Sustainability and Resilience in Organic Greenhouse Horticulture. Examples from Italy and the UK

It is estimated that at least 5,000 ha of greenhouses are managed organically within the EU. One current development is the "conventionalisation" of organic practices, another is the increase of community supported agriculture and short food supply chains. In this study, we capture both ends of the organic spectrum. Sustainability and resilience have been given theoretical definitions; however, the perspectives of organic growers have not been studied. The aim of the research was to connect theory and practice across Europe with two case-study countries, Italy and the UK. An online survey was emailed to organic growers in both countries, and remained open from June 2016 to June 2017, containing 17 questions on general information and 12 researching details on sustainable and resilient practices, and major influencing factors on growers' decisions. These questions were presented as five-point Likert-scaled, so growers were asked to attribute a weight from low (1) to high (5) to issues and practices in relation to their relevance to the sustainability and resilience of their farms' management. Results showed that soil fertility management was rated highest in both Italy and the UK. Biodiversity and landscape protection were rated higher in Italy, while energy efficiency and weed management were rated higher in the UK. Short food supply chains, product traceability and traditional knowledge were equally rated. These interesting differences and similarities were further studied in detail with 20 on-farm interviews (10 in Italy and 10 in the UK), to give voice to growers' specific perspectives on sustainability and resilience.</p

Aprendizajes y prácticas educativas en las actuales condiciones de época: COVID-19

“Esta obra colectiva es el resultado de una convocatoria a docentes, investigadores y profesionales del campo pedagógico a visibilizar procesos investigativos y prácticas educativas situadas en el marco de COVI-19. La misma se inscribe en el trabajo llevado a cabo por el equipo de Investigación responsable del Proyecto “Sentidos y significados acerca de aprender en las actuales condiciones de época: un estudio con docentes y estudiantes de la educación secundarias en la ciudad de Córdoba” de la Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. El momento excepcional que estamos atravesando, pero que también nos atraviesa, ha modificado la percepción temporal a punto tal que habitamos un tiempo acelerado y angustiante que nos exige la producción de conocimiento provisorio. La presente publicación surge como un espacio para detenernos a documentar lo que nos acontece y, a su vez, como oportunidad para atesorar y resguardar las experiencias educativas que hemos construido, inventado y reinventando en este contexto. En ella encontrarán pluralidad de voces acerca de enseñar y aprender durante la pandemia. Este texto es una pausa para reflexionar sobre el hacer y las prácticas educativas por venir”.Fil: Beltramino, Lucia (comp.). Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. Escuela de Archivología; Argentina

Real time indoor localization integrating a model based pedestrian dead reckoning on smartphone and BLE beacons

Mobile and pervasive computing enabled a new realm of possibilities into the indoor positioning domain. Although many candidate technologies have been proposed, no one can still adapt to every use case. A case centered design and the implementation of the solution within the specific domain is the current research trend. With the rise of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Beacons, i.e., platforms used to interact digitally with the real world, more standard positioning solutions are emerging in different contexts. However the reachable positioning accuracy with this technology is still unacceptable for some real applications (e.g., in the healthcare sector or the emergency management). In this paper, an hybrid localization application coupling a real time model based Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) technique and the analysis of the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) of BLE beacons is proposed. In particular, the smartphone application is composed by three main real time threads: a model based step length estimation, heading determination and the fusion of beacon information to reset the position and the drift error of the PDR. In order to give soundness to our approach we firstly validated the step length smartphone app with a stereo-photogrammetric system. The whole proposed solution was then tested on fifteen healthy subjects

Sustainability assessment tools for organic greenhouse horticulture

This booklet describes different tools currently employed for sustainability evaluation, according to the field of expertise and experience of the authors. Each method serves a different purpose and covers different aspects of sustainability (environmental, economic, social or all together). This body of work will attempt to show the complexity of assessing sustainability in a comprehensive way, by giving a short background and describing the main features of each tool, and supplying the reader with a practical example of application whenever possible