Châtenay-Malabry (FR - 92290), 9 July 2012


EFITA newsletter / 569 - European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture, Food and the Environment


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The archives of this newsletter
See: http://www.informatique-agricole.org/category/gazette-efita/



Special Track on Metadata and Semantics for Agriculture, Food & Environment in (MTSR'12)
28 - 30 November 2012 – CADIZ, Spain
The 5th Edition of the Special Track on Metadata and Semantics for Agriculture, Food & Environment is hosted as part of MTSR 2012, and aims to bring together researchers and practitioners that are working on agricultural, food-related and environmental knowledge production, organization, and exchange from a Semantic Web perspective. It aims to serve as a discussion forum where interested experts will present the results of their work, and establish liaisons with other groups that are working on related subjects. In addition, it aims to outline the rich potential of these subjects as an application field for advanced metadata- and semantic-driven systems and services.

The submission deadline is July 20th, 2012. Springer will publish MTSR'12 accepted papers in the form of a book in the CCIS Series.
In addition, authors of selected papers will be invited to submit extended versions of their manuscripts for fast-track journal publication. The proceedings of the previous Special Track have been published in Vol.240 of the CCIS Series (http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-3-642-24731-6). A Special Issue of the International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies has also resulted from this track in the past: http://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticletoc.php?jcode=ijmso&year=2009&vol=4&issue=1/2

See: http://eco.logismi.co/events/mtsr2012/
Contact: Nikos MANOUSELIS
E-mail: nikosm(a)ieee.org


LINQ 2012: First Programme with Keynote Speakers from EC
23 October – BRUSSELS
The European Conference "Learning Innovations and Quality" (LINQ) is focusing new ways and approaches for the lifelong learning by competence models, E-Learning and social communities.
Its motto is: "Innovation and Quality: How do they fit together?"
The papers should address at least one of the following conference topics:

- Innovations and future trends in Learning, Education and Training (LET)
- Quality Development and Certification in LET
- Competence and skills development in lifelong learning
- Implementation of learning innovations
- Technology Enhanced Learning for schools, universities and lifelong learning
- Web 2.0, Social Media and Online Communities for LET
- Learning outcome orientation and quality certification
- Standardisation of LET design, production and services
- Knowledge, innovation and ideas management in LET contexts
- Learning quality in vocational education and training and HR
- Certification of LET services and providers
- Quality and standardization of learning assessment and evaluation
- Harmonization of innovations and quality development in LET

>>> Overview of the important dates
- Paper submission deadline: July 10, 2012
- Notification of acceptance: August 20, 2012
- Camera-Ready copy due: September 7, 2012
- Conference program: October 23, 2012

>>> Overview of the LINQ conference
The conference will take place in Brussels, Belgium on the 23rd of October, 2012.
You can find more information about LINQ 2012 and its call for papers in the attached announcement.
The 1st European conference LINQ 2012 continues the discussion developed at the first four related European conferences INES:
The first INES conference took place in Vilnius (Lithuania), the second in Budapest (Hungary), the third in Bucharest (Romania), and the fourth most recently in Brussels last September 2011.
See: http://www.learning-innovations.eu/
Information provided by Ian HOUSEMAN
E-mail: ian.houseman(a)btconnect.com


2012 Irrigation Show
4 – 5 November – ORLANDO
This year’s Irrigation Show will take place in Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, USA between November 4th and 5th. Brought to you by the Irrigation Association and Florida Irrigation Society this is a key event for international irrigation and water.
Once again New Ag International will be there as an Official Partner Magazine. The September English issue and Spanish October issue will both have bonus distribution at the event.
See: http://www.irrigation.org/IrrigationShow/IAShowDefault.aspx


Efita 2013 conference
24-27 June 2013 - TURIN
Contact: Prof. Remigio BERRUTO
E-mail: remigio.berruto(a)unito.it


Call to Action: Agroscience Application Standards - Identification SMG
The Identification (ID) Standards Maintenance Group (SMG) is undertaking the development of application standards for use in the agricultural industry.
Business Purpose: The objective of this work is to update GS1 standards to clarify appropriate uses in the agricultural products industry, including product identification standards, GS1 BarCode symbol selection and application, and the identification of new Application Identifiers.
Expertise Needed: Trading partners from each segment of the agricultural products supply chain, including manufacturers, distributors and users of agricultural seeds, fertilizers, insecticides, Herbicides and similar products. In particular, the group seeks subject matter experts with knowledge of:
- Agriculture product identification, marking and labelling
- Agriculture supply chain
- Agricultural business areas, including distribution
To participate, join the Identification SMG, click here for more information or contact Michael Sarachman, GS1 Global Office.
Contact: Natascha ROSSNER
E-mail: Natascha.Rossner(a)gs1fr.org


ForumPhyto : InfoFlash for English Readers 1204
- “Understanding scientific studies” (EUFIC)
- Smart AgriMatics 2012 : ICT and Farming conference
- “A better banana for Africa” (Farming & Agriculture)
- Putting the crunch on weed seed (IPMNetNews)
- How Making Food Safe Can Harm Wildlife And Water (NPR, USA)
- Nano-Pesticides: Solution or Threat for a Cleaner and Greener Agriculture?
- GMO ban: Risks for science-based assessments
- Is Europe losing its mojo in science and innovativeness? (animated video)
- To smile (?): Does organic food turn people into jerks ? (Today Health)
See: http://www.forumphyto.fr/2012/07/06/infoflash-for-english-readers-1204/?lang=en


From Progis
Take it in your hand. Digitize, calculate, plan and control your land – eligible areas and others – on your own, do it with a smart GIS-software solution and do it on high resolution aerial images.
It belongs to the past to display facts and circumstances with the help of printed topographic, geographic or thematic maps and to do on base of them planning, visualisation of circumstances and control. Till today, regretfully user-friendly tools and affordable aerial images were missing on the market to a great extent, which would have enabled potential users to set the step toward the independent digital processing of data and to do analyses, planning, illustration and communication. Microsoft and PROGIS make it possible.
The GIS-System WinGIS® of PROGIS – with embedded aerial images of Microsoft Bing® Maps for Euro 36,00 (incl. VAT).This licence includes 50 transactions on Bing Maps which can be extended at any time.

>>> Details to the products
WinGIS® is easy to install and use with an user-friendly surface. Since many years it is field-tested and used by a myriad of businesses (e.g. urban and landscape planning,  banks and insurance business, the management of resources, the environment, of agriculture and forestry, for infrastructure matters, cadastre and community management, for communication and navigation for logistics, aviation, security and emergency management for real estate administration, marketing advertising, tourism etc.).

How you may measure an area, how you can link it with a database, how you can determine the exact size or how you can omit subareas…

With latest technology Microsoft Bing® has been producing aerial images in a resolution of at least 30 cm since 2011. These “Bing Maps“ will be ready area-wide for  Western Europa and the entire USA by September of this year.  The quality of the images is assessed by the European Commission which determined, that it is eligible for LPIS update and QA.

The completion of Western Europe and USA will happen until end of the year. Independently, in the meantime you may use the available satellite images with lower-quality.
For experts in the agro-forest-environment sector we have a range of applications facilitating significantly the daily management of own enterprises and those you are providing consulting or other services. For those who want to develop own apps to visualize their data with WinGIS you can do it with our software developer component.

>>> Visit us at the 11th International Conference on Precision Agriculture, 15th – 18th , July 2012, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
See: http://www.progis.com


Practical Uses of Aerial Imagery
See: http://www.slideshare.net/natesuetaylor/naicc-presentation
See: http://www.intellicrop.com/


Mobile Devices and In-Field Data Capture by Rezare Systems Limited in New Zealand
See: http://www.rezare.co.nz/mobile-devices-and-data-capture-for-farming


Call for proposals: chapters of a book entitled “Economics of Water Management in Agriculture” from “Science Publishers” an Imprint of CRC Press (A Taylor & Francis group company)
See: http://www.agro.auth.gr/ewma
Contact: Dr. Thomas BOURNARIS
E-mail: tbournar(a)agro.auth.gr


SPADE Project – Digging into the future
The next generation of agricultural managers is asking how the industry can enable seamless data exchange between machines and Farm Management Information Systems (FMIS). Either retrieving documented practices from the machine (like a planting event) or sending a prescription to the machine for implementation, it is more of a challenge than it should be. The costs for exchanging data are high due to the lack of common implementation guidelines, data transfer protocols, message standards, and standard reference data. Producers report that it is difficult or nearly impossible to move data from one system to another. To do so almost always requires data reentry, manual data transformation, and/or specialists to manage data.
See: http://www.aggateway.org/News/July2012Newsletter/SPADEProject.aspx


Commissioner John Dalli on Genetically Modified Organisms
See: http://www.vieuws.eu/issues/10-eu-agriculture/34-eu-gmos/370-commissioner-john-dalli-on-genetically-modified-organisms-gmos/


Commissioner John Dalli on Animal Cloning
See: http://www.vieuws.eu/issues/10-eu-agriculture/21-eu-commission/371-commissioner-john-dalli-on-animal-cloning/


Commissioner John Dalli on Animal Welfare
See: http://www.vieuws.eu/issues/10-eu-agriculture/74-eu-animal-welfare/372-commissioner-john-dalli-on-animal-welfare/


Made me smile! (Sorry for my German friends)
Mrs. Angela Merkel arrives at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport.

"Nationality?"

"German"

"Occupation?"

"No, just staying for a few days."


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