Public Awareness Concerning the Multifunctionality of Cypriot Agriculture

AbstractAgriculture's multifunctionality constitutes a core dimension in the design of rural development policies of the European Union, recently reformed through the introduction of Reg. EC/1305/2013. Within a generalized rural development context, agriculture plays numerous roles; in Cyprus three sectors other than the production of food and fiber are particularly affected: the environment, including the management of water reserves as water is the scarcest resource on the island and irrigation accounts for more than 70% of the total water consumption, rural amenities, through the protection of the agricultural cultural heritage and the livelihood of rural areas, and the continuation of the farming profession, which is endowed with non-use values. This study presents the findings of a survey regarding the degree to which Cypriots are interested in the aspects of life on the island which are affected by the multifunctional character of agriculture. Using Likert-scale questions, 300 respondents were interviewed concerning their opinions and attitudes towards four of these aspects: environmental quality, management of water resources, rural amenities and the maintenance of the farming profession. The analysis indicates that Cypriots are aware of the roles that agriculture plays. Then, in order to examine the validity of this conceptual framework of multifunctionality, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed. The results of the CFA revealed that Cypriots incorporate these four aspects within the same framework, thus understanding the distinct effects of multifunctionality on their everyday life. The results of this study can be used in the implementation of Reg. EC/1305/2013, as they reflect public preferences concerning the orientation of agriculture

Assisted Dictionary Learning for fMRI Data Analysis

Extracting information from functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) images has been a major area of research for more than two decades. The goal of this work is to present a new method for the analysis of fMRI data sets, that is capable to incorporate a priori available information, via an efficient optimization framework. Tests on synthetic data sets demonstrate significant performance gains over existing methods of this kind.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Dairy Farmers’ Strategies against the Crisis and the Economic Performance of Farms

AbstractDairy farming in Greece constitutes a particular case of livestock farming, because of its highly entrepreneurial nature. The modern Greek dairy cattle farming is predominantly based in Northern Greece, where more than 80% of Greek cow milk is produced. Since the 2000's the dairy cattle sector is characterized by a rapid increase in the mean size of farms, which permits them to undertake investments in machinery and buildings and to have access to improved genetic material for the achievement of higher productivity. Nevertheless, this development renders dairy farms vulnerable to volatile economic conditions, as they are heavily dependent on capital endowments. The main purpose of this study is to examine the consequences of the economic crisis on the dairy cattle sector and the strategies undertaken by farmers to cope with it. The analysis is based on data from a questionnaire survey of farmers in Northern Greece. Strategies undertaken by dairy farmers in order to face the crisis and to ensure the survival of their businesses are recorded through a set of Likert-scale questions. Technical and economic data are also analyzed in order to examine the economic performance of farms, revealing that the sampled dairy farms are viable, with satisfactory economic results, with capital returns of 6.2% annually. Based on the Likert-scale data, dairy farmers adopt active strategies to face the crisis, by undertaking investments and augmenting their farm sizes, while they deem that the crisis does not have catastrophic results on the profitability of their farms. On the other hand, strategies which entail less expenses and/or diminished productivity are unpopular among dairy farmers. Finally, the vast majority of respondents claim to have seen negative consequences on their farms from the recent measures concerning the prolongation of the duration of fresh milk in retail markets: lower quality, increased vulnerability to international competition, shrinking dairy sector

Big Data Management and Analytics for Mobility Forecasting in datAcron

The exploitation of heterogeneous data sources offering very large historical and streaming data is important to increasing the accuracy of operations when analysing and predicting future states of moving entities (planes, vessels, etc.). This article presents the overall goals and big data challenges addressed by datAcron on big data analytics for time-critical mobility forecasting

Code Quality Evaluation Methodology Using The ISO/IEC 9126 Standard

This work proposes a methodology for source code quality and static behaviour evaluation of a software system, based on the standard ISO/IEC-9126. It uses elements automatically derived from source code enhanced with expert knowledge in the form of quality characteristic rankings, allowing software engineers to assign weights to source code attributes. It is flexible in terms of the set of metrics and source code attributes employed, even in terms of the ISO/IEC-9126 characteristics to be assessed. We applied the methodology to two case studies, involving five open source and one proprietary system. Results demonstrated that the methodology can capture software quality trends and express expert perceptions concerning system quality in a quantitative and systematic manner.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figure

Upper-lip laser frenectomy without infiltrated anaesthesia in a paediatric patient: a case report

Labial frenectomy is a common surgical procedure in the field of oral surgery. Labial frenectomy is a procedure usually done for orthodontic reasons. The role of laser surgery in the oral cavity is well established. The use of diode laser frenectomy without infiltrated anaesthesia is currently under investigation. Needle-less oral surgery, without infiltrated anaesthesia, is a novel situation in paediatrics with paramount importance