Design and Development of a Crop Quality Monitoring and Classification System using IoT and Blockchain

Abstract In this paper, an Internet of Things (IoT) based Crop Monitoring and Classification system is proposed for automated sensing, storing, and monitoring real-time parameters that play an important role in determining a crop’s quality and yield. Sensors are placed in-situ in the field and the warehouse to monitor the crop. The long-Range wide area network (LoRa) module is used for communication between the sensing unit placed at the field, warehouse, and data processing unit. The yield is classified based on qualitative analysis posed by the imperative sensor data. Further, to enable an equitable gateway of resource sharing between the distributor and the farmer, a Blockchain-based transaction is taught to enhance trust and security. This proposed method aims to eliminate intermediaries in the trade, thereby helping farmers get the price for their product details stored in an immutable database, which also displays the farmer’s quality of the crop reaped.</jats:p

Academic Economic Opinion in East Asia

Surveys of economists' opinions have been reported from around the world over the past two decades, but never (as far as we are aware) from a non-Western country. This article presents the results of our survey of academic economists drawn from ten East Asian nations.Respondents gave their views on a number of economic propositions ranging across issues of deregulation, government business enterprises, micro-economic and labour market reform, income distribution, and attitudes to the market.Finally, the article reports the results of multidimensional scaling techniques which were used to compare the attitudes of East Asian academic economists toward the market with those of their international colleagues. Overall, we found that while our colleagues in Asia make some allowances for circumstances unique to fast-growing developing economies, their predilection toward market solutions to economic problems reflects that of their (predominantly) Western training.Economists in the 'Tiger' nations (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea) more closely reflect the views of colleagues in the market-friendly West (especially North America, Australia and Germany) than do economists in the newly emerging ('non-Tiger') nations such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Copyright 1993 The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.

The chromosome-scale genome assembly of cluster bean provides molecular insight into edible gum (galactomannan) biosynthesis family genes

Abstract Cluster bean (Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub 2n = 14, is commonly known as Guar. Apart from being a vegetable crop, it is an abundant source of a natural hetero-polysaccharide called guar gum or galactomannan. Here, we are reporting a chromosome-scale reference genome assembly of a popular cluster bean cultivar RGC-936, by combining sequencing data from Illumina, 10X Genomics, Oxford Nanopore technologies. An initial assembly of 1580 scaffolds with an N50 value of 7.12 Mb was generated and these scaffolds were anchored to a high density SNP linkage map. Finally, a genome assembly of 550.31 Mb (94% of the estimated genome size of ~ 580 Mb (through flow cytometry) with 58 scaffolds was obtained, including 7 super scaffolds with a very high N50 value of 78.27 Mb. Phylogenetic analysis using single copy orthologs among 12 angiosperms showed that cluster bean shared a common ancestor with other legumes 80.6 MYA. No evidence of recent whole genome duplication event in cluster bean was found in our analysis. Further comparative transcriptomics analyses revealed pod-specific up-regulation of genes encoding enzymes involved in galactomannan biosynthesis. The high-quality chromosome-scale cluster bean genome assembly will facilitate understanding of the molecular basis of galactomannan biosynthesis and aid in genomics-assisted improvement of cluster bean

Thermal characterization of chicken feather/PLA biocomposites

In this work, thermal properties of composites from chicken feather fiber (CFF) and polylactic acid (PLA) were investigated. CFF/PLA green composites were manufactured by extrusion and injection molding. Short and long fibers (3 and 20 mm) were used at different contents (2, 5 and 10 mass%). The effects of fiber concentration and fiber length on thermal properties of CFF/PLA composites were studied. Thermal properties of CFF/PLA composites were examined through differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TG) and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). From the experiments, it was found that addition of CFF was effective to improve the thermal properties of PLA. The DSC results showed that heat flow increased with the increase in CFF content on the glass transition, on the crystallization temperature and on melting temperature. The TG results revealed that addition of CFF to PLA had positive effect on the thermal stability. In addition, the results of DMA experiments showed that the tan δ decreased with the increasing CFF content, indicating less damping and more elastic behavior in the composites. The results obtained from this study provide important information on the temperature-dependent properties of CFF/PLA and lead to new product development based on natural resources. © 2017, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary