Implementing Demonstration to Promote the Sustainable Farming Practice of Using Cover Cropping Systems

Use of cover cropping systems has multiple benefits for agriculture. To convince vegetable growers to adopt such systems, we applied a field demonstration in which we grew selected cover crops during the off-season and then tomatoes. We focused on implementation of a science-based demonstration design and attended to the usefulness of the demonstration and audience timing preferences. As a result, growers grasped the advantages of growing cover crops and, consequently, have extensively adopted cover cropping systems, thereby applying a critically important practice for crop management and agricultural sustainability. Our method and findings can help Extension educators better implement programs to convince agricultural producers to adopt desirable farming practices that improve sustainable agriculture

Implementation of Drone System in Survey for Tomato Chlorotic Spot Virus

As a cutting-edge technology, drone systems have shown great potential in agriculture. This article elucidates the implementation of a drone with a multispectral sensing system in a field survey for tomato chlorotic spot virus in south Florida. The findings demonstrate that drone technology can provide growers with precise and timely information about disease incidence and distribution in a labor-saving manner for decision making in crop management to mitigate yield loss. We provide recommendations for Extension professionals regarding educating producers on applying the technology to manage their crops efficiently

Applying Drone-based Spatial Mapping to Help Growers Manage Crop Diseases

Phytophthora blight (Phytophthora capsici) is one of the major soilborne diseases threatening many vegetable crops including squash. The disease results in severe epidemics and yield losses due to a rapid spread of the pathogen associated with wet weather and soil water-logging. Implementing drone-based spatial mapping with software elevation tools can assist growers in evaluating land levelling for uniform distribution of water to mitigate potential disease incidence. The technology has great advantages: rapid, precise, and labor-cost effective. Our result can implicate Extension professionals with application of spatial mapping to assist growers in managing their land and crops for disease control efficiently

Mathematical Modeling of Pricing and Service in the Dual Channel Supply Chain Considering Underservice

The retailer cannot often identify consumers’ preference for personalized and refined services. This poses a lower service than the consumer expects, which will lead to a decline in consumers’ satisfaction and loyalty. To cope with this problem, we consider a dual-channel supply chain composed of a manufacturer who has the online channel and an offline retailer and introduce the concept of underservice into the framework of pricing and service decision. The influence of consumers’ service expectations and the sensitive coefficient of consumers’ perceptive service on optimal decision-making were explored by optimization theory. First, the mathematical model of profit functions of the offline retailer and the manufacturer was developed by taking into account the service expectation respectively. Based on this, the Stackelberg game was adopted to prove that there is a linkage mechanism between the optimal retail price and the optimal service level under certain conditions. Second, we examined the conditions under which underservice occurs and the factors that influence them. Finally, we explored the stability condition under which the offline retailer’s optimal service level is against pricing. Results show that for newly launched products, the offline retailer will take the risk of increased service costs to adopt a strategy of high profit and good sales as a result of underservice. With regard to expiring products, it is impossible for the offline retailer to provide a lower-than-expected service level. Therefore, the offline retailer will adopt a strategy of small profits but quick turnover. In addition, the optimal service level of the offline retailer is stable against the optimal retail price, which greatly simplifies the service decision of the offline retailer, that is, the offline retailer does not need to consider the pricing strategy of the manufacturer and only needs to offer a level of service equal to the consumers’ service expectation

Mathematical Modeling of Pricing and Service in the Dual Channel Supply Chain Considering Underservice

The retailer cannot often identify consumers’ preference for personalized and refined services. This poses a lower service than the consumer expects, which will lead to a decline in consumers’ satisfaction and loyalty. To cope with this problem, we consider a dual-channel supply chain composed of a manufacturer who has the online channel and an offline retailer and introduce the concept of underservice into the framework of pricing and service decision. The influence of consumers’ service expectations and the sensitive coefficient of consumers’ perceptive service on optimal decision-making were explored by optimization theory. First, the mathematical model of profit functions of the offline retailer and the manufacturer was developed by taking into account the service expectation respectively. Based on this, the Stackelberg game was adopted to prove that there is a linkage mechanism between the optimal retail price and the optimal service level under certain conditions. Second, we examined the conditions under which underservice occurs and the factors that influence them. Finally, we explored the stability condition under which the offline retailer’s optimal service level is against pricing. Results show that for newly launched products, the offline retailer will take the risk of increased service costs to adopt a strategy of high profit and good sales as a result of underservice. With regard to expiring products, it is impossible for the offline retailer to provide a lower-than-expected service level. Therefore, the offline retailer will adopt a strategy of small profits but quick turnover. In addition, the optimal service level of the offline retailer is stable against the optimal retail price, which greatly simplifies the service decision of the offline retailer, that is, the offline retailer does not need to consider the pricing strategy of the manufacturer and only needs to offer a level of service equal to the consumers’ service expectation

Keyphrase Extraction with Sequential Pattern Mining

Existing studies show that extracting a complete keyphrase candidate set is the first and crucial step to extract high quality keyphrases from documents. Based on a common sense that words do not repeatedly appear in an effective keyphrase, we propose a novel algorithm named KCSP for document-specific keyphrase candidate search using sequential pattern mining with gap constraints, which only needs to scan a document once and automatically specifies appropriate gap constraints for words without users’ participation. The experimental results confirm that it helps improve the quality of keyphrase extraction