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Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is a reference approach for determining the dimensional properties of the nanocomposites or black particles (BPs). Numerous approaches can be available for extracting BPs from SEM images and evaluating their diameters. However, the existing models are subjective as well as very time-consuming. Moreover, they need help to collect the complete quantitative information of interest. For that reason, in this study, an automated SEM analysis with the help of image orientation detection is proposed using the adaptive density-based spatial clustering of application with noise (ADBSCAN) clustering algorithm. The detection of image orientation using the proposed approach helps to find out the material strength of BPs. Here, the images of eggshell powder with 20 µm having different weights, such as 1%, 2%, 3%, 4% and 5%, are taken as input. Later, pre-processing is carried out in which noise removal using Cosine Distance induced Bilateral Filter is performed. Then, the image's contrast is enhanced through the Gaussian distribution adapted contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization technique. Next, the canny edge detector is used, followed by segmentation with Threshold-based Otsu. Finally, clustering takes place via ADBSCAN model. After that, quantitative analysis is done using Gaussian, scatterplot and histogram for all weight percentages. The outcome revealed that the proposed work computes the orientation more accurately, and effectively estimates the material strength of the eggshell powder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Rice feeding followed in Tamil Nadu for dairy cattle induces acidosis and the effect of acidosis studies through in vitro techniques is desirable to reduce the animal experiment. Since Mc Dougall Buffer neutralizes acidity produced on incubation with rice (Oriza sativa) in semi continuous culture, it is difficult to mimic acidosis in RUSITEC. Hence a study was conducted in RUSITEC with cooked rice incubated for 24 hours to evaluate the effect of diluting Mc Dougall buffer to establish rumen acidosis (pH < 5.8). Methods: Two treatments were followed with undiluted Mc Dougall Buffer (MDB) and diluting Mc Dougall Buffer (MMDB) as per Mickdam et al. (2016) in RUSITEC experiments with six replicates for each treatment. This experiment was conducted with equivalent weight of test material (Cooked rice on DMB). The pH of artificial buffer was maintained at 7.4 during start of incubation for both buffers. Result: The rumen fermentation pattern for establishment of onset of acidosis due to over feeding of cooked rice was evinced by the onset of acidosis (<5.8 pH) recorded at 3 hours of incubation in MMDB infusion and at 18 hours of incubation in MDB infusion. The concentration of NH3 -N declined after acidosis induction; however, it reached its minimum in MMDB at significant difference (p<0.05) than MDB at all incubation hours. Total gas production (Methane and Carbon dioxide) was reduced with MMDB incubation. The CH4 proportion declined strongly (p<0.01) at all incubation hours in MMDB than MDB. The production of volatile fatty acid was reduced significantly (p<0.05) in MMDB at all incubation period compared with MDB. This was based on a significant decrease in the acetate production (p<0.05), an increase in the propionate and butyrate production (p<0.05). Acidosis challenge resulted in significantly (p<0.01) elevated lactate levels in MMDB at all incubation hours which remained high at 24 hours of incubation. Compared to MDB condition, the LPS concentration was largely elevated (p<0.01), by 36% on average till 12 hours of incubation, due to severe acidosis condition (pH 4.9) created by MMDB. The early occurrence of acidosis condition in MMDB, increased significantly (p<0.01) gram positive organisms in the rumen. The MMDB infusion showed a strong effect on degradation of DM, OM and N and it was decreased, similarly the degradation rate of DM and N was lowest. This study proves that the MMDB is the suitable acidosis inducing buffer for establishing the in vitro models to cooked rice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structural, elastic, magnetic and electronic properties of titanium-based alloys Ti 2 XIn (X = Fe , Co and Ni) are investigated by the first-principles calculations based on density functional theory using the Vienna ab-initio simulation code. The lattice constants of Ti 2 XIn (X = Fe , Co and Ni) alloys are optimized for the two possible structures such as Cu 2 MnAl and Hg 2 CuTi. It is found that at ambient pressure Ti 2 XIn (X = Fe , Co and Ni) alloys are stable in Hg 2 CuTi -type crystal structure. The total magnetic moments (M t ) and the energy gap (E g ) of Ti 2 XIn (X = Fe , Co and Ni) alloys are calculated for various pressures. The total magnetic moments of Ti 2 XIn (X = Fe , Co and Ni) alloys in Hg 2 CuTi structure follow the rule μ t = Z t − 1 8 and agree with the Slater–Pauling (SP) curve quite well. In both structures ( Cu 2 MnAl and Hg 2 CuTi) , the calculated magnetic moment of Ti 2 XIn (X = Fe , Co and Ni) alloys decreases with increase in pressure. Density of states shows the metallic nature of Ti 2 XIn (X = Fe , Co and Ni) alloys in Cu 2 MnAl structure and half-metallic (HM) behavior in Hg 2 CuTi structure, i.e., majority spin channel is strongly metallic and the minority spin maintains the gap at the Fermi level at the equilibrium lattice constant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structural, elastic, magnetic and electronic properties of titanium-based alloys TiX2 (X = Cr, Mn) are investigated by the first-principles calculations based on density functional theory using the Vienna ab-initio simulation code. The lattice constants of TiX2 (X = Cr, Mn) alloys are optimized for various possible structures such as hexagonal, tetragonal and orthorhombic. TiX2 (X = Cr, Mn) alloys are highly stable in hexagonal structure with the space group P63/mmc at ambient pressure. A pressure-induced structural phase transition from hexagonal structure to the tetragonal structure is observed in TiCr2 at 443.3 GPa and in TiMn2 hexagonal structure to orthorhombic structure is at 295.05 GPa. The electronic structure shows that TiX2 (X = Cr, Mn) alloys are metallic in nature at all pressures. The magnetic property of nonmagnetic TiX2 (X = Cr, Mn) alloys are analyzed by doping with ferromagnetic materials (Fe, Co and Ni) using the stoichiometries of TiX 2 − z Y z (X = Cr, Mn; Y = Fe, Co and Ni; z = 0.5,1,1.5). It is seen that the magnetic moment is induced by the substitution of ferromagnetic materials with TiX2 alloys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structural, elastic, magnetic and electronic properties of titanium-based ferromagnetic (FM) Ti X ( X = Fe, Co, Ni) alloys are investigated by the first principles calculations based on density functional theory using the Vienna ab initio simulation code. At ambient pressure, all the three alloys TiFe, TiCo and TiNi are highly stable in CsCl structure. The calculated lattice parameters and ground state properties are in good agreement with the available theoretical and experimental results. The density of states explains that these alloys possess the metallic nature at normal and high pressures. A pressure-induced structural phase transitions from CsCl to NaCl phase at 46 GPa and NaCl to ZB phase at 49 GPa in TiFe, CsCl to ZB phase in TiCo at 52 GPa, CsCl to hexagonal phase at 22 GPa and hexagonal to ZB phase at 66 GPa in TiNi are observed. The calculated Debye temperatures of Ti X ( X = Fe, Co, Ni) alloys are in good agreement with earlier reports. Binding energy shows that the TiCo is the most stable alloy. The magnetic property of Ti X ( X = Fe, Co, Ni) alloys reveals that TiFe is stable in nonmagnetic phase and the other two alloys, TiCo and TiNi, are stable in FM phase at normal pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wireless mesh network (WMN) is a challenging technology that offers high quality services to the end users. With growing demand for real-time services in the wireless networks, quality-of-service-based routing offers vital challenges in WMNs. In this paper, a discrete multi-objective differential evolution (DMODE) approach for finding optimal route from a given source to a destination with multiple and competing objectives is proposed. The objective functions are maximization of packet delivery ratio and minimization of delay. For maintaining good diversity, the concepts of weight mapping crossover (WMX)-based recombination and dynamic crowding distances are implemented in the DMODE algorithm. The simulation is carried out in NS-2 and it is observed that DMODE substantially improves the packet delivery ratio and significantly minimizes the delay for various scenarios. The performance of DMODE, DEPT and NSGA-II is compared with respect to multi-objective performance measures namely as 'spread'. The results demonstrate that DMODE generates true and well-distributed Pareto-optimal solutions for the multi-objective routing problem in a single run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Road traffic accidents are a major social concern as well as a crucial issue for the public in recent days due to the risk factors involved. Analysing and identifying the major risk factors of road accident is still a challenging task. In this paper, a fuzzy Context-free Grammar (FCFG)-based association rule mining (ARM) technique is proposed to categorize a heterogeneous road accident dataset into two categories based on the critical factors such as total number of accidents (TA), persons killed (PK) and persons injured (PI). The role of the fuzzy grammar in this paper is to govern the entire algorithm using the prescribed grammar rules to proceed further. The considered road accident dataset does not have class labels; hence there is a need to assign class labels for the available data instance. The accident data with assigned class labels are given as input to K-nearest neighbour (KNN) machine learning algorithm in order to train the classifier for testing purpose. Further, the collected test data from the user are utilized by the KNN classifier for carrying out the performance analysis of the proposed algorithm. The case study is conducted on the National Highway roads, India, to examine the proposed approach. The experimentations are executed for road accident records using MATLAB software and the analysis is made using the following performance measures: accuracy, recall or sensitivity, precision or specificity and F1 score. A comparative study is accomplished with existing algorithms in order to show that the proposed algorithm works with improved accuracy of more than 83%. The results suggested that the road users are responsible for the acceptance or rejection of safe or un-safe roads, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]