Humic acids are the most active components of soil organic matter and have been shown to have an hormone-like activity thus stimulating plant growth. The objective of this work was to verify the quantitative and qualitative yield responses of the table grape cv. Italia after the application of a humic acid at various phenological stages. The humic acid used in this study has been extracted from...

Nutrient enrichment in water and sediments due to excessive anthropogenic activities in recent years has caused excessive algal growth in the Caspian Sea. The current study was conducted to determine the abundance of phytoplankton community, the dominant species and chlorophyll-a [Chl-a] concentration during algal blooms in the Iranian coastal waters of Caspian Sea through four seasons from 201...

A high-speed, low-cost, image-based sorting device was developed to detect and separate grains having slight color differences or small defects. The device directly combines a complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) color image sensor with a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) which was programmed to execute image processing in real-time, without the need of an external computer. Spatia...

OBJECTIVE It is often believed that people overeat the foods they like. We investigated whether environmental cues such as packaging and container size are so powerful that they can increase our intake of foods that are less palatable. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In a 2 x 2 between-subjects design, 158 moviegoers in Philadelphia (57.6% male; 28.7 years) were randomly given a medium (120...

Adiabatic calorimetry performed on butadiene-derived popcorn polymer samples from industrial facilities has revealed exothermic behavior accompanied by non-condensible gas production, indicative of possible decomposition, at elevated temperatures. In the presence of low concentrations of 1,3-butadiene, reactivity is observed at temperatures of 60-70 degrees C; that is, 20-30 degrees C below tho...

CONTEXT Patients with diverticular disease are frequently advised to avoid eating nuts, corn, popcorn, and seeds to reduce the risk of complications. However, there is little evidence to support this recommendation. OBJECTIVE To determine whether nut, corn, or popcorn consumption is associated with diverticulitis and diverticular bleeding. DESIGN AND SETTING The Health Professionals Follow-...