Interest in using hermetic technologies as a pest management solution for stored grain has risen in recent years. One hermetic approach, Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags, has proven successful in controlling the postharvest pests of cowpea. This success encouraged farmers to use of PICS bags for storing other crops including maize. To assess whether maize can be safely stored in PICS ba...

The operating temperatures of photovoltaic (PV) modules can be impacted by the selection specific packaging materials, e.g., backsheets and encapsulants. This research focuses on evaluation temperature reduction one-cell comparing conventional Tedlar/polyester/Tedlar (TPT) backsheet with novel thermally conductive (TCBs) materials. A large number two TCB types (TCB_A TCB_B) baseline TPT type we...

BACKGROUND Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections are associated with progressive life threatening decline of lung function in cystic fibrosis sufferers. Growth of Ps. aeruginosa releases a "grape-like" odour that has been identified as the microbial volatile organic compound 2-aminoacetophenone (2-AA). METHODS We investigated 2-AA for its specificity to Ps. aeruginosa and its suitability as a pot...

The exquisite NMR spectral sensitivity and negligible reactivity of hyperpolarized xenon-129 (HP(129)Xe) make it attractive for a number of magnetic resonance applications; moreover, HP(129)Xe embodies an alternative to rare and nonrenewable (3)He. However, the ability to reliably and inexpensively produce large quantities of HP(129)Xe with sufficiently high (129)Xe nuclear spin polarization (P...

This article highlights the key observation of various studies conducted in Indian scenario. In India, the major sources of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are vehicle exhaust. Other sources include emissions from diesel internal combustion engines, oceanic emission and evaporative emissions. Various aspects of VOCs are studied in detail by various authors in the Indian context. VOC sampling ...

Cumulative installed PV wattage in Thailand since the 1980s was over 30 MW. A typical module would have a structure of glass–EVA–cell–EVA–tedlar back-sheet. During the hot season, temperature can be over 40 1C coupled with the humidity of over 90% in the monsoon season. Apparent physical deteriorations of modules under long term field-exposure have been observed. In this paper, we report result...

Background: Excessive use of plastic bags has become a major problem in the worldwide causing irreparable damages to the environment and humans. The purpose of this study was to identify the individual and environmental factors associated with the use of plastic bags among the vendors of Hadishahr city, Iran. Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted on 400 vendors workin...

Experiments in Niger assessed whether extreme environmental conditions including sunlight exposure affect the performance of triple-layer PICS bags in protecting cowpea grain against bruchids. Sets of PICS bags and woven polypropylene bags as controls containing 50 kg of naturally infested cowpea grain were held in the laboratory or outside with sun exposure for four and one-half months. PICS b...

We consider four different generalizations of bags (alias multisets). We first discuss Yager’s fuzzy bags having different sets of operations. It is shown that one is not a generalization of fuzzy sets but a mapping of them into fuzzy bags, since operations are inconsistent between the two, while the other includes fuzzy sets as particular cases. Third type is called real-valued bags which is s...

This paper briefs the photothermal reliability studies we conducted on different encapsulation materials for some U.S. PV companies that are subcontractors of the Photovoltaic Manufacturing Technology (PVMaT) program. The results indicate that the photothermal stability of two foreign ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) films is dependent on the formulation, curing method and condition, as well as acc...