Restoration of degraded lands by adoption of recommended conservation management practices can rehabilitate watersheds and lead to improving soil and water quality. The objective was to evaluate the effects of grass buffers (GBs), biomass crops (BCs), grass waterways (GWWs), agroforestry buffers (ABs), landscape positions, and distance from tree base for AB treatment on soil quality compared with row crop (RC) (corn [Zea mays L.]–soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] rotation) on claypan soils. Soil samples were taken from 10‐cm‐depth increments from the soil surface to 30 cm for GB, BC, GWW, and RC with three replicates. Soil samples were collected from summit, backslope, and footslope landscape positions. Samples were taken at 50‐ and 150‐cm distances from the tree base. β‐Glucosidase, β‐glucosaminidase, dehydrogenase, fluorescein diacetate hydrolase (FDA), soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), active carbon (AC), and water‐stable aggregates (WSA) were measured. Results showed that β‐glucosidase, β‐glucosaminidase, dehydrogenase, FDA, AC, WSA, and TN values were significantly greater (P < 0.01) for the GB, BC, GWW, and AB treatments than for the RC treatment. The first depth (0–10 cm) revealed the highest values for all soil quality parameters relative to second and third depths. The footslope landscape had the highest parameter values compared with summit and backslope positions. The 50‐cm distance of AB treatment had higher values than the 150‐cm distance for all measured parameters. Results showed that perennial vegetation practices enhanced soil quality by improving soil microbial activity and SOC.
Core Ideas
Permanent vegetative management (trees and grasses) enhanced soil quality.
Perennial practices improved microbial activity and increased soil organic carbon.
Perennial vegetative practices have agricultural and environmental significance.
Establishing perennial practices is an effective approach to enhance soil quality.
Mixed convection heat transfer in a vertical concentric annulus packed with a metallic porous media and heated at a constant heat flux is experimentally investigated with water as the working fluid. A series of experiments have been carried out with a Rayleigh number range from Ra=122418.92 to 372579.31 and Reynolds number that based on the particles diameter of Red=14.62, 19.48 and 24.36. Under steady state condition, the measured data were collected and analyzed. Results show that the wall surface temperatures are affected by the imposed heat flux variation and Reynolds number variation. The variation of the local heat transfer coefficient and the mean Nusselt number are presented and analyzed. An empirical
The Log-Logistic distribution is one of the important statistical distributions as it can be applied in many fields and biological experiments and other experiments, and its importance comes from the importance of determining the survival function of those experiments. The research will be summarized in making a comparison between the method of maximum likelihood and the method of least squares and the method of weighted least squares to estimate the parameters and survival function of the log-logistic distribution using the comparison criteria MSE, MAPE, IMSE, and this research was applied to real data for breast cancer patients. The results showed that the method of Maximum likelihood best in the case of estimating the paramete
In this work we run simulation of gas dynamic problems to study the effects of Riemann problems on the physical properties for this gas. We studied a normal shock wave travels at a high speed through a medium (shock tube). This would cause discontinuous change in the characteristics of the medium, such as rapid rise in velocity, pressure, and density of the flow. When a shock wave passes through the medium, the total energy is preserved but the energy which can be extracted as work decreases and entropy increases. The shock tube is initially divided into a driver and a driven section by a diaphragm. The shock wave is created by increasing the pressure in the driver section until the diaphragm bursts, se
The present research aims to study the effect of friction stir welding (FSW) parameters on temperature distribution and tensile strength of aluminum 6061-T6. Rotational and traverse speeds used were (500,1000,1400 rpm) and (14,40,112 mm/min) respectively. Results of mechanical tests showed that using 500rpm and 14mm/min speed give the best strength. A three- dimensional fully coupled thermal-stress finite element model via ANSYS software has been developed. The Rate dependent Johnson-Cook relation was utilized for elasto-plastic work deformations. Heat-transfer is formulated using a moving heat source, and later used the transient temperature outputs from the thermal analysis to determine equivalent stresses in the welde
Progesterone is highly used in pregnant women as therapeutic agent to maintain and support pregnancy. To explore the effects of progesterone usage allover gestation till 7days postnatally on mice offspring ovaries development and anogenital distance. Ten pregnant mice were equally divide into control group that was injected with sesame oil which is used as a solvent for progesterone and treated group that is daily intraperitoneally injected with progesterone (dissolved in sesame oil 1: 10) at dose 10.2 mg/kg (the equivalent human dose) all through gestation till7day postnatal then sacrificed and measuring the anogenital distance (the distance between anus and genital papilla). Histological slides were prepared, and Diameters of the ovary, p
The aim of this study is to compare the effects of three methods: problem-based learning (PBL), PBL with lecture method, and conventional teaching on the understanding of thermodynamics, group work and self-directed learning skills among physics undergraduates. The actual sample size comprises of 122 students, who were selected randomly from the Physics Department, College of Education in Iraq, for academic year 2011-2012. In this study, the pre and posttest were done and the instruments were administered to the students for data collection. Inferential statistics were employed to analyze data. The independent variables were the PBL, the PBL with lecture method, and the conventional teaching. Dependent variables of statistical analysis were
This study included the effect of chronic exposure of different concentrations of sodium chloride on the freshwater Crustacean Daphinea pulex from the order of Cladocera. The concentrations used for the chronic exposure were( 0.1‰, 0.5‰, 1‰, 1.5‰, 2‰ )to investigate the effect on the some reproductive parameter which included mean number of eggs and juveniles produced per female and per clutch,and mean number of clutch per female which decline from (6.0) clutch/female in the control treatment to (3.0) clutch/female in (2‰) concentrations, as well as to investigate the number of females produce the clutches and we found only one female produced six cluthes in the( 2‰) concentration of sodium chlor
In this work, the effects of solvent properties on the characteristics of absorption and fluorescence for two laser dyes was studied. Dyes used in this work include Coumarin 5400 and DCM, while the solvents include ethanol, methanol, acetone, propanol and chloroform. Coumarin 5400 dye shows sharp fluorescence peaks in the green band of visible region while the DCM dye shows relatively wide band within 590-630 nm. Therefore, the selection of any dye for random gain medium applications should be performed after determining the most appropriate solvent as the optimum fluorescence characteristics are obtained.
