Markets as diverse as labor, healthcare, restaurants, transportation, mobile telephony, and broadband Internet services often have providers that offer flatrate pricing; usage-based pricing; or both. Using agent-based simulation and analysis of an idealized model of a duopoly with one flat-rate and one usagebased provider, we demonstrate that flat-rate plans are unsustainable in a perfectly com...

The growth of the aquaculture industry has been associated with negative environmental impacts through the discharge of raw effluents into the adjacent receiving water bodies. Macrophytes from natural saline lakes, which have adaptability to the high salinity, can be suitable for saline effluent treatment. Eight emergent species from natural saline area were planted in an experimental gravel be...

Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2 NPs) are in consideration to be used in plant protection products. Before these products can be placed on the market, ecotoxicological tests have to be performed. In this study, the nitrogen fixing bacterium Rhizobium trifolii and red clover were exposed to two TiO2 NPs, i.e., P25, E171 and a non-nanomaterial TiO2. Growth of both organisms individually and t...

Automated Hydroponic Greenhouses represent novel food production systems which include modules for supervising the cultivated soil, packaging plans, as well as prevention, diagnosis and control of pests and diseases. In this setting, we propose the design and implementation of an Integral Intelligent System called JAPIEST, which is focused on the prevention, diagnosis and control of diseases th...

An amphoteric (cocamidopropylbetaine, CAPB) and a nonionic (alcohol polyethoxylate, AE) surfactant were characterized by electrospray ionization quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) as to their homologue distribution and ionization/fragmentation chemistry. Quantitative methods involving reversed-phase gradient HPLC and (+)ESI-MSn were developed to directly determine these surfactants ...

salinity is known as one of the most challenging problems in aquaculture and agriculture. this issue has posed more difficulties to the shoreline of the persian gulf. halophyte plants with their high potentials of absorbing salinity from soil and water are able to enhance the biopurification process in the environment. hydroponic is a biointegrated food production method which links recirculati...