Environmentally Sustainable Issues in Philippine Agriculture

Farming and fishing are major sources of livelihood in rural households in the Philippines. Farming systems in the country are complex, multi-faceted, and geared to promote efficient production and a steady source of income. However, these have also wrought unwanted consequences on the environment, notably soil erosion, water pollution, groundwater depletion, loss of natural habitats, and loss of biological diversity. Farming systems are affected by exogenous environmental factors; in turn, the farming systems also affect agricultural production resource bases. Initiatives from various sectors to mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of farming systems and to protect the agricultural production bases are in place in terms of policies, programs, and action projects.Philippines, agriculture, environment, sustainability

Manage comfort preferences conflicts using a multi-agent system in an adaptive environment system

Managing comfort preferences conflicts of the different users and locals on an IoT adaptive system is a actual problem, this paper proposes a protocol and hierarchical rules to develop a multi-agent system to achieve a Adaptive Environment System that solves the management of conflicts in an autonomous way for the users and interdependent of the user schedules and routines.This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019

360 degree domain wall generation in the soft layer of magnetic tunnel junctions

High spatial resolution X-ray photo-emission electron microscopy technique has been used to study the influence of the dipolar coupling taking place between the NiFe and the Co ferromagnetic electrodes of micron sized, elliptical shaped magnetic tunnel junctions. The chemical selectivity of this technique allows to observe independently the magnetic domain structure in each ferromagnetic electrode. The combination of this powerful imaging technique with micromagnetic simulations allows to evidence that a 360 degree domain wall can be stabilized in the NiFe soft layer. In this letter, we discuss the origin and the formation conditions of those 360 degree domain walls evidenced experimentally and numerically

Internet Financial Reporting: the Case of Philippine Banks

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the extent of internet financial reporting (IFR) of Philippine banks. Used as samples were top commercial banks and thrift banks operating in the country considering their total assets as of March, 2012 as published by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in its website. Financial information in the websites of the sampled banks were evaluated during the third quarter of 2012. The study revealed that the quality and extent of IFR of Philippine commercial banks is “average” based on their IFR index score of 44.50 while thrift banks posted a below average IFR index score of 21.56 resulting to a highly significant difference between bank types. Among the four evaluation criteria used, the subject-banks\u27 content disclosure provides the highest percentage contribution to their IFR index scores as this is the main focus of their financial reporting. Among the components of content disclosure, corporate information, chairman\u27s report and the auditor\u27s report emerged as the top three often included in the financial disclosure of the subject-banks while vision statement and press release are the components often updated by both bank types in their websites with the commercial banks notably updating more frequently compared to thrift banks. Relative to technology, online feedback is the most common component in the banks\u27 website while link to homepage is the most usual user support feature relative to the bank\u27s financial reporting practice. Lastly, asset size and bank type were found to have a high significant relationship with the extent of IFR

Role of Soil Parameters on Loading of Buried Structures

Load rating is the process to evaluate and explore the structural capacity of bridges as much as possible within safety range. As a balance between economy and safety, proper load ratings save money and keep public safe. Knowing the contribution and interaction of each different soil parameter on the loading can significantly reduce the amount of work when load rating those structures. However, for buried structures without plans, such contribution or interaction is never known. This parametric study explores how much each soil parameter of three types of soils can affect the loading of buried structures without plans. An existing computer software is employed to model the buried structures without plans and to simulate the theoretical structural responses using 2D finite element analysis approach. The study shows different results for different soil types. In general, as initial tangent Young’s modulus and density increase, moments, thrusts, and shears increase. Plus, as power-law coefficient for initial tangent Young’s modulus and initial tangent bulk modulus increase, moments, thrusts, and shears always decrease for silty clay whereas they first increase and then decrease for gravelly sand and sandy silt. In conclusion, initial tangent Young’s modulus, power-law coefficient for initial tangent Young’s modulus, initial tangent bulk modulus, and density are the four most sensitive soil parameters with respect to their effects on loading of buried structures

Reinforcement Learning Applied to Cognitive Space Communications

The future of space exploration depends on robust, reliable communication systems. As the number of such communication systems increase, automation is fast becoming a requirement to achieve this goal. A reinforcement learning solution can be employed as a possible automation method for such systems. The goal of this study is to build a reinforcement learning algorithm which optimizes data throughput of a single actor. A training environment was created to simulate a link within the NASA Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) infrastructure, using state of the art simulation tools developed by the SCaN Center for Engineering, Networks, Integration, and Communications (SCENIC) laboratory at NASA Glenn Research Center to obtain the closest possible representation of the real operating environment. Reinforcement learning was then used to train an agent inside this environment to maximize data throughput. The simulation environment contained a single actor in low earth orbit capable of communicating with twenty-five ground stations that compose the Near-Earth Network (NEN). Initial experiments showed promising training results, so additional complexity was added by augmenting simulation data with link fading profiles obtained from real communication events with the International Space Station. A grid search was performed to find the optimal hyperparameters and model architecture for the agent. Using the results of the grid search, an agent was trained on the augmented training data. Testing shows that the agent performs well inside the training environment and can be used as a foundation for future studies with added complexity and eventually tested in the real space environment