Recent phosphorus (P) pollution in the United States, mainly in Maine, has raised some severe concerns over the use of P fertilizer application rates in agriculture. Phosphorus is the second most limiting nutrient after nitrogen and has damaging impacts on crop yield if found to be deficient. Therefore, farmers tend to apply more P than is required to satisfy any P loss after its application at planting. Several important questions were raised in this study to improve P efficiency and reduce its pollution. The objective of this study was to find potential reasons for P pollution in water bodies despite a decrease in potato acreage. Historically, the potato was found to be responsible for P water contamination due to its high P sensitivity and low P removal (25–30 kg ha−1) from the soil. Despite University of Maine recommended rate of 56 kg ha−1 P, if soil tests reveal that P is below 50 kg ha−1, growers tend to apply P fertilizer at the rate of 182 kg ha−1 to compensate for any loss. The second key reason for excessive P application is its tendency to get fixed by aluminum (Al) in the soil. Soil sampling data from UMaine Soil Testing Laboratory confirmed that in Maine reactive Al levels have remained high over the last ten years and are increasing further. Likewise, P application to non-responsive sites, soil variability, pH change, and soil testing methods were found to be other possible reasons that might have led to increases in soil P levels resulting in P erosion to water streams.
Adsorption of lead ions from wastewater by native agricultural waste, precisely tea waste. After the activation and carbonization of tea waste, there was a substantial improvement in surface area and other physical characteristics which include density, bulk density, and porosity. FTIR analysis indicates that the functional groups in tea waste adsorbent are aromatic and carboxylic. It can be concluded that the tea waste could be a good sorbent for the removal of Lead ions from wastewater. Different dosages of the adsorbents were used in the batch studies. A random series of experiments indicated a removal degree efficiency of lead reaching (95 %) at 5 ppm optimum concentration, with adsorbents R2 =97.75% for tea. Three mo
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Production sites suffer from idle in marketing of their products because of the lack in the efficient systems that analyze and track the evaluation of customers to products; therefore some products remain untargeted despite their good quality. This research aims to build a modest model intended to take two aspects into considerations. The first aspect is diagnosing dependable users on the site depending on the number of products evaluated and the user's positive impact on rating. The second aspect is diagnosing products with low weights (unknown) to be generated and recommended to users depending on logarithm equation and the number of co-rated users. Collaborative filtering is one of the most knowledge discovery techniques used positive
... Show MoreA series of laboratory model tests has been carried out to investigate the using of pomegranate sticks mat as reinforcement to increase the bearing capacity of footing on loose sand. The influence of depth and length of pomegranate sticks layer was examined. In the present research single layer of pomegranate sticks reinforcement was used to strengthen the loose sand stratum beneath the strip footing. The dimensions of the used foundation were 4*20 cm. The reinforcement layer has been embedded at depth 2, 4 and 8 cm under surcharge stresses . Reinforcing layer with length of 8 and 16 cm were used. The final model test results indicated that the inclusion of pomegranate sticks reinforcement is very effective in improvement the loading cap
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The objective of this work is to investigate the performance of a conventional three phase induction motor supplied by unbalanced voltages. An effort to study the motor steady state performance under this disturbance is introduced. Using per phase equivalent circuit analysis with the concept of symmetrical components approach, the steady state performance is theoretically calculated. Also, a model for the induction motor with the MATLAB/Simulink SPS tools has been implemented and steady state results were obtained. Both results are compared and show good correlation as well. The simulation model is introduced to support and enhance electrical engineers with a complete understanding for the steady state performance of a fully loaded induc
... Show MoreThe project has been described the design and construction of a reliable optical testing platform used for evaluate the reflectivity of metal surfaces treated with special paintings required for laser beam attenuation. The platform comprises an Nd-YAG laser system which has been designed and fabricated with specifications to be compatible with their corresponding in laser range finder transmitters used for various applications. The reflectivity of various attenuating paintings, at different detection angles, has been observed. Moreover, the variation of the reflected energy with painting type and metal type to be painted has been studied experimentally. Results illustrated the existence of a definite angle, at which the reflectivity was max
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Double-layer micro-perforated panels (MPPs) have been studied extensively as sound absorption systems to increase the absorption performance of single-layer MPPs. However, existing proposed models indicate that there is still room for improvement regarding the frequency bands of absorption for the double-layer MPP. This study presents a double-layer MPP formed with two single MPPs with inhomogeneous perforation backed by multiple cavities of varying depths. The theoretical formulation is developed using the electrical equivalent circuit method to calculate the absorption coefficient under a normal incident sound. The simulation results show that the proposed model can produce absorption coefficient with wider absorption bandwidth compared w
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Comparative Analysis of Economic Policy Stability between Monarchical and Republican Systems: A Theoretical Fundamental Research