Drying experiments with crushed feed rice (Oryza sativa, L., japonica, ‘Mizuhochikara’) were conducted to investigate the thermal decomposition effect on seventeen amino acids, including lysine which is the first limiting amino acid in pig nutrition, with drying air temperatures of 40, 50, 60, 70 and 80 °C and relative humidity of 10%. The lysine content in crushed rice decreased with increasing drying temperature; however, there was no significant thermal effect on the decomposition of amino acids during hot-air drying. It was suggested that the crushed rice samples contained lower amino acid levels than whole brown rice because the graded, crushed rice included a little germ and bran layer. It was also confirmed that the amino acid components of the provided brown rice sample showed a similar trend to previous studies. It is expected that high-temperature drying techniques for crushed rice will become a useful method for feed rice drying, because it can achieve rapid, energy-efficient processing without causing damage to the amino acid composition.

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In the present study, laboratory experiments were carried out to measure the draft and torque requirements of combination tillage implement (cultivator in the front set and rotavator in the rear set) by varying soil cone indices, peripheral to forward speed ratios (u/v) and depth ratios for a cutting width of 0.41 m and 0.65 m under controlled conditions in a soil bin with sandy clay loam soil at an average moisture content of 10.5 ± 1.2% (dry basis). Individual implements (cultivator and rotavator) of cutting widths of 0.41 and 0.65 m were also operated under similar conditions. Using non linear regression analysis, equations were developed for predicting draft, torque and power requirement of combination tillage implement. The maximum absolute difference between observed and predicted values of power requirement of the implement was found to be 12.43%. Power requirement of the implement was 43.93 and 33.17% lesser than the combined power requirement of individual implements for cutting widths of 0.41 and 0.65 m, respectively. With increase in width of tillage implements, power requirement increases directly due to increase in volume of soil handled. However, with increase in u/v ratio, power requirement decreases due to lesser time the rotavator is in contact with soil. Hence, to reduce the total power requirement of an active passive combination tillage implement, it is better to operate at higher u/v ratio and lesser depth ratio.

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The most important factor affecting plant growth is solar radiation. One primary source of loss of solar radiation transmission of greenhouses is accumulation of dust and dirt on the exterior surface of cladding materials. In order to clean greenhouse film roofs, a fly-over disc brush cleaning device which mainly consists of driving mechanism, cambered support mechanism and cleaning mechanism is designed in this paper, and the structure parameters of the cleaning device were optimized. In order to explore the optimum working parameter, the effects of water flow rate, device cleaning speed and disc brush rotation speed were tested and analyzed by orthogonal test and variance analysis. The results show all the 3 aforementioned factors have particularly significant impacts on cleaning effectiveness (CE), and the interaction term of device cleaning speed and disc brush rotation speed are significant. With 360 mL/s water flow rate, cleaning speed of 35 mm/s and disc brush rotation speed of 100 r/min, the value of light transmittance of testing greenhouse films increases from 45% to 84.37%. The results prove that the cleaning device, which has the advantages of good CE, high efficiency, prominent water-saving, high safety and light in weight, is practicable to clean greenhouse film roofs. This research can provide reference for the design and development of cleaning device for greenhouse soft roofs.

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In the present investigation, field tests were carried out on a field belonging to a farm in the center of Italy. Wheat (Triticum durum) yield maps were acquired for three consecutive growing seasons (2007–2010) with a combine harvester, equipped with grain mass flow sensor, GPS and Precision Land Management Software. At the end of the third season, in the same field, a georeferenced grid sampling to investigate the soil physical-chemical properties, and to produce interpolated maps describing within field spatial variability was performed. The measured parameters were structural stability, water content, shear strength, and total Nitrogen. In order to identify potential management zones and yield limiting factors, two cluster analyses, based on fuzzy algorithm, were conducted considering the acquired soil parameters. The mean value of the three years yield was considered in the evaluation of the performance of the multivariate classification, rather than as layer for delineating management zones. In the field conditions of the performed tests, results show that shear strength and structural stability were the most significant limiting factors for the wheat yield.

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In the present study, the volumetric thermal capacity and thermal conductivity of hollow block wall were changed by filling soil and perlite in the cavities to improve wall thermal performance. The results show that filling soil or perlite in the cavities of hollow blocks is a feasible way of improving the thermal performance of north wall of Chinese solar greenhouses. Filling hollow blocks with soil increases the thermal capacity of wall, and more heat can be stored. Filling hollow blocks with perlite increases the thermal resistance of north wall so less heat is lost. Then, two layered composite walls (wall HB-2P4S and HB-4P2S) were designed and their performance was compared. Model simulation and experimental results suggest that the composite wall with 40 cm of hollow block filled with soil and 20 cm of hollow block filled with perlite had better thermal performance than the composite wall that was composed of with 40 cm hollow block filled with perlite and 20 cm filled with soil.

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The objective of this research was to improve the performance of an agricultural tire by designing the shape of the tire lug. For the first stage of this research, pressure sensors were mounted in the leading lug side and the trailing lug side and tri-axial force transducers were mounted in the lug face of a small agricultural drive tire to find out the function of each lug surface. Traction forces were measured on the lug face and the leading side at 20.0% slippage and on the lug face at 10% slippage, as would be typical when a tractor is used for plowing. Braking forces were measured on the lug face and the trailing side at −10.0% slippage, as would be typical when a tractor is used for rotary tilling. The results of three tire inflation pressure conditions (39.2 kPa, 78.5 kPa and 118 kPa) also show the similar tendency to produce traction and braking forces on three surfaces of an agriculture tire lug. Relationships between forces on the lug surfaces and the soil reaction were determined.

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In the present study, we developed a worker behavioral recognition system for a single targeted worker to understand his three specific types of worker behavior for producing peas, namely, watering, seeding, and harvesting, performed along a furrow. The three behavior types were further classified into 14 behavior subtypes and six behavior categories. The 14 behavior subtypes were modeled by 14 hidden Markov models (HMMs): 10 for harvesting behavior, 2 for seeding behavior, and 2 for watering behavior. In the experiments, the targeted worker twice performed the three types of behaviors facing the left ridge and the right ridge along a single specific furrow within a range of 5–25 m from a pan-tilt-zoom camera. The watering and seeding behaviors were performed in the same field condition as the actual field. The harvesting behaviors were faithfully reproduced by the worker with his huge experience in the non-crop field. The recognition rates for watering and seeding were approximately 98% for the watering-left category, 97% for the watering-right category, 100% for the seeding-left category, and 94% for the seeding-right category. For harvesting, the recognition rates for five HMMs in the harvesting-left category ranged from 26% to 100%, and the overall recognition rates for five HMMs in the harvesting-right category ranged from 44% to 100%. Although the recognition rates of two HMMs were too low in harvesting categories, the behavioral recognition system achieved the robust responses to the harvesting behaviors by applying OR operation to the outputs of the HMMs.

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Milk deposits are a serious technical and economic problem for the dairy industry. The proteins and minerals in milk form deposits on the surfaces of stainless steel equipment. The Magnetic Abrasive Finishing (MAF) process was used to produce highly finished inner surfaces of stainless steel tubes to compare to tubes with conventional inner surfaces. Deposition and cleaning tests were carried out using an experimental loop including the stainless steel tubes with different surface roughness profiles. Data showed that the smoothly finished inner surface (R_a = 0.037 μm) of stainless steel tubes prepared by MAF significantly improved the cleanability of milk residues. The results may indicate that the cleanability of non-protein components of milk residue is affected by surface roughness.

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