Design and development of a vertical plate precision seed metering device with positive seed knockout mechanism

Planting of seeds according to agronomical requirements is one of the most important and critical farm operations for crop cultivation. Placing of seeds at proper location is required to maintain plant to plant spacing in a row. A vertical plate precision seed metering device was designed and developed for field pea. Cells with three different depths of 8.48, 8.85 and 9.22 mm and three shapes of 20o, 30o and 40o left side angles were designed to obtain nine different plates. A seed metering device with different plates was fabricated and mounted on experimental setup. Performance of the metering device was evaluated under laboratory condition at three speeds of 37.04, 44.45 and 51.86 rpm. The results showed occurrence of stuck up seeds in the cells and higher missing hills which may be due to non-release of seeds from the seed metering device. In order to seed release from the metring device, a mechanism for positive seed knockout was designed and was incorporated in the developed metering device of different sizes and shapes of vertical plates. The performance of vertical plate precision seed metering device with positive seed knockout mechanism was also evaluated under laboratory conditions. The results showed that cell of 8.48 mm depth and 40o left side angle on a vertical plate seed metering device with positive seed knockout mechanism performed better with lowest average missing index of 2.67%, 0.5% multiple index and highest uniformity of seed placement of 96.83%. Stuck up of seeds in the cells of the seed metering device was not observed after incorporating positive seed knockout mechanism

Design, synthesis and anticonvulsant activity of some new 5,7-dibromoisatin semicarbazone derivatives

A series of 5,7-dibromoisatin semicarbazones have been synthesized in good yield, involving aryl urea and aryl semicarbazide formation. The structures of the synthesized compounds were confirmed on the basis of their spectral data. All the compounds were evaluated for anticonvulsant and CNS depressant activities. Anticonvulsant activity was determined after intraperitoneal (i.p.) administration to mice by maximal electroshock (MES) induced seizure method and minimal motor impairment was determined by rotarod test. A computational study was carried out for prediction of pharmacokinetic properties and making them potentially promising agents for the treatment of epilepsy. Compounds (Z)-1-(5,7-dibromo-2-oxoindolin-3-ylidene)-4-(4-chlorophenyl)semicarbazide (DH-05), (Z)-1-(5,7-dibromo-2-oxoindolin-3-ylidene)-4-(3-chloro-4-fluorophenyl)semicarbazide (DH-11) and (Z)-1-(5,7-dibromo-1-methyl-2-oxoindolin-3-ylidene)-4-(3-chloro-4-fluorophenyl)semicarbazide (DH-12) exhibited prominent anticonvulsant effect in the series with little or no neurotoxicity and little CNS depressant effect as compared to standard drug

Prediction of Hamstring Autograft sizes for Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction using Preoperative Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Background: The purpose of this study is to determine whether preoperative magnetic resonance image measurements can predict the hamstring tendon autograft diameter during anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Methods: We prospectively evaluated Forty-two patients with anterior cruciate ligament injury who underwent reconstruction using hamstring tendon autograft. Preoperative diameters and cross-sectional areas of the hamstring tendons were estimated using magnetic resonance imaging of the knee. Intraoperative diameters of the hamstring tendon graft were measured using a cylindrical graft sizer. We used Pearson's correlation test to compare the Preoperative and intraoperative graft size measurements. A possible cutoff value for the hamstring graft size was determined using Receiver operating characteristic analysis. Results: The mean age of the patient in the study was 27.5 ± 8.5 years. There were statistically significant correlations between preoperative and intraoperative hamstring tendon graft measurements (P < 0.001). Our study found 13.3 mm² cross-sectional area as the cutoff for predicting 7mm of quadrupled hamstring graft size with both sensitivity and specificity of 85.7 %, respectively. Conclusions: We can conclude that preoperative magnetic resonance imaging measurements can predict the intraoperative graft size. This study can help in preoperatively planning for the graft choice. Keywords: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), Hamstring graft, Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Predictio