Search results for: Plant Extract.

Authors: Christian Endisch, Christoph Hackl, Dierk Schröder

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This paper presents an exact pruning algorithm with adaptive pruning interval for general dynamic neural networks (GDNN). GDNNs are artificial neural networks with internal dynamics. All layers have feedback connections with time delays to the same and to all other layers. The structure of the plant is unknown, so the identification process is started with a larger network architecture than necessary. During parameter optimization with the Levenberg- Marquardt (LM) algorithm irrelevant weights of the dynamic neural network are deleted in order to find a model for the plant as simple as possible. The weights to be pruned are found by direct evaluation of the training data within a sliding time window. The influence of pruning on the identification system depends on the network architecture at pruning time and the selected weight to be deleted. As the architecture of the model is changed drastically during the identification and pruning process, it is suggested to adapt the pruning interval online. Two system identification examples show the architecture selection ability of the proposed pruning approach.

Keywords: System identification, dynamic neural network, recurrentneural network, GDNN, optimization, Levenberg Marquardt, realtime recurrent learning, network pruning, quasi-online learning.

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Authors: L.C. Ram, R.E. Masto, Smriti Singh, R.C. Tripathi, S.K. Jha, N.K. Srivastava, A.K. Sinha, V.A. Selvi, A. Sinha

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Coal will continue to be the predominant source of global energy for coming several decades. The huge generation of fly ash (FA) from combustion of coal in thermal power plants (TPPs) is apprehended to pose the concerns of its disposal and utilization. FA application based on its typical characteristics as soil ameliorant for agriculture and forestry is the potential area, and hence the global attempt. The inferences drawn suffer from the variations of ash characteristics, soil types, and agro-climatic conditions; thereby correlating the effects of ash between various plant species and soil types is difficult. Indian FAs have low bulk density, high water holding capacity and porosity, rich silt-sized particles, alkaline nature, negligible solubility, and reasonable plant nutrients. Findings of the demonstrations trials for more than two decades from lab/pot to field scale long-term experiments are developed as FA soil amendment technology (FASAT) by Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research (CIMFR), Dhanbad. Performance of different crops and plant species in cultivable and problematic soils, are encouraging, eco-friendly, and being adopted by the farmers. FA application includes ash alone and in combination with inorganic/organic amendments; combination treatments including bio-solids perform better than FA alone. Optimum dose being up to 100 t/ha for cultivable land and up to/ or above 200 t/ha of FA for waste/degraded land/mine refuse, depending on the characteristics of ash and soil. The elemental toxicity in Indian FA is usually not of much concern owing to alkaline ashes, oxide forms of elements, and elemental concentration within the threshold limits for soil application. Combating toxicity, if any, is possible through combination treatments with organic materials and phytoremediation. Government initiatives through extension programme involving farmers and ash generating organizations need to be accelerated

Keywords: Fly ash, soil quality, CIMFR, FASAT, agriculture, forestry, toxicity, remediation

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Authors: Zoi Konsoula

Abstract:

Antioxidant-rich extracts were prepared from pomegranate peels, seeds and juice using methanol and ethanol and their antioxidant activity was evaluated by the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazine (DPPH) radical scavenging and Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) method. Both analytical methods indicated a higher antioxidant activity in extracts prepared from peels, which was comparable to that of butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT). Furthermore, the antioxidant activity was correlated to the phenolic and flavonoid content of the various extracts. The antioxidant effectiveness of the extracts was also assessed using corn oil as the oxidation substrate. More specifically, preheated corn oil samples stabilized with extracts at a concentration of 250 ppm, 500 ppm or 1,000 ppm were subjected to accelerated aging (100 oC, 10 days) and the extent of oxidative alteration was followed by the measurement of the peroxide, conjugated dienes and trienes, as well as p-aniside value. BHT at its legal limit (200 ppm) served as standard besides the control sample. Results from the different parameters were in agreement with each other suggesting that pomegranate extracts can stabilize corn oil effectively under accelerated conditions, at all concentrations tested. However, the magnitude of oil stabilization depended strongly on the amount of extract added and this was positively correlated with their phenolic content. Pomegranate peel extracts, which exhibited the highest not only phenolic and flavonoid content but also antioxidant activity, were more potent in inhibiting oxidative deterioration. Both methanolic and ethanolic peel extracts at a concentration of 500 ppm exerted a stabilizing effect comparable to that of BHT, while at a concentration of 1000 ppm they exhibited higher stabilization efficiency in comparison to BHT. Finally, heating oil samples resulted in a time dependent decrease in their antioxidant capacity. Samples containing peel extracts appeared to retain their antioxidant capacity for a longer period, indicating that these extracts contained active compounds that offered superior antioxidant protection to corn oil.

Keywords: Antioxidant activity, corn oil, oxidative deterioration, pomegranate.

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Authors: Amlan Kumar Das, Avinash Marwal, Vikram Pareek

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Liposome plays an important role in medical and pharmaceutical science as e.g. nano scale drug carriers. Liposomes are vesicles of varying size consisting of a spherical lipid bilayer and an aqueous inner compartment. Magnet-driven liposome used for the targeted delivery of drugs to organs and tissues. These liposome preparations contain encapsulated drug components and finely dispersed magnetic particles. Liposomes are vesicles of varying size consisting of a spherical lipid bilayer and an aqueous inner compartment that are generated in vitro. These are useful in terms of biocompatibility, biodegradability, and low toxicity, and can control biodistribution by changing the size, lipid composition, and physical characteristics. Furthermore, liposomes can entrap both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs and are able to continuously release the entrapped substrate, thus being useful drug carriers. Magnetic liposomes (MLs) are phospholipid vesicles that encapsulate magneticor paramagnetic nanoparticles. They are applied as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The biological synthesis of nanoparticles using plant extracts plays an important role in the field of nanotechnology. Green-synthesized magnetite nanoparticles-protein hybrid has been produced by treating Iron (III) / Iron (II) chloride with the leaf extract of Datura inoxia. The phytochemicals present in the leaf extracts act as a reducing as well stabilizing agents preventing agglomeration, which include flavonoids, phenolic compounds, cardiac glycosides, proteins and sugars. The magnetite nanoparticles-protein hybrid has been trapped inside the aqueous core of the liposome prepared by reversed phase evaporation (REV) method using oleic and linoleic acid which has been shown to be driven under magnetic field confirming the formation magnetic liposome (ML). Chemical characterization of stealth magnetic liposome has been performed by breaking the liposome and release of magnetic nanoparticles. The presence iron has been confirmed by colour complex formation with KSCN and UV-Vis study using spectrophotometer Cary 60, Agilent. This magnet driven liposome using nanoparticles-protein hybrid can be a smart vesicles for the targeted drug delivery.

Keywords: Nanoparticles-Protein Hybrid, Magnetic Liposome.

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Authors: Shao-lun Zeng, Yu-long Ren

Abstract:

Benchmarking cleaner production performance is an effective way of pollution control and emission reduction in coal-fired power industry. A benchmarking method using two-stage super-efficiency data envelopment analysis for coal-fired power plants is proposed – firstly, to improve the cleaner production performance of DEA-inefficient or weakly DEA-efficient plants, then to select the benchmark from performance-improved power plants. An empirical study is carried out with the survey data of 24 coal-fired power plants. The result shows that in the first stage the performance of 16 plants is DEA-efficient and that of 8 plants is relatively inefficient. The target values for improving DEA-inefficient plants are acquired by projection analysis. The efficient performance of 24 power plants and the benchmarking plant is achieved in the second stage. The two-stage benchmarking method is practical to select the optimal benchmark in the cleaner production of coal-fired power industry and will continuously improve plants- cleaner production performance.

Keywords: benchmarking, cleaner production performance, coal-fired power plant, super-efficiency data envelopment analysis

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Authors: Gizelle K. Vianna, Gabriel V. Cunha, Gustavo S. Oliveira

Abstract:

Foliage diseases in plants can cause a reduction in both quality and quantity of agricultural production. Intelligent detection of plant diseases is an essential research topic as it may help monitoring large fields of crops by automatically detecting the symptoms of foliage diseases. This work investigates ways to recognize the late blight disease from the analysis of tomato digital images, collected directly from the field. A pair of multilayer perceptron neural network analyzes the digital images, using data from both RGB and HSL color models, and classifies each image pixel. One neural network is responsible for the identification of healthy regions of the tomato leaf, while the other identifies the injured regions. The outputs of both networks are combined to generate the final classification of each pixel from the image and the pixel classes are used to repaint the original tomato images by using a color representation that highlights the injuries on the plant. The new images will have only green, red or black pixels, if they came from healthy or injured portions of the leaf, or from the background of the image, respectively. The system presented an accuracy of 97% in detection and estimation of the level of damage on the tomato leaves caused by late blight.

Keywords: Artificial neural networks, digital image processing, pattern recognition.

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Authors: Christine O. Wangia, Jennifer A. Orwa, Francis W. Muregi, Patrick G. Kareru, Kipyegon Cheruiyot, Eric Guantai

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Ruellia (syn. Dipteracanthus) species are wild perennial creepers belonging to the Acanthaceae family. These species are reported to possess anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antioxidant, gastroprotective, anticancer, and immuno-stimulant properties. Phytochemical screening of both aqueous and methanolic extracts of Ruellia species revealed the presence of saponins. Saponins have been reported to possess anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, immuno-stimulant, antihepatotoxic, antibacterial, anticarcinogenic, and antiulcerogenic activities. The objective of this study was to quantify and analyze the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra of saponins in crude extracts of three Kenyan Ruellia species namely Ruellia prostrata (RPM), Ruellia lineari-bracteolata (RLB) and Ruellia bignoniiflora (RBK). Sequential organic extraction of the ground whole plant material was done using petroleum ether (PE), chloroform, ethyl acetate (EtOAc), and absolute methanol by cold maceration, while aqueous extraction was by hot maceration. The plant powders and extracts were mixed with spectroscopic grade KBr and compressed into a pellet. The infrared spectra were recorded using a Shimadzu FTIR spectrophotometer of 8000 series in the range of 3500 cm^-1 - 500 cm^-1. Quantitative determination of the saponins was done using standard procedures. Quantitative analysis of saponins showed that RPM had the highest quantity of crude saponins (2.05% ± 0.03), followed by RLB (1.4% ± 0.15) and RBK (1.25% ± 0.11), respectively. FTIR spectra revealed the spectral peaks characteristic for saponins in RPM, RLB, and RBK plant powders, aqueous and methanol extracts; O-H absorption (3265 - 3393 cm^-1), C-H absorption ranging from 2851 to 2924 cm^-1, C=C absorbance (1628 - 1655 cm^-1), oligosaccharide linkage (C-O-C) absorption due to sapogenins (1036 - 1042 cm^-1). The crude saponins from RPM, RLB and RBK showed similar peaks to their respective extracts. The presence of the saponins in extracts of RPM, RLB and RBK may be responsible for some of the biological activities reported in the Ruellia species.1

Keywords: Ruellia bignoniiflora, Ruellia lineari-bracteolata, Ruellia prostrata, Saponins.

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Authors: A. Behbahaninia, S. A. Mirbagheri, A. H. Javid

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Heavy metal transfer in soil profiles is a major environmental concern because even slow transport through the soil may eventually lead to deterioration of groundwater quality. The use of sewage sludge and effluents from wastewater treatment plants for irrigation of agricultural lands is on the rise particularly in peri-urban area of developing countries. In this study soil samples under sludge application and wastewater irrigation were studied and soil samples were collected in the soil profiles from the surface to 100 cm in depth. For this purpose, three plots were made in a treatment plant in south of Tehran-Iran. First plot was irrigated just with effluent from wastewater treatment plant, second plot with simulated heavy metals concentration equal 50 years irrigation and in third plot sewage sludge and effluent was used. Trace metals concentration (Cd, Cu) were determined for soil samples. The results indicate movement of metals was observed, but the most concentration of metals was found in topsoil samples. The most of Cadmium concentration was measured in the topsoil of plot 3, 4.5mg/kg and Maximum cadmium movement was observed in 0-20 cm. The most concentration of copper was 27.76mg/kg, and maximum percolation in 0-20 cm. Metals (Cd, Cu) were measured in leached water. Preferential flow and metal complexation with soluble organic apparently allow leaching of heavy metals.

Keywords: Heavy metal, sludge, soil, transport.

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Authors: Brajesh Kumar, Luis Cumbal

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An ecofriendly Citrus paradisipeel extract mediated synthesis of TiO₂ nanoparticles is reported under sonication. U.V.-vis, Transmission electron microscopy, Dynamic light scattering, and X-ray analyses are performed to characterize the formation of TiO₂ nanoparticles. It is almost spherical in shape, having a size of 60–140 nm and the XRD peaks at 2θ = 25.363° confirm the characteristic facets for anatase form. The synthesized nanocatalyst is highly active in the decomposition of methyl orange (64 mg/L) in sunlight (~73%) for 2.5h.

Keywords: Ecofriendly, TiO2 nanoparticles, Citrusparadisi, TEM.

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Authors: Takatoshi Ishii, Koji Kimita, Keiichi Muramatsu, Yoshiki Shimomura

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To increase the quality of learning, teacher and learner need mutual effort for realization of educational value. For this purpose, we need to manage the co-creational education among teacher and learners. In this research, we try to find a feature of co-creational education. To be more precise, we analyzed learners’ reports by natural language processing, and extract some features that describe the state of the co-creational education.

Keywords: Co-creational education, e-portfolios, ICT integration, labeled Latent Dirichlet allocation.

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Authors: Duan Huanyun, Xu Rui, Li Jianchang, Yuan Yage, Wang Qiuxia, Nomana Intekhab Hadi

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BioEnergy is an archetypal appropriate technology and alternate source of energy in rural areas of China, and can meet the basic need for cooking fuel in rural areas. The paper introduces with an alternate mean of research that can accelerate the biogas energy production. Tithonia diversifolia or the Tree marigold can be hailed as mesophillic anaerobic digestion to increase the production of more Bioenergy. Tithonia diversifolia is very native to Mexico and Central America, which can be served as ornamental plants- green manure and can prevent soil erosion. Tithonia diversifolia is widely grown and known to Asia, Africa, America and Australia as well. Nowadays, Considering China’s geographical condition it is found that Tithonia diversifolia is widely growing plant in the many tropical and subtropical regions of southern Yunnan- which can have great usage in accelerating and increasing the Bioenergy production technology. The paper discussed aiming at proving possibility that Tithonia diversifolia can be applied in biogas fermentation and its biogas production potential, the research carried experiment on Tithonia diversifolia biogas fermentation under the mesophilic condition (35 Celsius Degree). The result revealed that Tithonia diversifolia can be used as biogas fermentative material, and 6% concentration can get the best biogas production, with the TS biogas production rate 656mL/g and VS biogas production rate 801mL/g. It is well addressed that Tithonia diversifolia grows wildly in 53 Counties and 9 cities of Yunnan Province, which mainly grows in form of the road side plants, the edge of the field, countryside, forest edge, open space; of which demersum-natures can form dense monospecific beds -causing serious harm to agricultural production landforms threatening the ecological system as a potentially harmful exotic plant. There are also found the three types of invasive daisy alien plants -Eupatorium adenophorum, Eupatorium Odorata and Tithonia diversifolia in Yunnan Province of China-among them the Tithonia diversifolia is responsible for causing serious harm to agricultural production. In this paper we have designed the experimental explanation of Biogas energy production that requires anaerobic environment and some microbes; Tithonia diversifolia plant has been taken into consideration while carrying experiments and with successful resulting of generating more BioEnergy emphasizing on the practical applications of Tithonia diversifolia. This paper aims at- to find a new mechanism to provide a more scientific basis for the development of this plant herbicides in Biogas energy and to improve the utilization throughout the world as well.

Keywords: Biogas Energy Production, Tithonia diversifolia, Energy Development, Ecological Agriculture, Eupatorium adenophorum, Eupatorium odorata, Anaerobic Fermentation, Biogas Production Potential, Mesopilic Fermentation.

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Authors: Mohammad Reza Farzami Pour

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Determination of genetic variation is useful for plant breeding and hence production of more efficient plant species under different conditions, like drought stress. In this study a sample of 28 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) of wheat developed from the cross of Norstar and Zagross varieties, together with their parents, were evaluated for two years (2010-2012) under normal and water stress conditions using split plot design with three replications. Main plots included two irrigation treatments of 70 and 140 mm evaporation from Class A pan and sub-plots consisted of 30 genotypes. The effect of genotypes and interaction of genotypes with years and water regimes were significant for all characters. Significant genotypic effect implies the existence of genetic variation among the lines under study. Heritability estimates were high for 1000 grain weight (0.87). Biomass and grain yield showed the lowest heritability values (0.42 and 0.50, respectively). Highest genotypic and phenotypic coefficients of variation (GCV and PCV) belonged to harvest index. Moderate genetic advance for most of the traits suggested the feasibility of selection among the RILs under investigation. Some RILs were higher yielding than either parent at both environments.

Keywords: Wheat, genetic gain, heritability, recombinant inbred lines.

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Authors: N. Cetinkaya, F. Erdem

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Juncus acutus (Juncaceae) is a perennial wetland plant and it is commonly known as spiny rush or sharp rush. It is the most abundant plant in Kizilirmak grassland, Samsun, Turkey. Heavy metals are significant environmental contaminants in delta and their toxicity is an increasing problem for animals whose natural habitat is delta. The objective of this study was to evaluate heavy metal concentrations mainly As, Cd, Sb, Ba, Pb and Hg in stem and seed of Juncus acutus for grazing animals and birds in delta. The Juncus acutus stem and seed samples were collected from Kizilirmak Delta in July, August and September. Heavy metal concentrations of collected samples were analyzed by Inductively Coupled Plasma – Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS). The obtained mean values of three months for As, Cd, Sb, Ba, Pb and Hg of stem and seed samples of Juncus acutus were 0.11 and 0.23 mg/kg; 0.07 and 0.11 mg/kg; 0.02 and 0.02 mg/kg; 5.26 and 1.75 mg/kg; 0.05 and not detectable in July respectively. Hg was not detected in both stem and seed of Juncus acutus, Pb concentration was determined only in stem of Juncus acutus but not in seed. There were no significant differences between the values of three months for As, Cd, Sb, Ba, Pb and Hg of stem and seed samples of Juncus acutus. The obtained As, Cd, Sb, Ba, Pb and Hg results of stem and seed of Juncus acutus show that seed and stem of Juncus acutus may be safely consumed for grazing animals and birds regarding to heavy metals contamination in Kizilirmak Delta.

Keywords: Heavy metals, Juncus acutus, Kizilirmak Delta, wetland.

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Authors: Suzan M. Shahin, Mohammed A. Salem

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Essential oils are expensive phytochemicals produced and extracted from specific species belonging to particular families in the plant kingdom. In the United Arab Emirates country (UAE), is located in the arid region of the world, nine species, from the Lamiaceae family, having the capability to produce therapeutic grade essential oils. These species include; Mentha spicata, Ocimum forskolei, Salvia macrosiphon, Salvia aegyptiaca, Salvia macilenta, Salvia spinosa, Teucrium polium, Teucrium stocksianum and Zataria multiflora. Although, such potential species are indigenous to the UAE, however, there are almost no studies available to investigate the chemical composition and the quality of the extracted essential oils under the UAE climatological conditions. Therefore, great attention has to be given to such valuable natural resources, through conducting highly supported research projects, tailored to the UAE conditions, and investigating different extraction techniques, including the application of the latest available technologies, such as superficial fluid CO2. This is crucially needed; in order to accomplish the greatest possibilities in the medicinal field, specifically in the discovery of new therapeutic chemotypes, as well as, to achieve the sustainability of this natural resource in the country.

Keywords: Essential oils, extraction techniques, Lamiaceae, traditional medicine, United Arab Emirates (UAE).

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Authors: Ayo Afolabi, Rudzani Sigwadi, Ambali Abdulkareem

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All around the world pulp and paper industries are the biggest plant production with the environmental pollution as the biggest challenge facing the pulp manufacturing operations. The concern among these industries is to produce a high volume of papers with the high quality standard and of low cost without affecting the environment. This result obtained from this bleaching study show that the activation of peroxide was an effective method of reducing the total applied charge of chlorine dioxide which is harmful to our environment and also show that softwood and hardwood Kraft pulps responded linearly to the peroxide treatments. During the bleaching process the production plant produce chlorines. Under the trial stages chloride dioxide has been reduced by 3 kg/ton to reduce the brightness from 65% ISO to 60% ISO of pulp and the dosing point returned to the E stage charges by pre-treating Kraft pulps with hydrogen peroxide. The pulp and paper industry has developed elemental chlorine free (ECF) and totally chlorine free (TCF) bleaching, in their quest for being environmental friendly, they have been looking at ways to turn their ECF process into a TCF process while still being competitive. This prompted the research to investigate the capability of the hydrogen peroxide as catalyst to reduce chloride dioxide.

Keywords: bleaching, chloride dioxide, elemental chlorine free (ECF), hydrogen peroxide, totally chlorine free (TCF).

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Authors: Simin Asadollahi, Mohammad Hossein Haddad Khodaparast

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Molasses is one of the most important by-products in sugar industry, which contains a large amount of sucrose. The routine way to separate the sucrose from molasses is using steffen method. Whereas this method is very usual in sugar factories, the aim of this research is optimization of this method. Mentioned optimization depends to three factors of reactor alkality, reactor temperature and diluted molasses brix. Accordingly, three different stages must be done:

1. Construction of a pilot plant similar to actual steffen system in sugar factories
2. Experimenting using the pilot plant
3. Laboratory analysis

These experiences included 27 treatments in three replications. In each replication, brix, polarization and purity characters in Saccharate syrup and hot and cold waste were measured. The results showed that diluted molasses brix, reactor alkality and reactor temperature had many significant effects on Saccharate purity and efficiency of molasses desugarization. This research was performed in "randomize complete design" form & was analyzed with "duncan multiple range test". The significant difference in the level of α = 5% is observed between the treatments. The results indicated that the optimal conditions for molasses desugarization by steffen method are: diluted molasses brix= 10, reactor alkality= 10 and reactor temperature=8˚C. 

Keywords: Molasses desugarization, Saccharate purity, Steffen process.

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Authors: Violina R. Angelova, Radka V. Ivanova, Givko M. Todorov, Krasimir I. Ivanov

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A field study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of Salvia sclarea L. for phytoremediation of contaminated soils. The experiment was performed on an agricultural fields contaminated by the Non-Ferrous-Metal Works near Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The content of heavy metals in different parts of Salvia sclarea L. (roots, stems, leaves and inflorescences) was determined by ICP. The essential oil of the Salvia sclarea L. was obtained by steam distillation in laboratory conditions and was analyzed for heavy metals and its chemical composition was determined. Salvia sclarea L. is a plant which is tolerant to heavy metals and can be grown on contaminated soils. Based on the obtained results and using the most common criteria, Salvia sclarea L. can be classified as Pb hyperaccumulator and Cd and Zn accumulators, therefore, this plant has suitable potential for the phytoremediation of heavy metal contaminated soils. Favorable is also the fact that heavy metals do not influence the development of the Salvia sclarea L., as well as on the quality and quantity of the essential oil. For clary sage oil obtained from the processing of clary sage grown on highly contaminated soils, its key odour-determining ingredients meet the quality requirements of the European Pharmacopoeia and BS ISO 7609 regarding Bulgarian clary sage oil and/or have values that are close to the limits of these standards. The possibility of further industrial processing will make Salvia sclarea L. an economically interesting crop for farmers of phytoextraction technology.

Keywords: Clary sage, heavy metals, phytoremediation, polluted soils.

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Authors: Nilima Gajbhiye

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Acid rain occurs when sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (Nox) gases react in the atmosphere with water, oxygen, and other chemicals to form various acidic compounds. The result is a mild solution of sulfuric acid and nitric acid. Soil has a greater buffering capacity than aquatic systems. However excessive amount of acids introduced by acid rains may disturb the entire soil chemistry. Acidity and harmful action of toxic elements damage vegetation while susceptible microbial species are eliminated. In present study, the effects of simulated sulphuric acid and nitric acid rains were investigated on crop Glycine max. The effect of acid rain on change in soil fertility was detected in which pH of control sample was 6.5 and pH of 1%H2SO4 and 1%HNO3 were 3.5. Nitrogen nitrate in soil was high in 1% HNO3 treated soil & Control sample. Ammonium nitrogen in soil was low in 1% HNO3 & H2SO4 treated soil. Ammonium nitrogen was medium in control and other samples. The effect of acid rain on seed germination on 3rd day of germination control sample growth was 7 cm, 0.1% HNO3 was 8cm, and 0.001% HNO3 & 0.001% H2SO4 was 6cm each. On 10th day fungal growth was observed in 1% and 0.1%H2SO4 concentrations, when all plants were dead. The effect of acid rain on crop productivity was investigated on 3rd day roots were developed in plants. On12th day Glycine max showed more growth in 0.1% HNO3, 0.001% HNO3 and 0.001% H2SO4 treated plants growth were same as compare to control plants. On 20th day development of discoloration of plant pigments were observed on acid treated plants leaves. On 38th day, 0.1, 0.001% HNO3 and 0.1, 0.001% H2SO4 treated plants and control plants were showing flower growth. On 42th day, acid treated Glycine max variety and control plants were showed seeds on plants. In Glycine max variety 0.1, 0.001% H2SO4, 0.1, 0.001% HNO3 treated plants were dead on 46th day and fungal growth was observed. The toxicological study was carried out on Glycine max plants exposed to 1% HNO3 cells were damaged more than 1% H2SO4. Leaf sections exposed to 0.001% HNO3 & H2SO4 showed less damaged of cells and pigmentation observed in entire slide when compare with control plant. The soil analysis was done to find microorganisms in HNO3 & H2SO4 treated Glycine max and control plants. No microorganism growth was observed in 1% HNO3 & H2SO4 but control plant showed microbial growth.

Keywords: Acid rain, Glycine max, HNO3 & H2SO4, Pigmentation.

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Authors: Dalia. G. Aseel

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Begomoviruses are economically important plant viruses that infect dicotyledonous plants and exclusively transmitted by the whitefly Bemisia tabaci. Here, replicative form was isolated from Okra, Cotton, Tomato plants and whitefly infected with Begomoviruses. Using coat protein specific primers (AV1), the viral infection was verified with amplicon at 450 bp. The sequence of OLCuV-AV1 gene was recorded and received an accession number (FJ441605) from Genebank. The phylogenetic tree of OLCuV was closely related to Okra leaf curl virus previously isolated from Cameroon and USA with nucleotide sequence identity of 92%. The protein purification was carried out using His-Tag methodology by using Affinity Chromatography. The purified protein was separated on SDS-PAGE analysis and an enriched expected size of band at 30 kDa was observed. Furthermore, RAPD and SDS-PAGE were used to detect genetic variability between different hosts of okra leaf curl virus (OLCuV), cotton leaf curl virus (CLCuV), tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCuV) and the whitefly vector. Finally, the present study would help to understand the relationship between the whitefly and different economical crops in Egypt.

Keywords: Begomovirus, AV1 gene, sequence, cloning, whitefly, okra, cotton, tomato, RAPD, phylogenetic tree and SDS-PAGE.

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Authors: Irina Astrova, Nahum Korda, Ahto Kalja

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Relational databases are often used as a basis for persistent storage of ontologies to facilitate rapid operations such as search and retrieval, and to utilize the benefits of relational databases management systems such as transaction management, security and integrity control. On the other hand, there appear more and more OWL files that contain ontologies. Therefore, this paper proposes to extract ontologies from OWL files and then store them in relational databases. A prerequisite for this storing is transformation of ontologies to relational databases, which is the purpose of this paper.

Keywords: Ontologies, relational databases, SQL, and OWL.

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Authors: Violina R. Angelova, Vanja I. Akova, Stefan V. Krustev, Krasimir I. Ivanov

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A field study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of safflower plant for phytoremediation of contaminated soils. The experiment was performed on an agricultural fields contaminated by the Non-Ferrous-Metal Works near Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Field experiments with randomized complete block design with five treatments (control, compost amendments added at 20 and 40 t/daa, and vermicompost amendments added at 20 and 40 t/daa) were carried out. The quality of safflower seeds and oil (heavy metals and fatty acid composition) were determined. Tested organic amendments significantly influenced the chemical composition of safflower seeds and oil. The compost and vermicompost treatments significantly reduced heavy metals concentration in safflower seeds and oils, but the effect differed among them. Addition of vermicompost and compost leads to an increase in the content of palmitic acid and linoleic acid, and a decrease in the stearic and oleic acids compared with the control. A significant increase in the quantity of saturated acids was observed in the variants with 20 t/daa of compost and 20 t/daa of vermicompost (9.1 and 8.9% relative to the control). Safflower is a plant which is tolerant to heavy metals and can be successfully used in the phytoremediation of heavy metal contaminated soils. The processing of seeds to oil and using the obtained oil for nutritional purposes will greatly reduce the cost of phytoremediation.

Keywords: Heavy metals, organic amendments, phytoremediation, safflower.

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Authors: Hirbod Varasteh, Hamidreza Gohari Darabkhani

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The global warming and its impact on climate change is one of main challenges for current century. Global warming is mainly due to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) is known to be the major contributor to the GHG emission profile. Whilst the energy sector is the primary source for CO₂ emission, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) are believed to be the solution for controlling this emission. Oxyfuel combustion (Oxy-combustion) is one of the major technologies for capturing CO₂ from power plants. For gas turbines, several Oxy-combustion power cycles (Oxyturbine cycles) have been investigated by means of thermodynamic analysis. NetPower cycle is one of the leading oxyturbine power cycles with almost full carbon capture capability from a natural gas fired power plant. In this manuscript, sensitivity analysis of the heat exchanger design in NetPower cycle is completed by means of process modelling. The heat capacity variation and supercritical CO₂ with gaseous admixtures are considered for multi-zone analysis with Aspen Plus software. It is found that the heat exchanger design has a major role to increase the efficiency of NetPower cycle. The pinch-point analysis is done to extract the composite and grand composite curve for the heat exchanger. In this paper, relationship between the cycle efficiency and the minimum approach temperature (∆Tmin) of the heat exchanger has also been evaluated.  Increase in ∆Tmin causes a decrease in the temperature of the recycle flue gases (RFG) and an overall decrease in the required power for the recycled gas compressor. The main challenge in the design of heat exchangers in power plants is a tradeoff between the capital and operational costs. To achieve lower ∆Tmin, larger size of heat exchanger is required. This means a higher capital cost but leading to a better heat recovery and lower operational cost. To achieve this, ∆Tmin is selected from the minimum point in the diagrams of capital and operational costs. This study provides an insight into the NetPower Oxy-combustion cycle’s performance analysis and operational condition based on its heat exchanger design.

Keywords: Carbon capture and storage, oxy-combustion, netpower cycle, oxyturbine power cycles, heat exchanger design, supercritical carbon dioxide, pinch point analysis.

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Authors: Wittaya Deein, Chockpisit Thepsithar, Aree Thongpukdee

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Plant tissue culture is an important in vitro technology applied for agricultural and industrial production. A sterile condition of culture medium is one of the main aspects. The alternative technique for medium sterilization to replace autoclaving was carried out. For sterilization of plant tissue culture medium without autoclaving, ten commercial pure essential oils and 5 disinfectants were tested. Each essential oil or disinfectant was added to a 20-mL Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium before medium was solidified in a 120-mL container, kept for 2 weeks before evaluating sterile conditions. Treated media, supplemented with essential oils or disinfectants, were compared to control medium, autoclaved at 121 degree Celsius for 15 min. Sterile conditions of MS medium were found 100% from betel oil or clove oil (18 mL/20 mL medium), cinnamon oil (36 mL/20 mL medium), lavender oil or holy basil oil (108 mL/20 mL medium), and lemon oil or tea tree oil or turmeric oil (252 mL/20 mL medium), compared to 100% sterile condition from autoclaved medium. For disinfectants, 2% iodine + 2.4% potassium iodide, 2% merbromine solution, 10% povidone-iodine, 6% sodium hypochlorite or 0.1% thimerosal at 36 mL/20 mL medium provided 100% sterile conditions. Furthermore, growth of new shoots from chrysanthemum node explants on treated media (fresh weight, shoot length, root length and number of node) were also reported and discussed in the comparison of those on autoclaved medium.

Keywords: Chrysanthemum, disinfectants, essential oils, MS medium, sterilizing agents, sterilization of medium without autoclaving.

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Authors: M. Kargar, F. Gharbalchi

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In this paper a new method is suggested for distributed data-mining by the probability patterns. These patterns use decision trees and decision graphs. The patterns are cared to be valid, novel, useful, and understandable. Considering a set of functions, the system reaches to a good pattern or better objectives. By using the suggested method we will be able to extract the useful information from massive and multi-relational data bases.

Keywords: Data-mining, Decision tree, Decision graph, Pattern, Relationship.

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Authors: Lubna Eljabu, Mohammad Etemad, Stan Matwin

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The automatic extraction of shipping routes is advantageous for intelligent traffic management systems to identify events and support decision-making in maritime surveillance. At present, there is a high demand for the extraction of maritime traffic networks that resemble the real traffic of vessels accurately, which is valuable for further analytical processing tasks for vessels trajectories (e.g., naval routing and voyage planning, anomaly detection, destination prediction, time of arrival estimation). With the help of big data and processing huge amounts of vessels’ trajectory data, it is possible to learn these shipping routes from the navigation history of past behaviour of other, similar ships that were travelling in a given area. In this paper, we propose a spatial clustering model of vessels’ trajectories (SPTCLUST) to extract spatial representations of sailing routes from historical Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. The whole model consists of three main parts: data preprocessing, path finding, and route extraction, which consists of clustering and representative trajectory extraction. The proposed clustering method provides techniques to overcome the problems of: (i) optimal input parameters selection; (ii) the high complexity of processing a huge volume of multidimensional data; (iii) and the spatial representation of complete representative trajectory detection in the context of trajectory clustering algorithms. The experimental evaluation showed the effectiveness of the proposed model by using a real-world AIS dataset from the Port of Halifax. The results contribute to further understanding of shipping route patterns. This could aid surveillance authorities in stable and sustainable vessel traffic management.

Keywords: Vessel trajectory clustering, trajectory mining, Spatial Clustering, marine intelligent navigation, maritime traffic network extraction, sdailing routes extraction.

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Authors: Deepak K. Semwal, Ruchi B. Semwal, Aijaz Ahmad, Guy P. Kamatou, Alvaro M. Viljoen

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Kigelia africana (Lam.) Benth. (Bignoniaceae) is a reputed traditional remedy for various human ailments such as skin diseases, microbial infections, melanoma, stomach troubles, metabolic disorders, malaria and general pains. In spite of the fruit being widely used for purposes related to its antibacterial and antifungal properties, the chemical constituents associated with the activity have not been fully identified. To elucidate the active principles, we evaluated the antimicrobial activity of fruit extracts and purified fractions against Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis, Moraxella catarrhalis, Escherichia coli, Candida albicans and Candida tropicalis. Shade-dried fruits were powdered and extracted with hydroalcoholic (1:1) mixture by soaking at room temperature for 72 h. The crude extract was further fractionated by column chromatography, with successive elution using hexane, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, acetone and methanol. The dichloromethane and ethyl acetate fractions were combined and subjected to column chromatography to furnish a wax and oil from the eluates of 20% and 40% ethyl acetate in hexane, respectively. The GC-MS and GC×GC-MS results revealed that linoleic acid, linolenic acid, palmitic acid, arachidic acid and stearic acid were the major constituents in both oil and wax. The crude hydroalcoholic extract exhibited the strongest activity with MICs of 0.125-0.5 mg/mL, followed by the ethyl acetate (MICs = 0.125-1.0 mg/mL), dichloromethane (MICs = 0.250-2.0 mg/mL), hexane (MICs = 0.25- 2.0 mg/mL), acetone (MICs = 0.5-2.0 mg/mL) and methanol (MICs = 1.0-2.0 mg/mL), whereas the wax (MICs = 2.0-4.0 mg/mL) and oil (MICs = 4.0-8.0 mg/mL) showed poor activity. The study concludes that synergistic interactions of chemical constituents could be responsible for the antimicrobial activity of K. africana fruits, which needs a more holistic approach to understand the mechanism of its antimicrobial activity.

Keywords: Kigelia Africana, traditional medicine, antimicrobial activity, Candida albicans, palmitic acid, synergistic interaction.

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Authors: B. B. Rana, M. Yokota, Y. Shimizu, Y. Koide, I. Takamure, T. Kawano, M. Murai

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Various genes which control or affect heading time have been found in rice. Out of them, Se1 and E1 loci play important roles in determining heading time by controlling photosensitivity. An isogenic-line pair of late and early lines were developed from progenies of the F₁ from Suweon 258 × 36U. A lateness gene tentatively designated as “Ex” was found to control the difference in heading time between the early and late lines mentioned above. The present study was conducted to examine the effect of Ex on yield and related traits. Indica-type variety Suweon 258 was crossed with 36U, which is an Ur1 (Undulate rachis-1) isogenic line of IR36. In the F₂ population, comparatively early-heading, late-heading and intermediate-heading plants were segregated. Segregation similar to that by the three types of heading was observed in the F₃ and later generations. A late-heading plant and an early-heading plant were selected in the F₈ population from an intermediate-heading F₇ plant, for developing L and E of the isogenic-line pair, respectively. Experiments for L and E were conducted by randomized block design with three replications. Transplanting was conducted on May 3 at a planting distance of 30 cm × 15 cm with two seedlings per hill to an experimental field of the Faculty of Agriculture, Kochi University. Chemical fertilizers containing N, P₂O₅ and K₂O were applied at the nitrogen levels of 4 g/m², 9 g/m² and 18 g/m² in total being denoted by "N4", "N9" and "N18", respectively. Yield, yield components and other traits were measured. Ex delayed 80%-heading by 17 or 18 days in L as compared with E. In total brown rice yield (g/m²), L was 635, 606 and 590, and E was 577, 548 and 501, respectively, at N18, N9 and N4, indicating that Ex increased this trait by 10% to 18%. Ex increased yield-1.5 mm sieve (g/m²) b 9% to 15% at the three fertilizer levels. Ex increased the spikelet number per panicle by 16% to 22%. As a result, the spikelet number per m² was increased by 11% to 18% at the three fertilizer levels. Ex decreased 1000-grain weight (g) by 2 to 4%. L was not significantly different from E in ripened-grain percentage, fertilized-spikelet percentage and percentage of ripened grains to fertilized spikelets. Hence, it is inferred that Ex increased yield by increasing spikelet number per panicle. Hence, Ex could be utilized to develop high yielding varieties for warmer districts.

Keywords: Heading time, lateness gene, photosensitivity, rice, yield, yield components.

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Authors: G. Khatisashvili, M. Gordeziani, G. Adamia, E. Kvesitadze, T. Sadunishvili, G. Kvesitadze

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The ability of agricultural and decorative plants to absorb and detoxify TNT and RDX has been studied. All tested 8 plants, grown hydroponically, were able to absorb these explosives from water solutions: Alfalfa > Soybean > Chickpea> Chikling vetch >Ryegrass > Mung bean> China bean > Maize. Differently from TNT, RDX did not exhibit negative influence on seed germination and plant growth. Moreover, some plants, exposed to RDX containing solution were increased in their biomass by 20%. Study of the fate of absorbed [1-14ðí]-TNT revealed the label distribution in low and high-molecular mass compounds, both in roots and above ground parts of plants, prevailing in the later. Content of 14ðí in lowmolecular compounds in plant roots are much higher than in above ground parts. On the contrary, high-molecular compounds are more intensively labeled in aboveground parts of soybean. Most part (up to 70%) of metabolites of TNT, formed either by enzymatic reduction or oxidation, is found in high molecular insoluble conjugates. Activation of enzymes, responsible for reduction, oxidation and conjugation of TNT, such as nitroreductase, peroxidase, phenoloxidase and glutathione S-transferase has been demonstrated. Among these enzymes, only nitroreductase was shown to be induced in alfalfa, exposed to RDX. The increase in malate dehydrogenase activities in plants, exposed to both explosives, indicates intensification of Tricarboxylic Acid Cycle, that generates reduced equivalents of NAD(P)H, necessary for functioning of the nitroreductase. The hypothetic scheme of TNT metabolism in plants is proposed.

Keywords: Higher plants, TNT, RDX, transformation.

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Authors: Abhimanyu Pati, Krishna Kumar Veluri

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The paper intends to bring out a real life experience encountered during actual implementation of a large scale Tier-1 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system in a multi-location, discrete manufacturing organization in India, involved in manufacturing of auto components and aggregates. The business complexities, prior to the implementation of ERP, include multi-product with hierarchical product structures, geographically distributed multiple plant locations with disparate business practices, lack of inter-plant broadband connectivity, existence of disparate legacy applications for different business functions, and non-standardized codifications of products, machines, employees, and accounts apart from others. On the other hand, the manufacturing environment consisted of processes like Assemble-to-Order (ATO), Make-to-Stock (MTS), and Engineer-to-Order (ETO) with a mix of discrete and process operations. The paper has highlighted various business plan areas and concerns, prior to the implementation, with specific focus on strategic issues and objectives. Subsequently, it has dealt with the complete process of ERP implementation, starting from strategic planning, project planning, resource mobilization, and finally, the program execution. The step-by-step process provides a very good learning opportunity about the implementation methodology. At the end, various organizational challenges and lessons emerged, which will act as guidelines and checklist for organizations to successfully align and implement ERP and achieve their business objectives.

Keywords: ERP, ATO, MTS, ETO, discrete manufacturing, strategic planning.

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Authors: F. Laaouad, M. Bouguerra, A. Hafaifa, A. Iratni

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In this work, we treat the problems related to chemical and petrochemical plants of a certain complex process taking the centrifugal compressor as an example, a system being very complex by its physical structure as well as its behaviour (surge phenomenon). We propose to study the application possibilities of the recent control approaches to the compressor behaviour, and consequently evaluate their contribution in the practical and theoretical fields. Facing the studied industrial process complexity, we choose to make recourse to fuzzy logic for analysis and treatment of its control problem owing to the fact that these techniques constitute the only framework in which the types of imperfect knowledge can jointly be treated (uncertainties, inaccuracies, etc..) offering suitable tools to characterise them. In the particular case of the centrifugal compressor, these imperfections are interpreted by modelling errors, the neglected dynamics, no modelisable dynamics and the parametric variations. The purpose of this paper is to produce a total robust nonlinear controller design method to stabilize the compression process at its optimum steady state by manipulating the gas rate flow. In order to cope with both the parameter uncertainty and the structured non linearity of the plant, the proposed method consists of a linear steady state regulation that ensures robust optimal control and of a nonlinear compensation that achieves the exact input/output linearization.

Keywords: Compressor, Fuzzy logic, Surge control, Bilinearcontroller, Stability analysis, Nonlinear plant.

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