Decision Agriculture

In this chapter, the latest developments in the field of decision agriculture are discussed. The practice of management zones in digital agriculture is described for efficient and smart faming. Accordingly, the methodology for delineating management zones is presented. Modeling of decision support systems is explained along with discussion of the issues and challenges in this area. Moreover, the precision agriculture technology is also considered. Moreover, the chapter surveys the state of the decision agriculture technologies in the countries such as Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Israel, Malaysia, Pakistan, United Kingdom, Ukraine, and Sweden. Finally, different field factors such as GPS accuracy and crop growth are also analyzed

Protocol of the Berlin Long-term Observation of Vascular Events (BeLOVE): a prospective cohort study with deep phenotyping and long-term follow up of cardiovascular high-risk patients

INTRODUCTION: The Berlin Long-term Observation of Vascular Events is a prospective cohort study that aims to improve prediction and disease-overarching mechanistic understanding of cardiovascular (CV) disease progression by comprehensively investigating a high-risk patient population with different organ manifestations. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A total of 8000 adult patients will be recruited who have either suffered an acute CV event (CVE) requiring hospitalisation or who have not experienced a recent acute CVE but are at high CV risk. An initial study examination is performed during the acute treatment phase of the index CVE or after inclusion into the chronic high risk arm. Deep phenotyping is then performed after ~90 days and includes assessments of the patient's medical history, health status and behaviour, cardiovascular, nutritional, metabolic, and anthropometric parameters, and patient-related outcome measures. Biospecimens are collected for analyses including 'OMICs' technologies (e.g., genomics, metabolomics, proteomics). Subcohorts undergo MRI of the brain, heart, lung and kidney, as well as more comprehensive metabolic, neurological and CV examinations. All participants are followed up for up to 10 years to assess clinical outcomes, primarily major adverse CVEs and patient-reported (value-based) outcomes. State-of-the-art clinical research methods, as well as emerging techniques from systems medicine and artificial intelligence, will be used to identify associations between patient characteristics, longitudinal changes and outcomes. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study was approved by the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin ethics committee (EA1/066/17). The results of the study will be disseminated through international peer-reviewed publications and congress presentations. STUDY REGISTRATION: First study phase: Approved WHO primary register: German Clinical Trials Register: https://drks.de/search/de/trial/DRKS00016852; WHO International Clinical Registry Platform: http://apps.who.int/trialsearch/Trial2.aspx?TrialID=DRKS00016852. Recruitment started on July 18, 2017.Second study phase: Approved WHO primary register: German Clinical Trials Register DRKS00023323, date of registration: November 4, 2020, URL: http://www.drks.de/ DRKS00023323. Recruitment started on January 1, 2021

Fe-Mg interdiffusion rates in clinopyroxene: Experimental data and implications for Fe-Mg exchange geothermometers

Chemical interdiffusion of Fe-Mg along the c-axis [001] in natural diopside crystals (XDi = 0.93) was experimentally studied at ambient pressure, at temperatures ranging from 800 to 1,200 °C and oxygen fugacities from 10-11 to 10-17 bar. Diffusion couples were prepared by ablating an olivine (XFo = 0.3) target to deposit a thin film (20-100 nm) onto a polished surface of a natural, oriented diopside crystal using the pulsed laser deposition technique. After diffusion anneals, compositional depth profiles at the near surface region (~400 nm) were measured using Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy. In the experimental temperature and compositional range, no strong dependence of DFe-Mg on composition of clinopyroxene (Fe/Mg ratio between Di93-Di65) or oxygen fugacity could be detected within the resolution of the study. The lack of fO2-dependence may be related to the relatively high Al content of the crystals used in this study. Diffusion coefficients, DFe-Mg, can be described by a single Arrhenius relation with (Formula presented). DFe-Mg in clinopyroxene appears to be faster than diffusion involving Ca-species (e.g., DCa-Mg) while it is slower than DFe-Mg in other common mafic minerals (spinel, olivine, garnet, and orthopyroxene). As a consequence, diffusion in clinopyroxene may be the rate-limiting process for the freezing of many geothermometers, and compositional zoning in clinopyroxene may preserve records of a higher (compared to that preserved in other coexisting mafic minerals) temperature segment of the thermal history of a rock. In the absence of pervasive recrystallization, clinopyroxene grains will retain compositions from peak temperatures at their cores in most geological and planetary settings where peak temperatures did not exceed ~1,100 °C (e.g., resetting may be expected in slowly cooled mantle rocks, many plutonic mafic rocks, or ultra-high temperature metamorphic rocks)

Hyperspectral seafloor mapping and direct bathymetry calculation using HyMap data from the Ningaloo reef and Rottnest Island areas in Western Australia

Hyperspectral sensing allows us to view the earth not only in a few, but hundreds of different spectral channels over a wide wavelength range and to map the surface composition based on the spectral signatures observed. Applications range from mineral mapping to environmental monitoring, but aquatic spectral mapping has advanced steadily over the last few years as processing time and algorithms become faster and more efficient. The HyMap airborne spectrometer is an airborne remote sensing instrument collecting data in 126 spectral channels from the visible (VIS) to the shortwave infrared (SWIR) wavelength regions (0.45 to 2.5 um). In the past it has been seen by various scientists as not adequate to provide sufficient spectral information for aquatic applications. With a multitude of applications over the last few years however, it was demonstrated that the high signal to noise ratio allows for good spectral discrimination in the visible wavelength region and the added SWIR spectral modules allow for improved sun-glint removal techniques to be applied. Furthermore any floating substances can be better discriminated from suspended matter by having SWIR channels available. HyMap data was collected for two aquatic R&D projects in Western Australia: one over the Ningaloo Reef, near Yardie Creek, in N-WA and the other over Rottnest Island near Perth. Bathymetry calculations to 20m and seafloor mapping results are being presented, introducing new processing techniques - developed initially by DLR (Germany) – to Australian waters. These products allow seamless mosaicing of multiple flight lines and demonstrate a high level of accuracy compared to conventional mapping methods. Furthermore they provide 100 % coverage and results on a pixel by pixel base compared to interpolated results derived from line profiling methods

Chlorophyll retrieval with MERIS Case-2-regional in perialpine lakes

Semi-analytical remote sensing applications for eutrophic waters are not applicable to oligo- and mesotrophic lakes in the perialpine area, since they are insensitive to chlorophyll concentration variations between 1 and 10�mg/m3. The neural network based Case-2-Regional algorithm for MERIS was developed to fill this gap, along with the ICOL adjacency effect correction algorithm. The algorithms are applied to a collection of 239 satellite images from 2003-2008, and the results are compared to experimental and official water quality data collected in six perialpine lakes in the same period. It is shown that remote sensing estimates can provide an adequate supplementary data source to in situ data series of the top 5�m water layer, provided that a sufficient number of matchups for a site specific maximum temporal offset are available

Mapping the shallow marine benthic habitats of Rottnest Island, Western Australia

The introduction of new, high resolution hyperspectral sensors has led to growing interest in the development of techniques to utilise data from these instruments for mapping the shallow marine environment. The increased spectral resolution of the hyperspectral sensors allows the use of the unique spectral signatures of the individual habitat components to identify these components within the image. Hyperspectral data also allows for the mapping of habitats in shallow areas that are inaccessible to other methods such as hydro-acoustic mapping. The coastal waters surrounding Rottnest Island, Western Australia, provide a unique opportunity to apply hyperspectral imaging techniques in a temperate environment because of the oligotrophic conditions maintained by the Leeuwin Current. The shallow marine benthic habitats of Rottnest Island Reserve have been mapped to a depth of ~15 m, using spectral signatures contained in a library created from in-situ measurements of the dominant habitat components. Three lines of HyMap hyperspectral data flown for the Rottnest Island Reserve in April 2004 were corrected for sunglint, atmospheric effects and the influence of the water column using the Modular Inversion and Processing System which requires no inputs from parameters measured in the field. A decision tree based classification scheme which utilises a range of spectral similarity measures was used to map the different habitat components identified in the bottom reflectance image and the results were validated in the field using SCUBA divers. The shallow subtidal habitats found around Rottnest Island are generally dominated by either bare sand, reef with large macroalgae, such as Ecklonia radiata and Sargas-sum spp., or a number of different seagrass species. These new hyperspectral imaging techniques provide a platform for the mapping of shallow marine benthic habitats over a broad area, at a scale that is relevant to marine planners and managers

Ningaloo Reef: Shallow marine habitats mapped using a hyperspectral sensor

Research, monitoring and management of large marine protected areas require detailed and up-to-date habitat maps. Ningaloo Marine Park (including the Muiron Islands) in north-western Australia (stretching across three degrees of latitude) was mapped to 20 m depth using HyMap airborne hyperspectral imagery (125 bands) at 3.5 m resolution across the 762 km2 of reef environment between the shoreline and reef slope. The imagery was corrected for atmospheric, air-water interface and water column influences to retrieve bottom reflectance and bathymetry using the physics-based Modular Inversion and Processing System. Using field-validated, image-derived spectra from a representative range of cover types, the classification combined a semi-automated, pixel-based approach with fuzzy logic and derivative techniques. Five thematic classification levels for benthic cover (with probability maps) were generated with varying degrees of detail, ranging from a basic one with three classes (biotic, abiotic and mixed) to the most detailed with 46 classes. The latter consisted of all abiotic and biotic seabed components and hard coral growth forms in dominant or mixed states. The overall accuracy of mapping for the most detailed maps was 70% for the highest classification level. Macro-algal communities formed most of the benthic cover, while hard and soft corals represented only about 7% of the mapped area (58.6 km2). Dense tabulate coral was the largest coral mosaic type (37% of all corals) and the rest of the corals were a mix of tabulate, digitate, massive and soft corals. Our results show that for this shallow, fringing reef environment situated in the arid tropics, hyperspectral remote sensing techniques can offer an efficient and cost-effective approach to mapping and monitoring reef habitats over large, remote and inaccessible areas