Moving carbon between spheres, the potential oxalate-carbonate pathway of Brosimum alicastrum Sw.; Moraceae.

Aims The Oxalate-Carbonate Pathway (OCP) is a biogeochemical process that transfers atmospheric CO2 into the geologic reservoir as CaCO3; however, until now all investigations on this process have focused on species with limited food benefits. This study evaluates a potential OCP associated with Brosimum alicastrum, a Neotropical species with agroforestry potential (ca. 70–200 kg-nuts yr−1), in the calcareous soils of Haiti and Mexico. Methods / results Enzymatic analysis demonstrated significant concentrations of calcium oxalate (5.97 % D.W.) were associated with B. alicastrum tissue in all sample sites. The presence of oxalotrophism was also confirmed with microbiological analyses in both countries. High concentrations of total calcium (>7 g kg−1) and lithogenic carbonate obscured the localised alkalinisation and identification of secondary carbonate associated with the OCP at most sample sites, except Ma Rouge, Haiti. Soils adjacent to subjects in Ma Rouge demonstrated an increase in pH (0.63) and CaCO3 concentration (5.9 %) that, when coupled with root-like secondary carbonate deposits in Mexico, implies that the OCP does also occur in calcareous soils. Conclusions Therefore this study confirms that the OCP also occurs in calcareous soils, adjacent to B. alicastrum, and could play a fundamental and un-accounted role in the global calcium-carbon coupled cycle

Efficient Hardware Accelerator and Implementation of JPEG 2000 MQ Decoder Architecture

Due to the extensive use of multimedia technologies, there is a pressing need for advancements and enhanced efficiency in picture compression. JPEG 2000 standard aims to meet the needs for encoding still pictures. JPEG 2000 is an internationally recognized standard for compressing still images. It provides a wide range of features and offers superior compression ratios and interesting possibilities when compared to traditional JPEG approaches. Nevertheless, the MQ decoder in the JPEG 2000 standard presents a substantial obstacle for real-time applications. In order to fulfill the demands of real-time processing, it is imperative to meticulously devise a high-speed MQ decoder architecture. This work presents a novel MQ decoder architecture that is both high-speed and area-efficient, making it comparable to previous designs and well-suited for chip implementation. The design is implemented using the VHDL hardware description language and is synthesized with Xilinx ISE 14.7 and Vivado 2015.1. The implementation findings show that the design functions at a frequency of 438.5 MHz on Virtex-6 and 757.5 MHz on Zync7000. For these particular frequencies, the calculated frame rate is 63.1 frames per second

Study of potential impacts of using sewage sludge in the amendment of desert reclaimed soil on wheat and jews mallow plants

This investigation was conducted to study the impacts of using sewage sludge at different concentrations (0, 10, 25, 50, 75%) in amendment of desert reclaimed soil properties and some physiological aspects in wheat and jews mallow plants. Generally adding sewage sludge to desert soil improved the soil texture, raised the organic matter contents, water holding capacity and lowered pH value. The contents of NPK gradually increased as the ratio of sewage sludge increased. The fresh and dry weights and biosyntheses of pigment contents of the variously treated test plants were increased by increasing the sewage sludge levels in the soil. Also, total carbohydrate and protein contents of sewage sludge-treated test plants were positively affected. With respect to the proline content and total free amino acids, in most cases, it decreased significantly, expect at 75% sewage sludge, which was higher than that of other concentrations. Also, the accumulation of metal was generally higher, especially in the root than that in the shoot system in the test plant tissues