Protection Machinery Research Articles

Dynamic spreading characteristics of droplet impinging soybean leaves

The study on the deposition efficiency of pesticide droplets on soybean leaves can provide the basis for reducing pesticide quantity and increasing pesticide efficiency during the application of soybean plant protection machinery. The movement behavior of droplet impinges on the plant leaf surface is affected by many factors, among which the most important and the easiest to adjust are spray droplet size and impingement velocity. By changing the droplet size and impact velocity and using Fluent simulation software, the pesticide droplet hitting the soybean leaf surface was simulated and a test platform was established to verify the simulation results. The conclusions are as follows: The longitudinal roughness of soybean leaves is higher than the transverse roughness, the longitudinal pressure of soybean leaves is higher than the transverse pressure during the impact process, and the velocity of droplet spreading along the longitudinal is lower than that of spreading along the transverse; although soybean leaf surface has high adhesion, droplet losses still exist when droplet impact velocity is relatively high. The maximum spreading diameter of the droplet increases first and then decreases with the increase of impact velocity. At the same time, the maximum spreading diameter of droplet increases with the increase of particle size. The droplet deposition was best at 1.34 m/s impact velocity and 985 μm particle size. This conclusion can provide optimal operation parameters for soybean plant protection operation which can be used to guide soybean plant protection operation, improve control effect, reduce quantity and increase efficiency. Keywords: soybean, deposition efficiency, Fluent, droplet impact, spreading features, dynamic DOI: 10.25165/j.ijabe.20211403.6274 Citation: Li H, Niu X X, Ding L, Tahir A S, Guo C L, Chai J J, et al. Dynamic spreading characteristics of droplet impinging soybean leaves. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2021; 14(3): 32–45.

Recent advances in plant thermomemory.

This review summarizes the process of thermal acquired tolerance in plants and the knowledge gap compared to systemic acquired resistance that a plant shows after pathogen inoculation. Plants are continuously challenged by several biotic stresses such as pests and pathogens, or abiotic stresses like high light, UV radiation, drought, salt, and very high or low temperature. Interestingly, for most stresses, prior exposure makes plants more tolerant during the subsequent exposures, which is often referred to as acclimatization. Research of the last two decades reveals that the memory of most of the stresses is associated with epigenetic changes. Heat stress causes damage to membrane proteins, denaturation and inactivation of various enzymes, and accumulation of reactive oxygen species leading to cell injury and death. Plants are equipped with thermosensors that can recognize certain specific changes and activate protection machinery. Phytochrome and calcium signaling play critical roles in sensing sudden changes in temperature and activate cascades of signaling, leading to the production of heat shock proteins (HSPs) that keep protein-unfolding under control. Heat shock factors (HSFs) are the transcription factors that read the activation of thermosensors and induce the expression of HSPs. Epigenetic modifications of HSFs are likely to be the key component of thermal acquired tolerance (TAT). Despite the advances in understanding the process of thermomemory generation, it is not known whether plants are equipped with systemic activation thermal protection, as happens in the form of systemic acquired resistance (SAR) upon pathogen infection. This review describes the recent advances in the understanding of thermomemory development in plants and the knowledge gap in comparison with SAR.

Reducing the wear and corrosion of the agricultural mower steel knives by electrodeposition nanocomposite coatings – Review

Agricultural production is a world spearhead to face hungry crisis and the main part of this facing is agricultural machinery. Agricultural machinery exposed to failure due to wear and corrosion. This leads to a decreasing lifetime of working parts of agricultural machinery. Agricultural machinery contain seedbed preparation machinery, planting machinery, service and protection machinery, harvesting machinery and post-harvest machinery all types of agricultural machinery deals with different soil condition (soil moistures and soil types), plants (different stem diameter, cutting heights and plants moisture), and agricultural chemical (pesticides and chemical fertilizer). There are many studies searching the optimum method to increase the wear resistance of working parts of agricultural machinery. These methods contain the improvement the new material, hardfacing allying, surface coating, and nanocomposite coating. Nanocomposite coating is a new trend to promote surface properties of the different metal used in manufacturing agricultural machinery. This new trend use nanoparticles as reinforcement in the metal matrix and incorporation process lead to super hardness coating with low corrosion rate and low wear rate compared to conventional surface coating materials.

Pharmaceuticals in treated wastewater induce a stress response in tomato plants

Pharmaceuticals remain in treated wastewater used to irrigate agricultural crops. Their effect on terrestrial plants is practically unknown. Here we tested whether these compounds can be considered as plant stress inducers. Several features characterize the general stress response in plants: production of reactive oxygen species acting as stress-response signals, MAPKs signaling cascade inducing expression of defense genes, heat shock proteins preventing protein denaturation and degradation, and amino acids playing signaling roles and involved in osmoregulation. Tomato seedlings bathing in a cocktail of pharmaceuticals (Carbamazepine, Valporic acid, Phenytoin, Diazepam, Lamotrigine) or in Carbamazepine alone, at different concentrations and during different time-periods, were used to study the patterns of stress-related markers. The accumulation of the stress-related biomarkers in leaf and root tissues pointed to a cumulative stress response, mobilizing the cell protection machinery to avoid metabolic modifications and to restore homeostasis. The described approach is suitable for the investigation of stress response of different crop plants to various contaminants present in treated wastewater.

Effects of Pulsed Electric Field on the Cell Wall and Infection Activity of Rhizoctonia solani.

This paper adopts the Design-Expert software to design an orthogonal experiment with a pulse voltage amplitude of 30 kV, processing time of three minutes, and a pulse width of 45 μs as the center points, in order to study the effects of the pulsed electric field on the cell wall and infection activity of Rhizoctonia solani. High-voltage pulse power was used to treat the bacteria solution with the pulsed electric field. Untreated Rhizoctonia solani were used as the control group. Transmission electron microscope images were used to analyze the cell wall damage. ANOVA was performed on the experimental results and the fitting degree of the model was good (F>>1). Response surface analysis was used to optimize the parameters based on chitin content and polygalacturonase activity. The optimal treatment conditions were obtained as a pulse voltage amplitude of 25 kV, processing time of 2.54 min, and a pulse width of 34.35 μs. On this basis, experiments were designed to verify the optimized conditions. The results demonstrated that, under the optimal processing conditions, the damage index of the cell wall of Rhizoctonia solani was 9.59% lower in chitin content and 83.05% lower in polygalacturonase activity compared with those of the control group. All indexes were significantly different (P < 0.001), which is consistent with the parameter optimization results. The results provide a theoretical basis for the pulsed electric field assisted sterilization and reference for the design of plant protection machinery in the latter stage.

Design and experiment of electro hydraulic active suspension for controlling the rolling motion of spray boom

Boom sprayer is one of the most commonly used plant protection machinery for spraying pesticide. Studies have shown that the efficiency of chemicals is highly correlated with the uniformity of spray distribution patterns. As the boom is a large and flexible structure, boom rolling leads to overlapping and leakage of the pesticides. In order to improve spray uniformity, the boom attitude should be kept parallel to the ground slope or to the crop canopy beneath the boom. Passive suspension can attenuate frequencies above its resonance frequency, but nothing can be done to align the boom to the sloping ground. Therefore, an active suspension system is designed, which includes DSP-based controller, a servo valve, a hydraulic cylinder, two ultrasonic sensors, one inertial attitude sensor, and the developed control procedures. In order to prevent the wrong response of the control system caused by the high frequency component due to uneven crop canopy or rough ground. A special signal processing algorithm was proposed, including the limiting filter, smoothing algorithm and data fusion algorithm based on optimal weight. The transient and steady-state performances of the boom control system using velocity feedforward PID algorithm were tested on a six DOF motion simulator. It can be seen that the low-frequency tracking performance of the boom was greatly improved after the electro-hydraulic active suspension was added. At the resonance frequency, the peak angle of active suspension and passive suspensions are 0.72° and 1.29° respectively, and the resonance peak is greatly reduced. The controller was implemented on a self-propelled boom sprayer and validated under field conditions, the standard deviation of the roll angle of the boom with active suspension is 0.40°, compared with 1.04° of the sprayer chassis. Experimental results show that the active suspension control system can effectively reduce the effect of ground excitation disturbance on the application process, and has good tracking performance for low frequency terrain change. Keywords: boom sprayer, active suspension, electro-hydraulic servo system, six DOF motion simulator, signal process, motion control DOI: 10.25165/j.ijabe.20191204.4648 Citation: Cui L F, Xue X Y, Le F X, Mao H P, Ding S M. Design and experiment of electro hydraulic active suspension for controlling the rolling motion of spray boom. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2019; 12(4): 72–81.

Protective effects of noradrenaline on benzo[a]pyrene-induced oxidative stress responses in brain tumor cell lines.

Benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) is an ubiquitous environmental pollutant that is generated during combustion of fossil fuels. We examine the effect of noradrenaline (NA) on B[a]P-induced neurotoxicity in brain tumor cell lines like neuroblastoma (Neuro2a) and glioma (C6). We pre-treated tumor cells with NA for 6h, followed by addition of B[a]P for additional 24h. Cell viability was measured using trypan blue dye-exclusion assay and comet assay was performed to measure DNA damage. Cell cycle status was analyzed using flow cytometry and oxidative DNA damage (8-oxodG) production was examined by immunostaining. The intracellular Ca2+ concentration was analyzed using Fura-2AM. Our results showed viability of Neuro2a and C6 cells declined (24% and 20%) in B[a]P-treated groups. However, pre-treating with NA increased viability of cells by reducing percentage of cell death in both. Furthermore, B[a]P-induced deregulation of cell cycle (G2/M and S phase cell arrest) was significantly restored by pre-treatment with NA in Neuro2a cells as compared to C6 cells. We further observed increased 8-oxodG production in B[a]P-treated cells; however, NA pre-treatment significantly (p < 0.05) reduced the 8-oxodG production in Neuro2a, while C6 cells were less affected possibly due to better protective machinery. B[a]P-induced intracellular Ca2+ influx was significantly reduced in both the cell lines due to co-treatment of NA possibly by reducing Ca2+ influx. NA protects brain tumor cells against B[a]P-induced neurotoxicity may be by decreasing percentage of G2 cell arrest, oxidative DNA damage, and reducing intracellular Ca2+ influx. These findings suggested that NA may be considered as a natural potential protective agent against B[a]P-induced neurotoxicity. Graphical abstract Graphical abstract showing differential protective mechanism of NA against B[a]P-induced toxicity through antioxidant mechanism maintaining homeostasis for oxidative stress in Neuro2a and C6 cell lines. The schematic graph showed the biological significance of the NA that regulates the induction of metabolic processes of cell cycle after exposure to the environmental pollutants. B[a]P increases the intracellular levels of Ca2+, but also induces damage to cellular molecules including DNA causing cell cycle arrest. The B[a]P-induced DNA damage due to base lesions generated in the genome, 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-oxodG) is one of the most abundant because of guanine's lowest redox potential among DNA bases through intracellular calcium homoeostasis.

Critical rotating machinery protection by integration of a “fuse” bearing

Minimizing physical damage to mechanical equipment caused by cyber-attacks is currently a challenge. This work describes a new concept for protecting critical mechanical systems against such attacks in which a defense layer is added to the critical rotating machine to prevent hostile entities from damaging it. The machine includes a mechanical component – a rolling element bearing (REB) – which acts as a “fuse” mechanism. It is designed so that under cyber-attack the “fuse” REB will be damaged first, ahead of other critical components. Moreover, the defense layer includes condition monitoring (CM) tools designed for the “fuse” REB. As far as we know, this is the first work that shows how CM tools can be used as a protective layer against cyber-attack. This study describes the design concepts and focuses on early fault detection and condition monitoring solutions via vibration analysis. Endurance tests were conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed concept and yield insights into the analysis process of the failure modes that were developed in the “fuse” REB.

Prácticas de comportamiento seguro en la industria del aserrío de El Salto, Durango, México

Los trabajadores de la industria del aserrío de El Salto, Durango, México, están expuestos a diferente riesgos; sin embargo, éstos no se han evaluado para determinar el nivel de seguridad. El objetivo de este estudio fue conocer las prácticas de comportamiento seguro de los trabajadores en los puestos de trabajo de 11 aserraderos. Para esto, se realizaron observaciones directas sobre actos seguros e inseguros aplicando dos listas de verificación, la primera, sobre el uso de equipo de protección personal (EPP) y la segunda, sobre las condiciones de seguridad del puesto de trabajo generadas a partir de la normatividad en seguridad y salud en el trabajo. Con esta información se determinó el porcentaje de comportamiento seguro y gráficos de control de seguridad; adicionalmente, se elaboraron tablas de contingencia y pruebas de asociación entre variables categóricas de Chi-cuadrado. Los resultados mostraron que las prácticas de comportamiento seguro del trabajador forestal son muy bajas pues en el uso de EPP alcanzaron apenas un 31 %, donde los guantes para protección de las manos fue el equipo de mayor uso y los dispositivos para protección respiratoria y contra el ruido los menos utilizados; mientras que las condiciones de seguridad en los puestos de trabajo también resultaron muy bajas con un 36 %, donde la señalización del área de trabajo, la disponibilidad de extintores y la protección de maquinaria resultaron ser los aspectos más críticos. Es importante cambiar el comportamiento inseguro de la planta laboral para minimizar la posibilidad de lesiones y accidentes.

Anti-ageing and anti-Parkinsonian effects of natural flavonol, tambulin from Zanthoxyllum aramatum promotes longevity in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Ageing is a progressive deterioration in functional and structural well-being of the body, accompanied with age-associated neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease (PD), Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease. PD is marked with motor function decline, progressive neurodegeneration due to aggregation of insoluble α-synuclein in the dopaminergic neuron. Here we investigated the effect of tambulin (3,5-dihydroxy-7,8-dimethoxy-2-(4-methoxyphenyl) chromen-4-one), a hydroxy substituted flavanol isolated from fruits of Zanthoxyllum armatum DC (Family-Rutaceae) for its longevity promoting and neuromodulatory activities using Caenorhabditis elegans model system. Our results show that tambulin treatment significantly enhance lifespan and stress tolerance in worms, along with mitigation of ageing biomarkers like lipofuscin and protein carbonyl. In line with the alleviated ROS levels, tambulin treatment led to upregulated mRNA expression of ROS scavenging genes viz., sod-1, sod-3, and ctl-2. Upregulation in daf-16 gene indicates the involvement of insulin signaling pathway in tambulin mediated longevity. Tambulin treatment exhibited curtailed PD manifestations in terms of reduced α-synuclein levels, lipid accumulation, improved locomotary behavior and dopamine levels. Altogether, our data suggest that tambulin mediated alleviation of PD manifestations possibly involved PD counter protective machinery as evident through upregulated mRNA expression of lagr-1, ymel-1, pdr-1, ubc-12, and lrk-1. Our studies present tambulin as a potential molecule for its properties against ageing and Parkinson's disease. Further studies are speculated to realize the mechanistic and pharmacological aspects of tambulin.

Rešenja za materijale za tvrdo navarivanje za visokokvalitetne obloge u aplikacijama habanja I korozije

The protection of machinery and structural components by thermal coatings is of huge economic importance. Each hour of downtime, caused by deficient coatings as a result of wear and corrosion, costs a fortune. Savings by reducing these downtime hours can be achieved by applying optimized functional coatings which show enhanced properties. The main welding processes for applying coatings are GMAW or OA, PTA or Laser, each with their pros and cons. The PTA process can be seen as the intermediate process bridging the low cost, high deposition rate and the expensive but high end Laser. Recently, the PTA and especially the laser process are gaining more attention and market shares. Nowadays the flux-cored wires can be upgraded more and more with for instance complex carbides and achieve coatings similar to the high performance coatings obtained by PTA and Laser welding but at much lower costs. The common problems accompanying the GMAW process: a large heat affected zone and dilution, can be circumvented by using the cold metal transfer (CMT), the AC-GMAW and the GMAW hot wire process, allowing the flux-cored wires to fully deploy their large potential and compete with the welding techniques. The current paper will describe the modern GMAW hot wire process and then deal with innovative materials and process concepts for the high performance flux-cored wire to give a competitive alternative for the PTA process and expensive laser.

Hardfacing material solutions for high performance coatings in wear and corrosion applications

The protection of machinery and structural components by thermal coatings is of huge economic importance. Each hour of downtime, caused by deficient coatings as a result of wear and corrosion, costs a fortune. Savings by reducing these downtime hours can be achieved by applying optimized functional coatings which show enhanced properties. The main welding processes for applying coatings are GMAW or OA, PTA or Laser, each with their pros and cons. The PTA process can be seen as the intermediate process bridging the low cost, high deposition rate and the expensive but high end Laser. Recently, the PTA and especially the laser process are gaining more attention and market shares. Nowadays the flux-cored wires can be upgraded more and more with for instance complex carbides and achieve coatings similar to the high performance coatings obtained by PTA and Laser welding but at much lower costs. The common problems accompanying the GMAW process: a large heat affected zone and dilution, can be circumvented by using the cold metal transfer (CMT), the AC-GMAW- and the GMAW hot wire process, allowing the flux-cored wires to fully deploy their large potential and compete with the welding techniques. The current paper will describe the modern GMAW hot wire process and then deal with innovative materials and process concepts for the high performance flux-cored wire to give a competitive alternative for the PTA process and expensive laser.

The epithelial immune microenvironment (EIME) in atopic dermatitis and psoriasis

The skin provides both a physical barrier and an immunologic barrier to external threats. The protective machinery of the skin has evolved to provide situation-specific responses to eliminate pathogens and to provide protection against physical dangers. Dysregulation of this machinery can give rise to the initiation and propagation of inflammatory loops in the epithelial microenvironment that result in inflammatory skin diseases in susceptible people. A defective barrier and microbial dysbiosis drive an interleukin 4 (IL-4) loop that underlies atopic dermatitis, while in psoriasis, disordered keratinocyte signaling and predisposition to type 17 responses drive a pathogenic IL-17 loop. Here we discuss the pathogenesis of atopic dermatitis and psoriasis in terms of the epithelial immune microenvironment-the microbiota, keratinocytes and sensory nerves-and the resulting inflammatory loops.

Potential of Oryza officinalis to augment the cold tolerance genetic mechanisms of Oryza sativa by network complementation

Oryza officinalis is an accessible alien donor for genetic improvement of rice. Comparison across a representative panel of Oryza species showed that the wild O. officinalis and cultivated O. sativa ssp. japonica have similar cold tolerance potentials. The possibility that either distinct or similar genetic mechanisms are involved in the low temperature responses of each species was addressed by comparing their transcriptional networks. General similarities were supported by shared transcriptomic signatures indicative of equivalent metabolic, hormonal, and defense status. However, O. officinalis has maintained an elaborate cold-responsive brassinosteroid-regulated BES1-network that appeared to have been fragmented in O. sativa. BES1-network is potentially important for integrating growth-related responses with physiological adjustments and defenses through the protection of photosynthetic machinery and maintenance of stomatal aperture, oxidative defenses, and osmotic adjustment. Equivalent physiological processes are functional in O. sativa but their genetic mechanisms are under the direct control of ABA-dependent, DREB-dependent and/or oxidative-mediated networks uncoupled to BES1. While O. officinalis and O. sativa represent long periods of speciation and domestication, their comparable cold tolerance potentials involve equivalent physiological processes but distinct genetic networks. BES1-network represents a novel attribute of O. officinalis with potential applications in diversifying or complementing other mechanisms in the cultivated germplasm.

Protection of right to reproduction in internet under copyright law

Innovation and speed are the twin watchwords of a knowledge based economy The most astonishing feature nbsp of nbsp the nbsp emergence nbsp of nbsp new technologies nbsp is nbsp the nbsp enabling nbsp dissemination of knowledge in a hitherto unprecedented manner These scientific break through and technological nbsp developments nbsp through nbsp Internet nbsp have nbsp created nbsp a nbsp corresponding demand for strengthening the legal protection machinery Situated against this backdrop legal protection of copyright in Internet poses a singular range of legal issues The article critically examines these advancements and their link with the law of copyright with special reference to the role of judiciary in the developing context of the India and USA

PACAP deficiency as a model of aging.

Dysregulation of neuropeptides may play an important role in aging-induced impairments. In the long list of neuropeptides, pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) represents a highly effective cytoprotective peptide that provides an endogenous control against a variety of tissue-damaging stimuli. PACAP has neuro- and general cytoprotective effects due to anti-apoptotic, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant actions. As PACAP is also a part of the endogenous protective machinery, it can be hypothesized that the decreased protective effects in lack of endogenous PACAP would accelerate age-related degeneration and PACAP knockout mice would display age-related degenerative signs earlier. Recent results support this hypothesis showing that PACAP deficiency mimics aspects of age-related pathophysiological changes including increased neuronal vulnerability and systemic degeneration accompanied by increased apoptosis, oxidative stress, and inflammation. Decrease in PACAP expression has been shown in different species from invertebrates to humans. PACAP-deficient mice display numerous pathological alterations mimicking early aging, such as retinal changes, corneal keratinization and blurring, and systemic amyloidosis. In the present review, we summarize these findings and propose that PACAP deficiency could be a good model of premature aging.

Cellular stress response biomarkers for toxicity potential assessment of treated wastewater complex mixtures

AbstractBiomarker responses provide an early warning on environmental effects of water toxicants. The current work aimed to assess the stress biomarkers responses to toxicity potential of treated wastewater effluents in human intestinal epithelial Caco‐2 cells. Overall results of stress response genes overexpression confirmed the occurrence of water pollutants stressors which stimulate the modulation of biomarkers of effect mainly Heat shock proteins (Hsps), Metal‐responsive transcription factors, Calreticulin, Thioredoxin and P‐glycoprotein. Stress response genes were significantly overexpressed for all treated cells, revealing the activation of mechanisms of Caco‐2 cell protection mainly Hsp protection machinery and cellular defence against oxidative stress. Organic micropollutants associated with toxicity potential in treated effluents were identified. Stress response biomarkers assessment revealed human health and environmental impacts to take corrective measures to protect recipient water bodies from harmful effects of effluent discharges.

Performance analysis and test of a maize inter-row self-propelled thermal fogger chassis

In view of the difficulties in weeding and plant protection in the middle and late period of maize planting, this paper proposed a self-propelled thermal fogger chassis. According to the theoretical calculation and agronomic requirements for maize planting, the structure and working principles of the self-propelled thermal fogger chassis were introduced. On this basis, the multi-body dynamics model of chassis structure was established, and the chassis traction, steering and obstacle surmounting performances were also analyzed. Then the rationality and the feasibility of the design were verified through the furrow running test and test equipped with thermal fogger. Test results showed that, the traction performance improves with the decrease of soil deformation index and increase of cohesion, and when track pre-tensioning force was about 1000 N, the machine had a good traction performance; with the decrease of the soil deformation index and the increase of cohesive force, the stability of the single side brake turn of the chassis becomes better; on the contrary, with the increase of the tightness of the crawler, the steering radius turns smaller and the steering stability becomes worse. Under heavy clay, with the pre-tensioning of 1000 N, the machine has better steering stability and smaller turning radius. The obstacle-surmounting simulation result shows that on sandy soil road, the maximum climbing angle for the chassis is 42°, the height of vertical obstacle crossing is 170 mm and the trench width is 440 mm. The study provides a reference for the design of plant protection machinery in the middle and late stages of maize planting. Keywords: maize inter-rows, intelligent chassis, traction performance, steering performance, obstacle surmounting performance DOI: 10.25165/j.ijabe.20181105.3607 Citation: Chen L Q, Wang P P, Zhang P, Zheng Q, He J, Wang Q J. Performance analysis and test of a maize inter-row self-propelled thermal fogger chassis. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2018; 11(5): 100–107.

Protective Efficiency of Water-Soluble Corrosion Inhibitors

Introduction. As a result of damage to agricultural and forestry machines from corrosion, the costs of maintaining their performance are increasing. The use of water-soluble inhibitors can slow or halt the destructive process. However, many of the inhibitors have disadvantages, for example, flammability or toxicity. The purpose of this work is to study the protective effectiveness of aqueous solutions of boric acid ester and triethanolamine and to develop recommendations for their use for anticorrosive protection of agricultural and forestry machinery in long-term storage. Materials and Methods. Protective compositions were prepared by dissolving boric acid ester and triethanolamine in distilled and industrial water at room temperature. Aqueous solutions with a concentration of water-soluble inhibitors of 5–50 g/l (0.5–5 mass %) were used for research. The linear polarization resistance method was used to assess their protective efficiency. Solartron (UK) measuring complex was used for electrochemical studies. Accelerated corrosion tests were carried out on steel plates according to GOST 9.054-75 in the g-4 humidistat. The aftereffect of water-soluble corrosion inhibitors was evaluated by the residual film protective efficiency. Results. The influence of the concentration of the ester of boric acid and triethanolamine in aqueous solutions for their protective properties is studied. It was found that boric acid and triethanolamine slow the anode reaction. The analysis of the research results has showed that the corrosion rate of the steel electrode decreases with increasing the concentration of water-soluble inhibitor in process water. This decrease is the most noticeable when the concentration in the range of 10–50 g/l with an increase in the concentration in the solution of boric acid and triethanolamine to 50 g/l, their protective efficiency varies by 6–14 %. The optimal concentration of the inhibitor in the composition is obtained, which is 10 g/l during corrosion tests of steel plates, the protective efficiency of the solution with a concentration of 10 g/l of the water-soluble inhibitor was more than 70 %. In case of precipitation on the samples, the protective efficiency of the solutions decreased to 20–25 %. When tested in a closed unheated room on steel samples during the year there were no traces of corrosion. Conclusions. The study demonstrates that boric acid and triethanolamine is a watersoluble inhibitor of anodic corrosion. When the concentration of water-soluble inhibitor in process water increases, the corrosion rate of the steel electrode decreases. Optimum concentration of ester of boric acid and triethanolamine in the protective solution should be 10 g/l. For corrosion tests of steel plates, the shielding effectiveness of a solution of water- soluble inhibitor was more than 70 %. In the conditions of direct exposure to atmospheric precipitation on the samples of the protective efficiency of the solutions decreased to 20–25 %. When tested in a closed unheated room on steel samples there were no traces of corrosion during the year. Thus, the ester of boric acid and triethanolamine is effective to protect against atmospheric corrosion in a closed room. it Is recommended to apply it for protecting cars against corrosion at short-term storage on open platforms. The application field of water-soluble inhibitor when agricultural and forestry machines are retained for long-term storage is defined; combine stages of cleaning cars from pollution and preserving their surfaces for protection against corrosion are offered. The article will be useful to specialists in the field of protection of agricultural machinery from corrosion.

Effect of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Flight Height on Droplet Distribution, Drift and Control of Cotton Aphids and Spider Mites

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as emerging plant protection machinery, have the advantages of high operational efficiency, high speed, and low drift. The current study aimed to elucidate the characteristics of droplet distribution and drift, control efficiency on cotton aphids and spider mites, and attachment and absorption of cotton leaves during UAV spraying. Kromekote card and filter paper are used as samplers to collect droplets, and the droplet density, coverage rate, deposition, and drift percentage are statistically analyzed. The pooled results showed that the droplet uniformity, the droplet coverage rate, the deposition, and the drifting ability are higher when the UAV flight height was 2 m. The control effects by UAV spraying on cotton aphids and spider mites were 63.7% and 61.3%, respectively. These values are slightly inferior to those obtained through boom spraying. Cotton leaf attachment and absorption of spirodiclofen after UAV spraying were slightly lower than those after boom spraying, therefore, the control efficiency of cotton pests is slightly different. According to the different flight height operations by the UAV sprayer, the drift capability of the droplets at 2 m flight height was large, and the droplet uniformity and deposition were satisfactory. The research results could provide the theoretical basis and technical support for UAV operation.