Characterization of Small-Scale Farmers and Assessment of Their Access to Crop Production Information in Selected Counties of Kenya

Small-scale farming accounts for 78% of total agricultural production in Kenya and contributes to 23.5% of the country’s GDP. Their crop production activities are mostly rainfed subsistence with any surplus being sold to bring in some income. Timely decisions on farm practices such as farm preparation and planting are critical determinants of the seasonal outcomes. In Kenya, most small-scale farmers have no reliable source of information that would help them make timely and accurate decisions. County governments have extension officers who are mandated with giving farmers advisory services to farmers but they are not able to reach most farmers due to facilitation constraints. The mode and format of sharing information is also critical since it’s important to ensure that it’s timely, well-understood and usable. This study sought to assess access to geospatial derived and other crop production information by farmers in four selected counties of Kenya. Specific objectives were to determine the profile of small-scale farmers in terms of age, education and farm size;to determine the type of information that is made available to them by County and Sub-County extension officers including the format and mode of provision;and to determine if the information provided was useful in terms of accuracy, timeliness and adequacy. The results indicated that over 80% of the farmers were over 35 years of age and over 56% were male. Majority had attained primary education (34%) or secondary education (29%) and most farmers in all the counties grew maize (71%). Notably, fellow farmers were a source of information (71%) with the frequency of sharing information being mostly seasonal (37%) and when information was available (43%). Over 66% of interviewed farmers indicating that they faced challenges while using provided information. The results from the study are insightful and helpful in determining effective ways of providing farmers with useful information to ensure maximum benefits.

Current Situation of Information Demand of Farmers in Taihang Mountain Area: A Case Study of Pingshan County in Hebei Province

Since the reform and opening-up,economy of mountain areas in China has realized considerable development.However,due to such factors as terrain,traffic,and individual differences,compared with plain and coastal areas,mountain areas still lag far behind.In recent years,informationization construction of China develops rapidly,but it nearly stagnates in mountain rural areas.Information has become an essential factor restricting economic development of rural areas.Based on the survey of current information demand of farmers carried out in Pingshan County in Hebei Province in 2010,this study came up with relevant recommendations,in order to speed up development of rural economic in mountain areas,narrow the regional gap,improve living condition of farmers in mountain areas,and increase income level of farmers in mountain areas.

Analysis of Farmers' Needs for Forestry Information and Technology in Yunnan's Hot Zone: Based on Empirical Survey in Menglian County

Lack of public forestry information and techniques has restricted the development of forestry management and the income increase of rural farmers in hot region of Yunnan province. Therefore it is necessary to provide forestry information and techniques to rural areas so as to compensate for the information gap between urban and rural areas. Based on the survey about farmer demand for information and technique in Menglian County,the paper analyzed the supply methods and demand characteristics of forestry information and techniques. The results showed that the farmers had very strong demands for forestry information and techniques with diversified trend. But the farmers got the information with backward method and single service supply approach,and it lacked effective expression mechanism for their demands.

Demands of New Professional Farmers for Agricultural Leading Industry in Anhui Province

In the context of growing problems of part-time farming,farmers' aging and hollow rural areas,and increasing restrictive factors of new professional farmers,based on current situations of agricultural resources in Anhui Province,this paper studied feasibility of increasing new professional farmers from the perspectives of urbanization level,labor employment,population development trend,agricultural industrial development and talent demands,current situations of farmers' family management,and agricultural socialized service development trend.Based on decisions,planning,and related data issued by Anhui Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government,it analyzed and predicted demands of new professional farmers in Anhui Province by industries and types,in the hope of providing references for relevant researches.

Farmers’ Access to Agricultural Information Sources: Evidences from Rural Pakistan

The current study was conducted to probe farmers’ accessible agricultural information sources in rural areas of Pakistan. For this purpose a random sample of 160 households from four districts of the Punjab province of Pakistan was selected. Data were collected using validated and expert reviewed questionnaire with the help of interview method. The results revealed that majority of farmers (47.5%) ranked neighbor-friends-relatives as first source of information while 31.9% of farmers ranked this source as second and 33.7% farmers’ ranked it as third major source. With contrast to this very less farmers (10%) ranked agricultural extension staff as first information source. Keeping in view the study results, the performance of extension staff is not encouraging;therefore government should plan and launch a policy to foster performance of public agricultural extension system to fulfill the advanced technological needs of farmers to flourish sustainable agriculture and rural development.

An investigative report on information literacy training of individual farmers in central China and on issues related to remedial measures:A case study of farmers information literacy in a few districts of Hubei province

This paper introduced first a conceptual framework of 'information literacy training of farmers' based on the widely recognized understanding of the term 'information literacy(IL).' It then followed with a discussion based on these three authors' field investigation regarding to Hubei peasants' current information literacy training in such perspectives as information consciousness,information ability and ways and means of information access.It concluded by pointing out some of the more apparent factors that had adverse impacts on the farmers' information literacy training in central China and suggested a few possible remedial measures to guide the course for those who are involved in such undertakings.

Research of Informatization Demands of New Countryside in Poyang Lake Ecological Economic Zone and Related Countermeasures

[Objective] The aim was to survey and analyze informatization demand in new countryside in Poyang Lake Ecological Economic Zone and to propose counter- measures, [Method] A questionnaire was made among farmers on informatization de- mands in different regions in Poyang Lake Ecological Economic Zone and the re- sults were analyzed to propose countermeasures promoting informatization. [Result] With strengthening of information awareness, information demands in rural areas in Poyang Lake Ecological Economic Zone change as follows： Information demand car- rier changes from traditional media to modern media; demand on information content changes from one-way to diversified one; demand of information service changes from one-way transmission to interaction and exchange. However, some problems still exist in informatization process, such as poor infrastructure, dispersed information resources, higher information expense and shortage of information-based talents. Hence, the countermeasures were proposed, as follows： Rational security systems should be established; financing should be as diversified as possible; informatization infrastructure should be reinforced; agricultural economic information and informatiza- tion service system should be established. [Conclusion] The research lays foundation for construction of informatization in new countryside in Poyang Lake Ecological Economic Zone.

ANALYSIS ON AGRICULTRUAL INFORMATION DEMAND——Case of Jilin Province

With the rapid development of agricultural informalization in the world, the demand of agricultural information has been a focus in the international agriculture and information fields. Based on the investigation, this paper presented the four characteristics of the demand of agricultural information in China, includingregionality, seasonality, great potential demand and variation in kind and level. The factors infuencing the demand of agricultural information were analyzed by the Optimized Less Square （OLS） method. The result shows that, of all factors influcing agricultural information demand, the most important one is economy, the second is facility of information pass, and knowledge and education of user, credit of agricultural information service system and production situation follow. Taking Jilin Province as an example, this article also elaborated the agricultural information demand status, and deduced the regression model of agricultural information demand and verified it by the survey in rural Jilin.

Empirical research on impacted factor of farmer＇s willingness for purchasing information Based on the survey data of Hebei province

Farmer＇s willingness for purchasing information, an important factor of farmer＇s information demand, was analyzed by logit model, according to the survey data of 535 farmers from eleven cities in Hebei province. The result showed that 6 factors had a significant influence on it, that is, education of farmers, per capita income of farmers, the affordability of information risk, the proportion of agricultural labor households, the type of agricultural production and the rural information service stations. On the basis of these, the related policy recommendations were proposed.

Demand-aware mobile bike-sharing service using collaborative computing and information fusion in 5G IoT environment

Mobile bike-sharing services have been prevalently used in many cities as an important urban commuting service and a promising way to build smart cities,especially in the new era of 5G and Internet-of-Things(IoT)environments.A mobile bike-sharing service makes commuting convenient for people and imparts new vitality to urban transportation systems.In the real world,the problems of no docks or no bikes at bike-sharing stations often arise because of several inevitable reasons such as the uncertainty of bike usage.In addition to pure manual rebalancing,in several works,attempts were made to predict the demand for bikes.In this paper,we devised a bike-sharing service with highly accurate demand prediction using collaborative computing and information fusion.We combined the information of bike demands at different time periods and the locations between stations and proposed a dynamical clustering algorithm for station clustering.We carefully analyzed and discovered the group of features that impact the demand of bikes,from historical bike-sharing records and 5G IoT environment data.We combined the discovered information and proposed an XGBoost-based regression model to predict the rental and return demand.We performed sufficient experiments on two real-world datasets.The results confirm that compared to some existing methods,our method produces superior prediction results and performance and improves the availability of bike-sharing service in 5G IoT environments.

基于Informer神经网络的农产品物流需求预测分析——以华中地区为例

保障农产品物流稳定性即是保障民生问题的关键。对农产品物流需求的预测是合理规划农产品物流稳定性的重要保证。然而,农产品物流需求的预测实际较为复杂,预测过程中会受到各种因素影响。因此,为了保证对农产品物流需求预测的准确性,需要考虑多方面影响因素。本研究以农产品物流需求作为研究对象,利用Informer神经网络构建预测农产品物流需求的神经网络模型,以华中地区河南省、湖北省和湖南省为例,对三省的农产品物流需求进行预测。同时用长短时记忆(Long Short-Term Memory,LSTM)网络和Transformer神经网络对华中三省农产品物流进行需求预测,将三种模型预测结果进行对比。对比结果表明本研究构建的基于Informer神经网络模型预测测试误差平均百分比为3.39%,低于LSTM和Transformer神经网络模型的4.43%和4.35%。并且用该Informer神经网络模型对三省预测出的预测值与实际值结果较为接近,河南省2021年的预测值为4185.33,实际值为4048.1,误差为3.389%;湖北省2021年的预测值为2503.64,实际值2421.78,误差为3.380%;湖南省2021年的预测值,2933.31,实际值为2836.86,误差为3.340%。表明该模型对华中三省的农产品物流需求预测的结果较为准确。三省2023年的预测值高于2021年的预测值。因此,在2021年物流运输配套设施的基础上,必须保证物流运输效率,加强物流运输能力,以满足华中地区日益增长的物流需求。

Analysis and Research on Information Design of the Smart Community Pension Service

In the research on the smart community pension service,it is found that the problems encountered in the promotion of the smart pension can not be solved in the short term because of the lack of information and the acceptance of the intelligent products by the elderly. This paper puts forward the research ideas based on the cognitive characteristics and demand prediction of the specific population. Focusing on the research on the pension needs of people born in the 1960 s or 1970 s,it provides support for the solution of smart pension services in the peak period of aging population in the future.

RESEARCH ON VALUE OF INFORMATION SHARING IN ONE SUPPLIER-MULTIPLE RETAILER SUPPLY CHAIN

Prior research has generally focused on models involving a single or multiple retailers with independent demands. The value of demand information sharing is analyzed in a two-level supply chain involving one supplier-multiple retailer model in which retailer demands may be correlated. Each member in the supply chain forecasts its demand using an AR (1) demand process. Two conditions of the information sharing are considered (1) Without the information sharing, the retailers only communicate their orders to the supplier. (2) With the information sharing, retailers communicate their orders and forecasting models to the supplier. Analyses showthat the reductions of supplier's average inventory and average costs are substantial with the information sharing. However, the retailers donot get direct benefit from the information sharing. The retailers may ask the supplier to reduce the replenishment leadtime, so that the retailers will obtain substantial cost savings and inventory reduction. Both partners may obtain benefits when information sharing and leadtime reduction are implemented together.

A super-network equilibrium optimization method for operation architecture with fuzzy demands

From the view of information flow, a super-network equilibrium optimization model is proposed to compute the solution of the operation architecture which is made up of a perceptive level, a command level and a firepower level. Firstly, the optimized conditions of the perceptive level, command level and firepower level are analyzed respectively based on the demand of information relation,and then the information supply-and-demand equilibrium model of the operation architecture super-network is established. Secondly,a variational inequality transformation(VIT) model for equilibrium optimization of the operation architecture is given. Thirdly, the contraction projection algorithm for solving the operation architecture super-network equilibrium optimization model with fuzzy demands is designed. Finally, numerical examples are given to prove the validity and rationality of the proposed method, and the influence of fuzzy demands on the super-network equilibrium solution of operation architecture is discussed.

Study on individualized information service for the reader in the library based on the network

With the massive increase of digital resource based on the network,it becomes very important that how to help readers acquire the information needed according to the individualized requirement and interest in an accurate,convenient and prompt method. Therefore,it is very urgent to investigate individualized information service of library. In this paper,based on the development of the individualized information service for the reader in the college library,the individualized information service is clarified by using three perspectives,including establishment of individualized information demand model,integration of internal and external resource and protection of the reader privacy. Finally,the corresponding strategy and related measure are presented.

Possibility of Socio-economic Attributes and ICT Application in Improving Quality of Farmers

Evaluation on the diversified Information and Communication Technologies( ICTs) application along their association in socio-economic attributes can provide valuable insights about the trends of farmers towards improvement.Therefore,analytical research design and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data collected from 400 respondents within different regions of Punjab Province in Pakistan.Based on the findings,it is recommended that government in collaboration with all stakeholders should launch regular,holistic and modern ICTs programs like applications of robo calls,SMS,etc.services at central level to ensure timely availability of agricultural information to improving the quality of young farmers.Furthermore,it is recommended to launch effective monitoring and evaluation mechanism of ICTs for agricultural development.

Optimization Strategies of Urban Informal Commercial Space under Demand Orientation

Commercial behavior in towns and cities is mainly divided into formal and informal behavior.Rapid urbanization has enabled formal commerce to develop more and more perfectly in towns,basically meeting the living needs of residents. However, because of problems such as urban history and management mechanism, informal commercial behavior formed by floating stallholders and other employed people is widespread in towns. Due to the characteristics of instability, flexibility and richness,informal commerce has gradually developed into an important business to attract residents and tourists. In this paper, the general characteristics of informal commercial behavior in towns, the characteristics of the urban public space bearing this kind of commerce, and residents' demand for informal commercial space were summarized, and then the optimization strategies of this kind of public space were put forward to help towns make full use of their scattered space, create diversified commercial places, and add vitality to urban space while providing residents and tourists with daily life needs and convenience.

Factors Influencing the Success of Agricultural Information System （AIS）： A Factor Analysis

This study aims at investigating the AIS （Agricultural Information System） in Hamedan province, Iran, benefiting from the list of criteria for well functioning AISs that were identified in earlier researches. For this purpose, a survey method with multi-stage stratified random sampling technique was used to select 31 agricultural researchers, and 62 extension workers in the province. The data were acquired by questionnaire and structured interviews. The instrument for data collection was subjected to pre-testing, validation and reliability tests. The results of the factor analysis revealed that the criteria could be categorized into four overarching groups based on their inter-correlation. The analysis of mentioned criteria in Hamedan province AIS showed less efficiency and effectiveness than studies conducted in other areas. But among these, two desirable criteria existed. It is recommended that the ecological knowledge system （EKS） should be integrated with AIS, and some ecological and sustainable development criteria should be added to the existing ones.