Residues and dissipation kinetics of two imidacloprid nanoformulations on bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) under field conditions

The current study investigates the dissipation kinetics of two imidacloprid (IMI) nanoformulations (entitled: Nano-IMI and Nano-IMI/TiO2) on common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) seeds under field conditions and compares them with 35% Suspension Concentrate (SC) commercial formulation. To do so, it sprays P. vulgaris plants at 30 and 60 g/ha within green bean stage, sampling them during the 14-day period after the treatment. Following extraction and quantification of IMI residues, dissipation data have been fitted to simple-first order kinetic model (SFOK) and to first-order double-exponential decay (FODED) models, with 50% and 90% dissipation times (DT50 and DT90, respectively) assessed along the pre-harvest interval (PHI). With the exception of Nano-IMI at 60 g/ha, other decline curves are best fitted to the FODED model. In general, dissipation is faster for Nano-IMI (at 30 g/ha: DT50 = 1.09 days, DT90 = 4.30 days, PHI = 1.23 days; at 60 g/ha: DT50 = 1.29 days, DT90 = 4.29 days, PHI = 2.95 days) and Nano-IMI/TiO2 (at 30 g/ha: DT50 = 1.15 days, DT90 = 4.40 days, PHI = 1.08 days; at 60 g/ha: DT50 = 0.86 days, DT90 = 4.92 days, PHI = 3.02 days), compared to 35% SC (at 30 g/ha: DT50 = 1.58, DT90 = 6.45, PHI = 1.93; at 60 g/ha: DT50 = 1.58 days, DT90 = 14.50 days, PHI = 5.37 days). These results suggest the suitability of Nano-IMI and Nano-IMI/TiO2 application at both rates in terms of their residues on P. vulgaris seeds

The effect of zinc sulphate syrup on children's respiratory tract infections

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: After Iron, zinc is the second most abundant trace element in the body that is present in all organs, tissues and body fluids. It is a necessary component for maintaining immunological integrity antioxidant activity, and has critical role in the control and prevention of infection. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of zinc sulphate syrup in treatment of children with respiratory tract infection. METHODS: In this randomized clinical trial study, one hundred and twenty four children with respiratory infection (62 in case and 62 in control group) from pediatric ward of Hajar hospital of Sharekord university enrolled. Both groups received standard treatment. In addition to, zinc sulphate syrup was given to case group and placebo to control group. Respiratory rate, bed and cough and fever duration were compared between the case and control groups (IRCT: 201103025951N1). FINDINGS: The mean duration of fever in the case group was 2.6±0.82 days and in the control group 4±1.5 days (p<0.001). The mean of bed duration in the case group was 4.7±1.5 days and in the control group 5±1.8 days (p=0.42). The mean of cough duration in the case and control groups was 3.4±1.3 and 4.7±1.6 days respectively (p=0.09). Respiratory rate in the case group was 28.3±4.3 and in the control 28.1±4.9 (p=0.77). CONCLUSION: The study showed that zinc supplementation has a beneficial effect in decreasing the fever duration in children with respiratory infection. But there was no significant effect on respiratory rate, duration of bed and cough

Water management for sustainable irrigated agriculture in the Zayandeh Rud Basin, Esfahan Province, Iran

Irrigation systemsCropping systemsIrrigated farmingRiver basinsTopographyGeomorphologyClimateHydrologyWater qualityGroundwaterSoil salinitySustainable agricultureIranEsfahan ProvinceZayandeh Rud BasinChadegan Reservoir

Berry effect in acoustical polarization transport in phononic crystals

We derive the semiclassical equations of motion of a transverse acoustical wave packet propagating in a phononic crystal subject to slowly varying perturbations. The formalism gives rise to Berry effect terms in the equations of motion, manifested as the Rytov polarization rotation law and the polarization-dependent Hall effect. We show that the formalism is also applicable to the case of non-periodic inhomogeneous media, yielding explicit expressions for the Berry effect terms.Comment: To appear in JETP Let

Solid-state laser system for laser cooling of Sodium

We demonstrate a frequency-stabilized, all-solid laser source at 589 nm with up to 800 mW output power. The laser relies on sum-frequency generation from two laser sources at 1064 nm and 1319 nm through a PPKTP crystal in a doubly-resonant cavity. We obtain conversion efficiency as high as 2 W/W^2 after optimization of the cavity parameters. The output wavelength is tunable over 60 GHz, which is sufficient to lock on the Sodium D2 line. The robustness, beam quality, spectral narrowness and tunability of our source make it an alternative to dye lasers for atomic physics experiments with Sodium atoms

An all-solid-state laser source at 671 nm for cold atom experiments with lithium

We present an all solid-state narrow line-width laser source emitting $670\,\mathrm{mW}$ output power at $671\,\mathrm{nm}$ delivered in a diffraction-limited beam. The \linebreak source is based on a fre-quency-doubled diode-end-linebreak pumped ring laser operating on the ${^4F}_{3/2} \rightarrow {^4I}_{13/2}$ transition in Nd:YVO$_4$. By using periodically-poled po-tassium titanyl phosphate (ppKTP) in an external build-up cavity, doubling efficiencies of up to 86% are obtained. Tunability of the source over $100\,\rm GHz$ is accomplished. We demonstrate the suitability of this robust frequency-stabilized light source for laser cooling of lithium atoms. Finally a simplified design based on intra-cavity doubling is described and first results are presented

Spatial modeling of individual-level infectious disease transmission: Tuberculosis data in Manitoba, Canada

Geographically dependent individual level models (GD-ILMs) are a class of statistical models that can be used to study the spread of infectious disease through a population in discrete-time in which covariates can be measured both at individual and area levels. The typical ILMs to illustrate spatial data are based on the distance between susceptible and infectious individuals. A key feature of GD-ILMs is that they take into account the spatial location of the individuals in addition to the distance between susceptible and infectious individuals. As a motivation of this article, we consider tuberculosis (TB) data which is an infectious disease which can be transmitted through individuals. It is also known that certain areas/demographics/communities have higher prevalent of TB (see Section 4 for more details). It is also of interest of policy makers to identify those areas with higher infectivity rate of TB for possible preventions. Therefore, we need to analyze this data properly to address those concerns. In this article, the expectation conditional maximization algorithm is proposed for estimating the parameters of GD-ILMs to be able to predict the areas with the highest average infectivity rates of TB. We also evaluate the performance of our proposed approach through some simulations. Our simulation results indicate that the proposed method provides reliable estimates of parameters which confirms accuracy of the infectivity rates