Development of Greenhouse Dryer for Forage Conservation in Temperate Climate

Greenhouse dryer implies drying of crops in covered structure that allows rapid harvesting of solar radiation and modification of agro climatic conditions conducive for proper drying. The environmental factors which affects plant growth includes air temperature, relative humidity, light, carbon dioxide concentration, soil temperature and moisture content of soil. The greenhouse may have heating, cooling and ventilating equipments for control over microclimates. Control over microclimate results in several fold increase in crop photosynthesis, and optimum thermal energy for forage conservation in the form of hay. Chandra et al. (2002) have proposed the design of a naturally ventilated greenhouse. Several other single and multispan greenhouses for use in various regions of India have been developed (N.C.P.A.H., 2001). Tiwari (1984) analyzed winter greenhouse. Effect of various parameters viz. ventilation/ infiltration, relative humidity, movable insulation etc. have been incorporated in the analysis and their effect on the performance of greenhouse was studied. He reported that temperature rise of the plant and room air is increased upto about 3-5 ºC by covering the system with movable insulation. The performance of the greenhouse is improved by concrete north wall. It reduces the heat losses during the night. Tiwari and Dhiman (1986) presented a design and mathematical model for a winter greenhouse at Leh, Jammu and Kashmir in India. In this part of the country, the ambient air temperature, in winter, dips down to –30 ºC and goes upto a maximum of about 25 ºC in summer. Here, greenhouses are possible because solar isolation is available for almost 11 months of the year. Numerical calculations show that a glass wall on the south side and an insulated wall and roof on the north side give good results. Coffin et al. (1988) measured the transmittance of solar radiation into scale models of multispan greenhouses for a complete year, under a wide variety of climatic conditions. Models of conventional greenhouses, which were oriented East-West or North-South, and glazed with clear or diffuse glass, and models of two prototype multispan insulated greenhouses, oriented East-West with the north-facing roof sections insulated were tested. The East-West greenhouse models had higher overall light levels than the North-South ones during the winter months. The insulated greenhouses had moderate reductions in light levels during the winter as compared to the conventional models

Water Movement in Vascular Plants: A Primer

The origin of land plants was one of the most important events in evolutionary history of earth in terms of its broad impact on metazoan life and the biotic environment. Because vascular tissues enabled land plants to meet the challenges of terrestrial life, it is important to understand the mechanistic basis of water transport through these tissues from soil to the canopy of trees, in some cases almost 100 meters high. The answers to these questions involve not only the biology of plant vasculature, but also the physical properties of water that enable such transport. Although early researchers proposed the hypothesis of cohesion-tension of water as the likely mechanism for sap ascent, the exact mechanism of transport continues to be a hotly debated topic in the field of plant physiology. This debate continues to be enriched with several sophisticated studies on plants of various morphologies growing in diverse habitats. Although a wealth of evidence has upheld the cohesion-tension theory as being fundamentally correct, several important details about how plants deal with vascular stress remain unknown. Here, we review the recent literature on this topic with the aim of highlighting how a multi-disciplinary perspective has contributed to our understanding of the cohesion-tension theory of sap ascent in plants.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

STANDARD MANUFACTURING PROCESS OF DVIGUNA BALIJARITA RASASINDURA

Introduction: Preparation of herbo-mineral compounds in Ayurveda revolves around mercury, considered as the prime among all minerals. Sulphur is again an important element used in many disorders and applied substance in different Ayurvedic formulations, considered as the antidote for the harmful mercurials. Kajjali is prepared by grinding mercury and sulphur. The prepared Kajjali used as a raw material for Rasasindura preparation with Kupipakva method. Kupipakva method is developed by ancient Rasaacharya for the preparation of heat treated mercurial. Dviguna gandhak jarita parada is considered more potent compare to Samaguna bali jarita. Objective: To study Kupipakva kalpana with preparation of Dviguna-bali jarita Rasa sindura. Methodology: Whole process is divided and performed as Sodhana of contents (Hingula and gandhaka), Hingulotth parada extraction, Kajjali preparation, preparation of Dviguna balijarita Rasa sindura. Observation: Hingula after Shodhana became soft and lusterless compound and Gandhaka becomes granular and brittle. Hinguloth parada extraction by Kanduka yantra method shown more yield compared to other methods. Kajjali preparation took 96 hours of Mardana of contents with Nischandra property. It took 48 hours for Dviguna Bali Jarita Rasasindura preparation by Kupipakva kalpana method with a yield of 106g. Conclusion: Preparation of Dviguna Balijarita Rasasindura needs more duration of heat treatment in every step of graded heating pattern of Kupipakva kalpana. The heating pattern is proportional to its therapeutic efficacy

The biomechanics of fast prey capture in aquatic bladderworts

Carnivorous plants match their animal prey for speed of movements and hence offer fascinating insights into the evolution of fast movements in plants. Here, we describe the mechanics of prey capture in aquatic bladderworts Utricularia stellaris, which prey on swimming insect larvae or nematodes to supplement their nitrogen intake. The closed Utricularia bladder develops lower-than-ambient internal pressures by pumping out water from the bladder and thus setting up an elastic instability in bladder walls. When the external sensory trigger hairs on their trapdoor are mechanically stimulated by moving prey, the trapdoor opens within 300–700 μs, causing strong inward flows that trap their prey. The opening time of the bladder trapdoor is faster than any recorded motion in carnivorous plants. Thus, Utricularia have evolved a unique biomechanical system to gain an advantage over their animal prey

Modulated structure in the martensite phase of Ni1.8Pt0.2MnGa: a neutron diffraction study

7M orthorhombic modulated structure in the martensite phase of Ni1.8Pt0.2MnGa is reported by powder neutron diffraction study, which indicates that it is likely to exhibit magnetic field induced strain. The change in the unit cell volume is less than 0.5% between the austenite and martensite phases, as expected for a volume conserving martensite transformation. The magnetic structure analysis shows that the magnetic moment in the martensite phase is higher compared to Ni2MnGa, which is in good agreement with magnetization measurement

Viscous fluid cosmology in symmetric teleparallel gravity

In this manuscript, we analyze the viscous fluid cosmological model in the framework of recently proposed $f(Q)$ gravity by assuming three different forms of bulk viscosity coefficients, specifically, $(i)\zeta =\zeta_{0}+\zeta_{1}\left( \frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right) +\zeta_{2}\left( \frac{{\ddot{a}}}{\dot{a}}\right)$, $(ii)\zeta =\zeta_{0}+\zeta_{1}\left( \frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)$, and $(iii)\zeta =\zeta_{0}$ and a linear $f(Q)$ model, particularly, $f(Q)=\alpha Q$ where $\alpha \neq 0$ is free model parameter. We estimate the bulk viscosity coefficients and the model parameter values using the combined H(z)+Pantheon+BAO data set. We study the asymptotic behavior of our cosmological bulk viscous model by utilizing the phase space method. We find that corresponding to all three cases, our model depicts the evolution of the universe from matter dominated decelerated epoch (a past attractor) to a stable de-sitter accelerated epoch ( a future attractor). Further, we study the physical behavior of effective pressure, effective equation of state (EoS), and the statefinder parameters. We find that the pressure component in the presence of bulk viscosity shows negative behavior and the effective EoS parameter predicts the accelerated expansion phase of the universe for all three cases. Moreover, we obtain that the trajectories of our model lie in the quintessence region and it converges to the $\Lambda$CDM fixed point in the far future. Thus we can conclude that our viscous fluid cosmological model can efficiently describe late time accelerated expansion phase of the universe corresponding to all three cases.Comment: Comments are welcom

An Innovative approach towards utilisation of wastes generated from iron & steel industries

The iron and steel industries around the world are responsible for the generation of large amount of waste materials mainly because they process huge quantity of raw materials. Neither the governments nor the society have forced the industries to develop ways and means of managing the waste in a creative way. However, with very little land available for disposal of wastes and also because whatever was a waste material two decades ago can not be considered a waste today due to ever increasing shortage of natural resources including ores, minerals and fuels, the pattern of thinking of scientists and technologists have changed. Newer materials and products are now being developed from wastes generated from different process industries including metallurgical industries. In this paper, the authors aim to present the development of a few products carried out at the National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur from solid waste generated from iron & steel industries including captive power plants. Some of these products are wear resistant ceramic lining materials, refractory aggregate for high alumina cement tastable, ceramicfloor & wall tiles, etc. The theoretical aspects behind development of these products have also been touched upon

Giant pressure sensitivity in piezo/ferro-electric ceramics

We report the fabrication of single-phase polycrystalline Pb0.85Bi0.10(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O-3 (PBiZT) ceramic which shows large polarization, i.e., similar to 40 mu C cm(-2) and piezoelectric coefficients similar to 130 pC N-1 and giant linear change in capacitive reactance and dielectric properties with increasing and decreasing pressure in the range of 1 kHz to 5 MHz. Nearly 70% change in dielectric constant and 56% change in capacitive reactance were obtained in the pressure range of 20-200 MPa, which makes it suitable for applications as a capacitive pressure sensor/gauge. The sensitivity of the device is calculated as 0.66 MPa-1 and 18.2 MPa-1 at 1 MHz and 5 MHz, respectively, which is the highest ever reported value so far for any bulk polycrystalline ceramic. The compressive stress of the device was tested according to the standard test method as a function of linear and volumetric strain, which yields the Young's modulus, Bulk modulus, and Poisson's ratio of the device. These values were further utilized to calculate actual stress in the sample and energy density using ANSYS software, which indicates at least four orders smaller pressure in the sample compared to the applied pressure