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LiDAR technology has been widely used in forest survey and research, but the high-resolution point cloud data generated by LiDAR equipment also pose challenges in storage and computing. To address this problem, we propose a point cloud simplification method for trees, which considers both higher similarity to the original point cloud and the area of the tree point cloud. The method first determines the optimal search neighborhood using the standard deviation of FPFH information entropy. Based on FPFH information entropy and Poisson disc sampling theory, the point cloud is partitioned and sampled. By optimizing the separation thresholds of significant feature points and less significant feature points using a genetic algorithm with the Hausdorff distance and point cloud area as the objective function, the final simplified point cloud is obtained. Validation with two point cloud data sets shows that the proposed method achieves good retention of the area information of the original point cloud while ensuring point cloud quality. The research provides new approaches and techniques for processing large-scale forest LiDAR scan point clouds, reducing storage and computing requirements. This can improve the efficiency of forest surveys and monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air source heat pump (ASHP) is a good new energy heating system. To explore the effect of ASHP on the production of yellow-feather broiler chicks, 31,500 one-day-old yellow broiler chicks were divided into three chicken houses with the same building structure but different heating methods (ASHP, CCF, CB). During the experiment, the parameters of heating time, temperature uniformity, gas concentration, weight gain, survival rate and production benefit were analyzed and evaluated. Results showed that the difference in NH3, CO2, and H2S concentrations was not significant in all test groups (p > 0.05). Only group II detected the CO gas. In winter and spring, the weight of the chickens in group II were weighed the least at 35 days of age, and were significantly different from the ASHP and CB system (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference in body weight between ASHP and CB (p > 0.05). Group II had the lowest evenness and survival, the slowest warming, the worst uniformity of temperature distribution, and the highest cost. It is concluded that the ASHP was very environmentally friendly and has the highest economy, which is worth promoting and using. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysing the penetration and droplet deposition characteristics in the canopy of fruit trees is critical for optimising the operational parameters of air-assisted spraying equipment, achieving precise application of chemicals, and improving the effectiveness of fruit tree pest and disease control. We used a mobile LIDAR system to detect the tree canopy characteristics and optical porosity and conduct wind tunnel experiments to investigate the interaction between the tree canopy, the airflow field, and the droplet penetration ratio in the canopy of fruit trees. The results show that the relative wind velocity decreases rapidly during canopy penetration, and that the minimum value occurs at the back of the canopy. The smaller the optical porosity, the greater the reduction in wind velocity is. The quadratic exponential regression model had the highest coefficient of determination (R2) (0.9672) and the lowest root mean square error (RMSE) (5.56%). This paper provides information on optimising the spraying parameters, improving the pesticide utilisation rate, and selecting the optimum spraying conditions and application parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: A customized thermal-dynamic model was developed in the present study based on the ISO13790 Standard to predict the energy consumption of poultry houses with indoor environment control. A validation test was performed in a layer house by applying sensors and meters to record the indoor environmental parameters including temperature, relative humidity, gas concentrations and energy consumption. The validation results indicated that the simulated environmental parameters agree well with the measured data showing a similar overall trend with limited discrepancies. Meanwhile, the difference in total energy consumption between the predicted and measured value was only about 10.6%, indicating the model was able to accurately estimate the energy demand during poultry farming. The proposed model enables farmers to quickly check and optimize their management strategies to achieve precision livestock farming from the energy consumption perspective. Indoor environmental control is usually applied in poultry farming to ensure optimum growth conditions for birds. However, these control methods represent a considerable share of total energy consumption, and the trend of applying new equipment in the future for precision livestock farming would further increase energy demand, resulting in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and management costs. Therefore, to ensure optimum efficiency of both energy use and livestock productivity, a customized hourly model was developed in the present study to interpret and analyze the electronically collected data. The modules for estimating indoor gas concentrations were incorporated into the present model, as this has not been properly considered in previous studies. A validation test was performed in a manure-belt layer house using sensors and meters to measure the indoor environmental parameters and energy consumption. The predicted results, including indoor temperature, relative humidity, carbon dioxide and ammonia concentrations, showed good agreement with the measured data, indicating a similar overall trend with acceptable discrepancies. Moreover, the corresponding differences between the measured and simulated energy consumption for heating, tunnel ventilation and base ventilation were 13.7, 7.5, and 0.1%, respectively. The total energy demand estimated by the model showed a limited discrepancy of approximately 10.6% compared with that measured in reality. Although human factors, including inspection, cleaning, vaccination, etc., were not included in the model, the validation results still suggested that the customized model was able to accurately predict the indoor environment and overall energy consumption during poultry farming. The validated model provides a tool for poultry producers to optimize production planning and management strategies, increase the production rate of unit energy consumption and achieve precision livestock farming from an energy consumption standpoint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, the ferroelectric characteristic of a 5 nm Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 (HZO) metal-ferroelectric-insulator-semiconductor (MFIS) device is enhanced through strained complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible TiN electrode engineering. Strained TiN top-layer electrodes with different nitrogen (N) concentrations are deposited by adjusting the sputtering process conditions. The TiN electrode with 18% N exhibits a compressive characteristic, which induces tensile stress in a 5 nm HZO film. A device with 18% N in TiN shows a higher remanent polarization (2Pr) and larger capacitance value than the compared sample, indicating that the strained TiN is promising for enhancing the ferroelectricity of sub-5 nm HZO devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is of great value to research the problem of forest pest and disease control. Currently, helicopters play an important role in dealing with this problem. However, the spraying route planning still depends on the pilot's driving experience, which leads to low efficiency and less accurate coverage. For this reason, this paper attempts to use intelligent algorithms to plan the pesticide spraying route for helicopters. When the helicopter is conducting spraying operations in multiple forest areas, the routes are divided into two parts: pesticide spraying routes for individual forest areas and dispatch routes between multiple forest areas. First, the shorter spraying route with fewer turnarounds for individual forest areas was determined. Then a two-layer intelligent algorithm, a combination of a genetic algorithm (GA) and ant colony optimization algorithm (ACO), was designed to determine the dispatch route between multiple forest areas, which is referred to as GAACO-GA. The performance was evaluated in self-created multiple forest areas and compared with other two-layer intelligent algorithms. The results show that the GAACO-GA algorithm found the shortest dispatch route (5032.75 m), which was 5.60%, 5.45%, 6.54%, and 4.07% shorter than that of GA-GA algorithm, simulated annealing-GA (SA-GA) algorithm, ACO-GA algorithm, and particle swarm optimization-GA (PSO-GA) algorithm, respectively. A spraying experiment with a helicopter was conducted near Pigzui Mountain, Huai'an City, Jiangsu Province, China. It was found that the flight path obtained from the proposed algorithm was 5.43% shorter than that derived from a manual planning method. The dispatch route length was reduced by 16.93%, the number of turnarounds was reduced by 11 times, and the redundant coverage was reduced by 17.87%. Moreover, helicopter fuel consumption and pesticide consumption decreased by 10.56% and 5.43%, respectively. The proposed algorithm can shorten the application route, reduce the number of turnarounds and the cost of spraying operations, and has the potential for use in spraying operations in smart forestry and agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Hourly manure coverage proportion and area on the manure belt are key parameters for estimating ammonia emissions in poultry houses in order to provide environmental control suggestions and achieve the goals of precision poultry farming. In this study, experimental measurements were performed, and binary images were applied to provide new insights into the projected hourly manure coverage area on the manure belt at different layer hen ages. It was demonstrated that manure coverage proportion and area measured at different laying hen ages showed similar trends and values with four distinct stages within 48 h. In addition, statistical analyses found no significant correlation between the hourly increment of manure weight and the hourly increment of manure coverage proportion. The results from the present study are expected to serve as a fundamental input parameter for ammonia emission modeling to more accurately simulate the hourly indoor environment and provide effective mitigation strategies. The main advantage of having livestock, for example, the laying hens, in a controlled environment is that the optimum growth conditions can be achieved with accuracy. The indoor air temperature, humidity, gases concentration, etc., would significantly affect the animal performance, thus should be maintained within an acceptable range. In order to achieve the goals of precision poultry farming, various models have been developed by researchers all over the world to estimate the hourly indoor environmental parameters so as to provide decision suggestions. However, a key parameter of hourly manure area in the poultry house was missing in the literature to predict the ammonia emission using the recently developed mechanistic model. Therefore, in order to fill the gap of the understanding of hourly manure coverage proportion and area on the manure belt, experimental measurements were performed in the present study using laying hens from 10 weeks age to 30 weeks age. For each test, six polypropylene (pp) plates were applied to collect the manure dropped by the birds every hour, and photographs of the plates were taken at the same time using a pre-fixed camera. Binary images were then produced based on the color pictures to determine the object coverage proportion. It was demonstrated that for laying hens of stocking density around 14 birds/m2, the manure coverage proportion at the 24th hour after the most recent manure removal was about 60%, while the value was approximately 82% at the 48th hour. Meanwhile, for laying hens at different ages, the hourly increment of manure coverage proportion showed a similar pattern with four distinct stages within 48 h. The statistical analyses demonstrated no significant correlation between the hourly increment of manure weight and the hourly increment of manure coverage proportion. Finally, prediction models for estimating the hourly manure coverage proportion on the manure belt in typical laying hen houses were provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]