Characterization of Macerals in Coal Fines using Image Analysis Technique

Coal is an aggregate of heterogeneous substance consisting of various or aiiic cemsti-tnents so called nuacerals along with inorganic matter. These inacerals have been broadly classified into three major maceral groups i.e. vitrinite, exinite (liptinite) and inertinite. Coal-fines of size less than 0.5 mm, collected from Moonidih coal washery, was used in the present stud. These coal fines were subjected to size analysis and sink-float analysis. The products obtained at different size and density fractions were mounted in resin + hardener mixture using standard sample preparation technique and polished- The polished samples were examined tender- microscope inte-rfaced with image analyzer: Results indicate that size and density fractions have a significant influence on the changes in the maceral concentrations. The same has been discussed in terms of physical coal cleaning, process

Two-Body Abrasive Wear Behaviour of In-Situ Al-TiC Particle Composites: Influence of TiC Reinforcement and Content in the Alloy Matrix and Experimental Parameters

This study pertains to observations made on the abrasive wear response of Al-TiC composites under varying applied load and traversal distance conditions. The influence of TiC particle reinforcement and its content in the matrix on the abrasion characteristics of the samples was investigated. The composites were prepared by generating the reinforcement phase (TiC particles) from within the matrix employing a hybrid in-situ technique consisting of a combination of steps involved in powder and liquid metallurgy routes of synthesizing metal matrix composites. The unreinforced matrix alloy (AA2014) was also tested under identical experimental conditions for comparison purposes. Properties characterized were wear rate, frictional heating and friction coefficient. Microstructural features of the samples and characteristics of wear surfaces, subsurface regions and abrasive medium have also been examined.   The TiC reinforcement led to improved abrasion resistance (inverse of wear rate), the degree of improvement increasing further with the rising concentration of the TiC particles in the alloy matrix. Increasing applied load led to deterioration in the wear behaviour of the samples while a reverse trend was followed as the traversal distance was raised. The severity of frictional heating was noted to increase with load. On the contrary, friction coefficient tended to decrease with increasing load except for the composite containing the highest concentration of TiC wherein a reverse trend was noticed. Both frictional heating and friction coefficient increased sharply with traversal distance initially. This was followed by a reduction in the rate of temperature increase at longer traversal distances whereas friction coefficient was observed to attain steady state condition after showing a decrease in some cases. The presence of TiC reinforcement in the alloy matrix and its increasing content led to a decrease in the friction coefficient and the severity of frictional heating. The observed wear behaviour has been substantiated through the characteristics of abraded surfaces and subsurface regions of the samples and degradation of the abrasive medium. Operating material removal mechanisms have also been examined. &nbsp

The Influence of Lead Suspension in Oil Lubricant on the Sliding Wear Behaviour of Cast Iron

This investigation pertains to the analysis of the sliding wear response of a cast iron over a range of applied pressures in the presence of an oil lubricant. The effect of varying concentrations of lead particles suspended in the oil lubricant on the wear behaviour of the cast iron was also examined. The wear rate increased with pressure initially at a lower rate followed by a higher rate of increase beyond a specific pressure. Furthermore, the presence of suspended lead particles up to a specific concentration in the oil proved beneficial while the trend reversed at still higher concentrations. The extent of frictional heating increased with test duration at a high rate in the beginning of the tests. This was followed by a reduced rate of temperature increase at longer test durations. In some cases, the rate of temperature rise increased once again while it reduced in one case towards the end of the tests. The severity and extent of frictional heating also increased with pressure. Lead addition to the oil lubricant up to a specific concentration led to a reduced degree of heating while the trend reversed at still higher lead contents. Specimen seizure caused significantly high wear rate and frictional heating. The observed wear response of the samples has been explained in terms of specific characteristics like cracking tendency and lubricating and load bearing capacity of various microconstituents of the specimen material. Another important factor of concern affecting wear characteristics was observed to be lubricating film formation and its stability during sliding. The wear behaviour has also been substantiated through the characteristics of wear surfaces and subsurface regions

RoboPol: First season rotations of optical polarization plane in blazars

We present first results on polarization swings in optical emission of blazars obtained by RoboPol, a monitoring program of an unbiased sample of gamma-ray bright blazars specially designed for effective detection of such events. A possible connection of polarization swing events with periods of high activity in gamma rays is investigated using the dataset obtained during the first season of operation. It was found that the brightest gamma-ray flares tend to be located closer in time to rotation events, which may be an indication of two separate mechanisms responsible for the rotations. Blazars with detected rotations have significantly larger amplitude and faster variations of polarization angle in optical than blazars without rotations. Our simulations show that the full set of observed rotations is not a likely outcome (probability $\le 1.5 \times 10^{-2}$) of a random walk of the polarization vector simulated by a multicell model. Furthermore, it is highly unlikely ($\sim 5 \times 10^{-5}$) that none of our rotations is physically connected with an increase in gamma-ray activity.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figure

A generalization of the Entropy Power Inequality to Bosonic Quantum Systems

In most communication schemes information is transmitted via travelling modes of electromagnetic radiation. These modes are unavoidably subject to environmental noise along any physical transmission medium and the quality of the communication channel strongly depends on the minimum noise achievable at the output. For classical signals such noise can be rigorously quantified in terms of the associated Shannon entropy and it is subject to a fundamental lower bound called entropy power inequality. Electromagnetic fields are however quantum mechanical systems and then, especially in low intensity signals, the quantum nature of the information carrier cannot be neglected and many important results derived within classical information theory require non-trivial extensions to the quantum regime. Here we prove one possible generalization of the Entropy Power Inequality to quantum bosonic systems. The impact of this inequality in quantum information theory is potentially large and some relevant implications are considered in this work

The thermodynamic meaning of negative entropy

Landauer's erasure principle exposes an intrinsic relation between thermodynamics and information theory: the erasure of information stored in a system, S, requires an amount of work proportional to the entropy of that system. This entropy, H(S|O), depends on the information that a given observer, O, has about S, and the work necessary to erase a system may therefore vary for different observers. Here, we consider a general setting where the information held by the observer may be quantum-mechanical, and show that an amount of work proportional to H(S|O) is still sufficient to erase S. Since the entropy H(S|O) can now become negative, erasing a system can result in a net gain of work (and a corresponding cooling of the environment).Comment: Added clarification on non-cyclic erasure and reversible computation (Appendix E). For a new version of all technical proofs see the Supplementary Information of the journal version (free access

Quantum Correlations in NMR systems

In conventional NMR experiments, the Zeeman energy gaps of the nuclear spin ensembles are much lower than their thermal energies, and accordingly exhibit tiny polarizations. Generally such low-purity quantum states are devoid of quantum entanglement. However, there exist certain nonclassical correlations which can be observed even in such systems. In this chapter, we discuss three such quantum correlations, namely, quantum contextuality, Leggett-Garg temporal correlations, and quantum discord. In each case, we provide a brief theoretical background and then describe some results from NMR experiments.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figure