Studies on Friction Stir Welding of Dissimilar Materials

Recently many reports on Friction Stir Welding (FSW) of various dissimilar systems such as Aluminium to Copper, Aluminium to Brass and Aluminium to Aluminium been reported.FSW of Aluminium, Copper and Brass has captured important attention from manufacturing industries, such as Shipbuilding, Automotive, Railway and Aircraft production. In FSW process, a so-called welding-head pin rotating at speeds usually in excess of a few hundred rpm, travels down the length of contacting metal plates, creating a highly plastically deformed zone through the associated force and frictional heating. Brass materials are widely used as engineering materials in industry because of their high electrical and thermal conductivity, high strength, and high corrosion resistance. Copper and its alloys are widely used in industrial applications due to their excellent electrical & thermal conductivities, good strength, corrosion & fatigue resistance. The aim of present study was analogy of the microstructures and mechanical properties of friction stir welded joint of Aluminium to Copper, Aluminium to Brass and Aluminium to Aluminium platesin 4mm thickness

Biological control of Botrytis cinerea and plant growth promotion potential by Penicillium citrinum in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

A total of 48 fungi were characterised for their antagonistic potential against Botrytis cinerea causing Botrytis Gray Mold (BGM) disease in chickpea by dual culture and metabolite production assays. The culture filtrate of the most promising isolate, VFI-51, was purified by various chromatographic techniques and identified as ‘citrinin’ by nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry studies. The efficacy of citrinin was demonstrated to control BGM in chickpea under greenhouse conditions. The sequences of 18S rDNA gene of the VFI-51 matched with Penicillium citrinum in BLAST analysis. The VFI-51 produced siderophore, hydrocyanic acid, indole-3-acetic acid, lipase, protease and β-1,3- glucanase; grew well in NaCl (up to 15%), at pH between 7 and 11 and temperatures between 20°C and 40°C; and was compatible with fungicides bavistin and thiram. Under greenhouse and field conditions, VFI-51 significantly enhanced the nodule number, nodule weight, root and shoot weight and stover and grain yield over the un-inoculated control. In the rhizosphere, VFI-51 also significantly enhanced total N, available P and OC over the un-inoculated control. Scanning electron microscopy analysis revealed that VFI-51 colonised on the roots of chickpea. This study concluded that VFI-51 has the potential for biocontrol of BGM and plant growth promotion in chickpea

25th annual computational neuroscience meeting: CNS-2016

The same neuron may play different functional roles in the neural circuits to which it belongs. For example, neurons in the Tritonia pedal ganglia may participate in variable phases of the swim motor rhythms [1]. While such neuronal functional variability is likely to play a major role the delivery of the functionality of neural systems, it is difficult to study it in most nervous systems. We work on the pyloric rhythm network of the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion (STG) [2]. Typically network models of the STG treat neurons of the same functional type as a single model neuron (e.g. PD neurons), assuming the same conductance parameters for these neurons and implying their synchronous firing [3, 4]. However, simultaneous recording of PD neurons shows differences between the timings of spikes of these neurons. This may indicate functional variability of these neurons. Here we modelled separately the two PD neurons of the STG in a multi-neuron model of the pyloric network. Our neuron models comply with known correlations between conductance parameters of ionic currents. Our results reproduce the experimental finding of increasing spike time distance between spikes originating from the two model PD neurons during their synchronised burst phase. The PD neuron with the larger calcium conductance generates its spikes before the other PD neuron. Larger potassium conductance values in the follower neuron imply longer delays between spikes, see Fig. 17.Neuromodulators change the conductance parameters of neurons and maintain the ratios of these parameters [5]. Our results show that such changes may shift the individual contribution of two PD neurons to the PD-phase of the pyloric rhythm altering their functionality within this rhythm. Our work paves the way towards an accessible experimental and computational framework for the analysis of the mechanisms and impact of functional variability of neurons within the neural circuits to which they belong

Comparative docking studies of Estrogen Receptor inhibitors and their binding interaction analysis

Comparative docking studies have been performed on 10 drug molecules, which play a vital role in the treatment of breast cancer. These 10 drug molecules have the same target called Estrogen Receptor which acts as a DNA-binding transcription factor that regulates gene expression. The glide scores of these 10 drugs were compared to each other using the module Glide which is a part of the Schrödinger software, which provided a better understanding of the binding interactions of the ten drug molecules. Among the 10 drugs taken, toremifene had the lowest glide score, i.e. -9.82, which shows that it had better binding interaction with the protein