Search

Relative humidity (RH), an important climatic element influencing tree growth, is also crucial in assessing the General Circulation Models (GCMs) on global warming. However, in the absence of a relatively long record of RH in the Himalayan region, precise modelling of the climate change related processes and their impacts on this region are not well established. Here we present a new RH reconstruction for the pre-monsoon months (February–May) starting from 1800 C.E. using the tree-ring width data of subtropical Pinus roxburghii (chir-pine) from Pithoragarh, Western Himalaya, India. We found significant positive correlation between tree growth and pre-monsoon RH (n = 67, r = +0.569, p

Traditional encryption is based on secrecy provided by secret-key. But this leads to generation of same cipher text when the encryption scheme is applied to same plaintext with same key. Thus, replay of messages can be effortlessly identified by an adversary which can be a weak link in any communication. Probabilistic encryption is an approach to overcome this weakness where different cipher texts are generated each time same plaintext is encrypted using the same key. Extending the probabilistic approach, which is generally employed in asymmetric encryption, this paper proposes a new chaos-based probabilistic symmetric encryption scheme with customizable block-size suitable for image encryption. It employs a Random Bits Insertion phase followed by four rounds of two-staged diffusion involving simple XOR (exclusive-OR) operation making it computationally efficient. Random Bits Insertion makes the scheme probabilistic. This phase also helps in increasing entropy and making intensity distribution more uniform in cipher. The generated cipher text is twice the size of plain text. An increase in cipher text space is inevitable for probabilistic encryption and it provides an advantage as the apparent message space for the attacker is increased. The observations show that the scheme offers high strength to resist statistical and cryptanalytic attacks.

Herein, two luminescent porous networks (CMERI-1 & CMERI-2) have been reported for the efficient detection of formaldehyde (FA) from aqueous medium. Judicious solvent screening using a high-throughput solvothermal procedure leads to two completely different metal-organic framework (MOFs) with different architectures. It is perceived that the framework CMERI-1 shows better sensitivity with a very short response time (1 min) in the realm of FA detection due to the facile imine (-N═CH-) formation, which is restricted in the case of CMERI-2. The fluorescence "turn-on" behavior is ascribed due to the inhibition of photoinduced electron transfer (PET) (from amine subunit to secondary building unit) process. The detection limits of CMERI-1 & CMERI-2 toward FA in aqueous medium were found to be 0.62 μM (0.019 ppm) and 1.39 μM (0.041 ppm), respectively, that lie far below the intracellular concentration of formaldehyde (100-400 μM). In addition, MOF-based hydrogel membrane was fabricated, which shows vapor-phase detection of FA, which is hitherto unexplored in this realm. Moreover, the response mechanisms of MOFs are supported by density functional theory (DFT) and Fukui indices analysis. The high stability of the porous frameworks along with its interesting sensing features such as fast recognition phenomenon, appreciable detection limit, etc. instigated us to explore its real-world applicability in various food sample and water analyses. In view of the modular design principle of our polymeric probe, the proposed approach could open a new horizon to construct powerful sensing materials for the ultrafast detection of other industrial pollutants in the domain of supramolecular and analytical chemistry.

Purpose: Circulating tumor cells (CTC) are under investigation as a minimally invasive liquid biopsy that may improve risk stratification and treatment selection. CTCs uniquely allow for digital pathology of individual malignant cell morphology and marker expression. We compared CTC features and T-cell counts with survival endpoints in a cohort of patients with metastatic genitourinary cancer treated with combination immunotherapy. Experimental Design: Markers evaluated included pan-CK/CD45/PD-L1/DAPI for CTCs and CD4/CD8/Ki-67/DAPI for T cells. ANOVA was used to compare CTC burden and T-cell populations across timepoints. Differences in survival and disease progression were evaluated using the maximum log-rank test. Results: From December 2016 to January 2019, 183 samples from 81 patients were tested. CTCs were found in 75% of patients at baseline. CTC burden was associated with shorter overall survival (OS) at baseline (P = 0.022), but not on-therapy. Five morphologic subtypes were detected, and the presence of two specific subtypes with unique cellular features at baseline and on-therapy was associated with worse OS (0.9–2.3 vs. 28.2 months; P < 0.0001–0.013). Increasing CTC heterogeneity on-therapy had a trend toward worse OS (P = 0.045). PD-L1+ CTCs on-therapy were associated with worse OS (P < 0.01, cycle 2). Low baseline and on-therapy CD4/CD8 counts were also associated with poor OS and response category. Conclusions: Shorter survival may be associated with high CTC counts at baseline, presence of specific CTC morphologic subtypes, PD-L1+ CTCs, and low %CD4/8 T cells in patients with metastatic genitourinary cancer. A future study is warranted to validate the prognostic utility of CTC heterogeneity and detection of specific CTC morphologies.

This study demonstrates how the self-assembly pattern of two different and isomeric peptide-appended core-substituted naphthalenediimides (NDIs) affects the modulation of their optoelectronic properties. Two isomeric peptide-attached NDIs were synthesized, purified and characterized. Interchanging the position of attachment of the peptide units and the alkyl chains in the NDI has altered the respective self-assembling patterns of these isomeric molecules in the aggregated states. The isomer having a peptide moiety in the core position and the alkyl chain in the imide position (compound N1) forms face to face stacking or 'H' aggregates in aliphatic solvents including n-hexane, and n-decane, whereas compound N2, in which the peptide moiety is at the imide position and the alkyl chain is attached at the core position of NDI exhibits edge to edge stacking or J aggregates under the same conditions as it is evident from their UV-vis studies. The H aggregated species (obtained from N1) show inter-connected nanofibers, whereas the J aggregated species (obtained from N2) exhibit the morphology of helical nanoribbons. FT-IR and X-ray diffraction studies are in favor of the same aggregation behavior. The individual packing patterns of these two peptide-based isomers have a direct impact on their respective electrical conductivity. Interestingly, the H aggregated species shows 100 times greater current conductivity than that of the J aggregate. Moreover, it is only the H aggregated species that exhibits a photocurrent, and no such photocurrent response is observed with the J aggregates. Computational studies also support that different types of aggregation patterns are formed by these two isomeric molecules in the same solvent system. This unique example of tuning of optoelectronic behavior holds future promise for the development of new peptide-conjugated π-functional materials.

In this paper we report a novel way of processing CsI powder into poly-crystalline transparent plate by vacuum hot pressing technique. The fabricated CsI plate is investigated for its microstructure and phase purity. Further we have measured the luminescence and scintillation characteristics of this plate. These measurements establish that the polycrystalline plate can have application in radiation detection. Further the efficacy of the transparent CsI plate is shown for industrial X-ray radiography applications. Our results show that this kind of CsI plate can be economically fabricated and can replace the use of CsI single crystals and thin films in specific applications like radiation detection and industrial radiography.

Nowadays, remote sensing technologies are playing a significant role in mineral potential mapping. To optimize the exploration approach along with a cost-effective way, narrow down the target areas for a more detailed study for mineral exploration using suitable data selection and accurate data processing approaches are crucial. To establish optimum procedures by integrating space-borne remote sensing data with other earth sciences data (e.g., airborne magnetic and electromagnetic) for exploration of Iron Oxide Copper Gold (IOCG) mineralization is the objective of this study. Further, the project focus is to test the effectiveness of Copernicus Sentinel-2 data in mineral potential mapping from the high Arctic region. Thus, Inglefield Land from northwest Greenland has been chosen as a study area to evaluate the developed approach. The altered minerals, including irons and clays, were mapped utilizing Sentinel-2 data through band ratio and principal component analysis (PCA) methods. Lineaments of the study area were extracted from Sentinel-2 data using directional filters. Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) and Support Vector Machines (SVM) were used for classification and analysing the available data. Further, various thematic maps (e.g., geological, geophysical, geochemical) were prepared from the study area. Finally, a mineral prospectively map was generated by integrating the above mentioned information using the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP). The prepared potential map for IOCG mineralization using the above approach of Inglefield Land shows a good agreement with the previous geological field studies.

A new sintering method is developed for fabricating large, 3-dimensional, open-cell metal foam parts using milling or friction stir welding machines. Temperature and pressure required for sintering...

The present work investigates the synthesis and characteristics of a Na super-ionic conductor -type Sc3+- and Yb3+-doped Na3Zr2Si2PO12 solid electrolyte for application in solid-state Na-ion batter...

Graphene enticed the scientific community for its interesting properties since its discovery. Among different synthesis routes of graphene, reduction of graphene oxide (GO) is mostly preferred because of scalability and advantage of modulation of properties of the end product. Thermal reduction of GO is considered to be the simplest and economic among different reduction techniques. The current work reports an experimental analysis of the structural evolution of GO to reduced graphene oxide (rGO) during thermal treatment. GO has been thermally annealed at an optimized temperature of 350 °C in ambient. Thermal reduction is observed after 7 min of annealing and confirmed by shifting of the first major peak from 12° to 23° in X-ray diffraction pattern. Significant carbon content enrichment and exfoliation are two aspects of the thermal reduction of GO. Carbon content suddenly enriches from 38 wt% in GO to 77 wt%. Exfoliation is confirmed by morphological alterations and decrease in carbon layers from eleven to three.

Umbrella-like inversion of pyramidalized amines proceed through a planar transition state (TS). Stabilization of the TS through N(lone-pair) → σ*(C–C) “negative hyperconjugation” in diamino-o-carbo...

We report a series of seven cationic heteroleptic copper(I) complexes of the form [Cu(P^P)(dmphen)]BF4, where dmphen is 2,9-dimethyl-1,10-phenanthroline and P^P is a diphosphine chelate, in which the effect of the bite angle of the diphosphine ligand on the photophysical properties of the complexes was studied. Several of the complexes exhibit moderately high photoluminescence quantum yields in the solid state, with ΦPL of up to 35%, and in solution, with ΦPL of up to 98%. We were able to correlate the powder photoluminescence quantum yields with the % Vbur of the P^P ligand. The most emissive complexes were used to fabricate both organic light-emitting diodes and light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs), both of which showed moderate performance. Compared to the benchmark copper(I)-based LECs, [Cu(dnbp)(DPEPhos)]+ (maximum external quantum efficiency, EQEmax = 16%), complex 3 (EQEmax = 1.85%) showed a much longer device lifetime (t1/2 = 1.25 h and >16.5 h for [Cu(dnbp)(DPEPhos)]+ and complex 3, respectively). The electrochemiluminescence (ECL) properties of several complexes were also studied, which, to the best of our knowledge, constitutes the first ECL study for heteroleptic copper(I) complexes. Notably, complexes exhibiting more reversible electrochemistry were associated with higher annihilation ECL as well as better performance in a LEC.

This study attempts to join copper (Cu) and aluminium (Al) sheets in micro-thickness by using friction stir welding. These materials are being used as current collectors in lithium-ion (li-ion) battery which are employed as power sources for electric vehicles. Several experiments have been carried out, followed by the measurement of electrical conductivity by using a 4-probe setup and electrochemical analysis by using a potentiodynamic polarization test and an electro impedance spectroscopy test in lithium phosphorus hexafluoride (LiPF6), an electrolytic medium. The welded samples have been found to achieve an electrical conductivity of 9% less than the base Cu and the corrosion resistance of the welded samples has been found to be increasing because of the formation of inter-metallic compounds such as Al4Cu9, AlCu4 and AlCu at the weld interface. Among them AlCu4 has the highest hardness and the recovery elastic modulus than the rest.

A numerical study based on the non-homogeneous model of the mixed convection of $$\hbox {Al}_{2}\hbox {O}_{3}$$–water nanofluid in an inclined enclosure is made. The heated side wall of the enclosure is considered to be wavy while the top wall is made to translate horizontally. The wavy physical domain is transformed to a square computational domain through a suitable coordinate transformation. The transformed governing equations are integrated based on the control volume approach in a staggered grid arrangement. A third-order accurate upwind scheme QUICK is used to discretize the convective terms while a central difference type scheme is used to approximate the diffusive terms. The discretized equations along with the specified boundary conditions are solved through a pressure correction-based SIMPLE algorithm. The impact of the inclination angle of the enclosure and surface waviness on the nanofluid mixed convection is elucidated. The parameters governing the Brownian motion, thermophoresis, Lewis number and buoyancy ratio parameter are determined based on the nanofluid thermophysical properties. The effect of the nanoparticle bulk volume fraction and nanoparticle diameter on the mixed convection is analyzed for different choices of nanofluid-to-base fluid thermal buoyancy ratio in the buoyancy-dominated regime as well as shear-dominated regime. A comparison of the non-homogeneous model for the nanofluid with the homogeneous model is also made in this study. The inclination angle of the enclosure is found to have an impact on the mixed convection when buoyancy force is dominant. Heat transfer augmentation occurs as the wave number, and/or wave amplitude of the wavy side wall is increased. The thermodynamic optimization is studied by analyzing the average Nusselt number and the total entropy generation.

In the current work, authors have performed extensive spray cooling experiments on a 6 mm thick hot stainless steel plate (>900 °C). The work has been separated into two distinctive parts. The first part involves optimization of water flow rate and spray impingement height based on maximum surface cooling rate and heat flux value. The highest cooling rate and heat flux of 133.7 °C/s and 2.21 MW/m2 were attained for a water flow rate of 16 lpm and impingement height of 6 cm. In the second part, different surfactants (cationic, CTAB; anionic, SDS; non-ionic, Tween 20), and polymer (PVP, water soluble) were added in to the water to study its impact on heat transfer parameters such as surface cooling rate, heat flux, and heat transfer coefficient. Amongst all the additives, the maximum enhancement in cooling rate and critical heat flux was achieved for non-ionic (Tween 20) based water solution which is 25.6% (168.2 °C/s) and 19.91% (2.65 MW/m2) higher than what had been attained by water spray. High speed photography was used at a lower temperature to visualize a single droplet impact and to understand the effect of surface tension and underlying physics on the heat transfer phenomenon. This study revealed that upon impingement, surfactant and polymer added drops disintegrate into multiple drops, increasing the overall contact area, and thereby enhancing the heat transfer rate.

In this paper we consider the problem of variability of eSTREAM cipher HC-128. By variability of a cipher, we mean the maximum number of distinct key sequences that can be generated by the cipher. ...

In this work we have reported two novel tetranuclear Cd(II) complexes viz. [Cd4 (LOMe)2 (μ1,1-N3)3 (μ1,3-N3)]n (1) and [Cd4 (LOEt)2 (μ1,1-N3)3(OAc)]2 (2) where (H2LOMe) and (H2LOEt) are two important less explored salen-type Schiff base ligands. Both of the complexes have been characterized by using routine spectroscopic techniques, elemental analyses (C, H and N), X-ray powder diffraction pattern (PXRD) and thermal analysis by TGA along with single x-ray crystallography. The complete structural study discloses that in both cases the fully deprotonated ligand [LOMe]2- or [LOEt]2- utilized all potential coordination sites to accommodate four Cd(II) ions. Complex 1 is a one-dimensional polymer with azide (N3) linkage having both (μ1,1 end on) and (μ1,3 end-to-end) azido bridging but complex 2 is a discrete octanuclear ensamble where two [Cd4(O)4(N)2]2+ units bridged to each other showing μ1,1 end on end on azide bridging. Exploration of photo physical properties in DMSO solvent reveals that Cd(II) complexes enhance appreciably the fluorescence behavior over free Schiff base ligands (H2LOMe) and (H2LOEt). DFT calculations performed at B3LYP/def2-TZVP level of theory reveal both the energetics and composition of FMOs in these complexes and also show electrophilic and nucleophilic areas via molecular electrostatic maps [ESP] concept. The antibacterial, membrane damage assay and anti-biofilm properties of complexes 1 and 2 were investigated very carefully against some important Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial strains.

Porous solids that can be switched between different forms with distinct physical properties are appealing candidates for separation, catalysis, and host-guest chemistry. In this regard, porous organic cages (POCs) are of profound interest because of their solution-state accessibility. However, the application of POCs is limited by poor chemical stability. Synthesis of an exceptionally stable imine-linked (4+6) porous organic cage (TpOMe-CDA) is reported using 2,4,6-trimethoxy-1,3,5-triformyl benzene (TpOMe) as a precursor aldehyde. Introduction of the -OMe functional group to the aldehyde creates significant steric and hydrophobic characteristics in the environment around the imine bonds that protects the cage molecules from hydrolysis in the presence of acids or bases. The electronic effect of the -OMe group also plays an important role in enhancing the stability of the reported POCs. As a consequence, TpOMe-CDA reveals exceptional chemical stability in neutral, acidic and basic conditions, even in 12 m NaOH. Interestingly, TpOMe-CDA exists in three different porous and non-porous polymorphic forms (α, β, and γ) with respect to differences in crystallographic packing and the orientation of the flexible methoxy groups. All of the polymorphs retain their crystallinity even after treatment with acids and bases. All the polymorphs of TpOMe-CDA differ significantly in their properties as well as morphology and could be reversibly switched in the presence of an external stimulus.

Enlightened by the Caputo fractional derivative, the present study treats with a novel mathematical model of generalized thermoelasticity to investigate the transient phenomena for a fiber-reinforced hollow cylinder due to the influence of thermal shock and magnetic field in the context of a three-phase-lag model of generalized thermoelasticity, which is defined in an integral form of a common derivative on a slipping interval by incorporating the memory-dependent heat transfer. Employing Laplace transform as a tool, the problem has been transformed to the space domain, where the Galerkin finite element technique is incorporated to solve the resulting equations in the transformed domain. The inversion of the Laplace transform is carried out numerically on applying a method of Bellman et al. According to the graphical representations corresponding to the numerical results, conclusions about the new theory are constructed. Excellent predictive capability is demonstrated due to the presence of reinforcement, memory-dependent derivative, and magnetic field also.

The reaction of freshly prepared Na[In(SeCH2C6H5)4] with the mixture of CuCl and triphenylphosphine in methanol yielded [(PPh3)2CuIn(SeCH2C6H5)4]. The X-ray structure of the complex revealed the monomeric form of [(Ph3P)2Cu(μ-SeCH2Ph)2In(SeCH2Ph)2] consisting of tetrahedral Cu(I) and In(III) centers, bridged by two benzyl selenolate ligands. The complex on pyrolysis in a furnace or in oleylamine/HDA yielded tetragonal CuInSe2. The morphology and composition of nanostructures were investigated by pXRD, SEM, TEM and EDX analysis. The band gap of the CuInSe2 nanostructures, obtained from pyrolysis in HDA and OA has been deduced from DRS as 1.85 and 1.86 eV, respectively.

A compact and portable 99Mo-99 mTc generator based on solvent-extraction, mimic to the conventional 99Mo-99 mTc alumina column generator is much-needed commodity for use in hospital radiopharmacy setup. The present study includes the development of a portable, simple and low cost 99Mo/99 mTc-generator based on MEK solvent extraction technique to obtain a very high concentration of no-carrier added (nca) 99 mTc solution, where low specific activity 99Mo source is obtained through 98Mo(n, γ)99Mo reaction in a research reactor. The unit is intended for operation under the conditions of medical radiological laboratories. Technical trials showed that the mean time of preparation of sodium [99mTc] pertechnetate radiopharmaceutical did not exceed 15 min. The quality and yield of 99 mTc-pertechnetate is upto the mark for formulation of radiopharmaceuticals.

The emergence of multi-drug resistant bacteria due to the misuse of antibiotics and inadequate development of antibiotic drugs is a global threat to human health. Recent development in materials research caused the emergence of nanomaterials with promising bactericidal properties. Carbon based nanomaterials like graphene and graphene oxide(GO) have appealed researchers for antimicrobial properties, although some researchers claimed that they promote bacteria growth. To address the conflict, authors performed experiments to study the influence of GO and reduced GO(rGO) on gram positive Staphylococcus aureus and gram negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria. GO restricts S. aureus and P. aeruginosa cell growth by 93.7% and 48.6% whereas, percentage inhibition by rGO are 67.7% and 93.3% respectively. GO destructs bacteria by cell membrane damage through chemical reaction whereas, rGO induce mechanical stress and pierce the cell membrane. Shape and type of bacteria act as the controlling factors in determining the bactericidal efficacy of the nanomaterials.

Good health is required for every individual living, as well as an old saying that, “Health is Wealth” and along with a good and a healthy person, it is but obvious that every individual who is liv...

Forests are one of the most important components to balance and regulate the terrestrial ecosystem on the Earth in protecting the environment. Accurate forest above-ground biomass (AGB) assessment is vital for sustainable forest management to recognize climate change and deforestation for mitigation processes.

Polymorphs of anthracene derivatives exhibit diverse photophysical properties that can help to develop efficient organic-based photovoltaic devices. 10-Anthryl-9-phosphoanthracene (10-APA) shows different photophysical behaviors for the solid state due to its variety in crystalline arrangement. Herein, we investigate the ground and excited-state properties of the monomer and two different polymorphs of 10-APA from

This paper is an effort to investigate the effect of non-response at the current (second) occasion in successive sampling. Using the subsampling non-respondent procedure, some exponential-type estimators have been proposed to estimate the current population mean. Properties of the proposed class of estimators are examined, and respective optimum replacement strategies are derived. Empirical studies are carried out to evaluate the performances of the suggested estimators. The outcomes are interpreted, and appropriate recommendations have been made.

The aim of this work is to develop a simple and effective approach for surficial iron mineral potential zone identification and mapping using optical remote sensing data. Thus, an iron mineral potential model (IMPM) was developed by combining multiple band ratios for iron mineral detection. The developed method was applied on the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) data from Malmberget and nearby area from Gallivare district, Norrbotten county, Sweden. The results from the study area revealed that the developed approach is effective in iron mineral potential zone mapping using ASTER data with more than 90% accuracy.

Target tracking across a network of cameras has various applications in surveillance and forensics. These networks typically have cameras with non-overlapping fields of view, which necessitates target handovers involving approaches like target re-identification that are robust to illumination and pose variations of the target. Re-identification based target handovers are susceptible to false alarms, more so in a high data volume setting like a surveillance camera network. In this work, we learn to decide when to make a re-identification query and to which camera in the network. We model this camera selection problem as a sequential decision making problem and solve it using a Reinforcement Learning (RL) based policy, which selects one of the cameras for querying or decides to not query. Using a Deep Q-Network (DQN) type approach, we observed that existing experience replay (ER) methods with DQN are inadequate for learning an optimal policy when the actions are imbalanced. Employing standard ER techniques result in learning policies that are likely to be biased towards selecting a more frequent action and result in a poorer performance of the end task, in our case multi-camera tracking. To address this problem, we segregate the experiences from agent-environment interaction into multiple replay memories and sample independently from these to create a diverse minibatch. We demonstrate the performance of the proposed method on the NLPR MCT dataset and DukeMTMC dataset along with its computational benefits.

We study the single- and many-particle properties of a two-leg ladder model threaded by a flux with the legs coupled by a spatially varying term. Although a priori unrelated to twisted bilayer graphene (TBG), the model is found to have striking similarities: a quasi-flat low-energy band emerges with characteristics similar to that of magic angle TBG. We study the effect of interparticle interaction in our model using the density matrix renormalization group and find that when the band is quasi-flat, the ground state is a ferromagnetic Mott insulator. As the band becomes more dispersive, the system undergoes a ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic transition. We discuss how our model is relevant not only to magic-angle physics in TBG, but also in the larger context of one-dimensional correlations and magnetism.

A ultra-high purity carbon nanotube formulation and film is described. This material system has been successfully integrated into a semiconductor fabrication process for electronic device applications. Key challenges that were resolved to successfully implement this new material system into the semiconductor process are described.

We thank the KEKB group for the excellent operation of the accelerator, the KEK cryogenics group for the efficient operation of the solenoid, the KEK computer group and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) computing group for strong computing support, and the National Institute of Informatics and Science Information NETwork 5 (SINET5) for valuable network support. We acknowledge support from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) of Japan, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), and the Tau-Lepton Physics Research Center of Nagoya University; the Australian Research Council including Grants No. DP180102629, No. DP170102389, No. DP170102204, No. DP150103061, and No. FT130100303; the Austrian Science Fund (FWF); the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Contracts No. 11435013, No. 11475187, No. 11521505, No. 11575017, No. 11675166, and No. 11705209; the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Grant No. QYZDJ-SSW-SLH011; the CAS Center for Excellence in Particle Physics (CCEPP); the Shanghai Pujiang Program under Grant No. 18PJ1401000; the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic under Contract No. LTT17020; the Carl Zeiss Foundation, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Excellence Cluster Universe, and the VolkswagenStiftung; the Department of Science and Technology of India; the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare of Italy; the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea under Grants No. 2015H1A2A1033649, No. 2016R1D1A1B01010135, No. 2016K1A3A7A09005 603, No. 2016R1D1A1B02012900, No. 2018R1A2B3003 643, No. 2018R1A6A1A06024970, and No. 2018R1D1 A1B07047294; the Radiation Science Research Institute, Foreign Large-size Research Facility Application Supporting project, the Global Science Experimental Data Hub Center of theKorea Institute of Science and Technology Information and KREONET/GLORIAD; the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the National Science Center; the Grant of the Russian Federation Government, Agreement No. 14.W03.31.0026; the Slovenian Research Agency; Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, Spain; the Swiss National Science Foundation; the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan; and the United States Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

We report the result for a search for the leptonic decay of B$^{+}$ → μ$^{+}$ν$_{μ}$ using the full Belle dataset of 711 fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity at the ϒ(4S) resonance. In the Standard Model leptonic B-meson decays are helicity and Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa suppressed. To maximize sensitivity an inclusive tagging approach is used to reconstruct the second B meson produced in the collision. The directional information from this second B meson is used to boost the observed μ into the signal B-meson rest frame, in which the μ has a monochromatic momentum spectrum. Though its momentum is smeared by the experimental resolution, this technique improves the analysis sensitivity considerably. Analyzing the μ momentum spectrum in this frame we find B(B$^{+}$ → μ$^{+}$ν$_{μ}$) = 5.3 ± 2.0 ± 0.9) × 10$^{-7}$ with a one-sided significance of 2.8 standard deviations over the background-only hypothesis. This translates to a frequentist upper limit of B(B$^{+}$ → μ$^{+}$ν$_{μ}$) < 8.6 × 10$^{-7}$ at 90% confidence level. The experimental spectrum is then used to search for a massive sterile neutrino, B$^{+}$ → μ$^{+}$N, but no evidence is observed for a sterile neutrino with a mass in a range of 0–1.5 GeV. The determined B$^{+}$ → μ$^{+}$ν$_{μ}$ branching fraction limit is further used to constrain the mass and coupling space of the type II and type III two-Higgs-doublet models.

We show that a Weyl superconductor can absorb light via a novel surface-to-bulk mechanism, which we dub the topological anomalous skin effect. This occurs even in the absence of disorder for a single-band superconductor, and is facilitated by the topological splitting of the Hilbert space into bulk and chiral surface Majorana states. In the clean limit, the effect manifests as a characteristic absorption peak due to surface-bulk transitions. We also consider the effects of bulk disorder, using the Keldysh response theory. For weak disorder, the bulk response is reminiscent of the Mattis-Bardeen result for $s$-wave superconductors, with strongly suppressed spectral weight below twice the pairing energy, despite the presence of gapless Weyl points. For stronger disorder, the bulk response becomes more Drude-like and the $p$-wave features disappear. We show that the surface-bulk signal survives when combined with the bulk in the presence of weak disorder. The topological anomalous skin effect can therefore serve as a fingerprint for Weyl superconductivity. We also compute the Meissner response in the slab geometry, incorporating the effect of the surface states., Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures; published version

The present study aims to enhance the strength of friction stir lap welded aluminum alloys by using an interlayer of graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) at the weld interface. With GNP interlayer, the weld strength and percentage elongation increased by 121 and 53%, respectively, as compared to the weld without GNP interlayer. The interlayer also changes the mode of fracture from brittle in the weld without GNP to ductile mode. Grain size in the weld with interlayer decreased by ~38% as equated to the weld without GNP. The height of the hook defect (HD) and cold lap defect (CLD) decreased by 26% and 41%, respectively, in the weld with GNP interlayer as compared to the weld without interlayer. In weld with interlayer, the bottom of the top plate on the retreating side acts as the potential site for fracture due to the presence of an interfacial defect, and undeformed GNP layer. The strengthening of the weld is attributed to various primary strengthening mechanisms like thermal mismatch, grain refinement, Orowan looping, and load transfer. Moreover, GNP interlayer also prevents the formation of the Al2O3 layer at the lap interface and thus contribute significantly in the weld strengthening.

This erratum corrects measurements of the prompt and secondary (from-b).

Urban areas are treated as a single entity by mesoscale urban canopy models (UCM) for assessing the influence of urban morphology on climate. Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) coupled with UCM along with urban physics options to describe the urban features such as Single Layer Urban Canopy Model (SLUCM), Building Energy Parameterization (BEP) and Building Energy Model (BEM) which enumerates the influence of urban features on the local scale other than the bulk parameterization (no urban physics option), which is generally used in most of the operational forecasting models. Besides, WRF model also enables to integrate multi-class Urban Land Use Land Cover (LULC) whereas most of the globally available LULC depict urban area as single urban built-up class. This study aims to analyze performance of high resolution urban LULC and urban physics options for Chandigarh area by downscaling climatic variables up to 1km and its validation with the ground observation data. The inner domain (1 km resolution) was configured with default LULC for one set of simulations and multi-class urban LULC for other set of simulations. All the simulations were carried out for 3 days (August 19–21, 2017) due to computational restrictions by employing all the four urban physics options. It has been found that multi-class urban LULC yielded better results than single class urban built –up simulation when validated with respect to ground observation. The RMSE values for multi-class urban LULC provided less RMSE than single class urban LULC, those are in terms of temperature at 2 m, relative humidity and wind speed are 0.91 °C, 2.63% and 1.82 m/s respectively. Similarly, BEP+BEM urban physics option provided reduced RMSE values than the SLUCM and BEP scheme. The RMSE values in terms of temperature at 2 m, relative humidity and wind speed are 1.11 °C, 4.39% and 2.62 m/s respectively.

Enlightened by the Caputo fractional derivative, the present study deals with a novel mathematical model of generalized thermoelasticity to investigate the transient phenomena due to the influence of a non-Gaussian pulsed laser type heat source in a stress free isothermal half-space in the context of Lord–Shulman (LS), dual-phase lag (DPL), and three-phase lag (TPL) theories of thermoelasticity simultaneously. The memory-dependent derivative is defined in an integral form of a common derivative on a slipping interval by incorporating the memory-dependent heat transfer. Employing Laplace transform as a tool, the problem has been transformed to the space-domain, and it is then solved analytically. To get back all the thermophysical quantities as a function of real time, we use two Laplace inversion formulas, viz. Fourier series expansion technique (Honig in J Comput Appl Math10(1):113–132, 1984) and Zakian method (Electron Lett 6(21):677–679, 1970). According to the graphical representations corresponding to the numerical results, a comparison among LS, DPL, and TPL model has been studied in the presence and absence of a memory effect simultaneously. Moreover, the effects of a laser pulse have been studied in all the thermophysical quantities for different kernels (randomly chosen) and different delay times. Then, the results are depicted graphically. Finally, a comparison of results, deriving from the two numerical inversion formulas, has been made.

The present article analyzes the induced compressive, shear and tensile stresses due to a moving load on three distinctly characterized irregular orthotropic half-spaces, viz. functionally graded orthotropic viscoelastic half-space (Case-I), functionally graded initially stressed orthotropic elastic half-space (Case-II) and orthotropic magnetoelastic half-space (Case-III) under hydrostatic initial stress. The expressions for said induced stresses are deduced in closed form using analytical approach. The influences of various physical parameters, viz. maximum depth of irregularity, functionally gradedness, irregularity factor, initial stress, magnetoelastic coupling parameter, hydrostatic initial stress and frictional coefficient on induced stresses for concerned cases, have been investigated with a comparative analysis. To depict the outcomes numerically, the half-spaces comprised of Carbon fiber, Prepreg and T300/5208/graphite/epoxy material have been taken into account and the observations are highlighted. Moreover, some notable characteristics have been outlined and delineated through graphs.

Among various methods used for the reduction of graphene oxide (GO) into a purer form of graphene, the thermal reduction method provides a simpler, safer, and economic alternative, compared to other techniques. Thermal reduction of GO causes significant weight loss and volume expansion of the material. Current work investigates the onset temperature where reduction in terms of exfoliation takes place, which is determined to be 325 °C at standard atmospheric pressure. Reduction temperature plays the most crucial role as it controls the quality of reduced graphene oxide in terms of weight percentage of carbon and lattice defect. The study leads to achieving highest content with a minimum defect in the graphene lattice at the optimum temperature, which is found to be 350 °C at standard atmospheric pressure. The thermal reduction process has been analyzed with the help of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and thermal degradation kinetics. From thermal degradation kinetics of GO, the rate of reaction has been found to be independent of concentration and is a sole function of temperature.

In the present investigation, an attempt was made to develop some ratio-cum- product type exponential estimators for population mean in case of random non-response in three different situat...

The primary objective of this study was to identify natural isolates of fluorescent pseudomonads with superior antagonistic activity towards plant parasitic nematodes. Nematicidal potential of eighteen isolates of fluorescent pseudomonads were compared against peanut root-knot nematode, Meloidogyne arenaria . Cell-free culture filtrate of DAPG-producing isolates of Pseudomonas putida caused significantly higher mortality of M. arenaria (J2) with highest in isolate DAPG3 (87.36%), followed by DAPG1 (84.16%) compared to other isolates of fluorescent pseudomonads, i.e., P. gessardii BHU1 and P. aeruginosa BM6 after exposure period of 72h at 100% concentration. The selected DAPG-producing isolates of P. putida caused significant inhibition in egg hatching. The lowest cumulative per cent hatch of M. arenaria was observed in the isolate DAPG3 (17.84%) followed by DAPG1 (18.10%). The isolates DAPG1 and DAPG3 also inhibited the nematode invasion in the roots of peanut by 41.30% and 36.34%, respectively. Significant reduction in number of galls/plant in peanut roots was recorded. The maximum reduction (51.30%) in root galling was recorded with combination of seed treatment and soil application of P. putida DAPG1 followed by 41.73% in combined treatment of seed treatment and soil application of P. putida DAPG3. The levels of Peroxidase (POD), Catalase (CAT) and Polyphenol Oxidase (PPO) were non-significant in the leaves of peanut in the treatment that received P. putida DAPG1 and DAPG3, either as seed treatment and/or soil application, compared to inoculated and un-inoculated control. However, significantly enhanced phenol content was recorded in the leaves of peanut in the treatment that received combination of seed treatment and soil application of P. putida DAPG1 and seed treatment alone.

Two new species of Brachypeplus [viz., B. rugisternus sp. n. and B. pallidus sp. n.] are described from Uttar Pradesh and the north-east Indian states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh thereby increas...

This article presents a reconstruction of winter (November–March) drought by using the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) based on the tree-ring width data of Pinus roxburghii (Chir pine) growing near Uttarkashi, Garhwal region, western Himalaya. This is based on a significant negative correlation between growth of Chir pine and SPEI of November–March (N-M) months. This relationship might be linked with the low rate of photosynthesis during low or freezing temperature when roots unable to take soil moisture, an analogous to drought situation as in the cold desert. The reconstructed winter SPEI record extends from 1767 to 2013 CE. It explains 30.5% of the variance for the calibration period (1903–2013 CE). The regression model was tested using Correlation Coefficient (r), Coefficient of Determination (R2), Reduction of Error (RE), Coefficient of efficiency (CE) and Durbin-Watson test (DW). The extended SPEI time series has revealed several intervals of high and low intensity drought since the 17th century. There is also a linkage between (N-M) months SPEI and Western Disturbance (WD). This connection indicates that the WD may have a role in modulating droughts in the Indian region.

The current work aims to investigate the efficiency of a jet array in cooling of a hot steel plate having surface temperature above 900 °C. The entire study has been divided into two phases. The first phase consists of experiments which are aimed to optimize the jet array impingement height and the water flow rate. It has been found that the cooling rate is enhanced by 60% in case of a jet array compared to a single jet at the same water flow rate and impingement height. In both the single jet and the jet array used in the present work, free falling flow occurs under gravity. In the second phase, the effect of seven different additives on heat transfer performance during cooling has been studied at the optimized values of water flow rate and impingement height. Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate (SDS), Cetyltrimethyl Ammonium Bromide (CTAB) and Tween 20 have been used as surfactant additives, Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as a polymer additive, Titanium dioxide (TiO2), Cu-Al layered double hydroxide (LDH) and PVP dispersed in TiO2 have been used as nanofluid additives. The results indicate that a maximum cooling rate of 143 °C/s has been achieved for PVP based coolant which is 28% more than that obtained for pure water. The results also prove that ultrafast cooling can be attained by using additive based jet array impingement.

In the present study we have proposed an improved family of estimators for estimation of population mean using the auxiliary information of median, quartile deviation, Gini’s mean difference, Downton’s Method, Probability Weighted Moments and their linear combinations with correlation coefficient and coefficient of variation. The performance of the proposed family of estimators is analysed by mean square error and bias and compared with the existing estimators in the literature. By this comparison we conclude that our proposed family of estimators is more efficient than the existing estimators. To support the theoretical results, we also provide the empirical study.

The availability of upper tropospheric humidity (UTH), sea surface temperature (SST) and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) from INSAT-3D has given the opportunity for exploring the impact of these parameters on the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere. The clear-sky greenhouse effect, G is defined as the energy trapped in the atmosphere due to gases present in it. Measurement of SST and OLR from satellites gives us the opportunity to estimate the energy trapped in the atmosphere. In the tropics, due to deep convection water vapour exists in the upper troposphere and influences the greenhouse effect. The impact of UTH and SST on greenhouse effect is explored using these observed data from INSAT-3D. This analysis shows that an increase of 2 K in sea surface temperature may increase the greenhouse absorption by about 22 W/m2.