Evaluation of the Mechanical Properties of Electroslag Refined Fe-12Ni Alloys

Three Fe-12Ni alloys, individually alloyed with small amounts of V, Ti, and Al, were manufactured through different melting techniques, with special emphasis on electroslag remelting, in order to achieve different levels of metal purity and associated costs. The relative effectiveness of these melting techniques was evaluated from tensile and slow bend fracture toughness behavior at 25 C and -196 C after tempering the test specimens at various temperatures. The best melting procedure was vacuum induction melting (VIM) with or without electroslag remelting (ESR). VIM+ESR is the recommended procedure since ESR provides increased yield of plate product, a reduction of overall manufacturing costs and, depending on the alloy composition, improved tensile and fracture toughness properties

Pollution from fishmeal plant discharge at Mukka beach, north of Mangalore

Effluents from various industries are major source of pollutants in the coastal areas. The type and pollution and the impact magnitude of on coastal environment depends on the physical and chemical characteristics of the effluent, the mode of discharge and the hydrodynamics of the receiving body. While several chemical manufacturing industries produce toxic effluents which need special treatment and disposal, the process wastewater from fish/food processing units have high organic content which can be removed by simple methods

Computer model calibration with large non-stationary spatial outputs: application to the calibration of a climate model

Bayesian calibration of computer models tunes unknown input parameters by comparing outputs with observations. For model outputs that are distributed over space, this becomes computationally expensive because of the output size. To overcome this challenge, we employ a basis representation of the model outputs and observations: we match these decompositions to carry out the calibration efficiently. In the second step, we incorporate the non-stationary behaviour, in terms of spatial variations of both variance and correlations, in the calibration. We insert two integrated nested Laplace approximation-stochastic partial differential equation parameters into the calibration. A synthetic example and a climate model illustration highlight the benefits of our approach

Antenatal Bartter Syndrome: A Review

Antenatal Bartter syndrome (ABS) is a rare autosomal recessive renal tubular disorder. The defective chloride transport in the loop of Henle leads to fetal polyuria resulting in severe hydramnios and premature delivery. Early onset, unexplained maternal polyhydramnios often challenges the treating obstetrician. Increasing polyhydramnios without apparent fetal or placental abnormalities should lead to the suspicion of this entity. Biochemical analysis of amniotic fluid is suggested as elevated chloride level is usually diagnostic. Awareness, early recognition, maternal treatment with indomethacin, and amniocentesis allow the pregnancy to continue. Affected neonates are usually born premature, have postnatal polyuria, vomiting, failure to thrive, hypercalciuria, and subsequently nephrocalcinosis. Hypokalemia, metabolic alkalosis, secondary hyperaldosteronism and hyperreninaemia are other characteristic features. Volume depletion due to excessive salt and water loss on long term stimulates renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system resulting in juxtaglomerular hyperplasia. Clinical features and electrolyte abnormalities may also depend on the subtype of the syndrome. Prenatal diagnosis and timely indomethacin administration prevent electrolyte imbalance, restitute normal growth, and improve activity. In this paper, authors present classification, pathophysiology, clinical manifestations, laboratory findings, complications, and prognosis of ABS

Heavy metal distribution in the biotic and abiotic matrices along Karnataka coast, west coast of India

Sediment and soft tissue of bivalve samples collected from various sites of Karnataka coast were analysed for the estimation of the nanaal and anthropogenic heavy metal fluxes. Seasonal variations of heavy metals in sediment and bivalves collected from selected hot spots from Binage, Karwar and Thannirbavi, Mangalore were monitored. High concentrations of Hg was observed in the environment near' the vicinity of a caustic soda plant at Binage, Karwar, indicating Hg pollution. Total Hg concentration in the tissue of oysters sampled from a contaminated stream from the above site, exceeded the safe limit of 0.5 ilg g.1 wet weight. The base-line heavy metal concentrations in sediment and bivalves from selected sites of coastal Karnataka are presented

GABAergic neuroactive steroids: A new frontier in bipolar disorders?

Neurosteroids are synthesized in the brain and modulate brain excitability. There is increasing evidence of their sedative, anesthetic and antiseizure properties, as well as their influence on mood. Currently neurosteroids are classified as pregnane neurosteroids (allopregnanolone and allotetrahydrodeoxycorticosterone), androstane neurosteroids (androstanediol and etiocholanone) or sulfated neurosteroids (pregnenolone sulfate and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate). Both preclinical and clinical findings indicate that progesterone derivative neurosteroids such as allopregnanolone and allotetrahydrodeoxycorticosterone play a role in mood disorders. Clozapine and olanzapine, which were shown to be effective in stabilizing bipolar disorder, elevate pregnenolone levels in rat hippocampus, cerebral cortex, and serum. In lithium-treated mice, the blood levels of allopregnanolone and pregnenolone were elevated compared to control levels. Women diagnosed with bipolar disorder typically show symptomatic exacerbation in relation to the menstrual cycle, and show vulnerability to the onset or recurrence of mood disorders immediately after giving birth, when the levels of neurosteroid derivatives of progesterone drop. Whereas in women who had recovered from bipolar disorder, the plasma concentration of allopregnanolone was elevated compared to either healthy controls or women with major depressive disorder during the premenstrual period. During depressive episodes, blood level of allopregnanolone is low. Treatment with fluoxetine tends to stabilize the levels of neurosteroids in depression. These findings converge to suggest that these steroids have significant mood-stabilizing effect. This hypothesis is consistent with the observation that a number of anticonvulsants are effective therapies for bipolar disorder, a finding also consistent with the antiseizure properties of neurosteroids. Further exploration of action of neuroactive steroids is likely to open new frontiers in the investigation of the etiology and treatment of mood disorders, particularly bipolar disorders

Bioherbicidal potential of Rumex crispus infected with Didymella rumicicola

A new foliar disease was observed on a perennial weed Rumex crispus which grows extensively in orchards, pastures, hay crops, lawns and home gardens in Kashmir valley. Repeated Isolation of the pathogen from the infected leaves of Rumex crispus yielded the fungus which on the basis of Cultural and morphological characteristics showed a resemblance to Didymella sp. Pathogenicity was confirmed by the detached leaf technique as well as inoculating whole plants in pots. Precise confirmation of the identity of the pathogen was done by sequencing the reference genes using ITS1 and ITS4 markers and sequenced data was subjected to BLAST which showed 99.80 per cent similarity with Didymella rumicicola which was previously only reported in New Zealand on Rumex obtusifolius prior to this study. Host range, as well as bioherbicidal potential of this pathogen on hosts of five different families of cultivated crops along with Rumex plants, revealed that no disease incidence was found on host plant species of other families of cultivated crops, whereas,100% disease incidence and 80% severity were observed on Rumex crispus at 15 and 25 days after inoculation respectively. Physiological studies showed the newly isolated pathogen Didymella rumicicola showed the best radial growth on Potato dextrose agar at pH 6.5 and at a temperature of 25oC

On Observing Dynamic Prioritised Actions in SOC

We study the impact on observational semantics for SOC of priority mechanisms which combine dynamic priority with local pre-emption. We define manageable notions of strong and weak labelled bisimilarities for COWS, a process calculus for SOC, and provide alternative characterisations in terms of open barbed bisimilarities. These semantics show that COWS’s priority mechanisms partially recover the capability to observe receive actions (that could not be observed in a purely asynchronous setting) and that high priority primitives for termination impose specific conditions on the bisimilarities