The design objective is to come up with a mower that is portable, durable, easy to operate and maintain. It also aims to design a selfpowered mower of electrical source; a cordless electric lawn mower. The heart of the machine is a battery-powered dc electric motor. It comprises of a system of speed multiplication pulleys which drive the cutting blades and the charging unit comprising of a 12V ...

A recent study by Hayes et al. (J. Natl. Cancer. Inst., 83: 1226-1231, 1991) found an increased risk of malignant lymphoma associated with exposure to 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) in pet dogs. We conducted a study to determine the extent to which dogs absorb and excrete 2,4-D in urine after contact with treated lawns under natural conditions. Among 44 dogs potentially exposed to 2,4-D...

Various N fertilizer sources are available for lawn turf. Few field studies, however, have determined the losses of nitrate (NO(3)-N) from lawns receiving different formulations of N fertilizers. The objectives of this study were to determine the differences in NO(3)-N leaching losses among various N fertilizer sources and to ascertain when losses were most likely to occur. The field experiment...

Lawns are a dominant cover type in urban ecosystems, and there is concern about their impacts on water quality. However, recent watershed-level studies suggest that these pervious areas might be net sinks, rather than sources, for nitrogen (N) in the urban environment. A 15N pulse-labeling experiment was performed on lawn and forest plots in the Baltimore (Maryland, U.S.A.) metropolitan area to...

Hand operation accompanied with any combination of large forces, awkward positions and repetition may lead to upper limb injury or illness and may be exacerbated by vibration. Commercial lawn mowers expose operators to these factors during actuation of hand controls and therefore may be a health concern. A nontraditional lawn mower control system may decrease upper limb illnesses and injuries t...

Rationale Ground ivy is a stoloniferous, perennial weed that can persist in turf. Growing at soil level, stolons infiltrate surrounding vegetation and establish new populations, which result in non-uniform turf. Approximately 62,000 lbs of 2,4-D were applied to Indiana homelawns in 1992.. A 2001 survey of Indiana lawn care operators (LCO) found 79% of respondents used 2,4-D either alone or in c...

A sensitive lawn-based format has been developed to screen bead-tethered combinatorial chemical libraries for antimicrobial activity. This method has been validated with beads linked to penicillin V via a photocleavable chemical linker in several analyses including a spike-and-recover experiment. The lawn-based screen sensitivity was modified to detect antibacterial compounds of modest potency,...

Fall-risk factors were compared between older women who regularly participate in lawn bowls and controls. Participants were 74 healthy women age 60-75 yr. Postural stability, timed up-and-go score, isometric knee-extensor strength, reaction time, range of motion, and calcaneal broadband ultrasonic attenuation (BUA) were assessed. Bowlers and controls were similar in regard to mean age, height, ...

Mowing a lawn can be a difficult and tedious chore. The goal of this paper is to introduce the idea of using the visual property of texture to design an autonomous lawnmower robot that mows a lawn similar to how a human would (in some type of pattern.) Previous autonomous lawnmowers that have been designed, the LawnNibbler and LawnShark for example, rely on the principle of randomness to mow in...