No abstract

This study was conducted to develop fundamental relationships between soil properties from three representative Florida soil orders and their spectral characteristics. The ultimate goal of this work is to develop a real-time soil property sensor for use in effective farm management. A total of 270 samples collected from the three representative soil orders (Alfisol, Entisol, and Ultisol) in Florida were used for analysis. Soil samples were obtained from 0 to 15 cm depth at 15 sampling points within three specific fields of 2.0 ha each of the three soil orders at six different times of the year, assuring a wide range of sample variability in sampling times and locations. Reflectance of the soil samples was measured in the range of 400 to 2498 nm with a 2 nm increment, and the corresponding nutrient content (P, K, Ca, and Mg) along with pH and soil organic matter content was measured for each of the samples. Partial least squares analysis was used to build prediction models with a calibration data set of 180 randomly chosen samples. The remaining 90 samples were used to validate the models. The prediction models for measured soil chemical properties for the three soil orders yielded R 2 values of 0.24 to 0.88. This result could be useful in the development of a soil nutrient sensor for site-specific crop management.

Application of poultry litter to crops and pastures as an organic nutrient source is a common practice in U.S. agriculture. A laboratory incubation study for 60 days was laid out in a randomized block design. The treatments consisted of poultry litter applications corresponding to 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, in addition to control. Accumulation of mineralized nitrogen (N) was observed in all the treatments, with a typical small increase in inorganic N during the first 3 days followed by a big flush between 3 and 5 days. Mineralized N ranged from 69% to 39% of the total N applied in the greatest to lowest application treatments, respectively. The results suggested that recommendations should emphasize partitioning the total litter into smaller installments to coincide with crop growth period. Also, long-term application of poultry litter was found to increase soil pH.

Background: Olfactory dysfunction is common in Parkinson’s disease (PD). The characteristics of the hyposmia in PD have not been well defined. Objective: To characterize the pattern of the olfactory deficit in PD and in other non-neurodegenerative aetiologies of hyposmia. Methods: We evaluated 36 PD patients, 20 patients with hyposmia secondary to acute respiratory infection (ARI), and 19 patients with hyposmia secondary to traumatic brain injury (TBI). For comparison purposes, we included a group of 15 controls age and sex matched with PD patients. PD patients were classified based on disease duration and severity in de novo PD, and PD with and without chronic levodopa-related complications. The Barcelona Smell Identification Test was applied to all participants. Results: For the first cranial nerve odours, PD patients scored lower than controls on smell detection (85.28 vs. 97.67%, p = 0.006), definition (79.58 vs. 93.33%, p = 0.007), recognition (63.33 vs. 81%, p = 0.020), and forced choice (58.06 vs. 82%, p < 0.001). Compared with ARI, forced choice was significantly better in PD patients (p < 0.001), but no differences were found regarding other olfactory characteristics. TBI patients showed significantly lower scores than the other study groups in all the olfaction items. For the fifth cranial nerve odours, recognition (p = 0.003) and identification (p = 0.019) were lower in the TBI group than in the others. No differences were found among PD subgroups regarding any olfactory characteristic. Conclusions: A differential pattern of hyposmia was observed in PD patients compared to other non-neurodegenerative aetiologies. Further studies with larger samples should replicate our results.

&lt;p&gt;Paved surfaces are a necessary infrastructure of cities, traditionally they are designed to carry vehicular, pedestrian traffic and transport products, and they provide public spaces for social communication. These paved surfaces also function as channels for waste matter, sewage, gas and electrical and as transport processes of water, matter, and energy between the soil and atmosphere in urban areas. In other hand, their characteristics lead to an altered hydrological balance compared to rural counterparts.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This study aimed to gain new insights into urban hydrological balance, in particular, the evaporation from paved surfaces. Hourly data of evaporation obtained from two high-resolution weighable lysimeters, these lysimeters are covered in two pavement sealing types commonly used for sidewalks in Berlin: cobblestones and concrete slabs. Soil volumetric water content and soil temperature of sandy soil was measured in the lysimeters with capacitance soil moisture sensors at 5cm depth. Moreover, time series consisted of hourly measurements climatology observations was obtained by climate station located near to the lysimeters. The measurements started in June 2016 and have been carried out for one year.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The data could be paired to estimate the variation of evaporation and how it was affected by cobblestones and concrete slabs and environmental factors. &amp;#160;In this case, a generalized additive model (GAM) for each sealing type was built, where the model response was the difference between the paired samples of evaporation from cobblestones and concrete slabs and the explanatory variables were the observations from the climate station and lysimeter data according to each sealing type. The statistical model tries to explain how the explanatory variables are related to a higher or lesser difference in evaporation between the two surfaces. As the result, the modelling approach showed that the evaporation from cobblestones tends to be higher than concrete slabs when the air temperate and soil temperature at 5 cm depth increases. The evaporation from cobblestone was also higher when the relative humidity was low, while the evaporation from concrete slabs was higher than cobblestones when the relative humidity was between 50 - 75%. When the relative humidity was higher than 75% the model showed that there was no difference in evaporating between the two sealing types. &amp;#160;The model showed also that the evaporation from concrete slabs tends to be higher than cobblestones when the solar radiation increases. Moreover, when the cumulative precipitation data in 9-hour intervals was higher than 10mm the cobblestone evaporates more than concrete slabs.&lt;/p&gt;