Search results for "MAZ"
showing 10 items of 3205 documents
Potential of thermal images and simulation models to assess water and salt stress: Application to potato crop in central Tunisia
2017
The growing water scarcity is a real concern in Mediterranean countries characterized by semi-arid or arid climate such as Tunisia, where it is crucial to improve water use efficiency without affecting agricultural productivity. The importance of identifying methods and technologies to optimize water use in agriculture has been recognized worldwide, in response to the limited water availability. Objective of the paper was to verify the potential of the combined use of infrared thermography and simulation models to assess the effects of water and salt stress on potato crop parameters and crop yield, under the environmental conditions of central Tunisia. The database collected with field expe…
BEST-2K Method for Characterizing Dual-Permeability Unsaturated Soils with Ponded and Tension Infiltrometers
2019
This study presents a new method (BEST-2K) that extends the existing BEST methods for use in characterizing the water retention and hydraulic conductivity functions of matrix and fast-flow regions in dual-permeability soils. BEST-2K requires input information from two water infiltration experiments that are performed under ponded (Beerkan) and unsaturated (tension infiltrometer) conditions at the surface. Other required inputs include water content measurements and the traditional BEST inputs (particle size distribution and bulk density). In this study, first, a flowchart of the BEST-2K method was developed and illustrated with analytically generated data for a synthetic dual-permeability s…
Mapping daily evapotranspiration at field to continental scales using geostationary and polar orbiting satellite imagery
2011
Abstract. Thermal infrared (TIR) remote sensing of land-surface temperature (LST) provides valuable information about the sub-surface moisture status required for estimating evapotranspiration (ET) and detecting the onset and severity of drought. While empirical indices measuring anomalies in LST and vegetation amount (e.g., as quantified by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index; NDVI) have demonstrated utility in monitoring ET and drought conditions over large areas, they may provide ambiguous results when other factors (e.g., air temperature, advection) are affecting plant functioning. A more physically based interpretation of LST and NDVI and their relationship to sub-surface moistu…
Accuracy of Saturated Soil Hydraulic Conductivity Estimated from Numerically Simulated Single‐Ring Infiltrations
2019
The single-ring pressure infiltrometer (PI) method is widely used to determine saturated soil hydraulic conductivity, K s , directly in the field. The original and still most common way to analyze the data makes use of the steady-state model developed by the Canadian School in the 90s and two (two-ponding-depth, TPD, approach) or more (multiple-ponding-depth, MPD, approach) depths of ponding. The so-called Wu method based on a generalized infiltration equation allows analysis of the transient infiltration data collected by establishing a single ponding depth of water on the infiltration surface. This investigation, making use of simulated infiltration runs for initially unsaturated sand to …
Verification of IRRILAB Software Application for the Hydraulic Design of a Micro-Irrigation System by Using IRRIPRO for an Apple Farm in Sicily
2021
In recent years, many studies have been performed to develop simple and accurate methods to design micro-irrigation systems. However, most of these studies are based on numerical solutions that require a high number of iterations and attempts, without ensuring to maximize water use efficiency and energy-saving. Recently, the IRRILAB software, which is based on an analytical approach to optimally design rectangular micro-irrigation units, has been developed, providing the solution corresponding to the maximum energy-saving condition, for any slope of the laterals and of the manifold. One IRRILAB limitation is that, according to its theoretical basis, the rectangular planform geometry and uni…
Artificial Neural Networks for Predicting the Water Retention Curve of Sicilian Agricultural Soils
2018
Modeling soil-water regime and solute transport in the vadose zone is strategic for estimating agricultural productivity and optimizing irrigation water management. Direct measurements of soil hydraulic properties, i.e., the water retention curve and the hydraulic conductivity function, are often expensive and time-consuming, and represent a major obstacle to the application of simulation models. As a result, there is a great interest in developing pedotransfer functions (PTFs) that predict the soil hydraulic properties from more easily measured and/or routinely surveyed soil data, such as particle size distribution, bulk density (&rho
Image Segmentation Techniques for Healthcare Systems
2019
The present special issue of the Journal of Healthcare Engineering collects articles written by researchers scattered around the world who belong to the academic and industrial environments. The papers of this special issue have been selected by a rigorous peer-reviewing process with the support of at least two reviewers per paper, along with the opinion written in the final decision by a component of the editorial staff. Different methods on biomedical image segmentation dedicated to healthcare systems have been developed regarding, for example, the fields of machine learning, deformable models, fuzzy models, and so on. Such methods have been applied on different biomedical image modalitie…
L'esperienza formativa come opportunità di apprendimento organizzativo per la scuola
2012
What are the most appropriate ways to activate changes in educational services in order to optimally answer to their institutional mandate in a complex society? This paper answers this question by adopting a organizational perspective that covers interconnected and coordinated learning processes, with all the actors of the educational system (pupils, teachers, parents, managers, administrative staff...) and, in a meta-level, of the system itself. After an excursus on the theories of the organization, useful information for making choices and conscious operational design in a systemic and ecological perspective are given.
La cura di sé come pratica educativa: le radici ellenistiche
2012
The “self-care”, yet one of the ethical principles of the hellenistic philosophies, is read again with a kind of disenchanted and post-modern view. Through a comparision between the Hellenistic and the modern ages, we can say that the first one is marked by the crisis of the pòlis, and the second one is living out the end of the national state with a sense of anxiety. So, by following Epicuro and the Stoicism, is possible to recognize in the practice of the “self-care” a pedagogic resource through which the Subject can activate a self-inquiry process able to involve or commit others human beings, planting the seeds for a planetary consciousness.
Fanny Giambalvo, un’intellettuale siciliana e quindi cosmopolita
2016
In questo saggio si traccia un profilo della studiosa, pedagogista e filosofa palermitana Fanny Giambalvo considerando vita e opere e tenendo insieme testimonianza affettiva ed elaborazione concettuale. Parallelamente viene condotta una riflessione sulla tradizione culturale siciliana in ambito formativo e filosofico, a partire da un’analisi di alcuni temi cari alla Giambalvo. In particolare vengono delineati alcuni tratti che si legano alla sua persona sul piano umano e culturale, si intrecciano tra loro e si inseriscono nella tradizione intellettuale siciliana che dagli anni venti del‘900 arriva fino ai nostri giorni.