Reply to Comments: A Novel Low-Cost Instrumentation System for Measuring the Water Content and Apparent Electrical Conductivity of Soils, Sensors, 15, 25546⁻25563.

In this article we respond to the comments made by Chavanne et al., who have questioned: (i) the name of the technique used; (ii) the ability of the system to determine both soil water content and salinity due to potential instrument biases and choice of sensor frequencies; and (iii) the procedure used to determine temperature effect on readings presented in the article "A Novel Low-Cost Instrumentation System for Measuring the Water Content and Apparent Electrical Conductivity of Soils" (Sensors 2015, 15, 25546⁻25563). We have carefully analyzed the arguments in the comment, and have concluded that they only partially affect the previous conclusions, as will be discussed in this reply.

A Novel Low-Cost Instrumentation System for Measuring the Water Content and Apparent Electrical Conductivity of Soils.

The scarcity of drinking water affects various regions of the planet. Although climate change is responsible for the water availability, humanity plays an important role in preserving this precious natural resource. In case of negligence, the likely trend is to increase the demand and the depletion of water resources due to the increasing world population.

Modeling and simulation of the transient response of temperature and relative humidity sensors with and without protective housing.

Based on the necessity for enclosure protection of temperature and relative humidity sensors installed in a hostile environment, a wind tunnel was used to quantify the time that the sensors take to reach equilibrium in the environmental conditions to which they are exposed. Two treatments were used: (1) sensors with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) enclosure protection, and (2) sensors with no enclosure protection. The primary objective of this study was to develop and validate a 3-D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for analyzing the temperature and relative humidity distribution in a wind tunnel using sensors with PVC enclosure protection and sensors with no enclosure protection.

A new computational method for hepatic fat microvesicles counting in histological study in rats.

Liver steatosis was once believed to be a benign condition, with rare progression to chronic liver disease. Thus, in both clinical and experimental practice, it is fundamental to have a reliable and objective method for its precise quantification. An image analysis algorithm was developed and validated for automatically and rapidly quantifying hepatic fat microvesicles.