A new intelligent electronic nose system for measuring and analysing livestock and poultry farm odours

This paper introduces a new portable intelligent electronic nose system developed especially for measuring and analysing livestock and poultry farm odours. It can be used in both laboratory and field. The sensor array of the proposed electronic nose consists of 14 gas sensors, a humidity sensor, and a temperature sensor. The gas sensors were especially selected for the main compounds from the livestock farm odours. An expert system called “Odour Expert” was developed to support researchers’ and farmers’ decision making on odour control strategies for livestock and poultry operations. “Odour Expert” utilises several advanced artificial intelligence technologies tailored to livestock and poultry farm odours. It can provide more advanced odour analysis than existing commercially available products. In addition, a rank of odour generation factors is provided, which refines the focus of odour control research. Field experiments were conducted downwind from the barns on 14 livestock and poultry farms. Experimental results show that the predicted odour strengths by the electronic nose yield higher consistency in comparison to the perceived odour intensity by human panel. The “Odour Expert” is a useful tool for assisting farmers’ odour management practises. Supported by Ontario Pork, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food (OMAF) of Canada.     

Resource frontiers and agglomeration economies: The varied logics of transnational land-based investing in Southern and Eastern Africa

Actor-level data on large-scale commercial agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa are scarce. The peculiar choice of transnational investing in African land has, therefore, been subject to conjecture. Addressing this gap, we reconstructed the underlying logics of investment location choices in a Bayesian network, using firm- and actor-level interview and spatial data from 37 transnational agriculture and forestry investments across 121 sites in Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. We distinguish four investment locations across gradients of resource frontiers and agglomeration economies to derive the preferred locations of different investors with varied skillsets and market reach (i.e., track record). In contrast to newcomers, investors with extensive track records are more likely to expand the land use frontier, but they are also likely to survive the high transaction costs of the pre-commercial frontier. We highlight key comparative advantages of Southern and Eastern African frontiers and map the most probable categories of investment locations.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-021-01682-z.     

公路网规划环境影响跟踪评价初探

新颁布的《环境影响评价法》对环境影响的跟踪评价提出了明确规定,文章基于公路网规划环境影响事前评价的侧重点,提出公路网规划跟踪评价的内容主要包括两个方面:一是与相关规划的协调性分析;二是公路网规划实施过程中环境影响的实时监督,并进一步提出了跟踪评价方法。     

船舶溢油事故等级评估方法比较

船舶溢油事故等级评估是船舶溢油应急计划研究的重要内容,它受到溢油量、事故发生位置等多种因素的影响,是复杂的多属性分类问题.利用熵值法、关联度法和BP神经网络法3种目前常用的事故等级评估方法,对上海港1984─2003年发生的12起船舶溢油事故进行了危害等级判定,以期探索溢油事故等级合理量化评估技术方法.对比了3种方法在结果一致性、误差精度上的优劣性及实际适用性.结果表明:BP神经网络和关联度法适用性较好,熵值法必须结合专家打分才能得到较好的判定结果;同时BP神经网络法的评估结果一致性比率较高,误差率较低,但存在建模成本高和对噪声较敏感的缺点.      

有有效时间约束的最大流问题及其算法

交通运输在抗震救灾中起着非常重要的作用,无论是运输量的多少或是时间的及时与否,都直接影响着救灾的效果.而前人的单发点最短路径算法,难以满足救灾中多处救援物资及时到达和救援物资量上的需要.本文设计了确定救援站点(发点)的快速搜索程序,并在此基础上将单发点的救援路线问题扩展为多发点问题.同时考虑各条路段的最大运输量,使得出的紧急救援路线,不仅能满足救援物资的及时到达,同时又能满足对救援物资等运输量上的需求.     

Estimates of Natural Selection in a Salmon Population in Captive and Natural Environments

Abstract:  Captive breeding is a commonly used strategy for species conservation. One risk of captive breeding is domestication selection—selection for traits that are advantageous in captivity but deleterious in the wild. Domestication selection is of particular concern for species that are bred in captivity for many generations and that have a high potential to interbreed with wild populations. Domestication is understood conceptually at a broad level, but relatively little is known about how natural selection differs empirically between wild and captive environments. We used genetic parentage analysis to measure natural selection on time of migration, weight, and morphology for a coho salmon ( Oncorhynchus kisutch ) population that was subdivided into captive and natural components. Our goal was to determine whether natural selection acting on the traits we measured differed significantly between the captive and natural environments. For males, larger individuals were favored in both the captive and natural environments in all years of the study, indicating that selection on these traits in captivity was similar to that in the wild. For females, selection on weight was significantly stronger in the natural environment than in the captive environment in 1 year and similar in the 2 environments in 2 other years. In both environments, there was evidence of selection for later time of return for both males and females. Selection on measured traits other than weight and run timing was relatively weak. Our results are a concrete example of how estimates of natural selection during captivity can be used to evaluate this common risk of captive breeding programs.     

阻力平衡器在除尘管网中的应用

通过对在除尘系统中作为流体阻尼元件的阻力平衡器和调节阀门的对比分析,阐述了除尘管网中采用阻力平衡器的意义, 并对阻力平衡器的结构、工作原理和设计计算进行了介绍,最后强调了阻力平衡器使用时应注意的事项.     

交通运输网络可靠性研究分析

重点分析连通可靠性、出行时间可靠性、能力可靠性、行为可靠性和潜在可靠性等评价道路网络性能的指标,在回顾和总结交通网络可靠性研究发展的基础上,针对国内外的研究现状,提出了目前研究中存在的问题,描述了该领域有待研究的方向。     

多媒体远程实时控制系统

本文给出了多媒体远程实时控制系统的分层结构模型，介绍了基于该模型，实现网络实时传输和远程监控的关键技术和实现方法。为实现实时通信，减轻网络负载，系统可以根据当前的网络状态选择合适的协议来传输通信数据，引入多线程控制和协调机制，以实现并发控制。     

基于C/S+B/S混合模式的城市重大危险源管理系统的研究

分析城市重大危险源管理系统的功能结构,针对现阶段技术应用的局限性,笔者提出C/S+B/S混合模式的解决方案;对数据库系统、网络构架及安全性、兼容性和模型系统等关键技术进行研究;开发出基于C/S+B/S混合模式的城市重大危险源管理系统。该系统对解决城市重大危险源统一管理与布局分散的矛盾,实现重大危险源动态监管和重大事故应急指挥智能化,提高事故应急救援指挥和救援行为的效率有重要意义。