2,352 research outputs found

    Effects of organic fertilisers and compost extracts on organic tomato production

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    The effects of various fertilizers and different compost extracts on crop health and tomato yield were studied in the field in 2004–2005 in two locations in Iran. Treatments included different fertilizers (cattle, sheep and chicken manures, green waste and household composts and chemical fertilizers) and five aqueous extracts (from cattle manure, chicken manure, green-waste and house-hold composts and water as control). The effect of fertilizer type on tomato yield was significant in both locations (P < 0.05). Organic fertilizer use did not obtain higher yields compared to using chemical fertiliser. Generally, chicken manure and green-waste compost led to the highest and lowest tomato yield among different organic fertilizers, respectively. The effect of aqueous extracts was not significant on either crop health or tomato yield with these results were being very limited and inconsistent. Improved efficacy of acceptable alternatives to agrochemicals, especially in organic farming, is required

    Application of the Cloude-Pottier decomposition to weather radar signatures

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    In this paper we apply the Cloude-Pottier decomposition to Weather Radar Signatures. First, we present the results of a simulation carried out at the Chemnitz University of Technology and give the expected H-α values for different rain intensities. A comparison with standard radarmeteorological variables is also given. Then, first ever images of Entropy and Anisotropy are presented for clouds and precipitation. Experimental Data are from the POLDIRAD Weather Facility in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany

    Comparative (computational) analysis of the DNA methylation status of trinucleotide repeat expansion diseases

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    Copyright © 2013 Mohammadmersad Ghorbani et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Previous studies have examined DNA methylation in different trinucleotide repeat diseases. We have combined this data and used a pattern searching algorithm to identify motifs in the DNA surrounding aberrantly methylated CpGs found in the DNA of patients with one of the three trinucleotide repeat (TNR) expansion diseases: fragile X syndrome (FRAXA), myotonic dystrophy type I (DM1), or Friedreich’s ataxia (FRDA). We examined sequences surrounding both the variably methylated (VM) CpGs, which are hypermethylated in patients compared with unaffected controls, and the nonvariably methylated CpGs which remain either always methylated (AM) or never methylated (NM) in both patients and controls. Using the J48 algorithm of WEKA analysis, we identified that two patterns are all that is necessary to classify our three regions CCGG* which is found in VM and not in AM regions and AATT* which distinguished between NM and VM + AM using proportional frequency. Furthermore, comparing our software with MEME software, we have demonstrated that our software identifies more patterns than MEME in these short DNA sequences. Thus, we present evidence that the DNA sequence surrounding CpG can influence its susceptibility to be de novo methylated in a disease state associated with a trinucleotide repeat.European Union Seventh Framework Programme and The Brunel University Graduate Program

    Tendency to Hookah among Adolescents in Kurdkoy City

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    Background and Objective: Nowadays, smoking is a widespread health problem in the world. Hookah smoking is common in many countries, especially in the Middle East and Africa. This study aimed to investigate the causes of hookah smoking in adolescents in Kurdkoy, 2013. Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 266 teenagers selected via multi stage sampling. The questionnaires were distributed among the people who were present at the Coffeehouses and the results were reported by descriptive statistics. Results: The results showed that 51.5% of the participants said they use Hookah every day. The reasons were pastime (56.4), unemployment (41.7), Pleasant feeling (33.8), being with friends (33.5), fatigue reduction (33.5) and the availability of hookah (32.3). Conclusion: To minimize the tendency to Hookah smoking, we recommend planning some activities for leisure time, "learning to say no" and training how to reduce anxiety and fatigue

    Low Q2Q^2 proton structure function, using gluon and pseudoscalar meson clouds in the constituent quark framework

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    The idea of the meson cloud approach in the chiral quark model has been extended to include gluon cloud in order to achieve the parton densities in the nucleon, based on the constitute quark framework. The splitting function of the quark to the quark-meson and quark-gluon at low Q2Q^2 value are used to obtain parton densities in the constituent quark. The phenomenological constituent model is employed to extract the parton distributions in the proton at low Q2Q^2 value. Since we have access to the parton densities at low Q2Q^2, we are able to obtain F2(x,Q2)F_{2}(x,Q^2) structure function at low Q2Q^2 value. The result is in good agreement with available experimental data and some theoretical models. To confirm the validity of our calculations, the fraction of total momentum of proton which is carried by gluon at high Q2Q^2 and also the Gottfried sum rule are computed. The results are in good agreement with what are expected.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

    Replacing of live food with artificial diet on growth and survival rates of white leg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) larvae

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    Replacing live food with artificial diets in aquatic larviculture, especially in shrimp larvae not only is caused convenience feeding, but also in economical view is very important. With this object, in this survey, a density of 100.L -1 white leg shrimp larvae in 9 nutritional treatments each with three replicates were cultured in 20L tanks each one was held with 10L of 30% salty water using one air stone. The larvae were fed 4 times.day-1 with different diets, including live foods (Cheatoceros gracilis and Artemia nauplii), artificial diets (handmade and imported) and different combinations. The results showed that the growth rate and survival percentage in larvae fed with combination feed treatments, were more desirable than those fed with food and feed treatments and feeding with homemade and imported feeds alone, raised high mortality in shrimp larvae during the experiment. Also, it was denoted that even if the zoea larvae has been fed with live food, feeding with 100% artificial diets for the resting larviculture period won't be possible because of decreasing significantly in growth rate, total length and survival percent of shrimp larvae, compare to the other treatments. In addition, replacing partly of live food with artificial diet without adverse affects on growth and survival rates of white leg shrimp larvae will be possible and the observation supported that the handmade feed with given formulation, had more suitable results comparing to the imported one for mixing with live food economically. Therefore, we recommend that a mixture the formulated diet and algae plus Artemia nauplii is used for culturing white shrimp larvae

    The Eccentric Connectivity Polynomial of some Graph Operations

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    The eccentric connectivity index of a graph G, ξ^C, was proposed by Sharma, Goswami and Madan. It is defined as ξ^C(G) = ∑ u ∈ V(G) degG(u)εG(u), where degG(u) denotes the degree of the vertex x in G and εG(u) = Max{d(u, x) | x ∈ V (G)}. The eccentric connectivity polynomial is a polynomial version of this topological index. In this paper, exact formulas for the eccentric connectivity polynomial of Cartesian product, symmetric difference, disjunction and join of graphs are presented.* The work of this author was supported in part by a grant from IPM (No. 89050111)

    The Effect of Measurement Error on X̃-R̃ Fuzzy Control Charts

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    Control charts are tools used for monitoring manufacturing processes. Fuzzy Set Theory has found its way in control charts and new types of fuzzy control charts, with different capabilities, has been introduced. In this paper, a process in which the result of the measuring of each piece is imprecise is studied, and a X̃-R̃ fuzzy control chart is used for monitoring. The aim is to study the effect of measurement error on the effectiveness of the fuzzy control chart to detect out of control situations. The model used in this research is a linear covariate model. ARL parameters are used to study the performance of the fuzzy control chart when the parameters of covariate model is increased or decreased

    Altered pituitary hormone secretion in male rats exposed to Bisphenol A

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    Bisphenol A (BPA) is a xenobiotic estrogenic compound. This compound has been suspected to have estrogenic effects on reproductive system of males and females. In this present study we investigated possible low-dose effects of BPAon Luteinizing Hormone in rats. Male Wistar rats (12-13 weeks old) were administrated a daily intra peritoneal 10 μg/kgbw/day, 50 μg/kgbw/day, 100 μg/kgbw/ day dose of BPA for 6, 6, and 12 days, and one day after last injection, serum level of Luteinizing Hormone was examined by ELISA method. All data were expressed as means ± SE. Two-way ANOVA was performed. Analysis of data showed that in all dose groups, plasma level of Luteinizing Hormone significantly decreased compared to control group. The present study showed that BPA at low doses affects Luteinizing Hormone, one of main hormones in spermatogenesis in the adult Wistar rats, and subsequently alters the steroidgenesis in testicular Leydig cells
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