130,392 research outputs found
Effects of compost and defatted oilseed meals as sustainable organic fertilisers on cardoon (Cynara cardunculus L.) production in the Mediterranean basin
No full textCardoon (Cynara cardunculus L.) is considered as one of the most suitable energy crops for Southern Europe. The aim of this work was to outline the effects of organic fertilisers on the productivity and the global warming potential (GWP) on cardoon production. Six fertilisers (N 100 kg ha −1 , N 50 kg ha −1 , Compost 30 t ha −1 , Compost 15 t ha −1 + N 25 kg ha −1 , 3 t ha −1 of defatted oilseed meals of sunflower, 3 t ha −1 of defatted oilseed meals of Brassica carinata), and unfertilised control, were evaluated on two cultivars (‘Gobbo di Nizza’ and ‘Altilis 41’) in a split-plot experiment. Defatted oilseed meal of sunflower recorded higher total dry weight (+10%), seed yield (+17%), nitrogen use efficiency (+14%) and better GWP (−66%) compared to the other organic fertilisers and performing as well as N 100 kg ha −1 . Altilis 41 cultivar showed the highest aboveground total dry weight (10 t ha −1 y −1 ), seed yield (1.7 t ha −1 y −1 ), stalk dry weight (7 t ha −1 y −1 ) and head dry weight (3 t ha −1 y −1 ). Our results highlighted that by combining suitable cultivar and fertilisation strategies, it could be possible to increase the production sustainability of C. cardunculus
Analysis of Rope Joints for Ropeway Plant
No full textIn this paper, ropes joints used for ropeway plants, they have been studied. The ropes used in the ropeway plant are submitted to requirements that concern every aspect of the design criteria. By mean this study, it has been possible to obtain a method that allows to compute the bending maximum stress for joints muffs used in ropeway plants. In fact examining the lines considered, we have to evaluate four differential equations, and they have been integrated by mean the constants variation method. Integration constants have been evaluated determining for each transition section, the lines deflections and the lines rotations. In this way, it has been possible to evaluate the formula obtained for this case examined. This formula is furthermore very interesting because, its form is similar to that determined by Isaachsen for these cases, and then it is possible to perform an easy comparison between the two considered formulas. Further using the program code FEMLAB we have verified the stress condition for the considered rop
Enhancing sustainability of tomato, pepper and melon nursery production systems by using compost tea spray applications
No full textCompost teas (CTs) are liquid organic formulates obtained by prolonged extraction, with or without aeration, of a quality compost into an aqueous medium. They can significantly improve plant growth and development likely through nutritive and/or biostimulant mechanisms. In nursery production chain of tomato, pepper and melon, the use of seven CTs was evaluated in order to substitute, totally or partially, chemical treatments with propamocarb-hydrochloride (47.3%) and fosetyl-Al (27.7%), a fungicide for the pathogenic oomycetes control. In general, CTs increased plant growth parameters, as suggested by measurements of root length (+9.1% and +8.1%, on average, on tomato and pepper, respectively), stem diameter (+12% on average, on tomato), number of leaves (+2.6% on average, on melon), and fresh biomass (+8.2% on average, on melon) in comparison with the chemical control. CT from artichoke and fennel composted residues have had the major impact on nursery performances of tomato, pepper and melon. After the first treatment of the polystyrene trays with the fungicide at sowing, our results indicated that CT may replace it in the following seedling production cycle, securing vegetative characteristics of nursery plants similar to the chemical control, that may incite fast starting of transplants in the field stage
Generalized cauchy process: Difference iterative forecasting model
No full textThe contribution of this article is mainly to develop a new stochastic sequence forecasting model, which is also called the difference iterative forecasting model based on the Generalized Cauchy (GC) process. The GC process is a Long-Range Dependent (LRD) process described by two independent parameters: Hurst parameter H and fractal dimension D. Compared with the fractional Brownian motion (fBm) with a linear relationship between H and D, the GC process can more flexibly describe various LRD processes. Before building the forecasting model, this article demonstrates the GC process using H and D to describe the LRD and fractal properties of stochastic sequences, respectively. The GC process is taken as the diffusion term to establish a differential iterative forecasting model, where the incremental distribution of the GC process is obtained by statistics. The parameters of the forecasting model are estimated by the box dimension, the rescaled range, and the maximum likelihood methods. Finally, a real wind speed data set is used to verify the performance of the GC difference iterative forecasting model
Soil amendment with seed meals: Short term effects on soil respiration and biochemical properties
No full textIn the last decades, worldwide biofuel production increased up to 105 billion liters in 2010; in this year, the world’s first biodiesel producer was the European Union. Biodiesel is produced from a variety of oils, mainly soybean, Brassicaceae and sunflower. One of the most important biodiesel production byproducts are seed meals. The most common use of seed meals is for animal nutrition, but another potential use is agricultural soil organic amendments. Soil biological and biochemical properties have been widely used as soil quality indicators, due to their quick response to changes in soil management. Although there are many studies on the effects of regular amendments on respiration and enzymatic activities of the soil, very few papers refer to the effect of seed meals. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the short-term effect of seed meal amendment on soil respiration and enzymatic activities (alkaline phosphatase, dehydrogenase, fluorescein diacetate hydrolase, arylsulphatase and -glucosidase). The
two seed meals used were obtained from Brassica carinata (A.) Braun (Ethiopian mustard) and sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.). The study was carried out, from June 2007 to October 2007, at an experimental farm of CRA-ORT, Battipaglia, in the Sele River (Plain Salerno, Campania Region, Italy). The results of this study support an alternative use of seed meals as organic amendments. Generally, a significant positive response of enzymatic activities, evaluated in this study, to the addition of seed meals, indicates a beneficial effect on soil quality as regards microbial activity
Control of Botrytis cinerea, Alternaria alternata and Pyrenochaeta lycopersici on tomato with whey compost-tea applications
No full textCompost teas are fermented extracts of composted materials that are used to control plant diseases. A compost extractor in liquid phase, with forced air blowing system and assembled using farmer facilities, was used to produce “on farm” aerated compost teas (CTs) from five types of compost, in a 14-day fermentation cycle. Solid feed stocks, including one biowaste compost and four composted tomato residues, were extracted in water (waCTs) and whey (whCTs), separately. The ten teas showed high biological control ability, both in vitro and in vivo, against three tomato pathogens: Alternaria alternata, Botrytis cinerea and Pyrenochaeta lycopersici. In in vitro trials, the suppressive ability of raw CTs was lost with sterilization, suggesting an antibiotic-like antagonism effect due to active microorganisms in suspension. Direct application of teas on tomato plants significantly reduced disease symptoms caused by tested pathogens. In vivo suppressiveness was more significant using the liquid phase fermentation (whey or water) than the compost. Whey could be considered a viable extractant for suppressive compost-tea production, although further dilution in dechlorinated water at a ratio of at least 1:5 proved a necessary method to avoid occurrence of root or foliar phytotoxicity, probably due to high salt concentrations and sub-acid pH of the relative teas
A Decision Support System for primary care
No full textManagement of the Emergency Department of a Hospital is basically due to the significant number of patients
accessing the Department even in an ordinary day. Acceptance or dismissal have to be quickly decided, and any slow
or wrong decision reflects on the Department organization with a domino effect. The paper proposes a Decision
Support System based on Fuzzy logic that may greatly help the physicians in assuming the right decision on the
patient fate
Vibration-based experimental identification of the elastic moduli using plate specimens of the olive tree
No full textAbstract View references (40)
Mechanical parameters of the olive wood plate have been computed by data inversion of vibrational experimental tests. A numerical-experimental method has allowed the evaluation of the two transverse shear moduli and the four in-plane moduli of a thick orthotropic olive tree plate. Therefore, the natural flexural vibration frequencies of olive trees plates have been evaluated by the impulse technique. For our purposes, we define the objective function as the difference between the numerical computation data and the experimental ones. The Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm was chosen as optimization strategy in order to minimize the matching error: the evaluation of the objective function has required a complete finite element simulation by using the ANSYS code. As input, we have used the uniaxial test data results obtained from the olive plates. The converged elastic moduli with n = 10 natural modes were E1 = 14.8 GPa, E2 = 1.04 GPa, G12 = 4.45 GPa, G23 = 4.02 GPa, G13 = 4.75 GPa, ν12 = 0.42, and ν13 = 0.42. The relative root mean square (RMS) errors between the experimental frequencies and the computed one is 9.40%. Then, it has been possible to obtain a good agreement between the measured and calculated frequencies. Therefore, it has been found that for plates of moderate thickness the reliability of the estimated values of the transverse shear moduli is good
Suppressive effect of aerated compost teas produced in water and in whey on plant fungal pathogen
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