Studies on Seasonal Variation of Indoor Airborne Fungal Spores in Rabbit House

The indoor airborne fungal spore survey has been conducted for one year to assess the seasonal variation of the fungal flora in a rabbit house situated at Hessaraghatta village, near Bangalore city. The investigation was carried out by using an Andersen two stage viable sampler, at monthly intervals over a period of 12 months from January 2011 to December 2011. A total of 1.16 x 104 CFU/m3 belonging to fifteen different genera, excluding some unidentified ones were recorded. The differences in distribution among these fungi for seasonal and meteorological factors were correlated and the mean significant difference was expressed statistically at 0.05% and 0.01% level of significanc

The chiral quark condensate and pion decay constant in nuclear matter at next-to-leading order

Making use of the recently developed chiral power counting for the physics of nuclear matter [1,2], we evaluate the in-medium chiral quark condensate up to next-to-leading order for both symmetric nuclear matter and neutron matter. Our calculation includes the full in-medium iteration of the leading order local and one-pion exchange nucleon-nucleon interactions. Interestingly, we find a cancellation between the contributions stemming from the quark mass dependence of the nucleon mass appearing in the in-medium nucleon-nucleon interactions. Only the contributions originating from the explicit quark mass dependence of the pion mass survive. This cancellation is the reason of previous observations concerning the dominant role of the long-range pion contributions and the suppression of short-range nucleon-nucleon interactions. We find that the linear density contribution to the in-medium chiral quark condensate is only slightly modified for pure neutron matter by the nucleon-nucleon interactions. For symmetric nuclear matter the in-medium corrections are larger, although smaller compared to other approaches due to the full iteration of the lowest order nucleon-nucleon tree-level amplitudes. Our calculation satisfies the Hellmann-Feynman theorem to the order worked out. Also we address the problem of calculating the leading in-medium corrections to the pion decay constant. We find that there are no extra in-medium corrections that violate the Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner relation up to next-to-leading order.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figure

Highly tapered pentagonal bipyramidal Au microcrystals with high index faceted corrugation: synthesis and optical properties

Focusing light at sub-wavelength region opens up interesting applications in optical sensing and imaging beyond the diffraction limit. In the past, tapered Au wires with carved gratings have been employed to achieve nanofocusing. The fabrication process however, is expensive and the obtained wires are polycrystalline with high surface roughness. A chemical synthetic method overcoming these hurdles should be an attractive alternative. Here, we report a method to chemically synthesize Au microcrystals (∼10 μm) bearing pentagonal bipyramidal morphology with surface corrugations assignable to high index planes. The method is a single step solid state synthesis at a temperature amenable to common substrates. The microcrystals are tapered at both ends forming sharp tips (∼55 nm). Individual microcrystals have been used as pick and probe SERS substrates for a dye embedded in a polymer matrix. The unique geometry of the microcrystal also enables light propagation across its length

Understanding functional group and assembly dynamics in temperature responsive systems leads to design principles for enzyme responsive assemblies

Understanding the molecular rules behind the dynamics of supramolecular assemblies is fundamentally important for the rational design of responsive assemblies with tunable properties. Herein, we report that the dynamics of temperature-sensitive supramolecular assemblies is not only affected by the dehydration of oligoethylene glycol (OEG) motifs, but also by the thermally-promoted molecular motions. These counteracting features set up a dynamics transition point (DTP) that can be modulated with subtle variations in a small hydrophobic patch on the hydrophilic face of the amphiphilic assembly. Understanding the structural factors that control the dynamics of the assemblies leads to rational design of enzyme-responsive assemblies with tunable temperature responsive profiles

Bflier's: A Novel Butterfly Inspired Multi-robotic Model in Search of Signal Sources

The diversified ecology in nature had various forms of swarm behaviors in many species. The butterfly species is one of the prominent and a bit insightful in their random flights and converting that into an artificial metaphor would lead to enormous possibilities. This paper considers one such metaphor known as Butterfly Mating Optimization (BMO). In BMO, the Bfly follows the patrolling mating phenomena and simultaneously captures all the local optima of multimodal functions. To imitate this algorithm, a mobile robot (Bflybot) was designed to meet the features of the Bfly in the BMO algorithm. Also, the multi-Bflybot swarm is designed to act like butterflies in nature and follow the algorithm's rules. The real-time experiments were performed on the BMO algorithm in the multi-robotic arena and considered the signal source as the light source. The experimental results show that the BMO algorithm is applicable to detect multiple signal sources with significant variations in their movements i.e., static and dynamic. In the case of static signal sources, with varying initial locations of Bflybots, the convergence is affected in terms of time and smoothness. Whereas the experiments with varying step-size leads to their variation in the execution time and speed of the bots. In this work, experiments were performed in a dynamic environment where the movement of the signal source in both maneuvering and non-maneuvering scenarios. The Bflybot swarm is able to detect the single and multi-signal sources, moving linearly in between two fixed points, in circular, up and down movements.To evaluate the BMO phenomenon, various ongoing and prospective works such as mid-sea ship detection, aerial search applications, and earthquake prediction were discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 17 figure

A descriptive study on catchment area analysis and customer satisfaction towards big bazaar with special reference to Vadapalani Branch, Chennai

Customers' experience ultimately determine whether or not a company stays in business.The importance of customer satisfaction was a hot business topic in the 1980s, as customer satisfaction was considered the best window into loyalty.In the late '80s, however, researchers questioned whether customer satisfaction actually impacts overall performance.They found that the link between customer satisfaction and higher profits, ROI, or share of market is dubious.The research paper is about the identification of the customer satisfaction and catchment area of BIG BAZAAR'S Business in vadapalani branch and its service.The researcher used descriptive research, and simple random sampling to identify the sample.The sample size of 111 was included in the study. Researcher sued Chi square test to test the hypothesis

Separated cross sections in \pi^0 electroproduction at threshold at Q^2 = 0.05 GeV^2/c^2

The differential cross sections \sigma_0=\sigma_T+\epsilon \sigma_L, \sigma_{LT}, and \sigma_{TT} of \pi^0 electroproduction from the proton were measured from threshold up to an additional center of mass energy of 40 MeV, at a value of the photon four-momentum transfer of Q^2= 0.05 GeV^2/c^2 and a center of mass angle of \theta=90^\circ. By an additional out-of-plane measurement with polarized electrons \sigma_{LT'} was determined. This showed for the first time the cusp effect above the \pi^+ threshold in the imaginary part of the s-wave. The predictions of Heavy Baryon Chiral Perturbation Theory are in disagreement with these data. On the other hand, the data are somewhat better predicted by the MAID phenomenological model and are in good agreement with the dynamical model DMT.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Magnetic dipole moment of the Δ+\Delta^+(1232) from the γp→γπ0p\gamma p \to \gamma \pi^0 p reaction

The $\gamma p \to \gamma \pi^0 p$ reaction in the $\Delta(1232)$-resonance region is investigated as a method to access the $\Delta^+(1232)$ magnetic dipole moment. The calculations are performed within the context of an effective Lagrangian model containing both the $\Delta$-resonant mechanism and a background of non-resonant contributions to the $\gamma p \to \gamma \pi^0 p$ reaction. Results are shown both for existing and forthcoming $\gamma p \to \gamma \pi^0 p$ experiments. In particular, the sensitivity of unpolarized cross sections and photon asymmetries to the $\Delta^+$ magnetic dipole moment is displayed for those forthcoming data.Comment: 25 pages, 11 figure

Coherent \pi^0 threshold production from the deuteron at Q^2 = 0.1 GeV^2/c^2

First data on coherent threshold \pi^0 electroproduction from the deuteron taken by the A1 Collaboration at the Mainz Microtron MAMI are presented. At a four-momentum transfer of q^2=-0.1 GeV^2/c^2 the full solid angle was covered up to a center-of-mass energy of 4 MeV above threshold. By means of a Rosenbluth separation the longitudinal threshold s wave multipole and an upper limit for the transverse threshold s wave multipole could be extracted and compared to predictions of Heavy Baryon Chiral Perturbation Theory.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, latex2

Determination of the pion-nucleon coupling constant and scattering lengths

We critically evaluate the isovector GMO sum rule for forward pion-nucleon scattering using the recent precision measurements of negatively charged pion-proton and pion-deuteron scattering lengths from pionic atoms. We deduce the charged-pion-nucleon coupling constant, with careful attention to systematic and statistical uncertainties. This determination gives, directly from data a pseudoscalar coupling constant of 14.11+-0.05(statistical)+-0.19(systematic) or a pseudovector one of 0.0783(11). This value is intermediate between that of indirect methods and the direct determination from backward neutron-proton differential scattering cross sections. We also use the pionic atom data to deduce the coherent symmetric and antisymmetric sums of the negatively charged pion-proton and pion-neutron scattering lengths with high precision. The symmetric sum gives 0.0012+-0.0002(statistical)+-0.0008 (systematic) and the antisymmetric one 0.0895+-0.0003(statistical)+-0.0013(systematic), both in units of inverse charged pion-mass. For the need of the present analysis, we improve the theoretical description of the pion-deuteron scattering length.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. C, few modifications and clarifications, no change in substance of the pape