INFRASTRUCTURE AND FACILITY READINESS FOR PROVIDING E-LEARNING AND ALLIED SERVICES IN THE ENGINEERING COLLEGE LIBRARIES OF KERALA

Over the last decade, rapid reforms have been undertaken in the higher education sector such as policy framing, pedagogical transformations, accreditations, faculty standardisations and, most importantly, e-learning. Institutions, especially engineering colleges were quick and steady to admit the concepts of e-learning and its applications in the teaching and learning process. Online repositories and subscribed contents are no more an unfamiliar notion among the concerned users in engineering colleges. Though the majority of colleges are willing to embrace the new changes, academic circles are quite sceptic on the adequacy and suitability of infrastructural facilities available in the respective colleges. Many are concerned about the possible gap between the availability of e-resources and the mechanisms for effective accession and use of the e-content; for the teaching and learning process. This paper discusses on, the study conducted among the librarians of engineering college libraries in Kerala state, about the infrastructural support available for the accession and usage of e-resources

E-RESOURCES AND ITS ADOPTION AMONG ENGINEERING COLLEGE FACULTY MEMBERS PERTAINING TO KERALA STATE

Matching with the many strides made in higher education, the engineering institutions in our country are devoting heavily on academic resources, specifically e-resources, since the quality of engineering institutions are also assessed in terms of availability of quality library references, collections, repositories and ICT tools for facilitating knowledge proliferation and its usage. An extensive study has been conducted among the Faculty of Engineering colleges in Kerala aimed to find the availability, infrastructure support and consumption status of various types of e-resources. As part of study predesigned and well-structured questionnaire was distributed among the librarians and faculty members of the selected engineering colleges. Gathered data were analyzed and results were compliant with the proposed hypothesis. The results give insights on availability e-resources in the engineering colleges, its usage and the associated and to rectify the problems faced by the users while accessing e-resources thereby making the library service more beneficial for the academic community of the engineering colleges under study

Concept for a Time-of-Flight Small Angle Neutron Scattering Instrument at the European Spallation Source

A new Small Angle Neutron Scattering instrument is proposed for the European Spallation Source. The pulsed source requires a time-of-flight analysis of the gathered neutrons at the detector. The optimal instrument length is found to be rather large, which allows for a polarizer and a versatile collimation. The polarizer allows for studying magnetic samples and incoherent background subtraction. The wide collimation will host VSANS and SESANS options that increase the resolution of the instrument towards um and tens of um, respectively. Two 1m2 area detectors will cover a large solid angle simultaneously. The expected gains for this new instrument will lie in the range between 20 and 36, depending on the assessment criteria, when compared to up-to-date reactor based instruments. This will open new perspectives for fast kinetics, weakly scattering samples, and multi-dimensional contrast variation studies.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure

Dewetting of thin polymer films: Influence of interface evolution

The dewetting dynamics of ultrathin polymer films, e.g. in the model system of polystyrene on a polydimethylsiloxane-covered substrate, exhibits interesting behavior like a fast decay of the dewetting velocity and a maximum in the width of the built-up rim in the course of time. These features have been recently ascribed to the relaxation of residual stresses in the film that stem from the nonequilibrium preparation of the samples. Recent experiments by Coppee et al. on PS with low molecular weight, where such stresses could not be evidenced, showed however similar behavior. By scaling arguments and numerical solution of a thin film viscoelastic model we show that the maximum in the width of the rim can be caused by a temporal evolution of the friction coefficient (or equivalently of the slip length), for which we discuss two possible mechanisms. In addition, the maximum in the width is affected by the sample age. As a consequence, knowing the temporal behavior of friction (or slip length) in principle allows to measure the aging dynamics of a polymer-polymer interface by simple dewetting experiments.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Well dispersed fractal aggregates as filler in polymer-silica nanocomposites: long range effects in rheology

We are presenting a new method of processing polystyrene-silica nanocomposites, which results in a very well-defined dispersion of small primary aggregates (assembly of 15 nanoparticles of 10 nm diameter) in the matrix. The process is based on a high boiling point solvent, in which the nanoparticles are well dispersed, and controlled evaporation. The filler's fine network structure is determined over a wide range of sizes, using a combination of Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) and Transmission Electronic Microscopy (TEM). The mechanical response of the nanocomposite material is investigated both for small (ARES oscillatory shear and Dynamical Mechanical Analysis) and large deformations (uniaxial traction), as a function of the concentration of the particles. We can investigate the structure-property correlations for the two main reinforcement effects: the filler network contribution, and a filler-polymer matrix effect. Above a silica volume fraction threshold, we see a divergence of the modulus correlated to the build up of a connected network. Below the threshold, we obtain a new additional elastic contribution of much longer terminal time than the matrix. Since aggregates are separated by at least 60 nm, this new filler-matrix contribution cannot be described solely with the concept of glassy layer (2nm)

Arbitrary Phase Access for Stable Fiber Interferometers

Well-controlled yet practical systems that give access to interference effects are critical for established and new functionalities in ultrafast signal processing, quantum photonics, optical coherence characterization, etc. Optical fiber systems constitute a central platform for such technologies. However, harnessing optical interference in a versatile and stable manner remains technologically costly and challenging. Here, degrees of freedom native to optical fibers, i.e., polarization and frequency, are used to demonstrate an easily deployable technique for the retrieval and stabilization of the relative phase in fiber interferometric systems. The scheme gives access (without intricate device isolation) to <1.3 × 10−3 π rad error signal Allan deviation across 1 ms to 1.2 h integration times for all tested phases, ranging from 0 to 2π. More importantly, the phase-independence of this stability is shown across the full 2π range, granting access to arbitrary phase settings, central for, e.g., performing quantum projection measurements and coherent pulse recombination. Furthermore, the scheme is characterized with attenuated optical reference signals and single-photon detectors, and extended functionality is demonstrated through the use of pulsed reference signals (allowing time-multiplexing of both main and reference signals). Finally, the scheme is used to demonstrate radiofrequency-controlled interference of high-dimensional time-bin entangled states. © 2021 The Authors. Laser & Photonics Reviews published by Wiley-VCH Gmb

Oyster farming by women self help groups At Wadatar, Sindhudurg district in Maharashtra State

Practical dissemination of bivalve farming technologies in the potential maritime locations of Sindhudurg district was undertaken by ICAR-CMFRI. Initially a demoyster farm was setup in Wadatar, in Sindhudurg District under the UNDP-GEF funded project “Demonstration of bivalve farming at Sindhudurg District in the State of Maharashtra”. The training and demonstration for oyster farming was given to the Self Help Groups-SHG, “Prasidhi” consisting of 10 members. Five hundred strings containing 7,000 numbers of oysters were harvested. Each string consists of 10-15 live oysters. Live oysters were sold at the rate of Rs. 150-200 per dozen. A total profi t of Rs.45,000 was realized. This successful case study can be used as a case manual for group action for bivalve farming technology

Development of high-throughput methods to screen disease caused by Rhizoctonia solani AG 2-1 in oilseed rape

Background: Rhizoctonia solani (Kühn) is a soil-borne, necrotrophic fungus causing damping off, root rot and stem canker in many cultivated plants worldwide. Oilseed rape (OSR, Brassica napus) is the primary host for anastomosis group (AG) 2-1 of R. solani causing pre- and post-emergence damping-off resulting in death of seedlings and impaired crop establishment. Presently, there are no known resistant OSR genotypes and the main methods for disease control are fungicide seed treatments and cultural practices. The identification of sources of resistance for crop breeding is essential for sustainable management of the disease. However, a high-throughput, reliable screening method for resistance traits is required. The aim of this work was to develop a low cost, rapid screening method for disease phenotyping and identification of resistance traits. Results: Four growth systems were developed and tested: (1) nutrient media plates, (2) compost trays, (3) light expanded clay aggregate (LECA) trays, and (4) a hydroponic pouch and wick system. Seedlings were inoculated with virulent AG 2-1 to cause damping-off disease and grown for a period of 4–10 days. Visual disease assessments were carried out or disease was estimated through image analysis using ImageJ. Conclusion: Inoculation of LECA was the most suitable method for phenotyping disease caused by R. solani AG 2-1 as it enabled the detection of differences in disease severity among OSR genotypes within a short time period whilst allowing measurements to be conducted on whole plants. This system is expected to facilitate identification of resistant germplasm