An environment friendly biodegradable board called Bio-board using corn straws was introduced. Five main board making processes were proposed. To investigate the effect of pressure on the strength of Bio-board, five pressures were applied in forming process. Board making results showed that under all experimental conditions, it is successful in making board using corn straw. Density of five bio-boards is in the range of 0.87 g/cm³–1.02 g/cm³. The moisture contents of Bio-board showed a range of 3%–6% in wet base. Strength test resulted that remarkable variety of rupture stress under different pressures could not been observed. Under the condition of 8 MPa, bio-board has bending strength as high as 29.37 MPa. Meanwhile Bio-board has tensile strength as high as 10.89 MPa resulted in the pressure of 10 MPa.

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Rooftop greening panel is a moss plant (Sphagnum sp.) grown, overlaid in a panel and installed in a narrow open space on a rooftop building. As the final step prior to the full-scale agro-industry, scaling-up the moss panel is required and must be designed in consideration to the quality evaluation. The research objectives are: 1) to design a scale-up for moss (Sphagnum sp.) rooftop greening panel by means of Taguchi method; 2) to evaluate the quality for scaling-up the moss panel in rooftop building; 3) to identify the design factors involved in scale-up process of moss panel. The result then showed the photosynthesis rate, CO₂ absorption and L*a*b color with the quality robustness in rooftop building.

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The carotenoid content indicates the processing quality of carrot powder. The carotenoid content of carrot powder was analyzed using digital image processing technology and color analysis technology, and an estimation model between the carotenoid content and color characteristics was established. The carrot was dried using different drying methods. The verification test result shows that model fitting is prominent and the test error is small and promptly improves the reference of testing for the carotenoid content of carrot powder. The processing parameters of the carrot powder with the highest carotenoid content are as follows: the carrot was frozen and thawed using the freeze drying method; the powder particle size is 80–120 mesh.

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Fuxin, a major corn production area, is located in Liaoning province, P. R. of China. The annual precipitation in this area is only 450 mm, mostly during summer. The area receives less rainfall in spring seeding season every year. Droughts in spring are common. We constructed an artificial perched watertable by burying corn stalks. The results showed that before watertable construction, the soil penetration resistance was 5.0 MPa below 200 mm depth. After construction, that became 1.0 MPa down to 400 mm depth. The watertable construction evened out available N, P₂O₅ and K₂O and organic matter in all layers. Therefore, when the top soil and the subsoil were displaced, a deficiency of any chemical element for plants would not be caused.

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In order to select grading images of tobacco leaves, the reflecting light images of all tobacco leaf samples are gathered under the condition of seven color light sources. Then for the each color light, the self-information (SI) of each sample image is calculated, and the mean SI of all images corresponding to one grade of tobacco leaf samples (MSI) is also calculated. Furthermore, the mutual information (MI) between two sample images corresponding respectively two grades of tobacco leaf samples is calculated, and the mean MI between arbitrary two grades of tobacco leaves images (MMI) is also calculated. It is to be found that the ratio of the MMI to sum of the two MSI which correspond to two grades of samples can be employed to select the grading images, and the sample images obtained under the condition of the cyan light are selected for tobacco leaves grading. At the same time, 18 kinds of color features and 13 kinds of texture features are extracted from all sample images, and Fisher discriminant analysis (FDA) is used to distinguish these samples. The FDA results indicate that the grading accuracy based on cyan image is the highest. This is in accord with the above selection result. Therefore, the proposed selection method is effective and independent of features extracted from sample images.

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This study investigated ammonia production and recovery under high temperature conditions. A reactor with a working volume of 2.0 L was fed with synthetic wastewater, and then the temperature was increased at 1 °C d⁻¹ at HRT (Hydraulic Retention Time) of 4 days. The effects of sludge return, temperature (50–80 °C), HRT (4–10 days) and influent TS (Total Solids) levels (3.02–4.83%) on ammonia fermentation were studied in this work. In the ammonia production phase, the maximum ammonia concentration was obtained for runs with the sludge return method at 72 °C. With increased HRT and influent TS up to 4.23%, the ammonia concentration was increased. The ammonia stripping flow rate ranged from 0.10 to 0.25 L L⁻¹ min⁻¹. With an increased flow rate, the ammonia removal efficiency was increased. In this study, if all of the removed ammonia was recovered, 0.431 L d⁻¹ liquid ammonia would be achieved.

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This study evaluates the life cycle of ethanol produced from soft carbohydrate (SC)-rich rice straw (cv. Leafstar) and common rice straw (cv. Koshihikari) while considering land-use change to estimate CO₂ emissions, energy balance (expressed as Net Energy Ratio, NER), and production costs. Three different pretreatment methods were considered: the DiSC (direct saccharification of culms), RT-CaCCO (room temperature-CaCCO) and CaCCO (calcium capturing by carbonation) processes. Although the reduction in CO₂ emission was found to be 59%, 42% and −3.5% for the DiSC, RT-CaCCO and CaCCO processes, respectively, the CO₂ emission reduction decreased significantly when land-use change was considered. This result clearly shows that the biomass (rice straw) should be obtained from paddy fields without land-use change. The NER values for the bioethanol produced by the DiSC, RT-CaCCO and CaCCO processes were estimated to be 2.7, 2.1 and 1.0, respectively, and the total costs were estimated to be 102, 134 and 151 Yen/L ethanol, respectively (US $1 = 100 Yen). The use of the SC-rich rice straw contributes to a reduction of the environmental load and costs for the pretreatment, enzyme production, and enzymatic hydrolysis processes. Therefore, the use of SC-rich rice straw for bioethanol production reduces the total cost of production, reduces CO₂ emissions, and improves the NER. Our results suggest that the DiSC and RT-CaCCO pretreatment processes are promising pretreatment techniques and that SC-rich rice straw is a promising resource for bioethanol production.

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The objective of the present work is to study the drying kinetics of quince slices during convective drying. The details of the laboratory-scaled convective dryer are presented. Experiments were carried out at air temperatures 40 °C, 50 °C and 60 °C and 2 m s⁻¹ bulk velocity. The whole process occurred within the falling rate period. Results showed that the temperature of the air stream has a significant effect on the drying curves. In particular, a temperature increase from 40 to 60 °C produced a decrease of the total time of drying of about 54%. Eight thin-layer drying models were used to fit the temporal distributions of the moisture data using non-linear regression analysis. Among the various models, the Weibull formula was best fitted to measurements. For the range of the drying temperatures examined, Fick's law of diffusion was used to determine the effective moisture diffusivity, which varied between 3.23 × 10⁻¹⁰ m² s⁻¹ and 7.82 × 10⁻¹⁰ m² s⁻¹. Assuming an Arrhenius type model for the drying process, a value of 38.291 kJ mol⁻¹ was estimated for the activation energy.

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The paper proposes a method for the autonomous positioning of the unloading auger of a combine harvester by a laser sensor and global navigation satellite system (GNSS). The proposed method positions the unloading auger to the target position by the following process. First, by using GNSS, GPS compass, and laser range finder (LRF) installed on the combine harvester, a three-dimensional (3D) map is generated and then converted into a top-view image. Then, the upper quadrangle of the grain container is detected from the top-view image by using upper quadrangle detection method and the target position of the unloading auger is calculated. Lastly, the target position is applied to the combine harvester to perform the positioning of the unloading auger. The results of the experiment show that the proposed method has sufficient accuracy to perform the positioning of the unloading auger onto the target positions.

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A variable hitching system was designed using finite element analysis and developed to provide hitching height variable from 0.4 m to 0.75 m with respect to the ground using tractor hydraulics. This system facilitated easy attachment of unbalanced trailer to the tractor irrespective of trailer hitch position. Using this system, the front weight utilization factor of tractor improved on an average by 6.13% and 7.37% by decreasing the hitch height from 0.75 m to 0.4 m while hitching unbalanced trailer uphill on inclined unpaved road of 9° with payloads of 3 ton and 4 ton, respectively. A similar improvement of 7.99% and 9.18% was possible on 12° inclined surface. The slip of tractor on 9° inclined unpaved road was decreased by 4.35% and 5.17% for tractor with 3 ton and 4 ton payloads, respectively by increasing the hitching height from 0.4 m to 0.75 m. A similar decrease of 5.60% and 6.99% was possible on 12° inclined surface. Decreasing skid was also observed while pulling trailer downhill with decreasing hitching height. With the use of variable hitching system, front weight utilization factor, slip/skid could be controlled to improve the stability of tractor trailer combination while travelling on inclined surface.

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