Enhancing Skin Color and Phenolic Compounds of Cv. Red Globe Table Grape (<Emphasis Type="Italic">V. Vinifera</Emphasis> L.) Utilizing of Different Preharvest Treatments

Foliar sprayings of grapevines with different plant growth regulators or chemicals were evaluated for determining grape skin color and phenolic compounds content and enhancing table grape quality characteristics of cv. Red Globe in this study. Grape skin color is one of the most important quality factors for table grapes. Sometimes, it can be viewed difficulties in skin coloration of some red table grape cultivars grown in various grape growing regions of the world and poor skin coloration of red table grapes is a frequent trouble that reduces production efficiency. Despite the fact that it is utilized from some canopy management practices; plant growth regulators, chemicals with plant hormones and hormone-like compounds as active ingredients can be recently used for improving anthocyanin accumulation in growing of some table grape cultivars. In current study, nine different preharvest treatments were used for improving quality parameters of cv. Red Globe, including 1?Control (C), 2–300?mg/L Abscisic acid (ABA), 3–300?mg/L Ethephon (Eth), 4–30% Ethanol (EtOH), 5–300?mg/L ABA + 300?mg/L Eth, 6–300?mg/L ABA + 30% EtOH, 7–300?mg/L Eth + 30% EtOH, 8–300?mg/L ABA + 300?mg/L Eth + 30% EtOH and 9?Cluster tip cutting (CTC). Although the best results from total phenolic compounds content and total anthocyanin content of cv. Red Globe were obtained in CTC treatment in all preharvest treatments, Eth+ETOH treatment especially gave rise to the best results among the preharvest chemical treatments.     

Orthogonal cutting mechanics of maple: modeling a solid wood-cutting process

The experimental results of orthogonal cutting of maple and the modeling of the cutting mechanics are presented. The tool cutting forces were measured for different feed rates. A set of equations relating the tangential and feed forces to the tool edge width and feed rate (chip thickness) to calculate the chip and edge cutting force coefficients was developed. Then the chip force and edge force coefficients were calculated from experimentally obtained cutting forces and were plotted in a polar-coordinate system with respect to the fiber orientation of the maple disk. The polar-coordinate presentation of the cutting force results and the calculated cutting force coefficients provides an excellent visual appreciation of the relation between the cutting forces and the wood fiber orientation. Chips were also collected from various sectors of the wood disk. This analysis further identified the effects of fiber orientation and cutting forces on the types of chip formed and hence the cutting mechanics involved. By applying the calculated cutting coefficients for each tool orientation (in respect to the grain) it is possible to predict the feed and tangential forces for any feed rates. There is good agreement between the predicted and measured cutting forces.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Rhizobium</Emphasis>,<Emphasis Type="Italic"> Bradyrhizobium</Emphasis> and<Emphasis Type="Italic"> Agrobacterium</Emphasis> strains isolated from cultivated legumes

The present study was conducted to isolate and characterize rhizobial strains from root nodules of cultivated legumes, i.e. chickpea, mungbean, pea and siratro. Preliminary characterization of these isolates was done on the basis of plant infectivity test, acetylene reduction assay, C-source utilization, phosphate solubilization, phytohormones and polysaccharide production. The plant infectivity test and acetylene reduction assay showed effective root nodule formation by all the isolates on their respective hosts, except for chickpea isolate Ca-18 that failed to infect its original host. All strains showed homology to a typical Rhizobium strain on the basis of growth pattern, C-source utilization and polysaccharide production. The strain Ca-18 was characterized by its phosphate solubilization and indole acetic acid (IAA) production. The genetic relationship of the six rhizobial strains was carried out by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) including a reference strain of Bradyrhizobium japonicum TAL-102. Analysis conducted with 60 primers discriminated between the strains of Rhizobium and Bradyrhizobium in two different clusters. One of the primers, OPB-5, yielded a unique RAPD pattern for the six strains and well discriminated the non-nodulating chickpea isolate Ca-18 from all the other nodulating rhizobial strains. Isolate Ca-18 showed the least homology of 15% and 18% with Rhizobium and Bradyrhizobium, respectively, and was probably not a (Brady)rhizobium strain. Partial 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis for MN-S, TAL-102 and Ca-18 strains showed 97% homology between MN-S and TAL-102 strains, supporting the view that they were strains of B. japonicum species. The non-infective isolate Ca-18 was 67% different from the other two strains and probably was an Agrobacterium strain.     

Electricity and water desalination: Separate sites offer value

For the fuel type and water situation in the Middle East, the case is strong for the use of combined cycle technology for power generation and reverse osmosis for potable water production, where each are sited for their maximum economic benefit and interconnected by electric power transmission. Because of the fuel efficiency of Combined Cycle generation technology, its use of liquid/gas fuels and its low need for cooling water, it can be optimized for cost away from cities. Conversely, water desalination by reverse osmosis can be sited in optimal locations to take advantage of its modularity and to minimize water pipeline needs. Electric power transmission provides an inexpensive and flexible means to connect these two technologies. Together these technologies may offer an overall minimum cost approach, better than the combining of electric power and water desalination at one location, where power to water ratios must be fixed, independent of need, for optimum efficiency. The use of reverse osmosis with power generation has other, important ancillary benefits over using distillation and power combinations. These advantages include abatement of environmental pollution, delivery of potable water at reasonable drinking temperatures, lower total energy consumption, more efficient land use and less demanding operator skills.     

Electrochemical Properties and Biochemical Composition of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Cv. </Emphasis>Shiraz Wine Grape (<Emphasis Type="Italic">V. vinifera</Emphasis> L.) Depending on Various Dose and Application Time of Foliar Microbial Fertilizer Treatments

Utilization from bio fertilization is well known a considerable tool to improve the yield and fruit quality of various crop fruits through the increasing emphasis on maintain of soil health, minimize environmental pollution and decrease the use of chemical fertilization. In this study, in order to improve wine grape quality features of cv. Shiraz, four different doses of foliar microbial fertilizer, including 0, 1000, 2000 and 3000?ppm were applied at two different terms as Term I (mostly; pre-bloom applications) and Term II (mostly; post-bloom applications). However, there were no influences of application terms of foliar microbial fertilizer treatments; treatment doses had considerable effects on yield and quality parameters. The lowest p-values, meaning the highest berry quality, from doses of foliar microbial fertilizer were obtained from 2000?ppm (105.08?μW), 1000?ppm (110.40?μW), 3000?ppm (112.97?μW) and 0?ppm (119.58?μW). Comparing the applications of foliar microbial fertilizer, it was observed that doses of 2000?ppm (3155.56?mg/kg), 1000?ppm (3000.92?mg/kg) and 3000?ppm (2530.19?mg/kg) exhibited higher total phenolic compounds content when compared with 0?ppm treatment (2206.97?mg/kg). Berries from grapevines applied with the doses of 2000, 1000 and 3000?ppm foliar microbial fertilizer respectively shown higher total anthocyanin content such as 1230.19, 1160.85 and 865.86?mg/kg compared to 0?ppm (637.37?mg/kg). As a result, research the findings indicated that 2000 and 1000?ppm doses of foliar microbial fertilizer were obviously effective on wine grape quality features of cv. Shiraz in terms of electrochemical property, total phenolic compounds content and total anthocyanin content.     

Tetraselmis chuii biomass as a potential feed additive to improve survival and oxidative stress status of Pacific white-leg shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei postlarvae

International Aquatic Research - Shrimp is an important traded fishery commodity. When subjected to stress, shrimp usually suffers from oxidative stress, which leads to cell injury, senescence, and...     

Neural-Intelligent Water Drops algorithm to select relevant textural features for developing precision irrigation system using machine vision

Sunagoke moss Rachomitrium japonicum is a good potential for greening material. One of the primary determinants of Sunagoke moss growth is water availability. Too much or too little water can cause water stress in plants. Water stress in plants can be detected by imaging. This study is part of on-going research aimed at developing machine vision-based precision irrigation system in a closed bio-production system for cultured Sunagoke moss. The objective of this study is to propose nature-inspired feature selection techniques to find the most significant set of Textural Features (TFs) suitable for predicting water content of cultured Sunagoke moss. The proposed Feature Selection (FS) methods include Neural-Intelligent Water Drops (N-IWD), Neural-Simulated Annealing (N-SA), Neural-Genetic Algorithms (N-GAs) and Neural-Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization (N-DPSO). TFs consist of 120 features extracted from grey, RGB, HSV, HSL and L^∗a^∗b^∗ colour spaces using ten Haralick’s textural equations. Back-Propagation Neural Network (BPNN) model performance was tested successfully to describe the relationship between water content of Sunagoke moss and TFs. Red Colour Co-occurrence Matrix (CCM) TFs, L^∗ CCM TFs, grey CCM TFs, value_(HSV) CCM TFs, green CCM TFs and lightness_(HSL) CCM TFs are recommended as individual feature-subset to be used for predicting water content of Sunagoke moss using Artificial Neural Networks. However, FS methods improve the prediction performance. The results show a significant difference between model using FS and models using individual feature-subsets or without FS. Comparative analysis shows the superiority of Neural-Intelligent Water Drops (N-IWD) compared to the other FS methods, since it achieve better prediction performance. The best N-IWD’s fitness function converged with the lowest validation-set Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 1.07 × 10⁻² when using 36 TFs.     

Can diphenhydramine prevent organophosphate-induced acute pancreatitis? An experimental study in rats

Acute pancreatitis (AP) is a well known complication of organophosphate (OP) poisoning and the true incidence is unknown; but, may be more common than clinically suspected. Previous studies suggest that Diphenhydramine (DPH) may be useful as an alternative or adjunctive therapy in OP poisoning. The aim of this experimental study was to investigate whether DPH could prevent or diminish pancreatic damage caused by OP poisoning as defined by histologic findings, and serum interleukin 10 (IL-10) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) levels. Twenty-four Sprague- Dawley rats were divided into equal three groups. Group 1 did not receive any agent during the experiment. Group 2 received 0.8 g/kg fenthion subcutaneously followed by 3 ml/kg normal saline intramuscularly, 30 min later. Group 3 received 0.8 g/kg fenthion subcutaneously, followed by 30 mg/kg DPH intramuscularly, 30 min later. Twenty-four hours later, pancreatic tissues were excised and blood samples were taken. After blood samples were taken by cardiac puncture, the animals were sacrificed. Treatment with DPH significantly decreased the serum TNF-α and increased the serum IL-10 levels. DPH significantly reduced pancreatic damage, including edema, inflammation, vacuolization and necrosis, as determined by pathologic scoring. The present study show that DPH decreased the severity of OP induced AP in rats. This effects may be related to a decrease of TNF-α level and increase of IL-10 level.     

Improving certain properties of wool fibers by applying chitosan nanoparticles and atmospheric plasma treatment

The nanochitosan particles were prepared by ionic gelation method using sodium tripolyphosphate (TPP) as anionic chemical agent. Structural and morphological properties of the nanoparticles were characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analyses. The results showed that nanoparticles were spherical with a diameter range of 17-105 nm. After nanochitosan synthesis, the effects of chitosan and nanochitosan concentrations on the dyeability, fastness properties, shrink-proofing, tensile strengths, and surface friction coefficients of untreated and plasma treated wool fabrics were investigated. The studies revealed that nanochitosan treated wool fabric possesses better dyeing and shrink-proofing properties in comparison with conventional chitosan treated fabrics.