Growing and purchasing intentions for organic fruits, vegetables, and cereals are increasing rapidly. Consumers are aware of health, environmental safety, pesticide harmfulness, nutrient, bioactive compounds, and safe food. Many research works are available on organic and conventional fruits, vegetables, and cereals. As organic fruit, vegetable, and cereal growing and purchasing intentions are increasing; it has become necessary to review the recent trends in quality, safety, and consumer preferences of organic and conventional fresh food products. A few reports have been compiled on organic and conventional fresh produces. Researchers have started working on organic and conventional fresh produces with the help of modern technology to improve nutritional and functional quality, safety, and consumer preferences. Nutritional and functional quality, safety, and consumer preferences depend on cultivation techniques, treatment, crop cultivar, and appearance of products. Therefore, it is necessary to compile the literature on organic and conventional fresh fruits, vegetables, and cereals based on quality, safety, and consumer preferences.
Majority of UAE construction works were reported experiencing changes during execution process which exerts adverse effects to project success. Among the negative impacts is the failing in achieving satisfactory schedule performance. This poor schedule performance is also common issue faced by construction works globally. This paper addressed a study on various client related factors causing changes and parameters that affecting project schedule performance. The study was conducted through quantitative method. The data was gathered through questionnaire survey amongst the practitioners from contractor and consultant organization engaged in construction project of UAE and analysed statistically using significant index value. Results obtained in this study highlighted lack of coordination, replacement of key personnel by clients and inadequate understanding of clients need as three major issues related to client which are responsible for changes in construction works. While delay in completion schedule, slower project progress and dispute between owner & contractor are as major parameters affecting schedule performance. For correlation analysis, it was found that lack of coordination between the parties has significant correlation with delay in completion schedule, and dispute between owner & contractor. Also replacement of key personnel from client has significant correlation with schedule delay i.e. additional works and re-work/redesign. These finding will be helpful for practitioner in prioritizing the factors of change and schedule measuring parameters for improving schedule performance
The aim of this study is to examine the bivariate transmuted distributions in the literature and to propose alternative distribution. The method is based on mixing distributions of pairs of order statistics of a sample of size two. Some of proposed distributions allow both negative and positive Pearson correlations with admissible range between pairs of random variates. The results of the study gain importance in terms of eliminating or completing the missing aspects of the bivariate transmuted distributions existing in the literature.
Ajigol wetland is a complex ecosystem in north of Iran and its ecologically important, containing up to 50% of threatened native plant species and aquatic organisms. Increasing of fish death and animal poisonings in that area have led to an increased research interest and public awareness of harmful cyanobacterial blooms. Therefore, we have characterized cyanobacteria by morphological and molecular approach. In order to study deeply, besides the 16S rRNA gene, several others molecular markers, namely rbcL, mcy G, mcy D and internal transcribed spacer (ITS), were also used. The polyphasic approach implemented here showed that the mcyG gene and also D1-D1, helix, BOX B and V3 regions probably could be the best marker for a high resolution of studied strain.
The objective of the current study is to optimize cooking power and effective efficiency of box type solar cooker. The solar cooker has been designed, fabricated and analyzed. The effect of loading and cooking time on the cooking power and effective efficiency has been investigated. The response surface methodology (RSM) is used to examine the performance of box-type solar cooker. FCCD (Face centered composite design) has been used to investigate the effect of different variables on effective efficiency and cooking power of the solar cooker. The optimized value of loading predicted by RSM was 4.92 kg/m2 for a cooking power of 795.89 watt and effective efficiency of 13.61% respectively. The results of predicted response were compared with actual response. The results demonstrate that the response surface methodology (RSM) is useful in constructing a mathematical model. The experiment was conducted in Faisalabad, Pakistan 31.4181° North Latitude, 73.0776° East Longitude and 184 m above the sea level.
This work is focused on energy harvesting and energy storage through renewable sources. In many cases, vegetables may either get rotted or the market gets full due to imbalance in supply, price and demand. The waste vegetables and wild plants contain electrochemically active compounds, which canb ed used for preparation of rechargeable bio-battery cells. In this study, a set of battery cells was constructed by coupling the electroactive compounds of Onion-Radish, Onion-Bitter Orange, Onion-Cactus, Turnip-Radish, Turnip-bitter orange and Turnip-cactus. The fresh and boiled juices of these vegetables and wild plant combinations were used and the reaction conditions were optimized to maximize the output voltage. The output voltage was measured before and after charging of cells for different charging times, juice volume, charging voltage and pH of cell media. The effect of media was explored by changing the media nature from acidic to neutral and neutral to basic. It was observed that the voltage of most of the cells in basic media is higher than the neutral and basic media. Among the investigated batteries, turnip-cactus single cell battery produced an open circuit voltage of 2.13 V while the onion-radish battery produced an open circuit voltage 1.9 V.
Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), is the most cultivated perennial forage legume in the world due to its high nutritional value and its effects on soil fertility. It possesses the ability to establish a nitrogen (N2) fixing symbiosis with the rhizobia. However, this symbiosis is prone to several biotic and abiotic constraints, the most important is water deficit. Next to rhizobia inoculation, seed biopriming with beneficial microorganisms is becoming a good technique to enhance plant tolerance to drought. The present study aims to assess the effect of seed biopriming with indigenous rhizobia on the performance of N2-fixing alfalfa symbiosis under water deficit, and improvement of tolerance under this constraint. The experiment was carried out under greenhouse conditions on two Moroccan alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) populations Adis-Tata and Demnate 2, and an American variety Moapa. The biopriming solution contained one isolated characterized indigenous rhizobia strain (RcRh09) and the plants inoculum solutions contained each RcRh09 and the commercial strain Ensifer meliloti (Rm1021). After one month period of plant growth under water deficit, several physiological and biochemical traits were assessed. The results showed that seed biopriming significantly increased plants growth and nodulation in all of the tested symbiotic combinations under drought. Physiologically, the biopriming significantly increased the stomata closure, relative water content and membrane integrity under this constraint and hence Medicago sativa-rhizobia symbiosis tolerance to water deficit.