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A rotating gliding arc is proposed as a promising alternative to enable direct nitrogen fixation from ubiquitous air under mild conditions. The effect of different process parameters on NOx generation and energy consumption has been investigated through a combination of experiments and artificial neural network (ANN) modeling. The optical emission spectroscopic diagnostics together with electrical diagnostics and high‐speed photography has been used to understand the variation of the discharge characteristics. The lowest energy consumption of NOx production (4.2 MJ/mol) is achieved at a gas flow rate of 12 L/min and an O2 concentration of 20 vol%. The simulation results from the ANN model show a good agreement with the experimental data and the model enables us to evaluate the relative importance of the process parameters to the reaction performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The western bean cutworm, Striacosta albicosta (Smith), is considered a major corn pest in North America. In 2009, it started invading the province of Québec (northeastern Canada). To our knowledge, there has been no evidence that this pest could overwinter in this province. In the falls of 2017 and 2018, storage totes containing mature western bean cutworm larvae were placed in the soil in three agricultural regions, in Québec, where western bean cutworm invasions are frequent and crop damage is often significant. The goal was to evaluate if western bean cutworm could resist the province's winter conditions. The storage totes were removed from the soil at different dates to estimate winter survival. Emergence cages were installed over the totes in the spring of the following year to determine whether western bean cutworm could complete its life cycle. In the spring of 2019, car shelters were also installed at two different sites to evaluate natural moth emergences in fields in which numerous mature western bean cutworm larvae and damage were reported in 2018. Western bean cutworm moth emergences occurred in both cases. These experiments constitute the first documented evidence that western bean cutworm can overwinter and complete its life cycle in Québec's cold climate. It also represents the northernmost overwintering survival for this species ever documented in North America. The western bean cutworm's ability to overwinter in Québec will have important implications for corn producers. Pest monitoring and management programs in the province of Québec will need to be adapted accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The generated NO SB x sb can be further reacted with emitted NH SB 3 sb from farmland, to recapture the N into soil for agriculture and maintain fertility in soil. B Outside Front Cover b : With the assist of Rotating gliding arc plasma, highly efficient with a considerable processing capacity can be anticipated for fixing nitrogen into NO SB x sb directly from the ubiquitous air. This method provide an alternative for remote and undeveloped countries with the idea of distributed nitrogen fixation to compensate the increasing nitrogen demand over the world. [Extracted from the article]

We have developed a hybrid machine learning (ML) model for the prediction and optimization of a gliding arc plasma tar reforming process using naphthalene as a model tar compound from biomass gasification. A linear combination of three well-known algorithms, including artificial neural network (ANN), support vector regression (SVR) and decision tree (DT) has been established to deal with the multi-scale and complex plasma tar reforming process. The optimization of the hyper-parameters of each algorithm in the hybrid model has been achieved by using the genetic algorithm (GA), which shows a fairly good agreement between the experimental data and the predicted results from the ML model. The steam-to-carbon (S/C) ratio is found to be the most critical parameter for the conversion with a relative importance of 38%, while the discharge power is the most influential parameter in determining the energy efficiency with a relative importance of 58%. The coupling effects of different processing parameters on the key performance of the plasma reforming process have been evaluated. The optimal processing parameters are identified achieving the maximum tar conversion (67.2%), carbon balance (81.7%) and energy efficiency (7.8 g/kWh) simultaneously when the global desirability index I 2 reaches the highest value of 0.65. ga1 • Plasma reforming of naphthalene as a model tar has been carried out using a gliding arc. • A hybrid machine learning model has been developed for predicting the plasma tar reforming process. • The coupling effects of different processing parameters on the plasma reforming has been evaluated. • Steam-to-carbon ratio is the most critical parameter for tar conversion. • Optimal processing parameters are achieved to maximise the key reaction performance simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]