The Mechanism of Critical Strain of Serrated Yielding in Strain Rate Domain

The mechanism of the critical strain of serrated yielding is studied via tension tests at various strain rates. Betore the critical strain, it is deduced that dislocations are not pinned at high strain rates, and dislocations at low strain rates are pinned but cannot escape. The critical strain depends on the first pinning process at high strain rates and on the first unpinning process at low strain rates. The calculated results based on the two criteria are in good consistency with the experiment.

Critical Soil Phosphorus Values for Yield Reduction in Intensive Agricultural Systems

Phosphorus(P)is an essential element for agricultural production.Over-fertilization during decades caused an accumulation of P in soils leading to eutrophication in regions characterized by intensive agriculture.These environmental concerns together with the non-renewability of P resources have led to a more sustainable P use.Knowledge about the P need of crops is essential for a sustainable agriculture thereby minimizing P losses to the environment without lowering the yield substantially.Therefore,in this study,critical soil P values for yield reduction(PCrit)were determined based on fertilizer trials conducted between 1970 and 1988 and more recent fertilizer trials(2016-2017).At rotational level a common PCrit value of 109 mg P/kg dry soil(in an ammonium lactate and acetate extract)was determined.Crop specific PCrit values were also determined for seven crops(potato,winter wheat,barley,rye,maize,sugar beet and temporary grassland).These critical values ranged from 59 mg P/kg dry soil to 164 mg P/kg dry soil with winter wheat the least and maize the most sensitive towards P deficiency.The diversity in PCrit values among crops can mainly be explained by the root intensity but also rooting depth,exudation of organic acids and phosphatases may influence the PCrit value.The soil pH also influenced the P availability significantly.Soils with a favorable pH had a significantly higher availability(i.e.,lower PCrit value)for all crops compared to soils with a suboptimal pH.Critical soil P values might help to set up new or to evaluate current soil P in target zones used for P fertilizer recommendations.

Soil phosphorus dynamic, balance and critical P values in longterm fertilization experiment in Taihu Lake region, China

Phosphorus（P） is an important macronutrient for plant but can also cause potential environmental risk. In this paper, we studied the long-term fertilizer experiment（started 1980） to assess the soil P dynamic, balance, critical P value and the crop yield response in Taihu Lake region, China. To avoid the effect of nitrogen（N） and potassium（K）, only the following treatments were chosen for subsequent discussion, including： C0（control treatment without any fertilizer or organic manure）, CNK treatment（mineral N and K only）, CNPK（balanced fertilization with mineral N, P and K）, MNK（integrated organic manure and mineral N and K）, and MNPK（organic manure plus balanced fertilization）. The results revealed that the response of wheat yield was more sensitive than rice, and no significant differences of crop yield had been detected among MNK, CNPK and MNPK until 2013. Dynamic and balance of soil total P（TP） and Olsen-P showed soil TP pool was enlarged significantly over consistent fertilization. However, the diminishing marginal utility of soil Olsen-P was also found, indicating that high-level P application in the present condition could not increase soil Olsen-P contents anymore. Linear-linear and Mitscherlich models were used to estimate the critical value of Olsen-P for crops. The average critical P value for rice and wheat was 3.40 and 4.08 mg kg^（–1）, respectively. The smaller critical P value than in uplands indicated a stronger ability of P supply for crops in this paddy soil. We concluded that no more mineral P should be applied in rice-wheat system in Taihu Lake region if soil Olsen-P is higher than the critical P value. The agricultural technique and management referring to activate the plant-available P pool are also considerable, such as integrated use of low-P organic manure with mineral N and K.

Open critical area model and extraction algorithm based on the net flow-axis

In the integrated circuit manufacturing process, the critical area extraction is a bottleneck to the layout optimization and the integrated circuit yield estimation. In this paper, we study the problem that the missing material defects may result in the open circuit fault. Combining the mathematical morphology theory, we present a new computation model and a novel extraction algorithm for the open critical area based on the net flow-axis. Firstly, we find the net flow-axis for different nets. Then, the net flow-edges based on the net flow-axis are obtained. Finally, we can extract the open critical area by the mathematical morphology. Compared with the existing methods, the nets need not to divide into the horizontal nets and the vertical nets, and the experimental results show that our model and algorithm can accurately extract the size of the open critical area and obtain the location information of the open circuit critical area.