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.
<p>Energy and memory limitations are considerable constraints of sensor nodes in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The limited energy supplied to network nodes causes WSNs to face crucial functional limitations. Therefore, the problem of limited energy resource on sensor nodes can only be addressed by using them efficiently. In this research work, an energy-balancing routing scheme for in-network data aggregation is presented. This scheme is referred to as Energy-aware and load-Balancing Routing scheme for Data Aggregation (hereinafter referred to as EBR-DA). The EBRDA aims to provide an energy efficient multiple-hop routing to the destination on the basis of the quality of the links between the source and destination. In
... Show MoreEnergy efficiency is a significant aspect in designing robust routing protocols for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). A reliable routing protocol has to be energy efficient and adaptive to the network size. To achieve high energy conservation and data aggregation, there are two major techniques, clusters and chains. In clustering technique, sensor networks are often divided into non-overlapping subsets called clusters. In chain technique, sensor nodes will be connected with the closest two neighbors, starting with the farthest node from the base station till the closest node to the base station. Each technique has its own advantages and disadvantages which motivate some researchers to come up with a hybrid routing algorit
... Show MoreIn this study, a different design of passive air Solar Chimney(SC)was tested by installing it in the south wall of insulated test room in Baghdad city. The SC was designed from vertical and inclined parts connected serially together, the vertical SC (first part) has a single pass and Thermal Energy Storage Box Collector (TESB (refined paraffin wax as Phase Change Material(PCM)-Copper Foam Matrix(CFM))), while the inclined SC was designed in single pass, double passes and double pass with TESB (semi refined paraffin wax with copper foam matrix) with selective working angle ((30o, 45o and 60o). A computational model was employed and solved by Finite Volume Method (FVM) to simulate the air i
... Show MoreThe usage of remote sensing techniques in managing and monitoring the environmental areas is increasing due to the improvement of the sensors used in the observation satellites around the earth. Resolution merge process is used to combine high resolution one band image with another one that have low resolution multi bands image to produce one image that is high in both spatial and spectral resolution. In this work different merging methods were tested to evaluate their enhancement capabilities to extract different environmental areas; Principle component analysis (PCA), Brovey, modified (Intensity, Hue ,Saturation) method and High Pass Filter methods were tested and subjected to visual and statistical comparison for evaluation. Both visu
... Show MoreNew Schiff base ligand (E)-6-(2-(4-(dimethylamino)benzylideneamino)-2-(4-hydroxyphenyl)acetamido)-3,3- dimethyl-7-oxo-4-thia-1- azabicyclo[3.2.0]heptane-2-carboxylic acid = (HL) was synthesized via condensation of Amoxicillin and 4(dimethylamino)benzaldehyde in methanol. Figure -1 Polydentate mixed ligand complexes were obtained from 1:1:2 molar ratio reactions with metal ions and HL, 2NA on reaction with MCl2 .nH2O salt yields complexes corresponding to the formulas [M(L)(NA)2Cl],where M=Fe(II),Co(II),Ni(II),Cu(II),and Zn(II), A=nicotinamide .
The effect of thickness variation on some physical properties of hematite α-Fe2O3 thin films was investigated. An Fe2O3 bulk in the form of pellet was prepared by cold pressing of Fe2O3 powder with subsequent sintering at 800 . Thin films with various thicknesses were obtained on glass substrates by pulsed laser deposition technique. The films properties were characterized by XRD, and FT-IR. The deposited iron oxide thin films showed a single hematite phase with polycrystalline rhombohedral crystal structure .The thickness of films were estimated by using spectrometer to be (185-232) nm. Using Debye Scherrerś formula, the average grain size for the samples was found to be (18-32) nm. Atomic force microscopy indicated that the films had
... Show MoreEight different Dichloro(bis{2-[1-(4-R-phenyl)-1H-1,2,3-triazol-4-yl-κN3]pyridine-κN})iron(II) compounds, 2–9, have been synthesised and characterised, where group R=CH3 (L2), OCH3 (L3), COOH (L4), F (L5), Cl (L6), CN (L7), H (L8) and CF3 (L9). The single crystal X-ray structure was determined for the L3 which was complemented with Density Functional Theory calculations for all complexes. The structure exhibits a distorted octahedral geometry, with the two triazole ligands coordinated to the iron centre positioned in the equatorial plane and the two chloro atoms in the axial positions. The values of the FeII/III redox couple, observed at ca. −0.3 V versus Fc/ Fc+ for complexes 2–9, varied over a very small potential range of 0.05 V.
... Show MoreFabrication and investigation of the properties of CdSe/ZnS core/shell for the luminescent solar concentrates (LSC) application is presented. An increase of the efficiency of a silicon solar cell was obtained by applying the LSC. The increase was a result of the optical properties of the semiconductor nanoparticles CdSe/ZnS core/shell that were deposited over the top surface of the silicon solar cell facing the illumination source (Halogen lamp). The gravity force was invested for the film deposition process.The optical properties of these nanoparticles were studied. The absorption spectra for the CdSe/ZnS core-shell were 270-600nm, i.e., located within the spectral response area of the examined solar cell. The energy gap values for CdSe
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