Angela Calvo

Angela Calvo
University of Turin | UNITO · Department of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences

About

51
Publications
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504
Citations

Publications

Publications (51)
Article
Many olive groves are located in steep terrains of the Mediterranean Region, where it is not possible the use of tractors and self-propelled machines. A light mechanization is necessary to perform the olive cultivation in these areas, but unfortunately these machines are responsible of hand-arm vibrations (HAV) risks onset for the operators. This s...
Chapter
Many little sloping olive groves are present in Mediterranean countries, where the olive cultivation is here feasible with brushcutters, motorhoes, chainsaws, backpack mistblowers and hand-held olive harvesters. All the mentioned machines are unfortunately carrier of possible hand-arm vibrations (HAV) risks onset for the operators. Many studies con...
Chapter
In Italian Alpine Regions, wood transportation from the forest to local terminals is commonly practiced using low powered tractors with trailers (equipped with single axis or two axes) on steep downhill tracks, that must be wide enough when cornering. Aim of the work was to study and to define a calculation model to detect the width of the turning...
Chapter
The seat is the device that minimize the vibration transmitted to the tractor driver’s body by the tractor platform. All seats for agricultural machines require homologation before their installation on the machine, in accordance with the Council Directive 78/764/EEC (Annex XIV), amended with the Delegated Regulation 1322/2014 and with the Delegate...
Article
Full-text available
The objectives of this study were to evaluate and compare the effect of working vacuum levels (35 and 44 kPa) and liners dimensions (mouthpiece lip diameter and overall length, 20–185 and 22–170 mm) on the main milking characteristics of goats. The results highlight that both the working vacuum level and the liner dimension have influenced the milk...
Article
Full-text available
Farm tractors are still widely used in many forestry operations. Predicting fuel and lubricant costs is difficult because their consumption depends on a number of factors such as hours worked and operations performed. Fuel and lubricant consumption is important since it can have an impact at both the economic and environmental level. Many fuel mode...
Article
Full-text available
Maize silage is one of the most used feedstock for the anaerobic digestion plants in Italy. As biomass, it is necessary to choose maize hybrids and sowing times to reach the maturity stage at the planned harvest period. In addition, the contractor has to set up transport chains considering distances and other factors affecting the forward speed in...
Article
Full-text available
A dairy farmer chooses the number of milking groups in function of the herd size, stall type and milking system also in small cow dairies (number of animals lower than 100–120). In these dairies, there are different milking systems (bucket, trolley, pipeline, little autotandem, herringbone or parallel parlors) and each of them has a different work...
Article
Identifying areas of the world, communities, and women and men that could be damaged by meteorological events (like droughts and floods) has been crucial for vulnerability studies in the last decade. Climate change may differently affect female‐ and male‐headed households, especially in rural areas of sub‐Saharan Africa, where they react in a diffe...
Article
Full-text available
European Directives 2002/44/EC and 2003/10/EC establish the exposure limit values for preventing operators’ risks to vibration and noise transmitted by machines. Few studies studied noise and vibration of agricultural backpack powered machines (as mist blowers and blowers), but nobody critically studied them. This work analyzed the field back vibra...
Article
Full-text available
The evolution of vineyard diseases, such as downy mildew, are depending by temperature, humidity and rain. Fungicides are used to control these pathologies, with considerable economic costs, negative effects on environment, human health and wine quality. In order to identify fungicide sprays periods, several forecasting models were proposed. These...
Article
Mistblowers, also called powered backpack or knapsack sprayers, are found in many countries. Because of their low cost, adaptability and easy to use, they are often used in small-scale farms and in sloping fields. They are usually powered by an internal combustion engine which produces vibrations that are transmitted to the operator's body (hands,...
Article
Full-text available
World agriculture is facing many challenges in terms of food sovereignty. Firstly, the need to ensure a fair access to food (and good food) and basic necessities to a growing global population. Second, the necessity to include such actions within a more general perspective of dealing with poverty, inequality, and malnutrition worldwide, as well as...
Article
Full-text available
An experimental site for the measurement of meteorological parameters in protected environment and the evaluation of the tomato cultivar variability is presented in this paper. The site was equipped with cultivation structures with different covering materials and calibrated sensors traceable to the International System of Units. The microclimate c...
Article
Olive harvesting with hand-held beaters is a repetitive work, tiring and time consuming (more than 4–5 h/day). Operators work with vibrating tools in not natural body postures: they are therefore exposed to various risks, especially at the upper limbs. Unfortunately, also if in the agriculture sector the number of the declared upper limb disorders...
Article
Full-text available
Trailers may increase the risk of tractor overturn during wood transportation in dangerous conditions. In this work, tests were carried to simulate a trailer rollover using three two wheel tractors and a crawler tractor and three trailers (two single-axle and one two-axle), all of their combinations moving downhill along the path on a short dirt ro...
Article
Full-text available
This paper intends to contribute to the debate on gender equality and water within the Sustainable Development Goals SDGs 5 and 6. Farmers organizations are often considered key stakeholders whose participation should be fostered to achieve a good water governance in agriculture and irrigation programs. Nonetheless, many water management interventi...
Article
Full-text available
The frame structure of the trailer may influence both the traction and the tractor-trailer stability, especially along sloped paths. The aim of this research was to analyze a trailer overturning and the strains on the connected tractors (wheeled, or crawled) during log transportation (loose or tied) along a hillside. Two two-axle trailers were used...
Article
Weather monitoring instruments installed on hill and mountain agricultural sites are often forced into non-ideal positioning due to slopes, tree proximity and other obstacles such as rivers and rocks that primarily affect relative humidity, temperature, and solar radiation. Moreover, data from these weather stations do not take into account the mea...
Article
Whole body vibrations are among the risk factors for professional diseases in agricultural operators: it is therefore fundamental to study vibration source dynamics to improve vehicle comfort and safety. This study analyses the forces acting on the tires of one tractor operated in 29 different settings both on a standard “ISO 5008” test track and t...
Chapter
Full-text available
Goal of the vulnerability research of the last years is to evaluate which community, region, or nation is more vulnerable in terms of its sensitive to damaging effects of extreme meteorological events like floods or droughts. Ethiopia is a country where it is possible to find the described conditions. Aim of this work was to develop an integrated s...
Article
Full-text available
Biomass production systems include multiple-crops rotations, various machinery systems, diversified operational practices and several dispersed fields located in a range of distances between the various facilities (e.g., storage and processing facilities). These factors diversify the energy and cost requirements of the system. To that effect, asses...
Poster
Full-text available
Weather monitoring instruments installed on hill and mountain agricultural sites are often forced into non-ideal positioning due to slopes, tree proximity and other obstacles such as rivers and rocks that primarily affect relative humidity, temperature, and solar radiation. Moreover, data from these weather stations do not take into account the mea...
Article
The seats may significantly reduce the exposures levels transmitted to the driver, but the European Directive 2002/44/EC (2002) requires only tests on the damping seat capacity along the vertical direction, whereas nothing is required for the longitudinal and transversal directions. Field tests were carried out using a 93 kW tractor to verify the v...
Article
Aim of this study is to analyze the energy requirements and the CO2 emission of the wood chip transportation in a short supply chain (within a radius of the travelled distance equal to 70 km), using two different types of vehicles: agricultural and industrial convoys. Three itineraries (located in North-West of Italy) with different length (14.5, 3...
Chapter
This book explores how rural gender relations are changing in a globalizing world. It integrates experiences across the globe through the discussion of four key themes in rural gender research: agriculture, international development, gender identities and mobility. The first section (chapters 2-6) examines how mobility affects men and women in rura...
Article
Machinery cost is the major cost item in farm businesses in highly mechanized production systems. Moreover, in the last years, high power machines, advanced technologies, higher cost for spare parts and repairing, and fuel consumption contributed to an even more higher increase of the machinery costs. Many engineering and economic methodological ap...
Poster
Full-text available
Currently, accurate measurements of meteorological parameters in protected cultivation are unavailable, neither are known the measurement uncertainties of environmental parameters that can be resolved in percentage uncertainties on the variability of the product. The research activities concern the quality of table tomatoes harvested in protected c...
Article
In this paper we present the outcome of a Round Robin test carried out to validate a proposed standard procedure to measure the acceleration produced by an hand held olive harvester. Ten independent laboratories using a custom-built device were involved. The device was developed to simulate olive tree branches as far as their interaction with the h...
Article
Full-text available
During the green maintenance, the grass cut tasks require the operators to use machines (especially lawn tractors, mowers, blowers and brush cutters) which transmit them high levels of noise and vibration. The requests of the Directive 2003/10/EC for the operators’ noise exposure are difficult to be applied in seasonal variable activities, as grass...
Article
The rising price of fossil fuel and the increasing environmental concern encourage the use of biomasses as energy sources. Aim of this study was to compare two poplar SRC and vSRC (6 and 3 years rotation cycle) with an annual crop (maize), used for biomass production in north Italy. The average of the biomass production was 13.9 Mg DM ha⁻¹ per year...
Article
To provide more effective evaluations of hand arm vibration syndromes caused by hand held olive beaters, this study focused on two aspects: the acceleration measured at the tool pole and the analysis of the impulsivity, using the crest factor. The signals were frequency weighted using the weighting curve Wh as described in the ISO 5349-1 standard....
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Hill and mountain agricultural sites are often close to the forests where a high tree canopy influences weather conditions in the vicinity. The presence of trees density affects humidity, temperature and solar radiation measurements. Vineyards or other cultures planted on slopes, sometimes force a non-ideal position of weather instruments and the o...
Poster
Full-text available
In situ calibrations of weather stations are usually performed by positioning standard instruments, close to the station under calibration, and the calibration is performed by comparison (Rana et al., 2004). This procedure was metrologically evaluated and showed relevant weak points (Sanna et al., 2013). Reference sensors are not always made to ope...
Article
Full-text available
The electric hand held olive harvesters have a low weight (about 2 kg) and cause the fruit pick up by means of impacts produced by their vibrational tools: for this reason they transmit elevated vibration doses to the operator’s hand arm system during the work. In this paper electric beaters of different manufacturers and different models were con-...
Article
Hand held olive harvesters may cause severe HAV (Hand Arm Vibration) pathologies to the operators. The measured vibration data should be available to the end users in the instruction manual issued by the manufacturers, who should follow the procedures specified by a C type European standard. Since the hand held olive harvesters do not have such a s...
Article
Animal traction has supported humans in most field operations since the origin of agriculture. With the introduction of mechanization, humans gained access to much more work power at similar management costs and were able to significantly increase the productivity and time efficiency of field operations. This achievement completely changed food pro...
Article
Full-text available
It is important to know the origin of the wood chip and to verify the whole transport chain, from the forest to the processing plant. This can be done using electronic customized devices to monitor the entire process: these technologies, already used in other fields, are based on the transmission of GPS data via GPRS-UMTS-HSDPA connection. In the w...
Article
Full-text available
The manual harvest of olives is one of the most expensive operations in the table olives production, but the use of the electric hand-guided machines triples the productivity. The development of these new machines leads to changes in the harvesting methodologies and in the operator's working behavior. These items may also affect the hand-arm vibrat...
Article
Full-text available
A sample of 44 professional chainsaws was used to determine service life and maintenance cost for this type of equipment. Data were sourced from a large workshop, catering for regional forest crews in north western Italy. Chainsaw service life exceeded 3000 hours, and spread over a period of 6 to 9 years. Under these conditions, maintenance cost av...
Article
Full-text available
National statistics on work safety are pointing out a decreasing trend about related injuries and fatalities but an increasing number of reports about professional diseases. In this frame are also considered the mechanical vibrations, in particular whole-body vibrations (WBV). This study aims to reproduce and analyse the vertical displacement of th...
Article
Full-text available
To correctly evaluate the vibration transmitted to the operators, it is necessary to consider each body’s point interested by the vibratory stimulus produced by machines. All the body’s part in contact to the vibration, when a portable device with internal combustion engine is used, are: hands, back and shoulders. Some information for wholebody vib...
Article
To correctly evaluate the vibration transmitted to the operators, it is necessary to consider each body’s point interested by the vibratory stimulus produced by machines. All the body’s part in contact to the vibration, when a portable device with internal combustion engine is used, are: hands, back and shoulders. Some information for wholebody vib...
Article
National statistics on work safety are pointing out a decreasing trend about related injuries and fatalities but an increasing number of reports about professional diseases. In this frame are also considered the mechanical vibrations, in particular whole-body vibrations (WBV). This study aims to reproduce and analyse the vertical displacement of th...
Article
Full-text available
The exposure to whole body vibration (WBV) of tractor drivers dur-ing field operations is a problem that has never been solved. WBV val-ues are quite difficult to predict because of the high number of vari-ables, such as mass and geometry of the vehicle, forward speed, tire pressure, type of ground, operation cycle, and environmental factors. The u...
Article
Full-text available
The hand held olive harvesters increase the work productivity but they submit the operator's hand arm system to high vibration level values and to relevant efforts to drive them through the tree branches. Many scientific works demonstrate that a correlation exists among the intensity of vibration, their direction and the grip force applied by the o...
Article
Vibration exposure of the hand-arm system is associated with an increased risk of upper-limb vascular, neurological and musculoskeletal lesions, or hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS). The prevalence of occupational HAVS and upper-limb disorders was studied among 278 Forestry Service workers in Sicily and Calabria. Subjects who used chain-saws (18 w...
Article
The vibration exposure led occupational diseases affected around 5 percent of workers from all sectors in Europe. The main effect of exposure is the Vibration White Finger (VWF), a disorder of blood supply to fingers and hand. It is caused by regular use of vibrating hand-held tools and the sufferers may have a permanent loss of sensation in their...
Article
Full-text available
Grip and push force in hand-arm vibration measurement procedures are well known influencing inputs. Many authors and some international standards high-lighted the importance to take such inputs under control during tests and, if possible, to measure them. But still an easy and unique measurement method for coupling forces is not available. In this...
Article
Full-text available
Considero sumariamente louvável o facto de que um qualificado team Piemontese de inve-stigadores, docentes, estudantes universitários (durante anos em contacto directo com os respectivos colegas Caboverdianos e com a rea-lidade deste Arquipélago) tenha entendido – com este trabalho, fruto de entrevistas feitas por numerosos habitantes de quatro ilh...

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