The end consumer’s choice of floorcovering in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom: a comparative pilot study of substitute competition

In order to understand the competitive situation of wood, it is essential to consider the end consumer of building materials. The knowledge of factors affecting the end consumers choice of building material for specific purposes, i.e., the mechanisms of substitute competition, is limited. Field studies of the British and Dutch floorcovering markets revealed that context, usage context as well as the general life situation, is of crucial importance in substitute competition. This contextual character severely limits the usefulness and adequacy of interviews with fixed-reply alternatives, as well as classical statistical methods of analysis. In this article, a qualitative approach to data gathering is combined with multivariate analysis. The results indicate that by using this methodology it is possible to determine which are the decisive predictors of material preferences, make cross-cultural comparisons, and apprehend the underlying motives or perspectives. The results further show that, unlike the other floorcovering materials studied, the determinant reasons for choosing wood appear to be exclusively nonfunctional in nature.     

Devon Acres CSA: local struggles in a global food system

This paper focuses on examining the dynamic nature of community supported agriculture (CSA) and the real-world experiences which mark its contours, often making it distinct from the early idealized CSA “model.” Specifically, our study examines the narratives of the farmers of Devon Acres CSA over its duration, in tandem with a survey of recent shareholders in order to understand and explain its evolution. The framework we develop here shows that this CSA is largely characterized by instrumental and functional beliefs and practices, with some elements in the collaborative mode. A key contribution of this research is the development of a framework which helps to highlight the relative fluidity and patchwork quality of CSA participant positions over time. At Devon Acres, the real-world factors and issues influencing CSA evolution are seen to be products of both the local and larger contexts, evident in such areas as shifts in farmer learning and adaptation, differences between beliefs and practices in member volunteer efforts, and changes in farm and resource conditions. With respect to CSA more broadly, we argue that the reality of dominant food system context and site-specific influences on CSA development compels us to rework our attachment to early idealized “model” traits. Expansion in CSA numbers, evidence of adaptation and situated learning, and retention of the local and organic as core traits, speak to the pragmatic yet transformative potential of CSA contribution to food system change.

中国古典园林文化的传承——潍坊归真园的创意

自古以来潍坊地区就是中国南北方文化交融之地,归真园体现了这一地方特点而兼备江南园林的清秀典雅和北方园林的浑厚豪放风格。在提供人们以古典艺术审美享受的同时,既继承了传统,又有所创新,是弘扬中国人工环境与自然环境相融合理念的优秀作品。     

设施农业物联网情景感知技术应用研究

将虚拟现实与物联网技术相结合,构建基于物联网情景感知的设施农业生产三维可视化管理系统.通过在三维制作软件Maya中使用多边形建模方法构建日光温室等模型,并应用骨骼动画技术实现卷帘控制动画,结合Unity3d三维引擎快速构建整个日光温室园区的三维场景;完善感知数据传输及设备远程控制功能,实现设施农业三维交互场景与物联网测控功能的融合,通过三维场景实时获取温室内数据并实现设施生产执行机构的在线控制,解决复杂三维场景客户端协调处理瓶颈.结果表明,设施农业物联网情景感知技术可以为设施农业智能化生产及未来并行化农业生产管理提供技术支撑.     

试论西方后现代主义景观设计的特征

研究了20世纪80年代盛行的后现代主义艺术对景观设计的影响,通过对大量实例和代表人物风格的分析,归纳了后现代主义景观设计的主要特征。     

一种新的层次信息可视化模型

随着信息的日益丰富和互联网技术的发展,如何在海量数据中获取有效信息这一问题促使信息可视化领域成为当前的研究热点之一。层次信息的可视化结构最直观的方式就是树型结构。但是传统的树型结构有一个很大的缺点:当结构的层次增多或者节点增多时,该结构需要占据大量的可视化空间。针对这个问题,在分析研究层次信息可视化技术的基础上,提出了一种新的层次信息可视化模型,即层次信息自由呈递模型。通过对多种关键特征的参数化,实现层次信息在任意方向上的自由呈递,以及Focus+context视图效果。     

论语境因素在机器翻译中的重要作用

语境在机器翻译中扮演非常重要的角色。本文章结合目前机器翻译的现状，运用计算机辅助英语翻译理论，探讨了语境因素在机器翻译中的重要性，并指出了对源语言进行句子和篇章语境分析有助于计算机进行准确的翻译，从而提高机器翻译质量。     

The shared landscape: what does aesthetics have to do with ecology?

This collaborative essay grows out of a debate about the relationship between aesthetics and ecology and the possibility of an “ecological aesthetic” that affects landscape planning, design, and management. We describe our common understandings and unresolved questions about this relationship, including the importance of aesthetics in understanding and affecting landscape change and the ways in which aesthetics and ecology may have either complementary or contradictory implications for a landscape. To help understand these issues, we first outline a conceptual model of the aesthetics–ecology relationship. We posit that: 1. While human and environmental phenomena occur at widely varying scales, humans engage with environmental phenomena at a particular scale: that of human experience of our landscape surroundings. That is the human “perceptible realm.” 2. Interactions within this realm give rise to aesthetic experiences, which can lead to changes affecting humans and the landscape, and thus ecosystems. 3. Context affects aesthetic experience of landscapes. Context includes both effects of different landscape types (wild, agricultural, cultural, and metropolitan landscapes) and effects of different personal–social situational activities or concerns. We argue that some contexts elicit aesthetic experiences that have traditionally been called “scenic beauty,” while other contexts elicit different aesthetic experiences, such as perceived care, attachment, and identity. Last, we discuss how interventions through landscape planning, design, and management; or through enhanced knowledge might establish desirable relationships between aesthetics and ecology, and we examine the controversial characteristics of such ecological aesthetics. While these interventions may help sustain beneficial landscape patterns and practices, they are inherently normative, and we consider their ethical implications.     

Towards a systemic research methodology in agriculture: Rethinking the role of values in science

The recent drastic developmentof agriculture, together with the growingsocietal interest in agricultural practices andtheir consequences, pose a challenge toagricultural science. There is a need forrethinking the general methodology ofagricultural research. This paper takes somesteps towards developing a systemic researchmethodology that can meet this challenge – ageneral self-reflexive methodology that forms abasis for doing holistic or (with a betterterm) wholeness-oriented research and providesappropriate criteria of scientific quality.From a philosophy of research perspective,science is seen as an interactive learningprocess with both a cognitive and a socialcommunicative aspect. This means, first of all,that science plays a role in the world that itstudies. A science that influences its ownsubject area, such as agricultural science, isnamed a systemic science. From thisperspective, there is a need to reconsider therole of values in science. Science is notobjective in the sense of being value-free.Values play, and ought to play, an importantrole in science – not only in form ofconstitutive values such as the norms of goodscience, but also in the form of contextualvalues that enter into the very process ofscience. This goes against the traditionalcriterion of objectivity. Therefore, reflexive objectivity is suggested as a newcriterion for doing good science, along withthe criterion of relevance. Reflexiveobjectivity implies that the communication ofscience must include the cognitivecontext, which comprises the societal,intentional, and observational context. Inaccordance with this, the learning process ofsystemic research is shown as a self-reflexivecycle that incorporates both an involved actorstance and a detached observer stance. Theobserver stance forms the basis for scientificcommunication.To this point, a unitary view of science asa learning process is employed. A secondimportant perspective for a systemic researchmethodology is the relation between the actual,different, and often quite separate kinds ofscience. Cross-disciplinary research ishampered by the idea that reductive science ismore objective, and hence more scientific, thanthe less reductive sciences of complex subjectareas – and by the opposite idea thatreductive science is necessarilyreductionistic. Taking reflexive objectivity asa demarcator of good science, an inclusiveframework of science can be established. Theframework does not take the establisheddivision between natural, social, and humanscience as a primary distinction of science.The major distinction is made between theempirical and normative aspects of science,corresponding to two key cognitive interests.Two general methodological dimensions, thedegree of reduction of the research world andthe degree of involvement in the researchworld, are shown to span this framework. Theframework can form a basis fortransdisciplinary work by way of showing therelation between more and less reductive kindsof science and between more detached and moreinvolved kinds of science and exposing theabilities and limitations attendant on thesemethodological differences.     

Effect of adjacent agricultural habitat on the distribution of passerines in natural grasslands

Habitat heterogeneity has often been acknowledged as a key factor determining which species occur in a landscape, but we still know little on the nature and relative importance of the processes controlling species distribution and abundance within complex landscape mosaics. We used a framework defined by the compensation, supplementation and complementation models to study the distribution of four species of passerines typical of steppe habitats and identify the degree to which landscape context accounts for their distribution in the steppe-agriculture mosaic of the Crau, southern France. Steppe habitat was the best predictor of species distribution in all cases and that densities were highest in steppe. One of these species, the Calandra lark, is strictly tied to the natural steppe habitats independently of its context. For another species, the Tawny pipit, we document a significant positive effect of the presence, near steppe habitat, of extensive pastoral habitats, such as fallows and grazed crops. Finally, the abundance of the two remaining species, Skylark and Short-toed lark, was negatively affected by the presence of non-herbaceous habitats in the vicinity of steppe habitat. This suggests that the quality of the steppe habitat, as perceived by these species is conditional to the nature of adjacent habitats. Our results suggest that the management of the context in which steppe habitat is imbedded will significantly affect the distribution and abundance of this group of passerines and determine both habitat quality and conservation value at a landscape scale.