Smart agriculture through using cost-effective and high-efficiency solar drying.

BACKGROUND: Challenges must be handled in an integrated manner when addressing food security and climate change. More efficient designs for food production systems, as well as their logistics, are needed in order to increase food production and to reduce emissions intensity. Specifically, any enhancements done on this purpose would contribute to mitigating climate change. Five important dimensions are being considered in smart agriculture: food security, availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability. SCOPE AND APPROACH: Food supply-demand chain can seriously be effected by uncontrolled population growth. Thus, any perspective to solve these uncontrolled conditions can have a positive impact. Especially giving emphasis on reduction of food losses via expoloring various ways of production, or increasing productivity, or ensuring food security are effective ways for solutions. For example, the use of solar drying for agricultural, marine or meat products is very important for preservation, thus minimizing food losses. However, traditional sun drying is a relatively slow process. Also, the product quality worsens due to several factors: microorganism growth, enzymatic reactions, insect infestations. It is known that utilizing solar energy involves several factors that need attention. Thus, a lot of effort is directed toward improving solar energy technology for drying processes. KEY FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION: This study presents a smart agriculture design for drying using low cost and highly-efficient solar selective absorber. The system is based on an air heating flat plate solar absorber. Levelized cost of heat (LCOH) for the prototype using solar renewable energy is calculated and compared with the fossil fuel energy sources; natural gas, electricity, and liquified petroleum gas (LPG). In addition; a comparison of the costs for air collectors using various selective absorbers; unglazed or glazed, is presented. It is shown that solar energy, in the long run, will be more advantageous compared to fossil fuels.

Calculation of angular distribution of 662 keV gamma rays by Monte Carlo method in copper medium.

This paper presents results on the angular distribution of Compton scattering of 662 keV gamma photons in both forward and backward hemispheres in copper medium. The number of scattered events graph has been determined for scattered gamma photons in both the forward and backward hemispheres and theoretical saturation thicknesses have been obtained using these results. Furthermore, response function of a 51 x 51 mm NaI(Tl) detector at 60 degrees angle with incoming photons scattered from a 10mm thick copper layer has been determined using Monte Carlo method.

Calculation of total counting efficiency of a NaI(Tl) detector by hybrid Monte-Carlo method for point and disk sources.

This paper presents results on the total gamma counting efficiency of a NaI(Tl) detector from point and disk sources. The directions of photons emitted from the source were determined by Monte-Carlo techniques and the photon path lengths in the detector were determined by analytic equations depending on photon directions. This is called the hybrid Monte-Carlo method where analytical expressions are incorporated into the Monte-Carlo simulations. A major advantage of this technique is the short computation time compared to other techniques on similar computational platforms. Another advantage is the flexibility for inputting detector-related parameters (such as source-detector distance, detector radius, source radius, detector linear attenuation coefficient) into the algorithm developed, thus making it an easy and flexible method to apply to other detector systems and configurations. The results of the total counting efficiency model put forward for point and disc sources were compared with the previous work reported in the literature.

Attitudes and practices of breastfeeding mothers regarding fasting in Ramadan.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the attitudes and practices of breastfeeding mothers regarding fasting in Ramadan. DESIGN: Cross-sectional observational survey. SETTING: Well-child care clinic at Ankara University Medical School and a health station serving an impoverished population in Ankara, Turkey. PARTICIPANTS: Breastfeeding mothers of infants aged 12 months or younger. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Fasting during Ramadan. RESULTS: Of the 164 participating mothers, 61 (37%) were from the health station and 103 (63%) from the university clinic. Most mothers were older than 25 years of age (55%), had more than primary school education (64%), a single child (53%), were living in a nuclear family setting (70%), supplementing breastfeeding (73%) and fasting (52%). Among the 129 mothers of infants aged 6 months or younger, 22% perceived a decrease in their breast milk and 23% an increase in the amount of solid supplements the infant was receiving. Belief that breastfeeding mothers should fast (RR = 6.45, 95% CI: 2.44-17.06), that fasting does not decrease breast milk (RR = 6.24, 95% CI: 1.85-21.05), receiving well-child care at the health station (RR = 3.14, 95% CI: 1.33-7.44), giving supplements (RR = 2.82, 95% CI: 1.09-7.27) and having multiple children (RR = 2.78, 95% CI: 1.23-6.28) were associated with fasting, in a logistic regression model. CONCLUSIONS: Fasting by breastfeeding mothers of infants is common during Ramadan, and rates are affected by beliefs of mothers on the effects of fasting on breastfeeding. We believe that child health care providers need to be knowledgeable about religious and cultural phenomena, study the effects of Ramadan fasting and form links with Islamic teachings to find religiously and culturally appropriate methods to combat the possible unfavourable effects for infants and children.