Ventilation flow in commercial livestock buildings can be estimated by means of relatively simple indirect methods based on carbon dioxide (CO2), moisture or heat balances. However, ventilation flow on an hourly basis for these balances needs adjustment for diurnal variation in animal CO2 and heat production. This work examines the agreement between ventilation flow measured in a pig house over...

Water is the most limiting factor in deserts, yet researchers have very different emphases on the relative importance of water, depending on the organisms that they study. For example, soil moisture is considered the most critical factor for recruitment of desert succulent plants, and numerous studies have linked plant distribution patterns with soil texture, rainfall, and soil moisture. By com...

Wildland firefighters work in unfavourable environments involving both heat and moisture. Moisture in clothing systems worn by wildland firefighters may increase or decrease heat transfer, depending on its source and location in the clothing system, location on the body, timing of application and degree of sorption. In this experiment, 4 outerwear/underwear combinations were exposed to 1 of 5 d...

This research was carried out at the laboratories of Food Science Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Damascus University, to investigate the effect of high temperatures on accelerating the ripening of kachcaval cheese, through determining the chemical and sensory indicators of ripened cheese using three temperatures (16°C, 20°C for a week) then completing the ripening process up to 60 days at ...

Temporal environmental variation has profound influences on population dynamics and community structure. Examination of functional traits that influence resource uptake and allocation can illuminate how co-occurring species translate environmental variation into different demographic outcomes, yet few studies have considered interspecific differences in trait plasticity. We experimentally manip...

Drought and shortages of soil water are becoming extremely severe due to global climate change. A better understanding of the relationship between vegetation type and soil-moisture conditions is crucial for conserving soil water in forests and for maintaining a favorable hydrological balance in semiarid areas, such as the Saihanwula National Nature Reserve in Inner Mongolia, China. We investiga...

The Arctic system has experienced in recent times an extreme reduction in the extent of its sea ice. The years 2007 and 2012 in particular showed maxima in the loss of sea ice. It has been suggested that such a rapid decrease has important implications for climate not only over the system itself but also globally. Understanding the causes of this sea ice loss is key to analysing how future chan...

Forensic entomologists rely on laboratory growth data to estimate the time of blow fly colonization on human remains. Several data sets exist for the development of the common blow fly Lucilia sericata (Meigen) (Diptera: Calliphoridae), and although they generally describe similar rates of preadult development, all vary. Such differences could be explained by genetic variation, environmental (r...

in this article, the size, dimensions, volume, bulk and particle densities, empyting and filling angles of repose and friction coefficients against different surfaces were evaluated for two varieties of barley, sahra and valfajr, as a function of moisture content in the range of 10.12 to 42.17 (w.b.%). most physical properties of barley varieties were significantly affected by moisture content ...