Projected 1992 Groundwater Levels on the Arkansas Grand Prairie

The Arkansas Grand Prairie has been a major rice producing area for most of this century. The irrigation water required for rice, and at the present time, for soybeans, is primarily obtained from a Quaternary aquifer. This extensive formation underlies much of eastern Arkansas as well as parts of other states. Groundwater enters the Grand Prairie region from extensions of the aquifer lying outside of the area. Prolonged pumping of water from the aquifer at a rate exceeding the recharge rate has significantly reduced Quaternary groundwater levels in the Grand Prairie

Investigating the Role of Experience in Reflective Practice of Iranian Language Teachers

The emergence of reflective thinking in humanities touched the field of language teaching deeply. Language teaching in EFL contexts was not far from this effect, where reflection on teaching has gained a lot of attention and research in the last decade. To bring to light the different dimensions of reflective thinking in language teaching, the current study was an attempt to examine the effects of years of professional experience on practicing reflective teaching in Iranian context. To this aim, a five-point Likert scale questionnaire was adopted including 29 items investigating five different dimensions of reflective teaching including practical, cognitive, affective, meta-cognitive, and critical dimensions. As our subjects, 62 EFL teachers participated in this study with 1 to 26 years of professional experience who were classified in 5 different experience groups. The results of the study showed no significant difference among 5 experience groups of teachers in their commitment to reflective practice in language classrooms

Enhancement of Sleep Quality and Stability Using Acoustic Stimulation During Slow Wave Sleep

Background: One of the challenges today is that the quality of sleep has weakened by many external factors, which we are not even aware of and which directly affect sleep. Sleep quality has an essential role in maintaining the cognitive function and memory consolidation of individuals. So far, various studies have been done to improve the quality of sleep by using external electrical stimulation, vestibular and olfactory system stimulation.Methods: In this study, the increase in sleep quality was considered by simultaneous acoustic stimulation in a deep sleep to increase the density of slow oscillations. Slow oscillations are the important events recorded in electroencephalography (EEG) and hallmark deep sleep. Acoustic stimulation of pink noise with random frequency ranging from 0.8 to 1.1 Hz was used to improve sleep quality.Results: Eight healthy adults (mean age: 28.4±7.8 years) studied in 3 nights under 3 conditions: accommodation night, stimulation night (STIM) and no stimulation night (SHAM), in counter-balanced order. Significant characteristics of the objective and subjective quality of sleep have been extracted from the acquired EEG and compared in the last 2 nights. Also, the arousal and cyclic alternating pattern characteristics have been measured to assess sleep stability over 2 nights of STIM and SHAM.Conclusion: Our findings confirm this goal of the study that applying designed acoustic stimulation simultaneously in the slow wave sleep (SWS) stage increases the duration of deep sleep and ultimately improves overall sleep stability and quality

Automatic sleep apnea detection using fuzzy logic

The obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is one of the most important sleep disorders characterized by obstruction of the respiratory tract and cessation in respiratory flow level. Currently, apnea diagnosis is mainly based on the Polysomnography (PSG) testing during sleeping hours, however, recording the entire signals during nights is a very costly, time-consuming and difficult task. The goal of this study is to provide and validate an automatic algorithm to analyze four PSG-recordings and detect the occurrence of sleep apnea by noninvasive features. Four PSG signals were extracted from oxygen saturation (SaO2), Transitional air flow (Air Flow), abdominal movements during breathing (Abdomen mov.) and movements of the chest (Thoracic mov.). We describe a fuzzy algorithm to compensate the imprecise information about the range of signal loss, regarding the expert opinions. Signal classification is implemented minute-by-minute and for 30 labeled samples of MIT/BIH data sets (acquired from PhysioNet). The obtained data from 18 apnea subjects (11 males and 7 females, mean age 43 years) were categorized in three output signals of apnea, hypopnea and normal breathing. The proposed algorithm shows proficiency in diagnosing OSA with acceptable sensitivity and specificity, respectively 86% and 87%

Nano Fe-oxide and nano-hydroxyapatite can decrease the Cd uptake by plant in a soil treated with Cd-polluted sewage sludge

Decreasing the heavy metals availability has important key factors in environmental studies. This research was done to investigate the effect of nano-Fe oxide and nano-hydroxyapatite (NHAP) on Cd uptake by plant that cultivated in the sewage sludge amended soil. Treatments consisted of applying Cd (0, 10 and 20 mg Cd/kg)-polluted sewage sludge at the rates of 0, 15 and 30 t/ha, nano-Fe oxide (0 and 0.5 ppm) and NHAP (0, 0.5 and 1 % (W/W)). The plant in this experiment was pinto bean (Cv. Khomein). After 90 days, the plants were harvested and the plant Zn, Cd and Fe concentration was measured using AAS. In addition, soil microbial respiration was calculated. Soil application of NHAP significantly increased the Zn and Fe concentration of the plants that cultivated in the soil which was amended with 15 t/ha sewage sludge by 12.8 and 14.5%, respectively. However, the Cd concentration was decreased by 17.2%. Using 15 and 30 t/ha sewage sludge significantly increased the plant Zn and Fe by 13.1 and 14.6%, respectively. Foliar application of nano-Fe oxide ate the rate of 1 ppm significantly decreased the plant Cd uptake by 18.3%. Using NHAP (0.5 % (W/W)) and sewage sludge (30 t/h) significantly increased the soil microbial respiration by 14.2 and 15.3%, respectively. The results of this study showed that using organic amendments such as NHAP and sewage sludge or foliar application of nano-Fe oxide can affect in decreasing the heavy metal uptake by plants that is a positive point in environmental studies