Effect of Greenhouse Temperature on Tomato Yield and Ripening

High fuel costs have encouraged producers of greenhouse tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) in the mid-Atlantic region to reduce air temperatures during the day. However, effects on fruit ripening and yield are not known, especially under the low light conditions found in off-season production. This 2-yr study compared fruit ripening and yield of tomato under two temperature regimes during the fall season. Two sets of 18 tomato plants, three rows of six, were grown in soilless culture under either a warm or cool temperature regime. Temperatures were similar during night hours but allowed to rise to at least 21- 24 degrees C in the cool greenhouse section and 23-26 degrees C in the warm section, depending on daily solar heating. Mean 24 hour temperature difference between zones was less than 2 degrees C. Ripe tomato fruit were harvested and weighed 3 times per week for 8 weeks and the remaining un-ripened green tomatoes were weighed at the termination of the experiment to obtain total fruit biomass. The warm zone produced significantly greater weight of ripe tomatoes (23%) than the cool zone. However, total fruit weight (ripe and green), was not significantly different. Thus a relatively small increase in temperature (2 degrees C) during the mid-day was associated with a significant increase in fruit ripening but not in total fruit weight. This study showed that greenhouse temperature could be used to better manage fruit production to match weekly market demand without affecting total fruit weight and that consistently maintaining a cool greenhouse would delay tomato ripening and likely increase the potential for plant stress due to high fruit loads remaining on the vines

Scheduling aircraft landings - the static case

This is the publisher version of the article, obtained from the link below.In this paper, we consider the problem of scheduling aircraft (plane) landings at an airport. This problem is one of deciding a landing time for each plane such that each plane lands within a predetermined time window and that separation criteria between the landing of a plane and the landing of all successive planes are respected. We present a mixed-integer zero–one formulation of the problem for the single runway case and extend it to the multiple runway case. We strengthen the linear programming relaxations of these formulations by introducing additional constraints. Throughout, we discuss how our formulations can be used to model a number of issues (choice of objective function, precedence restrictions, restricting the number of landings in a given time period, runway workload balancing) commonly encountered in practice. The problem is solved optimally using linear programming-based tree search. We also present an effective heuristic algorithm for the problem. Computational results for both the heuristic and the optimal algorithm are presented for a number of test problems involving up to 50 planes and four runways.J.E.Beasley. would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australia

Effects of supplementing methionine and lysine in a lactation diet containing high concentrations of corn by-products

Ninety-six lactating Holstein cows were used to determine the effects of using commercial supplements to supply additional lysine and methionine in diets containing large proportions of corn by-products. Cows were assigned to 1 of 8 pens. Pens were offered rations formulated to differ in metabolizable lysine and methionine supply. The study was divided into 2 periods. During period 1, cows received similar diets, but the treatment diet supplied supplemental lysine and methionine. During period 2, the treatment diet was modified to reduce dietary crude protein. Feed intake and production were monitored daily, and milk components were analyzed 3 days per week for 4 weeks. Diet did not alter feed intake or milk production. During period 2, dietary crude protein and milk urea nitrogen (MUN) were decreased without sacrificing performance.; Dairy Day, 2011, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 2011; Dairy Research, 2011 is known as Dairy Day, 201

Anisotropic Small-Polaron Hopping In W:Bivo4 Single Crystals

DC electrical conductivity, Seebeck and Hall coefficients are measured between 300 and 450 K on single crystals of monoclinic bismuth vanadate that are doped n-type with 0.3% tungsten donors (W:BiVO4). Strongly activated small-polaron hopping is implied by the activation energies of the Arrhenius conductivities (about 300 meV) greatly exceeding the energies characterizing the falls of the Seebeck coefficients' magnitudes with increasing temperature (about 50 meV). Small-polaron hopping is further evidenced by the measured Hall mobility in the ab-plane (10(-1) cm(2) V-1 s(-1) at 300 K) being larger and much less strongly activated than the deduced drift mobility (about 5 x 10(-5) cm(2) V-1 s(-1) at 300 K). The conductivity and n-type Seebeck coefficient is found to be anisotropic with the conductivity larger and the Seebeck coefficient's magnitude smaller and less temperature dependent for motion within the ab-plane than that in the c-direction. These anisotropies are addressed by considering highly anisotropic next-nearest-neighbor (approximate to 5 angstrom) transfers in addition to the somewhat shorter (approximate to 4 angstrom), nearly isotropic nearest-neighbor transfers. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), DE-FG02-09ER16119Welch Foundation Grant F-1436Hemphill-Gilmore Endowed FellowshipNSF MIRT DMR 1122603Chemical EngineeringTexas Materials InstituteChemistr

CE19012

In the southwest of Ireland and the Celtic Sea (ICES Divisions VIIaS, g & j), herring are an important commercial species to the pelagic and polyvalent fleet. For a period in the 1970s and1980s, larval surveys were conducted for herring in this area. However, since 1989, acoustic surveys have been carried out, and currently are the only tuning indices available for this stock. In the Celtic Sea and VIIj, herring acoustic surveys have been carried out since 1989. Since 2004 the survey has been fixed in October and carried out onboard the RV Celtic Explorer. The geographical confines of the annual 21 day survey have been modified in recent years to include areas to the south of the main winter spawning grounds in an effort to identify the whereabouts of winter spawning fish before the annual inshore spawning migration. Spatial resolution of acoustic transects has been increased over the entire south coast survey area. The acoustic component of the survey has been further complemented since 2004 by detailed hydrographic, marine mammal and seabird surveys