Técnicas de exterminación de plagas en los tratados agrícolas andalusíes

El objetivo de este trabajo es el estudio de los distintos métodos utilizados por los agrónomos andalusíes para exterminar una gran variedad de plagas, habidas en los productos agrícolas, entre los animales de la explotación agrícola y en las casas de campo y otras construcciones. Le acompaña otro objetivo: analizar la aportación de la agronomía andalusí en este ámbito de exterminio de plagas. Para todo ello, hemos llevado a cabo un detallado estudio de los tratados de agricultura andalusíes, los cuales hemos comparado con fuentes agronómicas anteriores y posteriores. Los resultados obtenidos, en cuanto a fondo y forma de las técnicas usadas en los agrónomos vistos, permite concluir la gran influencia de la geoponimia greco-bizantina en el desarrollo de dichas técnicas, y la aportación andalusí en el caso de erradicación de plagas en animales y casas, a partir de fuentes ajenas a las propiamente agrícolas.L'objectiu d'aquest treball és l'estudi dels diferents mètodes utilitzats pels agrònoms andalusins per exterminar una gran varietat de plagues, hagudes en els productes agrícoles, entre els animals de l'explotació agrícola i a les cases de camp i altres construccions. L'acompanya un altre objectiu: analitzar l'aportació de l'agronomia andalusina en aquest àmbit d'extermini de plagues. Per a tot això, hem dut a terme un detallat estudi dels tractats d'agricultura andalusins, els quals hem comparat amb fonts agronòmiques anteriors i posteriors. Els resultats obtinguts, quant a fons i forma de les tècniques usades en els agrònoms vistos, permet concloure la gran influència de la geoponímia grecobizantina en el desenvolupament d'aquestes tècniques, i l'aportació andalusina en el cas d'eradicació de plagues en animals i cases, en partir de fonts alienes a les pròpiament agrícoles.The objective of this study is to examine the different methods used by the Andalusi agronomists for exterminating a wide variety of pests in agricultural produce, farm animals, country houses, and other buildings. It also aims to analyse the contribution of Andalusi agronomy in this field of pest extermination. To achieve these aims, a detailed study was carried out of Andalusi treatises on agriculture, which were compared with earlier and subsequent agronomic sources. The results regarding the form and essence of the techniques used by the agronomists reveal that Greco-Byzantine geoponics had a significant influence on the development of these techniques, and that the Andalusi contribution in terms of eradicating pests in animals and houses was substantial, based on sources other than purely agricultural ones

Las palomas en la agricultura andalusí

En este artículo exponemos los temas concernientes a las palomas que fueron objeto de interés para los agrónomos andalusíes. En concreto, partimos de los tratados de Ibn Wafid e Ibn al-Awwam, únicos en los que se conservan datos zootécnicos. A continuación, analizamos las fuentes en las que se basaron dichos agrónomos para elaborar su capítulo sobre estas aves, y que son tanto de origen clásico como propias de la cultura arabo-islámica. Finalmente, concluimos que la aportación de los geóponos andalusíes consiste en presentar una gran variedad de información, sin precedentes en la literatura agronómica anterior

Assessing influence of protein source on characteristics of gluten-free breads optimising their hydration level

Most gluten-free products have lower protein content than their counterparts with wheat flour. The addition of exogenous proteins could not only be a good option to compensate for this reduction but also a tool to create gluten-free products rich in protein. However, the different water binding capacities of proteins modify dough rheology, which also affects bread volume. Therefore, this study aimed to analyse the incorporation of a high percentage (30%) of several proteins (rice, pea, egg white and whey protein) in gluten-free breads whose hydration levels were adjusted for each protein to achieve the maximum volume. In this way, the breads with vegetal proteins required a higher amount of water than the breads with animal proteins. Moreover, all enriched breads exhibited lower maximum volume values than control, and the ones with whey protein presented the lowest volumes overall. From these results, the rheological behaviour and characteristics (colour, texture and weight loss) of optimized doughs and breads were measured. The doughs with whey protein presented the highest G’ and G’’ values due to their low hydration level, and the ones with egg white protein were very watery. Regarding colour, the addition of protein led to darker crusts, with the ones with whey protein being the darkest. With respect to the control, breads with animal proteins exhibited higher hardness, especially with whey protein, while the ones with vegetal proteins did not present significant differences.Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Project AGL2014-52928-C2) and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER

Influence of protein source on characteristics and quality of gluten-free cookies

Proteins are essential nutrients in the diet, with the recommended amount of daily protein consumption varying for people with different health status and activity level. Cookies could be an adequate carrier of proteins because of their great acceptability. The aim of this study was to analyse the effect of flour substitution with different types of protein (pea, potato, egg white and whey) in gluten-free cookies. Hydration properties, dough rheology, cookie characteristics (protein content, dimensions, texture) and sensory acceptability were studied. The hydration properties of mixtures with protein were lower than the control, with the exception of pea protein. As for results from rheological analysis, G´ and G” values for pea and potato protein were similar to the control, while egg white and whey protein had lower values. Regarding cookie characteristics, the addition of egg white and whey protein produced harder and wider cookies, respectively. The addition of potato protein yielded cookies with darker edges, but the incorporation of pea protein did not lead to any significant change in cookie parameters. Sensory evaluation showed that the addition of pea protein produced cookies with the same scores as the control sample, signifying that cookies with added pea protein had the best acceptability.Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Project AGL2014-52928-C2) and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER

Habitat classification using convolutional neural networks and multitemporal multispectral aerial imagery

The monitoring of threatened habitats is a key objective of European environmental policies. Due to the high cost of current field-based habitat mapping techniques, there is keen interest in proposing solutions that can reduce cost through increased levels of automation. Our study aims to propose a habitat mapping solution that benefits both from the merits of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for image classification tasks, as well as from the high spatial, spectral, and multitemporal unmanned aerial vehicle image data, which shows great potential for accurate vegetation classification. The proposed CNN-based method uses multitemporal multispectral aerial imagery for the classification of threatened coastal habitats in the Maharees (Ireland) and shows a high level of classification accuracy.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 847402. The authors would like to thank the EPA-funded iHabiMap project for providing the data used in this work. We thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions helped improve and clarify this manuscript. The authors declare no conflicts of interes

Monitoring threatened irish habitats using multi-temporal multispectral aerial imagery and convolutional neural networks

The monitoring of threatened habitats is a key objective of European environmental policy. Due to the high cost of current field-based habitat mapping techniques there is a strong research interest in proposing solutions that reduce the cost of habitat monitoring through increasing their level of automation. Our work is motivated by the opportunities that recent advances in machine learning and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) offer to the habitat monitoring problem. In this paper, a deep learning based solution is proposed to classify four priority Irish habitats types present in the Maharees (Ireland) using UAV aerial imagery. The proposed method employs Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to classify multi-temporal multi-spectral images of the study area corresponding to three different dates in 2020, obtaining an overall classification accuracy of 93%. A comparison of the proposed method with a multi-spectral 2D-CNN model demonstrates the advantage of including temporal information enabled by the proposed multi-temporal multi-spectral CNN model.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 847402

Proyecto de fábrica artesanal de yogur de leche de oveja en el polígono industrial “San Antolín” (Palencia)

El presente proyecto consiste en la implantación de una fábrica artesanal de yogur de leche de oveja en el polígono industrial "San Antolín" , situado en la provincia de Palencia. Se procesan 60000 litros de leche de oveja al año para hacer yogures de150 g. La industria está diseñada con las instalaciones y la maquinaria necesaria para permitirla elaboración de tres tipos de yogur batido: natural, azucarado y con confitura de fruta.Grado en Ingeniería de las Industrias Agrarias y Alimentaria

Assessing the Importance of Protein Interactions and Hydration Level on Protein-Enriched Gluten-Free Breads: a Novel Approach

The effect of starch substitution by 30% of different mixtures of egg white and pea proteins (100:0; 75:25; 50:50; 25:75; 0:100) was studied. The effect of hydration levels on specific volume was determined in order to later study the physical characteristics of different protein-enriched breads with an adjusted hydration level to achieve a specific volume similar to that of commercial wheat breads (5.5 ± 0.5 cm3/g). Hydration level needs to achieve this specific volume increased when increasing pea protein ratio. Control batter presented the highest elastic modulus, followed by the batter enriched with pea protein. Elastic modulus decreased progressively when increasing egg protein content. Same trend was observed for the viscous modulus. Differently, hardness was increased by the presence of egg protein, while decreased with the presence of pea protein. Breads with the same amount of both proteins showed no significant differences, compared to the control hardness. Regarding crumb structure, egg protein generated a uniform structure of small air bubbles that opened progressively when the proportion of pea protein was increased, until the same levels of both proteins were added, closing again with a higher pea protein content, but was not as close as when egg protein only was added. Key words:Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Project AGL2014-52928-C2)European Regional Development Fund (FEDER

Estudio de la incorporación de altos porcentajes de proteínas en productos sin gluten a base de cereales

Las proteínas, junto a carbohidratos y grasas, son macromoléculas que componen la base de la dieta humana. En los últimos años, la presencia de altos contenidos de proteína en productos se ha convertido en un reclamo de los consumidores. Se conoce que un mayor consumo de proteínas puede producir beneficios nutricionales para determinados grupos de población como deportistas, ancianos, etc. Además, la mayor sensación de saciedad que aportan los productos enriquecidos con proteínas los convierte en una buena opción para personas que quieren perder peso. Existen diferentes estudios que analizan el efecto de las proteínas en la funcionalidad de harinas y almidones, así como en las características de productos a base de cereales. Sin embargo, la mayor parte de estos trabajos estudian individualmente las proteínas, no comparan entre diferentes tipos de proteínas y los contenidos de proteínas adicionados son bajos (<15%). Además, algunos de estos estudios presentaron resultados contradictorios, y los diferentes requerimientos de agua de cada proteína podrían ser uno de los motivos. Por ello, el objetivo de la presente tesis fue evaluar el efecto de la incorporación de altos porcentajes de diferentes proteínas (arroz, patata, guisante, suero y huevo) en las características reológicas, físicas y sensoriales de productos sin gluten a base de cereales (galletas, panes, bizcochos y purés). Los tipos de proteína utilizados fueron elegidos en base a los resultados obtenidos en estudios previos realizados por el grupo de investigación. De esta forma, las proteínas seleccionadas presentan propiedades características y engloban la mayor parte de los tipos de proteínas disponibles (leguminosas, cereales, tubérculos, leche y huevo) para que los resultados puedan ser extrapolables a otras proteínas. Además, también se pretendió analizar diferencias entre las proteínas animales y las proteínas vegetales. En cuanto a los productos elegidos como matriz, se pretendió evaluar como la adición de proteínas puede influir en diferentes tipos de masas (batidas, cortas, fermentadas) y productos (horneados y mezclados en frío).Departamento de Ingeniería Agrícola y ForestalDoctorado en Ciencia e Ingeniería Agroalimentaria y de Biosistema

Rank-based ant system with originality reinforcement and pheromone smoothing

Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) encompasses a family of metaheuristics inspired by the foraging behaviour of ants. Since the introduction of the first ACO algorithm, called Ant System (AS), several ACO variants have been proposed in the literature. Owing to their superior performance over other alternatives, the most popular ACO algorithms are Rank-based Ant System (ASRank), Max-Min Ant System (MMAS) and Ant Colony System (ACS). While ASRank shows a fast convergence to high-quality solutions, its performance is improved by other more widely used ACO variants such as MMAS and ACS, which are currently considered the state-of-the-art ACO algorithms for static combinatorial optimization problems. With the purpose of diversifying the search process and avoiding early convergence to a local optimal, the proposed approach extends ASRank with an originality reinforcement strategy of the top-ranked solutions and a pheromone smoothing mechanism that is triggered before the algorithm reaches stagnation. The approach is tested on several symmetric and asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problem and Sequential Ordering Problem instances from TSPLIB benchmark. Our experimental results show that the proposed method achieves fast convergence to high-quality solutions and outperforms the current state-of-the-art ACO algorithms ASRank, MMAS and ACS, for most instances of the benchmark.This research work was funded by the European project PDE-GIR of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research & innovation program (Marie Sklodowska-Curie action, grant agreement No 778035), and by the Spanish government project #PID2021-127073OB-I00 of the MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, EU “Una manera de hacer Europa”