Estimating the effects of United States food safety and agricultural health standards on agro-food exports from Latin America and the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

Innovations in health care services: The CAALYX system

Purpose: This paper describes proposed health care services innovations, provided by a system called CAALYX (Complete Ambient Assisted Living eXperiment). CAALYX aimed to provide healthcare innovation by extending the state-of-the-art in tele-healthcare, by focusing on increasing the confidence of elderly people living autonomously, by building on the knowledge base of the most common disorders and respective characteristic vital sign changes for this age group. Methods: A review of the state-of-the-art on health care services was carried out. Then, extensive research was conducted on the particular needs of the elderly in relation to home health services that, if offered to them, could improve their day life by giving them greater confidence and autonomy. To achieve this, we addressed issues associated with the gathering of clinical data and interpretation of these data, as well as possibilities of automatically triggering appropriate clinical measures. Considering this initial work we started the identification of initiatives, ongoing works and technologies that could be used for the development of the system. After that, the implementation of CAALYX was done. Findings: The innovation in CAALYX system considers three main areas of contribution: (i) The Roaming Monitoring System that is used to collect information on the well-being of the elderly users; (ii) The Home Monitoring System that is aimed at helping the elders independently living at home being implemented by a device (a personal computer or a set top box) that supports the connection of sensors and video cameras that may be used for monitoring and for interaction with the elder; (iii) The Central Care Service and Monitoring System that is implemented by a Caretaker System where attention and care services are provided to elders, where actors as Caretakers, Doctors and Relatives are logically linked to elders. Innovations in each of these areas are presented here. Conclusions: The ageing European society is placing an added burden on future generations, as the 'elderly-to-working-age-people' ratio is set to steadily increase in the future. Nowadays, quality of life and fitness allows for most older persons to have an active life well into their eighties. Furthermore, many older persons prefer to live in their own house and choose their own lifestyle. The CAALYX system can have a clear impact in increasing older persons' autonomy, by ensuring that they do not need to leave their preferred environment in order to be properly monitored and taken care of. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Two decades of adjustment and agricultural development in Latin America and the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

Networked control system for the guidance of a four-wheel steering agricultural robotic platform

A current trend in the agricultural area is the development of mobile robots and autonomous vehicles for precision agriculture (PA). One of the major challenges in the design of these robots is the development of the electronic architecture for the control of the devices. In a joint project among research institutions and a private company in Brazil a multifunctional robotic platform for information acquisition in PA is being designed. This platform has as main characteristics four-wheel propulsion and independent steering, adjustable width, span of 1,80m in height, diesel engine, hydraulic system, and a CAN-based networked control system (NCS). This paper presents a NCS solution for the platform guidance by the four-wheel hydraulic steering distributed control. The control strategy, centered on the robot manipulators control theory, is based on the difference between the desired and actual position and considering the angular speed of the wheels. The results demonstrate that the NCS was simple and efficient, providing suitable steering performance for the platform guidance. Even though the simplicity of the NCS solution developed, it also overcame some verified control challenges in the robot guidance system design such as the hydraulic system delay, nonlinearities in the steering actuators, and inertia in the steering system due the friction of different terrains. Copyright © 2012 Eduardo Pacincia Godoy et al.

Scope, objectives and special problems of planning for agricultural development with reference to Barbados

Describe la organización, metas y objetivos del proceso de planificación para el desarrollo de la agricultura en Barbados.

El mercado común de productos agropecuarios en Centroamérica = The Central American common market for agricultural commodities

Incluye Bibliografía

Política agropecuaria subregional en los países signatarios del Pacto Andino = Agricultural policy in the countries signatory to the Andean subregional integration programme

Incluye Bibliografía

Agricultural development and macroeconomic balance in Latin America: an overview of some basic policy issues

Includes bibliography

Agricultural planning in the countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)

Includes bibliography

Agricultural sector policy and macro-economic planning

Hace algunas observaciones respecto de los principales acontecimientos macroeconomicos en Trinidad y Tabago desde 1973, y procura insertar el desempeno del sector agricola en ese contexto.

Argentina: crisis, adjustment policies and agricultural development, 1980-1985

Analiza las tendencias dominantes en la agricultura y en la economia hasta la crisis de los anos 70, los programas de ajuste y sus efectos en el sector, y algunas consideraciones acerca de los principales desafios y el papel que le corresponderia a la agricultura en ellos.

The external crisis, adjustment policies and agricultural development in Brazil

Includes bibliography

Colombia: effects of the adjustment policy on agricultural development

Includes bibliography

Mexico: study on the financial crisis, the adjustment policies and agricultural development

Se pasa revista al desarrollo de la economia mexicana en general y del sector agropecuario en particular, desde la segunda guerra mundial hasta la crisis de 1982.