Generalized Electromagnetic fields in Chiral Medium

The time dependent Dirac-Maxwell's Equations in presence of electric and magnetic sources are written in chiral media and the solutions for the classical problem are obtained in unique simple and consistent manner. The quaternion reformulation of generalized electromagnetic fields in chiral media has also been developed in compact, simple and consistent manner

Impact of exogenous application of Indole Acetic Acid on accumulation of heavy metal and antioxidants in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) under sewage water irrigation

A field experiment was conducted to study the activities of antioxidative enzymes SOD, CAT & GR, non-enzymatic antioxidants i.e. carotenoid & proline and uptake of heavy metals (Pb, Cr, Zn, Cu and Fe) in winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) variety PBW-343 grown under sewage water (SW) collected from Quilla channel of Bareilly city (U.P), India. Wheat was irrigated with two concentrations (50% and 100%) of sewage water along with exogenous application of 10 and 20 ppm Indole-3 Acetic Acid (IAA). Enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidant was significantly higher in 100% SW as compared to 50% SW. There was a significant (p<0.001) increase in carotenoid and proline content whereas decrease in uptake of toxic heavy metals was observed in wheat  irrigated with SW+10 and 20 ppm IAA as compared to SW and control. Further, significant (p<0.001) decline in carotenoid and proline content was evident in 20 ppm IAA as compared to 10 ppm IAA in both the concentrations of SW. In contrast, under both the concentrations of SW, heavy metals especially Cr found to decrease (p<0.05) whereas significant decrease was also noticed in Zn, Cu and Fe uptake on application of 20 ppm IAA as compared to 10 ppm IAA and SW alone.&nbsp

Analysis of MAGSAT data of the Indian region

Progress in the development of software for reading MAGSAT data tapes and for the reduction of anomaly data, and in the preparation of data for magnetic anomaly maps is reported

Detection of long term modulation orbital cycles in the sea level oscillations using clean algorithm of spectral analysis

The need for a unified astronomical theory of sea-level changes and associated climatic variations motivates the search for Milankovich eccentricity rhythms in the global sea level variations. The available latest sea level record exhibits long term trend with superimposed higher order frequency oscillations. A new powerful spectral technique based on the one dimensional clean deconvolution algorithm, is applied to the global sea level fluctuations record of the past 30 million years. The spectrum analysis reveals statistically significant (at 90% confidence level) and “clean” cyclicity of 2000 kyr, 1250 kyr, 880 kry, 660 kyr, 416 kyr, and 260 kry. Statistically significant sea level cycles indicate possible link with climate and orbital cycles. A principal cycle (Ep) of 413 kyr corresponds to the well known orbital eccentricity cycle. The remaining higher order periodicities are integral multiples of Ep (e.g., Ep/2, 3Ep/2, 2Ep, 3Ep, 5Ep,), equivalent to those of the modulation of orbital eccentricity-precession cycles. Matching periodicities of the sea level changes and climatic rhythms, and long term modulation of orbital variations demonstrate significant role of orbital cycles in these processes and integrate the Milankovich paradigm of orbital forcing to coupled climate-sea level interactions

Quaternion Gravi-Electromagnetism

Defining the generalized charge, potential, current and generalized fields as complex quantities where real and imaginary parts represent gravitation and electromagnetism respectively, corresponding field equation, equation of motion and other quantum equations are derived in manifestly covariant manner. It has been shown that the field equations are invariant under Lorentz as well as duality transformations. It has been shown that the quaternionic formulation presented here remains invariant under quaternion transformations.Comment: Key Words: Quaternion, dyons, gravito-dyons, gravi-electromagnetism. PACS No.: 04.90. +e ; 14.80. H

Gamma ray production cross sections in proton induced reactions on natural Mg, Si and Fe targets over the proton energy range 30 up to 66 MeV

Gamma-ray excitation functions have been measured for 30, 42, 54 and 66 MeV proton beams accelerated onto C + O (Mylar), Mg, Si, and Fe targets of astrophysical interest at the separate-sector cyclotron of iThemba LABS in Somerset West (Cape Town, South Africa). A large solid angle, high energy resolution detection system of the Eurogam type was used to record Gamma-ray energy spectra. Derived preliminary results of Gamma-ray line production cross sections for the Mg, Si and Fe target nuclei are reported and discussed. The current cross section data for known, intense Gamma-ray lines from these nuclei consistently extend to higher proton energies previous experimental data measured up to Ep ~ 25 MeV at the Orsay and Washington tandem accelerators. Data for new Gamma-ray lines observed for the first time in this work are also reported.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures. IOP Institute of Physics Conference Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics VII, 28th EPF Nuclear Physics Divisional Conference, May 18-22 2015, York, U

Predicting the Starquakes in PSR J0537-6910

We report on more than 7 years of monitoring of PSR J0537-6910, the 16 ms pulsar in the Large Magellanic Cloud, using data acquired with the RXTE. During this campaign the pulsar experienced 23 sudden increases in frequency (``glitches'') amounting to a total gain of over six ppm of rotation frequency superposed on its gradual spindown of d(nu)/d(t) = -2e-10 Hz/s. The time interval from one glitch to the next obeys a strong linear correlation to the amplitude of the first glitch, with a mean slope of about 400 days ppm (6.5 days per uHz), such that these intervals can be predicted to within a few days, an accuracy which has never before been seen in any other pulsar. There appears to be an upper limit of ~40 uHz for the size of glitches in_all_ pulsars, with the 1999 April glitch of J0537 as the largest so far. The change in the spindown of J0537 across the glitches, Delta(d(nu)/d(t)), appears to have the same hard lower limit of -1.5e-13 Hz/s, as, again, that observed in all other pulsars. The spindown continues to increase in the long term, d(d(nu)/d(t))/d(t) = -1e-21 Hz/s/s, and thus the timing age of J0537 (-0.5 nu d(nu)/d(t)) continues to decrease at a rate of nearly one year every year, consistent with movement of its magnetic moment away from its rotational axis by one radian every 10,000 years, or about one meter per year. J0537 was likely to have been born as a nearly-aligned rotator spinning at 75-80 Hz, with a |d(nu)/d(t)| considerably smaller than its current value of 2e-10 Hz/s. The pulse profile of J0537 consists of a single pulse which is found to be flat at its peak for at least 0.02 cycles.Comment: 54 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. Cleaner figure 2. V4 -- in line with version accepted by Ap

Comparative genomic analysis reveals habitat-specific genes and regulatory hubs within the genus Novosphingobium

© The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in mSystems 2 (2017): e00020-17, doi:10.1128/mSystems.00020-17.Species belonging to the genus Novosphingobium are found in many different habitats and have been identified as metabolically versatile. Through comparative genomic analysis, we identified habitat-specific genes and regulatory hubs that could determine habitat selection for Novosphingobium spp. Genomes from 27 Novosphingobium strains isolated from diverse habitats such as rhizosphere soil, plant surfaces, heavily contaminated soils, and marine and freshwater environments were analyzed. Genome size and coding potential were widely variable, differing significantly between habitats. Phylogenetic relationships between strains were less likely to describe functional genotype similarity than the habitat from which they were isolated. In this study, strains (19 out of 27) with a recorded habitat of isolation, and at least 3 representative strains per habitat, comprised four ecological groups—rhizosphere, contaminated soil, marine, and freshwater. Sulfur acquisition and metabolism were the only core genomic traits to differ significantly in proportion between these ecological groups; for example, alkane sulfonate (ssuABCD) assimilation was found exclusively in all of the rhizospheric isolates. When we examined osmolytic regulation in Novosphingobium spp. through ectoine biosynthesis, which was assumed to be marine habitat specific, we found that it was also present in isolates from contaminated soil, suggesting its relevance beyond the marine system. Novosphingobium strains were also found to harbor a wide variety of mono- and dioxygenases, responsible for the metabolism of several aromatic compounds, suggesting their potential to act as degraders of a variety of xenobiotic compounds. Protein-protein interaction analysis revealed β-barrel outer membrane proteins as habitat-specific hubs in each of the four habitats—freshwater (Saro_1868), marine water (PP1Y_AT17644), rhizosphere (PMI02_00367), and soil (V474_17210). These outer membrane proteins could play a key role in habitat demarcation and extend our understanding of the metabolic versatility of the Novosphingobium species.This work was supported by grants from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), R.K., S.H., K.P., A.B., and U.S. gratefully acknowledge the National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Microorganisms (NBAIM), Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), N-PDF (PDF/2015/000062), (PDF/2015, 000319), University Grant Commission (UGC) for the Dr. D. S. Kothari Postdoctoral Fellowship and UGC for providing fellowships, respectively

How to Compute Worst-Case Execution Time by Optimization Modulo Theory and a Clever Encoding of Program Semantics

International audienceIn systems with hard real-time constraints, it is necessary to compute upper bounds on the worst-case execution time (WCET) of programs; the closer the bound to the real WCET, the better. This is especially the case of synchronous reactive control loops with a fixed clock; the WCET of the loop body must not exceed the clock period. We compute the WCET (or at least a close upper bound thereof) as the solution of an optimization modulo theory problem that takes into account the semantics of the program, in contrast to other methods that compute the longest path whether or not it is feasible according to these semantics. Optimization modulo theory extends satisfiability modulo theory (SMT) to maximization problems. Immediate encodings of WCET problems into SMT yield formulas intractable for all current production-grade solvers; this is inherent to the DPLL(T) approach to SMT implemented in these solvers. By conjoining some appropriate "cuts" to these formulas, we considerably reduce the computation time of the SMT-solver. We experimented our approach on a variety of control programs, using the OTAWA analyzer both as baseline and as underlying microarchitectural analysis for our analysis, and show notable improvement on the WCET bound on a variety of benchmarks and control programs

Racial Differences in Association of Elevated Interleukin-18 Levels With Type 2 Diabetes: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study

Elevated plasma interleukin-18 (IL-18) has been linked to onset of diabetes mellitus (DM) and its complications. However, so far this association has been shown only in predominantly white populations. We examined IL-18 levels and their association with incident DM in a racially heterogeneous population. In a nested case-cohort design representing a 9-year follow-up of 9,740 middle-aged, initially healthy, nondiabetic white and African American participants of the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, we selected and measured analytes on race-stratified (50% white, 50% African American) random samples of both cases of incident diabetes (n = 548) and eligible members of the full cohort (n = 536). Baseline IL-18 levels were significantly higher in white participants compared with African American participants (P < 0.001). Although white participants in the fourth (versus first) quartile of IL-18 levels had a significant hazard ratio (HR) for developing DM (HR: 2.1, 95% CI: 1.3-3.4), after adjustment for age, sex, and study center, no difference was seen among African Americans (HR: 1.0, 95% CI: 0.6-1.7). Unlike those in African Americans, IL-18 levels in whites had a significant correlation with age (P < 0.01); anthropometric characteristics such as waist circumference (P < 0.001), height (P = 0.04), waist-to-hip ratio (P < 0.001), and BMI (P < 0.01); and total (P < 0.001) and high-molecular-weight (P < 0.001) adiponectin. There are racial differences in levels of IL-18 and the association of IL-18 with risk factors and incident type 2 DM. In addition, there seems to be a complex interplay of inflammation and adiposity in the development of DM