PLANNING A SAFETY STUDY OF AN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCT: EFFECTS OF LAND APPLICATION OF PHOSPHOGYPSUM ON RADON FLUX

Traditional agricultural research has been concerned largely with demonstrating that new products or new practices increase yield from plants or animals; i.e. that a change has occurred. Concepts of experimental design have been effectively employed in production-agriculture research planning to control extraneous variation and thereby reduce experimental error. Good data analysis practices have been employed to control type 1 error rate and to correctly compute errors of estimation. In recent years, increased emphasis has been placed on food safety and environmental impact of agricultural products. Studies of these issues are concerned with measuring small effects with required precision or establishing upper bounds on the effects. Statistical emphasis is on limiting the margin of error and the type 2 error rates. This paper discusses these concepts in the context of an environmental study of effect of phosphogypsum (PG) on radon flux. An experiment in progress revealed essentially no statistically significant effect of the phosphogypsum. Two statistical questions were then raised: 1) How large of an effect would have been detected in the study? and 2) How should a future study be conducted that would produce measurements of the effect with specified precision? A retrospective power analysis was performed to estimate the minimum detectable effect (MDE) in the existing study in response to question 1. In response to question 2, a new study was designed with required numbers of plots and measurements to meet precision and power objectives, using variance component estimates from existing data

Robust feedback control of nonlinear PDEs by numerical approximation of high-dimensional Hamilton-Jacobi-Isaacs equations

Copyright © by SIAM. We propose an approach for the synthesis of robust and optimal feedback controllers for nonlinear PDEs. Our approach considers the approximation of infinite-dimensional control systems by a pseudospectral collocation method, leading to high-dimensional nonlinear dynamics. For the reducedorder model, we construct a robust feedback control based on the H∞ control method, which requires the solution of an associated high-dimensional Hamilton-Jacobi-Isaacs nonlinear PDE. The dimensionality of the Isaacs PDE is tackled by means of a separable representation of the control system, and a polynomial approximation ansatz for the corresponding value function. Our method proves to be effective for the robust stabilization of nonlinear dynamics up to dimension d ≈ 12. We assess the robustness and optimality features of our design over a class of nonlinear parabolic PDEs, including nonlinear advection and reaction terms. The proposed design yields a feedback controller achieving optimal stabilization and disturbance rejection properties, along with providing a modeling framework for the robust control of PDEs under parametric uncertainties

Anisotropic nanomaterials: structure, growth, assembly, and functions

Comprehensive knowledge over the shape of nanomaterials is a critical factor in designing devices with desired functions. Due to this reason, systematic efforts have been made to synthesize materials of diverse shape in the nanoscale regime. Anisotropic nanomaterials are a class of materials in which their properties are direction-dependent and more than one structural parameter is needed to describe them. Their unique and fine-tuned physical and chemical properties make them ideal candidates for devising new applications. In addition, the assembly of ordered one-dimensional (1D), two-dimensional (2D), and three-dimensional (3D) arrays of anisotropic nanoparticles brings novel properties into the resulting system, which would be entirely different from the properties of individual nanoparticles. This review presents an overview of current research in the area of anisotropic nanomaterials in general and noble metal nanoparticles in particular. We begin with an introduction to the advancements in this area followed by general aspects of the growth of anisotropic nanoparticles. Then we describe several important synthetic protocols for making anisotropic nanomaterials, followed by a summary of their assemblies, and conclude with major applications

Journal of Scientific Computing / Global Stabilization of Two Dimensional Viscous Burgers\u2019 Equation by Nonlinear Neumann Boundary Feedback Control and Its Finite Element Analysis

In this article, global stabilization results for the two dimensional viscous Burgers\u2019 equation, that is, convergence of unsteady solution to its constant steady state solution with any initial data, are established using a nonlinear Neumann boundary feedback control law. Then, applying C0-conforming finite element method in spatial direction, optimal error estimates in L 1e(L2) and in L 1e(H1)-norms for the state variable and convergence result for the boundary feedback control law are derived. All the results preserve exponential stabilization property. Finally, several numerical experiments are conducted to confirm our theoretical findings.Version of recor

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Not AvailableThe use of mobile applications and decision support system for agriculture is important in today’s era. To enrich agriculture various mobile applications have been developed by different research institutes in NARES which are helping the farmers in their cultivation practices. In the present study, a mobile application named “HPDI Ergon” has been developed with intent to mapping of drudgery in physiological and psychological components and biomechanical evaluation of agricultural activities. In this respect the app named “HPDI Ergon” was developed during 2019–20 in computer application at ICAR-ISARI, New Delhi to assesses the drudgery involved in the work and give recommendation to mitigate it. In this app farmers are assessed based on different physiological and postural ergonomics parameters which includes heart rate, energy expenditure rate, total cardiac cost of work, physiological cost of work, human physical drudgery index variable etc. and conclusion is drawn on physiological and drudgery limitations. The app is developed using Android Studio and Java programming language. Individual registered farmers are selected to undergo different ergonomics and drudgery analysis. The data generated by different analysis is stored in the database which is implemented using SQLite database. Based on the results of all the ergonomic analysis and drudgery analysis using HPDI conclusion is drawn regarding whether there is any need of changing or improving the working condition or not. Accordingly, different suggestions and various improved tools are provided to the farmers for reducing their both physiological stress and drudgery in their working environment.Not Availabl