Rice Production Under Different Water Input

“More crops per drop” concept is a growing interest in rice cultivation. An experiment was carried out to determine the effect of reducing water on rice production and to investigate the temporal changes in chemical properties in soil solution. There were five treatments simulating different flooding depths and durations during the rice growing period namely, W1: continuous flooding at 5cm, W2: continuous flooding at 1cm, W3: continuous flooding at 5 cm for the first 3 weeks followed by 1cm thereafter, W4: continuous flooding at 5 cm for the first 6 weeks followed by 1cm thereafter, and W5: continuous flooding at 5cm for the first 9 weeks followed by 1cm thereafter. Soil pH and redox potential were taken at 4cm depth, and the concentrations of N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Zn, Cu, Fe, and Mn in soil solution were measured at weekly intervals. At harvest, the number of tillers and panicles were counted. Grain yield, number of grains per panicle and weight of 1000 seeds were determined. In addition, the weight of straw was also obtained. The effect of irrigation treatments was not significant for tiller number, panicle number, grain yield (t/ha), straw weight (t/ha), grain/panicle, and 1000 seeds weight (g).The tiller numbers and panicle numbers were in the range of 6745000 to 6956000, and 6367000 to 6651000 per ha, respectively. Grain yield of rice under continuous 5cm flooding was not significantly different from the other treatments. Dry filled grain yield (12% moisture content) was found to range from 11.72 to 12.39 t/ha. The weight of 1000 seeds was 27.2 to 27.8g. The different flooding levels had no significant effect on the nutrients concentration analyzed in soil solution at weekly intervals. However, in general, there was an increase in the concentrations of N, Zn, Cu, Fe, and Mn in the soil solution during the first few weeks of flooding, then the values remained relatively stable until harvest, while P concentration remained constant through out the growing period in all treatments. The concentration of K, Ca, and Mg declined with time for all treatments. Redox potential value was significantly lower in treatments that were under 5cm flooding water compared to 1 cm flooding water, and it showed values that were more negative. Soil pH was in the range of 5.4 to 6.6 in all treatments. Overall, this study showed that yield and yield components, nutrient concentration, and soil pH were not affected by different water treatments but redox potential was significantly different

Effect of Portland cement concrete characteristics and constituents on thermal expansion

textThe coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) is one of the major factors responsible for distresses in concrete pavements and structures. Continuously reinforced concrete pavements (CRCPs) in particular are highly susceptible to distresses caused by high CTE in concrete. CRCP is a popular choice across the U.S. and around the world for its long service life and minimal maintenance requirements. CRCP has been built in more than 35 states in the U.S., including Texas. In order to prevent CRCP distresses, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has limited the CTE of CRCP concrete to a maximum of 5.5 x10-6 strain/oF (9.9 x10-6 strain/oC). Coarse aggregate sources that produce concrete with CTE higher than the allowable limit are no longer accepted in the TxDOT CRCP projects. Moreover, CTE is an important input in the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG). Small deviations in input CTE can affect the pavement thickness significantly in MEPDG designs. Therefore, accurate determination of concrete CTE is important, as it allows for enhanced concrete structure and pavement design as well as accurate screening of CRCP coarse aggregates. Moreover, optimizing the CTE of concrete according to a structure’s needs can reduce that structure’s cracking potential. This will result in significant savings in repair and rehabilitation costs and will improve the durability and longevity of concrete structures. This study found that the CTEs determined from saturated concrete samples were affected by the internal water pressure. As a result, the TxDOT method yielded higher values than did the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) method. To further investigate the effect of internal water pressure, an analytical model was developed based on the poroelastic phenomenon of concrete. According to the model, porosity, permeability, and the rate of temperature change are the major factors that influence the internal water pressure development. Increasing the permeability of concrete can reduce the internal water pressure development and can thus improve the consistency of measured CTE values. Preconditioning concrete samples by subjecting them to several heating and cooling cycles prior to CTE testing and reducing the rate of temperature change improved the consistency of the CTE test results. Concrete CTE can be reduced by blending low-CTE aggregates with high-CTE aggregates and reducing the cement paste volume. Based on these findings, a concrete CTE optimization technique was developed that provides guidelines for the selection of concrete constituents to achieve target concrete CTE. A concrete proportioning technique was also developed to meet the need for CTE optimization. This concrete proportioning technique can use aggregate from any sources, irrespective of gradation, shape, and texture. The proposed technique has the potential to reduce the cement requirement without sacrificing performance and provides guidelines for multiple coarse and fine aggregate blends.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin

Chemical investigation of phytoalexins and phytoanticipins : isolation, synthesis and antifungal activity

The focus of my research was on the secondary metabolites produced by crucifer plants under stress and their biological activity against fungi. Both cultivated and wild plants were investigated to isolate phytoalexins and phytoanticipins, and determine their metabolite profiles.The first chapter of this thesis describes cruciferous plants and their most important pathogenic fungi. These plants are divided into three groups: oilseeds, vegetables and wild species. The metabolites isolated from these plants and their biosynthetic studies are reviewed. In addition economically important necrotrophic fungi such as Leptosphaeria maculans, Alternaria brassicae, Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Rhizoctonia solani are also reviewed along with their phytotoxins. The second chapter of this thesis describes the detection, isolation, structure determination, syntheses of stress metabolites and biological activity of these metabolites against L. maculans, S. sclerotiorum and R. solani. The investigation of cauliflower led to the isolation of seven phytoalexins: 1-methoxybrassitin (55), spirobrassinin (71), isalexin (64), brassicanal C (60), caulilexins A (106), B (107), and C (105). The phytoalexins caulilexins A (106), B (107) and C (105) were reported for the first time. Caulilexin A (106), having a disulfide bridge, showed the highest activity against S. sclerotiorum and R. solani among the known phytoalexins. Similarly four phytoalexins: 1-methoxybrassitin, brussalexins A (121), B (117) and C (118) along with four metabolites: ascorbigen (51), diindolylmethane (50), 1-methoxy-3,3’-diindolylmethane (119) and di-(1-methoxy-3-indolyl)methane (120) were isolated from Brussels sprouts. The phytoalexins brussalexins A (121), B (117) and C (118) are new metabolites. Brussalexin A (121) is the only cruciferous phytoalexins having an allyl thiolcarbamate functional group. The metabolite 1-methoxy-3,3’-diindolylmethane (119) is reported for the first time.The investigation of brown mustard for polar metabolites led to the isolation of indole-3-acetonitrile (76) and spirobrassinin (71) along with isorhamnetin-3,7-diglucoside (134). Investigation of wild species such as Asian mustard, sand rocket, wallrocket, hedge mustard and Abyssinian mustard for production of stress metabolites led to the isolation of indole-3-acetonitrile (76), arvelexin (84), 1,4-dimethoxyindole-3-acetonitrile (137), rapalexins A (138) and B (142), methyl-1-methoxyindole-3-carboxylate (59) and metabolites bis(4-isothiocyanotobutyl)-disulfide (139), 5-(3-isothiocyanato-propylsulfanyl)-pentylisothiocyanate (136) and 3-(methylsulfinyl)-propylisothiocyanate (135). Two metabolites were also isolated from Brussels sprouts and brown mustard; however, these structures are not yet determined. The metabolites 1,4-dimethoxyindole-3-acetonitrile (137) and 5-(3-isothiocyanato-propylsulfanyl)-pentylisothiocyanate (136) are reported for the first time

Service Quality of Mobile Banking in Bangladesh: An Assessment of Customers’ Satisfaction

Mobile banking is now one of the new instruments used in the banking industry to provide digital financial services. In order to ensure the satisfaction of customers, mobile banking service providers concentrate on delivering up-to-date and quality service. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the dimensions of service quality (tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy) and the satisfaction of customers. To conduct the study, a total number of 170 respondents were taken as sample from Chittagong region by using simple judgmental sampling technique. A face-to-face interview method was followed by using a structured questionnaire to collect the data. In this study, some statistical measures such as mean, standard deviation, correlation, regression were used to analyze the linkage. The results found that there is a positive relation between service quality dimensions and customers’ satisfaction specifically reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy have significant influence on customers’ satisfaction. The study also revealed that tangibles have insignificant relation with customers’ satisfaction. Keywords: Mobile banking, customers’ satisfaction, service quality. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/15-10-02 Publication date:May 31st 202

Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) after bevacizumab therapy for metastatic colorectal cancer.

Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES) is an increasingly recognizable neuro-clinical syndrome. Clinical and neurological manifestations of PRES include hypertension, headache, encephalopathy, seizures, and symmetrical white matter changes on brain MRI. Most common precipitants of PRES are acute medical illness, hypertensive crisis, eclampsia, immunosuppressive therapy, and chemotherapy. Bevacizumab is a monoclonal antibody that halts angiogenesis by inhibiting vascular endothelial growth factor. It has gained widespread popularity in oncology world especially for metastatic and recurrent cancers due to its inherent ability to stop angiogenesis; a vital step for tumor growth. Bevacizumab has also been implicated as the cause of PRES due to dysregulation of the blood-brain barrier. We are reporting a case of PRES induced by Bevacizumab in a patient of colorectal cancer

On Achieving Diversity in the Presence of Outliers in Participatory Camera Sensor Networks

This paper addresses the problem of collection and delivery of a representative subset of pictures, in participatory camera networks, to maximize coverage when a significant portion of the pictures may be redundant or irrelevant. Consider, for example, a rescue mission where volunteers and survivors of a large-scale disaster scout a wide area to capture pictures of damage in distressed neighborhoods, using handheld cameras, and report them to a rescue station. In this participatory camera network, a significant amount of pictures may be redundant (i.e., similar pictures may be reported by many) or irrelevant (i.e., may not document an event of interest). Given this pool of pictures, we aim to build a protocol to store and deliver a smaller subset of pictures, among all those taken, that minimizes redundancy and eliminates irrelevant objects and outliers. While previous work addressed removal of redundancy alone, doing so in the presence of outliers is tricky, because outliers, by their very nature, are different from other objects, causing redundancy minimizing algorithms to favor their inclusion, which is at odds with the goal of finding a representative subset. To eliminate both outliers and redundancy at the same time, two seemingly opposite objectives must be met together. The contribution of this paper lies in a new prioritization technique (and its in-network implementation) that minimizes redundancy among delivered pictures, while also reducing outliers.unpublishedis peer reviewe

Social Business Potentialities in Bangladesh: An Exploratory Approach

Social business is a process that bridges an important gap between business and benevolence. The present paper highlights the information collected through a survey of 30 potential social businessmen who are involved in different types of business activities of fifteen villages of Cox’sbazar district selected on the basis of purposive sampling. The present study focuses socio-economic characteristics of sample businessmen in study areas. The survey data reveal that the potentiality of social business development in the study areas of sample respondent is of very high degree. Further, the study pin-points a number of challenges such as lack of social and business skills of social businessmen, risks of social business management, inadequate of social data, problems in learning and adopting, lack of designing successful social business model and marketing programs of social business in study areas. The paper concludes with a number of strategies viz. promote events/marketing campaign, social business training program, village based social business, building institutions, support services and the likes in order to promote social business in Bangladesh in general and in study areas in particular. Keywords: social business, social problems, exploration of business

Service Quality Dimensions of Higher Education Institutions and Students’ Satisfaction: Bangladesh Perspective

Higher education institutions (HEI’s), both public and private are increasingly focusing on meeting students’ demand as students’ perception on quality of higher educational services are becoming more important. This paper is mainly attempted to examine the relationship between service quality dimensions (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy) and students’ satisfaction. To conduct the study, a total number of 207 respondents were taken as sample from eight universities including four public universities located in Dhaka and Chittagong. Five point Likert scale type questionnaire was used to collect the data. In this study, some statistical measures such as mean, standard deviation, correlation were used to analyze the linkage. The results found that there is a positive relation between service quality dimensions and students’ satisfaction specifically tangibles and reliability have significant influence on students’ satisfaction. The study also revealed that responsiveness, assurance and empathy have insignificant relation with students’ satisfaction. This paper concludes with limitation and future research direction