Confusing Sterile Neutrinos with Deviation from Tribimaximal Mixing at Neutrino Telescopes

We expound the impact of extra sterile species on the ultra high energy neutrino fluxes in neutrino telescopes. We use three types of well-known flux ratios and compare the values of these flux ratios in presence of sterile neutrinos, with those predicted by deviation from the tribimaximal mixing scheme. We show that in the upcoming neutrino telescopes, its easy to confuse between the signature of sterile neutrinos with that of the deviation from tribimaximal mixing. We also show that if the measured flux ratios acquire a value well outside the range predicted by the standard scenario with three active neutrinos only, it might be possible to tell the presence of extra sterile neutrinos by observing ultra high energy neutrinos in future neutrino telescopes.Comment: 22 pages, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Management of Rhizome Rot Disease of Ginger (Zingiber officinale rose L.)

Ginger (Zingiber officinale rose L.) is an important spice crop belonging to family Zingiberaceae. Rhizome rot of ginger, caused by Pythium aphanidermatum (Edson) Fitz, is a major constraint for the production of healthy rhizome, sometimes causing total failure of crop. Chemical control of this pathogen is not economical because of high cost of chemicals, breake down of resistance, environmental pollution, deleterious effect to non target beneficial soil micro-organism and ultimately the choice of the consumer for a organic product. Thus the treatment with plant products (Boerhaavia diffusa root extract) may offer a practical and economical alternative for eco-friendly management of this disease. Rhizomes dipped overnight in the suspension of 10.00 per cent crude root extract  followed by 3 foliar sprays of the same proved quite effective in the management of the disease. Results indicated a gradual decrease in disease incidence with the corresponding increase in number of sprays and rhizome treatment with B. diffusa root extract.Key words: Ginger, Pythium aphanidermatum, rot of gingerA. K. Pandey et al. Management of Rhizome Rot Disease of Ginger (Zingiber officinale rose L.). J Phytol 2/9 (2010) 18-20

Multi-wavelength Diagnostics of the Precursor and Main phases of an M1.8 Flare on 2011 April 22

We study the temporal, spatial and spectral evolution of the M1.8 flare, which occurred in NOAA AR 11195 (S17E31) on 22 April 2011, and explore the underlying physical processes during the precursors and their relation to the main phase. The study of the source morphology using the composite images in 131 {\deg}A wavelength observed by the SDO/AIA and 6-14 keV revealed a multiloop system that destabilized systematically during the precursor and main phases. In contrast, HXR emission (20-50 keV) was absent during the precursor phase, appearing only from the onset of the impulsive phase in the form of foot-points of emitting loop/s. This study has also revealed the heated loop-top prior to the loop emission, although no accompanying foot-point sources were observed during the precursor phase. We estimate the flare plasma parameters viz. T, EM, power-law index, and photon turn-over energy by forward fitting RHESSI spectral observations. The energy released in the precursor phase was thermal and constituted ~1 per cent of the total energy released during the flare. The study of morphological evolution of the filament in conjunction with synthesized T and EM maps has been carried out which reveals (a) Partial filament eruption prior to the onset of the precursor emission, (b) Heated dense plasma over the polarity inversion line and in the vicinity of the slowly rising filament during the precursor phase. Based on the implications from multi-wavelength observations, we propose a scheme to unify the energy release during the precursor and main phase emissions in which, the precursor phase emission has been originated via conduction front formed due to the partial filament eruption. Next, the heated leftover S-shaped filament has undergone slow rise and heating due to magnetic reconnection and finally erupted to produce emission during the impulsive and gradual phases.Comment: 16 Pages, 11 Figures, Accepted for Publication in MNRAS Main Journa

Individual and combined effects of transient drought and heat stress on carbon assimilation and seed filling in chickpea

High temperatures and decreased rainfall are detrimental to yield in chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.), particularly during grain filling. This study aimed to (i) assess the individual and combined effects of drought and heat stress on biochemical seed-filling processes, (ii) determine genotypic differences in heat and drought tolerance, and (iii) determine any cross-tolerance. Plants were grown outdoors in the normal growing season when temperatures during seed filling were 32-20°C; heat stress). Half of the pots were kept adequately watered throughout, but water was withheld from the others from the initiation of seed filling until the relative leaf water content reached 50% of the irrigated plants (drought stress); all plants were rewatered thereafter until seed maturit. Water was withheld for 13 days (normal sowing) and 7 days (late sowing), so soil moisture decreased by 54–57%. Tests on leaves and seeds were performed after the stress. Individual and combined stress damaged membranes, and decreased cellular oxidising ability, stomatal conductance, PSII function and leaf chlorophyll content; damage was greater under combined stress. Leaf Rubisco activity increased with heat stress, decreased with drought stress and decreased severely with combined stress. Sucrose and starch concentrations decreased in all seeds through reductions in biosynthetic enzymes; reductions were greater under combined stress. These effects were more severe in heat- and drought-sensitive genotypes compared with drought-tolerant genotypes. Drought stress had a greater effect than heat stress on yield and the biochemical seed-filling mechanisms. Drought- and heat-tolerant genotypes showed partial cross-toleranc

Theoretical study of the thermal behavior of free and alumina-supported Fe-C nanoparticles

The thermal behavior of free and alumina-supported iron-carbon nanoparticles is investigated via molecular dynamics simulations, in which the effect of the substrate is treated with a simple Morse potential fitted to ab initio data. We observe that the presence of the substrate raises the melting temperature of medium and large $Fe_{1-x}C_x$ nanoparticles ($x$ = 0-0.16, $N$ = 80-1000, non- magic numbers) by 40-60 K; it also plays an important role in defining the ground state of smaller Fe nanoparticles ($N$ = 50-80). The main focus of our study is the investigation of Fe-C phase diagrams as a function of the nanoparticle size. We find that as the cluster size decreases in the 1.1-1.6-nm-diameter range the eutectic point shifts significantly not only toward lower temperatures, as expected from the Gibbs-Thomson law, but also toward lower concentrations of C. The strong dependence of the maximum C solubility on the Fe-C cluster size may have important implications for the catalytic growth of carbon nanotubes by chemical vapor deposition.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, higher quality figures can be seen in article 9 at http://alpha.mems.duke.edu/wahyu

Pathological and biochemical changes in Brassica juncea (mustard) infected with Albugo candida (white rust)

Components of disease reaction, including incubation period, pustule types, inoculum production and disease index (DI); and contents of protein, phenols, soluble sugars and reducing and non-reducing sugars were investigated in cotyledonary and true leaves of six genotypes of Brassica juncea: Varuna, Kranti, EC-399296, EC-399299, EC-399313 and EC-399301, inoculated with Albugo candida. Cotyledonary leaves were examined 14 days after inoculation (d.a.i.), whereas true leaves were scored 14 and 21 d.a.i. Disease indices were assessed on a 0% (resistant) to 100% (susceptible) scale. DIs at the cotyledonary leaf stage in the above six genotypes were 67, 65, 32, 31, 31 and 38%, respectively, whereas at the true-leaf stage they were 21, 28, 12, 17, 9 and 4%, respectively at 14 d.a.i., and 35, 45, 17, 19, 20 and 6%, respectively at 21 d.a.i. Protein contents were highest in the genotypes with the highest DIs, such as Varuna at the cotyledonary leaf stage and Kranti at the true-leaf stage, and lowest in the genotypes with the lowest DIs, such as EC-399299 at the cotyledonary stage and EC-399301 at the true-leaf stage. Total phenols, total sugars, reducing sugars and non-reducing sugars were generally negatively correlated with DI, but were not always consistent, particularly when differences in DI were small. The results indicated that factors conditioning the response of host genotypes to A. candida may differ or operate in different ways at different growth stages

Whirlpool: Improving Dynamic Cache Management with Static Data Classification

Cache hierarchies are increasingly non-uniform and difficult to manage. Several techniques, such as scratchpads or reuse hints, use static information about how programs access data to manage the memory hierarchy. Static techniques are effective on regular programs, but because they set fixed policies, they are vulnerable to changes in program behavior or available cache space. Instead, most systems rely on dynamic caching policies that adapt to observed program behavior. Unfortunately, dynamic policies spend significant resources trying to learn how programs use memory, and yet they often perform worse than a static policy. We present Whirlpool, a novel approach that combines static information with dynamic policies to reap the benefits of each. Whirlpool statically classifies data into pools based on how the program uses memory. Whirlpool then uses dynamic policies to tune the cache to each pool. Hence, rather than setting policies statically, Whirlpool uses static analysis to guide dynamic policies. We present both an API that lets programmers specify pools manually and a profiling tool that discovers pools automatically in unmodified binaries. We evaluate Whirlpool on a state-of-the-art NUCA cache. Whirlpool significantly outperforms prior approaches: on sequential programs, Whirlpool improves performance by up to 38% and reduces data movement energy by up to 53%; on parallel programs, Whirlpool improves performance by up to 67% and reduces data movement energy by up to 2.6x.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant CCF-1318384)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (CAREER-1452994)Samsung (Firm) (GRO award