High tunnels, or unheated plastic greenhouses, are becoming increasingly popular among organic vegetable growers across the United States. However, the intensive production typical of these systems presents soil health challenges, including salinization due to high fertilizer or compost inputs coupled with lack of rainfall to leach salts. Legume cover crops may improve soil health in high tunnels by reducing the need for external inputs, while adding organic matter. We tested the soil health effects of a winter hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) cover crop used to replace fertilizer N in an organic tomato cropping system in high tunnels. Studies were replicated across three sites differing in climate and soil type (Kansas, Kentucky, and Minnesota) over three years. We measured vetch cover crop effects on a suite of soil health indicators, including potentially mineralizable nitrogen (PMN), permanganate oxidizable carbon, and microbial biomass. Preliminary results suggest that vetch effects on PMN were highly variable. Soil mineral N, meanwhile, was often lower in the vetch treatment than in a fertilized control, both in spring and in fall. While further work on vetch effects on crop yields is needed, our results suggest that even legume cover crops such as vetch have the potential to reduce nitrate leaching.
In this research we prepared nanofibers by electrospinning
from poly (Vinyl Alcohol) / TiO2. The spectrum of the solution
(Emission) was studied at 772 nm. Several process parameter were
Investigated as concentration of PVA, the effect of distance from
nozzle tip to the grounded collector (gap distance), and final the
effect of high voltage. We find the optimum condition to prepare a
narrow nanofibers is at concentration of PVA 16gm, the fiber has
20nm diameter
In this study, an efficient compression system is introduced, it is based on using wavelet transform and two types of 3Dimension (3D) surface representations (i.e., Cubic Bezier Interpolation (CBI)) and 1 st order polynomial approximation. Each one is applied on different scales of the image; CBI is applied on the wide area of the image in order to prune the image components that show large scale variation, while the 1 st order polynomial is applied on the small area of residue component (i.e., after subtracting the cubic Bezier from the image) in order to prune the local smoothing components and getting better compression gain. Then, the produced cubic Bezier surface is subtracted from the image signal to get the residue component. Then, t
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In the present work the effect of bearing compliance on the performance of high speed misaligned journal bearing lined with a compliant PTFE liner lubricated with bubbly oil at high speeds has been studied. The effect of induced oil film temperature due to shearing effect has been implemented. Hydrodynamic effect of the complaint bearing and the influence of aerated oil have been examined by the classical thermohydrodynamic lubrication theory modified to include the effect of oil film turbulence and oil film temperature with suitable models for bubbly oil viscosity and density. The effect of liner elastic deformation has been implemented by using Winkler model. The effects of variable density and s
... Show MoreThe long – term behaviour of polyethylene products used out doors is affected by weathering. In the present work,
weathering test was carried out to find the effect of the environment conditions on the mechanical properties of
HDPE/LLDPE blends with different weight percents (0, 15, 30, and 45 %) relative to the LLDPE by increasing the
exposure times to (100, 150, 200, 250, 300) hr.
A series of tests (destructive), tensile, impact and hardness were carried out on the prepared samples, the results
obtained declare the changes on the material behaviour from ductile to brittle and the polymer shows a decline in the
mechanical properties with increasing the exposure times.
In the present work empirical equations were r
A reinforced concrete frame is referred as "RIGID FRAMES". However, researches indicate that the Beam-Column joint (BCJ) is definitely not rigid. In addition, extensive research shows that failure may occur at the joint instead of in the beam or the column. Joint failure is known to be a catastrophic type which is difficult to repair.
This study was carried out to investigate the effect of hoops and column axial load on the shear strength of high-strength fiber reinforced Beam-Column Joints by using a numerical model based on finite element method using computer program ANSYS (Version 11.0). The variables are: diameter of hoops and magnitude of column axial load.
The theoretical results obtained from ANSYS program are in a good a
Abstract. In this paper, a high order extended state observer (HOESO) based a sliding mode control (SMC) is proposed for a flexible joint robot (FJR) system in the presence of time varying external disturbance. A composite controller is integrated the merits of both HOESO and SMC to enhance the tracking performance of FJR system under the time varying and fast lumped disturbance. First, the HOESO estimator is constructed based on only one measured state to precisely estimate unknown system states and lumped disturbance with its high order derivatives in the FJR system. Second, the SMC scheme is designed based on such accurate estimations to govern the nominal FJR system by well compensating the estimation errors in the states and the lumped
... Show MoreAbstract:In this research we prepared nanofibers by electrospinning from poly (Vinyl Alcohol) / TiO2. The spectrum of the solution (Emission) was studied at 772 nm. Several process parameter were Investigated as concentration of PVA, the effect of distance from nozzle tip to the grounded collector (gap distance), and final the effect of high voltage. We find the optimum condition to prepare a narrow nanofibers is at concentration of PVA 16gm, the fiber has 20nm diameter.
The objective of this investigation was to study the effects of a mixture of three arbuscular mycorrhizae (Glomus etunicatum, G. leptotichum and Rhizophagus intraradices) on the development of fusarium wilt disease in tomato plants in the presence and absence of organic matter (peatmoss). Results indicated an increase in mycorrhizal root dry weight especially in the presence of the organic matter, on the other hand this parameter was significantly decreased when Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Lycopersiciwas added simultaneously with the mycorrhiza, Moreover, mycorrhiza and organic matter significantly reduced the damping off seedling disease, disease severity and rate of infection of tomato leaves and roots caused by the pathogenic fungus, These
... Show MoreA study conducted a laboratory experiment to measure the release of potassium and the dissolution of feldspar minerals in soils from different locations in Karbala Province (Ain Al-tamur, Qasr Al-Akhyar, Fadak Farm). The study involved the addition of organic acids (fulvic and humic) and mineral acids (sulfuric and phosphoric) at concentrations of 5% and 10% to sand-separated soil samples obtained through wet sieving. Feldspar minerals were identified using a polarized light microscope, and the percentage of each type of feldspar mineral was calculated. The results demonstrated that organic acids outperformed mineral acids in releasing potassium at both concentrations. Among the organ