Mechanoluminescnce and photoluminescence in gamma irradiated NaCl:Eu

Rare earth (RE) ions posses unique optical behavior when doped into phosphors. Eu2+ activated phosphors find use in many applications. Eu2+ emission arises from the lowest band of 4f6 5d configuration to 8S7/2  state of 4f7. NaCl having different concentrations of Eu were prepared by melt technique. The crystals of small sizes were cleaved from the grown crystal block and crushed to obtain powder or microcrystalline form of NaCl. Annealed samples were exposed to gamma rays at dose level 0.930kGy. Mechanoluminescnce (ML) was excited impulsively by dropping a load of mass 0.4 kg with the impact velocity of   0.6 ms-1 on to it. An intense ML peak was observed in its ML glow curve. ML intensity increases with increasing concentration of dopant. ML emission spectrum shows a single peak at 482 nm. Photoluminescence (PL) of the sample has also been recorded and a single peak at 427 nm was observed. Shift in ML and PL emission spectrum was observed

Disease and pest management in apple: Farmers' perception and adoption in J&K state

Diseases and pests are one of the limiting factors for low productivity of the fruit crops in Kashmir valley, India. A study on management of resources with respect to disease and pest management of apple and extent of adoption of recommended plant protection technology was undertaken for increasing apple production in Kashmir valley of J and K State. District Baramulla was selected purposively on the basis of maximum area and production under apple crop. A sample size of 200 apple growers 50 each from 4 villages were selected randomly. The study revealed that the perception index regarding attributes of technology recommended in two diseases viz. San Jose Scale and Apple Scab was 68.88% and 80.76% in respect of profitability (83.97%), simplicity-complexity each 63.57% and 54.27 % for practicability attributes of technology. The data further showed that the farmers adoption level under Chemical control was high at silver tip to green tip stage (80%) and fruit let pea size stage (78%) and medium adoption was observed at pink bloom (bud) stage (74%), petal fall stage (74%) walnut size apple stage (70%) on Apple Scab similarly, the extent of adoption was low (45%) for mechanical and no chemical control measures under clean cultivation. In case of San Jose Scale the farmers adoption level regarding name of chemical, its dose, quantity of water required per acre for preparing spray solution and time of spray at late dormant spray, (feb, March) was high (80%). The findings will help to improve the level of farmers’ knowledge to increase apple production in Kashmir valley

Pembrolizumab in combination with pomalidomide and low-dose dexamethasone in refractory or relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma (rrMM): Randomized, phase 3 KEYNOTE-183 study

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Treasure codes: augmenting learning from physical museum exhibits through treasure hunting

Previous studies have highlighted the difficulty that designers face in creating mobile museum guides to enhance small group experiences. In this paper, we report a study exploring the potential of mobile visual recognition technology (Artcodes) to improve users’ experiences in a visitor centre. A prototype mobile guide in the form of a treasure hunt was developed and evaluated by means of a field study comparing this technology with the existing personal guided tour. The results reveal a preference for the mobile guide amongst participants and show significant learning gains from pre-test to post-test compared with the pre-existing personal tour. Our observational analyses indicate how the mobile guide can be used to improve visitors’ learning experiences by supporting active discovery and by balancing physical and digital interactions. We further expand the concept of design trajectories to consider micro-scaffolding as a way of understanding and designing future public technologies

Planck Scale Boundary Conditions and the Higgs Mass

If the LHC does only find a Higgs boson in the low mass region and no other new physics, then one should reconsider scenarios where the Standard Model with three right-handed neutrinos is valid up to Planck scale. We assume in this spirit that the Standard Model couplings are remnants of quantum gravity which implies certain generic boundary conditions for the Higgs quartic coupling at Planck scale. This leads to Higgs mass predictions at the electroweak scale via renormalization group equations. We find that several physically well motivated conditions yield a range of Higgs masses from 127-142 GeV. We also argue that a random quartic Higgs coupling at the Planck scale favors M_H > 150 GeV, which is clearly excluded. We discuss also the prospects for differentiating different boundary conditions imposed for \lambda(M_{pl}) at the LHC. A striking example is M_H = 127\pm 5 GeV corresponding to \lambda(M_{pl})=0, which would imply that the quartic Higgs coupling at the electroweak scale is entirely radiatively generated.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures; references added and other minor improvements, matches version published in JHE

Spanish Teachers\u27 Sense of Humor and Student Performance on the National Spanish Exams

Research suggests that second/foreign language teachers\u27 sense of humor is directly related to many outcomes for teachers and their students. This research investigates the relationship between the perceived sense of humor of in-service Spanish teachers\u27 (n = 102) and their students\u27 (n = 5,419) score on the National Spanish Exams using the affective filter hypothesis as a conceptual framework. Statistical analyses indicate that Spanish teacher sense of humor is related to student achievement on the exams. This research has implications for language teachers and teacher educators

Near infrared hyperspectral imaging for forensic analysis of document forgery

[EN] Hyperspectral images in the near infrared range (HSI-NIR) were evaluated as a nondestructive method to detect fraud in documents. Three different types of typical forgeries were simulated by (a) obliterating text, (b) adding text and (c) approaching the crossing lines problem. The simulated samples were imaged in the range of 928 2524 nm with spectral and spatial resolutions of 6.3 nm and 10 mm, respectively. After data pre-processing, different chemometric techniques were evaluated for each type of forgery. Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to elucidate the first two types of adulteration, (a) and (b). Moreover, Multivariate Curve Resolution Alternating Least Squares (MCR-ALS) was used in an attempt to improve the results of the type (a) obliteration and type (b) adding text problems. Finally, MCR-ALS and Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA), employed as a variable selection tool, were used to study the type (c) forgeries, i.e. crossing lines problem. Type (a) forgeries (obliterating text) were successfully identified in 43% of the samples using both the chemometric methods (PCA and MCR-ALS). Type (b) forgeries (adding text) were successfully identified in 82% of the samples using both the methods (PCA and MCR-ALS). Finally, type (c) forgeries (crossing lines) were successfully identified in 85% of the samples. The results demonstrate the potential of HSI-NIR associated with chemometric tools to support document forgery identificationINCTAA (Processes no. : CNPq 573894/2008-6; FAPESP 2008/57808-1), NUQAAPE, FACEPE, CNPq, CAPES, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation MICINN (grant DPI2011-28112-C04-02).Silva, CS.; Pimentel, MF.; Honorato, RS.; Pasquini, C.; Prats Montalbán, JM.; Ferrer Riquelme, AJ. (2014). Near infrared hyperspectral imaging for forensic analysis of document forgery. Analyst. 139(20):5176-5184. https://doi.org/10.1039/C4AN00961DS517651841392

Sex-specific regulation of chemokine Cxcl5/6 controls neutrophil recruitment and tissue injury in acute inflammatory states

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.Barts and The London Trustees Studentship (SM), Marie Curie fellowships (MB, JD), Arthritis Research UK career development fellowship (JW), William Harvey Research Foundation grant (JW/RSS), Kidney Research UK fellowship (NSAP), Barts and The London Vacation Scholarship (ISN), Wellcome Trust senior fellowship (DWG), and a Wellcome Trust career development fellowship (RSS). This work forms part of the research themes contributing to the translational research portfolio of Barts and The London Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, which is supported and funded by National Institute for Health Researc