ВЛИЯНИЕ ТРАЕКТОРИИ ДВИЖЕНИЯ МАШИННО-ТРАКТОРНОГО АГРЕГАТА НА ЭРОЗИЮ ПОЧВЫ

The paper presents development of measures for prevention of soil erosion with water as a result of wrong mechanical impact of machine-tractor aggregates (MTA) on the arable fields located with inclination  and in conditions of rugged area. Statistic data according to inclination angle of field surface,  implementation  terms of agricultural operations and seasonal changes of soil humidity  have been considered in the Poozere region as an example. The paper substantiates an expediency of MTA movement on horizontal directions of the terrain and the allowable inclination values according to inclination angle of  field surface. Innovative technical solutions in universal tractor design providing sustainable MTA movement along terrain horizontals have been proposed in the paper. Статья посвящена разработке мероприятий по предотвращению водной эрозии почвы как следствия неправильного механического воздействия машинно-тракторных агрегатов (МТА) на пахотных полях, расположенных наклонно в условиях пересеченного рельефа местности. Рассмотрены статистические данные по углам наклона поверхности полей, срокам выполнения технологических сельскохозяйственных операций и сезонным изменениям влажности почвы на примере региона Поозерья. Обоснованы целесообразность вождения МТА по горизонталям местности и допустимые от них величины отклонений в зависимости от угла наклона поверхности полей. Предложены инновационные технические решения в конструкции универсальных тракторов, обеспечивающие устойчивое движение МТА вдоль горизонталей местности

New European Metrology Network for advanced manufacturing

Advanced manufacturing has been identified as one of the key enabling technologies with applications in multiple industries. The growing importance of advanced manufacturing is reflected by an increased number of publications on this topic in recent years. Advanced manufacturing requires new and enhanced metrology methods to assure the quality of manufacturing processes and the resulting products. However, a high-level coordination of the metrology community is currently absent in this field and consequently this limits the impact of metrology developments on advanced manufacturing. In this article we introduce the new European Metrology Network (EMN) for Advanced Manufacturing within EURAMET, the European Association of National Metrology Institutes (NMIs). The EMN is intended to be operated sustainably by NMIs and Designated Institutes in close cooperation with stakeholders interested in advanced manufacturing. The objectives of the EMN are to set up a permanent stakeholder dialogue, to develop a Strategic Research Agenda for the metrology input required for advanced manufacturing technologies, to create and maintain a knowledge sharing programme and to implement a web-based service desk for stakeholders. The EMN development is supported by a Joint Network Project within the European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research

Generating Dashboards Using Fine-Grained Components: A Case Study for a PhD Programme

Developing dashboards is a complex domain, especially when several stakeholders are involved; while some users could demand certain indicators, other users could demand specific visualizations or design features. Creating individual dashboards for each potential need would consume several resources and time, being an unfeasible approach. Also, user requirements must be thoroughly analyzed to understand their goals regarding the data to be explored, and other characteristics that could affect their user experience. All these necessities ask for a paradigm to foster reusability not only at development level but also at knowledge level. Some methodologies, like the Software Product Line paradigm, leverage domain knowledge and apply it to create a series of assets that can be composed, parameterized, or combined to obtain fully functional systems. This work presents an application of the SPL paradigm to the domain of information dashboards, with the goal of reducing their development time and increasing their effectiveness and user experience. Different dashboard configurations have been suggested to test the proposed approach in the context of the Education in the Knowledge Society PhD programme of the University of Salamanca

A methodology based on profitability criteria for defining the partial defection of customers in non-contractual settings

The defection or churn of customers represents an important concern for any company and a central matter of interest in customer base analysis. An additional complication arises in non-contractual settings, where the characteristics that should be observed to saying that a customer has totally or partially defected are not clearly defined. As a matter of fact, different definitions of the churn situation could be used in this context. Focusing on non-contractual settings, in this paper we propose a methodology for evaluating the short-time economic effects that using a certain definition of churn would have on a company. With this aim, we have defined two efficiency measures for the economic results of a marketing campaign implemented against churn, and these measures have been computed using a set of definitions of partial defection. Our methodology finds that definition maximizing both efficiency measures and moreover, the monetary amount that the company should invest per customer in the campaign for achieving the optimal solution. This has been modelled as a multiobjective optimization problem that we solved using compromise programming. Numerical results using real data from a Spanish retailing company are presented and discussed in order to show the performance and validity of our proposal.Clemente Císcar, M.; San Matías Izquierdo, S.; Giner Bosch, V. (2014). A methodology based on profitability criteria for defining the partial defection of customers in non-contractual settings. European Journal of Operational Research. 239(1):276-285. doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2014.04.029S276285239

Flexible aggregation in multiple attribute decision making: Application to the Kuranda Range Road Upgrade

The conventional method of aggregating the satisfaction of transport projects with respect to multiple attributes is commonly some variant of Simple Additive Weighting (SAW), which involves the sum of products of standardized outcomes of projects with respect to attributes and attribute importance weights. It is suggested that alternative forms of aggregation might be more useful, in particular, the Ordered Weighted Averaging (OWA) operator introduced by Yager (1988). Attribute importance weights and satisfaction of attributes by projects may be aggregated prior to aggregation via an OWA operator. In this case OWA operator weights may be based on the "attitudinal character of the decision maker expressed in terms of the degree of "orness and "andness of the aggregation. A well-known approach is maximum entropy aggregation, in which weights are derived to be as "even (or as minimally dispersed) as a possible subject to satisfying a given "orness or "andness constraint. Recently, aggregation processes have been proposed by Larsen (199920022003) which have several desirable properties and also may be considered as alternative forms of aggregation. An example is given relating to the Kuranda Range Road upgrade (Queensland, Australia) which is limited by grade, poor overtaking opportunities, poor horizontal alignment, and other constraints, and the road is expected to become increasingly congested over the next few years. A more flexible Multiple Attribute Decision Making is used to identify a "best project from a set of four alternative projects

Selecting cash management models from a multiobjective perspective

[EN] This paper addresses the problem of selecting cash management models under different operating conditions from a multiobjective perspective considering not only cost but also risk. A number of models have been proposed to optimize corporate cash management policies. The impact on model performance of different operating conditions becomes an important issue. Here, we provide a range of visual and quantitative tools imported from Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis. More precisely, we show the utility of ROC analysis from a triple perspective as a tool for: (1) showing model performance; (2) choosingmodels; and (3) assessing the impact of operating conditions on model performance. We illustrate the selection of cash management models by means of a numerical example.Work partially funded by projects Collectiveware TIN2015-66863-C2-1-R (MINECO/FEDER) and 2014 SGR 118.Salas-Molina, F.; Rodríguez-Aguilar, JA.; Díaz-García, P. (2018). Selecting cash management models from a multiobjective perspective. Annals of Operations Research. 261(1-2):275-288. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-017-2634-9S2752882611-2Ballestero, E. (2007). Compromise programming: A utility-based linear-quadratic composite metric from the trade-off between achievement and balanced (non-corner) solutions. European Journal of Operational Research, 182(3), 1369–1382.Ballestero, E., & Romero, C. (1998). Multiple criteria decision making and its applications to economic problems. Berlin: Springer.Bi, J., & Bennett, K. P. (2003). Regression error characteristic curves. In Proceedings of the 20th international conference on machine learning (ICML-03), pp. 43–50.Bradley, A. P. (1997). The use of the area under the roc curve in the evaluation of machine learning algorithms. Pattern Recognition, 30(7), 1145–1159.da Costa Moraes, M. B., Nagano, M. S., & Sobreiro, V. A. (2015). Stochastic cash flow management models: A literature review since the 1980s. In Decision models in engineering and management (pp. 11–28). New York: Springer.Doumpos, M., & Zopounidis, C. (2007). Model combination for credit risk assessment: A stacked generalization approach. Annals of Operations Research, 151(1), 289–306.Drummond, C., & Holte, R. C. (2000). Explicitly representing expected cost: An alternative to roc representation. In Proceedings of the sixth ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining (pp. 98–207). New York: ACM.Drummond, C., & Holte, R. C. (2006). Cost curves: An improved method for visualizing classifier performance. Machine Learning, 65(1), 95–130.Elkan, C. (2001). The foundations of cost-sensitive learning. In International joint conference on artificial intelligence (Vol. 17, pp. 973–978). Lawrence Erlbaum associates Ltd.Fawcett, T. (2006). An introduction to roc analysis. Pattern Recognition Letters, 27(8), 861–874.Flach, P. A. (2003). The geometry of roc space: understanding machine learning metrics through roc isometrics. In Proceedings of the 20th international conference on machine learning (ICML-03), pp. 194–201.Garcia-Bernabeu, A., Benito, A., Bravo, M., & Pla-Santamaria, D. (2016). Photovoltaic power plants: a multicriteria approach to investment decisions and a case study in western spain. Annals of Operations Research, 245(1–2), 163–175.Glasserman, P. (2003). Monte Carlo methods in financial engineering (Vol. 53). New York: Springer.Gregory, G. (1976). Cash flow models: a review. Omega, 4(6), 643–656.Hernández-Orallo, J. (2013). Roc curves for regression. Pattern Recognition, 46(12), 3395–3411.Hernández-Orallo, J., Flach, P., & Ferri, C. (2013). Roc curves in cost space. Machine Learning, 93(1), 71–91.Hernández-Orallo, J., Lachiche, N., & Martınez-Usó, A. (2014). Predictive models for multidimensional data when the resolution context changes. 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TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Placing the library at the heart of plagiarism prevention: The University of Bradford experience.

yesPlagiarism is a vexed issue for Higher Education, affecting student transition, retention and attainment. This paper reports on two initiatives from the University of Bradford library aimed at reducing student plagiarism. The first initiative is an intensive course for students who have contravened plagiarism regulations. The second course introduces new students to the concepts surrounding plagiarism with the aim to prevent plagiarism breaches. Since the Plagiarism Avoidance for New Students course was introduced there has been a significant drop in students referred to the disciplinary programme. This paper discusses the background to both courses and the challenges of implementation

Synthetic Biology: Mapping the Scientific Landscape

This article uses data from Thomson Reuters Web of Science to map and analyse the scientific landscape for synthetic biology. The article draws on recent advances in data visualisation and analytics with the aim of informing upcoming international policy debates on the governance of synthetic biology by the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. We use mapping techniques to identify how synthetic biology can best be understood and the range of institutions, researchers and funding agencies involved. Debates under the Convention are likely to focus on a possible moratorium on the field release of synthetic organisms, cells or genomes. Based on the empirical evidence we propose that guidance could be provided to funding agencies to respect the letter and spirit of the Convention on Biological Diversity in making research investments. Building on the recommendations of the United States Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues we demonstrate that it is possible to promote independent and transparent monitoring of developments in synthetic biology using modern information tools. In particular, public and policy understanding and engagement with synthetic biology can be enhanced through the use of online interactive tools. As a step forward in this process we make existing data on the scientific literature on synthetic biology available in an online interactive workbook so that researchers, policy makers and civil society can explore the data and draw conclusions for themselves