Paris, 31 December 2007


EFITA newsletter / 342 / European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


Diversification of Tobacco Growing Regions
29 January 2008 - BRUSSELS
See: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/forschung/fdb/english/PJ/PJ7633.html
Contact: Udo KIENLE
E-mail: u-kienle(a)uni-hohenheim.de


Monitor 08: Monitoring Methods – Systems behind a safer environment
21 - 22 February 2008 - RAUMBERG-GUMPENSTEIN (AU)
Protection against natural disasters is an increasing challenge for society. In many areas the frequent occurrence of natural hazards like floods, landslides and forest fires has become a constant threat for the population and the environment. The overall magnitude of damaging events in the last decade clearly shows the need for comprehensive and innovative risk management. It is absolutely necessary to implement control mechanisms for the protection of settlements, infrastructure and the natural environment. Appropriate monitoring methods for this purpose are indispensable. The continuous observation of phenomena helps to analyse disaster processes and to evaluate risks and is absolutely necessary for risk management and early warning systems.
The objective of the conference is to point out monitoring methods for different risk types, the interdisciplinary use of methods on trans-national level as well as the combination of innovative methods and the implementation of correlating instruments (disaster preparedness, early warning systems, monitoring tools, simulation models). At an accompanying exhibition companies will present their monitoring instruments (hard- and software).
See: http://www.monitor-cadses.org/
Contact: Claudia PLANK
E-mail: claudia.plank(a)raumberg-gumpenstein.at


The International Trade Fair for Livestock (1800 brands; 110000 visitors)
9 - 12 September - RENNES (FR)
See: http://www.space.fr


4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies in Bio and Earth Sciences HAICTA 2008
18 - 20 September 2008 - ATHENS (GR)

> The Conference is organised by the Hellenic Association for Information and Communication Technologies in Agriculture Food and Environment (HAICTA) in co-operation with a number of associated Institutions.

> Invited speaker: Richard E. Plant, University of California, Department of Agronomy & Range Science, USA. Editor in Chief of the Journal: Computers and Electronics in Agriculture

> Aim
The HAICTA 2008 Conference aims to bring together professionals, experts and researchers working on ICT systems and applications in Bio and Earth Sciences providing a broadened perspective for all attending. The Conference encourages papers with original ideas and research advances, covering ICT aspects of Bio and Earth Sciences. It also encourages contributions that describe experiences drawn from real applications, or large-scale simulation experiments, taken from a variety of fields, including, environment, agriculture, atmosphere, ocean, etc. Work-in-progress reports on current projects are particularly welcome.

> Topics of interest
Topics include (but are not limited to) technology and application areas of ICT in Bio and Earth Sciences:
* Automation in Process Control
* Data Acquisition & Signal Processing
* Data Bases & Applications
* Decision Support Systems
* E-services
* Environmental Control Systems
* Internet, Web-based Technologies & Applications
* Information Systems
* Intelligence Systems
* ICT in Rural Development
* GIS & Applications
* Modelling & Use of Statistical Analysis
* Monitoring & Control Systems
* Ontology & Web Semantic
* Precision Agriculture
* Quality Control Systems
* Statistics & GIS
* Sensor Networks
* Strategy & Management Information Systems
* System Modelling
* Pervasive Computing
* Wireless Networks
PAPER SUBMISSION
For a paper/poster submission a two-stage procedure is required. Firstly, authors are invited to electronically submit an abstract of, at most, one page for feedback as to the suitability of the proposed papers.
Secondly, authors are invited to electronically submit original, English-language research contributions or experience reports of no more than 15 pages, not concurrently submitted elsewhere.
All papers will be reviewed through a fully electronic peer review process by three academic referees. Final acceptance will be based on the review of the full paper submission.
Abstract and paper submissions will be handled by an online submission system.

> Workshop proposals
Half-day workshop proposals are also invited on the conference topics.
These proposals must be at most 3 pages, and they should include workshop title, description of the topic and workshop organizers.
Workshop proposals must be sent in electronic format (PDF preferred) by e-mail to both contact e-mail addresses: tina[at]aua[dot]gr; yialouris[at]aua[dot]gr

> Publication
Accepted papers will be invited for oral/poster presentation at the Conference and will be included in the Proceedings published by the HAICTA association.
Also, they will appear in the digital library CEUR.
Selected papers will be further considered for publication in a special issue of the journal: Computers and Electronics in Agriculture.
A limited number of papers will be reviewed for publication in the journal: Environmental Modelling and Software.

> Important dates
January, 31, 2007: Workshop proposal submission
February, 15, 2007: Workshop notification
=====================================================
February, 11, 2008: Abstract submission
February, 18, 2008: Abstract acceptance
March, 20, 2008: Full paper submission
May, 12, 2008: Notification of acceptance
June, 9, 2008: Camera ready submission

> Organising institutions
* Agricultural University of Athens, Greece
* Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
* Democritus University of Thrace, Greece
* University of Macedonia, Greece
* University of Thessaly, Greece
* Cukurova University in Adana, Turkey
* Ege University, Izmir, Turkey
See: http://infolab.aua.gr/haicta/conf/
Contact: Alexander Sideridis
E-mail: as(a)aua.gr


Danish Agricultural Advisory Service EDI platform in Denmark
See: http://www.acta-informatique.fr?d=7083


A little more about SMS in the UK:
For several years now we have been providing daily text messages to potato store owners with a brief summary of store status. This has really focussed minds on the value of monitoring stores continuously with the ability to retrieve the data remotely and automatically.
This principle has been applied to new finishing piggeries. Daily status messages can readily be done for single building finishing sites. Breed to finish sites in the UK are so involved that SMS is not appropriate.
For some time now we've been using SMS as the critical alarm notification method in place of audible sirens, diallers or radio paging.
Most recently, production site data is being automatically analysed and so-called biological alarm notifications sent by voice, SMS or email message.
This is all in pig production applications but on farm meat processing, grain storage, meat / packing plants and farm shop freezer storage are all applications we're working on.
Contact: Hugh CRABTREE
E-mail: hugh(a)farmex.co.uk


SMS in Brazil
We use SMS to alert about possible climatic events and also to warn about favorable conditions (weather and symptoms identification) to soybean rust epidemics. The area covered by the system is around 200.000 hectares and the SMS are sent to Agronomists in the region. After the SMS message they can enter to the system at the internet to found extra information.
Details about the system could be found at pages 19-26 in the PDF document: http://www.iica.int/documentos/casosexitosos_eng.pdf
See also: http://agromet.fundacaoabc.org.br/index_msie.php
Contact: Marcelo Giovanetti CANTERI
E-mail: canteri(a)uel.br


Amish (Old good joke!)
An Amish farmer and his son are visiting the big city for the first time. The old man is in the lobby of a skyscraper and sees two metallic doors that slide open revealing a small room behind. He watches as a fat old lady walks up to the doors presses a button beside it, and steps inside. The doors close behind her. Then a minute later the doors open again. However gone is the fat old lady and out steps a young blonde beauty! The old man stands there stunned, speechless! Then quietly he whispers to his boy "Son... go fetch your mother..."


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