APCBEE Procedia最新文献

With the idea of sustainable agriculture, farming is not only about the production for food security but also need to consider the impacts for the environment during farming process. Environment issue needs to be considered more for the high-altitude agriculture as they often are located at the reservoir catchment areas which are important for conserving the water resources. There are always conflicts between high-altitude agriculture development and environmental conservation. Because of the extreme climatic events, find out the balance between these two issues becomes an urgent target for the government recently.

Thus, data envelopment analysis (DEA), which can evaluate the decision-making unit with multiple inputs and multiple outputs, was applied to assess economic and environmental factors in this research. The results of farm environmental efficiency score present the land use efficiency of each village under these two conflict issues. It can help government to reveal the un-efficiency area which should be improved first. Furthermore, the slack analysis of DEA reveals that reduction of pollution is the most important issue in the area.

The experiment was carried out to study the dissolved air flotation (DAF) process in a tank involving mainly velocity distribution and turbidity removal. Chitosan and Bentonite were known as coagulant agents thus were used in the study. Measurements were carried out on four cases with different inlet velocities of 0.3m/s, 0.6m/s, 0.9m/s and 1.2m/s. Laboratory tests were conducted to test the water quality based on turbidity values and basic drinking water parameters. From the test results, it was found that the inlet velocity gave impacts on the distribution of flow in the tank and thus affected the efficiency of the flotation process. Chitosan and Bentonite can be applied to the flotation tank resulting in an average of 97% turbidity removal. This study successfully proved the effectiveness of the combination of Chitosan and Bentonite as a coagulating agent in the DAF tank for raw water treatment process.

Crossing on the watery everglades zones is important and strategic matter in transit military equipment. Therefore, for first time construction geogrid concrete mats have been proposed. Concrete mats consist of light weight reinforced concrete beams with high strength which are connected using the geogrid network. Since geogrid networks have a high flexibility and resistance, can held together the concrete beams with lower thickness and be able to spread on watery land using crane. In this case, condition is prepared to cross military equipment and vehicles on the shallow and marshy river. In this study, how to design and build these mats has been studied .In this sense, the laboratory model which has been made by researchers has been utilized. Mats analysis done based on the machinery induced dynamic loads on in vitro models as well as the geogrid networks properties, their strength when crossing loads in construction stage, operation and transfer are analyzed. Strain gauges of TML Company set up on laboratory models then the amount of strain registries and are controlled.

Continuous reduction of hexavalent chromium Cr(VI) in aqueous solution by commercial steel wool was investigated using glass column over the pH range of 3–7. Nearly 100% reduction took place within the first 10 minutes. The maximum reduction was obtained at pH 3, and the rate decreased with increasing initial pH of Cr(VI) solution. The initial substrate concentration was varied as 50 mg/L, 80 mg/L and 100 mg/L respectively. There was a gradual decrease in the extent of reduction as the initial substrate concentration increased. The breakthrough of the column was observed generally at 10 minutes whereas the complete exhaustion took 120 minutes. Results of this experiment may be utilized for modelling, simulation and scale-up in future.

This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of different levels of powdered Mentha pulegiumL. (pennyroyal; medicinal plant) obtained from its dried aerial part on performance and carcass traits, of broilers. 200 broiler chicks (Ross 308) were used in a completely randomized design in five treatments and four replicates (10 birds per replicate) for 42 days. The treatment groups consisted of a control group (C) with no pennyroyal and Antibiotic supplementation,(A) with no pennyroyal and contain 300 mg/Kg antibiotic virginiamicin and B, D and E experimental groups with different levels of pennyroyal (1, 2 and 3%, respectively). There were significant differences between treatments on performance and carcass traits of broilers (p<0.05). The lowest amount of daily weight gain (43.50 g) and the highest feed conversion (1.75) were observed in the control group, whereas the highest amount of daily weight gain (49.9 g), the lowest feed conversion (1.62), and the highest breast percent (23.08) were observed in Group A. There was no significant difference between Groups A and D in the yield trait. The overall results showed that the use of 2% of pennyroyal medicinal plant in the diets of broilers has positive effects on their performance and carcass traits.

Most international codes allow the use of an equivalent static lateral forces method for practical design of real structures to withstand earthquake actions. This method requires the calculation of an approximation for the fundamental mode period of vibrations of these structures and several empirical equations have been suggested. Most of these equations are not considering the effect of semi-rigid connections and provide only a crude approximation to the required fundamental periods. In this paper, a new formula to calculate a satisfactory approximation of fundamental period of the structure is proposed. This formula takes into account the effect of semi-rigid connections, mass and the stiffness of the structure. In order to verify the accuracy of the proposed formula, several examples are presented in which the fundamental mode periods of several structures have been calculated utilizing the proposed formula and the conventional empirical equations. Comparing the obtained results with those obtained from a well known computer program STAAD.PRo has shown that the proposed formula provides a more accurate estimation of the fundamental period of the structures.

One salt-tolerant strain (named P-1) which can efficiently degrade azo dye acid red B was isolated and screened from activated sludge of a wastewater treatment unit of a dye plant. On the basis of morphological observation, physiological and biochemical test, 26S rDNA gene sequence and phylogeny analysis, the strain P-1 was identified as Pichia kudriavzevii strain. The effect of salinity, initial concentration of acid red B solutions, temperature and pH on decolorization performance was investigated to optimize decolorization conditions. The results showed that, the optimal conditions for degradation of acid red B by strain P-1 were: salinity, 10%; initial concentration of acid red B solutions, 100 mg/L; temperature, 33^oC; pH, 5.0. Under the optimal conditions, the degradation rate of acid red B reached 94.29%.

Inhabitants in Dei-Dei area of Abuja consume groundwater that recharges from different lithologic units of subsurface structures due to inadequate public water supply.The water is consumed untreated and during drilling, it cuts across so many rock formations, to extents constitute radioactive elements which are to be evaluated. Vertical Electric Sounding and Shuttle Radar Topography mission was used to determine the structure of electric conductivity and map lineaments.Hydrogeologically motivated borehole with geophysical log data was drilled. Activity concentrations were analysed using high resolution co-axial HPGe gamma spectrometer system. The activity concentrations ranges from 45± 2 to 98 ± 6 Bq kg^-1 for ²³²Th, 18 ± 2 to 37 ± 4 Bq kg^-1 for ²³⁸U and 236 ± 32 Bq kg^-1 to 1195±151 Bq kg^-1 for ⁴⁰K. Structurally, fractured interconnectivity attributed to low levels in some layers. Activity levels are within the limits, requires research within groundwater activity levels and rock geochemistry.

In recent years, various microfluidic devices and integrated micro fluidic systems such as bio-chips, lab-on-a-chip and microreactors have been the focus of intensive investigations. They are being increasingly applied for bio-medical processes such as genetic analysis, disease diagnosis, chemical synthesis etc. In such devices, rapid and effective mixing of bio-particles is essential. Yet, when the density of the bio-particles is high, preventing their sedimentation becomes an issue of crucial importance. In the present work we carried out a comprehensive study to understand the efficacy of dielectrophoresis in preventing sedimentation of high density bio-particles in a micro-mixer. We analyzed the efficacy of dielectrophoretic force in sedimentation control of micro-mixers for variable particles, medium and field parameters using finite element-based CFD simulations. The results of the study indicate that dielectrophoresis-based sedimentation control could be a viable method to prevent sedimentation of a protein.

Animals housed in a cage with clustered environmental enrichments may deal with higher aggression when they have to compete for depleting resources. In this study, the effects of the way environmental enrichments distributed between individuals were investigated. Sixteen adult male mice (Mus musculus) were housed in four different treatments with manipulation in terms of food choices availability and distribution of resources. Each male was observed for their aggressive and stereotypic behaviours for seven minutes twice a day for five days. The faeces were also collected after each treatment for measuring the corticosterone level in order to indicate the stress level of the mice. The results showed reduced aggression (p<0.05), stereotypic behaviour (p<0.05) and corticosterone level (p<0.05) in both dispersed environment and food available environment compared to the clustered environment as well as in the environment where the food choices were not available. From the results, it can be suggested that resources are better arranged in a dispersed way, so that the resources are easier to be shared. Thus, with lesser aggression and stereotypic behaviour, the welfare of the laboratory mice can be improved and easily managed.