The increase in population, food demand, and the pollution levels of the environment are considered major problems of this era. For these reasons, the traditional ways of farming are no longer suitable for early and accurate detection of biotic stress. Recently, precision agriculture has been extensively used as a potential solution for the aforementioned problems using high resolution optical sensors and data analysis methods that are able to cope with the resolution, size and complexity of the signals from these sensors. In this paper, several methods of machine learning have been utilized

This study aims to produce starch bioplastic pellets from food waste such as potato peels. Measuring the ease of flow of the melt is crucial for producing these pellets. The melt flow index (MFI) is measured in this study to evaluate the consistency of the produced pellets and determine the extent of degradation of the plastic because of molding. This study investigates the effect of adding different fillers to the starch matrix on reducing the MFI value. The fillers used in this work are nano chitosan, nano potato peel, and micro cellulose fillers. The fillers were used with different

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanocomposites have been extensively employed in many fundamental optoelectronic and photocatalytic applications due to their outstanding optical, electronic and chemical properties. In the present work, we introduce a simple layer-by-layer approach to design a magnetic TiO2 nanocomposite that could be easily recycled using an external magnetic field without affecting its quantum efficiency. The crystallinity, size, surface area, stability, morphology, purity and other optical, thermal and magnetic properties of the composite have been investigated. Surface topology

“There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom: An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics” said Richard Feynman in 1959, this lecture opened the way to the new field of science which we know today as nanotechnology. Materials’ manipulation at a very small size, ranges from 1 to 100 nm (nanoworld or the nano-edge) is well-known as nanotechnology. Since then, a lot of investigations and research were devoted by many researchers around the globe to keep an eye on the different properties and behavior of nanomaterials. Materials with at least one nanoscale dimension are called nanomaterials that have

We report on the design and structure principles of 5,5′-6,6′-tetrachloro-1,1′-dioctyl-3,3′-bis-(3-carboxypropyl)-benzimidacarbocyanine (Dye 1). Such metal-free amphiphilic cyanine dyes have many applications in dye-sensitized solar cells. AFM surface topographic investigation of amphiphilic molecules of Dye 1 adsorbed on TiO2 anode reveals the ability of spontaneous self-organization into highly ordered aggregates of fiber-like structure. These aggregates are known to exhibit outstanding optical properties of J-aggregates, namely, efficient exciton coupling and fast exciton energy migration

A new strategy regarding the fabrication of chitosan (CS) or ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) on graphene oxide (GO) was performed. The nematocidal potential against Meloidogyne incognita causing root-knot infection in eggplant was tested. The plant immune response was investigated through measuring the photosynthetic pigments, phenols and proline contents, oxidative stress, and antioxidant enzymes activity. Results indicating that, the treatment by pure GO recorded the most mortality percentages of M. incognita 2nd juveniles followed by GO-CS then GO-EDTA. In vivo greenhouse

Tomato plants can be infected by several diseases, among them, the early blight disease, caused by the necrotrophic fungus Alternaria solani is very dangerous. Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) are enhanced the plant growth and suppress plant diseases. The current study was conducted in a pot experiment to investigate the bio-efficacy antagonistic bacterial isolates as either individual or combination against tomato early blight disease. Disease severity and protection percent, morphological indicators as well as yield characters were recorded. In vitro antagonistic activity assay of

In this paper, different integer and fractional-order models are studied from electrical point of view, these models are used to fit the measured impedance data for different types of fruits and vegetables. Experimental work is done on eight different models for six types of fruits to verify the best fitting model. Electric impedance is measured in the range of frequencies (200 mHz–200 Khz) using a non-destructive method, where the tissues are not damaged by electrode insertion. Moreover, two integer order models have been extended to the fractional order domain where data analysis and fitting

This paper studies banana fruit ripping using the Cole-impedance model fitted over the measured bio-impedance data by monitoring the changes in the model parameters during the different ripping stages. A set of twenty bananas are tested for 84 hours, and impedance measurements are done every 12 hours using an SP150 electrochemical station. The changes in model parameters are related to the physical changes in the fruit as well as with the glucose concentration, which increases with time. © 2019 IEEE.

A novel non-uniform Kramers–Kronig Transform algorithm for bioimpedance phase extraction is proposed and tested in this work. The algorithm error is studied and compared with a previously proposed phase extraction technique, also based on the Kramers–Kronig transform. Results using simulated datasets and experimental datasets confirm the excellent performance of the algorithm. © 2020, European Biophysical Societies' Association.