Electrochemical Determination of Phenothrin in Agricultural Formulations, Vegetables, and Storage Bags of Wheat and Rice by Differential Pulse Adsorptive Stripping Voltammetry (DP-AdSV)

An electroanalytical method has been developed for the determination of the pesticide phenothrin by differential pulse adsorptive stripping voltammetry on a hanging mercury drop electrode in universal buffer as supporting electrolyte. The best adsorption conditions were found to be pH 6.0, an accumulation potential of −0.6 V, and an accumulation time of 75 s. Effects of stirring rate, scan rate, pulse amplitude, and purge time were examined for the optimization of instrumental conditions. Calibration curve is linear in the range 2 × 10⁻⁹ to 2 × 10⁻⁷ mol l⁻¹ with a detection limit of 1.9 × 10⁻¹⁰ mol l⁻¹. The correlation coefficient and relative standard deviation were 0.995% and 1.1%. The method is applied to the determination of the phenothrin in agricultural formulations, vegetables, and storage bags of wheat and rice under Food Corporation of India’s storage system.     

Agricultural productivity in the lower Mekong Basin: trends and future prospects for food security

This paper examines the spatial and temporal variability and trends of agricultural productivity in the Lower Mekong River Basin. We also show the future productivity requirements for both food security and the maintenance of the basin’s export potential at the current level for the projected increase in population by 2030. We considered both rice and upland crops grown in the basin and estimated physical and economic productivity in terms of land and population. Both physical and economic productivity of rice in terms of land area and population is highest in Vietnam, moderate in Laos and lowest in Thailand and Cambodia. However, the physical productivity of upland crops such as sugarcane and maize is highest in Thailand. Economic productivity of upland crops is highest in Laos followed by Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, respectively and is much higher than that of rice. Total economic productivity is dominated by rice in all countries except Laos. In general, productivity has increased in all four riparian countries between 1993 and 2004 and there appears to be considerable scope for further increases, which will allow maintenance of the current level of rice export in the future, despite population growth.

Direct utilization of geothermal energy 2010 worldwide review

This paper presents a review of the worldwide application of geothermal energy for direct utilization, and updates the previous survey carried out in 2005. We also compare data from 1995 and 2000 presented at World Geothermal Congresses in Italy and Japan, respectively (WGC95 and WGC2000). As in previous reports, an effort is made to quantify ground-source (geothermal) heat pump data. The present report is based on country update papers prepared for WGC2010 and other sources of data available to the authors. Final update papers were received from 70 countries of which 66 reported some direct utilization of geothermal energy. Twelve additional countries were added to the list based on other sources of information. Direct utilization of geothermal energy in 78 countries is a significant increase from the 72 reported in 2005, the 58 reported in 2000, and the 28 reported in 1995. An estimate of the installed thermal power for direct utilization at the end of 2009 is used in this paper and equals 48,493 MWt, almost a 72% increase over the 2005 data, growing at a compound rate of 11.4% annually with a capacity factor of 0.28. The thermal energy used is 423,830 TJ/year (117,740 GWh/yr), about a 55% increase over 2005, growing at a compound rate of 9.2% annually. The distribution of thermal energy used by category is approximately 47.2% for ground-source heat pumps, 25.8% for bathing and swimming (including balneology), 14.9% for space heating (of which 85% is for district heating), 5.5% for greenhouses and open ground heating, 2.8% for industrial process heating, 2.7% for aquaculture pond and raceway heating, 0.4% for agricultural drying, 0.5% for snow melting and cooling, and 0.2% for other uses. Energy savings amounted to 250 million barrels (38 million tonnes) of equivalent oil annually, preventing 33 million tonnes of carbon and 107 million tonnes of CO₂ being release to the atmosphere, this includes savings for geothermal heat pumps in the cooling mode (compared to using fuel oil to generate electricity).     

Handling of buses on slippery roads during the influence of side wind—a study of the effects of different tyres

Accident statistics assembled by the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) have shown that buses are overrepresented when it comes to accidents on icy and snowy roads. For a better understanding of the problem, the performance of modern summer and winter tyres on winter road conditions had to be assessed. The objective of this work has been to go beyond standard road grip studies, and instead investigate how the driver's possibility to deal with one challenging situation depends on the tyres and tyre configuration. This paper describes a novel methodology where measurements with different tyres on ice in VTI's tyre test facility, enabled a simulator study for evaluating the impact of different tyre characteristics when driving in conditions with strong side wind on a slippery road.The main results of the study are: to deal with strong side wind, good front wheel grip is most important, and while non-studded winter tyres provided little or no improvement over summer tyres, studded winter tyres significantly reduced the risk to run off the road. Furthermore, it is very difficult for the drivers to judge, beforehand, whether a vehicle with a particular tyre configuration will perform good or bad.     

基于GONE舞弊理论的农业上市公司财务报告舞弊研究

基于GONE 舞弊理论,从贪婪、机会、需要、暴露4个维度来剖析了财务舞弊的影响因素。选取 1992-2015年被处罚的农业上市公司作为研究样本,构建农业上市公司舞弊识别模型并进行了分析。结果表明,董事长兼任总经理加大管理者舞弊的贪婪力度;若控股股东为国家,则可降低企业发生财务舞弊的机会;增发配股引发的财务需要越高,企业发生舞弊的风险越大;审计单位的非标准审计意见,增加企业财务舞弊暴露的可能性。     

Downdraft gasification of pellets made of wood,palm-oil residues respective bagasse: Experimental study

The downdraft gasification technology has an increased interest among researchers worldwide due to the possibility to produce mechanical and electrical power from biomass in small-scale to an affordable price. The research is generally focused on improvement of the performance and optimizing of a certain gasifier, on testing different fuels, on increasing the user-friendliness of the gasifier and on finding other uses for the product gas than in an IC-engine, for example liquid fuel production.     

新《食品安全法》对《农产品质量安全法》修订的启示

2006年我国颁布的《中华人民共和国农产品质量安全法》已经运行了9 a的时间,其作为各级部门开展食用农产品质量安全监管工作重要的指导性法规,对提高我国食用农产品质量安全水平发挥了巨大的引领和推动作用。然而,农产品质量安全的形势变化、监管机构的改革调整,均使得现行《中华人民共和国农产品质量安全法》面临诸多问题,迫切需要展开修订工作。2015年4月刚刚完成修订工作的《中华人民共和国食品安全法》对旧法作了与时俱进的修改和补充,成为修订《中华人民共和国农产品质量安全法》的重要参考依据。本文在梳理《中华人民共和国食品安全法》相关内容的基础上,重点从《中华人民共和国食品安全法》的立法原则、制度设计、机制创新等角度展开深入研究,并提出了对《中华人民共和国农产品质量安全法》修订的三点启示与建议。     

Potential biomass supply for agro-pellet production from agricultural crop residue in Nepal

Nepal, a country rich in biomass, still does not have any commercial pellet production plants and is wasting large amounts of agricultural crop residue. The current study showed that about 5.61 million tonnes (Mt) of biomass in the form of pellets are potentially available from agricultural crop residues. The brick and cement industries could use these agro-pellets. Co-firing of pellets in such industries could play an important role in reducing the import volume of coal and minimize the related environmental loadings.     

中日农产品贸易实证分析

文章通过分析2005-2014年中日两国农产品贸易数据, 说明了中日农产品贸易的特点, 分析了中日农产品贸易的出口强度、产业内贸易以及显性比较优势, 得出了中日双边主要农产品出口强度大, 两国互为重要农产品出口市场;农产品以产业间贸易为主, 产业内贸易互补性不强;中日两国分别在劳动密集型、资本与技术密集型农产品出口方面具有显性比较优势等结论。     

A two-stage modelling and optimization of biohydrogen production from a mixture of agro-municipal waste

A two-stage modelling and optimization of biohydrogen production is reported. A mixture design was used to determine the optimum proportions of bean husk (BH), corn stalk (CS), and organic fraction of solid municipal waste (OFSMW). The optimum operational setpoints for substrate concentration, pH, temperature and hydraulic retention time (HRT) were further investigated using the box-behnken design. The quadratic polynomial model from the mixture design had a coefficient of determination (R²) of 0.9427 and the optimized mixtures were in the ratio of OFSMW:BH:CS = 30:0:0 and OFSMW:BH:CS = 15:15:0 with yields of 56.47 ml H₂/g TVS and 41.16 ml H₂/g TVS respectively. Optimization on physico-chemical process parameters on the improved substrate gave the setpoints of 40.45 g/l, 7.9, 30.29 °C, 86.28 h for substrate concentration, pH, temperature and HRT respectively having a predicted H₂ yield of 57.73 ml H₂/g TVS. Model validation gave 58.62 ml H₂/g TVS, thus an improvement of 3.8% on the optimized mixture. Biohydrogen production can be significantly enhanced by a suitable mixture of agro-municipal waste and operational optimal setpoints.