Biochemical Evaluation of Forage Sorghum for Stress Tolerance

Abiotic stresses are the major limiting factors in plant growth. With continuous increment in scarcity of water and increased salinization of soil and water, it is estimated that more than 50% of all arable lands will be affected by salinity and drought by 2050. Plants are often exposed to both, soil and atmospheric water deficit during their life cycle. The frequency and intensity of droughts is increasing as a result of global climate change. Understanding how plants respond to water stress is thus crucial for the estimation of impacts of climate change on crop productivity and ecosystem functioning. The knowledge about the mechanism adapted by plant to respond to drought, salt and co-occurring stresses can play an important role in stabilizing crop performance under drought and saline conditions. Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) is an important crop in many parts of the world. It is utilized as food, fodder and several industrial purposes. In general, sorghum is known to be more tolerant to any stresses including heat, drought, salinity and flooding

A Review on Characterization of Hybrid Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composite

Fibre reinforced polymer composite are well recognized materials for automobile, aerospace, packaging and construction industries due to its properties such as light weight, low cost and high specific strength. Hybridization of fibres has become very popular technique to increase the properties of single fibre reinforced polymer composite. This paper presents review  on mechanical properties, thermal properties, water absorption properties, dynamic mechanical analysis and tribological behaviour of hybrid fibre reinforced polymer composite. Finding of this study shows that hybridization can improved mechanical, thermal and dynamic mechanical property, and decrease water absorption property and wear rate

Effect of Sisal Fibre Loading on Wear and Friction Properties of Jute Fibre Reinforced Epoxy Composite

This paper presents an experimental study on wear and frictional properties of developed hybrid sisal/jute fibre reinforced epoxy composite. Composite are fabricated by hand lay-up technique keeping constant 30 wt. % of fibre content. Wear and frictional properties of hybrid composite is carried out at different operating parameters such as applied load (10-30 N), sliding speed (1-3m/s) and constant sliding distance 1000 m. Alkali treatment of fibres is used to increase the percentage reduction of wear rate and friction coefficient.  The experimental results show that increase in specific wear rate and coefficient of friction is found on increasing the applied load and sliding speed.

Diagnostic accuracy of saline infusion sonography as compared to hysteroscopy in premenopausal women with abnormal uterine bleeding

Background: In patients with abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB), differentiating whether the cause is anovulation or anatomic lesions can be challenging. Transvaginal sonography (TVS) has limitation in form of high false negative rate for diagnosing focal intrauterine pathology. To improve the image in TVS, saline injected into uterine cavity can be used as a negative contrast agent. Aim of our study was to evaluate the clinical value of saline infusion sonography (SIS) by comparing its diagnostic accuracy with that of established gold standard i.e. hysteroscopy.Methods: The study was carried out in a referral and teaching public sector hospital in eastern India from July 2015 to June 2016. Study population consisted of 136 premenopausal women with AUB, who were scheduled to undergo diagnostic hysteroscopy. Patients were first evaluated by sis and then followed by hysteroscopy on a later date.Results: Both SIS and hysteroscopy could be successfully performed in 136 out of 144 patients. When all findings by SIS (any pathological findings in uterine cavity vs. none) were combined and compared with hysteroscopy (gold standard), both sensitivity and specificity of sis were 0.88 whereas PPV and NPV were 0.85 and 0.90 respectively.Conclusions: Because of comparable results obtained by evaluating patients by SIS as well as office hysteroscopy, we recommend saline infusion sonography as a valuable tool for evaluating premenopausal women with abnormal uterine bleeding, before consideration for hysteroscopy

Skill up; gradation of anganwadi workers pertaining to growth chart plotting and interpretation in rural areas of Varanasi district, India

Background: The task of using the growth chart by Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) for growth monitoring requires technical skill. It was hypothesized that skill up-gradation can make a difference in the performance of AWWs in regard with growth monitoring. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of intervention in improving skill of AWWs regarding growth chart plotting and interpretation.Methods: It was a field based interventional study, which was conducted in rural areas of Varanasi district, India. A total of 66 AWWs each from Chiraigaon (intervention) and Cholapur (control) community development blocks of Varanasi district was selected for the study. Each AWW was provided 3 weight readings of different ages for plotting and 4 filled growth charts for interpretation. Chi square test has been applied to assess the significant difference.Results: Only around 10% of AWWs could correctly plot all 3 growth charts and similar proportion of AWWs could also correctly interpret all 4 filled growth charts. The planned intervention could significantly improve their skill of growth chart plotting and interpretation and during end line survey 41% and 77% of AWWs could correctly plot all 3 growth charts and interpret all the four growth charts, respectively.Conclusions: The developed hypothesis is proved, and intervention was found effective in significantly improving the skills of AWWs in regard with growth monitoring

Greek Metaphysics and the Perspectives of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in the Context of Physical Education

Plato emphasized the importance of physical education for soul development in his book ‘Phaedo’, which Socrates shunned for the same reason. Plato emphasized the physical component and the harmonious balance of the material and spiritual in his books ‘Republic’ and ‘Laws’. In his book ‘Politics’, Aristotle defined three elements of excellent education, the first of which was physical health. In this framework, sports and physical education should take precedence

PAPR REDUCTION IN ACO-OFDM FOR VISIBLE LIGHT COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

Visible Light Communication (VLC) is gaining popularity in optical wireless. In conventional OFDM, bi-polar signals having both positive and negative values are considered. However, in optical OFDM uni-polar signals, which have only positive values, are used. Therefore, suitable changes have to be done in conventional OFDM to make it compatible with O-OFDM. These modifications lead to the generation of asymmetrically clipped optical Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (ACO-OFDM) technology. In ACO-OFDM systems Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR) is a detrimental effect and should be suppressed. In ACO-OFDM, the estimation of probability density function (pdf) is not straightforward; therefore, a very limited literature is available. In this paper, an attempt is made to estimate pdf and Complimentary Cumulative Distribution Function (CCDF) expression for an ACO-OFDM with intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD), and its validity is checked by using simulation results. For ACO-OFDM scheme PAPR reduction methodology is used by applying various clipping strategies along with non-linear µ-law companding scheme. The results presented in the paper are obtained through computer simulation using MATLAB software. As clipping increases Bit Error Rate (BER), therefore, at various clipping mechanism BER are also obtained. It has been found, that by choosing suitable clipping along with non-linear companding scheme, PAPR can be reduced significantly while maintaining reasonable good BER performance. It is found, that with the proposed technique, PAPR is reduced by 76.10% as compared to raw ACO-OFDM

Mechanical and Water Absorption Properties of Hybrid Sisal/Glass Fibre Reinforced Epoxy Composite

Our environment is being pullulated due to the great use of synthetic fibre as reinforcement for polymer composites. Natural fibres may be better choice for replacement of synthetic fibre for polymer composite to reduced environment burden. Hybrid sisal/glass fibre reinforced epoxy composites are prepared by hand lay-up technique using different weight fractions (10, 20, 30 and 40 %) with 10 mm length of fibres. Mechanical and water absorption properties of prepared composites are investigated. This study shows that the addition of glass fibre into sisal fibre reinforced composite has increased its mechanical properties. Statistical analysis is also carried out using T-test and ANOVA and found significant variation among composites

Thermal Power Plant Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) Gypsum Waste Particulates Reinforced Injection Molded Flexible Composites

612-616Low density, thermally insulative and moisture resistant flexible polymer composites were developed using Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) gypsum waste particulates with Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) under injection molding technique without any additive or filler modification. The moisture content, particle size, specific gravity, density, pH, electrical conductivity and Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis of FGD gypsum waste particulates were evaluated together with mineralogical, morphological and elemental analysis by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (FESEM-EDS) studies. Developed composites were tested for Density, Water absorption, thermal conductivity and mechanical strength. Density of FGD-LDPE composites varied from 0.91±0.01 to 1.33±0.01 g/cm3 with different concentrations of FGD gypsum filler (10–70 weight %). The water absorption showed 0.69±0.04% for maximum (70 weight %) filler concentration and the corresponding thermal conductivity was found to be minimum (0.3964 W/m/K). The composites were very flexible and exhibited lower tensile strength (6.17±0.05 to 7.15±0.09 MPa), flexural strength (11.25±0.14 MPa) and impact strength (22.70±1.57 KJ/m2) with 50% and 10% filler content. Findings of these results have showed a new path for making flexible composites potentially having applications in sports ground, staircase and instrumentation rooms as a thermal insulation flooring material using FGD waste particulates generated from thermal power plants

Thermal Power Plant Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) Gypsum Waste Particulates Reinforced Injection Molded Flexible Composites

Low density, thermally insulative and moisture resistant flexible polymer composites were developed using Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) gypsum waste particulates with Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) under injection molding technique without any additive or filler modification. The moisture content, particle size, specific gravity, density, pH, electrical conductivity and Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis of FGD gypsum waste particulates were evaluated together with mineralogical, morphological and elemental analysis by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (FESEM-EDS) studies. Developed composites were tested for Density, Water absorption, thermal conductivity and mechanical strength. Density of FGD-LDPE composites varied from 0.91±0.01 to 1.33±0.01 g/cm3 with different concentrations of FGD gypsum filler (10–70 weight %). The water absorption showed 0.69±0.04% for maximum (70 weight %) filler concentration and the corresponding thermal conductivity was found to be minimum (0.3964 W/m/K). The composites were very flexible and exhibited lower tensile strength (6.17±0.05 to 7.15±0.09 MPa), flexural strength (11.25±0.14 MPa) and impact strength (22.70±1.57 KJ/m2) with 50% and 10% filler content. Findings of these results have showed a new path for making flexible composites potentially having applications in sports ground, staircase and instrumentation rooms as a thermal insulation flooring material using FGD waste particulates generated from thermal power plants