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.
Buried pipeline systems are commonly used to transport water, sewage, natural oil/gas and other materials. The beneficial of using geogrid reinforcement is to increase the bearing capacity of the soil and decrease the load transfer to the underground structures.
This paper deals with simulation of the buried pipe problem numerically by finite elements method using the newest version of PLAXIS-3D software. Rajkumar and Ilamaruthi's study, 2008 has been selected to be reanalyzed as 3D problem because it is containing all the properties needed by the program such as the modulus of elasticity, Poisson's ratio, angle of internal friction. It was found that the results
... Show MoreGranular Pile Anchor (GPA) is one of the innovative foundation techniques, devised for mitigating heave of footing resulting from the expansive soils. This research attempts to study the heave behavior of (GPA-Foundation System) in expansive soil. Laboratory tests have been conducted on an experimental model in addition to a series of numerical modeling and analysis using the finite element package PLAXIS software. The effects of different parameters, such as (GPA) length (L) and diameter (D), footing diameter (B), expansive clay layer thickness (H) and presence of non-expansive clay are studied. The results proved the efficiency of (GPA) in reducing the heave of exp
... Show MorePhysical model tests were simulated non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) spill in two-dimensional
domain above the water table. Four laboratory experiments were carried out in the sand-filled
tank. The evolution of the plume was observed through the transparent side of this tank and the
contaminant front was traced at appropriate intervals. The materials used in these experiments
were Al-Najaf sand as a porous medium and kerosene as contaminant.
The results of the experiments showed that after kerosene spreading comes to a halt (ceased) in
the homogeneous sand, the bulk of this contaminant is contained within a pancake-shaped lens
situated on top of the capillary fringe.
This paper analyzes a piled-raft foundation on non-homogeneous soils with variable layer depth percentages. The present work aims to perform a three-dimensional finite element analysis of a piled-raft foundation subjected to vertical load using the PLAXIS 3D software. Parametric analysis was carried out to determine the effect of soil type and initial layer thickness. The parametric study showed that increasing the relative density from 30 % to 80 % of the upper sand layer and the thickness of the first layer has led to an increase in the ultimate load and a decrease in the settlement of piled raft foundations for the cases of sand over weak soil. In clay over weak soil, the ultimate load of the piled raft foundation w
... Show MoreElection study included four sites for the waters in area of Youssifiyah south of Baghdad (river water, tank water, liquefactions water, and water filtrate and seethed and purifier by alum and chloride), the samples were collected during the month of June in 2007. Temperature, electrical conductivity and acidity are measured. Also , the concentration of chloride , sulphate , carbonate , nitrate , sodium , calcium , magnesium , hard total and total dissolved substances are determined , as well as heavy metals assess environmental risk (such as Cu, Pb, Zn, Fe). It was also a study of bacterial totals included both total Bacteria (TB) and Total Coliform Bacteria (TC) and Fecal Coliform (FC) and Fecal Streptococci (FS). The stu
... Show MoreField experiments were carried out for the autumn season 2022- 2021 in the field of College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences - University of Baghdad - Jadiriyah Complex –Station A- to study a combination of organic fertilizer (Vermicompost) and cow manure as well as a control treatment (soil only) intertwined with Spraying with silicon, calcium and distilled water (control) in the growth and production of three cultivars of beet (Cylindra, Dark Red, Red) within the design of Completely Randomized Block Design at three replications, The number of treatments was 9 for each replicate. The means were compared according to the least significant difference (L.S.D) at a probability lev
Antiviral medications may be the best choices for COVID-19 treatment until particular therapeutic treatments become available. Tamiflu (oseltamivir) is a neuraminidase inhibitor licensed for the management and defense against influenza types A and B. Oseltamivir-based medication combinations are currently being used to treat COVID-19 patients who also have the new coronavirus 1 SARS-CoV-2. 1 Oseltamivir administration was related with a less time spent in the hospital, quicker recovery 1 and discharge, and a decreased mortality rate. Docking is a modern computational method for identifying a hit molecule by assessing the binding ability of molecular medicines within the binding target pocket. In this work, we chose 21 ligand compounds that
... Show MorePurpose: To use the L25 Taguchi orthogonal array for optimizing the three main solvothermal parameters that affect the synthesis of metal-organic frameworks-5 (MOF-5). Methods: The L25 Taguchi methodology was used to study various parameters that affect the degree of crystallinity (DOC) of MOF-5. The parameters comprised temperature of synthesis, duration of synthesis, and ratio of the solvent, N,N-dimethyl formamide (DMF) to reactants. For each parameter, the volume of DMF was varied while keeping the weight of reactants constant. The weights of 1,4-benzodicarboxylate (BDC) and Zn(NO3)2.6H2O used were 0.390 g and 2.166 g, respectively. For each parameter investigated, five different levels were used. The MOF-5 samples were synthesi
... Show MoreVariable selection in Poisson regression with high dimensional data has been widely used in recent years. we proposed in this paper using a penalty function that depends on a function named a penalty. An Atan estimator was compared with Lasso and adaptive lasso. A simulation and application show that an Atan estimator has the advantage in the estimation of coefficient and variables selection.