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The purpose of this paper is to propose going one step further in the simulation tools related to agriculture by integrating fleets of mobile robots for the execution of precision agriculture techniques. The proposed new simulation environment allows the user to define different mobiles robots and agricultural implements.

With this computational tool, the crop field, the fleet of robots and the different sensors and actuators that are incorporated into each robot can be configured by means of two interfaces: a configuration interface and a graphical interface, which interact with each other.

The system presented in this article unifies two very different areas – robotics and agriculture – to study and evaluate the implementation of precision agriculture techniques in a 3D virtual world. The simulation environment allows the users to represent realistic characteristics from a defined location and to model different variabilities that may affect the task performance accuracy of the fleet of robots.

This simulation environment, the first in incorporating fleets of heterogeneous mobile robots, provides realistic 3D simulations and videos, which grant a good representation and a better understanding of the robot labor in agricultural activities for researchers and engineers from different areas, who could be involved in the design and application of precision agriculture techniques. The environment is available at the internet, which is an added value for its expansion in the agriculture/robotics family.

As demand for access to colleges and universities prompts higher education systems for creative and efficient solutions, we examine technology-centric approaches to education delivery and their implications for policy, student outcomes, and resource allocation. Our work is framed by Kingdon’s adapted multiple streams theory of national policymaking. However, the real elephant in the room may be the skyrocketing costs of administration that may need wrangling before resources can be directed to the future potential savings obtained through developing infrastructure for, and delivery of, tech-centric teaching approaches. We provide examples and strategies, policy implications, and recommendations for research and practice.

“Dora! Dora!” squealed my 18-month-old son from his stroller on the crowded subway platform. I scanned the crowd but could not locate the source of his excitement. Then a young girl turned her back to us and I saw on her purple backpack the face of “Dora the Explorer,” whose name had made its way into my son's small vocabulary. This scene could have easily taken place in any city or town in the US; young children of all ethnicities are familiar with Dora's animated television program. Worldwide, parents have spent over $3 billion on Dora the Explorer merchandise since 2001, and most products feature English and Spanish phrases (Jiménez, 2005). And Dora is not alone: her show was just the first in a recent wave of animated educational children's programs featuring Latino main characters and dialogue in Spanish.

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith was once quoted as saying, “There are two types of economists—those who don't know the future, and those who don't know they don't know.” The same can be said for librarians.

Keeping the spirit of each place is the greatest challenge posed by interventions in heritage sites. The delicacy of the environments that host these sites entails that the adaptations required to serve tourism be conceived in full harmony with the surrounding context. This paper starts from the recognition that sustainable design, linked to the principles of sustainable tourism and particularly of ecotourism, is an operative and instrumental basis for the physical planning of sustainable tourism projects. The paper presents an application of sustainability criteria to the planning and design of an archaeological park, located in Quebrada de Humahuaca (a World Heritage Site in Argentina). Its aim is thus to expose the planning and sustainable design process that was carried out at different projecting scales, from the general zoning to the technological resolution of the park's facilities. It communicates the results obtained from the design experimentation and exploration, which were generated from the very local resources. As a conclusion, it is found that sustainable design allows the transfer of ecotourism principles to the physical planning level of the tourist activity. In this case, it is demonstrated that the setting out of sustainable criteria in terms of context, function, formality and technology is essential to help a sustainable tourist product comes to fruition. Success in conservation, protection and valuation of the existing resources in heritage destinations will depend on the degree of suitability of sustainable design measures at each intervention scale.