Design and testing of a GPS/GSM collar prototype to combat cattle rustling

Rustling is an age-old practice that was widespread in Italy until the first half of the 20th century. Today, incidents of cattle rustling are again being reported. However, the problem is not only found in Italy. It is also becoming a plague for ranchers in the US and is still rampant in East Africa. In Italy, the cattle rustling phenomena have usually been limited through the direct control of the herdsmen. Global positioning system (GPS) and geographic information system (GIS) combined technologies are increasingly applied for tracking and monitoring livestock with greater spatial and temporal resolution. However, so far, no case studies of the use of GPS technology to combat cattle rustling have been reported in the literature. The aim of this research was to develop a GPS/GSM (global system for mobile communication) collar, using commercial hardware and implementing a specific software [ARVAshepherd 1.0; ARVAtec Srl, Rescaldina (MI), Italy] to track animals' movements outside their grazing area and to signal when animals are straying outside virtual perimeters. A phase I study was conducted from January to June 2011 to build the GPS/GSM collar and to assess its performances in terms of GPS accuracy and precision, while a phase II study was conducted in July 2011 to test the GPS collar under real-life operating conditions. The static GPS positioning error achieved a circular error probable (50%) and horizontal 95% accuracy of 1.462 m and 4.501 m, respectively. This is comparable with values obtained by other authors in static tests of a commercial GPS collar for grazing studies. In field tests, the system was able to identify the incorrect position of the cattle and the warning messages were sent promptly to the farmer, continuing until the animals had been repositioned inside the fence, thus highlighting the potential of the GPS/GSM collar as an anti-theft system

Experimental tests on winter cereal: Sod seeding compared to minimum tillage and traditional plowing

Compared to traditional plowing and minimum tillage, the sod seeding technique has been tested in order to evaluate the differences in energy consumption, labor and machinery requirement and CO2 emission reduction. The experiments were conducted on winter cereal seeding in a Po valley farm in October 2011. The tests were carried out as follows: wheat variety seeding, over corn and alfalfa crops, in large plots with three repetitions for each thesis. They included: sod seeding anticipated by round up weeding in the case of the plots over alfalfa; traditional plowing at 35 cm followed by rotary tillage and combined seeding (seeder plus rotary tiller); minimum tillage based on ripping at the same depth (35 cm) and combined seeder ( seeder plus rotary tiller). The following farm operations - fertilizer, and other agrochemical distributionshave been the same in all the considered theses. The results, statistically significant (P<0.001) in terms of yields, highlighted slight differences: the best data in the case of the traditional plowing both in the case of wheat crop over corn and alfalfa (84.43 and 6.75 t/ha); slightly lower yields for the sod seeding (6.23 and 79.9 t/ha for corn and alfalfa respectively); lower in the case of minimum tillage (5.87; 79.77 t/ha in the two situations). Huge differences in energy and oil consumption have been recorded: in the case of succession to corn 61.47; 35.31; 4.27 kg oil/ha respectively for, traditional plowing, minimum tillage and sod seeding; in the case of alfalfa 61.2; 50.96; 5.14 kg oil/ha respectively for traditional plowing, minimum tillage and sod seeding. The innovative technique, highlighted huge energy saving with an oil consumption equal to 92% and 89% (P<0.001) of what happens in traditional plowing and minimum tillage. Large differences concern labor and machine productivity. These parameters together with oil consumption and machine size [power (kW) and weight (t)] lead to even greater differences in terms of energy consumption, efficiency and CO2 emission savings. Considerations related to the different mechanizations chains, investments required and to some new practices to be introduced, such as low pressure tires or crawlers, ideal lanes, GPS and automatic guide systems to follow the ideal lanes, conclude the study

A Model for Generating Tourist Itineraries

A challenge in the recommender systems currently available for the tourism domain is how to suggest tourist itineraries in a specific geographical area (city or region). The proposed theoretical model allows items of intangible cultural heritage (events) such as processions, festivals, special markets, etc. to be characterized and correlated. The model features both a set of functions characterizing the events and a space-time relation that defines whether two events are correlated. The model allows itineraries to be constructed by computing the transitive closure of the space-time relation on the set of events. It can be used to construct itineraries at different grain sizes. This capacity makes the model scalable and easily applicable in the development of several applications. It has been implemented in a first order logic knowledge base in order to make an empirical evaluation of the model

A Far-Red Emitting Aryleneethynylene Fluorophore Used as Light Harvesting Antenna in Hybrid Assembly with the Photosynthetic Reaction Center

The photosynthetic reaction center (RC) from the purple Rhodobacter (R.) sphaeroides bacterium is a protein with unique photoconversion capability that can be exploited in hybrid systems for energy conversion. We have developed a tailored aryleneethynylene organic fluorophore (AE750) acting as efficient light harvesting antenna and successfully bioconjugated it to the photosynthetic RC. We have also demonstrated that, under suitable conditions, the biohybrid AE750-RC system can outperform the energy photoconversion ability of the nativeprotein

Photoelectrodes with Polydopamine Thin Films Incorporating a Bacterial Photoenzyme

A fabrication strategy of photoactive biohybrid electrodes based on the immobilization of the bacterial reaction center (RC) onto indium tin oxide (ITO) is proposed. The RC is an integral photoenzyme that converts photons into stable charge‐separated states with a quantum yield close to one. The photogenerated electron–hole pair can be eventually exploited, with suitable redox mediators, to produce photocurrents. To this purpose, RC must be effectively anchored on the electrode surface and simple strategies for its stable immobilization ensuring prolonged enzyme photoactivity are strongly desired. In this work, polydopamine (PDA), a polymer reminiscent of the natural melanin, is used to anchor the RC on the electrode surface. PDA is easily prepared in situ by spontaneous polymerization of dopamine in slightly alkaline aerated buffered RC solution. This reaction, carried out in the presence of an ITO substrate dipped into the solution, directly leads to a stable RC‐PDA/ITO photoelectrode with 20 nm film thickness and 50% of fully functional RC occupancy. Photocurrents densities recorded using this photoelectrode are comparable to those obtained with far more sophisticated immobilization techniques. The RC‐PDA films are fully characterized by visible–near‐infrared absorption spectroscopy, ellipsometry, atomic force, and scanning electron microscopies

Photoactive film by covalent immobilization of a bacterial photosynthetic protein on reduced graphene oxide surface

Covalent functionalization of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) with the photosynthetic reaction center (RC) from Rhodobacter sphaeroides R26 via click chemistry reaction has been performed. The hybrid system was characterized by flash photolysis and infrared spectroscopy and the RC was found to retain its photoactivity and structural integrity. The strategy is applicable for the fabrication of hybrid bio-electronic devices capable of absorbing and converting solar energy