Chemigation with Micronized Sulfur Rapidly Reduces Soil pH in a New Planting of Northern Highbush Blueberry

Northern highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) is adapted to acidic soil conditions and often grows poorly when soil pH is greater than 5.5. When soil pH is high, growers will usually mix prilled elemental sulfur (So) into the soil before planting (converted to sulfuric acid by soil bacteria) and, if needed, inject acid into the irrigation water after planting. These practices are effective but often expensive, time consuming, and, in the case of acid, potentially hazardous. Here, we examined the potential of applying micronized So by chemigation through a drip system as an alternative to reduce soil pH in a new planting of ‘Duke’ blueberry. The planting was located in western Oregon and established on raised beds mulched with sawdust in Oct. 2010. The So product was mixed with water and injected weekly for a period of ≈2 months before planting and again for period of ≈2 months in late summer of the second year after planting (to assess its value for reducing soil pH once the field was established), at a total rate of 0, 50, 100, and 150 kg·ha−1 So on both occasions. Each treatment was compared with the conventional practice of incorporating prilled So into the soil before planting (two applications of 750 kg·ha−1 So each in July and Oct. 2010). Within a month of the first application of So, chemigation reduced soil pH (0–10 cm depth) from an average of 6.6 with no So to 6.1 with 50 kg·ha−1 So and 5.8 with 100 or 150 kg·ha−1 So. However, the reductions in pH were short term, and by May of the following year (2011), soil pH averaged 6.7, 6.5, 6.2, and 6.1 with each increasing rate of So chemigation, respectively. Soil pH in the conventional treatment, in comparison, averaged 6.6 a month after the first application and 6.3 by the following May. In July 2012, soil pH ranged from an average of 6.4 with no So to 6.2 with 150 kg·ha−1 So and 5.5 with prilled So. Soil pH declined to as low as 5.9 following postplanting So chemigation and, at lower depths (10–30 cm), was similar between the treatment chemigated with 150 kg·ha−1 So and the conventional treatment. None of the treatments had any effect on winter pruning weight in year 1 or on yield, berry weight, or total dry weight of the plants in year 2. Concentration of P, K, Ca, Mg, S, and Mn in the leaves, on the other hand, was lower with So chemigation than with prilled So during the first year after planting, whereas concentration of N, P, and S in the leaves were lower with So chemigation during the second year. The findings indicate that So chemigation can be used to quickly reduce soil pH after planting and therefore may be a useful practice to correct high pH problems in established northern highbush blueberry fields; however, it was less effective and more time consuming than applying prilled So before plantin

An integrated modeling approach for design and optimization of ejector pumps carrying two-phase fluid

Field of study: Mechanical and aerospace engineering.Professor El-Gizawy, Ahamed. Sherif, Dissertation Supervisor.Includes vita."December 2017."An ejector pump uses a primary flow as a motive fluid to entrain another fluid, and can work with both incompressible flow and compressible flow, in either as a singlephase or two-phase mixture. Determining the behavior of the two-phase flow inside the ejector with different geometric parameters was the objective of this research. Three approaches were used to predict the performance and the capture the flow behavior inside it. An analytical model used the geometric parameters to calculate the loss factors for the first time and work as a basis for the two-phase flow ejectors. A fluid transportation system was built to verify analytical and numerical predictions and to explore optimum. Using a fitting parameter to capture the flow behavior inside the ejector was crucial for the accuracy of the numerical model. The fitting parameter is a new technique that uses an arbitrary fluid to match the induced air measurements numerically with the ones founded experimentally. To apply the three approaches, nine ejectors were built with different geometric parameters. The nozzle exit diameters are tested at three levels while the length mixing tube are tested at three levels as well. The results reveal that the diffuser angle of 5[degrees], the smallest nozzle exit diameter, and the longest mixing tube result on maximum efficiency and highest induced air. More investigation of two-phase ejectors is important to fully understand flow behavior and to increase efficiency. There are many improvements needed to this work in future.Includes bibliographical references (pages 82-87)

Water and Soil Management Practices to Enhance Plant Growth, Berry Development, and Fruit Quality of Northern Highbush Blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L.)

Drought and mandatory water restrictions are limiting the availability of irrigation water in many important blueberry growing regions and new strategies are needed to maintain yield and fruit quality with less water. Three potential options for reducing water use, including deficit irrigation, irrigation cut-offs, and crop thinning, were evaluated for 2 years in a mature planting of northern highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum L. ‘Elliott’). Treatments consisted of no thinning and 50% crop removal in combination with either full irrigation at 100% of estimated crop evapotranspiration (ETsubscript c]), deficit irrigation at 50% ET[subscript c] (applied for the entire growing season), or full irrigation with irrigation cut-off for 4–6 weeks during early or late stages of fruit development. Stem water potential was similar with full and deficit irrigation but, regardless of crop thinning, declined by 0.5–0.6 MPa when irrigation was cut-off early and by > 2.0 MPa when irrigation was cut-off late. In one or both years, the fruiting season was advanced with either deficit irrigation or late cut-off, whereas cutting off irrigation early delayed the season. Yield was not affected by deficit irrigation in plants with a full crop load but was reduced by an average of 35% when irrigation was cut-off late each year. Cutting off irrigation early likewise reduced yield, but only in the second year when the plants were not thinned; however, early cut-off also reduced fruit soluble solids and berry weight by 7% to 24%compared to full irrigation. Cutting off irrigation late produced the smallest and firmest fruit with the highest soluble solids and total acidity among the treatments, as well as the slowest rate of fruit loss in cold storage. Deficit irrigation had the least effect on fruit quality and, based on these results, appears to be the most viable option for maintaining yield with less water (2.5 ML·ha⁻¹ less water per season). A second study was conducted in a 7-year-old field of certified organic highbush blueberry. Two cultivars (‘Duke’ and ‘Liberty’) mulched with either porous polyethylene ground cover (“weed mat”) or yard debris compost topped with sawdust (sawdust+compost) and each fertilized with either feather meal or fish emulsion were evaluated. One-year-old fruiting laterals were randomly-selected at three heights (top, middle, and bottom) on the east and west side of the plants. Bud, flower, and fruit development were monitored through fruit harvest. There was relatively little effect of mulch type or fertilizer source on the measured variables. Fruit harvest occurred ≈8 d after the fruit were fully blue and ranged from 2-25 July 2012 and 26 June-3 July 2013 in ‘Duke’ and from 1-20 Aug. 2012 and 17 July-7 Aug. 2013 in ‘Liberty’. Proportionally more fruit buds occurred on middle laterals than upper and lower laterals. The dates of bud swell and bud break were not affected by cultivar or lateral position. ‘Duke’ and ‘Liberty’ produced 6-8 and 7-9 flowers/bud, respectively. Fruit set was high in both cultivars, averaging ≈95%. However, 13-18% and 29-38 % of the initial set fruit dropped in ’Duke’ and ‘Liberty’ in late May to early June. Fruit ripening was more uniform within clusters in ‘Duke’ than in ‘Liberty’, and average fruit size was similar among harvests in ‘Duke’ but decreased by 25-40% between the first and last harvest in ‘Liberty’. Fruit matured 3−5 d earlier on the east side of the canopy than on the west side. The results suggest that pruning proportionally more on the lower part of the canopy than on the upper part will result in larger fruit at harvest than uniform pruning throughout the bush. The final study was conducted to determine the potential of applying micronized elemental sulfur (S°) by chemigation through the drip system to reduce high soil pH in a new planting of ‘Duke’ blueberry. The S° was mixed with water and injected weekly for 2 months prior to planting, as well as 2 years after planting, atrates of 0, 50, 100 and 150 kg·ha⁻¹ per year, and was compared to the conventional practice of incorporating prilled S° into the soil prior to planting (two applications of 750 kg·ha⁻¹ each). Chemigation quickly reduced soil pH (0-10 cm) within a month from 6.6 with no S° to 6.1 with 50 kg·ha-1 S° and 5.8 with 100 or 150 kg·ha⁻¹ S°. The change was short-term, however, and by May of the following year, soil pH averaged 6.7, 6.5, 6.2, and 6.1 with each increasing rate of S° chemigation, respectively. The conventional treatment, in comparison, averaged 6.6 on the first date and 6.3 on the second date. In July of the following year, soil pH ranged from an average of 6.4 with no S° to 6.2 with 150 kg·ha⁻¹ S° and 5.5 with prilled S°. Soil pH declined thereafter to as low as 5.9 with additional S° chemigation and at lower depths (10-30 cm) was similar to the conventional treatment. None of the treatments had any effect on winter pruning weight in year 1 or on yield, berry weight, and plant dry weight in year 2. Chemigation with S° can be used to quickly reduce soil pH following planting and, therefore, may be a useful practice to correct high pH problems in established blueberry fields. However, it was less effective and more time consuming than applying prilled S° prior to planting

A Proposal to Include the Image of the Saudi Personality in Middle School English Books in Light of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030

The study aimed to identify a picture of the Saudi personality in light of Saudi Arabia’s vision 2030 to reveal the level of inclusion of the Saudi profile in light of Saudi Arabia’s vision 2030 in middle school English books and then to present a proposed vision to include a picture of the Saudi character in light of Saudi Arabia’s vision 2030 in middle school English books. The study followed the descriptive approach to content analysis, the content analysis card was used as a study tool, and the study sample was made up of all six middle school English books. The study found the following results: The identification of the Saudi personality in the light of Saudi Arabia’s vision 2030 was made up of five dimensions: (religious dimension, after the kingdom’s flag and logo, cultural dimension, social dimension, economic dimension). The most available element in middle-grade English books was “national dress” within the cultural dimension (26.39%) of the total number of lessons

Asthma Control Impact on the Quality of Life and Parent's Educational Degree Effect on Asthma Control among Pediatric Patients in Saudi Arabia, Riyadh City

Asthma is Common, Chronic, and Serious respiratory disease which affect all age groups, especially children, Asthma according to GINA 2016 now days affecting 1-18 % of the population of many different countries around the world. (1) in 2013 a study has been conducted in Saudi Arabia, findings showed that those diagnosed with asthma in KSA do not have good control over their condition; incidence of asthma attacks and referral to hospitals for asthma management were considerably high. (2) The objective of this study is to be able to describe in detail the level of Asthma control among participant and to find the correlation between the control level of the disease and the impact on the pediatric asthmatic patients' quality of life, Also, as a secondary objective we were looking for any correlations with the control of asthma with the parents' education degree. This study was carried out from 5 October 2017 until 3 November 2017, cross-sectional study with a questionnaire which was disturbed. A total 559 child who was diagnosed by asthma were included in the study, For the asthma control test (see figure 1), we found the majority had uncontrolled asthma (45.1%), Most of the children scored 'Never' in Quality of Life Questionnaire when asked in nearly all twelve aspects of the child life. Our results suggest that uncontrolled asthma associated with low quality of life, we did not find any association between asthma control level and Educational degree of the parents. Keywords: Asthma, Asthma control, prevalence of asthma, Saudi arabia, chronic airway diseas

Performance comparison of selection hyper-heuristics on new HyFlex domains

Since most real-world computational problems are difficult to solve, significant attention has been drawn to design an automatic mechanism for selecting heuristics and increasing the generality of the search approach. Hyper-heuristics are high-level search mechanisms which aim to solve a range of difficult combinatorial optimisation problems by operating in the space of heuristics rather than space of solutions, which differs from the traditional approach. Hyper-heuristics are classified into two main categories: generation and selection methodologies. This study concentrates on the second methodology. The traditional approach of selection hyper-heuristic framework utilises a single solution. It iteratively selects and applies a heuristic from a set number of low-level heuristics to this solution until a decision is made either to accept or reject the new solution based on a move acceptance strategy. The process is iteratively repeated until a defined set of termination criteria is satisfied. This study mainly focuses on the use of a selection hyper-heuristic framework. More precisely, it examines the performance of different state-of-the-art hyper-heuristics, including a proposed method across a different set of problem domains provided on the HyFlex benchmark, which is a common framework designed to test and compare the performance of heuristic search algorithms over multiple domain problems. Only the three new problem domains that have recently been added to HyFlex are examined: the 0-1 Knap Sack, the Quadratic Assignment and the Max-Cut Problem. A series of experiments have been conducted to evaluate the performance of a range of existing hyper-heuristic methods and the newly proposed method. Based on the experiment results, Adap-HH, which was the winner of CHeSC2011, apparently performs the best across the three domains. In addition, the proposed SR-GD shows consistent performance over all the domains and is proven to be a simple yet powerful algorithm. It is also observed that the performances of different hyper-heuristics vary significantly not only across different domains but also across different instances within the same domain

A Numerical Confirmation of a Fractional SEITR for Influenza Model Efficiency

The main idea of this study is to reduce the number of susceptible to infections so that ill patients can receive prompt hospitalization. Fractional SEITR was introduced for this purpose. Both endemic and disease-free equilibrium’s’ durability was examined. The fundamental reproduction number of the fractional SEITR model was determined using the next-generation matrix method. Our analytical results were supported by numerical models. Here, a graphical representation of the fractional order model is presented to validate the conclusion through numerical simulation. We have come to the conclusion that the fractional order model is more precise and provides more information about the true data of disease dynamics

Fertigation with micronized Sulfur rapidly reduces soil pH

Blueberry is adapted to low soil pH in the range of 4-5.5. At higher pH, soil is often modified with elemental sulfur (S) prior to planting. A 2-year study was conducted to determine the potential of applying micronized wettable S by fertigation through the drip system to reduce soil pH in highbush blueberry. The field was planted in October 2010. The S was mixed with water and injected weekly for 2 months prior to planting and each fall after planting (2011 and 2012), at rates of 0, 50, 100 and 150 kg/ha per year, and was compared to the standard practice of incorporating granular S into the soil prior to planting (two applications of 800 kg/ha each). Sulfur fertigation quickly reduced soil pH (0-10 cm) within a month from 6.6 with no S to 5.8 with 100-150 kg/ha S, but the change was short-term and by December averaged 6.2 and 6.0, respectively. Conventional granular S, in comparison, averaged 6.4 on the first date and 6.1 on the second. In July the following year, soil pH ranged from 6.5 with no S to 6.1 with 150 kg/ha and averaged 6.0 with granular S. Soil pH remained relatively constant thereafter with S fertigation but continued to decline to levels as low as 4.7 with granular S. The treatments had no effect on winter pruning weight in year 1 or on total plant dry weight, yield, or average individual berry weight in year 2. Leaf P, K, Ca, Mg, S, and Mn concentrations, on the other hand, were lower with S fertigation than with granular S during the first year after planting, while leaf N, P, and S were lower with S fertigation the second year. The findings indicate that S fertigation can be used to reduce soil pH following planting in blueberry and therefore may be a useful practice and safer than acids to correct problems with high pH. However, it was less effective and more time consuming than applying granular S prior to planting

Breast cancer awareness and breast self-examination among future female university graduates: comparison between medical and non-medical students

Background: Breast cancer is a common health problem among females in Saudi Arabia. The disease account for 27% of all female malignancies representing 25.1% of all newly diagnosed female cancers. The objectives of the current study were to assess the level of carcinoma breast awareness of female university students, Majmaah University in Saudi Arabia and to compare the level of awareness, breast self-examination and breast cancer screening between medical and non-medical students.Methods: The current study was a cross-sectional, conducted among female students in Majmaah University in Saudi Arabia. The stratified and the systematic sampling were employed to select the colleges and the students respectively. The sample size was calculated as 325. Data was collected by a pre tested questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS.Results: The university students who acquired good knowledge were 111 (34.2%). Students who acquired average and poor knowledge were 42.2% and 23.6% respectively. Medical students who had good knowledge were 37.6% compared to 26.9% of non-medical students.  The results showed that 94 (28.9%) of the participants practice breast self-examination and 25 (7.6%) performed a screening test.Conclusions: The study concluded that Majmaah University students’ awareness of carcinoma breast is low. There is no significant difference in the level of awareness between students of medical colleges and those of non-medical colleges. The level of practicing breast self-examination and performing screening test for carcinoma breast among female university students is low. There is a significant difference in performing carcinoma breast screening test between medical and non-medical students.

Awareness of Radiation Protection and Common Radiation Dose Levels Among Healthcare Workers

Introduction: Access to ionizing radiation has become widely available for diagnosis and treatment. The increased use of ionizing radiation has been associated with radiation exposure hazards for patients and radiation workers. Raising the level of radiation protection awareness is important to maintain the safety of healthcare settings. Methods: Online questionnaires were distributed to 755 healthcare workers and students at King Abdulaziz Medical City and King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire consisted of 14 multiple-choice questions divided into two sections (questions related to radiation protection and common radiologic examination doses). Results: In total, 443 participants completed the questionnaire, including 142 (32%) medical students, 107 (24%) radiology technologists, 105 (24%) radiography students, and 89 (20%) physicians. Of the participants, 245 (55%) were men. A total of 74 (84%) physicians and 51 (47%) radiology technologists had more than 5 years of experience. Eleven (12%) physicians and 44 (41%) radiology technologists had 1–4 years of experience, whereas the rest had less than 1 year of experience. Only 16% of participants attended training courses on a regular basis. However, 15% of the participants thought that they had excellent knowledge of radiation protection, whereas 18% admitted that they did not have sufficient knowledge. Sixty-two percent of the questions related to radiation protection awareness were answered correctly. Forty-five percent of the participants correctly answered questions related to doses from common radiologic examinations. Only 23% and 16% of participants were aware of the noncontrast chest CT and lumbar x-ray doses, respectively. Moreover, 35% and 24% of participants did not know that pelvic MRI and abdominal ultrasound do not contribute any radiation dose, respectively. Conclusion: The results showed a knowledge gap regarding radiation protection and dose levels; therefore, periodic refresher courses are recommended for healthcare workers in order to increase the level of awareness