Germination and seedling growth of corn (Zea mays l.) under varying levels of copper and zinc

The heavy metal tolerance in corn (Zea mays L.) var. ‘Neelum’ was assessed at germination and seedling growth after having subjected it to different concentrations of CuSO₄ and ZnSO₄. Germination was not affected by any of the metal tested, whereas initial growth was strongly inhibited by increasing concentrations of ZnSO₄. Seedlings developed toxicity symptoms in the presence of both metals but more chlorotic and necrotic regions were observed at varying levels of ZnSO₄ than CuSO₄. The metal accumulation was concentration dependent. Z. mays seedlings accumulated more copper in roots but greater contents of zinc in their shoots. On the basis of results presented here, it can be concluded that the cultivar of the species tested has shown a marked sensitivity to the presence of small amounts of metals present in the growth medium. The data support the assumption that metal sensitivity is probably due to strong tendency of the species to accumulate them. This justifies that the corn variety ‘Neelum’ is not suitable for the cultivation under situations where water and soil suffer from occasional and/ or transitory metal pollution.     

Temporal changes in trace elements in brown soil and soybean after long-term fertilization

In agricultural production, specific elements in soil and plants are very important for the soil quality and plant productivity. Trace elements and rare earth elements enter in agri-environment by the application of fertilizers and, through anthropogenic activities, pose important health impacts even at low concentration due to non-biodegradable nature with long half-life. The micro nutrients are essential for human body in a quantity most of less than 100 mg/day. The nutritional element uptake by plants is regulated by availability of the required elements and element accumulation ability of the plants. Therefore, this study was aimed to investigate the accumulation of trace and rare earth elements after long-term application of different fertilizers in soil and soybean uptake. The inorganic fertilizers (NKP) and pig manure were applied to maize-maize-soybean rotation in Alfisols (brown) soil since 1979. Atomic emission spectrometry along with inductively coupled plasma technique was applied to determine trace and rare earth elements. The accumulation pattern of trace elements (TEs) observed in soil was Ni > Co > Se > Mo and rare earth elements (REEs) was found as La > Nd > Tb > Y > Pr > Gd > Er > Yb > Lu. In soybean stem, the TE and REE concentrations were Se > Ni > Co > Mo and Pr > Gd > Er > Yb > Tb > Nd > Lu > La > Y, respectively. Elemental concentrations in the seed samples were Ni > Se > Mo > Co and Pr > Gd > Er > Yb > Tb > Nd > Lu > Y > La. The seed of soybean accumulated Co, Mo, Ni, Gd, Pr, Er, Lu, and Tb more than the stem. Higher concentrations of Se, Nd, Y, and Yb were found in soil. These elements were higher in soybean stem followed by the seed. However, these elements are within safe toxic level and light pollution level.     

Approximate approaches to geometric corrections of high resolution satellite imagery

The exploitation of different non-rigorous mathematical models as opposed to the satellite rigorous models is discussed for geometric corrections and topographic/thematic maps production of high-resolution satellite imagery (HRSI). Furthermore, this paper focuses on the effects of the number of GCPs and the terrain elevation difference within the area covered by the images on the obtained ground points accuracy. From the research, it is obviously found that non-rigorous orientation and triangulation models can be used successfully in most cases for 2D rectification and 3D ground points determination without a camera model or the satellite ephemeris data. In addition, the accuracy up to the sub-pixel level in plane and about one pixel in elevation can be achieved with a modest number of GCPs.     

Lower bound limit loads of ship structure components using the mα-tangent method based on single linear elastic analysis

Limit loads for ship structure components are determined in this paper based on a single linear elastic finite element analysis by invoking the concept of kinematically active reference volume in conjunction with the m_α-tangent method. The method enables rapid determination of lower bound limit loads for ship structure components by taking their kinematically inactive volume into consideration. This method is applied to a number of ship structure components possessing different percentages of inactive volume. Results are compared with the corresponding inelastic finite element results, and available analytical solutions.     

Geo-spatial assessment of community vulnerability to flood along the Ravi River,Ravi Town,Lahore, Pakistan

Natural Hazards - Pakistan is exposed to hydro-meteorological and geological hazards. Flood is one of the hydro-meteorological hazards, and so far 25 major floods have occurred in Indus River...     

Seismic triggering of atmospheric variables prior to the major earthquakes in the Middle East within a 12-year time-period of 2002–2013

Several studies have reported the increased values of surface-latent heat flux (SLHF) and rainfall events prior to the earthquakes as the seismic precursors. In order to investigate the variation of two mentioned atmospheric variables, we analyzed 39 major earthquakes in the Middle East based on the time series of NASA remote sensing data. On this basis, we observed that accumulated rainfall and SLHF of about 29 earthquakes were higher than 10 mm and 50 W/m², respectively (~75 %), over 3–23 days prior to the main shock of major earthquakes. We believed that the records of atmospheric variables are the consequence of a seismic-triggered chain including of air ionization, surface-latent heat exhalation, water vapor condensation and subordinate rainfall as the atmospheric responses to lithospheric motions. This seismic triggering in the Middle East has averagely caused to accumulated rainfall of ~35 mm and maximum SLHF of ~115 W/m² over the 3–23 days prior to 39 major earthquakes. To investigate of spatial correlation between earthquakes and atmospheric variations, we clustered 39 major earthquakes in eight seismological regions. Then, we estimated the moderate and strong correlation (R ²) between preceding times of earthquakes with magnitude of major earthquakes and their hypocenter depth equal to 0.48 and 0.68, respectively.     

Transmission of light by slit designed for astronomical spectrograph

The paper discusses an investigation of linear polarization produced by the transmission of light through an astronomical spectrograph slit. An experimental apparatus was designed and set up to carry out this work. The parallel beam of plane polarized light was rotated in the measuring system, by optically active of half-wave plate. The intensity of normally incident of polarized light of wavelength 0.436 μm transmitted by various slit was measured as a function of slit width. The results indicate:

1. That the degree of polarization increased as thedepth of the narrow slit was increased.
2. That the degree of polarization increased as thewidth of the narrow slit was decreased.
3. That when the width of slit was widened the degree of polarization tended to approach a constant value asymptotically.
4. That the theoretical calculation of Slater (1942) predicts the measured experimental values more accurately than Thiessen (1947) and Jones and Richards (1954).

It is shown that the existence and order of magnitude of all these effects may be predicted from the propagation losses of the electromagnetic theory of light in metallic wave guide. The paper brings out the salient points related to the degree of polarization of light by a dielectric slit of finite depth. The polarization effects from one such slit have been investigated and the results were compared with those for metallic slits.     

Projecting South Asian summer precipitation in CMIP3 models: A comparison of the simulations with and without black carbon

Considering the importance of black carbon (BC), this study began by comparing the 20th century simulation of South Asian summer climate in IPCC CMIP3, based on the scenario of models with and without BC. Generally, the multi-model mean of the models that include BC reproduced the observed climate relatively better than those that did not. Then, the 21st century South Asian summer precipitation was projected based on the IPCC CMIP3 projection simulations. The projected precipitation in the present approach exhibited a considerable difference from the multimodel ensemble mean (MME) of IPCC AR4 projection simulations, and also from the MME of the models that ignore the effect of BC. In particular, the present projection exhibited a dry anomaly over the central Indian Peninsula, sandwiched between wet conditions on the southern and northern sides of Pakistan and India, rather than homogeneous wet conditions as seen in the MME of IPCC AR4. Thus, the spatial pattern of South Asian summer rainfall in the future may be more complicated than previously thought.