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This paper deals with the use of social networks in agricultural enterprises and focuses mainly on their role and share in increasing the competitiveness of agricultural enterprises in the market. Primary data were obtained from an extensive survey of the development of information and communication technologies in agricultural enterprises, which was conducted in the first quarter of 2021 throughout the Czech Republic (“Survey 2021”). The research was primarily focused on capturing current trends in the use of ICT with emphasis on selected key areas (broadband, social networks, communication tools, regional Internet portals, used hardware categories, used software, mobile communications, Internet of Things, data storage and security, social networks, etc.). This survey builds on previous extensive surveys conducted by the Department of Information Technologies, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, CULS in Prague in several phases since 1999, with the last stage being conducted in 2017. Some surveys were conducted in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture of Czech Republic.Compared to recent years, the survey includes new domains, such as the use of the Internet of Things in plant and animal production, data storage and security, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the company's core operations, etc. The survey was prepared, conducted and administered by the Department of Information Technology, Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Life Sciences Prague.

LoRaWAN communication allows you to create IoT (Internet of Things) solutions across many disciplines. A specific field of application is precision agriculture, which demands this technology mainly due to the fact that it is possible to create low power sensor devices with it. However, in densely populated areas, a lower success rate of message delivery can be observed on some communication channels. For example, this can have an impact on urban agriculture projects. After performing an experiment and analytical–statistical data processing using the Geographic Information System (GIS) tool ArcGIS Insights, it was shown that the success of message delivery on the basic LoRaWAN channel (868.3 MHz) is lower than for the others. Therefore, to ensure higher reliability and thus energy savings, it is appropriate to optimize the use of frequency channels.

Recently, the process of data opening has intensified, especially thanks to the involvement of many institutions that have not yet shared their data. Some entities provided data to the public long before the trend of open data was pushed to a wider level, but many institutions have only engaged in this process recently thanks to a systemic state-level effort to make data repositories available to the public. Therefore, there are many new potential sources of data available for research, including the area of water management. This article analyses the current state of available data in the Czech Republic—their content, structure, format, availability, costs and other indicators that affect the usability of these data for independent researchers in the area of water management. The case study was conducted to ascertain the levels of accessibility and usability of data in open data repositories and the possibilities of obtaining data from IoT (Internet of Things) devices such as networked sensors where required data is either not available from existing sources, too costly, or otherwise unsuitable for the research. The goal of the underlying research was to assess the impact/ratio of various watershed factors based on monitored indicators of water pollution in a model watershed. Such information would help propose measures for reducing the volume of pollution resulting in increased security in terms of available drinking water for the capital city Prague.

Modelling of hydrological extremes and drought modelling in particular has received much attention over recent decades. The main aim of this study is to apply a statistical model for drought estimation (in this case deficit volume) using extreme value theory and the index-flood method and to reduce the uncertainties in estimation of drought event return levels. Deficit volumes for 133 catchments in the Czech Republic (1901&ndash, 2015) were simulated by hydrological model BILAN. The validation of severity, intensity and length of simulated drought events revealed good match with the available observed data. To estimate return levels of the deficit volumes, it is assumed (in accord with the index-flood method), that the deficit volumes within a homogeneous region are identically distributed after scaling with a site-specific factor. The parameters of the scaled regional distribution are estimated using L-moments. The goodness-of-fit of the statistical model is assessed by Anderson&ndash, Darling test. For the estimation of critical values, sampling methods allowing for handling of years without drought were used. It is shown, that the index-flood model with a Generalized Pareto distribution performs well and substantially reduces the uncertainty related to the estimation of the shape parameter and of the large deficit volume quantiles.

The aim of this article is to propose a methodology for improving the sharing of data between applications that support scientific activity, which are focused on agriculture, aquaculture, rural development, etc. The presented methodological approach is referred to as Enriched Data Sharing Methodology (EDSM). The presented methodology is based on two analyzes. The analysis of the data formats used for the metadata description of digital objects and the description of their mutual relations. And analysis of dictionaries of controlled descriptors. The article presents part of the results of author ’s dissertation thesis.

The article deals with analysis of model data formats suitable for metadata description of digital objects (artifacts) occurring in scientific social network applications. The emphasis of analyzes is on the issue of a metadata description of artefact links to other artifacts and artifact links to individuals. The examined metadata formats include LOM (Learning Objects Metadata), MODS (Metadata Object Description Schema) and DC (Dublin Core). The article also deals with dictionaries of controlled descriptors used to refine and unify the metadata description for agricultural research.

Network coverage is one of the fundamental requirements of any business of a service provider. Mobile operators are expected to deploy base stations in an effective way in order to cover most of the residential areas of a particular country. Improved network coverage leads to increase total revenue, provide end users with enhanced Quality of Services (QoS) anytime anywhere, and play vital role in the development of telecom sector. In this paper, we measure and statistically analyze network coverage of mobile operators in Afghanistan. Our study is based on primary data collected on random basis from 1,515 mobile phone users of cellular operators. The relationship between “No Network Coverage” in some residential areas and “Satisfaction of Mobile Phone Users” is also investigated. We furthermore propose realistic, feasible and cost-efficient solutions to mobile operators and policy makers in order to expand network coverage to non-covered residential areas as well as enhance the performance of networks in existing covered areas of the country.

Article analyzes chosen aspects of Internet of Things (IoT) in general and in regards to its specific uses in agriculture, which is one of the areas where IoT is commonly implemented. It serves as a primary delve into the issues of IoT as part of the grant received from Internal Grant Agency of Faculty of Economics and Management at CULS Prague called “Potential use of the Internet of Things, with emphasis on rural development and agrarian sector”. Article overviews IoT equipment categorization, platforms, standards and network solutions. It focuses on network infrastructure, which is the foundation for IoT implementation. The specific environmental conditions of Czech Republic are also taken into account. Lastly, basic development trends of IoT are defined.

User-Technological Index of Precision Agriculture (UTIPA) is a comprehensive system based on mutual sharing of opinions and experience within community of people related to precision agriculture – farmers, technology suppliers, and researchers. The main goal of UTIPA is to present the calculated index level for a particular technology (method) for precision agriculture and compare it to the indexes of other technologies. The index is based on evaluation of technological advancement and applicability for agricultural practice. The paper discusses methods for collecting data from questionnaires in general and elaborates on the technical solution developed specifically for data collection for UTIPA. The system also allows all participants who filled in the entry questionnaire to access the results. There are various visualizations and data views available.

The evaluation of websites at the Department of Information Technologies has so far been largely focused on the websites of towns, municipalities, or regional Internet portals. In the submitted article, we focused on evaluation of food and farmers’ e-shops. As the new generation grows in the digital age and it is accustomed to search for and buy goods in this environment, we have decided to focus on this issue. To ensure that the user repeatedly returns, you need to recognize what services he requires. For the purposes of evaluation, we determined 25 parameters, in which 12 are new parameters focused on the service category and used them for evaluation of nine food and farmers’ e-shops: 5 Czech, 2 British, and 2 Greek. It turned out that comparing Czech and foreign e-shops with the same parameters is not entirely appropriate. Some parameters can only be applied in the Czech environment (like cash on delivery), which was not even offered in evaluated foreign e-shops. Similarly, the option for free pickup at the designated place was also not available. If we would evaluate Czech and foreign e-shops separately, kosik.cz would be the winner among Czech e-shops and yolenis.com among foreign e-shops.

To determine the relationships between technological innovation, economic effectiveness and practical usability is one of the main goals of precision agriculture. There is real demand of farmers for technological development for their tools, but many technologically advanced methods have failed to reach their expectations in practice. The effectiveness and usefulness depends on local conditions, cultivated crops and varies in different countries. For the comparison between the methods of precision agriculture in terms of the relationship of technological advancement and application in practice was designed "user - technological index of precision agriculture" (UTIPA). UTIPA is based on the mutual sharing of ideas and experiences between industry-focused community of people related to precision agriculture - farmers, technology suppliers and researchers. It includes areas of crop production, livestock production and forestry. Evaluation of different methods is conducted from the perspective of technological sophistication and usability in practice. Obtained data is processed by various statistical methods including cluster analysis and then visualized and made available online for the whole community.

The paper deals with a general solution of semantic description related to various electronic data formats in the domains of agriculture, aquaculture, forestry, food industry, environment, horticulture and rural areas. The solution presented was developed on the basis of metadata formats analysis and then complemented with its own software superstructure. It is based on the VOA3R metadata application profile (AP) that was developed within the framework of the Virtual Open Access Agriculture and Aquaculture Repository project for the sake of describing research papers and scientific publications. However, thanks to its complexity and comprehensiveness, it is also suitable for different kinds of data and while combining it with the AGROVOC thesaurus, which is elaborated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, it can become a robust and universal tool for data characteristics and semantic description. The potential of the proposed solution is illustrated by means of two examples. While the first example brings a metadata description of a photograph depicting anthocyanin pigmentation of barley straw caused by phosphorus deficiency, the second example is related to a research paper description. The developed system of metadata description is broadly applicable in agriculture such as in precision agriculture, in plant production or in ground cover monitoring and evaluation based on sensor or visual data.

This report presents the possible uses of programming equipment for creating map resources – a map portal for the development of regions (Map Portal for Region Development – MPRD 1.0). This system offers an overall solution for the presentation of maps for basically any suitable data base. The operation of the system was tested on data resources from the field of ecological agriculture – a quite wide and detailed database of organic farms and a database of biogas stations in the Czech Republic, in both cases this was a pilot project for the South Bohemia Region. The created map resources (maps) were certified by the authorised institutions of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic.Besides supporting functions which are already considered standard today, in terms of quality the provided solution gives a new perspective on creating map resources and it includes a variety of original elements and functionalities. Equally, the data base for verification was generated and updated based on the detailed validation of the content and it aims to achieve a maximum amount of precision when locating objects on a map.

In the paper, the method of data collection, processing and visualization of the occurrence of non-indigenous and endangered animal species in the Czech Republic is described. Our new software enables easy data entry about the observation of monitored species to the expert public. The data obtained is then used by expert and scientific institutions in order to search for optimal solutions of nature protection and population management and results are open to the public. This analytic and software solution was developed by the Department of Information Technologies, Czech University of Life Sciences; the data has been also used by the Forestry and Wood Faculty and the Faculty of Life Sciences.

The paper treats the analysis of possibilities how to make web applications of the agrarian web portal Agris accessible to mobile devices of various platforms. The principal requirements for the mobile version of the application are: a possibility to be functional off-line, the implementation of all basic modules (papers, prices, warnings) and a conservative design. On the basis of the agrarian web portal Agris analysis we postulated a concept when a native mobile application for the Android platform, a hybrid mobile application for the Android, iOS and Windows Phone 8 platforms and an optimal valid web output for mobile web browsers (responsive layout) will be developed. Native and hybrid applications will allow users to work both in online and off-line modes. The access via a web browser will require a permanent connection. The proposed solution of mobile versions of the agrarian web portal Agris represents a universal solution of problems with mobile access to information sources when rural areas are not adequately covered with a high-speed wireless connection to the Internet, in contrast to a large extension of modern mobile devices.

The paper deals with the necessity of systemic solution for metadata providing by local archives into central repositories and its subsequent implementatiton by the Department of Information Technologies, Faculty of Economics and Management, Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, for the needs of the agrarian WWW AGRIS portal. The system supports the OAI-PMH (Open Archive Initiative – Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) protocol, several metadata formats and thesauri and meets the quality requirements: functionality, high level of reliability, applicability, sustainability and transferability. The SW application for the OAI-PMH requests’ servicing is run in the setting of the WWW Apache server using an efficient PHP framework Nette and database dibi layer.

The paper presents the results of information and communication technologies (ICT) research support in the Czech Republic regions, focused mainly on the problems of mapping cultural heritage together with activities in the area of tourism and business activities connected with it (accommodation, food etc). One possible approach is demonstrated on the example of web portal “Get to know Posumavi – a tourist guide to Posumavi†. This approach integrates the advantages of standard information sources with the Internet application. Moreover, this application provides a clear topographical output. The project is being prepared in co-operation with a chosen local partner, in our case the Posumavi local action group. The under-mentioned solution can be further extended if need be, but we can also understand it as a general-purpose solution which means it can be widely used in other areas of the information support of regions. The knowledge and data presented in the paper were obtained as a result of the Research Program titled “Economy of the Czech Agriculture Resources and Their Efficient Use within the Framework of the Multifunctional Agri-food Systems†of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports number VZ MSM 6046070906.

The article presents the possibilities of visual and statistical outputs from the telemetric tracking of game: activity data, heat map, home regions, movement routes and the points of occurrence. Nowadays the methods of the telemetric tracking of game are also used for finding the best ways to eliminate damage caused by wild boar generally, and field crops damage specifically. From telemetrically gained data it is possible to study the local habits of wild boar and their preference of crops and cultivars in various periods. On the basis of this knowledge it is possible to implement the necessary agrotechnical measures. The pilot processing and verification is run on the portal Zver (game) online (http://zver.agris.cz/). Currently there are 11 wild boars marked and tracked. The public part of portal is used for the basic presentation of data; in the non-public part the data of private subjects (agricultural companies and hunting organizations) that are not interested in public presentation are processed in the same way. In this way there is at disposal an integral system of wild boar tracking: capturing, marking, data collection, processing and presentation. This system can be used by research institutions, farmers and hunters.

Development of information and communication technology also led to development in data visualization methods. There are many tools for monitoring of moving objects in agrarian sector, and also many different approaches on how to access and utilize location data. The suitability of given solution depends mostly on user requirements. Every user group has different demands and rights when operating software tools. The main objective of this article is to analyze different user groups and suitability of various GIS (geographic information system) for them. Three different approaches were experimentally evaluated: desktop, server and developer. Possibilities of these GIS solutions were ascertained with the target user group and required functionality in mind. Software was tested using standard movement visualization tasks, such as point location, movement paths, occurrence boundaries, and occurrence heat maps. Data used for the evaluation was procured from a long-term cooperation between Department of Information Technology and Department of Game Management and Wildlife Biology.

The paper deals with the most used metadata formats and thesauri suitable for describing scientific and research papers in the domains agriculture, food industry, aquaculture, environment and rural areas. These include the Dublin Core (DC), Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS), Virtual Open Access Agriculture and Aquaculture Repository Metadata Application Profile (VOA3R AP) and the AGROVOC thesaurus. Having analyzed the metadata formats and research paper lifecycle, the authors would recommend that each paper should entail metadata description as soon as it is published. The metadata are to describe the content and properties of the paper. One of the most suitable metadata formats is the VOA3R AP that is partially patterned on the DC and combined with the AGROVOC thesaurus. As a result, an effective description, availability and automatic data exchange between and among local and central repositories should be attained. The knowledge and data presented in the present paper were obtained as a result of the following research programs and grant schemes: the Grant No. 20121044 of the Internal Grant Agency titled „Using Automatic Metadata Generation for Research Papers“, the Grant agreement No. 250525 funded by the European Commission corresponding to the VOA3R Project (Virtual Open Access Agriculture & Aquaculture Repository: Sharing Scientific and Scholarly Research related to Agriculture, Food, and Environment), http://voa3r.eu and the Research Program titled „Economy of the Czech Agriculture Resources and their Efficient Use within the Framework of the Multifunctional Agrifood Systems“ of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport number VZ MSM 6046070906.