Silicon (Si) is considered a non-essential element similar to cadmium, arsenic, lead, etc., for plants, yet Si is beneficial to plant growth, so it is also referred to as a quasi-essential element ...(similar to aluminum, cobalt, sodium and selenium). An element is considered quasi-essential if it is not required by plants but its absence results in significant negative consequences or anomalies in plant growth, reproduction and development. Si is reported to reduce the negative impacts of different stresses in plants. The significant accumulation of Si on the plant tissue surface is primarily responsible for these positive influences in plants, such as increasing antioxidant activity while reducing soil pollutant absorption. Because of these advantageous properties, the application of Si-based nanoparticles (Si-NPs) in agricultural and food production has received a great deal of interest. Furthermore, conventional Si fertilizers are reported to have low bioavailability; therefore, the development and implementation of nano-Si fertilizers with high bioavailability could be crucial for viable agricultural production. Thus, in this context, the objectives of this review are to summarize the effects of both Si and Si-NPs on soil microbes, soil properties, plant growth and various plant pathogens and diseases. Si-NPs and Si are reported to change the microbial colonies and biomass, could influence rhizospheric microbes and biomass content and are able to improve soil fertility.
Nano-fertilizers (NFs) significantly improve soil quality and plant growth performance and enhance crop production with quality fruits/grains. The management of macro-micronutrients is a big task ...globally, as it relies predominantly on synthetic chemical fertilizers which may not be environmentally friendly for human beings and may be expensive for farmers. NFs may enhance nutrient uptake and plant production by regulating the availability of fertilizers in the rhizosphere; extend stress resistance by improving nutritional capacity; and increase plant defense mechanisms. They may also substitute for synthetic fertilizers for sustainable agriculture, being found more suitable for stimulation of plant development. They are associated with mitigating environmental stresses and enhancing tolerance abilities under adverse atmospheric eco-variables. Recent trends in NFs explored relevant agri-technology to fill the gaps and assure long-term beneficial agriculture strategies to safeguard food security globally. Accordingly, nanoparticles are emerging as a cutting-edge agri-technology for agri-improvement in the near future. Interestingly, they do confer stress resistance capabilities to crop plants. The effective and appropriate mechanisms are revealed in this article to update researchers widely.
Cellulose pyrolysis is used to give solid char, condensable vapors and non-condensable gases. This is a complex process and to model this using CFD simulations, Euler-Euler approach with multi-fluid ...is applied. The objective of the present study is to develop a CFD model to combine the reaction kinetics with the hydrodynamics to study the cellulose pyrolysis in the fluidized bed reactor. The distributed activation energy model to compare the product yield with and without distribution of activation energy has been incorporated. Simulations of cellulose pyrolysis in a fluidized bed reactor using two different kinetic schemes have been conducted. Model has been validated using global kinetic scheme and then optimized kinetic parameters are introduced with a distribution of activation energy. The predicted values of activation energies, frequency factor and standard deviation impact the overall pyrolysis product yield. The yield of tar and char increases, however the fraction of gases decreases significantly because of higher activation energy. Tar yield is 82.1 wt% in the presence of DAEM, while the gas yield is 8 wt% and char yield comes out to be 9.9 wt%.
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•CFD model to combine reactions kinetics with hydrodynamics for cellulose pyrolysis.•Incorporation of DAEM in the multi-fluid CFD model.•Comparison of pyrolysis yield with and without distribution of activation energy.
To evaluate the safety and efficacy of sacroplasty for the treatment of osteoporotic and malignant sacral fractures by performing a systematic review and meta-analysis of existing literature.
PubMed, ...Web of Science, and SCOPUS databases were searched from their inception until February 2018 for articles describing sacroplasty. Inclusion criteria were as follows: studies reporting > 5 patients, and pain assessment before and after the procedure recorded with visual analog scale (VAS). Demographic data, procedural details, technical success rates, VAS scores before and after the procedure, and procedural complications were recorded. A random-effects meta-analyses of the VAS pain score before the procedure, at 24-48 hours, at 6 months, and at 12 months were calculated.
Nineteen studies (18 case series and 1 cohort study) were identified consisting of 861 total patients (682 women and 167 men; mean age 73.89 ± 9.73 years). Patients underwent sacroplasty for the following indications: sacral insufficiency fractures secondary to osteoporosis (n = 664), malignancy (n = 167), and nonspecified sacral insufficiency fractures (n = 30). Technical and clinical successes were achieved in 98.9% (852/861) and 95.7% (623/651) of patients undergoing sacroplasty, respectively. The pooled major complication rate was 0.3%, with 3 patients requiring surgical decompression for cement leakage. Random-effects meta-analyses demonstrated statistically significant differences in the VAS pain level at preprocedure, 24-48 hours, 6 months, and 12 months, with cumulative pain scores of 8.32 ± 0.01, 3.55 ± 0.01, 1.48 ± 0.01, and 0.923 ± 0.01, respectively.
Sacroplasty appears safe and effective for pain relief in patients with osteoporotic or malignant sacral fractures, with statistically significant sustained improvement in VAS pain scores up to 12 months.
We investigate the problem of fast and secure packet routing in multi-hop Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) networks. We consider a practical trusted-node setup where a QKD protocol randomly generates ...symmetric private key pairs over each QKD-enabled link in a network. Packets are first encrypted with the available quantum keys and then transmitted on a point-to-point basis. A fundamental problem in this setting is the design of a secure and capacity-achieving routing policy that takes into account the time-varying availability of the encryption keys and diverse physical-layer link capacities. To address this problem, we propose a new secure throughput-optimal policy called Tandem Queue Decomposition (TQD). The TQD policy is designed by incorporating the QKD process into the Universal Max Weight (UMW) routing policy. We show that the TQD policy achieves the entire secure capacity region for a broad class of traffic, including unicast, broadcast, multicast, and anycast. The TQD policy operates by reducing the problem to the generalized network flow problem without the key availability constraints over a transformed network. The throughput-optimality of the TQD policy is established using the Lyapunov stability theory by carefully analyzing the interdependent queueing process and the key-storage dynamics. Finally, we demonstrate the practical efficiency of the TQD policy over the existing routing algorithms by numerically comparing their performance on a realistic simulator built on top of the state-of-the-art OMNeT++ network simulator platform.
The morphological plasticity of plant roots is a key factor in their ability to tolerate a wide range of edaphic stresses. There are many unanswered questions relating to nanotechnology and its ...potential uses for sustainable agriculture. The main purpose of this study was to examine the effects of salinity-induced morphogenic responses and zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) on root characteristics, growth, MDA content, antioxidant enzymatic activity, and root ion accumulation in rice (Oryza sativa L.). The experiment was conducted in a hydroponic culture containing 50 mg/L of ZnO-NPs and different concentrations (60, 80, and 100 mM) of NaCl for 14 days. The results indicated a decrease in rice root growth due to exposure to salinity (length, fresh, and root dry weight). The results showed that salinity caused a reduction in rice root growth (length, fresh, and root dry weight). Higher root sodium (Na+) accumulation, MDA content, and potassium level decreased with increasing salinity. Root length, root fresh weight, root dry weight, root K+ content, and root antioxidant enzymatic activity were all enhanced by applying 50 mg/L ZnO-NPs often in salinity. SEM analysis revealed that ZnO-NPs treatments significantly improved root morphology. There was a notable decrease in root Na+ content as a result, which improved the K+/Na+ ratio in the rice’s root system. These findings suggest that O. sativa, when treated with ZnO-NPs, can thrive under salt-stress conditions, opening up the possibility of cultivating the plant in extreme climates.
We present a phenomenological reduced-order model to capture the transition to thermoacoustic instability in turbulent combustors. Based on the synchronization framework, the model considers the ...acoustic field and the unsteady heat release rate from turbulent reactive flow as two nonlinearly coupled sub-systems. To model combustion noise, we use a pair of nonlinearly coupled second-order ODEs to represent the unsteady heat release rate. This simple configuration, while nonlinearly coupled to another oscillator that represents the independent sub-system of acoustics (pressure oscillations) in the combustor, is able to produce chaos. Previous experimental studies have reported a route from low amplitude chaotic oscillation (i.e., combustion noise) to periodic oscillation through intermittency in turbulent combustors. By varying the coupling strength, the model can replicate the route of transition observed and reflect the coupled dynamics arising from the interplay of unsteady heat release rate and pressure oscillations.
Mixing of different size and density particles plays a vital role in the hydrodynamics of fluidized beds. In this study, a multiphase model based on the kinetic theory of granular flow has been ...developed to study the mixing behaviour of biomass and sand particles in a bubbling fluidized bed. After validating the model using available experimental data from the literature, it was used to study the influence of various parameters such as superficial gas velocity, mixture composition and particle size. Emphasis was given on understanding the impact of these parameters on the particle segregation number, which is the parameter used to quantify the segregation behaviour of the fluidized bed. Results are plotted as the change in particle segregation number with respect to time for different mixture compositions, superficial gas velocities and particle diameters. The results show that mixing is promoted with the increase in gas velocities which give lower values of particle segregation number. Increase in ratio of biomass in the mixture leads towards segregation while increase in biomass particle diameter promotes mixing. The results of 2D simulations are also compared with the 3D configuration.
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•Mixing and segregation of cellulose and sand in a fluidized bed has been studied.•Extent of segregation has been quantified using Particle Segregation Number (PSN).•Effect of velocity, composition and particle size on PSN has been investigated.
The use of surfactants in households and industries is inevitable and so is their discharge into the environment, especially into the water bodies as effluents. Being surface‐active agents, their ...utilization is mostly seen in soaps, detergents, personal care products, emulsifiers, wetting agents, etc. Anionic surfactants are the most used class. These surfactants are responsible for the foam and froth in the water bodies and cause potential adverse effects to both biotic and abiotic components of the ecosystem. Surfactants are capable of penetrating the cell membrane and thus cause toxicity to living organisms. Accumulation of these compounds has been known to cause significant gill damage and loss of sight in fish. Alteration of physiological and biochemical parameters of water decreases the amount of dissolved oxygen and thus affecting the entire ecosystem. Microbes utilizing surfactants as substrates for energy form the basis of the biodegradation of these compounds. The main organisms for surfactant biodegradation, both in sewage and natural waters, are bacteria. Several Pseudomonas and Bacillus spp. have shown efficient degradation of anionic surfactants namely: sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS), linear alkylbenzene sulphonate (LAS), sodium dodecylbenzenesulphonate (SDBS). Also, several microbial consortia constituting Alcaligenes spp., Citrobacter spp., etc. have shown efficacy in the degradation of surfactants. The biodegradation efficiency studies of these microbes/microbial consortia would be of immense help in formulating better solutions for the bioremediation of surfactants and help to reduce their potential environmental hazards.
•Rapid Climate Shifts Impacting Crop Yields: The dynamic alteration of global climate patterns has resulted in amplified and unpredictable meteorological events, detrimentally affecting agricultural ...productivity by causing fluctuations in crop yield outcomes.•Introduction of Agrinanotechnology (ANT): The burgeoning scientific discipline of agrinanotechnology (ANT) has emerged as a transformative domain, wherein advanced nanotechnological principles are harnessed to revolutionize conventional agricultural methodologies.•Alignment with Sustainable Agricultural Goals: ANT, in response to the imperative for sustainable food production, is strategically positioned to realign prevailing agricultural paradigms, thereby contributing to the attainment of long-term and ecologically sound food security objectives.•Precision Augmentation via ANT: ANT engenders a paradigm shift in agricultural precision by endowing the ability to meticulously deliver bioactive molecules to intended targets, while concurrently facilitating controlled release mechanisms for agrochemical agents.•Enhancement of Resilience and Nutrient Efficiency: ANT is oriented towards elucidating intricate plant-nanoparticle interactions, thereby engendering enhancements in vegetative resilience against environmental stresses and optimizing nutrient assimilation pathways.•Facilitating Modern Agricultural Evolution: ANT presents a versatile toolkit that fosters modernization of agricultural practices, encompassing improved cultivation methodologies, resource management strategies, and yield optimization techniques.•ANT's Pioneering Role in Sustainable Agriculture: Positioned as a vanguard, ANT represents a pioneering endeavor that leverages nanoscale innovations to usher in an era characterized by elevated standards of crop protection, augmented production yields, and the cultivation of sustainable agricultural systems.
The world's climate shifts rapidly, leading to increasingly severe and volatile weather, negatively impacting crop yields. To produce long-lasting crops, cutting-edge nanotechnology is applied to agriculture called agri-nanotechnology (ANT), a relatively fresh field of research. ANT aims to help agricultural systems meet the demands for sustainable food production. The inclusion of ANT could transform conventional farming practices by enabling the targeted delivery of biomolecules and the controlled liberation of agrochemicals. Increasing crop yields requires a vaster understanding of the interactions between plants and nanoparticles (NPs) to make them more resistant to environmental stresses and maximize their utilization. Furthermore, ANT is a well-known and highly praised tool that provides various solutions to build modern agricultural practices. In summation, ANT stands as a vanguard in harnessing nanoscale innovations to optimize crop protection and production in a sustainable way.
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