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The reconstruction of land use practices in hyper-arid Saharan Africa is often hampered by the accuracy of the available tools and by unconscious biases that see these areas as marginal and inhospitable. Considered that this has been for a long time the living space of pastoral mobile communities, new research is showing that agriculture might have been more important in these areas than previously thought. In this paper, after a review of present-day land use strategies in Saharan Africa, we show how ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological data can offer us a different point of view and help in better defining land use and food production strategies in this area. Ultimately, these insights can be integrated into the ongoing efforts to reconstruct past land use globally. This research and the APC were funded by the European Research Council, grant number ERC-Stg-2017 759800, RAINDROPS project.

Interdisciplinary research in the fields of forestry and sustainability studies often encounters seemingly incompatible ontological assumptions deriving from natural and social sciences. The perceived incompatibilities might emerge from the epistemological and ontological claims of the theories or models directly employed in the interdisciplinary collaboration, or they might be created by other epistemological and ontological assumptions that these interdisciplinary researchers find no reason to question. In this paper we discuss the benefits and risks of two possible approaches, Popperian optimism and Kuhnian pessimism, to interdisciplinary knowledge integration where epistemological and ontological differences between the sciences involved can be expected. Peer reviewed

This paper reviews the empirical evidence on smallholder farmers’ market participation focusing on cash/food crops and livestock in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with special attention on the methodological approaches employed in this region in an attempt to x-ray these methods, identifying their advantages and limitations and possible means smallholder farmers would be able to transit from subsistence to commercialised agriculture capable of lifting them out of poverty trap that seems to have engulfed many rural SSA. This paper recommends interventions geared towards improving smallholder farmers’ organisation, producers’ association and ensuring appreciable reduction in transaction costs and also improving farmers’ access to productive assets and improved technologies capable of stimulating profitable smallholders’ market participation.

Abstract. The recovery phase of an earthquake-affected settlement is a time-consuming and complex process that requires monitoring, which is now possible using UAS. The purpose of this paper is to present the methodology followed and the results obtained by the exploitation of UAS for rapid multitemporal 3D mapping during the recovery phase of Vrisa traditional settlement, Lesvos island, Greece, which was highly damaged by the earthquake (Mw=6.3) on 12th June 2017. More analytically, three (3) flight campaigns covering the period July 2017 – May 2020 took place by means of an UAS for collecting high-resolution images on: i) 19th May 2019, ii) 29th September 2019, iii) 17th May 2020. Structure from Motion (SfM) and Multi Stereo View (MSV) methods have been applied and produced: i) Digital Surface Models – DSMs, ii) 3D Point Clouds – 3DPC and iii) Orthophoto-maps, of Vrisa. In parallel, GIS capabilities has been exploit to calculate building volumes based on: a) DSM produced by UAS image processing, b) DEM produced by 233 RTK measurements and c) building footprints derived by the digitization of the orthophoto-map of 25th July 2017. The methodology developed and implemented achieves extremely reliable results in a relatively easy, fast and economically feasible way, which is confirmed with great precision by field work. By applying the above-described methodology, it was possible to monitoring the recovery phase during July 2017 and May 2020 which 302/340 buildings that had been severely damaged by the earthquake have been demolished. A small number of new buildings have also been rebuilded and small number of buildings that have just begun excavations for their construction. An important parameter for obtaining reliable data and comparable results is the correct selection of flight parameters and their maintenance at all times when it is decided to take data, without affecting the accuracy of the results from taking photos or videos. Automation in the future of the proposed methodology can significantly accelerate the achievement of reliable results without the intermediate interpretation of orthophoto-maps.

Abstract. In the last years many efforts have been invested in the cultural heritage digitization: surveying, modelling, diagnostic analysis and historic data collection. Nowadays, this effort is finalized in many cases towards the Historical Building Information Modelling. The number of informative models testifying the multifaceted richness and unicity of the architectural heritage and its components is progressively increasing. Information and Model are generally acquired under researches and analysis phases addressed to the preservation and restoration process. Unfortunately, once concluded the research such documentation is mostly left abandoned in the drawers or in the local memory of the computers, and in some cases totally missed. Just a few of them are saved in a server or in the cloud for the duration of the restoration, but without any connection with the maintenance process of historic architectures or knowledge transfer purposes and dissemination. This data loss would lead to the breaking of the cycle of past, present and future, with loss of memory and knowledge. The paper start facing the aspect of managing the information and models acquired on the case of vaulted systems. Information is collected within a semantic based hub platform to perform cross co-relation at a PanEuropean level. Such functionality allows to reconstruct the rich history of the construction techniques and skilled workers across Europe, enriched by 3 case studies surveyed in Prague region. To this purpose a Vault DB has been undertaken with a Vocabulary enriched by the granular information gained from the HBIM models, and with the vault sub-typologies highlighted by a detailed surveying.

Abstract The analyses of physical evidence recovered from clandestine single and mass graves have been demonstrated to be of significant evidential and/or investigative value for both court purposes and humanitarian investigations. The detection of these types of graves is, therefore, pivotal to forensic investigations. This article reviews different remote and ground-based methods that have been used to attempt to detect deliberately concealed burial sites and summarizes the experimental research that has, to date, been undertaken in order to improve grave detection. The article then presents the preliminary findings of research being undertaken at the Australian Facility for Taphonomic Experimental Research (AFTER). This research, the first of its kind to be undertaken in the southern hemisphere, is based on experimental single and mass graves using human cadavers. The research is centred on current remote sensing methods and techniques combined with the analysis of the effects of below-ground temperature and moisture and ground-based weather data. It is hoped that identifying successful sensors and detectors will be beneficial to national and international agencies that are involved in forensic as well as humanitarian investigations that require the detection of deliberately concealed gravesites.

Ocean-going ships were key to rising maritime economies of the Early Modern period, and understanding how they were built is critical to grasp the challenges faced by shipwrights and merchant seafarers. Shipwreck timbers hold material evidence of the dynamic interplay of wood supplies, craftmanship, and evolving ship designs that helped shape the Early Modern world. Here we present the results of dendroarchaeological research carried out onBatavia’s wreck timbers, currently on display at the Western Australian Shipwrecks Museum in Fremantle. Built in Amsterdam in 1628 CE and wrecked on its maiden voyage in June 1629 CE in Western Australian waters,Bataviaepitomises Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC) shipbuilding. In the 17th century, the VOC grew to become the first multinational trading enterprise, prompting the rise of the stock market and modern capitalism. Oak (Quercussp.) was the preferred material for shipbuilding in northern and western Europe, and maritime nations struggled to ensure sufficient supplies to meet their needs and sustain their ever-growing mercantile fleets and networks. Our research illustrates the compatibility of dendrochronological studies with musealisation of shipwreck assemblages, and the results demonstrate that the VOC successfully coped with timber shortages in the early 17th century through diversification of timber sources (mainly Baltic region, Lübeck hinterland in northern Germany, and Lower Saxony in northwest Germany), allocation of sourcing regions to specific timber products (hull planks from the Baltic and Lübeck, framing elements from Lower Saxony), and skillful woodworking craftmanship (sapwood was removed from all timber elements). These strategies, combined with an innovative hull design and the use of wind-powered sawmills, allowed the Dutch to produce unprecedented numbers of ocean-going ships for long-distance voyaging and interregional trade in Asia, proving key to their success in 17th-century world trade.

Territorial development and rural tourism are linked. Rural tourism involves tourists in rural areas who are attracted by the distinctive character of the landscape, recreation such as local and food resources, and the potential for spiritual, environmental, and cultural growth. The aim of the present paper is to investigate the economic, sustainable, and social role of tourism in the development of the rural area of Mărginimea Sibiului in Romania. It highlights the role of local entrepreneurs in developing new practices and sustainable approaches. Drawing on the literature review on the topic of sustainable rural tourism, this paper uses the case study as a methodological approach. We have developed consistent desk research relying on the processing of official governmental data and of national statistics, supported by analytical strategies involving induction and deduction. The main findings lead towards the conclusion that Mărginimea Sibiului has managed to gain both national and international notoriety while developing coherently, capitalizing on its natural and cultural heritage, and providing services in successful agritourist boarding houses and rural guesthouses, which have continuously developed both numerically and in terms of comfort levels. Because more than two thirds of the initially established lodgings in the early 2000s continue to function today, these facilities have proven to be sustainable and attractive businesses.

The paper will evaluate the differing responses of the farming community to the state directed food production of the second world war. In particular, it will explore the reasons why the vast majority of farmers endorsed the official directives to transform their farming methods, while evaluating the extent to which the relationship between the War Agricultural Executive Committee (WAEC) and the farming community was not always as harmonious as the conventional wisdom has suggested. Attention will also focus on the experiences, and legacy of individuals such as Rex Paterson and George Odlum, progressive farmers who used the legal system to challenge wartime officialdom.

Cybersecurity is critical in realizing Internet of Things (IoT) applications and many different standards have been introduced specifically for this purpose. However, selecting relevant standards is not trivial and requires a broad understanding of cybersecurity and knowledge about the available standards. In this study, we present a systematic approach that guides IoT system developers in selecting relevant cybersecurity standards for their IoT projects. The systematic approach has been developed in four stages. First, the common and variant features of IoT cybersecurity have been modeled using a feature model. Second, an up-to-date overview of the IoT cybersecurity standards landscape has been mapped by combining existing overviews. Third, a text mining algorithm has been implemented. Fourth, the systematic approach has been modeled using business process modeling notation. Our case study demonstrated that this approach is effective and efficient for guiding the selection of IoT cybersecurity standards. 2021 The Authors. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library. Scopus 2-s2.0-85107878531