For successful dosing of plant protection products, the characteristics of the vine canopies should be known, based on which the spray amount should be dosed. In the field experiment, we compared two optical experimental methods, terrestrial lidar and aerial photogrammetry, with manual defoliation of some selected vines. Like those of other authors, our results show that both terrestrial lidar and aerial photogrammetry were able to represent the canopy well with correlation coefficients around 0.9 between the measured variables and the number of leaves. We found that in the case of aerial photogrammetry, significantly more points were found in the point cloud, but this depended on the choice of the ground sampling distance. Our results show that in the case of aerial UAS photogrammetry, subdividing the vine canopy segments to 5 × 5 cm gives the best representation of the volume of vine canopies.

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a serious fungal disease of wheat and other small cereal grains, significantly reducing grain yield and producing mycotoxins that affect food safety. There is a need for disease detection technologies to determine the right time to apply fungicides, as FHB infection begins before visible symptoms appear. Using multispectral remote sensing by an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), wheat plants were observed under field conditions infested with FHB and simultaneously protected with fungicides sprayed with four different types of nozzles, as well as corresponding control plots infested with FHB only. The results showed that the levels of deoxynivalenol (DON) differed significantly between the five treatments, indicating that the control had the highest DON concentration as no fungicide treatment was applied. This study revealed that the assessment of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) after FHB infection could be useful for predicting DON accumulation in wheat, as a significant negative correlation between DON and NDVI values was measured 24 days after anthesis. The decreasing NDVI values at the end of the growth cycle were expected due to senescence and yellowing of the wheat spikes and leaves. Therefore, significant differences in the NDVI were observed between three measurement points on the 13th, 24th, and 45th day after anthesis. Additionally, the green normalized difference vegetation index (GNDVI) and normalized difference red-edge index (NDRE) were in significant positive correlation with the NDVI at 24th day after anthesis. The use of appropriate measurement points for the vegetation indices can offer the decisive advantage of enabling the evaluation of very large breeding trials or farmers’ fields where the timing of fungicide application is particularly important.

Planting speed has an important impact on plant spacing variability and also grain yield. In a two-year study, the effects of planting speeds of 6, 9, and 12 km/h on maize plant spacing and, consequently, ear parameters were investigated. We wanted to determine whether increasing the planting speed increases the plant spacing parameters and what effects this has on ear parameters and grain yield. In both experimental years, no differences between the three planting speeds were found in terms of mean plant spacing, plant density, the multiple index, and the miss index. However, the standard deviation of reference spacings and precision increased with the increase in planting speed from 6 to 12 km/h. In 2022, the differences between plant spacings measured using UAV photogrammetry and manual measurements were smaller (<1 cm) than in 2023. The plant spacing data obtained from 3D point clouds show a strong correlation (r = 0.97) with the manual measurements for all three planting speeds. The proposed method is suitable for measuring plant spacing in maize. In 2022, no differences appeared in grain yield and ear parameters between the planting speeds; however, in 2023, the grain yield and kernel mass per ear were greater at planting speeds of 6 and 9 km/h than at a planting speed of 12 km/h in 2023. Individual ear analysis in 2023 showed an increase of 0.73 g in kernel mass per plant with a 1 cm increase in plant spacing, resulting in a 58 kg/ha yield increase.

A modern class of micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) uses deformable membrane wings (DMWs), which comprise rigid or rigidizable structural elements that guarantee stiffness, as well as flexible membranes that provide an aerodynamic shape, all in a compact and lightweight form. To contribute to the body of knowledge about DMWs, this paper presents extensive numerical simulations, accompanied by experiments that substantiate the findings pertinent to the aerodynamics and static aeroelastic behavior of these unconventional wings. The performance characteristics of canonical, untapered, and untwisted rectangular DMWs are studied using a parametric physical-based two-dimensional (2D) fluid structure interaction (FSI) model adopting a two-way coupled FSI algorithm. The effect of geometrical, material, and flow properties is investigated, and the results obtained show that the material Young’s modulus is the most influential parameter affecting the aerodynamic characteristics of the studied DMWs, with their hi...

Summary: Background:In the majority of patients with a wide QRS complex and heart failure resistant to optimal medical therapy, cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) leads to rever se ventricular remodeling and possibly to changes in cardiac collagen synthesis and degradation. We investigated the relationship of biomarkers of myocardial collagen meta bolism and volumetric response to CRT.Methods:We prospectively studied 46 heart failure patients (mean age 61±9 years, 87% male) who underwent CRT im plantation. Plasma concentrations of amino-terminal pro peptide type I (PINP), a marker of collagen synthesis, and carboxy-terminal collagen telopeptide (CITP), a marker of collagen degradation, were measured before and 6 months after CRT. Response to CRT was defined as 15% or greater reduction in left ventricular end-systolic volume at 6-month follow-up.Results:Baseline PINP levels showed a negative correlation with both left ventricular end-diastolic volume (r=−0.51; p=0.032), and end-systolic diameter (r=−0.47; p=0.049). After 6 months of device implantation, 28 patients (61%) responded to CRT. No significant differences in the base-line levels of PINP and CITP between responders and nonresponders were observed (p>0.05 for both). During follow-up, responders demonstrated a significant increase in serum PINP level from 31.37±18.40 to 39.2±19.19 μg/L (p=0.049), whereas in non-responders serum PINP levels did not significantly change (from 28.12±21.55 to 34.47±18.64 μg/L; p=0.125). There were no significant changes in CITP levels in both responders and non-responders (p>0.05).Conclusions:Left ventricular reverse remodeling induced by CRT is associated with an increased collagen synthesis in the first 6 months of CRT implantation.

To account for the problem of an azimuthally constant induction in the BEM method, which influences on incorrectly predicted aerodynamic loads in the yawed flow, a skewed-wake model implementation to the BEM method has been performed. The numerical aerodynamic loads have been compared with the wind tunnel data of the NREL Phase VI and against another numerical campaign. At first, the model predictions have been validated against experimental data performed with aligned flow conditions, showing a reasonable match. Successively, the model predictions are validated against experimental results obtained with the wind turbine yawed. Results show, a possible better prediction of loads at yawed flow with Skewed-Wake correction, however the method does not overall correlate better, compared to the BEM method with implemented local variability of the induction factor.