Search results for: soil respiration rate.

Authors: Violina R. Angelova, Mariana N. Perifanova-Nemska, Galina P. Uzunova, Krasimir I. Ivanov, Huu Q. Lee

Abstract:

A field study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) for phytoremediation of contaminated soils. The experiment was performed on an agricultural field contaminated by the Non-Ferrous-Metal Works near Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Field experiments with a randomized, complete block design with five treatments (control, compost amendments added at 20 and 40 t/daa, and vemicompost amendments added at 20 and 40 t/daa) were carried out. The accumulation of heavy metals in the sunflower plant and the quality of the sunflower oil (heavy metals and fatty acid composition) were determined. The tested organic amendments significantly influenced the uptake of Pb, Zn and Cd by the sunflower plant. The incorporation of 40 t/decare of compost and 20 t/decare of vermicompost to the soil led to an increase in the ability of the sunflower to take up and accumulate Cd, Pb and Zn. Sunflower can be subjected to the accumulators of Pb, Zn and Cd and can be successfully used for phytoremediation of contaminated soils with heavy metals. The 40 t/daa compost treatment led to a decrease in heavy metal content in sunflower oil to below the regulated limits. Oil content and fatty acids composition were affected by compost and vermicompost amendment treatments. Adding compost and vermicompost increased the oil content in the seeds. Adding organic amendments increased the content of stearic, palmitoleic and oleic acids, and reduced the content of palmitic and gadoleic acids in sunflower oil. The possibility of further industrial processing of seeds to oil and use of the obtained oil will make sunflowers economically interesting crops for farmers of phytoremediation technology.

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

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Authors: Doo-chul Choi, Yong-Ju Jeon, Jong Pil Yun, Sung Wook Yun, Sang Woo Kim

Abstract:

In this study, we developed an algorithm for detecting seam cracks in a steel plate. Seam cracks are generated in the edge region of a steel plate. We used the Gabor filter and an adaptive double threshold method to detect them. To reduce the number of pseudo defects, features based on the shape of seam cracks were used. To evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm, we tested 989 images with seam cracks and 9470 defect-free images. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is suitable for detecting seam cracks. However, it should be improved to increase the true positive rate.

Keywords: Defect detection, Gabor filter, machine vision, surface inspection.

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Authors: M. Manafi, J. Hesari, H. Peighambardoust, M. Rahimzade Khoyi

Abstract:

Fruit drying is a well known process mostly used for preservation of fruits. Osmotic dehydration of apricot slices were carried out in three different salt-sucrose concentrations and four different temperatures. Also three different weight ratios of solution to sample were conducted to one set of experiments. The dehydration curves were constructed using Peleg-s model. Increasing the solution volume increased the mass transfer rate and hence the solid gain increased rapidly. Increasing the volume of osmotic media caused an increase in overall mass transfer but a 'solution to sample' ratio of 5:1 gave the best product quality. The best temperature and concentration that had a high water loss to solid gain ratio and an acceptable taste were 40°C and 5%, respectively.

Keywords: Apricot, Effective diffusivities, Osmotic dehydration

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Authors: Vishal Awasthi, Krishna Raj

Abstract:

In this paper, firstly, we present the mathematical modeling of finite impulse response (FIR) filter and Cascaded Integrator Comb (CIC) filter for sampling rate reduction and then an extension of Canonical signed digit (CSD) based efficient structure is presented in framework using hybrid signed digit (HSD) arithmetic. CSD representation imposed a restriction that two non-zero CSD coefficient bits cannot acquire adjacent bit positions and therefore, represented structure is not economical in terms of speed, area and power consumption. The HSD based structure gives optimum performance in terms of area and speed with 37.02% passband droop compensation.

Keywords: Multirate filtering, compensation theory, CIC filter, compensation filter, signed digit arithmetic, canonical signed digit.

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Authors: Negar Riazifar, Nigel G. Stocks

Abstract:

This paper proposes strategies in level crossing (LC) sampling and reconstruction that provide alias-free high-fidelity signal reconstruction for speech signals without exponentially increasing sample number with increasing bit-depth. We introduce methods in LC sampling that reduce the sampling rate close to the Nyquist frequency even for large bit-depth. The results indicate that larger variation in the sampling intervals leads to alias-free sampling scheme; this is achieved by either reducing the bit-depth or adding a jitter to the system for high bit-depths. In conjunction with windowing, the signal is reconstructed from the LC samples using an efficient Toeplitz reconstruction algorithm.

Keywords: Alias-free, level crossing sampling, spectrum, trigonometric polynomial.

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Authors: Abdelghani Dendouga, Nour-Eddine Bouguechal, Souhil Kouda, Samir Barra

Abstract:

A behavioral model of a second order switchedcapacitor Sigma-Delta modulator is presented. The purpose of this work is the presentation of a behavioral model of a second order switched capacitor ΣΔ modulator considering (Error due to Clock Jitter, Thermal noise Amplifier Noise, Amplifier Slew-Rate, Non linearity of amplifiers, Gain error, Charge Injection, Clock Feedthrough, and Nonlinear on-resistance). A comparison between the use of MOS switches and the use transmission gate switches use is analyzed.

Keywords: Charge injection, clock feed through, Sigma Deltamodulators, Sigma Delta non-idealities, switched capacitor.

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Authors: Brian H. Marsh

Abstract:

Nitrogen fertilizer is the most used and often the most mismanaged nutrient input. Nitrogen management has tremendous implications on crop productivity, quality and environmental stewardship. Sufficient nitrogen is needed to optimum yield and quality. Soil and in-season plant tissue testing for nitrogen status are a time consuming and expensive process. Real time sensing of plant nitrogen status can be a useful tool in managing nitrogen inputs. The objectives of this project were to assess the reliability of remotely sensed non-destructive plant nitrogen measurements compared to wet chemistry data from sampled plant tissue, develop in-season nitrogen recommendations based on remotely sensed data for improved nitrogen use efficiency and assess the potential for determining yield and quality from remotely sensed data. Very good correlations were observed between early-season remotely sensed crop nitrogen status and plant nitrogen concentrations and subsequent in-season fertilizer recommendations. The transmittance/absorbance type meters gave the most accurate readings. Early in-season fertilizer recommendation would be to apply 40 kg nitrogen per hectare plus 15 kg nitrogen per hectare for each unit difference measured with the SPAD meter between the crop and reference area or 25 kg plus 13 kg per hectare for each unit difference measured with the CCM 200. Once the crop was sufficiently fertilized meter readings became inconclusive and were of no benefit for determining nitrogen status, silage yield and quality and grain yield and protein.

Keywords: Wheat, nitrogen fertilization, chlorophyll meter.

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Authors: Mahmoud Z. Iskandarani, Nidal F. Shilbayeh

Abstract:

The voltage/current characteristics and the effect of NO2 gas on the electrical conductivity of a PbPc gas sensor array is investigated. The gas sensor is manufactured using vacuum deposition of gold electrodes on sapphire substrate with the leadphathalocyanine vacuum sublimed on the top of the gold electrodes. Two versions of the PbPc gas sensor array are investigated. The tested types differ in the gap sizes between the deposited gold electrodes. The sensors are tested at different temperatures to account for conductivity changes as the molecular adsorption/desorption rate is affected by heat. The obtained results found to be encouraging as the sensors shoed stability and sensitivity towards low concentration of applied NO2 gas.

Keywords: Intelligent System, PbPc, Gas Sensor, Hardware, Software, Neural.

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Authors: Nelson K. Lujara

Abstract:

The performance characteristics of a photovoltaic induction motor drive water pumping system with and without maximum power tracker is analyzed and presented. The analysis is done through determination and assessment of critical loss components in the system using computer aided design (CAD) tools for optimal operation of the system. The results can be used to formulate a well-calibrated computer aided design package of photovoltaic water pumping systems based on the induction motor drive. The results allow the design engineer to pre-determine the flow rate and efficiency of the system to suit particular application.

Keywords: Photovoltaic, water pumping, losses, induction motor.

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Authors: Robest Flasza, Milan Rippel, Jan Solc

Abstract:

The main aim of this paper is to develop and calibrate an econometric model for modeling prices of long term electricity futures contracts. The calibration of our model is performed on data from EEX AG allowing us to capture the specific features of German electricity market. The data sample contains several structural breaks which have to be taken into account for modeling. We model the data with an ARIMAX model which reveals high correlation between the price of electricity futures contracts and prices of LT futures contracts of fuels (namely coal, natural gas and crude oil). Besides this, also a share price index of representative electricity companies traded on Xetra, spread between 10Y and 1Y German bonds and exchange rate between EUR and USD appeared to have significant explanatory power over these futures contracts on EEX.

Keywords: electricity futures, EEX, ARIMAX, emissionallowances

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Authors: Nur Ilyani Ramli, Mansour Youseffi, Peter Widdop

Abstract:

This paper presents a low cost design of heart beat monitoring device using reflectance mode PhotoPlethysmography (PPG). PPG is known for its simple construction, ease of use and cost effectiveness and can provide information about the changes in cardiac activity as well as aid in earlier non-invasive diagnostics. The proposed device is divided into three phases. First is the detection of pulses through the fingertip. The signal is then passed to the signal processing unit for the purpose of amplification, filtering and digitizing. Finally the heart rate is calculated and displayed on the computer using parallel port interface. The paper is concluded with prototyping of the device followed by verification procedure of the heartbeat signal obtained in laboratory setting.

Keywords: Reflectance mode PPG, Heart beat detection, Circuitdesign, PCB design

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Authors: H. Aghayan, F. A. Hashemi, R. Yavari, S. Zolghadri

Abstract:

In this work, a new composite adsorbent based on a mesoporous silica SBA-15 with platelet morphology and tin salt of tungstomolybdophosphoric (TWMP) acid was synthesized and applied for uranium adsorption from aqueous solution. The sample was characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transfer infra-red, and N₂ adsorption-desorption analysis, and then, effect of various parameters such as concentration of metal ions and contact time on adsorption behavior was examined. The experimental result showed that the adsorption process was explained by the Langmuir isotherm model very well, and predominant reaction mechanism is physisorption. Kinetic data of adsorption suggest that the adsorption process can be described by the pseudo second-order reaction rate model.

Keywords: Platelet SBA-15, tungstomolybdophosphoric acid, adsorption, uranium ion.

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Authors: Ayşen Edirneligil, Mehmet Mucuk

Abstract:

In developing countries, one of the most important restrictions about the economic growth is the lack of national savings which are supposed to finance the investments. In order to overcome this restriction and achieve the higher rate of economic growth by increasing the level of output, countries choose the external borrowing. However, there is a dispute in the literature over the correlation between external debt and economic growth. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of external debt on Turkish economic growth by using VAR analysis with the quarterly data over the period of 2002:01-2014:04. In this respect, Johansen Cointegration Test, Impulse- Response Function and Variance Decomposition Tests will be used for analyses. Empirical findings show that there is no cointegration in the long run.

Keywords: Economic growth, external debt, time series analysis, Turkish economy.

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Authors: Shi Chen, Zi Y. Chen, Jian K. Dan, Jian F. Li

Abstract:

Evolution of one-dimensional electron system under high-energy-density (HED) conditions is investigated, using the principle of least-action and variational method. In a single-mode modulation model, the amplitude and spatial wavelength of the modulation are chosen to be general coordinates. Equations of motion are derived by considering energy conservation and force balance. Numerical results show that under HED conditions, electron density modulation could exist. Time dependences of amplitude and wavelength are both positively related to the rate of energy input. Besides, initial loading speed has a significant effect on modulation amplitude, while wavelength relies more on loading duration.

Keywords: Electron density modulation, HED, nonlinearevolution, plasmas.

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Authors: Fauquet-Alekhine Philippe

Abstract:

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are increasing in importance everyday, especially since the 90’s (last decade of birth for the Millennials generation). While social interactions involving the Millennials generation have been studied, a lack of investigation remains regarding the use of the ICT by this generation as well as the impact on outcomes in education and professional training. Observing and interviewing students preparing a MSc, we aimed at characterizing the interaction students-ICT during the courses. We found that up to 50% of the students (mainly female) could use ICT during courses at a rate of 0.84 occurrence/minutes for some of them, and they thought this involvement did not disturb learning, even was helpful. As recent researches show that multitasking leads people think they are much better than they actually are, further observations with assessments are needed to conclude whether or not the use ICT by students during the courses is a real strength.

Keywords: Education, ICT, generational effect, training.

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Authors: Eduard Atkin, Alexander Klyuev, Vitaly Shumikhin

Abstract:

An approach and its implementation in 0.18 m CMOS process of the multichannel ASIC for capacitive (up to 30 pF) sensors are described in the paper. The main design aim was to study an analog data-driven architecture. The design was done for an analog derandomizing function of the 128 to 16 structure. That means that the ASIC structure should provide a parallel front-end readout of 128 input analog sensor signals and after the corresponding fast commutation with appropriate arbitration logic their processing by means of 16 output chains, including analog-to-digital conversion. The principal feature of the ASIC is a low power consumption within 2 mW/channel (including a 9-bit 20Ms/s ADC) at a maximum average channel hit rate not less than 150 kHz.

Keywords: Data-driven architecture, derandomizer, multichannel sensor readout

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Authors: Nishi Bhuvandas, P. V. Timbadiya, P. L. Patel, P. D. Porey

Abstract:

Recent perceived climate variability raises concerns with unprecedented hydrological phenomena and extremes. Distribution and circulation of the waters of the Earth become increasingly difficult to determine because of additional uncertainty related to anthropogenic emissions. The world wide observed changes in the large-scale hydrological cycle have been related to an increase in the observed temperature over several decades. Although the effect of change in climate on hydrology provides a general picture of possible hydrological global change, new tools and frameworks for modelling hydrological series with nonstationary characteristics at finer scales, are required for assessing climate change impacts. Of the downscaling techniques, dynamic downscaling is usually based on the use of Regional Climate Models (RCMs), which generate finer resolution output based on atmospheric physics over a region using General Circulation Model (GCM) fields as boundary conditions. However, RCMs are not expected to capture the observed spatial precipitation extremes at a fine cell scale or at a basin scale. Statistical downscaling derives a statistical or empirical relationship between the variables simulated by the GCMs, called predictors, and station-scale hydrologic variables, called predictands. The main focus of the paper is on the need for using statistical downscaling techniques for projection of local hydrometeorological variables under climate change scenarios. The projections can be then served as a means of input source to various hydrologic models to obtain streamflow, evapotranspiration, soil moisture and other hydrological variables of interest.

Keywords: Climate Change, Downscaling, GCM, RCM.

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Authors: Mohammed Saidu, Afiz Busari, Ali Yuzir, Mohd Razman Salim

Abstract:

The problem of degradation of agricultural residues from palm oil industry is increasing due to its expansion. Lignocelloulosic waste from these industry represent large amount of unutilized resources, this is due to their high lignin content. Since white rot fungi are capable of degrading lignin, its potential for the degradation of lignocelloulosic waste from palm oil industry was accessed. The lignocellluloses content was measured before and after biodegradation and the rate of reduction was determined. From the results of the biodegradation, it was observed that hemicellulose reduces by 22.62%, cellulose by 20.97% and lignin by 10.65% from the initials lignocelluloses contents. Thus, to improve the digestibility of palm oil mesocarp fibre, treatment by white rot-fungi is recommended.

Keywords: Biological, lignocelluses, oil palm, white rot fungi.

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Authors: Zs. J. Becze, Á. Krivián, M. Sárvári

Abstract:

Hybrid selection and the application of hybrid specific production technologies are important in terms of the increase of the yield and crop safety of maize. The main explanation for this is climate change, since weather extremes are going on and seem to accelerate in Hungary too.

The biological bases, the selection of appropriate hybrids will be of greater importance in the future. The issue of the adaptability of hybrids will be considerably appreciated. Its good agronomical traits and stress bearing against climatic factors and agrotechnical elements (e.g. different types of herbicides) will be important. There have been examples of 3-4 consecutive droughty years in the past decades, e.g. 1992-1993-1994 or 2009-2011-2012, which made the results of crop production critical. Irrigation cannot be the solution for the problem since currently only the 2% of the arable land is irrigated. Temperatures exceeding the multi-year average are characteristic mainly to the July and August in Hungary, which significantly increase the soil surface evaporation, thus further enhance water shortage. In terms of the yield and crop safety of maize, the weather of these two months is crucial, since the extreme high temperature in July decreases the viability of the pollen and the pistil of maize, decreases the extent of fertilization and makes grain-filling tardy. Consequently, yield and crop safety decrease.

Keywords: Abiotic factors, drought, nutrition content, yield.

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Authors: V. Swarnalatha, A. V. Narasimha Rao, P. Pal

Abstract:

The present research reports the investigation of fast etching of silicon for the fabrication of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) structures using silicon wet bulk micromachining. Low concentration tetramethyl-ammonium hydroxide (TMAH) and hydroxylamine (NH₂OH) are used as main etchant and additive, respectively. The concentration of NH₂OH is varied to optimize the composition to achieve best etching characteristics such as high etch rate, significantly high undercutting at convex corner for the fast release of the microstructures from the substrate, and improved etched surface morphology. These etching characteristics are studied on Si{100} and Si{110} wafers as they are most widely used in the fabrication of MEMS structures as wells diode, transistors and integrated circuits.

Keywords: KOH, MEMS, micromachining, silicon, TMAH, wet anisotropic etching.

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Authors: Kollie B. Dogba, Willis Oluoch-Kosura, Chepchumba Chumo

Abstract:

In Liberia, many of the agricultural households cultivate cassava for either sustenance purposes, or to generate farm income. Many of the concentrated cassava farmers reside in Nimba, a north-eastern County that borders two other economies: the Republics of Cote D’Ivoire and Guinea. With a high demand for cassava output and products in emerging Asian markets coupled with an objective of the Liberia agriculture policies to increase the competitiveness of valued agriculture crops; there is a need to examine the level of resource-use efficiency for many agriculture crops. However, there is a scarcity of information on the efficiency of many agriculture crops, including cassava. Hence the study applying an output-oriented method seeks to assess the economic efficiency of cassava farmers in Nimba County, Liberia. A multi-stage sampling technique was employed to generate a sample for the study. From 216 cassava farmers, data related to on-farm attributes, socio-economic and institutional factors were collected. The stochastic frontier models, using the Translog functional forms, of production and revenue, were used to determine the level of revenue efficiency and its determinants. The result showed that most of the cassava farmers are male (60%). Many of the farmers are either married, engaged or living together with a spouse (83%), with a mean household size of nine persons. Farmland is prevalently obtained by inheritance (95%), average farm size is 1.34 hectares, and most cassava farmers did not access agriculture credits (76%) and extension services (91%). The mean cassava output per hectare is 1,506.02 kg, which estimates average revenue of L$23,551.16 (Liberian dollars). Empirical results showed that the revenue efficiency of cassava farmers varies from 0.1% to 73.5%; with the mean revenue efficiency of 12.9%. This indicates that on average, there is a vast potential of 87.1% to increase the economic efficiency of cassava farmers in Nimba by improving technical and allocative efficiencies. For the significant determinants of revenue efficiency, age and group membership had negative effects on revenue efficiency of cassava production; while farming experience, access to extension, formal education, and average wage rate have positive effects. The study recommends the setting-up and incentivizing of farmer field schools for cassava farmers to primarily share their farming experiences with others and to learn robust cultivation techniques of sustainable agriculture. Also, farm managers and farmers should consider a fix wage rate in labor contracts for all stages of cassava farming.

Keywords: Economic efficiency, frontier production, and revenue functions, Liberia, Nimba County, output-oriented, revenue efficiency.

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Authors: Jo Rhodes, Peter Lok, Zahra Sadeghinejad

Abstract:

The aim of this study is to determine the impact of metacognition on top management team members and firm performance based on full team integration. A survey of 1500 small to medium enterprises (SMEs) was initiated and 140 firms were obtained in this study (with response rate of 9%). The result showed that different metacognitive abilities of managers [knowledge and experience] could enhance team decision-making and problem solving, resulting in greater firm performance. This is a significant finding for SMEs because these organisations have small teams with owner leadership and entrepreneurial orientation.

Keywords: Metacognition, behavioural integration, top management team, performance.

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Authors: Farnaz G. Nezami, Mir B. Aryanezhad, Seyed J. Sadjadi

Abstract:

In this paper a nonlinear model is presented to demonstrate the relation between production and marketing departments. By introducing some functions such as pricing cost and market share loss functions it will be tried to show some aspects of market modelling which has not been regarded before. The proposed model will be a constrained signomial geometric programming model. For model solving, after variables- modifications an iterative technique based on the concept of geometric mean will be introduced to solve the resulting non-standard posynomial model which can be applied to a wide variety of models in non-standard posynomial geometric programming form. At the end a numerical analysis will be presented to accredit the validity of the mentioned model.

Keywords: Geometric programming, marketing, nonlinear optimization, production.

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Authors: H. A. Alzomor, B. K. Ouda, A. M. Eldeib

Abstract:

Successful regional anesthesia depends upon precise location of the peripheral nerve or nerve plexus. Locating peripheral nerves is preferred to be done using nerve stimulation. In order to generate a nerve impulse by electrical means, a minimum threshold stimulus of current “rheobase” must be applied to the nerve. The technique depends on stimulating muscular twitching at a close distance to the nerve without actually touching it. Success rate of this operation depends on the accuracy of current intensity pulses used for stimulation .In this paper, we will discuss a circuit and algorithm for closed loop control for the current, theoretical analysis and test results is discussed and results is compared to previous techniques.

Keywords: Close Loop Control, Constant Current, Nerve Locator.

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Authors: M.Radmehr, S.M.Anisheh, I.Yousefian

Abstract:

In this work a new offline signature recognition system based on Radon Transform, Fractal Dimension (FD) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) is presented. In the first step, projections of original signatures along four specified directions have been performed using radon transform. Then, FDs of four obtained vectors are calculated to construct a feature vector for each signature. These vectors are then fed into SVM classifier for recognition of signatures. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the system several experiments are carried out. Offline signature database from signature verification competition (SVC) 2004 is used during all of the tests. Experimental result indicates that the proposed method achieved high accuracy rate in signature recognition.

Keywords: Fractal Dimension, Offline Signature Recognition, Radon Transform, Support Vector Machine

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Authors: Thanapong Suriyea, Teeratas Pornyungyuen, Koonlaya Kanokjaruvijit

Abstract:

This research is aimed to find optimal values of parameters of acacia wood chips combustion in a bubbling fluidized bed for electrification within the area of the Royal Thai Navy in Sattahip, Chonburi province, Thailand. The size of wood chips falls in the range of 25 mm in diameter. The bed temperature is set within the range of 800±10 ^oC with the air flow rate of 2.1-3.1 m/min corresponding to the air-fuel ratio between 0.71 to 1.03. The resulting thermal efficiency is approximately 95% with a thermal output of 474.76 kWth, which produced the electricity 0.131 kW-hr.

Keywords: Acacia Wood Chips, Biomass, Combustion, Fluidized Bed.

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Authors: Nebi Gedik

Abstract:

Regardless of age or gender, cardiovascular illnesses are a serious health concern because of things like poor eating habits, stress, a sedentary lifestyle, hard work schedules, alcohol use, and weight. It tends to happen suddenly and has a high rate of recurrence. Machine learning models can be implemented to assist healthcare systems in the accurate detection and diagnosis of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in patients. Improved heart failure prediction is one of the primary goals of researchers using the heart disease dataset. The purpose of this study is to identify the feature or features that offer the best classification prediction for CVD detection. The support vector machine classifier is used to compare each feature's performance. It has been determined which feature produces the best results.

Keywords: Cardiovascular disease, feature extraction, supervised learning, support vector machine.

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Authors: Seteno K. O. Ntwampe, Bruno A. Q. Santos

Abstract:

Different agricultural waste peels were assessed for their suitability to be used as primary substrates for the bioremediation of free cyanide (CN-) by a cyanide-degrading fungus Aspergillus awamori isolated from cyanide containing wastewater. The bioremediated CN- concentration were in the range of 36 to 110 mg CN-/L, with Orange (C. sinensis) > Carrot (D. carota) > Onion (A. cepa) > Apple (M. pumila), being chosen as suitable substrates for large scale CN- degradation processes due to: 1) the high concentration of bioremediated CN-, 2) total reduced sugars released into solution to sustain the biocatalyst, and 3) minimal residual NH4- N concentration after fermentation. The bioremediation rate constants (k) were 0.017h-1 (0h < t < 24h), with improved bioremediation rates (0.02189h-1) observed after 24h. The averaged nitrilase activity was ~10 U/L.

Keywords: Agricultural waste, Bioremediation, Cyanide, Wastewater.

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Authors: Natália B. Pompermayer, Mariana B. Porto, Elizabeth F. Souza

Abstract:

Nanophotocatalysts such as titanium (TiO2), zinc (ZnO), and iron (Fe2O3) oxides can be used in organic pollutants oxidation, and in many other applications. But among the challenges for technological application (scale-up) of the nanotechnology scientific developments two aspects are still little explored: research on environmental risk of the nanomaterials preparation methods, and the study of nanomaterials properties and/or performance variability. The environmental analysis was performed for six different methods of ZnO nanoparticles synthesis, and showed that it is possible to identify the more environmentally compatible process even at laboratory scale research. The obtained ZnO nanoparticles were tested as photocatalysts, and increased the degradation rate of the Rhodamine B dye up to 30 times.

Keywords: Environmental impact analysis, inorganic nanoparticles, photocatalysts.

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Authors: Hongjun Liu, Qibing Sun, Nan Huang, Shaolan Zhu, Wei Zhao

Abstract:

A high energy dual-wavelength extracavity KTA optical parametric oscillator (OPO) with excellent stability and beam quality, which is pumped by a Q-switched single-longitudinal-mode Nd:YAG laser, has been demonstrated based on a type II noncritical phase matching (NCPM) KTA crystal. The maximum pulse energy of 10.2 mJ with the output stability of better than 4.1% rms at 3.467 μm is obtained at the repetition rate of 10 Hz and pulse width of 2 ns, and the 11.9 mJ of 1.535 μm radiation is obtained simultaneously. This extracavity NCPM KTA OPO is very useful when high energy, high beam quality and smooth time domain are needed.

Keywords: mid-infrared laser, OPO, dual-wavelength laser

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