Agrobacteriumtumefaciens, a plant pathogen, is characterizedby the unique feature of interkingdomDNA transfer. This soil bacterium is able to transfer a fragment of its DNA, called T-DNA (transferred DNA), to the plant cell where T-DNA is integrated into the plant genome leading to “genetic colonization”of the host. The fate of T-DNA, its processing, transfer and integration, resembles the jour...

Molecular methods and comparisons of fruiting patterns (i.e., presence or absence of fungal fruiting bodies in different soil types) were used to determine ectomycorrhizal (EM) associates of Pinus contorta in soils associated with a thermal soil classified as ultra-acidic to extremely acidic (pH 2 to 4). EM were sampled by obtaining 36 soil cores from six paired plots (three cores each) of both...

Tropical nitrogen (N) deposition is projected to increase substantially within the coming decades. Increases in soil emissions of the climate-relevant trace gases NO and N2O are expected, but few studies address this possibility. We used N addition experiments to achieve N-enriched conditions in contrasting montane and lowland forests and assessed changes in the timing and magnitude of soil N-o...

Feature selection or Feature subset selection is a process of reducing the attribute space in the feature set. It is also stated that feature selection is a technique of identifying a subset of features. These subsets of features are selected by removing irrelevant or redundant features in the feature set. A good feature set is said to be that it contains highly correlated features with the cla...

In this paper a new anisotropic model for time-dependent behaviour of soft soils is presented. The formulation is based on a previously developed isotropic creep model, assuming rotated Modified Cam Clay ellipses as contours of volumetric creep strain rates. A rotational hardening law is adopted to account for changes in anisotropy due to viscous strains. Although this will introduce some new s...

Recently the Southwest has experienced a spate of dryness, which presents a challenge to the sustainability of current water use by human and natural systems in the region. In the Colorado River Basin, the early 21st century drought has been the most extreme in over a century of Colorado River flows, and might occur in any given century with probability of only 60%. However, hydrological model ...

Cropland soil organic carbon (SOC) is crucial for global food security and mitigating the greenhouse effect. Accurate SOC prediction using hyperspectral data essential dynamic monitoring of pools in croplands. However, effective methods to reduce dimensionality integrate it with suitable regression algorithms reliable models are poorly understood. In this study, we analyzed 108 samples from Cha...

Precision agriculture is crucial for increasing food output without expanding the cultivable area, which requires sensors to be deployed for controlling the level of nutrients in the soil. In this paper, we report on a microfluidic electronic tongue (e-tongue) based on impedance measurements which is capable of distinguishing soil samples enriched with plant macronutrients. The e-tongue setup c...