In this paper, distributed parameter process systems behavior is studied in frequency domain. Based on the dominant gain concept that is developed for such studies, a method is presented to control distributed parameter process systems. By using dominant gain concept, the location of open loop zeros, resulted from the time delay parameter in the process model, were changed from the right half p...

Soil enzyme activities are greatly influenced by soil properties and could be significant indicators of heavy metal toxicity in soil for bioavailability assessment. Two groups of experiments were conducted to determine the joint effects of heavy metals and soil properties on soil enzyme activities. Results showed that arylsulfatase was the most sensitive soil enzyme and could be used as an indi...

Endogeic earthworm activities can strongly influence soil structure. Although soil microorganisms are thought to be central to earthworm-facilitated aggregate formation, how and where within the soil matrix earthworm-facilitated influences on soil microbial communities are manifested is poorly defined. In this study we used 16S rRNA gene-based terminal restriction fragment polymorphism (T-RFLP)...

The application of electromagnetic methods in the radar and micro-wave frequency band allows the fluid content of soils to be estimated; the heuristic or physically-based models permit to relate the observed electrical permittivity of the soils with the porosity and fluid saturation. The role of the effect of the free water and bound water in the overall electromagnetic behaviour of soils is di...

Decomposition of litter mixtures generally cannot be predicted from the component species incubated in isolation. Therefore, such non-additive effects of litter mixing on soil C and N dynamics remain poorly understood in terrestrial ecosystems. In this study, litters of Mongolian pine and three dominant understory species and soil were collected from a Mongolian pine plantation in Northeast Chi...

The eastern coastal region of China has been experiencing rapid urbanization which has imposed great challenges on soil resources, characterized by soil sealing and fragmented soil landscapes. Taking Zhejiang Province—a fairly economically-developed and highly-urbanized region in eastern China—as a case study, a practical framework that integrates remote sensing, GIS, soil quality assessment an...

The effects of elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration on soil microbial communities have been previously recorded. However, limited information is available regarding the response of methanogenic communities to elevated CO2 in freshwater marshes. Using high-throughput sequencing and real-time quantitative PCR, we compared the abundance and community structure of methanogens in different compart...

Fertilized black soil samples are prepared by mixing desired amounts of fertilizers in the black soils having 10% gravimetric moisture content. Two black soil samples were collected from two different locations of Maharashtra State (India). Three different chemical fertilizers viz., Urea, Di-Ammonium Phosphate and Potash are used. Measurements of complex dielectric constants of these soil sampl...

Several recent studies have shown that n-octanol/water partition coefficients may not be a good predictor for estimating soil sorption coefficients of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), defined here as chemicals with log Kow greater than 5. Thus, an alternative QSAR model was developed that seems to provide reliable estimates for the soil sorption coefficients of persistent organic pollutant...