New-Age Al-Cu-Mn-Zr (ACMZ) Alloy for High Temperature-High Strength Applications: A Review

One of the prime challenges with age hardened Al-Cu alloys is the strength degradation at high temperatures (above ∼250°C) due to the coarsening of strengthening θ′ precipitates and associated metastable θ′ → stable θ phase transformation. A recent discovery suggests that micro-alloying with Manganese (Mn) and Zirconium (Zr) can synergistically restrict θ′ precipitate coarsening, thereby rendering an excellent high temperature stability for Al-Cu-Mn-Zr (ACMZ) alloys. The θ′ precipitates are stabilized primarily from the reduction of interfacial energy by preferential solute segregation (Mn & Zr) at θ′ precipitate/α-Al matrix interfaces. The Al-Cu-Mn-Zr alloys thereby exhibit excellent high temperature hardness and tensile properties (yield and ultimate tensile strength) in addition to superior fatigue life and creep resistance. This newly developed Al-Cu-Mn-Zr alloys also showed excellent hot tearing resistance compared to the conventional cast Al-Cu alloys so much so that it meets the industrial standards as well. These alloys also have promising manufacturing possibility by additive route. Overall, Al-Cu-Mn-Zr alloys offer great potential for the automotive industry because of their unprecedented high temperature performance which should enable engineers to build light weight passenger vehicles leading to a safer and greener environment

Development of Composite Stability Measure using Multi Criteria Decisions Making (MCDM) Techniques

Not AvailableOne of the most important challenges facing Indian agriculture is to provide food & nutritional security for rural resource-poor communities in the wake of decreasing land holdings. Hence, the selection of a suitable cultivar or variety for a specific environment is very much essential. The farmer’s risk can be minimized and it may improve their economic condition through selection of stable genotypes by using a suitable stability measure. Evaluation of genotypes on the basis of stability measures is essential for yield trials in different environments. Though large numbers of stability measures are available in the literature, deciding the proper stability measure for selecting stable genotypes is problematic. Multiple Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) technique or Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) has been employed to develop the proposed measure. In the present study, a suitable composite measure is developed by combining several methods into a single aggregate method by using MCDM technique, for selecting suitable genotypes which would be stable to environmental variations.ICA

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One of the most important challenges facing Indian agriculture is to provide food & nutritional security for rural resource-poor communities in the wake of decreasing land holdings. Hence, selection of suitable cultivar or variety for specific environment is very much essential. The farmer’s risk can be minimized and it may improve their economic condition through selection of stable genotypes by using a suitable stability measure. Evaluation of genotypes on the basis of stability measure is essential for yield trials in different environments. Though, large numbers of stability measures are available in literature, but deciding the proper stability measure for selecting stable genotypes is problematic. Multiple Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) technique or Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) has been employed to develop the proposed measure. In the present study, a suitable composite measure is developed by combining several methods into a single aggregate method by using MCDM technique, for selecting suitable genotypes which would be stable to environmental variations.Not Availabl

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Not AvailableBiochar application to soil has been projected as an approach to improve soil quality, which can also infuence soil microbial activities. In this experiment, we have utilized four dissimilar feedstocks derived biochar amendments. The highest microbial biomass carbon was found in Lantana camara (LC) biochar followed by pine needle (PN), maize stalk (MS) and lowest in black gram (BG) biochar. The dehydrogenase activity in diferent biochar treatment increased signifcantly along with control with increase in incubation days except pine biochar where dehydrogenase decreased. Biochar application in soil increased acid phosphatase compared to control. The highest alkaline phosphatase was found in MS and it was 20.56, 31.27, 42.52, 57.62 and 69.56 at 1, 7, 30, 60 and 90 days of incubation, respectively. The highest urease was found in LC followed by BG, MS and lowest in PN among the biochar at both the biochar application rate. The biochar application augmented the protease enzyme activity in soil, which might be due to augmenting the accessibility of inorganic nitrogen. The highest fuorescein diacetate was found in LC and it was 10.12, 17.62, 24.62, 32.86 and 37.56 at 1, 7, 30, 60 and 90 days of incubation, respectively. The increased biological indicator was more at 2.5 t/ha biochar application rate than 5.0 t/ha i.e. lower concentration of biochar enhanced more than higher concentration. This laboratory study demonstrated that biochar application can proft incubated acid soils by improving microbial biomass carbon up-lift while increasing potential soil enzyme activityNot Availabl

Sequence-Selective Binding of Phenazinium Dyes Phenosafranin and Safranin O to Guanine-Cytosine Deoxyribopolynucleotides: Spectroscopic and Thermodynamic Studies

The sequence selectivity of the DNA binding of the phenazinium dyes phenosafranin and safranin O have been investigated with four sequence-specific deoxyribopolynucleotides from spectroscopic and calorimetric studies. The alternating guanine-cytosine sequence selectivity of the dyes has been revealed from binding affinity values, circular dichroism, thermal melting, competition dialysis, and calorimetric results. The binding affinities of both the dyes to the polynucleotides were of the order of 105 M-1, but the values were higher for the guanine-cytosine polynucleotides over adenine-thymine ones. Phenosafranin had a higher binding affinity compared to safranin O. Isothermal titration calorimetric studies revealed that the binding reactions were exothermic and favored by negative enthalpy and predominantly large positive entropy contributions in all cases except poly(dA) · poly(dT) where the profile was anomalous. Although charged, nonpolyelectrolytic contribution was revealed to be dominant to the free energy of binding. The negative heat capacity values obtained from the temperature dependence of enthalpy changes, which were higher for phenosafranin compared to safranin O, suggested significant hydrophobic contribution to the binding process. In aggregate, the data presents evidence for the alternating guanine-cytosine base pair selectivity of these phenazinium dyes and a stronger binding of phenosafranin over safranin O