Studying The Optical Properties of CdO and CdO: Bi Thin Films

Cadmium Oxide and Bi doped Cadmium Oxide thin films are prepared by using the chemical spray pyrolysis technique a glass substrate at a temperature of (400?C) with volumetric concentration (2,4)%. The thickness of all prepared films is about (400±20) nm. Transmittance and Absorbance spectra are recorded in the wave length ranged (400-800) nm. The nature of electronic transitions is determined, it is found out that these films have directly allowed transition with an optical energy gap of (2.37( eV for CdO and ) 2.59, 2.62) eV for (2% ,4%) Bi doped CdO respectively. The optical constants have been evaluated before and after doping

Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) alters the phytochemical constituents in tomato fruits.

An investigation was conducted in order to evaluate the responses of field grown tomato varieties (Marglove and Roma VF) to tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV). Fruit samples from the virus-infected and uninfected plants were collected at 20 (early stage), 40 (intermediate stage) and 60 days (ripening stage) after anthesis. Results showed higher virus RNA content in fruits of infected plants at early (42.48 to 38.24%) and intermediate stages (34.35 to 19.57%). There was a substantial decrease in DNA content (27.27 and 21.05%) at early and (23.08 and 43.75%) at intermediate stages of both Marglove and Roma VF, compared to the control, respectively. Similarly, indole acetic acid content was also decreased (27.08 and 24.29%) in fruits of virus-infected Marglove and Roma VF, respectively. The free ascorbic acid content was found lower (35.29 to 51.52%), while combined ascorbic acid was higher (13.91 to 33.33%) in both varieties. Neither the responses of individual organic acids nor their concentrations in fruits of infected and control plants were identical. Fumaric acid was not detected either in fruits of infected plants of Marglove or in healthy and infected Roma VF. Individual fruit weight and fruit numbers per plant were lower in the virus-infected plants. This study indicates that the yield of infected tomato plants could be reduced by the infection of TYLCV due to the changes in the concentrations of phytochemical constituents. This suggests that monitoring and management of TYLCV incidence is crucial for yield and quality optimization of field grown tomato

Effect of Growth Media, pH and Temperature on Yeast to Hyphal Transition in Candida albicans

The transition of C. albicans from unicellular yeast form to filamentous form i.e., pseudohyphae and hyphae is referred to as morphogenesis. C. albicans has the ability to respond to environmental conditions and accordingly changing its cell morphology. Three main morphological forms of C. albicans are unicellular yeast, pseudohyphae and hyphae. The effect of different growth media (Horse serum medium, RPMI-1640, MSGB), incubation temperatures (34˚C, 37˚C, 40˚C) and pH values (5.4, 6.4, 7.4) on germ tube production by C. albicans was evaluated. Horse serum medium noticeably promotes filamentation while RPMI-1640 medium shows moderate filamentation and MSGB media shows moderately low filamentation. The germ tube of C. albicans developed early in 1.5 hr at high temperature i.e., 40˚C. Incubation temperature of 37˚C was associated with highest germ tube formation while 34˚C shows low filamentation. A pH of 5.4 also induces low filamentation, pH 6.4 gives moderately lower than pH 7.4. A pH of 7.4 was best suited for germ tube induction. The peak of mycelium production appears between 1.5 and 6 hr after inoculation of C. albicans culture. These results suggested that environmental factors are important in selectively favoring yeast or hyphal form, most important being the growth medium, incubation temperature and external pH value

Unravelling thermal-mechanical effects on microstructure evolution under superplastic forming conditions in a near alpha titanium alloy

The superplastic formability of titanium alloys has been extensively exploited by various industries, especially for manufacturing of high value aerospace components. Material's microstructural characteristics, such as grain size and dislocations density, determine superplastic formability during manufacturing process and various constitutive relationships have been proposed to take their effects into consideration in modelling and simulation. However, most existing models do not include all these characteristics in their analyses due to the limitations in characterization techniques. This paper reports the results of a systematic study on the effects of thermal (i.e., static) and mechanical (i.e., dynamic) process parameters on the evolution of dislocations and microstructure, both independently and simultaneously, at superplastic forming regime. The evolution of microstructural phase fraction, grain size, crystallographic texture, and geometrically necessary dislocation (GND) density are investaged over a temperature range of 880–920 °C and under strain rates between 0.0005 and 0.01s−1. The results provide valuable insights into the microstructure evolution during superplastic forming on TA15 titanium alloy and form a basis for future physically based constitutive modelling

Compressive strength prediction of lightweight short columns at elevated temperature using gene expression programing and artificial neural network

The experimental behavior of reinforced concrete elements exposed to fire is limited in the literature. Although there are few experimental programs that investigate the behavior of lightweight short columns, there is still a lack of formulation that can accurately predict their ultimate load at elevated temperature. Thus, new equations are proposed in this study to predict the compressive strength of the lightweight short column using Gene Expression Programming (GEP) and Artificial neural networks (ANN). A total of 83 data set is used to establish GEP and ANN models where 70% of the data are used for training and 30% of the data are used for validation and testing. The predicting variables are temperature, concrete compressive strength, steel yield strength, and spacing between stirrups. The developed models are compared with the ACI equation for short columns. The results have shown that the GEP and ANN models have a strong potential to predict the compressive strength of the lightweight short column. The predicted compressive strengths of short lightweight columns using the GEP and ANN models are closer to the experimental results than that obtained using the ACI equations

Role of fertilization regime on soil carbon sequestration and crop yield in a maize-cowpea intercropping system on low fertility soils

Achieving food security through intensive agricultural practices on low fertility soils is challenging as crop productivity is increasingly curtailed by the loss of soil structural stability and rapid depletion of soil organic carbon (SOC). As such, the conversion from traditional mono-cropping to legume-cereal intercropping, especially with integrated fertilization, may increase crop yields with the least ecological footprint. We set up a 2-year field experiment in a split-plot design with cowpea-maize monoculture and intercropping under different organic-inorganic fertilization regimes, including no fertilization (control), organic input only (compost), chemical input only (NPK), and multi-nutrient enriched compost (NPKEC). We observed that intercropped maize had a significantly higher biomass yield compared to the corresponding monoculture when fertilized with NPKEC fertilizer. However, cowpea biomass yield differences between monoculture and intercropped plots were comparable under all fertilization regimes. In contrast, the grain yield advantage of both maize and cowpea was significantly enhanced under the intercropping system compared to monoculture, with NPKEC showing the most significant effect among all fertilization regimes. When comparing the relative contribution of the fertilization regime to SOC, the NPKEC fertilizer provided the highest SOC-sequestration (0.30 Mg C/ha yr−1). At the same time, the effect of the cropping system on C-sequestration showed that intercropping provided the highest C-sequestration (0.17 Mg C/ha yr−1) compared to monocultures of both crops. Although compost application significantly increased mineral associated (MAOC) and particulate associated organic carbon (PAOC) concentrations compared to unfertilized control plots, NPKEC fertilization with intercropping system was the most effective combination causing the greatest increase of both soil C pools over time. Based on redundancy analysis (RDA), the positive association of MAOC and PAOC with C-sequestration suggests the importance of both organic fractions as primary C reservoirs conducting SOC storage. Importantly, although compost alone in association with intercropping had a lower C-sequestration, it was associated to a better soil structure as confirmed by its positive relationship with macro-and micro-aggregation, water stable aggregates (WSA), and mean weight diameter (MDA). Overall, our results indicate the importance of restoring soil structure in degraded soils through appropriate land management solutions, such as stoichiometrically balanced fertilization practices (NPKEC) and crop diversification (intercropping), in order to achieve significant gains in SOC storage and, ultimately, improve crop productivity

Ethnic Variation in Inflammatory Profile in Tuberculosis

PMCID: PMC3701709This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

The BILAG-2004 index is associated with development of new damage in SLE

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether BILAG-2004 index is associated with the development of damage in a cohort of SLE patients. Mortality and development of damage were examined.METHODS: This was a multicentre longitudinal study. Patients were recruited within 12 months of achieving 4th ACR classification criterion for SLE. Data were collected on disease activity, damage, SLE-specific drug exposure, cardiovascular risk factors, antiphospholipid syndrome status and death at every visit. This study ran from 1st January 2005 to 31st December 2017. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse mortality and development of new damage. Poisson regression was used to examine potential explanatory variables for development of new damage.RESULTS: 273 SLE patients were recruited with total follow-up of 1767 patient-years (median 73.4 months). There were 6348 assessments with disease activity scores available for analysis. During follow-up, 13 deaths and 114 new damage items (in 83 patients) occurred. The incidence rate for development of damage was higher in the first 3 years before stabilising at a lower rate. Overall rate for damage accrual was 61.1 per 1000 person-years (95% CI : 50.6, 73.8). Analysis showed that active disease scores according to BILAG-2004 index (systems scores of A or B, counts of systems with A and BILAG-2004 numerical score) were associated with development of new damage. Low disease activity (LDA) states (BILAG-2004 LDA and BILAG Systems Tally (BST) persistent LDA) were inversely associated with development of damage.CONCLUSIONS: BILAG-2004 index is associated with new damage. BILAG-2004 LDA and BST persistent LDA can be considered as treatment targets.</p