Evaluation of a power driven residue manager for no-till drills

The main operational problem in direct drilling of paddy straw residue is the accumulation and wrapping of loose straw within/on the tines and frame of no-till drills and traction problems with the ground wheel. A residue management equipment (RME) is developed to cut and remove paddy straw away from furrow openers of the no-till drill. The equipment consisted of nine parts; each part consisted of two powered wheels, one wheel for cutting the residue and the other wheel for removing them away from no-till drill furrow openers. This equipment was attached with the no-till drill with inverted "T" type furrow opener and the experiments have been conducted to compare the no-till drill with RME and same no-till drill without RME. No-till drill with RME increased the fuel consumption and time required by 29.6 % and 13.14 %, respectively. Adding RME to the no-till drill decreased the amount of residue clogged by 33% and increased the percentage of cut hill from 14.9 to 63.7%. The average numbers of effective tiller, spike length and plant heights were more for no-till drill with RME. Furthermore, the grain yield was increased by 12.4% for fields with no-drill with RME

Chitinase production by Bacillus subtilis ATCC 11774 and its effect on biocontrol of Rhizoctonia diseases of potato

Stem canker and black scurf of potato, caused by Rhizoctonia solani, can be serious diseases causing an economically significant damage. Biocontrol activity of Bacillus subtilis ATCC 11774 against the Rhizoctonia diseases of potato was investigated in this study. Chitinase enzyme was optimally produced by B. subtilis under batch fermentation conditions similar to those of the potato-growing soil. The maximum chitinase was obtained at initial pH 8 and 30 °C. In vitro, the lytic action of the B. subtilis chitinase was detected releasing 355 μg GlcNAc ml−1 from the cell wall extract of R. solani and suggesting the presence of various chitinase enzymes in the bacterial filtrate. In dual culture test, the antagonistic behavior of B. subtilis resulted in the inhibition of the radial growth of R. solani by 48.1% after 4 days. Moreover, the extracted B. subtilis chitinase reduced the growth of R. solani by 42.3% when incorporated with the PDA plates. Under greenhouse conditions, application of a bacterial suspension of B. subtilis at 109 cell mL−1 significantly reduced the disease incidence of stem canker and black scurf to 22.3 and 30%, respectively. In addition, it significantly improved some biochemical parameters, growth and tubers yield. Our findings indicate two points; firstly, B. subtilis possesses a good biocontrol activity against Rhizoctonia diseases of potato, secondly, the harmonization and suitability of the soil conditions to the growth and activity of B. subtilis guaranteed a high controlling capacity against the target pathogen

Effect of Annealing and Ion Beam Irradiation on AC Electrical Properties for Gold Sputtered PM-355

171-181Deposition of different gold thickness on PM-355 cleaned by ethanol forming thin films using magnetron sputtering. Gold layer with thickness 300, 400, 500, 700, 1000, 1300, and 1500 nm were deposited to prepare Au / PM-355 thin films. Then, ac electrical properties response of thin films for a wide frequency range 20Hz - 5MHz were measured at room temperature. Meanwhile, the measurements of ac conductivity, dielectric constant, and dielectric loss factor were plotted at different frequencies to determine the optimum thickness. Hence, the comparison was done between optimum Au thickness thin films cleaned by two organic solvents and ethanol before annealing at different frequencies. Also, study the effect of annealing and ion beam that extracted radially from conical anode and disc cathode ion source on optimum Au thickness thin film electrical properties. It is found that the annealing increases both dielectric constant, dielectric loss, and ac conductivity of optimum Au thin film at different frequencies. Despite, the nitrogen ion beam effected on these thin films by decreasing the dielectric constant and ac conductivity for all thin films except the chloroform one. Finally, study the comparison between the annealing and followed by ion irradiation thin films. It is noticed the decrease in ac electrical conductivity and dielectric constant at different frequencies

Generalized T-Q relations and the open spin-s XXZ chain with nondiagonal boundary terms

We consider the open spin-s XXZ quantum spin chain with nondiagonal boundary terms. By exploiting certain functional relations at roots of unity, we derive a generalized form of T-Q relation involving more than one independent Q(u), which we use to propose the Bethe-ansatz-type expressions for the eigenvalues of the transfer matrix. At most two of the boundary parameters are set to be arbitrary and the bulk anisotropy parameter has values \eta = i\pi/2, i\pi/4,... We also provide numerical evidence for the completeness of the Bethe-ansatz-type solutions derived, using s = 1 case as an example.Comment: 23 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:0901.3558; v2: published versio

Inheritance of Cold Tolerance, Plant Height, Maturity and Other Characters in a Spring-Winter Barley Cross.

12 p

Impact of laptop dealer firm’s service quality on customers’ loyalty in Jordan

This study aims to investigate how various aspects of service quality in laptop dealer companies affect customers’ loyalty in Jordan. Data were collected from 341 Jordanian clients of dealer firms selling laptops in Jordan (HP, LG, Toshiba, Apple, Samsung, Sony, and Dell). Collected data were then analyzed; the hypotheses were assessed with the help of SPSS and structural equation modeling. The findings showed that customers’ loyalty is significantly impacted by reliability, accessibility to service, and safety. Furthermore, the value of beta represents relative importance. The dimension of safety showed the highest level in size of the impact on customers’ loyalty, and its value was 0.446 of the total impact. Next, the access to service dimension was the second factor in the impact size (0.239), and the reliability dimension demonstrated the smallest impact size with 0.146. Additionally, the findings revealed that reliability, access to service, and safety explain 52% of the variance in customers’ loyalty to purchase a laptop in Jordan. As a result, the study recommends that Jordanian laptop dealer firms consider all three service quality characteristics, particularly safety, to maintain the loyalty of their customers

Glass Fabrication Using Ceramic and Porcelain Recycled Waste and Lithium Niobate: Physical, Structural, Optical and Nuclear Radiation Attenuation Properties

The ceramic and porcelain industry in the Arab Republic of Egypt annually produces a huge amount of by-product waste. Public health is threatened by the accumulated ceramic and porcelain dust and crumbs. In this study, five different ceramic and porcelain waste samples were recycled in glass form of xLiNbO3-(40-x)Waste and investigated with different LiNbO3 contents of x = 8, 16, 20, 24, 32 wt.% for useful nuclear radiation shielding applications. The amorphous structure of prepared samples is assured with XRD analyses. The radiation protection features of the prepared samples were investigated experimentally and compared with theoretical calculations for photon energies in the range of 81–2614 KeV. Moreover, optical parameters of waste glasses such as absorption coefficient, skin depth, and extinction coefficient have been calculated. The radiation protection factors showed that the Waste32 sample with 32 wt.% LiNbO3 is the best shield out of the fabricated Waste-x samples. The insertion of ceramic and porcelain wastes in the glass system reached 32 wt.%. © 2021 The Author(s).This work was supported by Taif University Researchers Supporting Project number (TURSP-2020/109), Taif University, Taif, Saudi Arabia. The APC was covered by "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Romania

Characteristics of mentally ill offenders from 100 psychiatric court reports

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There is an increasing probability that the psychiatrist will, willingly or not, come into contact with mentally ill offenders in the course of their practice. There are increasing rates of violence, substance abuse and other psychiatric disorders that are of legal importance. Therefore, the aim of this work was to investigate the rates of different mental disorders in 100 court reports and to investigate the characteristics of mentally ill offenders.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>All cases referred from different departments of the legal system to the forensic committee for assessment of legal accountability over 13-months duration were included. A specially designed form was prepared for data collection. Cases were classified into five groups: murder, robbery, financial offences, violent and simple offences and a group for other offences. Data were subjected to statistical analysis and comparisons between different groups of subjects were performed by analysis of variance (ANOVA).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Men constituted 93% of cases. In all, 73% of offenders were younger than 40 years old. Schizophrenia cases made up 13% of the total, substance related cases constituted 56% and amphetamine cases alone made up 21%; 10% of cases were antisocial personality disorders, and 51% of cases were classified as having a low education level. Unemployment was found in 34% of cases. The final decision of the forensic committee was full responsibility in 46% of cases and partial responsibility in 11% of cases, with 33% considered non-responsible. A total of 58% of cases had had contact with psychiatric healthcare prior to the offence and in 9% of cases contact had been in the previous 12 weeks. A history of similar offences was found in 32% of cases. In all, 14% of the offences were murders, 8% were sexual crimes, and 31% were violent/simple crimes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The ability of the legal system to detect cases was good, while the ability of the healthcare system to predict crimes and offences was weak, as 58% of cases had had previous contact with the healthcare system previously. Substance abuse, especially amphetamine abuse, played an important role.</p