Thursday, December 15, 2011

Community Management


Figure1: Maps of the Internet.
This map represents the location of every single class C network
on the Internet and shows how everything is connected.
Introduction
Social tools are booming nowadays. Even if it was, at the very beginning, restricted to innovative students and Web evangelist it is now gaining the business world.
In this paper we explain the power of social networks and we look over their multitude why and how they are growing. We bring out the possible use in enterprise to optimize communication, collaboration, corporation and connection.
Today, the big buzz on the Internet and in lots of conversations is social networks or the activity of networking socially. Even if these activities of being social are old as the world is, the development of online tools has been exploding for the past few years and is “transforming our life, work and world”.
It is very obvious that activities on the Web are constantly growing and social networking is at its nuclear stage with more innovation being introduced. First used by students for their private life, social platforms; Facebook and MySpace are now great places to connect, communicate, market artists, products and companies as well as share information worldwide.
As the new generation is entering in the workplace, the demand of social tools is also growing in companies. Employees want new tools to be more effective and more connected with their colleagues, clients and partners.
But how-to synchronize the use of social networking between very different worlds?
Compared to student life, an enterprise is first of all a business; an organization focuses on profits and not only well-being as students are! Most of the time, information is vitally strategic and can’t be spread out all around the globe. Filtering sensitive information and controlling intellectual property rights is, for most business organizations, an everyday battle both internally and externally. Furthermore, business organizations generally have a multiplicity of stakeholders from shareholders and employees, to civil servants, which bring about a more hierarchical division of labor which should be managed using social tools. Therefore, all these important points should be taken into consideration to setup and adapt the concept of social software in companies.
In addition, social networks are still perceived as vague and dangerous for most human beings. What is a Social Network? What are its goals? Which values and effectiveness does it have on our private and business lives? There are still unanswered questions.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Recent Web Applications in the Agro‐Food Sector

Ikechukwu Aligbe
Department of Agricultural Engineering
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM)

 Introduction
A wireless sensor network is a system comprised of radio frequency (RF) transceivers, sensors, transducer, amplifier, microcontrollers, power source, signal conditioning and processing units. Wireless sensor networks with self-organizing, self-configuring, self-diagnosing and self-healing capabilities (smart sensor wireless network) have been developed to solve problems or to enable applications that traditional technologies could not address. The availability of these technologies has made it possible to find many new applications that could not have been considered possible before.
Wireless sensor technology is still at its early development stage. Applications of wireless sensors in agricultural and food industries are still rare.
Wireless technologies have been under rapid development during recent years. Types of wireless technologies being developed range from simple IrDA that uses infrared light for short-range, point-to-point communications, to wireless personal area network (WPAN) for short range, point-to multi-point communications, such as Bluetooth and
ZigBee, to mid-range, multi-hop wireless local area network (WLAN), to long-distance cellular phone systems, such
as GSM/GPRS and CDMA.
The introduction of wireless network have in overall save cost , environmentally friendly, reduce wiring and labour, and efficient control of the equipment through effective monitoring of different parameters (Temperature, Pressure, Energy, Gas, Steam, Humidity, etc.) and the environment. Most food and agricultural companies have benefited immensely in the use of wireless sensors. Wireless sensors have also made it to monitor dangerous, hazardous, unwired or remote areas and locations. This technology provides nearly unlimited installation flexibility for sensors and increased network robustness. Furthermore, wireless technology reduces maintenance complexity and costs.
Wireless sensor networks allow faster deployment and installation of various types of sensors because many of these networks provide self-organizing, self-configuring, self-diagnosing and self-healing capabilities to the sensor nodes.
Some of them also allow flexible extension of the network and as wires are deleted from the transmission, reliability of signal transmission is enhanced. In addition to above mentioned; with the aid of wireless sensor technology, agricultural food produce from a small and uncoordinated network of producers and consumers to a globalized system of well coordinated and internationally regulated global trade in commodities between mainstream market conventions, rooted in efficiency, standardization, and price competition.
In a wireless sensor network setting, a node in the network can be formed by a sensor/data acquisition board
and a mote (processor/radio board). These nodes can communicate with a gateway unit, which has the capability
of communicating with other computers via other networks, such as a LAN, a WLAN, a WPAN and the Internet.
Wireless sensor boards available on the market include accelerometers, barometric pressure sensors, light sensors, GPS modules, temperature sensors, humidity sensors, acoustic sensors, magnetic RPM sensors, magnetometers, pyroelectric IR occupancy detectors, solar radiation sensors, soil moisture sensors, soil temperature sensors, wind speed sensors, rainfall meters and seismic sensors. (N. Wang et.al)

Friday, December 9, 2011

World Best Blogs on Agricultural Engineering

Agriculture is  branch of science concernedwith developing and improvingthe meansfor providing food, water, and fiber for man and animals alike.Agricultural Engineering is a dicipline concerned with solving solving engineering problems of providing food, fiber, water, medicine, andother essential horticultural produce and animal products for industries.In my earlier article on africultural Engineering , I have listed different arms of this dicipline and more insight explanation on this subject.In the study of Agricultural Engineering it involves designing improved tools to work the soil and harvest crops, as well as developing water supplies for agriculture and system irrigating and draining the land where necessary. also, it involves the designing of buildings for animal husbandry and horticultural produce storag, processing, packaging, transporting, and applicatio of pesticides and fertilizers, and food distributing food and fiber products. Agricultural Engineering combines the diciplines of Mechanical, Civil, Electrical, and Chemical Engineering with basic understanding of Biological sciences and agricultural practices.It is important for agricultural Engineers to work directly with farmers, thereby understanding the real world problems faced daily by these farmers, in areas such as aplication and supply of equipments, feed, fertilizers, and pesticides, developing irrigation and drainage systemsor erecting buildings and facilities.




Important blogs on Agricultural Engineering:

To enhance my knowledge in this topic, I have consulted many blogs online in relation to this topic; below are important areas topics dealt by these blogs I will be highlighting on.