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Since the availability of micronutrients in agricultural soil are strongly depended on changes in soil characteristics, microfertilizers are one of the most effective means of influencing crop productivity and product quality. The use of nanoparticles of metals compensates for the loss of microelements, increases the stress tolerance of plants, both of which improve the quality of the final product. The aim of the research was to study the characteristics of a colloidal solution of metal nanoparticles (Mn, Cu, Zn, Ag, Fe) using X-ray diffraction to estimate the prospects of using them in agrotechnology. The objectives of the study included optimizing the method for treating plants and determining effective concentrations of metal nanoparticles and their composition, combined with traditional fertilizers (NPK), for enhancing soybean productivity. The objects of the study were varieties of soybean recommended for the forest-steppe ecoregion of Ukraine: ultra-early and early maturing Annushka and Ustya, respectively. The results obtained indicate the feasibility of using of a colloidal solution of metal nanoparticles as fertilizer due to its properties (phase composition, size) in agricultural technologies for soybean, which improves the productivity of this crop.

The present paper proposes a bifactorial model obtained by a generalization of the unifactorial Mitscherlich model. After analysing the graphic representation of the experimental data and the theoretical curves, one can conclude that they present good concordance. Treatments with nitrogen fertilizers within the limits of 0 – 200 kg a.i. ha-1 determined different optimum and maximum values for each of the four fertilization variants with phosphorus and potassium (optimum value 97 kg ha-1 N on P0K0 with yield increase of 1224 kg ha-1; optimum 107 kg ha-1 N on P50K50, with an increase of 952 kg ha-1; 111 kg ha-1 N on P100K100 with an increase of 968 kg ha-1 and 103 kg ha-1 N on P150K150 with an increase of 1413 kg ha-1). From an economical point of view, we will maximize the benefit corresponding to production value in the hypothesis that only one fertilizer is applied, namely a complex fertilizer of the type N15P15K15. For the actual price values q = 0.2 € ∙ kg−1, p = 0.6€ ∙ kg−1 the solution of the equation above is x = 221 kg ∙ ℎa−1.

A brief review of nanotechnology application in detection of mycotoxins and in agriculture sector was presented. Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by fungi. Their toxicity is the reason for implementation of various screening methods to detect them. During the last years, the highlight was put on nanoscale materials included in biosensors, which were some of the smart devices used for determination of mycotoxins, and in agriculture sector. Over the next decade, the progress of nanotechnology will demonstrated a way to improve detection of contaminated feed and food. To achieve this purpose the innovations of nanomaterials reported every year would be applied. In the paper, some of the applications developed by nanotechnology that would contribute to the implementation of new tools for analysis of mycotoxins and agricultural products were discussed.

In this paper we address the issue of optimizing the area overhead and performance of self-checking circuits using all unidirectional error detecting codes (AUEDCs), with no impact on system's reliability. In particular, we propose an error detecting code selection approach that, starting from the consideration of the functional circuit topology, allows us to identify whether or not all output bits can be simultaneously erroneous, thus actually mandating the adoption of an AUEDC. We show that, differently from common expectations, this may frequently be not the case (for approximately the 50% of the considered benchmarks) for all possible internal node stuck-ats, transistor stuck-ons, transistor stuck-opens and resistive bridgings. We then propose a tool that, starting from the (combinational or sequential) circuit high level description, allows us to identify whether or not this is the case and, in particular, which is the maximal number (t) of possibly simultaneously erroneous output bits. Based on this information, a lower redundancy error detecting code (e.g., a t-UEDC) is adopted, rather than an AUEDC, thus generally allowing reducing area overhead and impact on system's performance. Such a code is automatically implemented by our developed tool, whose effectiveness has been verified for benchmark circuits and for a FPGA implemented prototype.