Integrated Product and Process Design Environment Tool for Manufacturing T/R Modules

We present a decision making assistant tool for integrated product and process design environment for manufacturing applications. Specifically, we target microwave modules which use Electro-mechanical components and require optimal solutions to reduce cost, improve quality, and gain leverage in time to market the product. This tool will assist the product and process designer to improve their productivity and also enable to cooperate and coordinate their designs through a common design interface. We consider a multiobjective optimization model that determines components and processes for a given conceptual designs for microwave modules. This model outputs a set of solutions that are Pareto optimal with respect to cost, quality, and other metrics. In addition, we identify system integration issues for manufacturing applications, and propose an architecture which will serve as a building block to our continuing research in virtual manufacturing applications

Rare high branching pattern from the first part of the right axillary artery

A 77-year-old female cadaver was observed to have a rare branching pattern of the right axillary artery (AA)  The first part of the AA typically gives off only a superior thoracic artery (STA) but was observed to give off three branches in the case: a lateral thoracic artery (LTA), a thoracoacromial trunk (TAT), and a large common trunk (CT). The LTA traveled to provide a variant STA to the 1st and 2nd intercostal spaces. The CT provided an accessory lateral thoracic artery (aLTA) and accessory thoracodorsal artery (aTDA) before bifurcating into a subscapular artery (SA) and posterior humeral circumflex artery (PHCA). As expected, the SA further divided into the circumflex scapular artery (CSA) and thoracodorsal artery (TDA). A pectoral artery and the anterior humeral circumflex artery (AHCA) originated directly from the second and third parts of the AA, respectively. Knowledge of AA branching variations is of great clinical significance to anatomists, radiologists, and surgeons due to the high rate of injury to this artery

Process technology development for LOVA gun propellant

100-104"LOVA" gun propellants are formulated with the use of a suitable inert binder and a cyclic nitramine as the energetic ingredient. For the technology development of LOVA gun propellant a suitable manufacturing method was required to be developed. Manufacture of propellant formulation using cellulose acetate and RDX was tried by conventional solvent process by two different methods. In the first method the fine RDX was first desensitised by the plasticiser coating and the desensitised fine RDX was incorporated with the inert binder. In the second method a two stage process technology was adopted. In the first stage, the basic composition is prepared by wet mixing process and in the second stage the dry basic mix is solvent incorporated for extrusion into the required size and shape. The first method was termed as dry process and the second method as wet process. The comparative analysis of the ballistic aspects as determined by closed vessel firing indicated that the propellant batches made by the wet mix process gave consistent and reliable results, and has been adopted for the manufacture of 'LOVA' gun propellants

HLA-DQ region RFLPs indicate that susceptibility to insulin dependent diabetes in South India is located in the HLA-DQ region

Recently close markers for insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in Western 'Caucasoid' subjects have been defined from DQ region (both and β genes) restriction fragment length polymorphisms. In order to define the genetic contribution to insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in an Indian population we have analysed 58 unrelated Dravidian (South Indian) insulin-dependent diabetic patients and 43 controls. In insulin-dependent diabetes an increased frequency of the Taq 1 DQβ restriction fragment length polymorphisms designated T2Ω/T6 (relative risk = 10.6), and of homozygotes for Taq 1 DQα 4.6 kb (relative risk = 11), was found in the patients. The highest relative risk for insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus was obtained by comparing patients and control subjects who either (a) co-inherited DQT2Ω/T6 with certain DQ restriction fragment length polymorphisms or (b) were DQα 4.6 kb homozygotes, the combination of (a) and (b) accounting for 55.5% of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus subjects and none of the controls (relative risk = 101; 95% confidence limits 93-109)

The faunal assemblage of the paleonto-archeological localities of the Late Pliocene Quranwala Zone, Masol Formation, Siwalik Range, NW India

International audienceThe Indo-French Program of Research ‘Siwaliks’ carried out investigations in the ‘Quranwala zone’ of the Masol Formation (Tatrot), Chandigarh Siwalik Range, known since the 1960s for its “transitional fauna”. This new paleontological study was implemented following the discovery of bones with cut marks near choppers and flakes in quartzite collected on the outcrops. Nine fieldwork seasons (2008–2015) on 50 hectares of ravines and a small plateau recovered lithic tools and fossil assemblages in 12 localities with approximately 1500 fossils. Their study shows that the most abundant mammal species are the Proboscideans with Stegodon insignis. The transition with the Pleistocene fauna is evidenced by Elephas hysudricus, Hipparion antelopinum and Equus sivalensis. The freshwater mammal is also well illustrated with Hexaprotodon sivalensis. Bovids present the greatest variety with six tribes from the smallest to the largest. Two types of cervids are observed; Sivatherium giganteum is visible in several localities and Merycopotamus dissimilis in one. Turtles, with the giant terrestrial Colossochelys and the freshwater Geoclemys, are abundant. The aquatic predators are limited (crocodile) and terrestrial carnivores are very scarce (hyena, felid). The faunal assemblages match the Plio-Pleistocene transitional fauna, also described in the Pabbi Hills (Pakistan), and mark the beginning of the Equus sivalensis Biostratigraphic interval-Zone, which extends from 2.6 Ma to 600 ka. The systematic repetition of surveys has, therefore, allowed the collection of rare taxa, such as Crocuta (2010), Merycopotamus dissimilis (2014) and a large felid (2015). These latest findings are significant for the discovery of Homininae in Siwaliks

The lithic industries on the fossiliferous outcrops of the Late Pliocene Masol Formation, Siwalik Frontal Range, northwestern India (Punja)

International audienceThe Quranwala zone (QZ) in the sector near Masol (Siwalik Frontal Range, Punjab) has been known since the 1960s for yielding freshwater and terrestrial vertebrates living during the late Pliocene on the sub-Himalayan floodplain. The fossils and quartzite cobbles are constantly unearthed from the core of an anticline. The basal member of QZ is about 130 meters below the Gauss/Matuyama paleomagnetic reversal, i.e., 2.588 Ma. Since 2009 the Indo-French Program of Research ‘Siwaliks’ has surveyed 50 hectares and highlighted a dozen localities on outcrops where artefacts in quartzite occur with fossil bones, of which a few show butchering marks. A few cobble tools and a flake were unearthed from a trial trench opened along the same boundary between silts and sandstones (Masol 2) as the one that provided a bovid tibia shaft bearing cut marks (Masol 1). Some 250 artefacts were collected mainly from the surface, sometimes in the slopes of outcrops recently eroded. These were mostly heavy-duty tools that comprised a majority of choppers, end choppers rather than side choppers, among which the “simple choppers” (shaped by one single removal) are common. The light-duty tools consist of flakes that are seldom retouched. The cores are very few and the flakes generally result from the shaping of choppers, except the larger flakes that are complemented by split cobbles. The consistency of the lithic assemblages among the localities supports their chronological homogeneity. Their features do not reflect any lithic technical tradition known in the region, neither Acheulean nor Soanian (in which the choppers are usually classical, not “simple”)

Anthropic activities in the fossiliferous Quranwala Zone, 2.6 Ma, Siwaliks of Northwest India, historical context on the discovery and scientific investigations

International audienceThe Siwaliks came to be known worldwide since the discovery in 1830 of a great ape in the Miocene molasses of the Potwar. One century later, pebble tools, flakes and handaxes attracted Prehistorians. A re-reading of the Yale-Cambridge Expedition in India (1935), during which Ramapithecus brevirostris was discovered, reveals that stone tools were discovered in the Upper Pliocene gravels of the Soan Basin. Since 2003, the National Museum of Natural History (France) and the Society for Archaeological and Anthropological Research (India) have conducted fieldwork in the northwestern Indian Siwaliks. The Quranwala Zone of Masol, the core of the Chandigarh anticline (Punjab), is well known for its Late Pliocene fauna rich in Hexaprotodon, Cholossochelys, Stegodon, bovids and Hipparion with the occurrence of Equus and Elephas. Fifty hectares have been surveyed during eight field seasons (2008 to 2015) with the discovery of choppers and marks on bones of the Quranwala Zone faunal assemblage, all collected on recent outcrops of the Latest Pliocene. This paper presents the historical context and the rigorous scientific process, which has led to the acknowledgment that some bones, dating back to the Latest Pliocene, present intentional and precise cut marks made by sharp edges in quartzite and an intelligence, which knew the anatomy of the bovid carcasses. Our pluridisciplinary works support anthropic activities 2.6 Ma ago in the sub-Himalayan floodplain and the probability of finding hominin fossils in the Quranwala Zone. This discovery is of immense importance to maintain the efforts of numerous generations in order to develop the prehistory of the Siwaliks and its contribution to the understanding of the hominization process between the Indus Basin, High and East Asia