant to Gandaki Province. No socio-economic and gender perspective study has been carried out to validate the CSA technologies at farmer level. The present study has generated investment at district/ province pertaining to specific crop commodities. Authentic data from credible sources is required at municipal/rural-municipal/ward level to estimate the investment required at these levels

    Ground and Aerial Robots for Agricultural Production: Opportunities and Challenges

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    Crop and animal production techniques have changed significantly over the last century. In the early 1900s, animal power was replaced by tractor power that resulted in tremendous improvements in field productivity, which subsequently laid foundation for mechanized agriculture. While precision agriculture has enabled site-specific management of crop inputs for improved yields and quality, precision livestock farming has boosted efficiencies in animal and dairy industries. By 2020, highly automated systems are employed in crop and animal agriculture to increase input efficiency and agricultural output with reduced adverse impact on the environment. Ground and aerial robots combined with artificial intelligence (AI) techniques have potential to tackle the rising food, fiber, and fuel demands of the rapidly growing population that is slated to be around 10 billion by the year 2050. This Issue Paper presents opportunities provided by ground and aerial robots for improved crop and animal production, and the challenges that could potentially limit their progress and adoption. A summary of enabling factors that could drive the deployment and adoption of robots in agriculture is also presented along with some insights into the training needs of the workforce who will be involved in the next-generation agriculture

    Apple Dataset Benchmark from Orchard Environment in Modern Fruiting Wall

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    Dataset comprises 2,298 images. These zipped files contain images of apple trees with fruits captured during robotic harvesting and yield estimation studies at Washington State University from multiple years, different time of the day and multiple varieties using multiple sensors with modern fruiting wall architectur

    Communicating Climate Smart Agriculture to the Stakeholders: Impact of LI-BIRD/CCAFS Travelling Seminars in Climate Smart Villages of Nepal : An Impact Assessment Report

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    This report presents the findings of an assessment of the impact of travelling seminar (TS) organized by Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research and Development (LI-BIRD)/Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) under the Climate Smart Village (CSV) project in Nepal. The travelling seminar impact assessment aimed at assessing the effectiveness of travelling seminar and to what extent the participants, especially the municipal and provincial level women leaders were able to internalize and apply the seminar learning to advocate and influence municipal and provincial level policies, plans and programmes for integrating climate smart agricultural technologies and practices. The assessment was carried out during 10-17 September 2019 at Bardibas (Mahottari district), Kawasoti (Nawalpur district) and Pokhara (Kaski district) with the involvement of mixed group of men and women representing the Federal House of Representatives, Province 2 Assembly and Gandaki provincial assembly, municipalities, and civil society organizations. Focus group discussion (FGD) and key informant interview (KII) were applied during the assessment. Results shows that the travelling seminar serves as an effective mechanism to share and learn about the technologies and practices through direct observation and to understand the real problems at community level through interaction with the users and beneficiaries. The travelling seminar is an important tool and method to influence local and provincial level policies, programmes and plans for scaling up of climate smart agricultural technologies and practices across Nepal

    Value chain analysis of arabica coffee (Coffea arabica l.) in Arghakhanchi district of Nepal

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    AbstractA field survey was conducted during February–May 2022 in Chhatradev rural municipality and Sitganga municipality with the purpose of analyzing the existing value chain of arabica coffee in Arghakhanchi district of Nepal. A sample size of 110 arabica coffee growers, comprising 55 from each municipality, was selected by using three-stage sampling method for interviews that used a pretested questionnaire. To study the value addition and trading aspects, six collectors and pulper operators and two secondary processors were selected. Descriptive statistics was applied to analyze the data. Input suppliers, producers, collectors, pulper operators, secondary processors, traders, and consumers were identified as key players in the coffee value chain. NTCDB, NARC, CDC, AKC, Coffee Zone, Primary Coffee Cooperatives, Central Coffee Cooperative Union Limited, NCPA, financial institutions, and certification agencies were identified as the enabling environment providers in the value chain. The findings showed that the gross margin of one kg each of fresh cherry production, dry parchment production, green bean production, and coffee powder production was NRs. 26.06, NRs. 92.83, NRs. 107.7, and NRs. 215.06, respectively. Value addition from producers to primary processors was NRs. 109.8 per kg, and the value addition from primary to secondary processors was NRs. 445.6 per kg. Similarly, the value addition from secondary processors to consumers was NRs. 480.58 per kg. The research area’s value chain structure or network was determined to be brief and straightforward. Therefore, it is advised to adopt cutting-edge processing and packaging methods to improve the competitiveness of Nepali coffee in the market
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