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The superconducting order parameter of the noncentrosymmetric superconductor LaRhSn is investigated by means of low temperature measurements of the specific heat, muon-spin relaxation/rotation ($\mu$SR) and the tunnel-diode oscillator (TDO) based method. The specific heat and magnetic penetration depth [$\lambda(T)$] show an exponentially activated temperature dependence, demonstrating fully gapped superconductivity in LaRhSn. The temperature dependence of $\lambda^{-2}(T)$ deduced from the TDO based method and $\mu$SR show nearly identical behavior, which can be well described by a single-gap $s$-wave model, with a zero temperature gap value of $\Delta(0)=1.77(4)k_BT_c$. The zero-field $\mu$SR spectra do not show detectable changes upon cooling below $T_c$, and therefore there is no evidence for time-reversal-symmetry breaking in the superconducting state., Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures

Introduction Robotic harvesting of cotton bolls will incorporate the benefits of manual picking as well as mechanical harvesting. For robotic harvesting, in-field cotton segmentation with minimal errors is desirable which is a challenging task. In the present study, three lightweight fully convolutional neural network models were developed for the semantic segmentation of in-field cotton bolls. Materials and Methods Model 1 does not include any residual or skip connections, while model 2 consists of residual connections to tackle the vanishing gradient problem and skip connections for feature concatenation. Model 3 along with residual and skip connections, consists of filters of multiple sizes. Effects of filter size and the dropout rate were studied. Results All proposed models segment the cotton bolls successfully with the cotton IoU (intersection-over-union) value of above 88%. The highest cotton IoU of 91.03% was achieved by model 2. The proposed models achieved F1-score and pixel accuracy values greater than 95% and 98%, respectively. The developed models were compared with existing state-of-the-art networks namely VGG19, ResNet18, and InceptionV3. Despite having a limited number of trainable parameters, the proposed models achieved mIoU (mean intersection-over-union) of 93.84%, 94.15%, and 94.65% against the mIoU values of 95.39%, 96.54%, and 96.37% obtained using state-of-the-art networks. The segmentation time for the developed models was reduced up to 52% compared to state-of-the-art networks. Conclusion The developed lightweight models segmented the in-field cotton bolls comparatively faster and with greater accuracy. Hence, developed models can be deployed to cotton harvesting robots for real-time recognition of in-field cotton bolls for harvesting.

Renal dysfunction following cardiopulmonary bypass is well recognized. The pathophysiology of renal injury is multifactorial and culmination of the interplay of several pathophysiological mechanism. Cardiac surgery requiring cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) is being carried out on an extended patient population of different age groups and undergoing complex surgical procedure, and thus it places them at an increased risk of renal impairment. Valve replacement surgery is a major and complex surgical procedure requiring CPB. This study was therefore designed to observe the impact of CPB and short term outcome on patients with reduced estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR) (60-89ml/min/1.73m²) after valve replacement surgery. This cross-sectional study was conducted in the Department of Cardiac Surgery, National Institute of Cardio Vascular Diseases (NICVD) during the period of January 2015 to August 2016. After fulfillment of enrollment criteria 100 patients were studied for the purpose of the study and they were grouped in two, patients with normal eGFR (≥90ml/min/1.73m²) in Group A and patients with reduced eGFR (60-89ml/min/1.73m²) in Group B. A total of 100 patients, 50 in each group were studied for renal function alteration after valve replacement surgery under cardiopulmonary bypass. The incidence of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) was higher in Group B. Chi-square test was done and p value was 0.011 which is statistically significant. Postoperative blood loss (ml/hr) (p=0.038), duration of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) stay (in hours) (p=0.009), postoperative hospital stay (days) (p=0.014) was significantly higher and postoperative Urine Output (ml/hr) (p=0.001) was significantly lower in patients with reduced eGFR (60-89ml/min/1.73m²) in Group B. Deterioration of renal function is more in patient with eGFR (60-89ml/min/1.73m²) after valve replacement surgery under cardiopulmonary bypass in comparison with patients with eGFR (≥90ml/min/1.73m²).

Medicinally important steroid-based compound diosgenin is usually obtained from the secondary metabolic products of several plant species. Diosgenin has been proven as a prospective bioactive drug lead to the pharmaceutical industries as having anti-cancer activity, anti-microbial activity, anti-thrombic activity, anti-diabetic activity, cardioprotective activity, anti-inflammatory activity, osteoarthritis protective activity etc. Observing the multiple therapeutic values of this compound, scientists and chemists have become interested to discover alternative sources. Endophytic microorganisms possess the potentials producing prospective secondary metabolites. Some diosgenin producing endophytic fungi and bacteria are detected and reported by authors. Extraction and quantification of the respective secondary metabolite in a proper way is required initially for its large scale production. Regular involvement of advance biotechnological approaches plus industrial fermentation technology along with proper funding following government policy is necessary for further progress in this field. Exploration of a higher number of diosgenin producing endophytic strains will definitely increase the supply for social requisition in a cost-effective and environment-friendly manner as limiting the excessive exploitation of plant sources.

Oil-in-water nanoemulsion (NE) formulations of mustard oil known for prominent antimicrobial activities have been prepared, characterized and tested against anthracnose pathogens Colletotrichum musae and Colletotrichum capsici. Physico-chemical properties viz., appearance, stability, pH, centrifugation, storage-stability, thermodynamic stress, persistent foam, droplets size and zeta potential were tested for the NE formulations. The NE formulations were prepared using low energy emulsification process with the optimized composition (w/w) of mustard oil (5%), Tween 20 and sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate emulsifiers blend (20–30%), co-surfactants (4%), and de-ionized water. The required hydrophile-lipophile balance value for emulsifier blends was determined as 11.39–11.74. Only 3 (viz., NF2, NF3 and NF6) out of 15 NE formulations with transparent faint yellow color (pH 6.3) passed all the physico-chemical parameters tested. Among these, NF2 (foam height

Superconducting high entropy alloy (HEA) are emerging as a new class of superconducting materials. It provides a unique opportunity to understand the complex interplay of disorder and superconductivity. We report the synthesis and detail bulk and microscopic characterization of Nb$_{60}$Re$_{10}$Zr$_{10}$Hf$_{10}$Ti$_{10}$ HEA alloy using transport, magnetization, specific heat, and muon spin rotation/relaxation ($\mu$SR) measurements. Bulk superconductivity with transition temperature $T_{C}$ = 5.7 K confirmed by magnetization, resistivity, and heat capacity measurements. Zero-field $\mu$SR measurement shows that the superconducting state preserves time-reversal symmetry, and transverse-field measurements of the superfluid density are well described by an isotropic s-wave model., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures

Elemental rhenium exhibiting type-II superconductivity has been previously reported to break time-reversal symmetry in the superconducting state. We have investigated an arc-melted sample of rhenium exhibiting type-I superconductivity. Low temperature zero-field muon-spin relaxation measurements indicate that time-reversal symmetry is preserved in the superconducting state. Muon diffusion is observed, which is due to quantum mechanical tunneling between interstitial sites. The normal state behavior is characterized by the conduction electrons screening the muons and thermal broadening, and is typical for a metal. Energy asymmetries between muon trapping sites and the superconducting energy gap also characterize the superconducting state behavior., 8 pages, 7 figures

Geometrical frustration leads to novel quantum phenomena such as the spin-liquid phase in triangular and Kagom\'e lattices. Intra-band and inter-band Fermi surface (FS) nesting can drive unique superconducting (SC) ground states with $d$-wave and $s^{\pm}$ pairing symmetries, respectively, according to the criterion that the SC gap changes sign across the nesting wavevector. For an odd number of FSs, when multiple inter-band nesting is of comparable strength, the sign-reversal criterion between different FS sheets can leads to frustration, which promotes novel SC order parameters. Here we report the experimental observation of a time-reversal symmetry breaking pairing state in Re$_2$Hf resulting from FS nesting frustration. Furthermore, our electronic specific heat and transverse-field $\mu$SR experiments suggest a fully gaped pairing symmetry. The first-principle electronic structure calculation reveals multiple Fermi surface sheets with comparable inter-band nesting strength. Implementing the {\it ab-initio} band structure, we compute spin-fluctuation mediated SC pairing symmetry which reveals a $s+is'$-pairing state - consistent with experimental observations. Our investigation demonstrates a novel SC state which provides a putative setting for both applied and fundamental study., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

We report microscopic studies by muon spin spectroscopy of the superconducting properties as a function of chemical and hydrostatic pressure in the cubic ternary intermetallic (Ca x Sr1−x )3Rh4Sn13 compounds. We find evidence of a quantum critical point at a critical pressure p c in the superconducting phase, where the superfluid density increases by a factor of two and the superconducting pairing strength displays a pronounced maximum. The enhancement of superconductivity is related to the structural phase transition at p c , which is accompanied by profound changes of the Fermi surface associated to the suppression of a charge density wave (CDW). The quantum critical point separates a superconducting phase coexisting with CDW from a pure superconducting phase, while in both phases superconductivity has a strong-coupling phonon-mediated BCS-like s-wave character. Together with the related isoelectronic compound (Ca x Sr1−x )3Ir4Sn13, this system shows that conventional BCS superconductors in the presence of competing orders may display behaviour and characteristics of unconventional superconductors.

Topological superconductivity is an exotic phenomenon due to the symmetry-protected topological surface state, in which a quantum system has an energy gap in the bulk but supports gapless excitations confined to its boundary. Symmetries including central and time-reversal symmetry (TRS), along with their relations with topology, are crucial for topological superconductivity. We report muon spin relaxation/rotation (μSR) experiments on a topological noncentrosymmetric superconductor PbTaSe2 to study its TRS and gap symmetry. Zero-field μSR experiments indicate the absence of internal magnetic field in the superconducting state, consistent with previous μSR results. Furthermore, transverse-field μSR measurements reveals that the superconducting gap of PbTaSe2 is an isotropic three-dimensional fully-gapped single-band. The fully-gapped results can help understand the pairing mechanism and further classify the topological superconductivity in this system.

The fabric or garments production activities starting from raw material preparation to the finishing process are energy-intensive. Steam generation and distribution system is part of all the major processes involved here. Therefore, this study aims to assess the overall performance of the steam system used in the textile or garment industry in Bangladesh. The quantity of heat loss through different sources both at steam generation and distribution unit was computed. The amount of in-process heat energy consumption was also determined. Current practices in steam system management were investigated, and opportunity for improvement was addressed. Finally, the genetic algorithm approach was used to optimize the process parameters of steam generation unit thermodynamically. The average efficiency of the steam generation units used in the fifteen studied factories was found 76%. The dyeing and ironing processes were found as the most heat energy–intensive process. Among the sources of heat losses, maximum loss was found occurring through the dry flue gas during steam generation. At distribution unit, most heat is lost through the steam line and in-process distribution. Based on the analysis, daily 694 GJ heat passes away through a steam system resulting in 13 tons and 31 tons of fuel wastage and greenhouse gas emission, respectively. Considering the occurring losses, the remedial measures were focused on excess air and stack temperature control, improvement in boiler operating condition, steam leakage and trap maintenance, insulation enhancement, etc. Moreover, by optimizing the thermodynamic process parameters, it is possible to increase energy efficiency by almost 3.0%.

Endophyte is a broad term for microorganisms that colonize asymptomatically inside the healthy tissue of a host plant and maintain mutualistic association for the whole or part of their lifecycle. Many reports are found in the current literature on endophyte-mediated secondary metabolite production in diverse plant species. Piper is a genus belonging to family Piperaceae; it is commonly known as “Paan” and is cultivated extensively in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Taiwan, and other Southeast Asian countries. The parts of Piper utilized are leaves, roots, stems, stalks, and fruits. The plant has a large number of biomolecules that show diverse pharmacological activity. The leaves of Piper possess bioactivities with antitumor, antimutagenic, and antihelminthic properties. Piperine and piperidine are two such alkaloids found as the active compounds in the Piper. Few endophytes producing these compounds in Piper as secondary metabolites are reported and detailed in some existing literature. Further investigation needs to be undertaken for the identification of more such piperidine and piperine-producing fungi and survey on any bacterial endophytes. A survey of more such endophytes can assist in the commercial enrichment of these bioactive molecules and can limit the overuse of respective medicinal plant materials. The present review focuses on the utilization, extraction, and shortcomings of endophyte-mediated natural product biosynthesis in the major genera of Piper with a note on future perspectives.

Chiral superconductors are novel topological materials with finite angular momentum Cooper pairs circulating around a unique chiral axis, thereby spontaneously breaking time-reversal symmetry. They are rather scarce and usually feature triplet pairing: a canonical example is the chiral p-wave state realized in the A-phase of superfluid He3. Chiral triplet superconductors are, however, topologically fragile with the corresponding gapless boundary modes only weakly protected against symmetry-preserving perturbations in contrast to their singlet counterparts. Using muon spin relaxation measurements, here we report that the weakly correlated pnictide compound LaPt3P has the two key features of a chiral superconductor: spontaneous magnetic fields inside the superconducting state indicating broken time-reversal symmetry and low temperature linear behaviour in the superfluid density indicating line nodes in the order parameter. Using symmetry analysis, first principles band structure calculation and mean-field theory, we unambiguously establish that the superconducting ground state of LaPt3P is a chiral d-wave singlet., Chiral superconductors are very rare topological materials. Here, the authors report spontaneous magnetic fields inside the superconducting state and low temperature linear behavior in the superfluid density in LaPt3P, suggesting a chiral d-wave singlet superconducting state.

Disordered magnetic states known as spin liquids are of paramount importance in both fundamental and applied science. A classical state of this kind was predicted for the Ising antiferromagnetic triangular model, while additional non-commuting exchange terms were proposed to induce its quantum version-a quantum spin liquid. However, these predictions have not yet been confirmed experimentally. Here, we report evidence for such a state in the triangular-lattice antiferromagnet NdTa

The study evaluated removal efficiency of 43 pesticides from water by thin-film composite polyamide membrane indigenously prepared by interfacial polymerization of 1,3-phenylenediamine and 1,3,5 trimesoyl chloride coated on asymmetric polysulfone support. Membrane performance was evaluated by gas and liquid chromatography mass spectroscopy determination of multiple pesticides remaining in feed and permeated water following the application of pesticides each @ 0.02, 0.05, and 0.10 mg/L in de-ionized water. The membrane was most efficient in the rejection of persistent organochlorine insecticides, viz. endosulfans (100%), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (95%), and hexachlorocyclohexane (92%). Out of 43 selected pesticides, 33 were removed by > 80%. Size exclusion mass transfer played a significant role for molecules to pass through the membrane as observed for endosulfan isomers, endosulfan sulphate, and difenoconazole with molecular weight > 400. Pesticide rejection was also related to hydrophobicity (Log P). Hydrophobic pesticides with log P > 4.5 were rejected by > 80%, while monocrotophos with less hydrophobicity (log P = − 0.22) exhibited poor rejection (38%). Water flux decreased with an increase in pesticide concentration. The process of pesticide filtration was optimized at 200 psi. The results indicated the potential of the membrane to remove pesticides from water.

Ebstein’s anomaly is a rare and complexed heart defect that affects the tricuspid valve and is accountable for around 1% of congenital cardiac abnormalities. It is one of the most common congenital causes of tricuspid valve regurgitation. Ebstein’s anomaly is often diagnosed prenatally due to its severe cardiomegaly. Some individuals with this anomaly do not experience any complications until adulthood and even then its mostly minor complaints like exercise intolerance. Atrial septal defect is most commonly (70-90%) associated with Ebstein’s anomaly. However, ventricular septal defect (VSD) can be associated with 2-6% of the cases. This particular report presents a case of surgical intervention for a 20 years old female with Ebstein’s anomaly that had multiple VSD’s and a severe Pulmonary Stenosis (PS).

We report gapless quantum spin liquid behavior in the layered triangular Sr_{3}CuSb_{2}O_{9} system. X-ray diffraction shows superlattice reflections associated with atomic site ordering into triangular Cu planes well separated by Sb planes. Muon spin relaxation measurements show that the S=1/2 moments at the magnetically active Cu sites remain dynamic down to 65 mK in spite of a large antiferromagnetic exchange scale evidenced by a large Curie-Weiss temperature θ_{CW}≃-143 K as extracted from the bulk susceptibility. Specific heat measurements also show no sign of long-range order down to 0.35 K. The magnetic specific heat (C_{m}) below 5 K reveals a C_{m}=γT+αT^{2} behavior. The significant T^{2} contribution to the magnetic specific heat invites a phenomenology in terms of the so-called Dirac spinon excitations with a linear dispersion. From the low-T specific heat data, we estimate the dominant exchange scale to be ∼36 K using a Dirac spin liquid ansatz which is not far from the values inferred from microscopic density functional theory calculations (∼45 K) as well as high-temperature susceptibility analysis (∼70 K). The linear specific heat coefficient is about 18 mJ/mol K^{2} which is somewhat larger than for typical Fermi liquids.

Ebstein's anomaly is a rare and complexed heart defect that affects the tricuspid valve and is accountable for around 1% of congenital cardiac abnormalities. It is one of the most common congenital causes of tricuspid valve regurgitation. Ebstein's anomaly is often diagnosed prenatally due to its severe cardiomegaly. Some individuals with this anomaly do not experience any complications until adulthood and even then its mostly minor complaints like exercise intolerance. Atrial septal defect is most commonly (70-90%) associated with Ebstein's anomaly. However, ventricular septal defect (VSD) can be associated with 2-6% of the cases. This particular report presents a case of surgical intervention for a 20 years old female with Ebstein's anomaly that had multiple VSD's and a severe Pulmonary Stenosis (PS).

The study was conducted in red and lateritic soils of West Bengal during pre-kharif season of 2016 on sandy loam soil of Agricultural Farm, Palli Siksha Bhavana, (Institute of Agriculture), Visva-Bharati, Sriniketan, West Bangal. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design (RBD) with three replications using four levels of sulphur (0, 15, 30 and 45 kg ha-1) and single and dual inoculation of bio fertilizers to study the nutrient uptake by sesame and soil fertility status along with microbial population before and after harvest of crop. The results showed highest value of different nutrients uptake viz., Nitrogen, Phoshorus, Potasium and Sulphur with higher dose of fertilizer along with Azotobacter and PSB. The number of nitrogen fixing bacteria i.e. Azotobector and Phosphorus Solubilizng Bacteria (PSB) in soil increased due to inoculation of seed with biofertilizer. The seed inoculation exerted significant effect on number of nitrogen fixing bacteria and PSB in soil. The study suggested that the combined application of organic and inorganic fertilizer in sesame cultivation in red and laritic soils will exerts significant yield through important implications in nutrient uptake by sesame for its improved nutrition and improved productivity of soil.

Solid-phase As speciation and bioavailability during rice paddy cultivations depend on changes in cropping techniques and types of soil amendments. Field trials tested the impact of agronomic factors on As fractionation and resulting availability to rice, including aerobic (non-flooded) vs anaerobic rice cultivation (flooded); NPK, calcium silicate, ferrous sulfate, farmyard manure (FYM) and vermicompost (VC) addition. A modified sequential extraction procedure was used to determine As concentrations in the following soil fractions: exchangeable (F1); specifically sorbed (F2); amorphous iron oxide (F3); crystalline iron oxide (F4); organic matter and sulfide (F5); and residual bound (F6). Significant proportions of As were determined in F3, F4, and F6. Exchangeable fraction (F1) contained the lowest proportion of As. Aerobic cultivation practices significantly reduced soil As availability in F1 and resulted in higher retention of As in F2, F3, and F4. Application of ferrous sulfate increased As concentrations in F3 and F4 but when combined with FYM and VC, significantly lowered As concentrations in F1; a potential benefit for rice quality and consumer’s health. Linear regression analyses show that As concentrations in F1, F2, F3, and F4 are the most important factors influencing As accumulation in rice. Arsenic concentration in F1 is a good predictor of As accumulation in rice grain. The phytoavailability coefficient (PC) based on As retained in different fractional pools was determined. The addition of calcium silicate and ferrous sulfate under aerobic conditions reduced the PC in the soil, which could be responsible for reduced As accumulation in rice. There were insignificant variations in rice grain Cd concentrations between aerobic and anaerobic cultivations for monsoon trials, but significantly higher Cd concentrations were detected under aerobic cultivation than flooded cultivation for the post-monsoon trials. These data show that water management under different rice cropping practices can influence mobility and bioavailability of elements like As and Cd during rice paddy growth and can inform agricultural policy intended to attenuate element toxicity in edible crops, reducing their introduction into the food chain.