Preliminary Field Tests Research Articles

Design of a Soil Cutting Resistance Sensor for Application in Site-Specific Tillage

One objective of precision agriculture is to provide accurate information about soil and crop properties to optimize the management of agricultural inputs to meet site-specific needs. This paper describes the development of a sensor equipped with RTK-GPS technology that continuously and efficiently measures soil cutting resistance at various depths while traversing the field. Laboratory and preliminary field tests verified the accuracy of this prototype soil strength sensor. The data obtained using a hand-operated soil cone penetrometer was used to evaluate this field soil compaction depth profile sensor. To date, this sensor has only been tested in one field under one gravimetric water content condition. This field test revealed that the relationships between the soil strength profile sensor (SSPS) cutting force and soil cone index values are assumed to be quadratic for the various depths considered: 0–10, 10–20 and 20–30 cm (r2 = 0.58, 0.45 and 0.54, respectively). Soil resistance contour maps illustrated its practical value. The developed sensor provides accurate, timely and affordable information on soil properties to optimize resources and improve agricultural economy.

Offline handover location positioning for map matching of mobile probes

Handover location technology was employed for collecting road traffic information in a number of field projects, and the project results demonstrate that it is a supplementary and promising means of road traffic information collection for further traffic supervision and maintenance. Because handover location technology is one kind of pattern matching based location technologies, offline handover location positioning is an essential problem to be studied for successfully matching mobile probes on GIS map. Offline handover location positioning method involves two stages, handover location positioning respectively via two weighted models and an optimized model based on the intermediate results obtained in the first stage. A preliminary field test is conducted on a stretch of freeway in the inner suburban region in Beijing, and performance evaluation results show that the proposed method is superior to standard least square model in location accuracy and location precision, which is an effective method of offline handover location positioning.

Demonstration of a high sensitivity GNSS software receiver for indoor positioning

Advances in signal processing techniques contributed to the significant improvements of GNSS receiver performance in dense multipath environments and created the opportunities for a new category of high-sensitivity GNSS (HS-GNSS) receivers that can provide GNSS location services in indoor environments. The difficulties in improving the availability, reliability, and accuracy of these indoor capable GNSS receivers exceed those of the receivers designed for the most hostile urban canyon environments. The authors of this paper identified the vector tracking schemes, signal propagation statistics, and parallel processing techniques that are critical to a robust HS-GNSS receiver for indoor environments and successfully incorporated them into a fully functional high-sensitivity software receiver. A flexible vector-based receiver architecture is introduced to combine these key indoor signal processing technologies into GSNRx-hs™ – the high sensitivity software navigation receiver developed at the University of Calgary. The resulting receiver can perform multi-mode vector tracking in indoor environment at various levels of location and timing uncertainties. In addition to the obvious improvements in time-to-first-fix (TTFF) and signal sensitivity, the field test results in indoor environments surrounded by wood, glass, and concrete showed that the new techniques effectively improved the performance of indoor GNSS positioning. With fine GNSS timing, the proposed receiver can consistently deliver indoor navigation solution with the horizontal accuracy of 2–15m depending on the satellite geometry and the indoor environments. If only the coarse GNSS timing is available, the horizontal accuracy of the indoor navigation solution from the proposed receiver is around 30m depending on the coarse timing accuracy, the satellite geometry, and the indoor environments. From the preliminary field test results, it has been observed that the signal processing sensitivity is the dominant factor on the availability of the indoor navigation solution, while the GNSS timing accuracy is the dominant factor on the accuracy of the indoor navigation solution.

Design and Preliminary Test of Tiny Remote Controlled Electric Tractor Used in Greenhouse

Most agricultural machines cultivating in greenhouse use diesel engine or gasoline engine as the prime mover, they can make pollutions to crops and their growing environment easily with the emissions, lead, dust and other harmful substances at work, at the same time, most of them exit the problems of inconvenient to operate, labor intensity and big noise etc. To solve these problems, a kind of new miniature remote controlled led electric tractor was proposed in this paper, which is suitable for the plow work in greenhouse. Besides, this paper also researched into the spatial layout of this machine and built the 3-D model, the main parts of this machine’s electric driving system and the calculation of their parameters were finished. Based on these, a prototype was made, and preliminary road and field tests were did. The results showed that the prototype can complete normal remote plow work, simultaneously with the advantages of low carbon environmental protection, low operating costs, easy operation and low noise.

Examining Estimates of Effect Using Non-Overlap of All Pairs in Multiple Baseline Studies of Academic Intervention

The inclusion of single-case design (SCD) studies in meta-analytic research is an important consideration in identifying effective evidence-based practices. Various SCD effect sizes have been previously suggested; non-overlap of all pairs (NAP) is a recently introduced effect size. Preliminary field tests investigating the adequacy of NAP are promising, but no analyses have been conducted using only multiple baseline designs (MBDs). This preliminary study investigated typical values of NAP in MBDs, investigated agreement with visual analysis, and suggested cut scores for interpreting a NAP effect size. Typical values of NAP in MBDs were larger compared to a previous meta-analysis of studies using AB, MBD, or ABAB withdrawal designs, and agreement of suggested cut scores and visual analysis was moderate.

Fusarium wilt‐resistant lines of Brazil banana (Musa spp., AAA) obtained by EMS‐induced mutation in a micro‐cross‐section cultural system

This study combined the micro‐cross‐section cultural system with in vitro mutagenesis induced by ethyl methanesulphonate (EMS) to screen for fusarium wilt‐resistant lines of Brazil banana (Musa spp., AAA). The results indicated that the optimum EMS concentration and duration for the treatment of micro‐cross‐sections cut from the pseudostem of tissue‐cultured plantlet were 300 mm and 60 min, respectively. Under the optimal treatment, an average of 2·2 regenerated shoots were produced from each explant. One hundred regenerated plantlets were used for screening for fusarium wilt‐resistant lines by the early screening technique. The initial disease symptom – yellowing in lower leaves of susceptible plantlets – was observed 2 weeks after inoculation. After 2 months, only six plants survived – the putative fusarium wilt‐resistant lines. The fusarium wilt pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense race 4, was identified in the preliminary test field by a SCAR marker technique. Of the six putative resistant lines, five survived the preliminary field test. The regenerated plantlets from these five fusarium wilt‐resistant lines were subjected to early screening again, where they showed markedly reduced disease incidences compared with regenerated plantlets of Brazil banana (control). It was concluded that EMS‐induced mutation of banana through the micro‐cross‐section cultural system is potentially useful for banana improvement.

A Development of Knowledge Database Management System of Sufficiency Economy for Basic Education Principal

Knowledge database management system of sufficiency economy for basic education principal has been developed by Moodle, the open source of learning management system (LMS) and developed seventh step of the research cycles. Step 1: The need assessment for analyses element of sufficiency economy database for basic education and concentrate to school administration. Step 2 : The Product Design , the Researcher developed core of Database System by Moodle and consisted of; Assignment Module, Chat Module , Choice Module, Forum Module, Journal Module, Quiz Module, Resource Module, Survey Module, Workshop Module, Lesson Module, Glossary Module, WiKi Module and SCORM Module . Step 3 : Product Development , We used Moodle Version 9 to Designed login Menu and Registered Domain Name to Hosting , powered by LAMP, Integrated Application used of Linux , Apache server , MySql and PHP. Step 4: Preliminary Field Test and Initial Product Revision, the researchers to monitor and improve the quality of early found that the stability is satisfactory and reasonable speed. Step 5: Main Field Test and Step 6: Final Product Revision, Check the system with the primary goal found that the first web page (Homepage) modules will be even complete set. Step 7: Publishing database, Main target groups covered test system. Interesting name that is friendly and clearly defined in line with research. Result of the development of knowledge management issues under the principle of modesty, the validity Principle of immunity as well, Conditions of knowledge and integrity, applied to management of basic education for school administrators. Keyword - Knowledge Database Management System, Sufficiency Economy, Education Principal.

Assessment of Impact of Splash and Spray on Road Users: Results of Controlled Experiment

A preliminary field test assessed the impact of splash and spray on road users. The test was part of a larger project sponsored by FHWA to develop a model that could characterize a highway's propensity to generate splash and spray during rainfall and the impact of this on road users. “Splash and spray” refers to water thrown into the air when a vehicle tire crosses a wet surface. For the experiment, participants observed videos recorded from the driver position of a vehicle as it traveled behind another vehicle in rain conditions. The videos were recorded on the Virginia Smart Road, and the rain conditions were created with a weather-making system. The full factorial design used two levels for each of the five variables: driver vehicle, spray vehicle, maneuver, rain rate, and speed. Participants rated each video for five categories: obstruction, concentration, confidence, control, and risk. In addition, an objective measure of visual obstruction, the occlusion factor, was recorded. Several factors and interactions were found to be significant for the subjective ratings, but significance varied depending on the category being rated. The occlusion factor was found to have a strong correlation with each of the ratings, and the lowest R2 value was .75. This correlation result suggests that the occlusion factor could be used to predict user perceptions of splash and spray.

Feasibility study of a new two-stage low temperature desalination process

This paper presents the preliminary field test data of a two-stage low temperature phase-change desalination process. The process under development operates at low temperatures and low pressures generated by local barometric head. A two-stage configuration of this process was developed and tested at a field site in the Puget Sound bay area of the State of Washington. The field test results proved that the two-stage desalination process has potential for standalone small to large scale applications in water and energy scarce rural areas with specific energy consumption of 1500 kJ/kg of freshwater. Economical analysis conducted on the desalination system results in desalination costs around $3/m 3 using a cheap waste heat source purchased at $0.5/GJ. Since, most small scale domestic desalination systems are designed in combination with a renewable energy source; when this desalination system is powered by a low grade flat plate solar collector heat source, the desalination costs are less than $7/m 3 which falls in acceptable range for small scale desalination systems of similar capacity.

PENGEMBANGAN DAN ANALISIS SOAL ULANGAN KENAIKAN KELAS KIMIA SMA KELAS X BERDASARKAN CLASSICAL TEST THEORY DAN ITEM RESPONSE THEORY

This research is title “Test Development and Analysis of First Grade Senior High School Final Examination in chemistry Based on Classical Test Theory and Item Response Theory”. This research is conducted to develop a standard test instrument for final examination in senior high school at first grade using analysis based on classical test theory and item response theory. The test is a multiple choice test which consists of 75 items. Each item has five options. The research method is research and development method to get a product of test items which fulfill item criterion such as validity, reliability, item discrimination, item difficulty and distracting options quality based on classical test theory and validity, reliability, item discrimination, item difficulty and pseudo-guessing based on item response theory. The three parameter item response theory model is used in this research. Research and development method is conducted until preliminary field test to 102 first grade students in senior high school. Based on the research result, the test fulfills criterion as a good instrument based on classical test theory and item response theory. The final examination test items have vary of item quality so that some of them need a revision to make them better either for the stem and the options. From the total of 75 test items, 21 test items are declined and 54 test items are accepted.

A preliminary field test of an employee work passion model

AbstractFour dimensions of a process model for the formulation of employee work passion, derived from Zigarmi, Nimon, Houson, Witt, and Diehl (2009), were tested in a field setting. A total of 447 employees completed questionnaires that assessed the internal elements of the model in a corporate work environment. Data from the measurements of work affect, work cognition, job wellbeing, and work intention supported the hypothesized model. Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that a partial mediation model fitted best to the data. Implications for theory, practice, and future research directions are discussed.

Borlaug Global Rust Initiative provides momentum for wheat rust research

The discovery in 1999 in Uganda (Pretorius et al. 2000) of stem rust on wheat varieties with the 1BL.1RS translocation carrying the gene known as Sr31 came as re-awakening, even when it should not have been unexpected. The worldwide deployment of wheat varieties with the translocation probably had an effect of reducing inoculum, resulting in low incidence of the disease over an extended period. Stem rust resistance was only one of a number of advantageous features of the translocation. With acquisition of virulence for Sr31, race Ug99 as it became known, was subsequently found in epidemic proportions in Kenya and Ethiopia. Stem rust had not been a significant problem in Kenya for many years prior to 2000 although the region was a historic hotspot for the disease. In Ethiopia, with about 40% of the area growing durum the situation was different; stem rust continued to be a recurrent problem on durum whereas bread wheat was generally resistant. Subsequent events of rapid mutational changes in Ug99 to attack varieties with Sr24 and Sr36, and its further migration to Yemen and Iran, caused major concern and a prediction of the likelihood of further movement to the important grain production areas of the Indian subcontinent and beyond. Previously races of the stripe rust pathogen virulent for Yr9, also in the same 1BL.1RS translocation, were observed sequentially from equatorial Africa to India suggesting the entire wheat area in Asia may comprise a single epidemiologic zone (Singh et al. 2004, 2008). Preliminary laboratory and field tests with Ug99 confirmed that it not only had virulence for Sr31, but it also possessed virulence to other genes deployed in contemporary wheat varieties along with obvious fitness attributes. Most importantly it could cause disease on the widely used variety (mega-variety) Attila and sibs that were being widely grown from Kenya to India and Afghanistan under several different names. International concern regarding the threat to world wheat production caused by Ug99 led to the durable rust resistance in wheat project at Cornell University funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and establishment of a Global Rust Initiative (later Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, BGRI). The BGRI led by Cornell University, CIMMYT, ICARDA and FAO is supported by many national governments and research centres. Clearly, stem rust is only one of the three rusts that threaten wheat, and currently there is a group of rapidly spreading races of the stripe rust pathogen that is a major threat to production at least as great as Ug99. One of the objectives of BGRI is to conduct an annual meeting. The first meeting was held at Ciudad R. A. McIntosh (&) The University of Sydney Plant Breeding Institute Cobbitty, Private Bag 4011, Narellan, NSW 2567, Australia e-mail: robert.mcintosh@sydney.edu.au

Development of a Mobile Grading Machine for Citrus Fruit

A mobile grading machine for citrus fruits has been developed to collect crop information such as fruit yield, diameter, and sugar content of fruits of each tree part. It consists of a mobile mechanism, a differential global positioning system, a fruit conveyer system, a color camera for machine vision, a NIR spectrometer, and a personal computer for control and database. Preliminary field tests were conducted to investigate basic performance of this machine in a mandarin orange orchard. Using the collecting data of fruit yield and diameter and sugar content of fruit, crop information maps of each tree part was made. These maps indicated that each tree part has large variability of yield, size, and sugar content of fruit.

Landfill clay barrier subjected to cracking: Multi-scale analysis of bending tests

The behaviour of a clay cover barrier of a site for storing nuclear waste with very low activity is considered in this paper, more particularly, the focus is on the behaviour of clay in the case of differential settlements within underlying waste. For this kind of application, maximum tensile strength is not the goal, but rather the maximum ductility and maximum extension of the clay without cracking. A four points bending test protocol is proposed for the clay material used in the landfill cover to optimise the implementation conditions (water content and compaction energy). Original large scale bursting tests in field conditions are performed for validation: monitoring deformations both for the laboratory and the field tests demonstrates that the initiation of cracks in the clay material occurs for basically the same strain. Therefore, preliminary field tests are not needed.

Inviting Lead-users from Virtual Communities to Co-create Innovative IS Services in a Structured Groupware Environment

Contemporary information systems (IS) products and services must fulfill the needs of consumers that are more widely scattered than traditional organizational end-users. New ways to incorporate these wide-audience end-users in the IS development are required. The lead-user method used in new product development is a promising approach to tackle this problem. However, the finding and recruiting of the lead-users has been found very burdensome for the firms. We propose lead-users to be found and recruited from virtual communities. This paper provides a conceptual framework that makes use of the Internet's possibilities – not only in recruiting the lead-users – but also when collaborating with them utilizing distributed Group Support Systems. Finally, we report on our preliminary field tests regarding the recruitment phase, discuss the implications of our work and provide suggestions for further research. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]

Reversed Impacts by Specialist Parasitoids and Generalist Predators May Explain a Phase Lag in Moth Cycles: A Novel Hypothesis and Preliminary Field Tests

Among cyclic populations of herbivores, inter-specific temporal synchrony has been attributed to both climatic factors and trophic interactions. In northern Europe, winter and autumnal moths undergo regular 9–11 year population cycles. The winter moth cycle has typically been phase-locked with that of the autumnal moth, but with a 1–3-year phase lag. We examined potential effects of natural enemies on this phase lag using field experiments and observational data. We found that larval parasitism was significantly higher in autumnal than in winter moths. Conversely, pupal predation by generalist invertebrates was clearly greater in winter than in autumnal moths. The difference in parasitism rates may contribute to the earlier collapse of the autumnal moth cycle. In addition, the phase lag may be strengthened by higher pupal mortality in winter moths in the early increase phase of the cycles. As a consequence, we put forward a hypothesis on reversed effects of natural enemies, providing a potential explanati...

Bridge-Weigh-In-Motion by Two-Span Continuous Bridge with Skew and Heavy-Truck Flow in Fukuoka Area, Japan

For clarifying maintenance requirements of National Highway 201 in the Fukuoka area, a project to investigate actual truck weights was initiated in the year 2002. To this end, the bridge-weigh-in-motion was employed. Nevertheless, a two-span continuous curved bridge with skew was the only bridge available in the area: the bridge is far from ideal for the weigh-in-motion. Preliminary field test taking account of various traffic situations was therefore conducted carefully to see if the project goal could be achieved with this bridge. The test result has confirmed that the bridge-weigh-in-motion employed in the present project can estimate truck weights with satisfactory accuracy, the error being 11.7% at most. The real-time weigh-in-motion system was then constructed and run for 237 days in the year 2004. The data thus obtained reveals characteristics of heavy-truck flow in National Highway 201 in the Fukuoka area.

Three-point hitch-mechanism instrumentation for tillage power optimization

In order to study tillage power optimization, a tillage-force measuring system has been built with transducers in the three-point hitch mechanism, and then has been calibrated and tested in the field. The uniqueness of this system is its ability to measure the three orthogonal components of the tillage force despite using only three force sensors; this was possible by using a three-dimensional analysis of the tractor linkage mechanism. A dynamic calculus program was developed to take into consideration the changes of the three-point hitch-mechanism geometry during the tillage operation. The calibration results showed a linear relation between the applied and the measured forces. The preliminary field tests proved the stability of the system results. The developed system can readily be applied in studies to minimize tillage energy consumption.

Measuring the Electrical Properties of Soil Using a Calibrated Ground‐Coupled GPR System

Traditional methods for estimating vadose zone soil properties using ground penetrating radar (GPR) include measuring travel time, fitting diffraction hyperbolae, and other methods exploiting geometry. Additional processing techniques for estimating soil properties are possible with properly calibrated GPR systems. Such calibration using ground‐coupled antennas must account for the effects of the shallow soil on the antenna's response, because changing soil properties result in a changing antenna response. A prototype GPR system using ground‐coupled antennas was calibrated using laboratory measurements and numerical simulations of the GPR components. Two methods for estimating subsurface properties that utilize the calibrated response were developed. First, a new nonlinear inversion algorithm to estimate shallow soil properties under ground‐coupled antennas was evaluated. Tests with synthetic data showed that the inversion algorithm is well behaved across the allowed range of soil properties. A preliminary field test gave encouraging results, with estimated soil property uncertainties (±σ) of ±1.9 and ±4.4 mS/m for the relative dielectric permittivity and the electrical conductivity, respectively. Next, a deconvolution method for estimating the properties of subsurface reflectors with known shapes (e.g., pipes or planar interfaces) was developed. This method uses scattering matrices to account for the response of subsurface reflectors. The deconvolution method was evaluated for use with noisy data using synthetic data. Results indicate that the deconvolution method requires reflected waves with a signal/noise ratio of about 10:1 or greater. When applied to field data with a signal/noise ratio of 2:1, the method was able to estimate the reflection coefficient and relative permittivity, but the large uncertainty in this estimate precluded inversion for conductivity.

Speciation and Atmospheric Abundance of Organic Compounds in PM2.5 from the New York City Area. I. Sampling Network, Sampler Evaluation, Molecular Level Blank Evaluation

This study demonstrates an approach for evaluating a molecular level sampling and analysis protocol for organic marker compounds at the high picogram m−3 (ppt) to low nanogram m−3 (ppb) mass concentrations in urban and background receptor sites. The Speciation of Organics for Apportionment of PM2.5 in the New York City Area (SOAP) project was conducted from May 2002 to May 2003 at four sites in New York City, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Its chief objectives were to expand the chemical characterization of organic compounds and to estimate the source contributions of carbonaceous fine particles at urban and background monitoring sites. Two major challenges were faced in order to successfully implement the SOAP sampling network. First, collection of adequate fine PM mass was necessary for successful quantitation of organic marker compounds. Second, sufficiently low blank levels were required for each marker compound for accurate identification and quantitation needed for source-receptor modeling. Initial field tests of representative samplers designed for sampling PM chemical species indicated insufficient sample mass collection, unless analytical sensitivity for organic markers could be greatly improved. Adequate PM mass was collected using a Tisch TE-1202 sampler that operated at a much higher flow rate (113 lpm). Preliminary field tests also revealed unacceptably high travel blank levels for n-alkanes and carboxylic acids. The mass of organic marker compounds observed on travel blank filters was reduced significantly by shipping filters in sealed filter holders. Further evaluation of the Tisch TE-1202 sampler also demonstrated the sampler was free of organic components and impactor grease upstream of the filter. These features also reduced the contribution of carbonaceous species to system blanks and therefore, to the total mass collected. As a result, blank levels for hopanes, PAHs, and dicarboxylic acids were below limits of detection (LOD), and n -alkanes (C25 to C32), n-alkanoic acids (C12, C14, C16, and C18), and phthalic acid exhibited acceptable low levels in all SOAP blanks ranging from 1 to 10 times the limit of detection for each compound class. Overall, adequate sample mass and sufficiently low blank levels were achieved successfully with the SOAP fine particle collection protocol.