Soil fertility, nutrition and yield of maize and barley with gypsum application on soil surface in no-till

Annual crop yield and nutrition have shown differentiated responses to modifications in soil chemical properties brought about by gypsum application. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of gypsum application rates on the chemical properties of a Latossolo Bruno (Clayey Oxisol), as well as on the nutrition and yield of a maize-barley succession under no-till. The experiment was set up in November 2009 in Guarapuava, Parana, Brazil, applying gypsum rates of 0.0, 1.5, 3.0, 4.5, and 6.0 Mg ha-1 to the soil surface upon sowing maize, with crop succession of barley. Gypsum application decreased the levels of Al3+ and Mg2+ in the 0.0-0.1 m layer and increased soil pH in the layers from 0.2-0.6 m depth. Gypsum application has increased the levels of Ca2+ in all soil layers up to 0.6 m, and the levels of S-SO4(2-) up to 0.8 m. In both crops, the leaf concentrations of Ca and S were increased while Mg concentrations have decreased as a function of gypsum rates. There was also an effect of gypsum rates on grain yield, with a quadratic response of maize and a linear increase for barley. Yield increases were up to 11 and 12 % in relation to control for the maximum technical efficiency (MTE) rates of 3.8 and 6.0 Mg ha-1 of gypsum, respectively. Gypsum application improved soil fertility in the profile, especially in the subsurface, as well as plant nutrition, increasing the yields of maize and barley.

Growth and Nutrition of Eucalypt Rooted Cuttings Promoted by Ectomycorrhizal Fungi in Commercial Nurseries

ABSTRACT Ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) may improve the adaptation of eucalypts saplings to field conditions and allow more efficient fertilizer use. The effectiveness of EMF inoculum application in promoting fungal colonization, plant growth, nutrient uptake, and the quality of rooted cuttings was evaluated forEucalyptus urophylla under commercial nursery conditions. For inoculated treatments, fertilization of the sapling substrate was reduced by 50 %. The experiment was carried out in a completely randomized design in a 4 × 4 factorial arrangement, wherein the factors were inoculum application rates of 0 (control), 5, 10, and 15 gel beads of calcium alginate containing the vegetative mycelium of Amanita muscaria, Elaphomyces antracinus, Pisolithus microcarpus, andScleroderma areolatum, plus a non-inoculated treatment without fertilization reduction in the substrate (commercial). Ectomycorrhizal fungi increased plant growth and fungal colonization as well as N and K uptake evenly. The best plant growth and fungal colonization were observed for the highest application rate. The greatest growth and fungal colonization and contents of P, N, and K were observed at the 10-bead rate. Plant inoculation with Amanita muscaria, Elaphomyces anthracinus, and Scleroderma areolatum increased P concentrations and contents in a differential manner. The Dickson Quality Index was not affected by the type of fungi or by inoculum application rates. Eucalypt rooted cuttings inoculated with ectomycorrhizal fungi and under half the amount of commercial fertilization had P, N, and K concentrations and contents greater than or equal to those of commercial plants and have high enough quality to be transplanted after 90 days.

Cultivar response to fungicide application in relation to rice blast control, productivity and sustainability

Four field trials were conducted, from 1995 to 1997, with the objective of studying the response of four upland cultivars to foliar fungicide application in relation to panicle blast control, grain yield and sustainability. Differential disease control and yield response of cultivars to fungicide treatment were obtained. Losses in grain yield of cultivars IAC 202, Caiapó, Rio Paranaíba and Araguaia due to panicle blast were 44.8%, 27.4%, 24.4% and 18.2%, respectively. Two applications of tricyclazole or benomyl controlled panicle blast, as indicated by lower values of disease progress curve and relative panicle blast severity, and increased grain yield of the cultivar IAC 202. The losses in 100 panicle grain weight and grain yield were significantly reduced by 22.3% and 25.1% in IAC 202 and 23.6% and 20.5% in Caiapó, respectively, with two sprays of tricyclazole. Sustainable value index for yield was maximum with two applications of tricyclazole (0.59), followed by one application at booting (0.46) and at heading (0.40) in cultivar IAC 202. Results showed no yield response of the cultivars Rio Paranaíba and Araguaia to fungicide applications for panicle blast control.

Potassium supply to cotton roots as affected by potassium fertilization and liming

Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) is known to have a high requirement for K and to be very sensitive to low soil pH. Most of K reaches plant roots by diffusion in the soil. As K interacts with Ca and Mg, liming can interfere in K movement in the soil, affecting eventually the plant nutrition. The objective of this work was to study the effect of dolomitic lime and 0, 15, 30, 45 and 60 g kg-1 of K on the supply of K to cotton roots. Cotton plants were grown up to 40 days in 5 L pots containing a Dark Red Latosol (Typic Haplusthox) with 68% and 16% of sand and clay, respectively. There was an increase in dry matter yields and in K accumulation due to K fertilization. Root interception of soil K was also increased by K application, but was not affected by lime. Mass flow and diffusion increased linearly with K levels up to 60 mg kg-1, in pots with lime. In pots without lime the amount of K reaching the roots by diffusion increased up to 45 mg kg-1, but decreased at the highest K level. Accordingly, there was more K reaching the roots through mass flow at the highest K level. This happened because there were more fine roots in pots without lime, at the highest K level. As the roots grew closer, there was a stronger root competition leading to a decrease in the amount of K diffused to cotton roots.

Fast Blue and Diamidino Yellow as retrograde tracers in peripheral nerves: efficacy of combined nerve injection and capsule application to transected nerves in the adult rat

Capsule application of Diamidino Yellow (DY) to the cut end of the sciatic nerve immediately followed by capsule application of Fast Blue (FB) resulted in approximate to 95% double-labelled dorsal root ganglion neurones (DRGn) and motoneurones (Mn). Nerve injection of DY followed either immediately or 2 months later by capsule application of FB resulted in approximate to 90% double-labelled DRGn and Mn, indicating that DY and FB label similar populations of DRGn and Mn, and that insignificant DY fading occurred during this period. Inversing the order of application, however, i.e. nerve injection of FB followed immediately by capsule application of DY, resulted in double labelling in only approximate to 10% of the DRGn and Mn. These percentages increased to 70% of the DRGn and 60% of the Mn when the FB injection was followed 1 or 2 months after by the DY application, indicating that DY uptake is blocked by recent administration of FB. The results indicate that DY and FB might be useful for sequential labelling before and after nerve injury as a tool to investigate the accuracy of sensory and motor regeneration.

Comparison of application frameworks designed to support application extensibility

Reusability has become more popular factor in modern software engineering. This is mainly because object-orientation has brought methods that allow reusing more easily. Today more and more application developer thinks how they can reuse already existing applications in their work. If the developer wants to use existing components outside the current project, he can use design patterns, class libraries or frameworks. These provide solution for specific or general problems that has been already encountered. Application frameworks are collection of classes that provides base for the developer. Application frameworks are mostly implementation phase tools, but can also be used in application design. The main purpose of the frameworks is separate domain specific functionalities from the application specific. Usually the frameworks are divided into two categories: black and white box. Difference between those categories is the way the reuse is done. The application frameworks provide properties that can be examined and compared between different frameworks. These properties are: extensibility, reusability, modularity and scalability. These examine how framework will handle different platforms, changes in framework, increasing demand for resources, etc. Generally application frameworks do have these properties in good level. When comparing general purpose framework and more specific purpose framework, the main difference can be located in reusability of frameworks. It is mainly because the framework designed to specific domain can have constraints from external systems and resources. With general purpose framework these are set by the application developed based on the framework.

Flavonoid extraction from Alpinia zerumbet (Pers.) Burtt et Smith leaves using different techniques and solvents

The current study aims to verify the best method for a rapid and efficient extraction of flavonoids from Alpinia zerumbet. Dried leaves were extracted using distillated water and ethanol 70% by extraction methods of shaking maceration, ultrasonic, microwave and stirring. By the application of TLC and reversed-phase HPLC techniques the rutin and kaempferol-3-O-glucuronide were detected. Ethanol 70% was more efficient for flavonoids extraction than water. No significant yielding variation was verified for ultrasonic, microwave and stirring methods using ethanol 70% (11 to 14%). The relative concentration of rutin and kaempferol-3-O-glucuronide, respectively, was higher by ultrasonic (1.5 and 5.62 mg g-1 dried leaves, respectively) and by microwave (1.0 and 6.64 mg g-1 dried leaves) methods using ethanol. Rapid and simplified extraction proceeding optimize phytochemical work and acquisition of secondary metabolites.

Flavonoids extraction from Alpinia zerumbet (Pers.) Burtt et Smith leaves using different procedures

The current study aims to verify the best method for a rapid and efficient extraction of flavonoids from Alpinia zerumbet. Dried leaves were extracted using distillated water and ethanol 70% by extraction methods of shaking maceration, ultrasonic, microwave and stirring. By the application of TLC and reversed-phase HPLC techniques the rutin and kaempferol-3-O-glucuronide were detected. Ethanol 70% was more efficient for flavonoids extraction than water. No significant yielding variation was verified for ultrasonic, microwave and stirring methods using ethanol 70% (11 to 14%). Relative concentration of rutin and kaempferol-3-O-glucuronide, respectively, was higher by ultrasonic (1.5 and 5.62 mg g-1 dried leaves) and by microwave (1.0 and 6.64 mg g-1 dried leaves) methods using 70% ethanol. Rapid and simplified extraction proceeding optimize phytochemical work and acquisition of secondary metabolites.

Sensitivity loss by Corynespora cassiicola, isolated from soybean, to the fungicide carbendazim

Soybean target leaf spot, caused by the fungus Corynespora cassiicola, is controlled especially by leaf application of fungicides. In the last seasons, in the central-west region of Brazil, the disease chemical control efficiency has been low. This led to the hypothesis that the control failure could be due to the reduction or loss of the fungus sensitivity to fungicides. To clarify this fact, in vitro experiments were conducted to determine mycelial sensitivity of five C. cassiicola isolates to fungicides. Mycelial growth was assessed based on the growth of the mycelium on the culture medium, in Petri dishes. The medium potato-dextrose-agar was supplemented with the concentrations 0; 0.01; 0.1; 1; 10; 20 and 40 mg/L of the active ingredients carbendazim, cyproconazole, epoxiconazole, flutriafol and tebuconazole. The experiment was conducted and repeated twice in a controlled environment, temperature of 25±2ºC and photoperiod of 12 hours. Data on the percentage of mycelial inhibition were subjected to logarithmic regression analysis and the concentration that inhibits 50% of the mycelial growth (IC50) was calculated. Loss of sensitivity to carbendazim was observed for three fungal isolates, IC50 > 40 mg/L. Considering all five isolates, the IC50 for tebuconazole ranged from 1.89 to 2.80 mg/L, for epoxiconazol from 2.25 to 2.91, for cyproconazole from 9.21 to 20.32 mg/L, and for flutriafol from 0.77 to 2.18 mg/L. In the absence of information on the reference IC50 determined for wild isolates, the lowest values generated in our study can be used as standard to monitor the fungus sensitivity.

Impacts of the application of swine wastewater in percolate and in soil cultivated with soybean

The aim of this study was to evaluate the possible impacts caused in the soil and in the percolate in lysimeters of drainage with application of different rates of swine wastewater (SW) during the cycle of soybean culture and to assess the productivity of it. The experiment was conducted at the Agricultural Engineering Experimental Center of UNIOESTE. The soil was classified as typical Distroferric Red Latosol. There were twenty-four drainage lysimeters in the area in which the soybean was cultivated, cultivar CD 214. Four SW depths (0; 100; 200 and 300 m³ ha-1) were applied to the soil seven days before the sowing in a single application combined with two mineral fertilizations in the sowing (with and without recommended fertilization during sowing), and three repetitions per treatment. It was realized three collections of percolate in each experimental portion, the first was conducted 40 days after sowing (DAS); the second at 72 DAS, and the third at the end of crop cycle (117 DAS). It was evaluated in the percolate the pH, calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, and total nitrogen. Based on the results, it was possible to observe that the level of K, P and N in the soil increased according tothe increase of SW rates. The levels of K and P in the percolate were higher for higher rates of SW. The productivity was not influenced by the application of SW or by fertilization.

Optimized Fast-FISH with a-satellite probes: acceleration by microwave activation

It has been shown for several DNA probes that the recently introduced Fast-FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization) technique is well suited for quantitative microscopy. For highly repetitive DNA probes the hybridization (renaturation) time and the number of subsequent washing steps were reduced considerably by omitting denaturing chemical agents (e.g., formamide). The appropriate hybridization temperature and time allow a clear discrimination between major and minor binding sites by quantitative fluorescence microscopy. The well-defined physical conditions for hybridization permit automatization of the procedure, e.g., by a programmable thermal cycler. Here, we present optimized conditions for a commercially available X-specific a-satellite probe. Highly fluorescent major binding sites were obtained for 74oC hybridization temperature and 60 min hybridization time. They were clearly discriminated from some low fluorescent minor binding sites on metaphase chromosomes as well as in interphase cell nuclei. On average, a total of 3.43 ± 1.59 binding sites were measured in metaphase spreads, and 2.69 ± 1.00 in interphase nuclei. Microwave activation for denaturation and hybridization was tested to accelerate the procedure. The slides with the target material and the hybridization buffer were placed in a standard microwave oven. After denaturation for 20 s at 900 W, hybridization was performed for 4 min at 90 W. The suitability of a microwave oven for Fast-FISH was confirmed by the application to a chromosome 1-specific a-satellite probe. In this case, denaturation was performed at 630 W for 60 s and hybridization at 90 W for 5 min. In all cases, the results were analyzed quantitatively and compared to the results obtained by Fast-FISH. The major binding sites were clearly discriminated by their brightness

Letters from the War of Ecosystems – An Analysis of Independent Software Vendors in Mobile Application Marketplaces

The recent emergence of a new generation of mobile application marketplaces has changed the business in the mobile ecosystems. The marketplaces have gathered over a million applications by hundreds of thousands of application developers and publishers. Thus, software ecosystems—consisting of developers, consumers and the orchestrator—have emerged as a part of the mobile ecosystem. This dissertation addresses the new challenges faced by mobile application developers in the new ecosystems through empirical methods. By using the theories of two-sided markets and business ecosystems as the basis, the thesis assesses monetization and value creation in the market as well as the impact of electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) and developer multihoming— i. e. contributing for more than one platform—in the ecosystems. The data for the study was collected with web crawling from the three biggest marketplaces: Apple App Store, Google Play and Windows Phone Store. The dissertation consists of six individual articles. The results of the studies show a gap in monetization among the studied applications, while a majority of applications are produced by small or micro-enterprises. The study finds only weak support for the impact of eWOM on the sales of an application in the studied ecosystem. Finally, the study reveals a clear difference in the multi-homing rates between the top application developers and the rest. This has, as discussed in the thesis, an impact on the future market analyses—it seems that the smart device market can sustain several parallel application marketplaces.

Biotechnological richness of the northeastern semi-arid region: antioxidant activity of casein hydrolysates from Moxotó goat milk (Capra hircus Linnaeus, 1758) obtained by papain action

This study aimed to identify antioxidant peptides from caprine casein hydrolysates by papain application using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer, and a 2² full factorial design, with 4 axial points, in order to evaluate kinetic parameters (time and pH) effects on the degree of hydrolysis as well as the antioxidant activity of Moxotó goat milk casein peptides. Degree of hydrolysis was determined by total and soluble protein ratio in casein. Antioxidant activity was measured by ABTS method with 2, 2-cation-azinobis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid). TROLOX was used as standard. Peptide pattern and sequence of antioxidant amino acids were obtained using MALDI-TOF/MS. The highest degree of hydrolysis (28.5%) and antioxidant activity (2329.6 mmol.L TROLOX. mg- 1 peptide) were observed in the permeate. NENLL, NPWDQVK and LLYQEPVLGPV peptides, detected in the permeate, were pointed as the responsible for antioxidant activity, suggesting their potential application as food supplement and pharmaceutical products.

Tailoring Magnetic Properties of Co-Fe Thin Films by Topographical Modifications Using Thermal Annealing and Swift Heavy Ion Irradiation and Fabrication of Magnetoelectric Multilayers for Device Applications

Magnetism and magnetic materials have been playing a lead role in improving the quality of life. They are increasingly being used in a wide variety of applications ranging from compasses to modern technological devices. Metallic glasses occupy an important position among magnetic materials. They assume importance both from a scientific and an application point of view since they represent an amorphous form of condensed matter with significant deviation from thermodynamic equilibrium. Metallic glasses having good soft magnetic properties are widely used in tape recorder heads, cores of high-power transformers and metallic shields. Superconducting metallic glasses are being used to produce high magnetic fields and magnetic levitation effect. Upon heat treatment, they undergo structural relaxation leading to subtle rearrangements of constituent atoms. This leads to densification of amorphous phase and subsequent nanocrystallisation. The short-range structural relaxation phenomenon gives rise to significant variations in physical, mechanical and magnetic properties. Magnetic amorphous alloys of Co-Fe exhibit excellent soft magnetic properties which make them promising candidates for applications as transformer cores, sensors, and actuators. With the advent of microminiaturization and nanotechnology, thin film forms of these alloys are sought after for soft under layers for perpendicular recording media. The thin film forms of these alloys can also be used for fabrication of magnetic micro electro mechanical systems (magnetic MEMS). In bulk, they are drawn in the form of ribbons, often by melt spinning. The main constituents of these alloys are Co, Fe, Ni, Si, Mo and B. Mo acts as the grain growth inhibitor and Si and B facilitate the amorphous nature in the alloy structure. The ferromagnetic phases such as Co-Fe and Fe-Ni in the alloy composition determine the soft magnetic properties. The grain correlation length, a measure of the grain size, often determines the soft magnetic properties of these alloys. Amorphous alloys could be restructured in to their nanocrystalline counterparts by different techniques. The structure of nanocrystalline material consists of nanosized ferromagnetic crystallites embedded in an amorphous matrix. When the amorphous phase is ferromagnetic, they facilitate exchange coupling between nanocrystallites. This exchange coupling results in the vanishing of magnetocrystalline anisotropy which improves the soft magnetic properties. From a fundamental perspective, exchange correlation length and grain size are the deciding factors that determine the magnetic properties of these nanocrystalline materials. In thin films, surfaces and interfaces predominantly decides the bulk property and hence tailoring the surface roughness and morphology of the film could result in modified magnetic properties. Surface modifications can be achieved by thermal annealing at various temperatures. Ion irradiation is an alternative tool to modify the surface/structural properties. The surface evolution of a thin film under swift heavy ion (SHI) irradiation is an outcome of different competing mechanism. It could be sputtering induced by SHI followed by surface roughening process and the material transport induced smoothening process. The impingement of ions with different fluence on the alloy is bound to produce systematic microstructural changes and this could effectively be used for tailoring magnetic parameters namely coercivity, saturation magnetization, magnetic permeability and remanence of these materials. Swift heavy ion irradiation is a novel and an ingenious tool for surface modification which eventually will lead to changes in the bulk as well as surface magnetic property. SHI has been widely used as a method for the creation of latent tracks in thin films. The bombardment of SHI modifies the surfaces or interfaces or creates defects, which induces strain in the film. These changes will have profound influence on the magnetic anisotropy and the magnetisation of the specimen. Thus inducing structural and morphological changes by thermal annealing and swift heavy ion irradiation, which in turn induce changes in the magnetic properties of these alloys, is one of the motivation of this study. Multiferroic and magneto-electrics is a class of functional materials with wide application potential and are of great interest to material scientists and engineers. Magnetoelectric materials combine both magnetic as well as ferroelectric properties in a single specimen. The dielectric properties of such materials can be controlled by the application of an external magnetic field and the magnetic properties by an electric field. Composites with magnetic and piezo/ferroelectric individual phases are found to have strong magnetoelectric (ME) response at room temperature and hence are preferred to single phasic multiferroic materials. Currently research in this class of materials is towards optimization of the ME coupling by tailoring the piezoelectric and magnetostrictive properties of the two individual components of ME composites. The magnetoelectric coupling constant (MECC) (_ ME) is the parameter that decides the extent of interdependence of magnetic and electric response of the composite structure. Extensive investigates have been carried out in bulk composites possessing on giant ME coupling. These materials are fabricated by either gluing the individual components to each other or mixing the magnetic material to a piezoelectric matrix. The most extensively investigated material combinations are Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) or Lead Magnesium Niobate-Lead Titanate (PMNPT) as the piezoelectric, and Terfenol-D as the magnetostrictive phase and the coupling is measured in different configurations like transverse, longitudinal and inplane longitudinal. Fabrication of a lead free multiferroic composite with a strong ME response is the need of the hour from a device application point of view. The multilayer structure is expected to be far superior to bulk composites in terms of ME coupling since the piezoelectric (PE) layer can easily be poled electrically to enhance the piezoelectricity and hence the ME effect. The giant magnetostriction reported in the Co-Fe thin films makes it an ideal candidate for the ferromagnetic component and BaTiO3 which is a well known ferroelectric material with improved piezoelectric properties as the ferroelectric component. The multilayer structure of BaTiO3- CoFe- BaTiO3 is an ideal system to understand the underlying fundamental physics behind the ME coupling mechanism. Giant magnetoelectric coupling coefficient is anticipated for these multilayer structures of BaTiO3-CoFe-BaTiO3. This makes it an ideal candidate for cantilever applications in magnetic MEMS/NEMS devices. SrTiO3 is an incipient ferroelectric material which is paraelectric up to 0K in its pure unstressed form. Recently few studies showed that ferroelectricity can be induced by application of stress or by chemical / isotopic substitution. The search for room temperature magnetoelectric coupling in SrTiO3-CoFe-SrTiO3 multilayer structures is of fundamental interest. Yet another motivation of the present work is to fabricate multilayer structures consisting of CoFe/ BaTiO3 and CoFe/ SrTiO3 for possible giant ME coupling coefficient (MECC) values. These are lead free and hence promising candidates for MEMS applications. The elucidation of mechanism for the giant MECC also will be the part of the objective of this investigation.

Design, implementation and application of a generic framework for integrated regional land-use modeling

Land use is a crucial link between human activities and the natural environment and one of the main driving forces of global environmental change. Large parts of the terrestrial land surface are used for agriculture, forestry, settlements and infrastructure. Given the importance of land use, it is essential to understand the multitude of influential factors and resulting land use patterns. An essential methodology to study and quantify such interactions is provided by the adoption of land-use models. By the application of land-use models, it is possible to analyze the complex structure of linkages and feedbacks and to also determine the relevance of driving forces. Modeling land use and land use changes has a long-term tradition. In particular on the regional scale, a variety of models for different regions and research questions has been created. Modeling capabilities grow with steady advances in computer technology, which on the one hand are driven by increasing computing power on the other hand by new methods in software development, e.g. object- and component-oriented architectures. In this thesis, SITE (Simulation of Terrestrial Environments), a novel framework for integrated regional sland-use modeling, will be introduced and discussed. Particular features of SITE are the notably extended capability to integrate models and the strict separation of application and implementation. These features enable efficient development, test and usage of integrated land-use models. On its system side, SITE provides generic data structures (grid, grid cells, attributes etc.) and takes over the responsibility for their administration. By means of a scripting language (Python) that has been extended by language features specific for land-use modeling, these data structures can be utilized and manipulated by modeling applications. The scripting language interpreter is embedded in SITE. The integration of sub models can be achieved via the scripting language or by usage of a generic interface provided by SITE. Furthermore, functionalities important for land-use modeling like model calibration, model tests and analysis support of simulation results have been integrated into the generic framework. During the implementation of SITE, specific emphasis was laid on expandability, maintainability and usability. Along with the modeling framework a land use model for the analysis of the stability of tropical rainforest margins was developed in the context of the collaborative research project STORMA (SFB 552). In a research area in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, socio-environmental impacts of land-use changes were examined. SITE was used to simulate land-use dynamics in the historical period of 1981 to 2002. Analogous to that, a scenario that did not consider migration in the population dynamics, was analyzed. For the calculation of crop yields and trace gas emissions, the DAYCENT agro-ecosystem model was integrated. In this case study, it could be shown that land-use changes in the Indonesian research area could mainly be characterized by the expansion of agricultural areas at the expense of natural forest. For this reason, the situation had to be interpreted as unsustainable even though increased agricultural use implied economic improvements and higher farmers' incomes. Due to the importance of model calibration, it was explicitly addressed in the SITE architecture through the introduction of a specific component. The calibration functionality can be used by all SITE applications and enables largely automated model calibration. Calibration in SITE is understood as a process that finds an optimal or at least adequate solution for a set of arbitrarily selectable model parameters with respect to an objective function. In SITE, an objective function typically is a map comparison algorithm capable of comparing a simulation result to a reference map. Several map optimization and map comparison methodologies are available and can be combined. The STORMA land-use model was calibrated using a genetic algorithm for optimization and the figure of merit map comparison measure as objective function. The time period for the calibration ranged from 1981 to 2002. For this period, respective reference land-use maps were compiled. It could be shown, that an efficient automated model calibration with SITE is possible. Nevertheless, the selection of the calibration parameters required detailed knowledge about the underlying land-use model and cannot be automated. In another case study decreases in crop yields and resulting losses in income from coffee cultivation were analyzed and quantified under the assumption of four different deforestation scenarios. For this task, an empirical model, describing the dependence of bee pollination and resulting coffee fruit set from the distance to the closest natural forest, was integrated. Land-use simulations showed, that depending on the magnitude and location of ongoing forest conversion, pollination services are expected to decline continuously. This results in a reduction of coffee yields of up to 18% and a loss of net revenues per hectare of up to 14%. However, the study also showed that ecological and economic values can be preserved if patches of natural vegetation are conservated in the agricultural landscape. -----------------------------------------------------------------------