Paris, 5 April 2004


EFITA newsletter / 153 / European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


International Center for Scientific Research web site
CIRS-TM.ORG is the only portal that references all scientific organizations, listed by country and topic.
See: http://www.cirs-tm.org/


The Crop Protection Directory (UK)
See : http://www.aisglobal.net/CPD_index.htm


Presentation of ISAGRI, French leader of ICT in Agriculture
ISAGRI was founded in 1983 and has its origins in the agricultural college ISAB located at Beauvais north of France where since today is the head office of the company.
The activity of ISAGRI includes the development of agricultural software offering a large product diversity for standard and as well for specific applications and domains in the agricultural sector.
With 400 employees of whom the management, marketing, administration, development section and technical support is present at the head office in Beauvais and commercials present in every region of France ISAGRI has an efficient basic and well-developed network. The sales turnover is 34,000,000 Euro per year.
Fixed and well established agencies are in Spain, Italy, Holland and Suisse. The creation of a German agency is planed. ISAGRI has customers in about 30 countries worldwide.
The aim of ISAGRI is to offer easy and practical software solutions with a constantly support and service as well regular updates for an appropriated price for simplifying farm management.
Contact : Dörthe ZICK
mailto:dzick@isagri.fr


ISO 11783
The future of agriculture is unimaginable without a compatible data interface for the connection of tractor, mounted implements, and on-board computer.
See: http://www.isobus.net


IANIS newsletter: information about regional and European information society initiatives and events
See: http://www.ianis.net/downloadables/repository/IANIS_NL_March_04.pdf


2004 CIGR International Conference: Olympics of Agricultural Engineering
Oct. 11~14, 2004 Beijing, P. R. China
Session III (Information Technology for Agriculture) in conjunction with the 1st Technical Symposium of CIGR Section VII-KIS

News Release on 1st April, 2004
The purpose of the Session III Conference of the Olympics in Agricultural Engineering, Beijing 2004, on Information Technologies for Agriculture, is to bring together researchers, scientists, engineers and practitioners interested in the application of IT in Automation and Management of Agriculture. Plenaries, of high-standing invited IT experts, will tackle key topics to provide a learning opportunity. A special symposium on “Knowledge Integration into Ag.IT Systems” – KIS, will be held, formed out of invited, plenary and selected papers of the session III. A special workshop for hands on experience on Modelling of Agricultural processes, using visual programming in UML, is planned to be offered to conference participants.
Deadline of Abstracts: April 15, 2004 mail to Session III secretariat, Prof. Minzan Li or Dr. Ding cheng Wang
mailto:2004CIGR_IT@cau.edu.cn

Information Systems are a key component in agricultural engineering activities and application fields, like land and water, mechanization, environment control, structures and processing.
Information Technology applications are pervasive in many areas of Control, Automation and Management of agricultural processes and systems. This premier conference emphasizes the dependence of modern agricultural practices on IT; authors should highlight the benefits of IT in these areas. Novel ideas on how to solve problems using IT, both in R&D and field applications, are welcome. Papers describing advanced prototypes, systems, tools and techniques and general survey papers indicating future directions or business opportunities are also encouraged. Papers describing original work are invited in any of the areas listed in the program.
See: http://www.2004cigr.org
Special sessions, dedicated to case-studies and commercial presentations, as well as tutorials dedicated to technical/scientific topics are also envisaged. Companies interested in presenting their products/methodologies or researchers interested in holding a tutorial are invited to contact the conference secretariat.


Symposium on “Knowledge Integration into Agr. IT Systems”
Welcome to Beijing 2004 Olympics on Agricultural Engineering. The KIS Symposium is a premier forum to unify the approaches of embedding knowledge into knowledge intensive systems. Such a demand has emerged in all domains of business and engineering, and we are moving from the Information Society to the “knowledge based society”. Governments have posed that “knowledge intensive” businesses are the way to succeed in the world of “services”. We add the fact that management of agricultural businesses, in today’s highly competitive and demanding world market, is a very complex technical problem. This problem needs “sharp and fine-tuned knowledge of production processes” together with “enabling IT technologies” to meet the requirements of the demanding consumer. The need to integrate data with knowledge unifies all diverse applications. Data are coming from sensors or the Internet. Knowledge can be in the form of physics laws, validated scientific models, expert rules, or uncertain intuitions of scientists or technicians and farm operators. The ubiquitous requirement to combine data with knowledge for producing instantiated knowledge (a more probable estimate, a suggestion, a tuned model, a decision) spans many different applications, whether it is off-line or on-line, and challenges many different disciplines.
Whether you are a biologist trying to fit a model to your research data or an economy analyst trying to arrive to a model structure for a specific market you are producing knowledge! This needs be exploited for the benefit of the grower and the consumer. Whether you are a theoretician or a user, a researcher or a student you will find this symposium interesting, novel and useful. Join us in October 2004 at Beijing, near the Great Wall. Prepare your abstracts early enough so we can organize it better for your learning experience and satisfaction.

Deadline of Abstracts: April 15, 2004

Mail to Prof. Minzan Li or Dr.Dingcheng Wang
mailto:2004cigr_it@cau.edu.cn

CIGR- IT section office
Prof. Nick Sigrimis, Ag. Uni-Athens, Greece
mailto:n.sigrimis@computer.org

Prof. Fedro Zazueta, Uni-Flrorida, US
mailto:fsz@ufl.edu

Prof. Haruhiko Murase, Osaka Prefecture Uni., Japan
mailto:hmurase@bics.envi.osakafu-u.ac.cn

The Local organizers:
Prof.Maohua Wang, CAU, Beijing
mailto:wangmh@cae.cn

Prof.Naiqian Zhang, KSU, US
mailto:zhangn@ksu.edu

Prof.Chunjiang Zhao, NERCITA, Beijing
mailto:zhaocj@nercita.org.cn


This is a compilation of "actual" student GCSE answers (Second part)

16. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper.

17. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Romeo's last wish was to be laid by Juliet.

18. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

19. During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe.

20. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim's Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.

21. One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. Finally the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas

Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

22. Soon the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.

23. Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. His mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation.

24. Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy.

25. Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.

26. Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German half Italian and half English. He was very large.

27. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

Contact: Mick HARKIN
mailto:harkin@iol.ies


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