The objective of this study was to assess the condition of the road network within the district with a view to find out if and how they affect the transportation costs. Four sets of primary and secondary data on the d...The objective of this study was to assess the condition of the road network within the district with a view to find out if and how they affect the transportation costs. Four sets of primary and secondary data on the district’s road surface types, road condition mix, cost of transportation of farm produce and humans on the road network were collected, collated and subjected to statistical analysis using a Completely Randomized Design. The results indicated that the road conditions had high significant effects on the transportation costs of both human and agricultural produce. The road network of the district consists of 21 roads with a total length of 176.6 kilometers out of which 8 were classified as poor, 7 as fair and only 6 as good. The highest agricultural produce transportation cost of 1.46 per tonne-kilometer was obtained from 3 of the poor roads while the lowest cost of 0.86 per tonne-kilometer was obtained from only 1 of the 6 good roads. The highest passenger transportation cost of 0.3 per passenger kilometer was obtained for 1 of the 8 poor roads while the lowest cost of 0.1 per passenger kilometer was obtained for all the 6 good roads and 4 of the fair roads. In conclusion, transportation cost of passengers on the poor and fair roads was 2 - 3 times as high as the cost of transportation on the good roads. Transportation cost of agricultural produce on the poor roads was 70% higher than it was on the good roads.展开更多
Root growth process in soils has long been a matter of interest to soil and plant scientists.However the opaque nature of the soil has been a barrier to most research attempts aimed at unraveling the full root-soil pr...Root growth process in soils has long been a matter of interest to soil and plant scientists.However the opaque nature of the soil has been a barrier to most research attempts aimed at unraveling the full root-soil processes.The traditional method of separating the roots from the growth media which is common practice tends to be destructive and defeats the purpose of such studies.It is ineffective in monitoring the interactions within the soil medium and as a result,a fast non-destructive technique is preferred.However,with computing and technological advancements,X-ray computed tomography(CT)has been found to be capable of meeting this need by imaging the processes which are of interest to researchers.Over the past three-four decades,the applications of the technology for imaging soil-root studies have attracted the researchers’widespread interests and the future looks more promising.The purpose of this review is to present an overview of CT applications in imaging root-soil processes.The main focus is on the use of soil-root interface researches and the way forward for such non-destructive analyses.展开更多
文摘The objective of this study was to assess the condition of the road network within the district with a view to find out if and how they affect the transportation costs. Four sets of primary and secondary data on the district’s road surface types, road condition mix, cost of transportation of farm produce and humans on the road network were collected, collated and subjected to statistical analysis using a Completely Randomized Design. The results indicated that the road conditions had high significant effects on the transportation costs of both human and agricultural produce. The road network of the district consists of 21 roads with a total length of 176.6 kilometers out of which 8 were classified as poor, 7 as fair and only 6 as good. The highest agricultural produce transportation cost of 1.46 per tonne-kilometer was obtained from 3 of the poor roads while the lowest cost of 0.86 per tonne-kilometer was obtained from only 1 of the 6 good roads. The highest passenger transportation cost of 0.3 per passenger kilometer was obtained for 1 of the 8 poor roads while the lowest cost of 0.1 per passenger kilometer was obtained for all the 6 good roads and 4 of the fair roads. In conclusion, transportation cost of passengers on the poor and fair roads was 2 - 3 times as high as the cost of transportation on the good roads. Transportation cost of agricultural produce on the poor roads was 70% higher than it was on the good roads.
基金We acknowledge that this work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.51475216)the National Science&Technology Pillar Program during the Twelfth Five-Year Plan Period(No.2013BAD08B03)+3 种基金the Jiangsu Province Science and Technology Support Program of China(No.BE2012381&No.BE2014373)the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions(SFE(2014)37)the Jiangsu Province Synergistic Innovation Center Program of Modern Agricultural Equipment and Technology(No.NZXT02201402)the Fund for Independent Innovation of the Jiangsu Province Agricultural Science and Technology(No.CX(15)1033-5).
文摘Root growth process in soils has long been a matter of interest to soil and plant scientists.However the opaque nature of the soil has been a barrier to most research attempts aimed at unraveling the full root-soil processes.The traditional method of separating the roots from the growth media which is common practice tends to be destructive and defeats the purpose of such studies.It is ineffective in monitoring the interactions within the soil medium and as a result,a fast non-destructive technique is preferred.However,with computing and technological advancements,X-ray computed tomography(CT)has been found to be capable of meeting this need by imaging the processes which are of interest to researchers.Over the past three-four decades,the applications of the technology for imaging soil-root studies have attracted the researchers’widespread interests and the future looks more promising.The purpose of this review is to present an overview of CT applications in imaging root-soil processes.The main focus is on the use of soil-root interface researches and the way forward for such non-destructive analyses.
