Tomato is an economically important vegetable crop which is attacked heavily by insect pests leading to reduction of yield and quality of the fruits. Field experiments were carried out to investigate the dissipation of methomyl (a common insecticide) used mainly on tomato fruits. LC-MS/MS coupled with the QuEChERS method were used for the determination of methomyl. The results showed that the recovery using matrix-matched standards ranged from 87.8 to 101.3%, with relative standard deviation of 2.5 to 7.5%. Kinetics equation, Log R = log R0 – 0.434 Kt, was used to calculate the rate of degradation in tomato, soil and water. Residue half-life calculated using kinetic rate ranged from 1.95 to 1.63 days in tomato and soil, respectively. From the results it was concluded that tomato fruits can be safely harvested for consumption after 15 days of application based on estimated preharvest interval (PHI). It is advisable to re-estimate the PHI regularly owing to data from the EU and Codex.

Energy and latency are the significant Quality of Service parameters of ad hoc networks. Lower latency and limited energy expenditure of nodes in the ad hoc network contributes to a prolonged lifetime of the network. Reactive protocols determine the route to the destination using a route discovery process which results in increased delay and increased energy expenditure. This paper proposes a new technique of route discovery, Dynamic Blocking Expanded Ring Search (DBERS) which minimizes time delay and energy required for route discovery process. DBERS reduces energy expenditure and time delay occurring in the existing route discovery techniques of reactive protocols. The performance of DBERS is simulated with various network topologies by considering a different number of hop lengths. The analytical results of DBERS are validated through conduction of extensive experiments by simulations that consider topologies with varying hop lengths. The analytical and simulated results of DBERS are evaluated and compared with widely used route discovery techniques such as BERS, BERS+. The comparison of results demonstrates that DBERS provides substantial improvement in time efficiency and also minimizes energy consumption.

Erbium-doped lead silicate glass has been investigated for near-infrared emission and up-conversion applications. Near-infrared emission due to ⁴I_13/2 → ⁴I_15/2 transition of Er³⁺ is relatively broad (70.5 nm) and long-lived (3.7 ms). Also, up-conversion luminescence spectra of Er³⁺ ions in lead silicate glass have been examined as a function of temperature. The relative intensities of luminescence bands corresponding to ²H_11/2 → ⁴I_15/2 and ⁴S_3/2 → ⁴I_15/2 transitions of Er³⁺ were determined with temperature. The fluorescence intensity ratio and temperature sensitivity were calculated. The maximum sensitivity for Er³⁺ doped lead silicate glass is close to 26.4 × 10⁻⁴ K⁻¹ at T = 590 K.

Self-swept erbium fiber laser emitting around 1.56 μm is reported in detail. Both sweep directions were registered: pointing toward longer and shorter wavelengths, redshift and blueshift sweeping, respectively. We describe method of determining the direction of the wavelength drift using the monochromator based optical spectrum analyzer. Possible root for this sweeping regime, i.e., the gain modulation along active fiber, is discussed with the help of a simple model calculating the overall cavity gain that can predict the direction of the laser wavelength sweeping.

In this topic review the results of the X-band electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements of Mn, Co, Cr, Fe ions in YAlO₃ (YAP) crystals and Fe ions in LiNbO₃ (LNO) crystals and of chromium doped Bi₁₂GeO₂₀ (BGO) and Ca₄GdO(BO₃)₃ single crystals, are presented. It is well known that the oxide crystals (for example:YAP, LNO, BGO) are one of the most widely used host materials for different optoelectronic applications. The nature of point defect of impurities and produced in the oxide crystal after irradiation by bismuth ions and after irradiation by the ²³⁵U ions with energy 9.47 MeV/u and fluency 5 × 10¹¹ cm⁻¹ is discussed. The latter is important for applications of these oxide crystal as laser materials.