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Tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) is an emerging tobamovirus infecting tomatoes and peppers, resulting in a pandemic in recent years. In addition to its abilities of being seed-borne, transmitted mechanically and overcoming current resistance, we speculated other factors may also contribute to such catastrophic effect on tomato production in a hydroponic greenhouse. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether ToBRFV can be transmissible through recirculating hydroponic systems and, more importantly, search for an effective approach to contain its spread. We not only detected ToBRFV in the runoff water samples collected from three greenhouses but also determined the virus' infectivity through a bioassay. We then conducted a water treatment using cold plasma ozone to assess its efficacy in inactivating ToBRFV. The results showed that, with a high concentration of ToBRFV (inoculum in 1:100 dilution), a prolonged exposure (72 min) to two higher ozone concentrations (0.6 mg/L and 1.0 mg/L) achieved partial effects. With a medium virus concentration (inoculum in 1:1000 dilution), an exposure to ozone for 48 min was sufficient to completely suppress the virus' infectivity. However, with a low virus concentration (inoculum in 1:10,000 dilution), the virus was completely inactivated even with just a short ozone exposure (24 min). Future work will need to confirm the efficacy of the ozone treatment against ToBRFV as well as its impact on tomato plants in a hydroponic greenhouse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) is an emerging tobamovirus infecting tomatoes and peppers, resulting in a pandemic in recent years. In addition to its abilities of being seed-borne, transmitted mechanically and overcoming current resistance, we speculated other factors may also contribute to such catastrophic effect on tomato production in a hydroponic greenhouse. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether ToBRFV can be transmissible through recirculating hydroponic systems and, more importantly, search for an effective approach to contain its spread. We not only detected ToBRFV in the runoff water samples collected from three greenhouses but also determined the virus’ infectivity through a bioassay. We then conducted a water treatment using cold plasma ozone to assess its efficacy in inactivating ToBRFV. The results showed that, with a high concentration of ToBRFV (inoculum in 1:100 dilution), a prolonged exposure (72 min) to two higher ozone concentrations (0.6 mg/L and 1.0 mg/L) achieved partial effects. With a medium virus concentration (inoculum in 1:1000 dilution), an exposure to ozone for 48 min was sufficient to completely suppress the virus’ infectivity. However, with a low virus concentration (inoculum in 1:10,000 dilution), the virus was completely inactivated even with just a short ozone exposure (24 min). Future work will need to confirm the efficacy of the ozone treatment against ToBRFV as well as its impact on tomato plants in a hydroponic greenhouse.

One of the most important accidents for water transmission lines occur by air entrance due to water hammer into the water pipeline at sub-atmospheric transient pressure. The air can be sucked into the water system causing repeated pipe breaks in sub-atmospheric transient pressure. This work aimed to improve the advanced techniques including remote sensing (RS), and the internet of things (IoT) to control the repeated pipe breaks. According to the geospatial information systems (GIS), the relationship classes between the spatial and non-spatial data were defined for the scaled model. By GIS the location of pipe breaks and sucking air into water pipeline was recognized during fluid instabilities. The location of pipe breaks was defined by the numerical modelling based on GIS. According to numerical analysis, the Courant number was equal to 0.977. In the field test, the surge velocity was 1084 m/s. The pressure wave was detected in 0.005 s by RS facilities equipped with water hammer sensors, advanced modems, and data loggers referring to the IoT technique. The result of this work led to a reduction of the non-revenue water (NRW) and the saving of drinking water. HIGHLIGHTS Connection between GIS, RS, and IoT for record the water pressure wave (in this work 0.005 s).; Conceptual modeling definition for prediction of the pressure wave variation due to water hammer.; Improvement of RS facilities installation equipped with data loggers, IoT and GEO-database.; Relationship class definition for water system elements for leakage points.; Make water and energy savings.;

Located in Baoding, northern China’s Hebei Province, the Daqing River Basin faces a nonnegligible problem: the prevention and control of ice damage in the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) during the ice period. This paper sorts out the observation data on the ice conditions in river sections of the Daqing River Basin in winter, 1994–1997, and calculates the roughness of the water transmission sections, through mathematical calculation and inverse computation. On this basis, the authors analyzed the influence of ice caps on the flow capacity of river channel, and discussed the effects of water level variation on ice cap stability. The results show that, during the ice period, the ice caps in the upstream of the water transmission channel in the river basin are rougher than those in the downstream. In the same river section, the ice caps are rougher in the initial phase than the late phase. At the same water level, the flow capacity of different sections reduces by 40–61% under ice caps. For the entire river channel, the ice caps lower the flow capacity by 40–52%. The water level variation has a huge influence of ice cap stability. During the ice period, the flow should be maintained stable to transmit water under ice caps. This helps to stabilize water level, ensure the continuity and completeness of ice caps, and improve the water transmission efficiency in the ice period.

The growing population and the development of industries in all countries of the world have created a very important and complex issue for water supply to cities. Today, many parts of the world are facing the problem of water shortage and this problem cannot be easily solved. In addition to the proper use of water resources and preventing the loss of natural water, the establishment of regional water supply networks is effective in meeting the future needs of the people. A water distribution network (water supply network) is a set of interconnected pipelines used to transport and distribute water in a complex. In designing the water distribution network, factors such as the type of water distribution network, water pressure, water velocity, design flow, minimum pipe diameter, pipe material and many other factors should be considered. In this study, we have tried to design the water supply network of a part of Balikpapan city in Indonesia. The design method led to the determination of pressure values in the connection nodes, pipe diameters, flow rate and velocity in the pipes. All the existing criteria are considered in the design of the water supply network. Although this study has been implemented for a specific study area, it can be of great help to designers in designing the water supply network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Located in Baoding, northern China's Hebei Province, the Daqing River Basin faces a nonnegligible problem: the prevention and control of ice damage in the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) during the ice period. This paper sorts out the observation data on the ice conditions in river sections of the Daqing River Basin in winter, 1994–1997, and calculates the roughness of the water transmission sections, through mathematical calculation and inverse computation. On this basis, the authors analyzed the influence of ice caps on the flow capacity of river channel, and discussed the effects of water level variation on ice cap stability. The results show that, during the ice period, the ice caps in the upstream of the water transmission channel in the river basin are rougher than those in the downstream. In the same river section, the ice caps are rougher in the initial phase than the late phase. At the same water level, the flow capacity of different sections reduces by 40–61% under ice caps. For the entire river channel, the ice caps lower the flow capacity by 40–52%. The water level variation has a huge influence of ice cap stability. During the ice period, the flow should be maintained stable to transmit water under ice caps. This helps to stabilize water level, ensure the continuity and completeness of ice caps, and improve the water transmission efficiency in the ice period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Osmotic microbial fuel cells (OsMFCs) can integrate forward osmosis into microbial fuel cells (MFCs), which are able to perform organic elimination, bioenergy production, and high-class water abstraction from wastewater. However, it is not well understood how the unique feature of OsMFCs, i.e., water flux, helps improve current generation. Based on experimental studies and the Springer model theory, a new method for representing water transmission in OsMFC membranes is put forward that considers water transmission by electro-osmosis resulting from proton flux through the membrane and by osmosis resulting from osmotic pressure grades of water. In this research, osmotic water transmission is associated with the permeable differential pressure resulting from the ionic differential concentration in the membrane, and electro-osmotic water transmission is found to be proportional to the current density employed but irrelevant to the composition gradients. The net water transmission in OsMFC depends on the operation time and increases accordingly with higher current density and composition gradients. Furthermore, the membrane's proton conductibility and water-transmission capabilities are significantly affected by the moisture content, which decreases from the negative electrode to the positive electrode in the OsMFC system. Increasing water flux with higher osmotic pressure and current density is therefore able to diminish the resistance of the membrane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India suffered from a devastating 2021 spring outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), surpassing any other outbreaks before. However, the reason for the acceleration of the outbreak in India is still unknown. We describe the statistical characteristics of infected patients from the first case in India to June 2021, and trace the causes of the two outbreaks in a complete way, combined with data on natural disasters, environmental pollution and population movements etc. We found that water-to-human transmission accelerates COVID-19 spreading. The transmission rate is 382% higher than the human-to-human transmission rate during the 2020 summer outbreak in India. When syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) enters the human body directly through the water-oral transmission pathway, virus particles and nitrogen salt in the water accelerate viral infection and mutation rates in the gastrointestinal tract. Based on the results of the attribution analysis, without the current effective interventions, India could have experienced a third outbreak during the monsoon season this year, which would have increased the severity of the disaster and led to a South Asian economic crisis.

Aim: Helicobacter pylori is bacterium which colonizes the human gastric mucosa and known to affect half of the world’s population. H. pylori is defined as the aetiological agent of peptic ulcer, gastric adenocarcinoma, and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma. It has been suggested that the transmission of bacterium occurs via fecal-oral, oral-oral, and gastro-oral routes. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the presence of H. pylori DNA in drinking and tap water samples. Materials and Methods: Sixty-six different trademarked drinking and 36 different tap water samples were collected from March 2019 - February 2020 all around Turkey. All water samples were filtrated using 0.22 μM membrane filters and filters were incubated in Brain Heart Infusion Broth for a half-hour at room temperature. Then, bacterial DNA was extracted. To detect H. pylori DNA, ureC (glmM) gene was investigated by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). The PCR products were visualized in 1.5 % agarose gel electrophoresis. Results: In this study, H. pylori DNA was not detected in any of the water samples tested. Conclusion: In the present study, it was suggested that drinking and tap waters do not have a role in the transmission of H. pylori in this geographical area. Investigation of 500 mL of bottled waters could be one of the most obvious limitations in this study. Therefore it may be concluded that different water sources such as 19L flagon bottled drinking waters, water samples from various tanks, well waters, groundwater, and surface waters from rivers, lakes, or seas may be useful for clarifying the role of water for transmission route of this pathogen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A field study was conducted to evaluate moisture storage in soil profile under four tillage-residue management practices namely conventional tillage, no-tillage without residue, no-tillage with residue and deep tillage along with three irrigation regime based on IW/PAN-E ratio 1.2, 0.9 and 0.6 in maize with three replications in split plot design. Significant differences were observed in steady state infiltration rate and cumulative infiltration among different land management practices with maximum value in deep tillage (4.9 cm hr-1 and 33.1 cm) followed by no tillage with residue (4.1cm hr-1 and 28.6 cm), no tillage without residue (4.0 cm hr-1 and 23.0 cm) and conventional tillage (2.8 cm hr-1 and 19.4 cm), respectively. The highest mean weight diameter and water stable aggregates were found under no tillage with residue (0.64 mm and 49.7%) and lowest under deep tillage (0.3 mm and 21.8%), respectively. Higher volumetric soil water content and soil profile moisture storage were recorded under no tillage with residue at different days after sowing. Among different tillage-residue management practices, maximum leaf area index and relative leaf water content were observed in no-tillage with residue. Under moisture stress conditions, no-tillage with residue retention was suitable land management option for reducing evaporation losses and enhancing moisture storage in the soil profile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decline in soil physical health and crop productivity are the major concerns in wheat-maize cropping system of northwest India. Depending on objective, conservation and deep tillage are the potential solutions. Therefore, a field study was conducted to investigate the interactive effects of land management practices and irrigation regimes on soil properties and wheat-maize productivity. The tillage treatments comprised of no-tillage, strip tillage, conventional tillage and deep tillage, while the irrigation regimes included three levels based on irrigation water over pan evaporation (IW/PAN-E) ratios i.e. I0.6, I0.9 and I1.2 for both wheat and maize crops. By shattering soil up to 45 cm depth, the deep tillage helped in improving infiltration rate by 31% over conventional tillage. However, the no-tillage improved soil aggregation by 38% than deep tillage. At subsurface depth (15-30 cm) the soil bulk density and penetration resistance were found to be significantly lower under deep tillage (1.52 Mg m-3 and 1.9 MPa) than conventional tillage (1.68 Mg m-3 and 2.8 MPa), respectively. The deep tillage enhanced root proliferation by increasing root length density by 44% and 34% than conventional tillage in maize and wheat, respectively. The grain yields (Mg ha-1) of maize and wheat were 14% and 12% more under deep tillage than conventional tillage, respectively. The water productivity varied significantly under different irrigation regimes and was found to be highest at I0.9 in maize and I1.2 in wheat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transient flow control in Water Transmission Systems (WTS) is one of the requirements of designing these systems. Hence, among control equipment, air chambers offer the best solution to control transient flow effects, i.e. both prevents water column separation and absorbs pressure increase. It is essential to carry out an accurate and optimized design of air chambers, not only due to high costs of their manufacturing but also their important protective role. Accordingly, hydraulic design parameters comprise tank volume, diameter of nozzle and coefficients of inflow and outflow of nozzle. In this paper, it is intended to optimize these parameters in order to minimize manufacturing costs. On the other hand, maximum and minimum pressures in main pipeline are considered as constraints which shall fall in allowed range. Therefore, a model has been developed which is a combination of a hydraulic simulation model of WTS and an optimization model based on genetic algorithm. This model is first applied to WTS of Dehgolan-Ghorveh plain as a case study. Results of this research demonstrate that based on suggested model, negative wave creation and pressure increase in pipeline is prevented as well as decrease in manufacturing costs of air chamber. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elastic warp-knitted composite fabrics with far-infrared emissivity and an anion-releasing property were prepared using bamboo charcoal (BC), copper (Cu), and phase-change material (PCM). The functional composite fabric, which was composed of self-made complex yarns with various twisting degrees and material composition, were created using a rotor twister and ring-spinning technique. The fabric structure was diversified by the feeding modes of weft yarn into a crochet-knitting machine. The twist number of complex yarns was optimized by tensile tenacity, twist contraction, and hairiness, and analysis showed that twisting at 12 twists per inch produced the highest tensile tenacity and appropriate twist contraction and hairiness. Comfort evaluation showed that the elastic composite fabrics with BC weft yarns exhibited higher water--vapor transmission rate and air permeability, reaching 876 g/m²· day and 73.2 cm³/s/cm², respectively. Three structures of composite fabric with various weft yarns had >0.85 ε far-infrared emissivity and 350-420 counts/cm³ anion amount. The prepared elastic warp-knitted fabrics can provide a comfortable, dry, and breathable environment to the wearer and can thus be applied as health-care textiles in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Absorption fields are soil-based onsite installations designed to infiltrate, drain, filter or biochemically renovate water. A critical component in absorption field development is determination of the soil's ability to transmit water. Two of the most important in-situ methodologies for measuring water transmission in absorption fields are the Perc Test, which determines Perc Time (PT) in an open borehole or pit, and the Constant Head Well Permeameter (CHWP), which determines field-saturated hydraulic conductivity (K fs ) in an open borehole. Although both methods have important features, they also have deficiencies that can impair their use in absorption field investigations. Features of the Perc Test include simplicity, intuitive measurements (decline in water ponding depth, H, with time, t), and inclusion of PT criteria in most absorption field design specifications and regulatory codes. Critical deficiencies of the Perc Test include its empirical nature (absence of theoretical foundation), lack of standardization, and strong dependence of PT on borehole/pit dimensions, water ponding depth and antecedent soil properties. Features of the CHWP include a solid theoretical foundation, formal accounting for borehole dimensions, water ponding depth and soil properties, and recognition that K fs controls long-term water acceptance rates. A critical deficiency of the CHWP is the absence of K fs criteria from many absorption field specifications and codes. This study develops a unified Perc–CHWP analysis and application protocol that maintains the features of the Perc and CHWP tests, but circumvents the deficiencies. The unified analysis combined numerical optimization with piece-wise analytical integration of a falling-head CHWP equation; and it yielded accurate estimates of PT and K fs using H vs. t data obtained from numerical simulations, laboratory experiments, and field-based Perc Tests. The unified Perc–CHWP methodology improves measurement of water transmission in absorption field investigations by providing: physically based PT values required by many design specifications and regulatory codes; K fs values required for estimation of long-term water acceptance rates; and functionally linked PT–K fs data pairs that are accurate and based on rigorous borehole infiltration theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elastic warp-knitted composite fabrics with far-infrared emissivity and an anion-releasing property were prepared using bamboo charcoal (BC), copper (Cu), and phase-change material (PCM). The functional composite fabric, which was composed of self-made complex yarns with various twisting degrees and material composition, were created using a rotor twister and ring-spinning technique. The fabric structure was diversified by the feeding modes of weft yarn into a crochet-knitting machine. The twist number of complex yarns was optimized by tensile tenacity, twist contraction, and hairiness, and analysis showed that twisting at 12 twists per inch produced the highest tensile tenacity and appropriate twist contraction and hairiness. Comfort evaluation showed that the elastic composite fabrics with BC weft yarns exhibited higher water–vapor transmission rate and air permeability, reaching 876 g/m2∙ day and 73.2 cm3/s/cm2, respectively. Three structures of composite fabric with various weft yarns had >0.85 ε far-infrared emissivity and 350–420 counts/cm3 anion amount. The prepared elastic warp-knitted fabrics can provide a comfortable, dry, and breathable environment to the wearer and can thus be applied as health-care textiles in the future.

Water transmission pipelines, which transport bulk water into storage facilities, usually have a tree-type configuration with large dimensions; thus, the breakage of a pipeline may cause a catastrophic service interruption to customers. Although drain efficiency is closely related to the number of washout and control valves and their locations, there is no useful guideline. This paper proposes a valve locating method by introducing numerical analyses to enumerate drainage time and zone. A time integration method, combined with the Newton–Raphson algorithm, is suggested to resolve drainage time, while considering the friction loss in gravitational flow. A drain direction matrix, which shows drain direction and coverage, is derived using a network searching algorithm. Furthermore, a feasible practical approach is presented by introducing a critical horizontal slope, a major washout valve, drainage indices, and control valve embedment. The developed method is first applied to simple pipes to validate the drainage time module. Subsequently, the model is expanded to the CY transmission line, which is one of the BR water supply systems in South Korea currently in operation. The results reveal that three drain valve locations have been neglected, and the addition of control valves guarantees consistent drain time below the operational criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We experimentally investigated the influence of developmental plasticity of ultraviolet (UV) visual sensitivity on predation efficiency of the larval smooth newt, Lissotriton vulgaris. We quantified expression of SWS1 opsin gene (UV-sensitive protein of photoreceptor cells) in the retinas of individuals who had developed in the presence (UV+) or absence (UV-) of UV light (developmental treatments), and tested their predation efficiency under UV+ and UV- light (testing treatments). We found that both SWS1 opsin expression and predation efficiency were significantly reduced in the UV- developmental group. Larvae in the UV- testing environment displayed consistently lower predation efficiency regardless of their developmental treatment. These results prove for the first time, we believe, functional UV vision and developmental plasticity of UV sensitivity in an amphibian at the larval stage. They also demonstrate that UV wavelengths enhance predation efficiency and suggest that the magnitude of the behavioural response depends on retinal properties induced by the developmental lighting environment., (© 2016 The Author(s).)