Regional Variations in Agricultural Productivity- A Study of Uzbekistan

Agriculture plays an important role in Uzbekistan’s economy. It provides employment to about 60 percent rural population. The agricultural sector accounts for 12.2 percent of production assets, 44.4 percent of employment, 70 percent trade, 30.1 percent of G.D.P and 60 percent of exports. The aim of this work is to analyse the temporal and spatial variation in agricultural productivity. This was achieved by employing spearman’s rank correlation to the agricultural productivity of the thirteen states of Uzbekistan. The study has revealed that the agricultural productivity has shown marked regional variations. The study area has been divided into five regions on the basis of agricultural productivity. The highest productivity region consists of the states of Fargana and Sirdarya while the lowest productivity region consists of the states of Karakalpakstan and Bukhara. The disparity can be solved through increased output, both in surplus, marginal and negative areas of crop production

Towards optimal multimode fiber imaging by leveraging input polarization and conditional generative adversarial networks

Deep learning techniques provide a plausible route towards achieving practical imaging through multimode fibers. However, the results produced by these methods are often influenced by physical factors like temperature, fiber length, external perturbations, and polarization state of the input light. The impact of other factors, except input light polarization, has been discussed in the literature for imaging applications. The input polarization has been considered by researchers while looking at the characterization and control of polarization in multimode fibers. Here, we show experimentally that the state of polarization of light, being injected at multimode fiber input, affects the fidelity of reconstructed images from speckle patterns. Certain polarization states produce high-quality images at fiber output, while some yield degraded results. We have designed a conditional generative adversarial network~(CGAN) for image regeneration at various degrees of input light polarization. We demonstrate that in the case of multimode fibers that are held fixed, optimal imaging can be achieved by leveraging our CGAN model with the input light polarization state, where the fidelity of images is maximum. Our work exhibits high average structural similarity index values exceeding 0.9, surpassing the previously reported value of 0.8772. We also show that the model can be generalized to image adequately for all input light polarization states when the fiber has bends or twists. We anticipate our work will be a stepping stone toward developing high-resolution and less invasive multimode fiber endoscopes

Zero-Shot Generalizable End-to-End Task-Oriented Dialog System using Context Summarization and Domain Schema

Task-oriented dialog systems empower users to accomplish their goals by facilitating intuitive and expressive natural language interactions. State-of-the-art approaches in task-oriented dialog systems formulate the problem as a conditional sequence generation task and fine-tune pre-trained causal language models in the supervised setting. This requires labeled training data for each new domain or task, and acquiring such data is prohibitively laborious and expensive, thus making it a bottleneck for scaling systems to a wide range of domains. To overcome this challenge, we introduce a novel Zero-Shot generalizable end-to-end Task-oriented Dialog system, ZS-ToD, that leverages domain schemas to allow for robust generalization to unseen domains and exploits effective summarization of the dialog history. We employ GPT-2 as a backbone model and introduce a two-step training process where the goal of the first step is to learn the general structure of the dialog data and the second step optimizes the response generation as well as intermediate outputs, such as dialog state and system actions. As opposed to state-of-the-art systems that are trained to fulfill certain intents in the given domains and memorize task-specific conversational patterns, ZS-ToD learns generic task-completion skills by comprehending domain semantics via domain schemas and generalizing to unseen domains seamlessly. We conduct an extensive experimental evaluation on SGD and SGD-X datasets that span up to 20 unique domains and ZS-ToD outperforms state-of-the-art systems on key metrics, with an improvement of +17% on joint goal accuracy and +5 on inform. Additionally, we present a detailed ablation study to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed components and training mechanis

Ab-initio study of the bandgap engineering of Al(1-x)Ga(x)N for optoelectronic applications

A theoretical study of Al(1-x)Ga(x)N, based on full-potential linearized augmented plane wave method, is used to investigate the variations in the bandgap, optical properties and non-linear behavior of the compound with the variation of Ga concentration. It is found that the bandgap decreases with the increase of Ga in Al(1-x)Ga(x)N. A maximum value of 5.5 eV is determined for the bandgap of pure AlN which reaches to minimum value of 3.0 eV when Al is completely replaced by Ga. The static index of refraction and dielectric constant decreases with the increase in bandgap of the material, assigning a high index of refraction to pure GaN when compared to pure AlN. The refractive index drops below 1 for photon energies larger than 14 eV results group velocity of the incident radiation higher than the vacuum velocity of light. This astonishing result shows that at higher energies the optical properties of the material shifts from linear to non-linear. Furthermore, frequency dependent reflectivity and absorption coefficients show that peak value of the absorption coefficient and reflectivity shifts towards lower energy in the UV spectrum with the increase in Ga concentration. This comprehensive theoretical study of the optoelectronic properties of the alloys is presented for the first time which predicts that the material can be effectively used in the optical devices working in the visible and UV spectrum.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure

Investigation of structural and optoelectronic properties of BaThO3

Structural and optoelectronic properties of BaThO3 cubic perovskite are calculated using all electrons full potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method. Wide and direct band gap, 5.7 eV, of the compound predicts that it can be effectively used in UV based optoelectronic devices. Different characteristic peaks in the wide UV range emerges mainly due to the transition of electrons between valance band state O-p and conduction band states Ba-d, Ba-f, Th-f and Th-d.Comment: 20 pages and 7 figure

Low-Cost Resistivity Meter for Groundwater Exploration Using High Voltage Experimentations

26 March, 2018 Accepted: 17 September, 2019Abstract: Resistivity survey is very well known for the exploration of groundwater and to determine the depth ofbedrock. Generally, in Pakistan local drillers rarely use resistivity meter due to high cost of commercially availableequipment. Therefore, most of the wells for groundwater are drilled without any feasibility survey, which causeseconomic and time loss. An inexpensive resistivity meter has been developed that can help the local community toconduct a survey for groundwater. This designed equipment is handy, portable, easy to operate and can bemanufactured locally. This equipment costs 500 US Dollars (USD), whereas commercially available equipment costs2500 to 50000 USD. The designed portable device comprises of a 12V DC battery, an inverter, multiplier circuit,DPDT switch and electrodes. A 12V DC battery is fed to an inverter to achieve AC supply of 220V. The achieved ACvoltage is rectified to DC-voltage which is further enhanced up-to 1300 volts using voltage multiplier circuit. This highDC voltage is called High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC). HVDC is switched at very low frequency of 1Hz.Automatic switching is being accomplished by means of DPDT relay and its control circuitry. HVDC at low frequencyis applied to the earth through electrodes to determine resistivity for different materials lying inside the ground with apenetration depth of 100 meters. This portable instrument would be useful to map surface lithological layers, determinequality of groundwater and bedrock level in accurate and inexpensive way

Spectroscopy of gadolinium ion and disadvantages of gadolinium impurity in tissue compensators and collimators, used in radiation treatment planning

Abstract. Intense ultraviolet emission from gadolinium doped amorphous aluminum nitride thin films deposited on Si (111) substrate is studied with cathodoluminescence and photoluminescence. The purpose of the study is to find the merits or demerits of gadolinium ions if added intentionally or present as unintentionally added impurity in tissue compensators or collimators in radiation treatment planning. These films are deposited by reactive sputtering at liquid nitrogen temperature, using 100-200 W RF power, 5-8 mTorr nitrogen, and a metal target of aluminum and gadolinium. Thermal annealing was performed at a temperature of 900 • C. A sharp ultraviolet peak is observed at 314 nm corresponding to 6 P 7/2 → 8 S 7/2 transition. The ultraviolet emission is intense enough to harm human tissues if it is used as tissue compensator. Intense ultraviolet emission is observable even if the concentration of gadolinium is less than 0.5%. Thermal annealing further enhances the intensity of ultraviolet emission, indicating that longer use of such tissue compensators or collimators containing gadolinium ions will provide more harm and damage to human body. Radiation Therapists, Oncologist and industries making tissue compensators and collimators are strongly suggested to test any compensator or collimator for gadolinium impurities

Physico-Chemical Characterization Of Sweet Chestnut (Castanea Sativa L.) Starch Grown In Temperate Climate Of Kashmir, India

Studies were conducted to characterize the chestnut starch for physico-chemical properties. Chemical composition of chestnut starch showed low levels of protein and ash indicating purity of starch. The results revealed low water and oil absorption capacity of chestnut starch. Starch showed high swelling power and low solubility index. Swelling power and solubility index of chestnut starch increased with increase in temperature (50–90 °C). The results revealed high initial, peak, setback, breakdown, and final viscosity but low paste development temperature. Transmittance (%) of the starch gel was low and decreased with increasing storage period. The chestnut starch gel showed increase in % water release (syneresis) with increase in time of storage but was less susceptible to repeated cycles of freezing and thawing. Starch was also characterized for granule morphology. Starch granules were of round and oval shapes, some granules showed irregular shape