Comparing Optimum Barrier Variables of Aluminium and MPET Foil Based Laminates for Coffee Packaging

The barrier property variables for Aluminum based laminates, both under flexed and unflexed condition, were compared with that of MPET based laminates in order to understand comparative suitability of the later for coffee packaging. Keeping the expected shelf life condition of 180 days the different barrier property variables of the sample MPET and Aluminum based laminates, at the optimality condition, were found out. At the optimum condition, Oxygen transfer rate (OTR) under flexed condition is marginally better for MPET based laminates. However, Aluminium laminates in flexed condition allowing moisture transfer (WVTR) at the rate 24.32 percent stronger than MPET based laminates which may not be good for coffee packaging

Neutrinos from Stellar Collapse: Comparison of signatures in water and heavy water detectors

Signatures of neutrino and antineutrino signals from stellar collapse in heavy water detectors are contrasted with those in water detectors. The effects of mixing, especially due to the highly dense matter in the supernova core, are studied. The mixing parameters used are those sets allowed by current understanding of available neutrino data: from solar, atmospheric and laboratory neutrino experiments. Signals at a heavy water detector, especially the dominant charged current reactions on deuteron, are very sensitive to some of these sets of allowed mixing parameters. Theoretical uncertainties on supernova neutrino spectra notwithstanding, a combination of supernova measurements with water and heavy water detectors may be able to distinguish many of these mixing possibilities and thus help in ruling out many of them.Comment: 36 pages Latex file, with 13 postscript figures; important improvements in the analysis and more detailed presentation of results. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Automatic CP Invariance and Flavor Symmetry

The approximate conservation of $CP$ can be naturally understood if it arises as an automatic symmetry of the renormalizable Lagrangian. We present a specific realistic example with this feature. In this example, the global Peccei-Quinn symmetry and gauge symmetries of the model make the renormalizable Lagrangian $CP$ invariant but allow non zero hierarchical masses and mixing among the three generations. The left-right and a horizontal $U(1)_H$ symmetry is imposed to achieve this. The non-renormalizable interactions invariant under these symmetries violate $CP$ whose magnitude can be in the experimentally required range if $U(1)_H$ is broken at very high, typically, near the grand unification scale

An empirical analysis of Delhi's air quality throughout different COVID-19 pandemic waves

Delhi was one of India's COVID-19 hotspots, with significant death rates during the year 2021. This study looked at the link between COVID-19 cases in Delhi, and key meteorological variables. The study found that COVID-19 cases during the second wave (P2-March- May 2021) were much higher than during the first wave (P1-Jan-Feb 2021) in Delhi. During P1 (Jan-Feb 2021) the mean PM2.5, PM10, NO2 and CO concentrations were greater than that of P2 (March-May 2021) while the reverse happened for SO2 and O3.  Spearman correlation test indicated that COVID-19 cases maintained a significant positive correlation with the high temperature of P2 (March-May 2021) and high humidity of P1 (Jan-Feb 2021) in line with the accepted notion that COVID-19 transmitted favourably in hot and humid climates.  The Multilayer perceptron (MLP) model indicated that COVID-19 spread was supported by air pollutants and climate variables like PM2.5, NO2, RH, and WS in P1(Jan-Feb 2021) and PM2.5 and O3 in P2 (March-May 2021).  Owing to chemical coupling, across all six monitoring stations, O3 maintained an inverse relationship with NO2 throughout the COVID-19 phases in Delhi.  The city dwellers had health risks also due to PM pollution at varying degrees, indicated by high hazard quotients (HQs), requiring lowering of air pollution concentrations on an urgent basis

A prospective observational study of vitamin D3 level in reproductive age group women with uterine leiomyoma

Background: Uterine leiomyomas are the commonest benign tumours of the uterus with the incidence between 5.4 to 77% in Indian women. Vitamin D deficiency is a proven risk factor in the pathogenesis of uterine fibroid in many studies conducted in different parts of the world but not many studies have been conducted on Indian women. Methods: A total of 200 women of age group 18 to 45 years attending District Hospital, Howrah, West Bengal, were included in the study. Out of which, 100 had leiomyoma and rest healthy women without leiomyoma serves as controls. Routine ultrasound examination and serum hormone analysis of Vitamin D3 were done. Serum FSH, LH were done on day 2 of menstruation. Statistical analysis of data was performed using SPSS Version 22 software. Results: The mean serum concentration of vitamin D3 was significantly lower in women with uterine fibroids compared to controls (12.66±5.42 versus 25.91±14.18, p<0.003). On further analysis, 68.4% of cases were found to be severely deficient (vitamin D3 <9 ng/ml) as compared to 27.12% of controls (p<0.0002). Besides that, only 3.67% of cases had sufficient vitamin D level as compared to 22.16% of controls (p<0.0002). The odds ratio (OR) of occurrence of fibroid with serum vitamin D3 level of <12 ng/dl compared to that level >12 ng/dl was 5.38 (95% CI- 2.12-9.45) (p<0.0001). Conclusions: Serum vitamin D3 level inversely correlated with the burden of leiomyoma and possibly its deficiency is a causative factor for the occurrence of uterine fibroid in the reproductive age group women

Understanding the Electronic Structures of First-Row Transition Metal Complexes for Solar Energy Conversion and Catalysis

Chapter 1 discusses the major findings and themes of the studies presented in this thesis. Chapter 2 presents a DFT-based methodology for quantifying entatic states. Here it is applied to Cu-based photosensitizers used for solar electricity generation, solar fuels synthesis, organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), and photoredox catalysis. The methodology can be used to decouple the steric and electronic contributions to excited state dynamics and, in turn, can be used to guide the design of future photosensitizers. The computed entatic energies in some of the photosensitizers were the largest quantified to date: ~20 kcal mol-1 relative to the conformationally flexible [Cu(phen)2]+. Of course, considering typical chemical barriers and driving forces, these values are significant. Chapter 3 is an investigation of the ground and excited spin state energetics of a free carbene and several of its iron porphyrin carbene (IPC) analogs. Here it is shown that for the IPC models, multireference ab initio wave function methods give results most consistent with experiment. Specifically, the predicted, mixed singlet ground state is mostly dominated by the closed-shell singlet (Fe(II)←{:C(X)Y}0) configuration, with a small contribution from an Fe(III)–{C(X)Y}–• open-shell singlet configuration (hole in d(xz)). This description differs from that obtained by using DFT. Also, using the multireference ab initio wave methods, elongation of the IPC Fe–C(carbene) bond increases the weighting of this particular open-shell configuration within the ground state singlet. Chapter 4 also deals with a system where DFT and multireference ab initio results diverge: the light-induced Ni(II)–C homolytic bond dissociation in Ni 2,2'-bipyridine photoredox catalysts. DFT calculations give a barrier of ~30 kcal mol-1 while multireference ab initio calculations giving a barrier of ~70 kcal mol-1. Thus, within the latter description, a previously proposed mechanism of thermally assisted dissociation from the lowest energy triplet ligand field excited state is unfavorable. Instead, the mechanism given by the multireference description is initial population of a singlet Ni(II)-to-bpy metal-to-ligand charge transfer (1MLCT) excited state followed by intersystem crossing and aryl-to-Ni(III) charge transfer. From accessible repulsive triplet excited states, homolytic bond dissociation can occur.</p

Linear interference and systematic soliton shape modulation by engineering plane wave background and soliton parameters

We investigate linear interference of a plane wave with different localised waves using coupled Fokas-Lenells equation(FLE) with four wave mixing (FWM) term. We obtain localised wave solution of the coupled FLE by linear superposition of two distinctly independent wave solutions namely plane wave and one soliton solution & plane wave and two soliton solution. We obtain several nonlinear profiles depending on the relative phase induced by soliton parameters. We analyse the linear interference profile under four different conditions on the spatial and temporal phase coefficients of interfering waves. We further investigate the interaction of two soliton solution and a plane wave. In this case we notice that asymptotically, two solitons profile may be similar or different from each other depending on the choices of soliton parameters in the two cases. The results obtained by us might be useful for applications in soliton control, a fiber amplifier, all optical switching, and optical computing. Further we believe that the present investigation would be useful to study the linear interference pattern of other localised waves of FLE.Comment: 14 pages, 18 figure