Miniaturized Ring Resonator Wideband Bandpass Filter with Wide Stop Band

In this paper miniaturized quarter wavelength rectangular shaped multimode ring resonator bandpass filter with extended diagonal corners and internally located high impedance perturbation stubs, is proposed. Input/output open stubs are tightly coupled to the extended diagonal corners running parallel to the two sides of the ring resonator, implemented to generate wide passband and wide stop-band. Cut-off frequencies can be shifted to the higher side by increasing the length of the sides of resonator. By inserting the perturbation stubs, rectangular ring resonator produces three degenerate modes out of which first two form a wide passband. Small square patch is attached to the opposite interior corners of the ring resonator and T-shaped stub attached to the opposite longer side of the resonator are tightly coupled with feeder line to improve the return loss, insertion loss and skirt-characteristics. Shorter sides of the rectangular ring resonator are bent in U-shaped to increase the effective length of the resonator eventually the bandwidth is widened. Filter is designed and simulated for the center frequency of            3.2 GHz, bandwidth from 2.0 GHz to 4.0 GHz, on dielectric constant 3.38 and thickness 0.508 mm. Electromagnetic simulator Ansoft HFSS is used to optimize the filter dimensions

Economic Viability of Organic Farming: An Empirical Experience of Wheat Cultivation in Punjab

The present study has assessed the economic viability of organic wheat cultivation in Punjab by collecting primary data from 85 organic growers and 75 inorganic growers spread over 30 villages in the districts of Patiala and Faridkot for the period 2008-09. The area under organic farming has been found about 27 per cent of the total operational area in rabi season for the sample organic growers. The major share of organic area has been found under wheat crop, which accounted for 15 per cent of the total operational area of sample organic growers. The total variable cost on per acre basis for the cultivation of organic wheat has been found less as compared to inorganic wheat. The net returns over variable cost of organic and inorganic wheat have been observed as ` 21895/acre and ` 16700/acre for organic growers. The lower crop yield in organic wheat (6.7q/acre less) was well compensated by the higher price it fetched in the market. A wider varietal distribution has been observed for organic than inorganic wheat cultivation. The regression analysis has revealed that with one per cent increase in expenditure on farmyard manure + jeev amrit , biodynamic and machine labour, the organic wheat productivity would increase by 0.114 per cent, 0.703 per cent, 0.556 per cent, respectively, showing significant impact on value productivity. The study has observed that though organic wheat cultivation has been found more profitable for the growers in the study area, the significant reduction in its productivity level poses a serious challenge in term of food security for the nation.Organic farming, Wheat cultivation, Organic wheat, Punjab, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q12, Q16,

Economic potential for improving the nutritional characteristics of feed grains

A comprehensive set of potential new feed grains for Australia was evaluated to help establish the options with the highest priorities for research. The cost-reducing impacts of the different options were analysed using a linear-programming model that determined the least-cost feed rations for the different livestock industries. Economic welfare analysis was then used to estimate the size and distribution of the benefits of research from the feed grains quality-improving research. The analysis revealed that there are only limited opportunities to improve the productivity and competitiveness of Australia’s livestock industries by improving the nutritional characteristics of feed grains.Crop Production/Industries,

Economic impacts of NSW water sharing plan rules on irrigated agriculture: a case study of Coopers Creek

A water sharing plan is a legal document prepared under the Water Management Act 2000 (WMA) in New South Wales (NSW). It establishes the rules for sharing water between the environment and entitlement holders, with the goal of simultaneously protecting water dependant ecosystems and providing certainty for water users. In NSW 49 water sharing plans have commenced to date and another 40 plans are due to be commenced within next two years covering all surface and groundwater systems. The WMA requires that due consideration be given to the socio-economic impacts of the water sharing rules during preparation and mid-term reviews of the plans. This paper presents the framework used to undertake socio-economic assessment of the impacts of water sharing rules and a case study of impact assessment. The NSW Office of Water (the Office) has used a staged methodological framework that is consistent with the socio-economic assessment guidelines for river, groundwater and water management committees developed by the Independent Advisory Committee on Socio-economic Analysis (IACSEA 1998). This framework is simple, relevant and cost effective. The case study presents socio-economic impact assessment of water sharing rules of the Coopers Creek Water Sharing Plan that commenced in 2004. The results of the case study indicate that the proposed rules could have significant negative or positive impacts on regional irrigated production and employment. This shows that proposals for environmental gains may result in substantial economic losses to the irrigators.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Review and Implications of Traditional Indian Medicine for Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a group of intestinal disorders that cause prolonged inflammation of digestive tract. Chronic inflammation results in Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). There is a disruption of homeostasis of various regulatory factors, for example, cohesive functioning of intestinal epithelial barrier, macrophages, and cellular mediators such as cytokines and chemokines. Natural products derived from plants based on traditional system of medicine have exhibited efficacy for UC and CD in experimental models and clinical trials. In the present review, current developments of natural products and herbs for the treatment of IBD in the context of Indian traditional medicine have been highlighted. Two classes of Ayurvedic formulation, fermented preparations (Asava and Arishta) and Ghrita (preparations involving butter), are employed for the maintenance of intestinal disorders. Here, we discuss mainly about the fermented preparations, their main constituents, and correlations with modern findings. The way these fermented formulations are processed also affects the extraction of constituents in them. So, the correlation between the chemistry of the plant material (their constituents as well) with the IBD was done. These correlations may serve as a step forward to reduce the gap between modern system of medicine and traditional system of medicine

Sulfonation of arylamines : Part VII-Kinetics of thermal decomposition of tetramethyldianilinium sulfates

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Antileishmanial polyphenols from Corymbia maculata

An activity–guided fractionation was used to identify the antileishmanial compounds of Corymbia maculata. The hexane, ethyl acetate and methanol extracts were active in in vitro antileishmanial assay. Twelve polyphenols including 8-demethyl eucalyptin (1), eucalyptin (2), myrciaphenone A (3), myrciaphenone B (4), quercetin-3-O-β-D-xylopyranoside (5), myricetin-3-O-α-L-rhamnopyranoside (6), quercetin-3- O-β-D-galactopyranoside (7), quercetin-3-O-β-D-glucopyranoside (8), quercetin-3-O-α-L-rhamnopyranoside (9), syringic acid (10), gallic acid-3-methyl ether (11), gallic acid-4-methyl ether (12) and gallic acid (13) were isolated from the active extracts. All the tested compounds except 8-demethyleucalyptin and myrciaphenone B showed strong to moderate (6.9–24.5 μM) antileishmanial activity against Leishmania donovani promastigotes. An HPLC-PDA method has been developed to detect/quantify 29 compounds in the extracts of C. maculata leaves. This validated method allows simultaneous quantitation of seven flavonoids, fourteen phloroglucinols and eight other polyphenols and can be applied for qualitative as well as quantitative determination of phytoconstituents in Eucalyptus matrices

Quantitative Analysis of Various B-ring Unsubstituted and Substituted Flavonoids in Ten Australian Species of Eucalyptus

Flavonoids (in particular unsubstituted B ring flavanones) in Eucalyptus foliage play an important role in mediating animal plant interactions, and there is a need for methods to analyse the diverse profiles found in leaves. A simple, high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method with in-line connected photodiode-array (PDA) detection was developed and validated to identify and quantify nine B-ring unsubstituted and three B-ring substituted flavonoids in ten Australian species of Eucalyptus. Of these, eight compounds were detected and quantified in the crude methanolic extracts of leaves of various Eucalyptus species (E. sieberi, E. rossii, E. fastigata, E. macrorhyncha, E. fraxinoides, E. agglomerata, E. consideniana, E. pauciflora, E. dives and E. obliqua) based on comparison with the retention times and λmax values of pure compounds. This rapid and sensitive HPLC/PDA method was coupled with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS) for qualitative analysis to corroborate the identification of compounds by HPLC/PDA analysis

Lessons from a Space Lab -- An Image Acquisition Perspective

peer reviewedThe use of Deep Learning (DL) algorithms has improved the performance of vision-based space applications in recent years. However, generating large amounts of annotated data for training these DL algorithms has proven challenging. While synthetically generated images can be used, the DL models trained on synthetic data are often susceptible to performance degradation, when tested in real-world environments. In this context, the Interdisciplinary Center of Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) at the University of Luxembourg has developed the 'SnT Zero-G Lab', for training and validating vision-based space algorithms in conditions emulating real-world space environments. An important aspect of the SnT Zero-G Lab development was the equipment selection. From the lessons learned during the lab development, this article presents a systematic approach combining market survey and experimental analyses for equipment selection. In particular, the article focus on the image acquisition equipment in a space lab: background materials, cameras and illumination lamps. The results from the experiment analyses show that the market survey complimented by experimental analyses is required for effective equipment selection in a space lab development project.R-AGR-3874 - BRIDGES/20/14755859 MEET-A - LMO Contrib (01/01/2021 - 31/12/2023) - AOUADA Djamil