Standardization of Leaf Sampling Technique for Macronutrients in Apricot under Temperate Conditions

Macro- and micro-nutrient content influenced by position of leaf on the shoot and time of sampling was studied to determine leaf-sampling time for apricot grown in temperate region of the country. Results revealed that middle order leaves were the most suitable for determining nutrient needs in apricot trees. Leaf samples should be collected during June - July for determining N, K and Ca; first fortnight of July for P; and, from mid-June to mid-July for Mg

Experimental Study of the Post-Fire Mechanical and Material Response of Cold-Worked Austenitic Stainless Steel Reinforcing Bar

Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. This paper is concerned with the behaviour of stainless steel reinforcing bar following exposure to elevated temperatures from a fire, followed by subsequent cooling. Stainless steel-reinforced concrete is an increasingly popular solution for structural applications which require corrosion resistance, excellent mechanical properties, and long life cycles with little maintenance. In addition, although stainless steel reinforcement has a higher initial cost compared with traditional carbon steel bars, the overall life cycle costs are likely to be quite similar, owing to the lack of maintenance required for stainless steel materials. There is no information available in the literature on the post-fire properties of austenitic stainless steel reinforcement, although these data are essential for any engineer who wishes to study the structural integrity of a reinforced concrete component or system following a fire. Accordingly, this paper presents a detailed discussion and analysis from the results of a series of laboratory experiments on three grades of austenitic stainless steel reinforcement following various levels of temperature exposure and also different cooling rates. Both the mechanical and metallurgical properties are examined, and the behaviour is compared to that of B500B carbon steel reinforcement. It is shown that the stainless steel bars retained their mechanical properties under the majority of the scenarios examined and to a greater degree than traditional materials. This is important for the rehabilitation and salvage of existing reinforced concrete structures following a fire and also to avoid unnecessary demolition and replacement

Prediction of Sandstone Dilatancy Point in Different Water Contents Using Infrared Radiation Characteristic: Experimental and Machine Learning Approaches

In rock mechanics, the dilatancy point is always occurring before rock failure during loading process. Water content plays a significant role in the rock physiomechanical properties, which also impact the rock dilatancy point under loading process. This dilatancy point significantly plays a warning role in the rock engineering structures stability. Therefore, it is essential to predict the rock dilatancy point under different water contents to get an early warning for effective monitoring of engineering projects. This study investigates the water contents effects on sandstone dilatancy point under loading in the presence of infrared radiation (IR). Furthermore, this IR was used for the first time as an input parameter for different artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to predict the dilatancy point in the stress-strain curve. The experimental findings show that the stress range in stress-strain curve stages (crack closure and unstable crack propagation) increases with water content. However, this range for deformation and stable crack propagation stages decreases with water content. The dilatancy stress, crack initiation stress, and elastic modulus are negatively linearly correlated, while peak stress and stress level are negatively quadraticaly correlated with a high (R2). The absolute strain energy rate, which gives a sudden increase at the point of dilatancy, is used as the dilatancy point index. The stress level is 0.86 σmax at the dilatancy point for dry rock and decreases with water content. This index is predicted from IR data using three computing techniques: artificial neural network (ANN), random forest regression (RFR), and k-nearest neighbor (KNN). The performance of all techniques was evaluated using R2 and root-means-square error (RMSE). The results of the predicted models show satisfactory performances for all, but KNN is remarkable. The research findings will be helpful and provide guidelines about underground engineering project stability evaluation in water environments. © 2022 Liqiang Ma et al. All Rights Reserved.This paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51874280) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2021ZDPY0211)

IEA EBC Annex83 positive energy districts

At a global level, the need for energy efficiency and an increased share of renewable energy sources is evident, as is the crucial role of cities due to the rapid urbanization rate. As a consequence of this, the research work related to Positive Energy Districts (PED) has accelerated in recent years. A common shared definition, as well as technological approaches or methodological issues related to PEDs are still unclear in this development and a global scientific discussion is needed. The International Energy Agency’s Energy in Buildings and Communities Programme (IEA EBC) Annex 83 is the main platform for this international scientific debate and research. This paper describes the challenges of PEDs and the issues that are open for discussions and how the Annex 83 is planned and organized to facilitate this and to actively steer the development of PEDs major leaps forward. The main topics of discussion in the PED context are the role and importance of definitions of PEDs, virtual and geographical boundaries in PEDs, the role of different stakeholders, evaluation approaches, and the learnings of realized PED projects

Prevalence of hepatitis B and C and assessment of responsible risk factors among the vulnerable β-thalassemic patients of Azad Kashmir, Pakistan

Approximately 350 million patients of hepatitis B and 170 million patients of Hepatitis C are present worldwide according to WHO. Many risk factors are involved in the transmission of theses deadly viral infections but blood transfusion in Beta thalassemic patients is working with two faces, one as remedy and the other is key risk factor in the spread of silent killers. Thalassemia patients registered in Combine Military Hospital (CMH) Rawalakot and Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan Hospital, Muzaffarabad Azad Jammu and Kashmir Pakistan were studied for the viral hepatitis B and C prevalence. A total of 303 (including 164 males and 139 females) individuals, aged between 1 and 12 years were studied. All the understudy participants were interviewed through questionnaire method. After taking written consent from each participant or guardian, 5 ml of blood was collected from each participant and brought to the working laboratory for HBV and HCV screening through ICT kit method. All ICT positive samples were further confirmed through ELISA. Individuals 25(8.2%) were found positive for both hepatitis B surface Antigen (HBsAg) and Anti hepatitis C antibody (Anti-HCV antibody) after initial screening with no coinfection of both diseases. Out of 25 total infected individuals, 05(1.6%) were found HBsAg positive and 20(6.6%) were found anti-HCV positive. All the ICT positive individuals were further confirmed by quantitative Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) and 23(7.6%) individuals were confirmed for both hepatitis B and C including 05(1.6%) HBsAg positive as well as 18(5.9%) anti-HCV antibody positive individuals. We can conclude that 8.2% prevalence of hepatitis B and C among thalassemic patients is an alarming health concern which directly indicates to pay attention for ensuring 100% safe blood transfusion

The electrokinetic impact on heavy metals remediation of Tasik Chini iron ore mine tailings, at Pahang state, Peninsular Malaysia

The improper disposal of mining tailings is a severe threat to the surrounding environment because it comprises high concentrations of heavy metals contamination. Any precious metal extraction (mining) produces millions of tons of waste; iron ore extraction is common globally, unlike other metals extraction. The iron ore tailings contain heavy metals such as Arsenic (As), Cobalt (Co), Manganese (Mn), Lead (Pb), Copper (Cu), and Zinc (Zn). This study focuses on extracting hazardous metals such as As, V, and Zn from the disposed waste and improving its geotechnical properties. Nine samples were collected from Tasik Chini Iron ore mine, Pekan district, Pahang State, Malaysia. The initial data were prepared for elemental analysis by following ICP-OES analysis. The results showed that As, Co, Mn, Pb, Cu, and Zn concentrations exceeded the standard guidelines. In recent years, sustainable remediations techniques (EKR) have attracted extensive attention, including the electrokinetic remediation technique. The (EKR) method was applied to extract these metals from iron ore tailings specimens. A comprehensive approach of EKR shows an outstanding result where the highest removal efficiency of As was 68.4 %, Co 64.5%, Mn 67.8%, Pb 67.1%, and Cu was 64.1% and Zn 64.9% with the voltage gradient of 100 and 150 V for 4 and 8 hours constantly. Increasing the voltage gradient could be a cost-effective long-term solution for the remediation of iron ore tailings. The existing method was experienced as an effective and green technique for extracting heavy metals and recycling the mining waste materials

A Compact Single Layer Reflectarray Antenna Based on Circular Delay-Lines for X-band Applications

This paper presents a compact single layer reflectarray antenna based on a diagonally notched square patch and a pair of circular delay lines, for X-band applications. The length and width of circular delay-lines are varied and optimized to attain a linear phase range of more than 600º. The effect of incident angle in TE and TM modes at 0º, 15º and 30º is studied, which offers stable angular phase range. The hybrid Finite Element Boundary Integral (FEBI) method is used for simulation of the whole reflectarray system comprising of 27 × 27 elements and being fabricated on a low cost FR-4 laminate. The measured gain of 24.5 dBi with aperture efficiency of 49.5% is achieved at 10 GHz. The proposed design provides the measured 1-dB gain bandwidth of 12.5% and 3-dB gain bandwidth of 34%. The simulated and measured side-lobe-levels and cross polarizations are less than –25 dB and –40 dB respectively

Comparative Analysis of V-Akt Murine Thymoma Viral Oncogene Homolog 3 (AKT3) Gene between Cow and Buffalo Reveals Substantial Differences for Mastitis

AKT3 gene is a constituent of the serine/threonine protein kinase family and plays a crucial role in synthesis of milk fats and cholesterol by regulating activity of the sterol regulatory element binding protein (SREBP). AKT3 is highly conserved in mammals and its expression levels during the lactation periods of cattle are markedly increased. AKT3 is highly expressed in the intestine followed by mammary gland and it is also expressed in immune cells. It is involved in the TLR pathways as effectively as proinflammatory cytokines. The aims of this study were to investigate the sequences differences between buffalo and cow. Our results showed that there were substantial differences between buffalo and cow in some exons and noteworthy differences of the gene size in different regions. We also identified the important consensus sequence motifs, variation in 2000 upstream of ATG, substantial difference in the “3′UTR” region, and miRNA association in the buffalo sequences compared with the cow. In addition, genetic analyses, such as gene structure, phylogenetic tree, position of different motifs, and functional domains, were performed to establish their correlation with other species. This may indicate that a buffalo breed has potential resistance to disease, environment changes, and airborne microorganisms and some good production and reproductive traits

Compact Electronically Reconfigurable WiMAX Band- Notched Ultra-wideband MIMO Antenna

A low-profile electronically reconfigurable WiMAX band-notched dual port multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO) antenna design for ultra-wideband application has been presented. The two symmetrical MIMO antenna elements proposed in this work exhibit a good impedance match (VSWR ≤ 2) over frequency band of 3 to 12 GHz, while offering high isolation. The decoupling structure is used to enhance the isolation level above 25 dB over the entire UWB spectrum. The reconfigurable band notch characteristic in MIMO design is achieved by inserting PIN diodes along the filtering Ω-shaped slotted structure in main radiators. Notch appears for WiMAX 3.5 GHz (3.2 - 3.8 GHz) frequency band by switching the PIN diode to ‘ON’ state. The proposed antenna is fabricated and measured, the results suggest its appropriateness for UWB applications where WiMAX band notch characteristics may be desired on-demand