Hortibot: Feasibility study of a plant nursing robot performing weeding operations – part IV

Based on the development of a robotic tool carrier (Hortibot) equipped with weeding tools, a feasibility study was carried out to evaluate the viability of this innovative technology. The feasibility was demonstrated through a targeted evaluation adapted to the obtainable knowledge on the system performance in horticulture. A usage scenario was designed to set the implementation of the robotic system in a row crop of seeded bulb onions considering operational and functional constraints in organic crop, production. This usage scenario together with the technical specifications of the implemented system provided the basis for the feasibility analysis, including a comparison with a conventional weeding system. Preliminary results show that the automation of the weeding tasks within a row crop has the potential of significantly reducing the costs and still fulfill the operational requirements set forth. The potential benefits in terms of operational capabilities and economic viability have been quantified. Profitability gains ranging from 20 to 50% are achievable through targeted applications. In general, the analyses demonstrate the operational and economic feasibility of using small automated vehicles and targeted tools in specialized production settings

FeederAnt - An autonomous mobile unit feeding outdoor pigs

Small robots and the concept of decentralized animal husbandry make it possible to renew the principles of organic agriculture. The farm animals will be able to use the same type of housing and are placed integrated with the fields. This is expected to achieve a better utilization of nutrients and a better survival rate for useful insects and micro organisms. The small fields are flexible and could fit to the variation in soil structure topography. This type of precision agriculture has the possibility of increasing biodiversity. The paper presents the concept of an autonomic feeding system for outdoor piglets. Initial results are presented using a remote controlled feeding unit (a prototype of the FeederAnt) to feed several pens with piglets. The FeederAnt drives into the grass paddocks twice a day and position itself in a new location for each feeding. This will help to distribute the manure from the animals evenly over the grass paddock to prevent point leaching of nutrients. The FeederAnt replaces many stationary feeding tables and reduce the amount of daily manual feeding routines. Further, it is expected that the problem with vermins will be solved since no feed residues will be left within the pens.

Developing an analytical tool of the processes of justificational mediation

Within the Instrumental Approach (IA) the newly developed notion of justificational mediation (JM) describes mediations that aim at establishing truth of mathematical statements in the context of CAS-assisted proofs in textbooks. Here we study JM with the intent to broaden the notion to the context of informal justification processes of early secondary students interacting with GeoGebra. Seeing JM as a process that has the objective of changing the status of a claim, we use Toulmin’s model and combine it with the IA to unravel the structure of the process through an analytical tool. The study is part of a broader project on the interplay between reasoning competency and GeoGebra with lower secondary students

Strandforskydningskurver

Intet resum

Making sense of the corporate philosophy:: Dialogic employee engagement, and narrative positioning

We find an increased interest in the concept of employee engagement within the area of organizational and corporate communication. Employee engagement is an umbrella term for a number of cognitive, emotional and physical aspects (Kahn, 1990) of relating positively to one’s work, and research within this area has mostly connected employee engagement to organizational productivity and effectiveness. In this paper, we suggest a new approach to employee engagement by relating it to employee communication and placing it within dialogue theory (Buber, 1970) combined with Bamberg’s (1997) positioning theory. Our case is a strategy meeting on the topic of how a corporate philosophy devised by top management and entitled “Business Kind2Mind” is interpreted by managers and what they view is the best way to implement the philosophy within subsidiaries. Theorizing engagement dialogically enables a shift from instrumental perspectives to a more interpretive approach in which true mutuality entails participants’ views being heard and incorporated in the corporate philosophy, and engagement is not purely about efficiency and outcome. A dialogical approach enables us to conceive of employee communication not as only upwardly or downwardly directed between manager and employee, but as interactional, with mutual change

Råstofgeologi

Intet resum