Evaluation of acetic acid treatment of fresh-cut water chestnuts using gray-correlation analysis based on the variation-coefficient weight.

Introduction: The demand for fresh-cut water chestnuts, a convenient and nutritive vegetable, is increasing in market. However, the slicing of water chestnuts can cause mechanical damage to tissue, which results in quality deterioration. We aimed to select the optimal treatment through a comprehensive comparison of the preservation effect of acetic acid, which could prolong the shelf life of fresh-cut water chestnuts and improve their storage quality. Methods: A comprehensive evaluation was conducted using the gray-correlation method based on the variation-coefficient weight to observe the treatment of 0, 2 and 5% acetic acid. Their effects on color, weight loss rate, and the content of ascorbic acid, total sugar, reducing sugar, soluble protein, and free amino acid were determined. Results: The color, weight loss rate, and nutritional content of fresh-cut chestnuts varied under different processing and storage times. When stored for more than 4 days, the b* value, and the content of total sugar and soluble protein in CK were higher than those in 2% or 5% acetic acid, but the weight loss rate, and the content of ascorbic acid and free amino acid in CK were less than those in acetic acid treatments. Considering various indicators, it was difficult to determine which treatment to choose for fresh-cut water chestnut preservation. The gray-correlation analysis results indicated that when stored for 8, 12, or 16 days, the gray-correlation degree of 5% acetic acid was the highest, while that of the control was the lowest. It could be directly concluded by the gray-correlation degree that when the storage time exceeded 4 days, acetic acid could be used to improve storage quality, and 5% acetic acid had a better preservation effect than 2%. Fresh-cut water chestnuts can be stored for 4 days without the need for acetic acid treatment. Conclusion: These findings could provide information and comprehensive evaluation methods for the preservation of fresh-cut fruits and vegetables. The next step is to evaluate the preservation effect of acetic acid by measuring its effects on other indicators of fresh-cut water chestnuts (e.g., flavonoids, and microorganisms), providing ideas for the research of preservatives.

Effects of water volume of drip irrigation on soil bacterial communities and its association with soil properties in jujube cultivation.

Introduction: Jujube is one of an important crop in Xinjiang, China, a area suffered by water scarcity and DI has been proven as a suitable mode for jujube cultivation. Soil bacterial community play a vital role in biogeochemical cycles to support the crop growth, and water content is considered as one of the important factors for them. However, limited research has explored the optimum irrigation strategies, such as water volume of DI, to maximize the benefits of jujube cultivation by regulating the soil bacterial communities. Methods: Therefore, in this study, we conducted DI experiments on jujube fields in Xinjiang with three different water volume levels, and measured the soil properties and bacterial communities of the flowering and fruit setting (FFS) and end of growth (EG) stages. Results and discussion: Significant lower jujube yield and soil available nutrients were observed in samples with low water amount. In addition, we discovered significant effects of the water amount of DI and jujube growth stages on soil bacterial communities. Based on the compare of samples among different growth stages and water amounts some growth stage related bacterial genera (Mycobacterium, Bradyrhizobium, and Bacillus) and water amount-related bacterial phyla (Chloroflexi, Nitrospirota, and Myxococcota) were recognized. Moreover, according to the results of null model, soil bacterial communities were governed by stochastic and deterministic processes under middle and low water volumes of DI, respectively. Finally, we deduced that middle water amount (600 mm) could be the optimal condition of DI for jujube cultivation because the higher jujube yield, deterministic assembly, and stronger correlations between soil properties and bacterial community under this condition. Our findings provide guidance for promoting the application of DI in jujube cultivation, and further research is needed to investigate the underlying mechanisms of soil bacterial community to promote the jujube yield.

River Management for Local Governments in China: From Public to Private.

The Public and Private Partnership (PPP) model has been used to provide public services and goods. In China, local governments are willing to use the PPP model in many public services, such as integrated river management (IRM) projects, due to ease fiscal budget and the improved access to technology from the private sector. However, there has not been any specific discussion in the literature for applying the PPP model to IRM projects. In this study, we find that the PPP model results in the non-standardization of IRM projects. Our research paper builds the PPP operation framework for IRM projects. Our findings suggest that while the environmental quality evaluation system created in contracts for government payment seems to be optimal for protecting the public interest, it actually strains the partnership between the two parties and so its implementation should be considered on a case by case basis. Since the history of IRM projects using the PPP model is short, the actual performances of these types of projects has not yet been demonstrated. Local governments should be cautious about adopting the PPP model for such projects, and private companies should be cautious about their involvement. Our research will garner more scholarly attention to the application of the PPP model in complex projects.

VIS-NIR multispectral synchronous imaging pyrometer for high-temperature measurements.

A visible-infrared multispectral synchronous imaging pyrometer was developed for simultaneous, multispectral, two-dimensional high temperature measurements. The multispectral image pyrometer uses prism separation construction in the spectrum range of 650-950 nm and multi-sensor fusion of three CCD sensors for high-temperature measurements. The pyrometer had 650-750 nm, 750-850 nm, and 850-950 nm channels all with the same optical path. The wavelength choice for each channel is flexible with three center wavelengths (700 nm, 810 nm, and 920 nm) with a full width at half maximum of the spectrum of 3 nm used here. The three image sensors were precisely aligned to avoid spectrum artifacts by micro-mechanical adjustments of the sensors relative to each other to position them within a quarter pixel of each other. The pyrometer was calibrated with the standard blackbody source, and the temperature measurement uncertainty was within 0.21 °C-0.99 °C in the temperatures of 600 °C-1800 °C for the blackbody measurements. The pyrometer was then used to measure the leading edge temperatures of a ceramics model exposed to high-enthalpy plasma aerodynamic heating environment to verify the system applicability. The measured temperature ranges are 701-991 °C, 701-1134 °C, and 701-834 °C at the heating transient, steady state, and cooling transient times. A significant temperature gradient (170 °C/mm) was observed away from the leading edge facing the plasma jet during the steady state heating time. The temperature non-uniformity on the surface occurs during the entire aerodynamic heating process. However, the temperature distribution becomes more uniform after the heater is shut down and the experimental model is naturally cooled. This result shows that the multispectral simultaneous image measurement mode provides a wider temperature range for one imaging measurement of high spatial temperature gradients in transient applications.

Unconditionally stable WLP-FDTD method for the modeling of electromagnetic wave propagation in gyrotropic materials.

The unconditional stable finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method based on field expansion with weighted Laguerre polynomials (WLPs) is applied to model electromagnetic wave propagation in gyrotropic materials. The conventional Yee cell is modified to have the tightly coupled current density components located at the same spatial position. The perfectly matched layer (PML) is formulated in a stretched-coordinate (SC) system with the complex-frequency-shifted (CFS) factor to achieve good absorption performance. Numerical examples are shown to validate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method.

Radiation temperature measurement method for semitransparent materials using one-channel infrared pyrometer.

Semitransparent zinc sulfide (ZnS) crystal materials are widely used as the infrared-transmitting windows for optical instruments operating in long wavelengths. This paper describes a temperature measurement method for high-temperature ZnS materials using the one-channel optical pyrometer based on a theoretical model of radiation transfer in semitransparent plates. Numerical analyses of the radiation properties of ZnS plate are used to optimize the spectral band for the optical pyrometry. The optimized measurement spectral band is based on a trade-off between the measurement radiation intensity and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the ZnS material. The effective waveband emittance of one-dimensional (1D) ZnS plates is analyzed for various experimental conditions (temperatures, thicknesses, and direction angles) for the one-channel infrared pyrometer with the optimized measurement spectral response. The analysis can be used to improve radiation temperature measurements of semitransparent ZnS materials in applications.

Temperature measurements using multicolor pyrometry in thermal radiation heating environments.

Temperature measurements are important for thermal-structural experiments in the thermal radiation heating environments such as used for thermal-structural stress analyses. This paper describes the use of multicolor pyrometry for the measurements of diffuse surfaces in thermal radiation environments that eliminates the effects of background radiation reflections and unknown emissivities based on a least-squares algorithm. The near-infrared multicolor pyrometer had a spectral range of 1100-2400 nm, spectrum resolution of 6 nm, maximum sampling frequency of 2 kHz, working distance of 0.6 m to infinity, temperature range of 700-1700 K. The pyrometer wavelength response, nonlinear intensity response, and spectral response were all calibrated. The temperature of a graphite sample irradiated by quartz lamps was then measured during heating and cooling using the least-squares algorithm based on the calibrated irradiation data. The experiments show that higher temperatures and longer wavelengths are more suitable for the thermal measurements in the quartz lamp radiation heating system. This analysis provides a valuable method for temperature measurements of diffuse surfaces in thermal radiation environments.