Detection of helicopters using neural nets

Artificial neural networks (ANNs), in combination with parametric spectral representation techniques, are applied for the detection of helicopter sound. Training of the ANN detectors was based on simulated helicopter sound from four helicopters and a variety of nonhelicopter sounds. Coding techniques based on linear prediction coefficients (LPCs) have been applied to obtain spectral estimates of the acoustic signals. Other forms of the LPC parameters such as reflection coefficients, cepstrum coefficients, and line spectral pairs (LSPs) have also been used as feature vectors for the training and testing of the ANN detectors. We have also investigated the use of wavelet transform for signal de-noising prior to feature extraction. The performance of various feature extraction techniques is evaluated in terms of their detection accurac

Nanoparticle enhanced eutectic reaction during diffusion brazing of aluminium to magnesium

YesDiffusion brazing has gained much popularity as a technique capable of joining dissimilar lightweight metal alloys and has the potential for a wide range of applications in aerospace and transportation industries, where microstructural changes that will determine the mechanical and chemical properties of the final joint must be controlled. This study explores the effect of Al2O3 nanoparticles on the mechanical and microstructural properties of diffusion brazed magnesium (AZ31) and aluminium (Al-1100) joints. The results showed that the addition of Al2O3 nanoparticle to the electrodeposited Cu coating increased the volume of eutectic liquid formed at the interface which caused a change to the bonding mechanism and accelerated the bonding process. When the Cu/Al2O3 nanocomposite coatings were used as the interlayer, a maximum bond strength of 46 MPa was achieved after 2 min bonding time while samples bonded using pure-Cu interlayers achieved maximum strength after 10 min bonding time. Chemical analysis of the bond region confirmed that when short bonding times are used, the intermetallic compounds formed at the interface are limited to the compounds consumed in the eutectic reaction

Effect of last cutting dates on seed production of multicut MB-87 – a variety of pearl millet, Pennisetum Glaucum (Bajra)

Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) is considered an important kharif crop, which is grown extensively in the arid and semi-arid tropical regions, where other crops, like sorghum and maize, fail to produce economic yields. Its grains are valued as human food, while its dry stover makes significant livestock ration in croplivestock farming system. Pearl millets (MB-87), a newly developed variety of Fodder Research Institute, Sargodha, Pakistan, is one of the best pearl millet variety, which gives more than one cutting and helps to cope with fodder lean period, as well as more income can be generated in addition to seed. So, overcome the scarcity period the study was conducted to check the effect of last cutting dates on seed production of multicut pearl millet MB-87 was conducted at Fodder Research Institute, Sargodha, Pakistan, during 2015 and 2016. Following parameters were taken in to consideration, i.e. plant height (cm), stem thickness (cm), number of leaves per tiller, number of tillers per plant, green fodder yield (t/ha), length of head (cm), 1000 grains weight (g) and grain yield (kg/ha). The results depicted that grain yield, i.e. 319.20, was maximum and head length was highest, i.e. 35.13 cm on 20th of August having last date of cut, whereas all others parameters were found to be nonsignificant. Multicut bajra gives three cutting of fodder, followed by seed, as compared with conventional bajra, which gives only one cutting or seed. Therefore, it is more economical for the growers of fodders to grow the pearl millets MB-87 as fodder, as well as for seed purposes. So, it is concluded that for gaining maximum grain yield of multicut pearl millet MB-87 the last cutting date should be 20th of August. In future, pearl millet is likely to play a larger role in providing food and nutritional security

Characterization and Screening of N 2 -fixing Microorganisms at Maturity Stage in Rhizosphere of Rice Grown in Brahmaputra Alluvium Soil of Bangladesh * 1 I

Studies on the existing non-symbiotic diazotrophic systems still are the most promising for better use of biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) in agriculture. The possibilities for the extension of nitrogen fixation to rice plants still speculative. The prospect of extension ofN 2 -fixation to other plants was originally formulated to simulate the possibilities for the biological use of atmospheric nitrogen in order to overcome the ecological and economical problems of nitrogenous fertilizers. In view of this, the present study was conducted for the characterization and identification of Nrfixing bacterial strains at the maturity (110 days) stage in rhizosphere of rice (BR 10, Oryza sativa L.) grown in Brahmaputra Alluvium soil of Bangladesh. The soil is characterized as 'Inceptisol' order and 'Aquept' suborder. It was identified as 'Dhamrai series', had 'silt' texture, pH 6.0 and 6.8 C/N ratio. The present results of the microbial tests on the rice rhizosphere soil demonstrated that out of 401 isolates, only 94 were branded as nitrogen fixing organisms per gram of soil, which is about 23.4 % of the total isolates. Based on the selection criteria, four individual strains were selected for identification. Biochemical tests were conducted for proper identification. They were identified as Closteridium spp., Klebsiella spp., Bacillus spp. and Azospirllum spp

Ab Initio Calculation of the Lattice Distortions induced by Substitutional Ag- and Cu- Impurities in Alkali Halide Crystals

An ab initio study of the doping of alkali halide crystals (AX: A = Li, Na, K, Rb; X = F, Cl, Br, I) by ns2 anions (Ag- and Cu-) is presented. Large active clusters with 179 ions embedded in the surrounding crystalline lattice are considered in order to describe properly the lattice relaxation induced by the introduction of substitutional impurities. In all the cases considered, the lattice distortions imply the concerted movement of several shells of neighbors. The shell displacements are smaller for the smaller anion Cu-, as expected. The study of the family of rock-salt alkali halides (excepting CsF) allows us to extract trends that might be useful at a predictive level in the study of other impurity systems. Those trends are presented and discussed in terms of simple geometric arguments.Comment: LaTeX file. 8 pages, 3 EPS pictures. New version contains calculations of the energy of formation of the defects with model clusters of different size

Convergent synthesis of new N -substituted 2-{[5-(1H -indol-3-ylmethyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazol-2-yl]sulfanyl}acetamides as suitable therapeutic agents

abstract A series of N-substituted 2-{[5-(1H-indol-3-ylmethyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazol-2-yl]sulfanyl}acetamides (8a-w) was synthesized in three steps. The first step involved the sequential conversion of 2-(1H-indol-3-yl)acetic acid (1) to ester (2) followed by hydrazide (3) formation and finally cyclization in the presence of CS2 and alcoholic KOH yielded 5-(1H-indole-3-yl-methyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole-2-thiol (4). In the second step, aryl/aralkyl amines (5a-w) were reacted with 2-bromoacetyl bromide (6) in basic medium to yield 2-bromo-N-substituted acetamides (7a-w). In the third step, these electrophiles (7a-w) were reacted with 4 to afford the target compounds (8a-w). Structural elucidation of all the synthesized derivatives was done by 1H-NMR, IR and EI-MS spectral techniques. Moreover, they were screened for antibacterial and hemolytic activity. Enzyme inhibition activity was well supported by molecular docking results, for example, compound 8q exhibited better inhibitory potential against α-glucosidase, while 8g and 8b exhibited comparatively better inhibition against butyrylcholinesterase and lipoxygenase, respectively. Similarly, compounds 8b and 8c showed very good antibacterial activity against Salmonella typhi, which was very close to that of ciprofloxacin, a standard antibiotic used in this study. 8c and 8l also showed very good antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus as well. Almost all compounds showed very slight hemolytic activity, where 8p exhibited the least. Therefore, the molecules synthesized may have utility as suitable therapeutic agents

PERFORMANCE OF YIELD AND YIELD CONTRIBUTING CHARACTERISTICS OF BC2F3 POPULATION WITH ADDITION OF BLAST RESISTANT GENE

ABSTRACTThe study was carried out in the University Putra Malaysia (UPM) Rice Research Centre to evaluate the yield performance of newly developed selected blast resistant plants of BC2F3 generations derived from a cross between MR263, a high yielding rice variety but blast susceptible and Pongsu Seribu 1, donor with blast resistant (Pi-7(t)and Pi-d (t)1, Pir2-3(t)genes and qLN2 QTL), Malaysian local variety. On the basis of assessed traits, the plants 12, 6, 7, 5, 21, 22, 5, 26, 11, 8, 10, 13 and 15 had the higher yield, blast resistant and good morphological traits. More than 70% heritability was found in days to maturity, plant height, tiller numbers per hill, and panicle per hill, 80% heritability was found in filled grain and yield per hill and more than 90% heritability was found in grain length, grain width and seed weight. Cluster analysis based on the traits grouped 30 plants along with MR263 into seven clusters. According to PCA, the first four principal components account for about 69.3% total variation for all measured traits and exhibited high correlation among the characteristics analyzed