Macro and Micro Nutrients Status in Soil under Application of Vermicompost, Zn and Fe Fertilizers in Maize Crop

A field experiment was conducted at Student’s instructional farm, Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh during the kharif season 2019 and 2020. “Macro and micro nutrients status in soil under application of vermicompost, Zn and Fe fertilizers in Maize crop.” Two levels of organic manure and four levels each zinc and iron was evaluated under factorial randomized block design with three replications. All the nutrients were applied to maize crop in both seasons and their direct residual response was ascertained to soil were findout. Results indicated that the available nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium status in soil was highly improved with the application of 2.5 tonne vermicompost + 7.5 Kg Zn + 15 Kg Fe ha-1 over all the treatments. The treatment combination M1Zn3Fe3 (2.5 tonne vermicompost + 7.5 Kg Zn + 15 Kg Fe) gave the best result in terms of available nitrogen (221.60 & 220 Kg ha-1), available phosphorus (15.50 & 15.70 Kg ha-1), available potassium (145.15 & 145.24 Kg ha-1), available zinc (0.578 & 0.588 ppm) and available iron (4.30 & 4.36 ppm) across the seasons.

Growth and Productivity Augmentation of Greengram (Vigna radiata) through Phosphorus Sources and Sulphur Levels

Background: Being an efficient N- fixer, mungbean improve the soil fertility status and can thereby serve as a useful component in any viable cropping system in the country. PROM has to be a better source of phosphate application. Indian soils are deficient in organic carbon. Sulphur is mostly applied to oilseed and pulse crops found to benefit more than one crop in a sequence due to its significant residual response. Methods: The investigation was conducted during kharif season of 2019 comprising five levels of phosphorus sources (Control, 16 kg P2O5/ha through DAP, 16 kg P2O5/ha through PROM, 32 kg P2O5/ha through DAP and 32 kg P2O5/ha through PROM) and three levels of sulphur (Control, 15 and 30 kg/ha) making 15 treatment combinations replicated three times in factorial randomized block design. Result: Application of 32 kg P2O5/ha through PROM recorded significantly higher growth, yield attributes, yields as well as net returns ( 50440) with B:C ratio 2.93 as compared to 16 kg P2O5/ha through DAP, 16 kg P2O5/ha through PROM and 32 kg P2O5/ha through DAP. With regard to sulphur levels application of sulphur up to 30 kg/ha recorded significantly higher growth, yield attributes, yields as well net returns ( 46723) with B:C ratio 2.96 over control and 15 kg S/ha.

Contact Residue for Simultaneous Removal of Vehicle’s Frequency and Surface Roughness in Scanning Bridge Frequencies Using Two Connected Vehicles

Two factors are critical to the effectiveness of the vehicle scanning method for bridge frequencies. One is the frequency of the test vehicle itself. This can be eliminated by using the vehicle–bridge contact point response calculated from the vehicle response. The other is the surface roughness of the bridge, which can be removed by using the residual response of two connected vehicles. In this paper, it is demonstrated for the first time that both vehicle’s frequency and surface roughness can be simultaneously eliminated using the contact residue of two connected vehicles. Theoretically, a formulation is presented for both the contact response and residues. In the numerical study, the contact response is demonstrated to outperform the vehicle response as more bridge frequencies can be identified, while the contact residue is verified to work well for various surface roughnesses, vehicle spacings, and bridge damping ratios. For damped bridges with rough surfaces, the contact residue enables us to extract the first three bridge frequencies.

A numerical approach for evaluating residual capacity of fire damaged concrete members

This paper presents an approach to evaluate residual capacity of fire-damaged concrete structures. The approach involves capturing response in three stages; namely, structural response at ambient conditions (prior to fire exposure), thermo-mechanical response during fire exposure, and post-fire residual response after cooling down of the structural member. The proposed approach is implemented in a comprehensive numerical model developed in the finite element computer program ABAQUS for specifically evaluating residual capacity of an RC beam after exposure to different fire scenarios. Predictions from the numerical model are utilized to highlight importance of each stage of analysis in evaluating realistic residual capacity of fire damaged concrete members.

Growth, Gas Exchanges and Maize Productivity Under Potassic Fertilizer Management and Residual Response on Bean

Potassium (K) is the second nutrient of greater absorption by plants, and it is of fundamental importance for the development of the cultures and acts in the activation of enzymes that participate in the photosynthetic processes. However, there are still doubts about its residual effect on crop succession. Therefore, the objective of the research was to evaluate the effect of K doses on growth, gas exchange and maize yield and its residual effect on bean culture. The experiment was a randomized complete block design, in a 5x2 factorial scheme, totaling 10 treatments, with five K doses (0, 50, 100, 150 and 200 kg ha-1) and two fertilization periods (seeding and V5 stadium) in maize plants. Growth parameters, gas exchange and yield were evaluated in maize plants, and growth was evaluated in Bean plants in an experimental area belonging to the Department of Plant Science and Environmental, Federal University of Paraíba in Northeast Brazil. For the analysis of the data, we performed the analysis of variance, according to the design adopted. Subsequently, the data were submitted to regression analysis, with curve fitting, according to the parameters evaluated. Results revealed that, K fertilization influenced the growth of maize plants in the two fertilization periods (seeding and V5 stadium) at 45 and 75 days after planting, as well as in gas exchange and productivity. Fertilization at the V5 stadium in maize presented higher values compared to fertilization at seeding, in which the dose of 150 kg ha-1 presented the best results at both planting times. In relation to the residual effect of K on bean growth, it was verified that, there was influence of the doses on the growth of plants, in which the dose of 200 kg ha-1 recorded the highest values. The results showed that there is the residual response of K on bean cultivation in succession with maize. For the greater development of maize, it is recommended to use the dose of 150 kg ha-1 at the V5 stage of plants.

A particle swarm optimization method for interpreting self-potential anomalies

This paper describes the use of the particle swarm optimization (PSO) method for interpreting observed self-potential anomalies measured along a profile. First, the technique applies the second moving average to the observed self-potential data in order to eradicate the possible influence of the regional anomaly (up to the third-order polynomial effect) via the filter of consecutive window lengths (s-values) and to calculate the residual anomaly. Following that, the PSO method is applied to the residual response to infer the source parameters: amplitude coefficient (K), depth (z), polarization angle (θ) and the shape factor (q) of the underlying buried target. The technique has been applied to three different theoretical and two field examples from the USA and Turkey. Comparisons have shown that the source parameters retrieved from the technique described here are in good agreement with the available geologic and geophysical information.

Localization of Damages in Plain And Riveted Aluminium Specimens using Lamb Waves

The Lamb wave-based localization of damage is presented here separately for the plain and riveted aluminium (Al) specimens. The first part of this paper deals with the experimental damage localization of the plain Al specimen using Lamb waves and four piezoelectric wafer (PW) transducers. The PW transducers mounted onto the specimen in a collocated way are used to actuate and sense Lamb waves. The responses are obtained for both the pristine and damaged states of the Al specimen. The signal processing is carried out on the residual response using the continuous wavelet transform (CWT), and time of arrival (TOA) data is obtained for each collocated actuator-sensor pair. The TOA data of the wave reflected from the damage is used in the two arrival time difference and astroid algorithms to locate the damage in an enclosed area. The genetic optimization (GO) method is used to further refine the location of damage within the enclosed area obtained using astroid algorithm. The second part of the paper deals with the localization of a faulty rivet in a riveted specimen. The responses are obtained in the cases of both healthy and faulty riveted specimens. The presence of a faulty rivet is indicated by the inflation in amplitude of the second harmonic. A new algorithm is therefore proposed by the authors to localize the faulty rivet, using the spectral content information. The results obtained through both the studies manifest the ability of the proposed methods for locating different types of defects and faulty rivets using an array of PW transducers.