2023
Autores
Sarkar, S; Biswas, T; Malta, MC; Meira, D; Dutta, A;
Publicação
EXPERT SYSTEMS WITH APPLICATIONS
Abstract
Agricultural cooperatives remain a significant component of the food and agriculture industry to help the stakeholders to provide services and have opportunities for themselves. One of the aims of an agricultural cooperative is to answer to the needs within the communities of the farmers. Agricultural cooperatives enable individual farmers to increase productivity and maximise their social welfare. Together the farmer members of an agricultural cooperative can buy input supplies cheaper and sell more of their products in larger markets at higher prices, which is not possible for an individual smallholder farmer otherwise. Some studies have shown that farmers who were members of cooperatives have gained higher revenue for their products and spent less on input. However, organising the hundreds of farmers into smaller groups to perform collective farming and marketing is crucial to strengthening their position in the food and agriculture industry. Thereby, in our work, we consider an agricultural cooperative of smallholder farmers as a multi-agent based coalitional model, where coalitions are formed based on the similarity among the smallholder farmers. In this paper, we propose a model and implement a heuristic-based algorithm to find the disjoint partition of the agents set. We evaluate the model and the algorithm based on the following criteria: (i) individual gain, (ii) runtime analysis, (iii) solution quality, and (iv) scalability. We theoretically prove that our coalitional model of an agricultural cooperative has conciseness, expressiveness and efficiency properties. Experimental results confirm that our algorithm is time efficient and scalable. We show, both empirically and theoretically, that our algorithm generates a solution within a bound of the optimal solution. We also show that our coalition model generates positive revenue for the smallholder farmers and the payoff division rule is individual rational. In addition, we generate a new dataset in the context of an agricultural cooperative to show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed coalitional model of the cooperative.
2022
Autores
de Sousa, AA; Debattista, K; Bouatouch, K;
Publicação
VISIGRAPP (1: GRAPP)
Abstract
2022
Autores
Bouatouch, K; de Sousa, AA; Chessa, M; Paljic, A; Kerren, A; Hurter, C; Farinella, GM; Radeva, P; Braz, J;
Publicação
VISIGRAPP (Revised Selected Papers)
Abstract
2022
Autores
Rodrigues, N; Sousa, AA; Rodrigues, R; Coelho, A;
Publicação
Computer Science Research Notes
Abstract
Content generation is a heavy task in virtual worlds design. Procedural content generation techniques aim to agile this process by automating the 3D modelling with some degree of parametrisation. The novelty of this work is the procedural generation of the marine alga (Asparagopsis armata), taking into consideration the underwater environmental factors. The depth and the occlusion were the two parameters in this study to simulate how the alga growth is influenced by the environment where the alga grows. Starting by building a prototype to explore different L-systems categories to model the alga, the stochastic L-systems with parametric features were selected to generate different alga plasticities. Qualitative methods were used to evaluate the designed grammar and alga's animation results by comparing videos and images of the Asparagopsis armata with the computer-generated versions. © 2022 University of West Bohemia. All rights reserved.
2022
Autores
Bamber, D; Collins, HE; Powell, C; Goncalves, GC; Johnson, S; Manktelow, B; Ornelas, JP; Lopes, JC; Rocha, A; Draper, ES;
Publicação
BMC MEDICAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Abstract
Background The small sample sizes available within many very preterm (VPT) longitudinal birth cohort studies mean that it is often necessary to combine and harmonise data from individual studies to increase statistical power, especially for studying rare outcomes. Curating and mapping data is a vital first step in the process of data harmonisation. To facilitate data mapping and harmonisation across VPT birth cohort studies, we developed a custom classification system as part of the Research on European Children and Adults born Preterm (RECAP Preterm) project in order to increase the scope and generalisability of research and the evaluation of outcomes across the lifespan for individuals born VPT. Methods The multidisciplinary consortium of expert clinicians and researchers who made up the RECAP Preterm project participated in a four-phase consultation process via email questionnaire to develop a topic-specific classification system. Descriptive analyses were calculated after each questionnaire round to provide pre- and post- ratings to assess levels of agreement with the classification system as it developed. Amendments and refinements were made to the classification system after each round. Results Expert input from 23 clinicians and researchers from the RECAP Preterm project aided development of the classification system's topic content, refining it from 10 modules, 48 themes and 197 domains to 14 modules, 93 themes and 345 domains. Supplementary classifications for target, source, mode and instrument were also developed to capture additional variable-level information. Over 22,000 individual data variables relating to VPT birth outcomes have been mapped to the classification system to date to facilitate data harmonisation. This will continue to increase as retrospective data items are mapped and harmonised variables are created. Conclusions This bespoke preterm birth classification system is a fundamental component of the RECAP Preterm project's web-based interactive platform. It is freely available for use worldwide by those interested in research into the long term impact of VPT birth. It can also be used to inform the development of future cohort studies.
2022
Autores
Gomes D.F.; Lopes J.C.; Palma J.M.L.M.; Senra F.; Dias S.; Coimbra I.L.;
Publicação
Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Abstract
Experimental field campaigns for collecting wind data, essential for academic research and the wind energy industry, are non-trivial due to the complex equipment and infrastructure required. This paper reports the latest developments of the WindsPT e-Science platform for planning, executing, and disseminating wind measurement campaign data. Existing e-Science platforms have been developed for more generic domains, preventing them from capturing the details and requirements of the field. Additionally, we propose a protocol for transferring large volumes of data from the in-site devices to our platform, ensuring data replication. With an easy-to-use Web interface, WindsPT promotes collaboration between participants, disseminates results among the stakeholders, publishes metadata, uses DOI, and includes metadata that enables machine-to-machine communication. The platform has multiple sections, with maps, images, and documents, where there is information about the location of the stations, positioning of the sensors, operating dates, photos, technical sheets, calibration documents, among others. The WindsPT platform has been used to host the Perdigão 2017 experimental campaign and proved to be a valuable tool during all the phases of this large field experiment. A new version of WindsPT, designed to be FAIR, host multiple campaigns, and include multiple cross-campaign shared features, as full-text search capabilities, is now developed and tested.
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