Morphological identification of weevil and fungal pathogen associated with sweet potato tuber during storage

Sweet potato is a perishable food crop that is prone to weevil and fungal infection. Development of diseases due to fungal infection will lower its quality, reduce marketable price and sometimes the tubers are unable to sell. Crop losses due to diseases not only have bad implication to farmers, but also give threat to global food production and food security. This study was conducted to identify and document the insect and fungal pathogens associated with sweet potato diseases. For this purpose, infected tubers were collected, incubated and isolated before conducting the pathogenicity test. Ninety sweet potato weevils, Cylas formicarius had emerged and caused extensive damaged to the tuber. Following the sweet potato weevil infestation, four fungal isolates were successfully identified as Fusarium oxysporum (one isolate), Penicillium sp. (one isolate) and Aspergillus sp. (two isolates). All these isolates were pathogenic to sweet potato tubers with different level of diseases severity, ranged from 33.33% to 42.59%. Identification of weevil and fungal pathogen associated with sweet potato diseases is important to help in control strategy to avoid epidemic diseases that may cause loss of economic return. Besides that, farmers should applied integrated pest management control for continuous production of good quality sweet potato tuber

Structural crack detection system using internet of things (IoT) for structural health monitoring (SHM): a review

Monitoring the state of civil engineering infrastructure is critical for a country’s economic development since structures with long service life and timely maintenance have lower reconstruction costs. Crack occurrence is the most important element that influences the performance and lifespan of civil infrastructures like bridges and pipelines. As a result, several fracture detection and characterization approaches have been explored and developed in the domains of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) throughout the last few decades. The major goal of implementing the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm is to enable the Internet-based connectivity extension of various typical SHM devices. As a result, connected devices can communicate and process data, opening new possibilities in the design of acquisition systems in various disciplines of research and engineering. The researchers have extended the application of the IoT paradigm to the SHM crack detection because of the advances, ensuring that the tests done in this framework can produce good results with promising future improvements. Thus, this paper reviews structural crack detection based IoT for SHM as reported by previous research in the literature. The strengths and limitations of current systems are discussed. This paper is aimed to serve as a reference for crack detection and characterisation researchers as well as others who are interested in SHM in general. In addition, several case studies on real structures, as well as laboratory experiments for monitoring structural crack health of civil engineering structures, are also presented

Microwave irradiation technique for synthesis of zeolite A

Synthesization of Zeolite A from colloidal silica was performed by means of microwave irradiation technique under different conditions and was compared with hydrothermal technique. The molar composition at 1 Al203: 1.96 SiO2: 3.165 Na2O: 128 H2O. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) were used to characterize zeolite A. XRD results for all samples demonstrated a typical diffraction peak of zeolite A. SEM images show almost no-different in crystal size of zeolite A synthesized by microwave irradiation and hydrothermal technique. Thus, we concluded that crystallization of zeolite A has occurred rapidly by microwave irradiation. Microwave technique is a time and energy saving due to crystallization time and higher heating rate as compared to hydrothermal technique

Replanting of first-cycle oil palm results in a second wave of biodiversity loss

Conversion of forest to oil palm plantations results in a significant loss of biodiversity. Despite this, first‐cycle oil palm plantations can sustain relatively high biodiversity compared to other crops. However, the long‐term effects of oil palm agriculture on flora and fauna are unknown. Oil palm has a 25‐year commercial lifespan before it must be replanted, due to reduced productivity and difficulty of harvesting. Loss of the complex vegetation structure of oil palm plantations during the replanting process will likely have impacts on the ecosystem at a local and landscape scale. However, the effect of replanting on biodiversity is poorly understood.Here, we investigate the effects of replanting oil palm on soil macrofauna communities. We assessed ordinal richness, abundance, and community composition of soil macrofauna in first‐ (25‐ to 27‐year‐old) and second‐cycle oil palm (freshly cleared, 1‐year‐old, 3‐year‐old, and 7‐year‐old mature).Macrofauna abundance and richness drastically declined immediately after replanting. Macrofauna richness showed some recovery 7 years after replanting, but was still 19% lower than first‐cycle oil palm. Macrofauna abundance recovered to similar levels to that of first‐cycle oil palm plantations, 1 year after replanting. This was mainly due to high ant abundance, possibly due to the increased understory vegetation as herbicides are not used at this age. However, there were subsequent declines in macrofauna abundance 3 and 7 years after replanting, resulting in a 59% drop in macrofauna abundance compared to first‐cycle levels. Furthermore, soil macrofauna community composition in all ages of second‐cycle oil palm was different to first‐cycle plantations, with decomposers suffering particular declines.After considerable biodiversity loss due to forest conversion for oil palm, belowground invertebrate communities suffer a second wave of biodiversity loss due to replanting. This is likely to have serious implications for soil invertebrate diversity and agricultural sustainability in oil palm landscapes, due to the vital ecosystem functions that soil macrofauna provide