Contracting Tobacco Growing in Turkey

Tobacco is a very important product in Turkish agriculture and economy. As a result of a change in the privatization policies, the support of the state in tobacco (production) is abrogated. With the introduction of the new law (No: 4733) the marketing system of tobacco has totally changed and has been replaced with the auction system and contract production. In this study the tobacco production in the year 2002 is scrutinized in order to evaluate the effect of the contract production system on tobacco production by means of a field research in Manisa. The auction system will be launched in 2003, that is why it is not included in this study. According to the research findings the majority of the producers are not satisfied with the contract production system as the contractions are being prepared one-sided and producers do not have the right to haggle. The problems that occured in the application of this new law are suggested to be eliminated by adapting the auction system, akin to the one in the USA, which enables producers to partake in the marketing of the product

An ordinary differential equation for velocity distribution and dip-phenomenon in open channel flows

An ordinary differential equation for velocity distribution in open channel flows is presented based on an analysis of the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations and a log-wake modified eddy viscosity distribution. This proposed equation allows to predict the velocity-dip-phenomenon, i.e. the maximum velocity below the free surface. Two different degrees of approximations are presented, a semi-analytical solution of the proposed ordinary differential equation, i.e. the full dip-modified-log-wake law and a simple dip-modified-log-wake law. Velocity profiles of the two laws and the numerical solution of the ordinary differential equation are compared with experimental data. This study shows that the dip correction is not efficient for a small Coles' parameter, accurate predictions require larger values. The simple dip-modified-log-wake law shows reasonable agreement and seems to be an interesting tool of intermediate accuracy. The full dip-modified-log-wake law, with a parameter for dip-correction obtained from an estimation of dip positions, provides accurate velocity profiles

Transcriptome pathways unique to dehydration tolerant relatives of modern wheat

Among abiotic stressors, drought is a major factor responsible for dramatic yield loss in agriculture. In order to reveal differences in global expression profiles of drought tolerant and sensitive wild emmer wheat genotypes, a previously deployed shock-like dehydration process was utilized to compare transcriptomes at two time points in root and leaf tissues using the Affymetrix GeneChip(R) Wheat Genome Array hybridization. The comparison of transcriptomes reveal several unique genes or expression patterns such as differential usage of IP(3)-dependent signal transduction pathways, ethylene- and abscisic acid (ABA)-dependent signaling, and preferential or faster induction of ABA-dependent transcription factors by the tolerant genotype that distinguish contrasting genotypes indicative of distinctive stress response pathways. The data also show that wild emmer wheat is capable of engaging known drought stress responsive mechanisms. The global comparison of transcriptomes in the absence of and after dehydration underlined the gene networks especially in root tissues that may have been lost in the selection processes generating modern bread wheats

Numerical study of heat source/sink effects on dissipative magnetic nanofluid flow from a non-linear inclined stretching/shrinking sheet

This paper numerically investigates radiative magnetohydrodynamic mixed convection boundary layer flow of nanofluids over a nonlinear inclined stretching/shrinking sheet in the presence of heat source/sink and viscous dissipation. The Rosseland approximation is adopted for thermal radiation effects and the Maxwell-Garnetts and Brinkman models are used for the effective thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity of the nanofluids respectively. The governing coupled nonlinear momentum and thermal boundary layer equations are rendered into a system of ordinary differential equations via local similarity transformations with appropriate boundary conditions. The non-dimensional, nonlinear, well-posed boundary value problem is then solved with the Keller box implicit finite difference scheme. The emerging thermo-physical dimensionless parameters governing the flow are the magnetic field parameter, volume fraction parameter, power-law stretching parameter, Richardson number, suction/injection parameter, Eckert number and heat source/sink parameter. A detailed study of the influence of these parameters on velocity and temperature distributions is conducted. Additionally the evolution of skin friction coefficient and Nusselt number values with selected parameters is presented. Verification of numerical solutions is achieved via benchmarking with some limiting cases documented in previously reported results, and generally very good correlation is demonstrated. This investigation is relevant to fabrication of magnetic nanomaterials and high temperature treatment of magnetic nano-polymers

Gene Expression Profiling via Multigene Concatemers

We established a novel method, Gene Expression Profiling via Multigene Concatemers (MgC-GEP), to study multigene expression patterns simultaneously. This method consists of the following steps: (1) cDNA was obtained using specific reverse primers containing an adaptor. (2) During the initial 1–3 cycles of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the products containing universal adaptors with digestion sites at both termini were amplified using specific forward and reverse primers containing the adaptors. (3) In the subsequent 4–28 cycles, the universal adaptors were used as primers to yield products. (4) The products were digested and ligated to produce concatemers. (5) The concatemers were cloned into the vector and sequenced. Then, the occurrence of each gene tag was determined. To validate MgC-GEP, we analyzed 20 genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae induced by weak acid using MgC-GEP combined with real-time reverse transcription (RT)-PCR. Compared with the results of real-time RT-PCR and the previous reports of microarray analysis, MgC-GEP can precisely determine the transcript levels of multigenes simultaneously. Importantly, MgC-GEP is a cost effective strategy that can be widely used in most laboratories without specific equipment. MgC-GEP is a potentially powerful tool for multigene expression profiling, particularly for moderate-throughput analysis

Effect of temperature-dependent viscosity on entropy generation in transient viscoelastic polymeric fluid flow from an isothermal vertical plate

A numerical investigation of the viscosity variation effect upon entropy generation in time-dependent viscoelastic polymeric fluid flow and natural convection from a semi-infinite vertical plate is described. The Reiner-Rivlin second order differential model is utilized which can predict normal stress differences in dilute polymers. The conservation equations for heat, momentum and mass are normalized with appropriate transformations and the resulting unsteady nonlinear coupled partial differential equations are elucidated with the well-organized unconditionally stable implicit Crank-Nicolson finite difference method subject to suitable initial and boundary conditions. Average values of wall shear stress and Nusselt number, second-grade fluid flow variables conferred for distinct values of physical parameters. Numerical solutions are presented to examine the entropy generation and Bejan number along with their contours. The outcomes show that entropy generation parameter and Bejan number both increase with increasing values of group parameter and Grashof number. The present study finds applications in geothermal engineering, petroleum recovery, oil extraction and thermal insulation, etc

Effect of flotation reagents on the wet grinding of celestite concantrate

In this study, the grinding of celestite concentrate in presence of grinding aids, used for celestite ore, flotation has been investigated in a laboratory wet-ball mill as a function of time and concentration of grinding aids. In the experiments, Aero801, sodium oleate and sodium silicate have been used as grinding aids at the concentrations of 10, 100 and 1000 g/t. While sodium oleate and sodium silicate have beneficial effect in longer grinding times at concentrations of 100 and 1000 g/t, they have adverse effect on grinding at all grinding times at concentration of 10 g/t as evident from particle size. d80 values of ground products are coarser than that without grinding aid. Aero-801 is the best among the grinding aids tested for the concentrations studied. Considering the fineness of the ground products desired, 100 g/t concentration of Aero-801 appears to be proper for grinding of celestite concentrate