Dataset of temperature, humidity, and actuator states of an east-facing South African Greenhouse Tunnel
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Hull K
PROVIDER: S-EPMC10577051 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:A liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) actuator capable of colorimetric humidity sensing is realized. The designed LCE features acid protonated amino azobenzene side groups in its structure, which endow the actuator with the hygroscopicity and act as the humidity reporter via color changes. Given that the protonated and deprotonated chromophore absorb visible light at different wavelengths, when the protonated LCE is under higher humidity, it absorbs more water that deprotonates azobenzene and leads to a change in color. This humidity-dependent color change is fast, because surface protonation of the actuator is enough. The initial color and the sensitivity to humidity variation are determined by the extent of acid protonation, and the reversible color changes are distinguishable by the naked eye over a wide humidity range. The humidity sensing of LCE actuator in motion is demonstrated using thermally driven rolling rod actuators. Moreover, through spatial-selective exposure of the rolling rod actuator to water mist, the moisture can act as a stimulus to change or reverse the rolling direction and reduce the rolling speed. The achieved nature-inspired colorimetric humidity sensing capability represents an intelligent function for LCE actuators and may widen their application scope.
| S-EPMC11840466 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Self-powered actuation driven by ambient humidity is of practical interest for applications such as hygroscopic artificial muscles. We demonstrate that spider dragline silk exhibits a humidity-induced torsional deformation of more than 300°/mm. When the relative humidity reaches a threshold of about 70%, the dragline silk starts to generate a large twist deformation independent of spider species. The torsional actuation can be precisely controlled by regulating the relative humidity. The behavior of humidity-induced twist is related to the supercontraction behavior of spider dragline silk. Specifically, molecular simulations of MaSp1 and MaSp2 proteins in dragline silk reveal that the unique torsional property originates from the presence of proline in MaSp2. The large proline rings also contribute to steric exclusion and disruption of hydrogen bonding in the molecule. This property of dragline silk and its structural origin can inspire novel design of torsional actuators or artificial muscles and enable the development of designer biomaterials.
| S-EPMC6397028 | biostudies-literature
Project description: Not available
| S-EPMC4412231 | biostudies-literature
Project description:A total of 2453 smokers were interviewed in townships over two rounds of data collection. Townships are low-income, urban areas characterised by overpopulation, poor service delivery, crime, and poor socioeconomic outcomes. Township residents typically live in poverty. Data were collected from six townships in four of South Africa's nine provinces, namely Gauteng (Eldorado Park and Ivory Park), Western Cape (Khayelitsha and Mitchell's Plain), Free State (Thabong) and KwaZulu-Natal (Umlazi). These townships were chosen to represent both the geographical and racial spread of low socioeconomic areas in South Africa. Round 1 data (n = 1260) were collected from October to November 2017, and round 2 data (n = 1193) were collected from July to August 2018. The sample includes two of South Africa's four population groups: African and mixed race (locally referred to as "Coloured", which describes people of mixed Khoisan, Malay, European, and black African ancestry). Since few Whites and Asians live in townships, they were not sampled. Households were selected via a random walk through each township. One smoker per household was interviewed (if a household contained at least one available smoker). We aimed to interview 200 adult smokers (aged 18+ years) per township per round. If a household had more than one smoker, a random selection determined which smoker to interview. Respondents were asked about their most recent cigarette purchase, specifically packaging type (single stick, pack, or carton), number of items purchased, brand, type of outlet where the cigarettes were bought, and the total amount paid for cigarettes. Respondents were also asked about other tobacco use in the household, and about their perceptions regarding illegal cigarettes. Socioeconomic and demographic information was collected at the individual and household level. The data has been used to estimate illicit trade (https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2020/03/10/tobaccocontrol-2019-055136.info), and to analyse the determinants of smoking intensity (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335520300590).
| S-EPMC7490728 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Highly valuable data related to two types of planting media and two planting conditions, with and without plastic cover, were obtained from condensation irrigation experiments in the greenhouse. Data on the physical model include the humidifier dimensions and the cultivation bed, the pipe diameter and length, the water tank, and its adjustment devices. The measured data consisted of different water balance components in the studied condensation irrigation system, including saline water evaporated in the humidifier, water produced in the planting medium and pipes, water flowing out of the planting medium, transpiration by the plant, and the water storage changes in the planting medium. Other measured data included the height of plants, wet and dry weights of the plants, moisture content of the planting medium, the greenhouse temperature, water temperature, temperature of the humid air inflow to the buried pipes, and the planting medium temperature. These data can be used to proceed with the current research or similar research in the future.
| S-EPMC8209071 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background and aimsBesides bananas belonging to the AAA triploid Mutika subgroup, which predominates in the Great Lakes countries, other AAA triploids as well as edible AA diploids, locally of considerable cultural weight, are cultivated in East Africa and in the nearby Indian Ocean islands as far as Madagascar. All these varieties call for the genetic identification and characterization of their interrelations on account of their regional socio-economic significance and their potential for banana breeding strategies.MethodsAn extensive sampling of all traditional bananas in East Africa and near Indian Ocean islands was genotyped with simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers, with particular emphasis on the diploid forms and on the bananas of the Indian Ocean islands, which remain poorly characterized.Key resultsAll the edible AA varieties studied here are genetically homogeneous, constituting a unique subgroup, here called 'Mchare', despite high phenotypic variation and adaptions to highly diverse ecological zones. At triploid level, and besides the well-known AAA Mutika subgroup, at least two other genetically related AAA subgroups specific to this region are identified. Neither of these East African AAA genotypes can be derived directly from the local AA Mchare diploids. However, it is demonstrated that the East African diploids and triploids together belong to the same genetic complex. The geographical distribution of their wild acuminata relatives allowed identification of the original area of this complex in a restricted part of island South-East Asia. The inferred origin leads to consideration of the history of banana introduction in Africa. Linked to biological features, documentation on the embedding of bananas in founding legends and myths and convincing linguistic elements were informative regarding the period and the peoples who introduced these Asian plants into Africa. The results point to the role of Austronesian-speaking peoples who colonized the Indian Ocean islands, particularly Madagascar, and reached the East African coasts.ConclusionsUnderstanding of the relations between the components of this complex and identifying their Asian wild relatives and related cultivars will be a valuable asset in breeding programmes and will boost the genetic improvement of East African bananas, but also of other globally important subgroups, in particular the AAA Cavendish.
| S-EPMC6344093 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The incidence of malaria in the East African highlands has increased since the end of the 1970s. The role of climate change in the exacerbation of the disease has been controversial, and the specific influence of rising temperature (warming) has been highly debated following a previous study reporting no evidence to support a trend in temperature. We revisit this result using the same temperature data, now updated to the present from 1950 to 2002 for four high-altitude sites in East Africa where malaria has become a serious public health problem. With both nonparametric and parametric statistical analyses, we find evidence for a significant warming trend at all sites. To assess the biological significance of this trend, we drive a dynamical model for the population dynamics of the mosquito vector with the temperature time series and the corresponding detrended versions. This approach suggests that the observed temperature changes would be significantly amplified by the mosquito population dynamics with a difference in the biological response at least 1 order of magnitude larger than that in the environmental variable. Our results emphasize the importance of considering not just the statistical significance of climate trends but also their biological implications with dynamical models.
| S-EPMC1416896 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We describe an intuitive and simple method for exploiting humidity-driven volume changes in carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) to fabricate a humidity responsive actuator on a glass fiber substrate. We optimize this platform to generate a photonic-based humidity sensor where CMC coated on a fiber optic containing a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) actuates a mechanical strain in response to humidity changes. The humidity-driven mechanical deformation of the FBG results in a large linear change in Bragg resonance wavelength over the relative humidity range of 5 % to 40 %. The measurement uncertainty over this relative humidity range is ± 2 % (k = 1).
| S-EPMC6508609 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Tropheini cichlids from Lake Tanganyika Raw sequence reads
| PRJNA626002 | ENA
Project description:The database gives information on the contamination of the shore of the South-Eastern Baltic with the debris of geosynthetic materials for the period 2018-2020. This new type of coastal pollution enters the natural environment due to the destruction of coastal protection structures and construction activities. The database contains sections: (1) a list of types of geosynthetic material residues, their photographic images and photographs illustrating examples of finds in natural conditions [1 List_geosynthetic_debris_SEB], (2) monitoring data on the contamination of the beach strip with the debris of geotextiles, braids from gabions, geocontainers (big bags), geocells and geogrids for the beaches of the South-Eastern Baltic for the period 2018-2020 [2 Monitoring_geosynthetic_debris_SEB]; (3) statistical distributions of the found geosynthetic debris by size [3 Scales_geosynthetic_debris_SEB] and (4) results of test surveys on the shores of Lithuania and Poland adjacent to Kaliningrad Oblast. All data refer to the beaches of the Kaliningrad Oblast (Russia), including the Russian parts of the Vistula and Curonian Spits, but also contains information on a one-time assessment of the pollution of the beaches of the adjacent territories: the Polish shore from the Poland-Russia border on the Vistula Spit to the mouth of the Vistula River, the Lithuanian shore from the border Lithuania-Russia on the Curonian Spit to the border of Latvia-Lithuania. Materials were collected during field surveys within the ERANET-RUS_Plus joint project EI-GEO, ID 212 (RFBR 18-55-76002 ERA_a, BMBF 01DJ18005).
| S-EPMC8741436 | biostudies-literature