Magneto-Optical Spectrum Analyzer

We present a method for the investigation of gigahertz magnetization dynamics of single magnetic nano elements. By combining a frequency domain approach with a micro focus Kerr effect detection, a high sensitivity to magnetization dynamics with submicron spatial resolution is achieved. It allows spectra of single nanostructures to be recorded. Results on the uniform precession in soft magnetic platelets are presented.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figure

Management of powdery mildew and aphid in organically grown Indian mustard (Brassica juncea L.) through different oils

All the cultivated Brassica species exhibited powdery mildew severity with highest (43.2%) on Brassica juncea followed by B. rapa (28.0%) which is widely cultivated in India. Yield losses from 10-90 per cent with reduction in 6.47 per cent oil content have been estimated from different Brassica species. Hence, the present study was carried out to evaluate different oils to manage powdery mildew disease and aphids in an organically grown mustard crop. Five oils (castor, groundnut, sunflower, neem and mustard oil) and ghee were evaluated against powdery mildew (Erysiphae cruciferarum) and aphid (Lipaphis erysimi) of Indian mustard (Brassica juncea). Castor oil 50 EC, neem oil 50 EC and mustard oil 50 EC and deshi ghee 50 EC (@ 100 ml/10 litre water) were effective over untreated control in reducing  powdery mildew disease severity when applied as foliar spray (@ 5 ml/litre) in the experiment carried out in organic field (plot No. B-2 at Agronomy Instruction Farm, S. D. Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar). Maximum reduction in germinated conidia (66.0%) over control, disease severity (50.0%), area under disease progress curve (AUDPC) values (51.8%) and maximum increase over control in 1000 seed weight (16.7%) and seed yield (10.3%) was observed with neem oil. This was followed by the application of ghee which exhibited reduced disease severity (22.9%) and AUDPC values (30.6%) and increased seed yield (8.1%) and the application of castor oil 50 EC which exhibited an increased in seed yield (8.0%) and reduced powdery mildew severity (20.8%). Shortest log phase was observed with neem oil during 10th std. week. All the oils tested (castor, groundnut, sunflower, neem and mustard oil) and deshi ghee were effective in reducing aphid population (39.5 to 65.9%) and damage index (6.1 to 25.1%). A maximum reduction in aphid population (65.9%) over control and lowest aphid damage index (3.70) was observed with neem oil 50 EC 6 days after 2nd spray. Application of neem oil, castor oil and deshi ghee resulted in increased seed yield (8.1 to 10.4%). This information could be useful in devising strategies for powdery mildew and aphid management in organic cultivation, eco-friendly management and IPM of mustard

Genotype × environment interaction for morphological and quality traits of wheat varieties under different nitrogen regimes in the foothills of Shivalik range of Himalayas

Variation among twelve winter wheat varieties with respect to N efficiency (NE) were assessed in field trial planned as per factorial experimental design (two years × three nitrogen doses × twelve genotypes) in which treatments were randomized in three replications under three nitrogen levels (control, 150, 250 kg/ha) for two successive years at N. E. Borlaug Crop Research Center, Pantnagar. Stability analysis of nitrogen efficiency contributing traits was performed using mean performance, linear regression and the deviation from regression. No single genotype performed well enough for all the traits under study. QLD 33, HD 2967 and QLD 39 were stable for root length showing good performance for nitrogen uptake. HD 3112 was most stable variety for most of the characters whereas, QLD 33 was found to perform best under higher levels of nitrogen fertilisation, thus, not efficient enough. But, QLD 33 showed delayed maturity which could be linked with an increase in grain yield thus, it could be said that functional stay green phenotypes should increase the grain filling period and boost yield

Impact of medication and psychological behaviour assessment by community pharmacists in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients after hospital stay

Drug related problem (DRPs) is a key factor which will affect the outcome of therapy and safety. The aim of the present study is to assess the DRPs in T2DM patients and psychological aspects of patients by community pharmacists to observe the rate of DRP. Prospective randomized controlled intervention study involved T2DM patients and conducted in two community pharmacies at Kanpur from January 2012 to December 2012. The assessment of DRPs was based on the PCNE. Changes in HBA1C, LDL, BP, foot examinations, changes medical and medication utilization were studied. Using as control group, received usual care, and interventional group provided, intervened with use of the STG. Researcher provided the knowledge to community pharmacists and patients. Baseline and interventional data were collected at 0,3,6,9 and 12 months. Over 12 month study, participants’ average HBA1C reduced from 8.9% at initial visit to 7.5%. During this time, the eye examination rate was raised from 31% to 48%, and the foot examination rate was raised from 35% to 50%. It may be concluded that the intervention of pharmacists showed very less significant influence on any of the intermediate health outcomes in T2DM.Keywords: Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Drug related problems , PCNE classification, Medication review, Psychological behavior

Self‐reported sleep quality is more closely associated with mental and physical health than chronotype and sleep duration in young adults: A multi‐instrument analysis

Sleep and circadian rhythms are considered to be important determinants of mental and physical health. Epidemiological studies have established the contribution of self‐reported sleep duration, sleep quality and chronotype to health outcomes. Mental health and sleep problems are more common in women and men are more likely to be evening types. Few studies have compared the relative strength of these contributions and few studies have assessed these contributions separately in men and women. Furthermore, sleep and circadian characteristics are typically assessed with a limited number of instruments and a narrow range of variables is considered, leaving the understanding of the relative contribution of different predictors somewhat fractionary. We compared sleep quality, sleep duration and chronotype as predictors for self‐reported mental and physical health and psychological characteristics in 410 men and 261 women aged 18 to 30. To ascertain that results were not dependent on the use of specific instruments we used a multitude of validated instruments including the Morningness‐Eveningness‐Questionnaire, Munich‐ChronoType‐Questionnaire, Pittsburgh‐Sleep‐Quality‐Index, British‐Sleep‐Survey, Karolinska‐Sleep‐Diary, Insomnia‐Severity‐Index, SF‐36‐Health Survey, General‐Health‐Questionnaire, Dutch‐Eating‐Behaviour‐Questionnaire, Big‐Five‐Inventory, Behaviour‐Inhibition‐System‐Behaviour‐Activation‐System, and the Positive‐Affect‐Negative‐Affect‐Schedule. Relative contributions of predictors were quantified as local effect sizes derived from multiple regression models. Across all questionnaires, sleep quality was the strongest independent predictor of health and in particular mental health and more so in women than in men. The effect of sleep duration and social jetlag was inconspicuous. A greater insight into the independent contributions of sleep quality and chronotype may aid the understanding of sleep‐health interactions in women and men

SPRING-INX: A Multilingual Indian Language Speech Corpus by SPRING Lab, IIT Madras

India is home to a multitude of languages of which 22 languages are recognised by the Indian Constitution as official. Building speech based applications for the Indian population is a difficult problem owing to limited data and the number of languages and accents to accommodate. To encourage the language technology community to build speech based applications in Indian languages, we are open sourcing SPRING-INX data which has about 2000 hours of legally sourced and manually transcribed speech data for ASR system building in Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi and Tamil. This endeavor is by SPRING Lab , Indian Institute of Technology Madras and is a part of National Language Translation Mission (NLTM), funded by the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India. We describe the data collection and data cleaning process along with the data statistics in this paper.Comment: 3 pages, About SPRING-INX Dat

Imaging magnonic frequency multiplication in nanostructured antidot lattices

Frequency multiplication is an essential part of electronics and optics which led to numerous indispensable applications. In this paper, we utilize a combination of scanning transmission x ray microscopy and micromagnetic simulations to directly image magnonic frequency multiplication by means of dynamic real space magnetization measurements. We experimentally demonstrate frequency multiplication up to the seventh order, which enables the generation of nanoscale spin waves at 6GHz with excitation frequencies of less than 1GHz. Good agreement between the experiment and micromagnetic simulations allows us to build a micromagnetic model capable of predicting conversion efficiencies and multiplexing capabilities of the system. Furthermore, simulations reveal that more than two rows of antidots do not increase the conversion efficiency substantially. By enabling magnonic multiplexing with low input frequencies while not exceeding the size of a few microns, the device will lead to numerous applications, further advancing the capabilities of magnonic data transmissio

Suspension High Velocity Oxy-Fuel (SHVOF)-sprayed alumina coatings: microstructure, nanoindentation and wear

Suspension High Velocity Oxy Fuel Spraying (SHVOF) can be used to produce thermally sprayed coatings from powdered feedstocks too small to be processed by mechanical feeders, allowing formation of nanostructured coatings with improved density and mechanical properties. Here, alumina coatings were produced from sub-micron sized feedstock in aqueous suspension, using two flame combustion parameters yielding contrasting microstructures. Both coatings were tested in dry sliding wear conditions with an alumina counterbody. The coating processed with high combustion power of 101 kW contained 74 wt% amorphous phase and 26 wt% crystalline phase (95 wt% gamma and 3 wt% alpha alumina) while the 72 kW coating contained lower 58 wt% amorphous phase and 42 wt% crystalline phases (73 wt% was alpha and 26 wt % gamma). The 101 kW coating had a dry sliding specific wear rate between 4-4.5 x 10-5 mm3/Nm, 2 orders of magnitude higher than the 72 kW coating wear rate of 2-4.2 x 10-7 mm3/Nm. A severe wear regime dominated by brittle fracture and grain pull out of the coating was responsible for the wear of the 101 kW coating, explained by mean fracture toughness three times lower than the 72 kW coating, owing to the almost complete absence of alpha alumina

Phase resolved observation of spin wave modes in antidot lattices

Antidot lattices have proven to be a powerful tool for spin wave band structure manipulation. Utilizing time-resolved scanning transmission x-ray microscopy, we are able to experimentally image edge-localized spin wave modes in an antidot lattice with a lateral confinement down to < 80 nm x 130 nm. At higher frequencies, spin wave dragonfly patterns formed by the demagnetizing structures of the antidot lattice are excited. Evaluating their relative phase with respect to the propagating mode within the antidot channel reveals that the dragonfly modes are not directly excited by the antenna but need the propagating mode as an energy mediator. Furthermore, micromagnetic simulations reveal that additional dispersion branches exist for a tilted external field geometry. These branches correspond to asymmetric spin wave modes that cannot be excited in a non-tilted field geometry due to the symmetry restriction. In addition to the band having a negative slope, these asymmetric modes also cause an unexpected transformation of the band structure, slightly reaching into the otherwise empty bandgap between the low frequency edge modes and the fundamental mode. The presented phase resolved investigation of spin waves is a crucial step for spin wave manipulation in magnonic crystals