Paris, 21 September 2009


EFITA newsletter / 429 / European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


To read this newsletter on the efita.net web site...
See: http://www.efita.net?d=6705


Frog Leap Test
Hello folks,
You will love this - and whoever can work it out in 2 minutes can buy me a beer next time we meet. No cheating by giving it to your kids to work out.

Here is a little 'test' that is (supposedly) part of a 2nd grade computer class in China. Some figure it out right away. Others report having to work on it for a week (or more) to solve it.
See: http://funstufftosee.com/frogleaptest.html

Bon weekend

Mick


Food Security 2009: Achieving long-term solutions
2 - 3 November 2009 – LONDON
See: http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/foodsecurity09/


8th World Congress of Computers in Agriculture and Natural Resources
13 - 17June 2010 - QUEBEC CITY, Canada
>>> Call for papers
CIGR is excited to announce the call for papers is available for the 8th World Congress of Computers in Agriculture and Natural Resources to be held at the Quebec City Convention Center, Canada concurrently with the 2010 CIGR World Congress of the International Commission for Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, June 13-17, 2010. Deadline for proposal submission is November 20, 2009.
Topics include but are not limited to:
* Adoption, Extension and Rural Development
* Data Mining and Pattern Recognition
* Decision support Systems
* e-AgBusiness and Production Chain Management
* Education/Training, Distance Learning and Professional Accreditation
* eLearning and eJournals
* Emerging ICT Technologies
* Farm Management
* Field Data Acquisition and Recording
* Food Safety Control/Tracking-Tracing
* GIS
* Grid Computing Applications
* Information Systems and Databases
* Instrumentation and Control /Data Acquisition, Monitoring and Sensing
* Knowledge Management, Ontologies, Semantics and Text Mining
* Web Services, Portals, Internet and Web 2.0 Applications
* Library Science and Knowledge Representation
* Modeling and Simulation; Packaging Science and Technology
* Portable and Nomadic Computing; Precision Agriculture
* Rural and Environmental Development and Policy
* Traceability, Food Safety and Marketing
* Wireless and Sensor Network

See: http://www.bioeng.ca/cigr2010/

>>> About WCCA
WCCA is a collaborative effort among agricultural information technology associations worldwide. This congress provides a forum for agriculture related professionals to exchange information on applications and developments in the use of Information Technologies. It covers a wide array of topics. These include new applications of well established and understood technologies to innovative and entrepreneurial applications of emerging technologies, in addition to issues related to policy and knowledge dissemination. Contributions from various countries will allow a broadened perspective for all attending.
See: http://www.wcca2009.org


The Lancet's H1N1 Resource Centre
See: http://mail.elsevier-alerts.com/go.asp?/bELA001/qW3IQW8/xK9SQW8


The Voices of Africa (from ICT Update)
ICT Update reported on the Voices of Africa project in rural Kenya as part of the web 2.0 issue in October 2007. Despite some difficult times, the project continues to help women farmers in the area.
See: http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/Feature-Articles/When-persistence-pays-off


The EFITA sponsored e--book "ICT in Agriculture: Perspectives of Technological Innovation" has recently been updated. The e-book is freely available
See: http://http://www.efita.net (E-Book EFITA)
See: http://departments.agri.huji.ac.il/economics/gelb-main.html

The book's list of each chapter's author-coordinates is available providing direct communication links with them for comments and updates. Both will be most welcome.

A special note of interest is the new review chapter updating the results of the "ICT Adoption Questionnaire" survey ongoing now for more than a decade.

Additional suggestions, ideas and comments will be most welcome as well.

Contact: Ehud GELB
E-mail: gelb(a)agri.huji.ac.il


UK Food Security Assessment: Detailed Analysis
See: http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodrin/pdf/food-assess-analysis-0908.pdf


Data mining techniques in agriculture
With a group of friends we have just published with Springer the book "Data Mining in Agriculture" that gives a complete view of these techniques theoretically and illustrated with plenty of examples from the field of agriculture.
See: http://www.springer.com/math/applications/book/978-0-387-88614-5
Contact: Petraq PAPAJORGJI
E-mail: petraq(a)ufl.edu


Blonde
A blonde was down on her luck. In order to raise money, she decided to kidnap a kid and hold him for ransom. So she went to a playground, grabbed a kid, and took him behind a tree. "I've kidnapped you!", said the blonde and then proceeded to write a note saying, "I've kidnapped your kid. Tomorrow morning, put $10,000 in a paper bag and place it under the pecan tree next to the playground. Signed, A Blonde."

The Blonde then pinned the note to the kid's shirt and sent him home to show his parents.
The next morning the blonde checked under the tree and surely enough, a paper bad was sitting there. The Blonde opened the bag and found the $10,000 with a note that said, "How could you do this to a fellow blonde?"

Contact : Hubert OMONT
E-mail: hubert.omont(a)cirad.fr


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