Florida H2OSAV Insights: Home Water Use in Osceola County

This fact sheet provides current, basic information about residential water use in Osceola County, Florida. Written by Nick Taylor, Kaitlin Robb Price, Bradley Spatz, Parker Johnson, and Pierce Jones, and published by the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, November 2021.

Biological Engineering Analysis of Vermicompost Based on Image Features and Machine Learning

Earthworm manure is a soil enhancement product that is homogeneous, permeable, ecological, and organic. It has a particle structure that is substantially greater than the soil’s surface area. Using a suitable quantity of earthworm fertilizer in the soil will improve the nutritional state of the soil surface, as well as the microbial control system and drainage capacity. Bioengineering earthworm dung is now a tough challenge, but picture quality evaluation can help enhance the organic fertilizer treatment process for earthworm manure. Researchers began researching appropriate assessment methods in order to assure the influence of earthworm excrement and to precisely and effectively measure changes in image quality. As a result, we must first determine the consistency qualities, extract the image's color and texture, and then create a comparable vector with 11 dimensions. Finally, we learn how to train the picture quality regression model using the mechanical learning (ML) approach. As a result, an effective and precise image quality evaluation system was created, and earthworm manure bioengineering was effectively applied.

Example Ordinance for Compost Amending Soil in Urban Landscaping

This publication describes an example ordinance that can be used by local governments as a starting point for developing a compost amendment ordinance tailored to their local situation and conditions. Written by Jovana Radovanovic, James D. McGuire, Jana Caracciolo, Tom Ankersen, and Eban Z. Bean, and published by the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, October 2021.

Regulaciones y Guías para la Quimigación

El propósito de este documento es proveer una breve reseña de regulaciones y alguna ayuda para la aplicación a flujos aprobados. Written by Haimanote K. Bayabil, Kati W. Migliaccio, Jonathan H. Crane, Teresa Olczyk, Qingren Wang, Laura Vásquez, and Carlos Balerdi, and published by the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, November 2021.

Types of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Sensing Technologies, and Software for Agricultural Applications

This publication provides detailed information about the most used UAVs, sensing technologies, and software for agricultural applications. Written by Sri Charan Kakarla and Yiannis Ampatzidis, and published by the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, October 2021.

Moisture Retention and Chemical Properties of Nursery Potting Substrates

This publication provides general information about differences in moisture retention characteristics and chemical properties of most common potting substrates used by the nursery industry in south Florida. Written by Haimanote K. Bayabil, Fitsum T. Tilahun, Yuncong Li, and E. Vanessa Campoverde, and published by the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, October 2021.

Who Owns and Controls Farming Data?

This publication aims to clarify the concerns regarding data ownership and explain the responsibilities of that ownership, sharing, and benefits in a collaborative smart farming application. Written by Ziwen Yu, Albert De Vries, Yiannis Ampatzidis, and D. Daniel Sokol, and published by the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, October 2021.

Measuring Leaf Water Potential

This article summarizes the basic concepts of leaf water potential measurements and two available methods for measuring leaf water potential under field and laboratory conditions. Written by Christian Bartell, Haimanote K. Bayabil, Bruce Schaffer, Fitsum Tilahun, and Fikadu Getachew, and published by the UF/IFAS Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, October 2021.

Global mapping of the energetic and allosteric landscapes of protein binding domains

Allosteric communication between distant sites in proteins is central to nearly all biological regulation but still poorly characterised for most proteins, limiting conceptual understanding, biological engineering and allosteric drug development. Typically only a few allosteric sites are known in model proteins, but theoretical, evolutionary and some experimental studies suggest they may be much more widely distributed. An important reason why allostery remains poorly characterised is the lack of methods to systematically quantify long-range communication in diverse proteins. Here we address this shortcoming by developing a method that uses deep mutational scanning to comprehensively map the allosteric landscapes of protein interaction domains. The key concept of the approach is the use of 'multidimensional mutagenesis': mutational effects are quantified for multiple molecular phenotypes - here binding and protein abundance -and in multiple genetic backgrounds. This is an efficient experimental design that allows the underlying causal biophysical effects of mutations to be accurately inferred en masse by fitting thermodynamic models using neural networks. We apply the approach to two of the most common human protein interaction domains, an SH3 domain and a PDZ domain, to produce the first global atlases of allosteric mutations for any proteins. Allosteric mutations are widely dispersed with extensive long-range tuning of binding affinity and a large mutational target space of network-altering 'edgetic' variants. Mutations are more likely to be allosteric closer to binding interfaces, at Glycines in secondary structure elements and at particular sites including a chain of residues connecting to an opposite surface in the PDZ domain. This general approach of quantifying mutational effects for multiple molecular phenotypes and in multiple genetic backgrounds should allow the energetic and allosteric landscapes of many proteins to be rapidly and comprehensively mapped.