Performance assessment of satellite-based precipitation products (SPPs) is critical for their application and development. This study assessed the accuracies of four satellite-based precipitation products (PERSIANN-CDR, PERSIANN-CCS, PERSIANN-DIR, and PERSIANN) using data of in situ weather stations installed over the Himalayan Mountains of Pakistan. All SPPs were evaluated on annual, seasonal, monthly, and daily bases from 2010 to 2017, over the whole spatial domain and at point-to-pixel scale. The assessment was conducted using widely used evaluation indices (root mean square error (RMSE), correlation coefficient (CC), bias, and relative bias (rBias)) along with categorical indices (false alarm ratio (FAR), probability of detection (POD), success ratio (SR), and critical success index (CSI)). Results showed: (1) PERSIANN and PERSIANN-DIR products efficiently traced the spatio-temporal distribution of precipitation over the Himalayan Mountains. (2) On monthly scale, the estimates of all SPPs were more consistent with the reference data than on the daily scale. (3) On seasonal scale, PERSIANN and PERSIANN-DIR showed better performances than the PERSIANN-CDR and PERSIANN-CCS products. (4) All SPPs were less accurate in sensing daily light to medium intensity precipitation events. Subsequently, for future hydro-meteorological investigations in the Himalayan range, we advocate the use of monthly PERSIANN and PERSIANN-DIR products.

Weeds compete with crops for water, nutrients, and light consequently, have adverse effects on the crop yield and overall productivity. Mechanical weeding is the most common non-chemical method for weed control, which is applied in organic farming, and the weed cultivator is the most common implement in mechanical weeding. This study aimed to design and develop an innovative active tool to optimize the cultivation depth, which can avoid damage to crop roots and improve the key performance indicators of an inter-row cultivator. A quasi-Newton optimization method and a hybrid of the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) and goal attainment method were separately applied to synthesize and develop a four-bar mechanism for weeding requirements. The transmission angle of the mechanism and the desired path of the weeding blade were simultaneously optimized using these multi-objective optimization techniques. The performance of the developed four-bar cultivator based on the optimization techniques was compared with the ones developed based on the classic methods and also with several conventional tools evaluated in other studies. The results showed that applying the quasi-Newton optimization method and hybrid genetic algorithm can propose a more effective weed cultivator in terms of performance indicators, namely weeding performance, mechanical damage to crop plants and cultivation depth. In addition, the optimization of the transmission angle guaranteed the smooth rotations in the mechanism’s joints.

This study aims to evaluate the effect of different spices (black pepper, cumin, clove, nigella, cardamom, and cinnamon) on the physicochemical characteristics and microbial quality, as well as antioxidant potential, of paneer during storage. Different types of spices were incorporated into the paneer at different levels (0.2 and 0.3%). In addition to paneer, the antioxidant potential of spices was also investigated. The results concerning total plate counts (TPC) or yeast and molds (Y & M) (log10 CFU/g) of all treatments were substantially (p < 0.05) increased during storage. Generally, all freshly prepared spicy paneer and control had higher sensory scores for all the sensory characteristics which declined during subsequent storage. All the paneer samples having 0.3% spices showed very slight variations (nonsignificant) in sensory score of all the attributes of their relative samples containing 0.2% spice. The incorporation of spices into the paneer matrix also showed promising results concerning all the above-mentioned attributes revealing antioxidant potential. There was significant (p < 0.05) effect of treatments and storage days on antioxidant potential of paneer. The freshly prepared control paneer (P0) showed the lowest total phenol (TP), total flavonoids (TF), 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), reducing power (RP), and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) values compared to all the spicy paneer (treatments). The freshly prepared control paneer (P0) showed the lowest antioxidant potential compared to all the spicy paneer (treatments). The maximum antioxidant potential was observed in the paneer having 0.3% clove (P6). All the spicy paneer showed increasing trend of all the attributes, showing antioxidant potential up to 6 days of storage, but afterwards, the activities were slightly decreased. It may be concluded that spicy paneer would be considered as a functional dairy product with enhanced sensory and antioxidant properties, and shelf stability.