Paris, 5 October 2009


EFITA newsletter / 431 / 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=6707


Agritechnica: solutions for the future
10 – 14 November – HANNOVER
>> Innovations engine for agriculture – Over 2,150 exhibitors from 45 countries. More.

>> VDMA Agricultural Machinery Association: Stabilisation at a Low Level Expected for 2010
The German agricultural machinery industry can look forward to the coming year with a certain degree of confidence. More

>> Machinery and Equipment Trends at Agritechnica 2009
Mega-trend in electronics, instrumentation and control and data management evident
Agritechnica is the world's innovation platform for modern farm machinery and equipment. The technology trends are: More


First North American Conference on Dairy Precision Management
2 5 March 2010 - TORONTO, Canada
We are accepting submissions for oral presentations and posters. Deadline for submissions is November 1. Subject areas in precision management applied to dairy cattle; robotic milking, sensor driven information, dairy reproduction and health management, information integration, RFID, calf and heifer management, feeding and nutrition.
See: http://www.precisiondairy2010.com
Contact: Blair MURRAY
E-mail : blair.murray(a)ontario.ca


ICT in Agriculture: Perspectives of Technological Innovation
This EFITA sponsored e--book has recently been updated. The e-book is freely available via:
http://www.efita.net > E-Book EFITA
or directly at
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


HSLayers library published as open source product
Help Service Remote Sensing as member of Czech Living Lab WirelessInfo and member of Czech Coordination Office for UNSDI Czech Centre for Science and Society published one from their key products library HSLayers as Open Source product under GPL 3 license. It is after PyWPS and GEMET client already third product published under Open Source license.

Access to HSlayers is on Web Page: http://dev.bnhelp.cz/trac/hslayers/

PyWPS is accessible on address: http://pywps.wald.intevation.org/

GEMET client is accessible on address: http://dev.bnhelp.cz/trac/gemetclient

>>> HSLayers
The set of tools HSLayers is used in new generations of map applications. It is based on JavaScript libraries OpenLayers and ExtJS. Using these tools it is possible to create applications according to user and organization needs. These applications can vary from simple maps accessible through a web site to complicated applications that are similar to desktop GIS tools in their control and functionality. HSLayers are offered in two versions light and portal. Their functionality is nearly the same, different is the look and feel of the application.

>>> Features of HSLayers
HSLayers features are coming up from OpenLayers and therefore their characteristics are as follows:
> Portrayal of various types of data:
> Raster: OGC WMS(-T), Image (PNG, JPEG, GIF), …
> Vector: OGC WFS(-T), GML, GeoRSS, KML, GPX, GeoJSON, …
> Data sources from commercial servers: Google Maps, Virtual Earth, Yahoo Maps, …
> The user interface (use control) adheres to current conventions in web map portals.
> Information about queried objects in text bubbles.
> …

>>> HSLayers additional functions:
- Dynamic adding of OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) services into map - clients for WMS and WFS
- Portrayal of independent data sources on the client side. Map composition is composed on the basis of requests to various servers. It is thus not necessary to install a map server.
- Saving of map composition according to WMC (Web Map Context) OGC specification on user computer for repeated future use or for sharing between users.
- Extension of compute functions based on WPS (Web Processing Service) OGC service - according to user needs
- Multilingual environment
- Map requests to various types of data stored on various servers, with automatic processing of results
- Work with micro-formats
- Search on the map
- On-the-fly projection on client side including S-JTSK coordinate system (direct portrayal of e.g. GPS data is therefore possible)
- Connection of the application with catalogue client (OGC CSW) in the geoportal, which enables display of the searched service from catalogue directly on the map.
- Edit function - snapping to chosen layers
- Possibilities for advanced configuration of user requests
- Advanced measuring of length and surfaces
- Print of map compositions - possibility of large print outs (up to A0 format), user configuration of print settings
- Display of description information of cadastre directly from COSMC web site.
- JavaScript implementation of Gemet client

GemetClient is JavaScript component based on ExtJS Library to provide interface to GEMET service. The development was started in 2008, by Help Service - Remote Sensing company. GemetClient is licensed under LGPLv3.

>>> PyWPS
(Python Web Processing Service) is an implementation of the Web processing Service standard from Open Geospatial Consortium. It has been started in Mai 2006 as a project supported by DBU and is currently (2009) mainly sponsored by HS-RS. It offers an environment for programming own processes (geofunctions or models) which can be accessed from the public. The main advantage of PyWPS is, that it has been written with native support for GRASS GIS. Access to GRASS modules via web interface should be as easy as possible. PyWPS is written in Python, your processes must use this language too.

>>> GEMET
GEMET, the GEneral Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus, has been developed by the European Topic Centre on Catalogue of Data Sources under contract to the European Environment Agency, and is currently published and managed by the European Environment Information and Observation Network. GEMET is a compilation of several multilingual vocabularies, and has been designed as a general thesaurus, aiming to define a core general terminology for the environment. The current version is available in 27 languages, and contains over 6,000 descriptors.

Contact: Karel CHARVAT
E-mail: charvat(a)ccss.cz


The frog
A blonde, June, goes to her local pet store in search of an 'exotic' pet. As she looks about the store, she notices a box FULL of frogs. The sign says: 'SEX FROGS' Only $20 each! Comes with 'complete' instructions.
The girl, June, excitedly looks around to see if anybody's watching her. She whispers softly to the man behind the counter, 'I'll TAKE one!' As the man packages the frog, he quietly says to her, 'Just follow the instructions!' The blonde nods, grabs the box, and is quickly on her way home. As soon as she closes the door to her apartment, she opens the instructions and reads them very carefully. She does EXACTLY what is specified:
1. Take a shower. 2. Splash on some nice perfume. 3. Slip into a very sexy nightie. 4. Crawl into bed and place the frog down in-between your legs, and allow the frog to do what he has been trained to do.
She then quickly gets into bed with the frog and to her surprise . . . NOTHING happens!
The blonde is very disappointed and quite upset at this point. She re-reads the instructions and notices at the bottom of the paper it says, 'If you have any problems or questions. Please call the pet store.'
So, she calls the pet store.
The man says, 'I'll be right over.' Within minutes, the man is ringing her doorbell.
The blonde welcomes him in and says, 'See, I've done everything according to the instructions. The damn frog just SITS there!'
The man . . . Looking very concerned, picks up the frog, stares 'directly into its eyes' and STERNLY says: 'LISTEN TO ME!! I'm only going to show you how to do this ONLY ONE .. MORE ... TIME!!!
Contact: Alecos TRINGIDES
E-mail: tringos(a)logos.cy.net


About the EFITA mailing list
You can use the efita moderated list (>4000 subscribers) to announce any event / product / web site / joke (!) related to IT in agriculture, environment, food industry and rural areas.
If you do not wish to receive our messages, please see: http://www.efita.net to remove your E-mail address from our mail list.