Sustainability of a bioenergy project depends on precise assessment of biomass resource, planning of cost-effective logistics and evaluation of possible environmental implications. In this context, this paper reviews the role and applications of geo-spatial tool such as Geographical Information System (GIS) for precise agro-residue resource assessment, biomass logistic and power plant design. F...

The site of Jebel Moya, excavated in the early twentieth century, represents arguably the largest pastoral mortuary complex in Africa. Jebel Moya is resituated in relation to the neighbouring Meroitic-era agro-pastoral settlements and the only known Meroitic trading station (Sennar) in the southern Gezira Plain, Sudan. It is the first time that the known localities in the southern Gezira and so...

This paper examines the structures of information transfer to the agricultural (production) and agro-alimentary (transformation and commercialization of the products) sector within Spain. A historical perspective is provided to better illustrate the reality and complexity of Spain with regard to the systems of agrarian extension, agricultural research, resources provided by Spain’s central admi...

The largest demographic in India suffering from the adverse impacts of global climate change are small farmers. India’s rural population is approximately 800 million, with the majority being households dependent on small-scale agriculture. For these smallholders, facing a common rural reality of disempowerment and limited disposable household capital, the agro-ecological results of climate vola...

J. Kihara et al. (eds.), Improving Soil Fertility Recommendations in Africa using the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT), DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-2960-5_3, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012 Abstract Africa is the continent with the lowest fertilizer use per hectare notwithstanding the fact it possesses geologically old, infertile and degraded soils. This c...

The permeation of new technologies combined with the high cost for running a shop force enterprises to search for new sales methods. Network applications and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) can help achieve e-commerce goals. In Greece, many enterprises in the agro-food and drink sector already have an internet presence. This paper studies the adoption of e-commerce in websites th...

Understanding how fungi specialize on their plant host is crucial for developing sustainable disease control. A traditional, centuries-old rice agro-system of the Yuanyang terraces was used as a model to show that virulence effectors of the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzaeh play a key role in its specialization on locally grown indica or japonica local rice subspecies. Our results have indi...

Agro-industrial wastes are mainly composed of complex polysaccharides that might serve as nutrients for microbial growth and production of enzymes. The aim of this work was to study polygalacturonase (PG) production by Aspergillus niveus cultured on liquid or solid media supplemented with agro-industrial wastes. Submerged fermentation (SbmF) was tested using Czapeck media supplemented with 28 d...

In this study, three agro-waste materials were used as biosorbents for removal of copper (Cu) from water. This work aims to optimise conditions for preparation of these materials to obtain maximum Cu adsorption capacity. The optimal conditions were determined in terms of Cu removal efficiency and/or energy consumption. The results indicate that banana peels dried at 120°C for 2h and ground into...

Silk foam-based terahertz waveguides are fabricated using lyophilisation and casting techniques. This work is motivated by the lack of biocompatible waveguides for low-loss guidance of THz for applications in remote sensing in biomedical and agro-alimentary industries.