scholarly journals Selective Harvesting Robotics: Current Research, Trends, and Future Directions

Author(s):  
Gert Kootstra ◽  
Xin Wang ◽  
Pieter M. Blok ◽  
Jochen Hemming ◽  
Eldert van Henten

Abstract Purpose of Review The world-wide demand for agricultural products is rapidly growing. However, despite the growing population, labor shortage becomes a limiting factor for agricultural production. Further automation of agriculture is an important solution to tackle these challenges. Recent Findings Selective harvesting of high-value crops, such as apples, tomatoes, and broccoli, is currently mainly performed by humans, rendering it one of the most labor-intensive and expensive agricultural tasks. This explains the large interest in the development of selective harvesting robots. Selective harvesting, however, is a challenging task for a robot, due to the high levels of variation and incomplete information, as well as safety. Summary This review paper provides an overview of the state of the art in selective harvesting robotics in three different production systems; greenhouse, orchard, and open field. The limitations of current systems are discussed, and future research directions are proposed.

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanzeel Rehman Charan ◽  
Muhammad Aqeel Bhutto ◽  
Mihr Ali Bhutto ◽  
Azhar Ali Tunio ◽  
Ghulam Murtaza Khuhro ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Nanomaterials of curcumin with hyaluronic acid have gained a lot of attention for potential therapeutic applications of curcumin and hyaluronic acid with or without other additional drugs. Overall studies of curcumin and hyaluronic acid show that nanomaterials of curcumin with hyaluronic acid accelerate the efficacy of curcumin in the treatment of various disorders like arthritis, cancer, hepatic fibrosis, neural disorders, wound healing, and skin regeneration, it is largely due to the combined effect of hyaluronic acid and curcumin. However, due to limited clinical trials and experiments on humans and animals, there is a substantial gap in research for the safety and efficacy of nanomaterials of curcumin-hyaluronic acid in the treatment of curcumin and hyaluronic acid targeted diseases and disorders. Main body of the abstract In this current review, we have first described various reported synthetic nanomaterials of curcumin-hyaluronic acid, then in the next section, we have described various fields, disorders, and diseases where these are being applied and in the final section of this review, we discussed the research gap, and future research directions needed to propose the fabricated nanocurcumin-hyaluronic acid biomaterials. Short conclusion There are substantial gaps in research for the safety and efficacy of nanomaterials of curcumin with hyaluronic acid due to limited available data of clinical trials and experiments of nanocurcumin-hyaluronic acid biomaterials on humans and animals. So, it entirely requires serious and committed efforts through the well-organized system of practical and clinical trials which provide results, data, and detections that lead to the formulation of the best drug from curcumin with hyaluronic acid for the treatment of curcumin and hyaluronic acid targeted diseases and disorders.


Author(s):  
Gerald R. Ferris ◽  
B. Parker Ellen ◽  
Charn P. McAllister ◽  
Liam P. Maher

Organizational politics has been an oft-studied phenomenon for nearly four decades. Prior reviews have described research in this stream as aligning with one of three categories: perceptions of organizational politics (POPs), political behavior, or political skill. We suggest that because these categories are at the construct level research on organizational politics has been artificially constrained. Thus, we suggest a new framework with higher-level categories within which to classify organizational politics research: political characteristics, political actions, and political outcomes. We then provide a broad review of the literature applicable to these new categories and discuss the possibilities for future research within each expanded category. Finally, we close with a discussion of future directions for organizational politics research across the categories.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (158) ◽  
pp. 200264
Author(s):  
Antenor Rodrigues ◽  
Gerard Muñoz Castro ◽  
Cristina Jácome ◽  
Daniel Langer ◽  
Selina M. Parry ◽  
...  

Respiratory physiotherapists have a key role within the integrated care continuum of patients with respiratory diseases. The current narrative review highlights the profession's diversity, summarises the current evidence and practice, and addresses future research directions in respiratory physiotherapy. Herein, we describe an overview of the areas that respiratory physiotherapists can act in the integrated care of patients with respiratory diseases based on the Harmonised Education in Respiratory Medicine for European Specialists syllabus. In addition, we highlight areas in which further evidence needs to be gathered to confirm the effectiveness of respiratory therapy techniques. Where appropriate, we made recommendations for clinical practice based on current international guidelines.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S229-S229
Author(s):  
Frank J Infurna

Abstract Lifespan developmental psychology has many guiding principles. My past, current, and future research has been influenced by the lifespan developmental principles of multidimensionality and multidirectionality and the premise that development is not entirely bound to chronological age, but to historical-, contextual-, non-normative event-, pathology- and mortality-related processes. The first part of my talk will discuss ways I have utilized these principles in my research examining individual’s ability to be resilient to diverse types of adversities (cancer diagnosis, unemployment, and bereavement) and resources they are drawing on to promote more positive outcomes, such as social support. The second part of my talk will focus on future research directions that aim to advance the conceptual and methodological significance of this research. Future directions include explicitly studying individuals in midlife, inclusion of outcomes beyond that of mental health and well-being, such as character strengths, and longitudinal research designs that assess people more frequently.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Gengchen Mai ◽  
Krzysztof Janowicz ◽  
Rui Zhu ◽  
Ling Cai ◽  
Ni Lao

Abstract. As an important part of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Question Answering (QA) aims at generating answers to questions phrased in natural language. While there has been substantial progress in open-domain question answering, QA systems are still struggling to answer questions which involve geographic entities or concepts and that require spatial operations. In this paper, we discuss the problem of geographic question answering (GeoQA). We first investigate the reasons why geographic questions are difficult to answer by analyzing challenges of geographic questions. We discuss the uniqueness of geographic questions compared to general QA. Then we review existing work on GeoQA and classify them by the types of questions they can address. Based on this survey, we provide a generic classification framework for geographic questions. Finally, we conclude our work by pointing out unique future research directions for GeoQA.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-21
Author(s):  
Ravi S. Singh ◽  
Sarah Ahmad

Pilgrimage is a spiritual journey during which pilgrims have a religious experience and feel connected to the faith's spiritual legacy. The sacred sites are the spiritual home for pilgrims which they have read and heard about but never visited or experienced before. With little attention paid to the Islamic pilgrimage, especially by geographers, this review paper is an attempt to provide an overview of the subject matter and seek to put forward possible future research directions. This paper provides a systematic description of pilgrimage in Islam by reviewing the literature on the subject,  analysing the definitions, characteristics, processes, classification and authorisation of pilgrimage in general followed by an overview of Islamic pilgrimage, that is, Ziyarat by defining key terms, discussing the typology and exploring the neglected dimensions in Islamic pilgrimage studies. The study has brought the relics and saints venerated in the Muslim world into focus, which are the essential causes for the origin and continuation of the Ziyarat tradition. It also points out the different occasions and reasons for performing popular pilgrimage in Islam. And lastly, it discusses the future research dimensions of Islamic pilgrimage.


Author(s):  
Palak Dewan ◽  
Khushdeep Dharni

Herding denotes how individuals act together in a group without any centralized direction. Herding is widely studied as it drives asset prices away from the fundamental value and there are concerns it leads to volatility, destabilizes the market and increases the fragility of the financial market. In this paper, a concise review of the literature of herding is provided.  Various types of herding, its significance and occurrences along with the determinants are discussed. Various approaches used for measuring herding have been reviewed.  The relationship of herding along with other variables such as market conditions, volatility, and liquidity is reviewed and studied. For the purpose of drafting the review paper, 79 papers for over three decades have been consulted.  Further, future research directions are included for the benefit of the academicians, researchers and policymakers.


Author(s):  
Sangjin Jung ◽  
Rianne E. Laureijs ◽  
Christophe Combemale ◽  
Kate S. Whitefoot

Abstract In this paper, we review the literature on design for nonassembly (DFNA) and the broader literature on design for manufacturing that has design guidelines and metrics applicable to nonassembled products, including both monolithic single-part products and nonassembly mechanisms. Our review focuses on guidelines that apply across multiple manufacturing processes. We identify guidelines and metrics that seek to reduce costs as well as provide differentiated products across a product family. We find that existing DFNA guidelines fall into four main categories pertaining to: (1) geometry and size, (2) material, (3) production process, and (4) clearance and tolerances. We also identify existing product family metrics that can be modified for nonassembled products to capture some aspects of these categories. Finally, we discuss possible future research directions to more accurately characterize the relationships between design variables and manufacturing costs, including investigating factors related to the complexity of operations at particular process steps and across process steps.


Author(s):  
Swee Chua Goh

This chapter explores and reviews the development of survey research instruments to measure the learning organization construct. Some examples of such measures are presented and discussed to illustrate the approach used by researchers to establish the reliability and construct validity of these instruments. The contribution in the use of such measures to empirical research in linking the learning organization to outcomes such as organizational performance is also reviewed. A critical perspective is provided as to some of the potential issues for research in the use and further development of such survey instruments. Lastly, some suggested future research directions are proposed on how, using such measures, the field can advance our knowledge of the learning organization through more novel research methods and approaches.


2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 409-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Y. Bourhis ◽  
Itesh Sachdev ◽  
Martin Ehala ◽  
Howard Giles

This article provides key group vitality concepts followed by a selective overview of four decades of research on vitality issues. Group vitality is what makes language communities behave as distinctive and active collective entities within multilingual settings. Three structural factors combine to foster strong to weak group vitality: demographic factors, institutional support, and status. The objective vitality framework uses available census and sociolinguistic indicators to measure the relative vitality of minority and majority language communities in contact. Two case studies show the crucial role of language policies in improving or undermining the vitality of language minorities in Canada. Studies of subjective perceptions of group vitality are reviewed as they relate to language and communicative outcomes. Key vitality models are noted along with future research directions highlighting the need for a theoretical integration of the vitality framework.


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