Structural issues on the portuguese fig production: recent developments

Fig production evolution registered an enormous decrease in Portugal on the last decades. In what concerns any agricultural production and its evolution we have to look to the structural issues affecting the culture trying to understand what is going on and where to act. This paper will begin to show the decrease on Portuguese fig production, according to FAO statistics. Then, we will look to this evolution in parallel with the evolution of farm structure on the last decades that has been quite strong, in Portugal, even if in what concerns farm area and the distribution of farms among area classes there has been only slight modifications. The population evolution is also a matter of importance and we will try to characterize the Portuguese agricultural population, in what concerns educational level and age and then move to fig producers, trying to understand what is the age and educational level of those who produce rig in Portugal. Finally, we will briefly focus on the economics of production. As a conclusion, there will be some appointments on the fig production future in Portugal.

Rate adaptation for wireless video streaming based on error statistics

This paper presents a new rate-control algorithm for live video streaming over wireless IP networks, which is based on selective frame discarding. In the proposed mechanism excess 'P' frames are dropped from the output queue at the sender using a congestion estimate based on packet loss statistics obtained from RTCP feedback and from the Data Link (DL) layer. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated through computer simulation. This paper also presents a characterisation of packet losses owing to transmission errors and congestion, which can help in choosing appropriate strategies to maximise the video quality experienced by the end user. Copyright © 2007 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.