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Author König, H.J.; Uthes, S.; Schuler, J.; Zhen, L.; Purushothaman, S.; Suarma, U.; Sghaier, M.; Makokha, S.; Helming, K.; Sieber, S.; Chen, L.; Brouwer, F.; Morris, J.; Wiggering, H. doi  openurl
  Title Regional impact assessment of land use scenarios in developing countries using the FoPIA approach: findings from five case studies Type Journal Article
  Year 2013 Publication (up) Journal of Environmental Management Abbreviated Journal J. Environ. Manage.  
  Volume 127 Suppl Issue Pages S56-S64  
  Keywords Conservation of Natural Resources; Developing Countries; Environmental Monitoring/*methods; (Ex-ante) impact assessment; Indicators; Land use change; Scenario study; Stakeholder participation; Sustainable development  
  Abstract The impact of land use changes on sustainable development is of increasing interest in many regions of the world. This study aimed to test the transferability of the Framework for Participatory Impact Assessment (FoPIA), which was originally developed in the European context, to developing countries, in which lack of data often prevents the use of data-driven impact assessment methods. The core aspect of FoPIA is the stakeholder-based assessment of alternative land use scenarios. Scenario impacts on regional sustainability are assessed by using a set of nine regional land use functions (LUFs), which equally cover the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. The cases analysed in this study include (1) the alternative spatial planning policies around the Merapi volcano and surrounding areas of Yogyakarta City, Indonesia; (2) the large-scale afforestation of agricultural areas to reduce soil erosion in Guyuan, China; (3) the expansion of soil and water conservation measures in the Oum Zessar watershed, Tunisia; (4) the agricultural intensification and the potential for organic agriculture in Bijapur, India; and (5) the land degradation and land conflicts resulting from land division and privatisation in Narok, Kenya. All five regions are characterised by population growth, partially combined with considerable economic development, environmental degradation problems and social conflicts. Implications of the regional scenario impacts as well as methodological aspects are discussed. Overall, FoPIA proved to be a useful tool for diagnosing regional human-environment interactions and for supporting the communication and social learning process among different stakeholder groups.  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0301-4797 ISBN Medium Article  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes TradeM Approved no  
  Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4474  
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Author Boeckx, T.; Winters, A.L.; Webb, K.J.; Kingston-Smith, A.H. doi  openurl
  Title Polyphenol oxidase in leaves: is there any significance to the chloroplastic localization Type Journal Article
  Year 2015 Publication (up) Journal of Experimental Botany Abbreviated Journal J. Experim. Bot.  
  Volume 66 Issue 12 Pages 3571-3579  
  Keywords Catechol Oxidase/*metabolism; Cell Compartmentation; Chloroplasts/*enzymology; Environment; Photosynthesis; Plant Leaves/*enzymology; Abiotic stress; polyphenol oxidase; secondary metabolism.  
  Abstract Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) catalyses the oxidation of monophenols and/or o-diphenols to o-quinones with the concomitant reduction of oxygen to water which results in protein complexing and the formation of brown melanin pigments. The most frequently suggested role for PPO in plants has been in defence against herbivores and pathogens, based on the physical separation of the chloroplast-localized enzyme from the vacuole-localized substrates. The o-quinone-protein complexes, formed as a consequence of cell damage, may reduce the nutritional value of the tissue and thereby reduce predation but can also participate in the formation of structural barriers against invading pathogens. However, since a sufficient level of compartmentation-based regulation could be accomplished if PPO was targeted to the cytosol, the benefit derived by some plant species in having PPO present in the chloroplast lumen remains an intriguing question. So is there more to the chloroplastic location of PPO? An interaction between PPO activity and photosynthesis has been proposed on more than one occasion but, to date, evidence either for or against direct involvement has been equivocal, and the lack of identified chloroplastic substrates remains an issue. Similarly, PPO has been suggested to have both pro- and anti-oxidant functions. Nevertheless, several independent lines of evidence suggest that PPO responds to environmental conditions and could be involved in the response of plants to abiotic stress. This review highlights our current understanding of the in vivo functions of PPO and considers the potential opportunities it presents for exploitation to increase stress tolerance in food crops.  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0022-0957 1460-2431 ISBN Medium Review  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes CropM Approved no  
  Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4552  
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Author Abdelrahman, H.M.; Olk, D.C.; Dinnes, D.; Ventrella, D.; Miano, T.; Cocozza, C. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Occurrence and abundance of carbohydrates and amino compounds in sequentially extracted labile soil organic matter fractions Type Journal Article
  Year 2016 Publication (up) Journal of Soils and Sediments Abbreviated Journal Journal of Soils and Sediments  
  Volume 16 Issue 10 Pages 2375-2384  
  Keywords Light fraction; Mobile humic acid; Organic farming; Particulate organic matter; SOM sequential extraction  
  Abstract Purpose The study aimed to describe the carbohydrates and amino compounds content in soil, the light fraction (LF), the >53 μm particulate organic matter (POM), and the mobile humic acid (MHA) fraction and to find out whether the carbohydrates and amino compounds can be used to explain the origin of SOM fractions. Materials and methods Soil samples were collected from two agricultural fields managed under organic farming in southern Italy. The LF, the POM, and the MHA were sequentially extracted from each soil sample then characterized. Seven neutral sugars and 19 amino compounds (amino acids and amino sugars) were determined in each soil sample and its correspondent fractions. Results and discussion The MHA contained less carbohydrate than the LF or the POM but its carbohydrates, although dominated by arabinose, were relatively with larger microbial contribution as revealed by the mannose/xylose ratio. The amino compounds were generally less in the LF or the POM than in the MHA, while the fungal (aspartic and serine) and bacterial (alanine and glycine) amino acids were larger in the MHA than in the LF or the POM, underlining the microbial contribution to the MHA. Results from both sites indicated that total carbohydrates content decreased moving from the LF (younger fraction) to the MHA (older fraction), which seems to follow a decomposition continuum of organic matter in the soil-plant system. Conclusions The study showed that the MHA is a labile humified fraction of soil C due to its content of carbohydrates and concluded that the content of carbohydrates and amino compounds in the LF, the POM and the MHA can depict the nature of these fractions and their cycling pattern and response to land management.  
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  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1439-0108 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes CropM, ftnotmacsur Approved no  
  Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4992  
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Author Mansouri, M.; Dumont, B.; Leemans, V.; Destain, M.-F. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Bayesian methods for predicting LAI and soil water content Type Journal Article
  Year 2014 Publication (up) Precision Agriculture Abbreviated Journal Precision Agric.  
  Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 184-201  
  Keywords crop model; bayes; data assimilation; extended kalman filtering; particle filtering; variational filtering; leaf-area index; parameter-estimation; crop models; moisture; instruments; management; sensors; state  
  Abstract LAI of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and soil water content of the topsoil (200 mm) and of the subsoil (500 mm) were considered as state variables of a dynamic soil-crop system. This system was assumed to progress according to a Bayesian probabilistic state space model, in which real values of LAI and soil water content were daily introduced in order to correct the model trajectory and reach better future evolution. The chosen crop model was mini STICS which can reduce the computing and execution times while ensuring the robustness of data processing and estimation. To predict simultaneously state variables and model parameters in this non-linear environment, three techniques were used: extended Kalman filtering (EKF), particle filtering (PF), and variational filtering (VF). The significantly improved performance of the VF method when compared to EKF and PF is demonstrated. The variational filter has a low computational complexity and the convergence speed of states and parameters estimation can be adjusted independently. Detailed case studies demonstrated that the root mean square error of the three estimated states (LAI and soil water content of two soil layers) was smaller and that the convergence of all considered parameters was ensured when using VF. Assimilating measurements in a crop model allows accurate prediction of LAI and soil water content at a local scale. As these biophysical properties are key parameters in the crop-plant system characterization, the system has the potential to be used in precision farming to aid farmers and decision makers in developing strategies for site-specific management of inputs, such as fertilizers and water irrigation.  
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  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1385-2256 ISBN Medium Article  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes CropM, ftnotmacsur Approved no  
  Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4629  
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Mansouri, M.; Destain, M.-F. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Predicting biomass and grain protein content using Bayesian methods Type Journal Article
  Year 2015 Publication (up) Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment Abbreviated Journal Stoch. Environ. Res. Risk Assess.  
  Volume 29 Issue 4 Pages 1167-1177  
  Keywords crop model; particle filter; prediction; ensemble kalman filter; parameter-estimation; particle filters; decision-support; state estimation; model; nitrogen; navigation; tracking; systems  
  Abstract This paper deals with the problem of predicting biomass and grain protein content using improved particle filtering (IPF) based on minimizing the Kullback-Leibler divergence. The performances of IPF are compared with those of the conventional particle filtering (PF) in two comparative studies. In the first one, we apply IPF and PF at a simple dynamic crop model with the aim to predict a single state variable, namely the winter wheat biomass, and to estimate several model parameters. In the second study, the proposed IPF and the PF are applied to a complex crop model (AZODYN) to predict a winter-wheat quality criterion, namely the grain protein content. The results of both comparative studies reveal that the IPF method provides a better estimation accuracy than the PF method. The benefit of the IPF method lies in its ability to provide accuracy related advantages over the PF method since, unlike the PF which depends on the choice of the sampling distribution used to estimate the posterior distribution, the IPF yields an optimum choice of this sampling distribution, which also utilizes the observed data. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated in terms of estimation accuracy, root mean square error, mean absolute error and execution times.  
  Address  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
  Publisher Place of Publication Editor  
  Language English Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1436-3240 1436-3259 ISBN Medium Article  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes CropM Approved no  
  Call Number MA @ admin @ Serial 4664  
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