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Introduction Today, it is an inevitable necessity to make use of advanced and efficient technologies in order to increase productivity and gain a better economic status. Among different methods attracted the attention of researchers for enhancement in quantity and quality yield, cold plasma technique as a modern procedure has shown a promising prospects. Despite the importance of using cold plasma in agriculture, studies have focused more on the effect of this technique on reducing microbial load in agricultural products, less on absorption of nutrients in plants. Therefore, the objectives of this experiment were to evaluate the impacts of plasma treatment of corn seeds and plasma activated water (PAW) on growth and concentration of zinc and iron in the shoots of corn. Materials and Methods This research was conducted as a factorial experiment based on completely randomized design (CRD) with 3 replications in a research greenhouse in agricultural and natural resources research and education center of Khorasan Razavi. The factors of experiment were three types of seed (control seeds, seeds treated with dry plasma and wet plasma), two kinds of irrigation water (distilled water and PAW) and two levels of foliar spray (without foliar spray and foliar spray with iron and zinc). Required mass of soil, was gathered, air-dried, sieved from 5 mm mesh and weighted in 6 packs. Based on the soil test values the required macro, micronutrients (except for iron and zinc) was calculated and added to the soil, and then the soil samples were moved to the pot. PLASMA BIOTEC Company located in Khorasan Razavi Park of Sciences and Technology, Mashhad, Iran performed plasma treatment of seeds and water. Plasma treated corn seeds were planted on May 18th with a density of 6 seeds in each pot. Plantlets were reduced to 2 plants after germination and establishment and irrigation was continued with desired treatments. Shoots of each pot was cut 8 weeks after sowing, 1 cm above the ground and delivered to the laboratory, where the samples were washed, dried, grounded and the concentration of zinc and iron were measured using the atomic absorption device (Perkin Elmer, 2380) in dry ash digested in 2 N HCl acid. Data were statistically analyzed by SAS statistical software (version 9.4). Comparison of means for the main effects and interactions was performed by Tukey's test at 5 percent confidence interval. Results and Discussion Comparison of means for the interaction effects of water x seed x foliar spray showed that the minimum concentration of iron (147.67 mg/kg) was observed in plants grown from non-treated seeds, not foliar sprayed and irrigated with non-PAW (treatment 1 in Table 7). On the other hand, plants grown from wet plasma treated seeds and received foliar spray showed the highest concentration of iron regardless of irrigation water type (treatments 10 and 12 in Table 7). Comparison of means also shows that iron concentration in plants grown from dry plasma treated seeds had no significant difference with that of non-treated seeds (treatments 1 and 5 or 2 and 6). The mean comparison results for zinc concentrations showed that the minimum value was related to plants grown from non-treated seeds, not foliar sprayed and irrigated with non-PAW (treatment 1 in Table 8). The comparison of the simple effects of the type of seed on the concentration of zinc in shoots (Table 6) showed that wet plasma seeds caused a significant increase in the concentration of zinc. However, comparison of means for the interaction effects of water x seed x foliar spray showed that the effect of plasma treatment on zinc concentration was effective only in treatments that received foliar spray (comparison of treatment 2 with 10 in table 8). Based on these results the highest zinc concentration was observed in plants grown from wet plasma seeds and received foliar spray at the same time (treatment 12 in Table 8). In addition, the comparison of treatment 1 with treatment 4 and treatment 9 with treatment 2 indicates that in order to increase the concentration of zinc in plant, plasma treatment of seeds cannot replace the foliar spray method. Comparison of means for the interaction effects of water x seed x Foliar spray showed that the minimum yield was observed in plants grown from non- treated seeds, irrigated with non-activated water and not sprayed with iron and zinc solution (treatment 1 in Table 9). However, the similar treatment which grown from wet plasma treated seeds (treatment 9), showed significantly higher yield. Dry plasma, without foliar spray and without PAW (treatment 5) had no significant priority over the control. Plants grown from seeds treated with wet plasma and without foliar spray could not significantly show more iron and zinc content over the control, while their shoot yield was higher. Conclusion Based on the findings of this study, it can be inferred that irrigation with PAW and utilizing seeds treated with dry plasma exhibited no significant impact on augmenting zinc and iron content, as well as shoot yield. Conversely, wet plasma treatment, while not yielding significant enhancements in the concentration of iron and zinc within the plant, did result in increased yield. It is crucial to note that the extent of influence exerted by factors such as frequency and duration of seed exposure to plasma conditions on the observed outcomes may vary significantly. Therefore, optimizing methodology and conducting further research in this domain are imperative for a comprehensive understanding of these processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Soil pore size distribution curve and using the optimal ranges of the location and shape parameters of this curve can be used to evaluate the soil physical quality. This research was carried out in an area of about 220 hectares of Torogh Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Station, to determine the optimal ranges for soil pore size distribution curve parameters using the soil physical quality index. Different soil textures and the diversity in soil properties are the distinct features of this research station. Materials and Methods Torogh Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Station of Khorasan-Razavi province, with a semiarid climate, is located in south-east of Mashhad city. For the field measurements and laboratory analysis to determine the soil physical properties and indices, 30 points with different soil textures and structures were selected. Intact soil cores (5 cm diameter by 5.3 cm length) and disturbed soil samples were collected from 0-30 cm depth of each point. After the laboratory analysis and field measurements, 35 soil physical properties were measured and calculated. Soil particle size distribution and five size classes of sand particles, soil bulk, and particle density, dry aggregates mean weight diameter (MWD) and stability index (SI), soil moisture release curve (SMRC) parameters, S-index, soil porosity (POR) and air capacity (AC), soil pore size distribution (SPSD) curves, relative field capacity (RFC), plant available water measured in matric pressure heads of 100 and 330 hPa for the field capacity (PAW100 and PAW330), least limiting water range measured in matric pressure heads of 100 and 330 hPa for the field capacity (LLWR100 and LLWR330), integral water capacity (IWC) and integral energy (EI) of different soil water ranges, were the soil physical properties and indices which were determined in this study. Three parameters of modal, median, and mean pore sizes of the SPSD curves were considered as the location (central tendency), and three parameters of standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis of the SPSD curves were considered as the shape parameters. Selection of the most important soil physical characteristics using principal component analysis (PCA) method by JMP software (ver. 9.02), weighting and scoring of the selected characteristics using PCA and scoring functions, respectively, and the summation of multiplied characteristics weights by their scores for each soil sample, were the four steps of calculation of the 0-1 value of soil physical quality index (SPQI). Soil samples were classified into four soil physical quality classes by SPQI values. The soils of the first class with the highest SPQIs (> 0.78) were considered to determine the optimal ranges of SPSD curves location and shape parameters. Results and Discussion The texture of soil samples were loam (40 %), silt loam (23 %), silty clay loam (17 %), clay loam (13 %), and sandy loam (7 %). Soil organic carbon was between 0.26-1.05 (%), and the average soil bulk density was 1.45 (gr.cm-3). The MWD values of studied soil samples were between 0.94-2.88 (mm), an average of 1.93 (mm). The average modal, median, and mean pore sizes as the location parameters of the SPSD curves were 60.3 (سلم), 12.4 سلم)), and سلم) 6.5), respectively. The average of standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis as the shape parameters of the SPSD curves were 71.56 (سلم), - 0.36 and 1.15, respectively. The average modal pore sizes showed that the pores with a size of سلم) 60) had the highest frequency in soil samples. The range of calculated standard deviation of SPSD curves, along with the difference between the minimum and maximum mean pore sizes (سلم 24.6), implied the diversity of pore sizes in the studied soils. The results of PCA showed that the four soil physical properties of PAW330 (0.1-0.2 cm3.cm-3), PORt (0.40-0.51 cm3.cm-3), LLWR100 (0.12-0.22 cm3.cm-3) and SI (0.76-2.61 %) accounted for about 88% of the variance between soil samples and were selected to calculate the SPQIs. The PAW330, PORt, LLWR100, and SI were entered into the calculation of SPQIs with weights of 0.46, 0.31, 0.15, and 0.08, respectively. All the selected physical properties were scored using the scoring function of more is better. The maximum and minimum values of SPQIs for the studied soils were 0.84 and 0.14, respectively. Five soil samples with SPQIs greater than 0.78 were classified as class 1 with the highest physical quality. The ranges between the minimum and maximum values of the SPSD curves, location, and shape parameters of these five soils were proposed as the optimal ranges. In this regard, the ranges of 29-5,)سلم) 92 - سلم(16), and 2- (سلم) 7 were suggested for optimal ranges of modal, median, and mean pore sizes, respectively. The optimal ranges of standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis of the SPSD curves were proposed as 22-81 (0.33-)-(سلم), (- 0.38), and 1.14-1.15, respectively. Conclusion The optimal ranges of SPSD curves location and shape parameters suggested in the literature may probably not apply to a wide range of agricultural soils. They must be evaluated in a more extensive range of land uses, soil management, and soil textures. In this research, the soils with the relatively higher physical quality had larger mean pore size and less SPSD curves standard deviation (less diversity of pore size) than the optimal ranges suggested in the literature. The optimal ranges of SPSD curves location and shape parameters proposed in this research are appropriate for medium to coarse-textured soils of regions with the semiarid climate in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an extension of Perron-Frobenius theory to the higher-rank numerical range of real matrices. We define a new type of the rank-k numerical radius for real matrices, i.e., the sign-real rankk numerical radius, and derive some properties of it. In addition, we extend Issos’ results on the higher-rank numerical range of nonnegative matrices to real matrices. Finally, we give some examples that are used to illustrate our theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Soil quality can be considered as a comprehensive index for sustainable land management assessment. Studying the most important soil physical properties and combining them as an index of soil physical quality (SPQI) could be used as an appropriate criteria for evaluating and monitoring soil physical changes. In this regard, this study was conducted to determine the most important soil physical properties and calculate the SPQI of medium to coarse-textured soils of Khorasan-Razavi province. Materials and Methods: Torogh Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Station of Khorasan-Razavi province is located in south-east of Mashhad city (59° 37' 33"-59° 39' 10" E, 36° 12' 31"-36° 13' 56" N). Soil texture variability in this research station is one of its outstanding features. The soil textures are classified into loam, silt loam, silty clay loam, clay loam, and sandy loam. More than 90% of agricultural soils in Khorasan-Razavi province are classified in these five texture classes. Using the available data, 30 points with different soil textures and OC contents were selected. The soil samples were collected from 0-30 cm soil depth at each point. Intact soil cores (5 cm diameter by 5.3 cm length) were used for sandbox measurements, and disturbed soil samples were used to determine other properties. Required laboratory analysis and field measurements were conducted using standard methods. In this research, 35 soil physical properties as total data set (TDS) including: soil moisture release curve (SMRC) parameters, particle size distribution and five size classes of sand particles, soil bulk and particle density, dry aggregates mean weight diameter (MWD) and stability index (SI), S-index, soil porosity and air capacity, location and shape parameters of soil pore size distribution (SPSD) curves, relative field capacity (RFC), plant available water measured in matric pressure heads of 100 and 330 hPa for the field capacity (PAW100 and PAW330), least limiting water range measured in matric pressure heads of 100 and 330 hPa for the field capacity (LLWR100 and LLWR330), integral water capacity (IWC) and integral energy (EI) of different soil water ranges were measured and calculated for 30 soil samples. The most important soil physical properties were selected using principal component analysis (PCA) method by JMP (9.02) software. Selected physical properties as minimum data set (MDS) were weighted and scored using PCA results and scoring functions, respectively. In this study, three types of linear scoring functions were used. The soil physical quality index (SPQI) was calculated by two scoring and two weighting methods for each soil sample and the differences between these four SPQIs were tested by sensitivity index. Results and Discussion: Principal component analysis results showed that among 35 soil physical properties (TDS) which were studied at this research, six properties of mean pore diameter (dmean), PAW100, total porosity (PORT), EI LLWR330, SI and PAW330 accounted for about 90% of the variance between soil samples. Weight of the selected properties (MDS) was calculated by the ratio of variation in the data set explained by the PC that contributed the selected property to the total percentage of variation explained by all PCs with eigenvalue > 1. In this research, the parameters of PAW100, total porosity (PORT), SI and PAW330 were scored using scoring function of more is better, EI LLWR330 was scored using scoring function of less is better and dmean was scored using scoring function of optimum by two scoring methods with score ranges of 0.1-1 and 0-1. Considering unweighted and weighted MDS and two ranges of scores, four SPQIs were calculated for each soil sample. The results showed that SPQIs which were calculated by the MDS derived from PCA method and scoring weighted MDS at the range of 0-1, had the highest sensitivity index and could represent the differences between the studied soil samples better than other SPQIs. By this method, maximum and minimum SPQI values for the studied soils were 0.82 and 0.12, respectively. SPQI is a relative comparison criterion to quantify the soil physical quality which could be applied only for the studied soils with specific characteristics. Conclusion: The results of this research showed that minimum data set (MDS) explained about 90% of the variance between soil samples. Combining MDS into a numerical value called soil physical quality index (SPQI) could be used as a physical comparison criterion for the studied soils. From the SPQI based on the MDS indicator method, soil quality was evaluated quantitatively. Soil samples with grade I, II, III, and IV accounted for 10%, 36.7%, 30%, and 23.3% of the soil samples, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a feasible predictor-corrector interior-point method for symmetric cone optimization problem in the large neighbourhood of the central path. The method is generalization of Ai-Zhang's predictor-corrector algorithm to the symmetric cone optimization problem. Starting with a feasible point in given large neighbourhood of the central path, the algorithm still terminates in at most iterations. This matches the best known iteration bound that is usually achieved by short-step methods, thereby, closing the complexity gap between long- and short-step interior-point methods for symmetric cone optimization. The preliminary numerical results on a selected set of NETLIB problems show advantage of the method in comparison with the version of the algorithm that is not based on the predictor-corrector scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a feasible interior-point algorithm for Cartesian horizontal linear complementarity problems in a new large neighbourhood of the central path. The new large neighbourhood is based on the infinity norm, and it is wider than the well-known neighbourhood based on negative infinity pseudonorm as well as the recently introduced large neighbourhood by Liu et al. [A new wide neighborhood primal-dual infeasible-interior-point method for symmetric cone programming. J Optim Theory Appl. 2013;158:796-815] which is based on Frobenius norm. The iterates are calculated by taking the largest possible step along the Nesterov-Todd search directions. Nevertheless, we show that the algorithm is globally convergent with the favourable polynomial iteration bound. Furthermore, the preliminary numerical results indicate that our method preforms quite well and outperforms the large-step Liu et al.'s method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose an arc-search infeasible-interior-point method based on the wide neighbourhoodfor linear complementarity problems over symmetric cones with the Cartesian-property (-SCLCP). The algorithm searches the optimizers along the ellipses that approximate the central path. Moreover, we derive the complexity bound of the algorithm which coincides with the currently best known theoretical complexity bounds for the short step path-following algorithm. Some numerical results are provided to demonstrate the computational performance of the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we propose an infeasible interior-point algorithm for linear complementarity problems. In every iteration, the algorithm constructs an ellipse and searches an $$\varepsilon $$ -approximate solution of the problem along the ellipsoidal approximation of the central path. The theoretical iteration-complexity of the algorithm is derived and the algorithm is proved to be polynomial with the complexity bound $$O\left(n\log \varepsilon ^{-1}\right)$$ which coincides with the best known iteration bound for infeasible interior-point methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a primal-dual interior-point method for semidefinite optimization problems. The algorithm is based on a new class of search directions and the Ai-Zhang's wide neighborhood for monotone linear complementarity problems. The theoretical complexity of the new algorithm is calculated. It is investigated that the proposed algorithm has polynomial iteration complexity $$O(\sqrt{n}L)$$ and coincides with the best known iteration bound for semidefinite optimization problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we present a corrector-predictor path-following interior-point algorithm forP∗(κ)-horizontal linear complementarity problem over Cartesian product of symmetric cones, using Euclidean Jordan algebras. This comprehensive problem is a newly introduced problem in the context of interior-point methods. The algorithm takes damped Nesterov-Todd steps in the predictor (affine-scaling) stage while maintaining a certain neighborhood of the central path. Moreover, at each corrector stage, we use only full-Nesterov-Todd steps. Furthermore, we derive the currently best known iteration bound for the algorithm with small updates, namely,, whereris the rank of the associated Euclidean Jordan algebra and𝜀is a prescribed tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]