FABRIC: A National-Scale Programmable Experimental Network Infrastructure

FABRIC is a unique national research infrastructure to enable cutting-edge and exploratory research at-scale in networking, cybersecurity, distributed computing and storage systems, machine learning, and science applications. It is an everywhere-programmable nationwide instrument comprised of novel extensible network elements equipped with large amounts of compute and storage, interconnected by high speed, dedicated optical links. It will connect a number of specialized testbeds for cloud research (NSF Cloud testbeds CloudLab and Chameleon), for research beyond 5G technologies (Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research or PAWR), as well as production high-performance computing facilities and science instruments to create a rich fabric for a wide variety of experimental activities

Effect of micronutrients on leaf composition, fruit quality and yield of Kinnow mandarin

Effect of micronutrients on leaf composition, quality parameters and fruit yield of Kinnow mandarin was studied at Regional Research Station, Abohar. Foliar application of 1000 ppm Zn + 1000 ppm Mn on Kinnow mandarin during the end of April and mid of August gave maximum fruit yield (862 fruits / tree) and good quality fruits (Higher TSS/Acid: 14.23) by correcting these micronutrient deficiencies. Therefore, application of this dose of micronutrient combination will improve yield and fruit quality in Kinnow mandarin by correcting the deficiencies of these micronutrients as a result of which the orchardist will be economically benefited

Influencing ethical leadership and job satisfaction through work ethics culture

Abstract: There is a growing realisation that organisational resources such as organisational culture and ethical leadership, directly affect employee attitudes and workplace behaviour. This also applies to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where political and economic instability have resulted in mismanagement, corruption and unethical leadership practices. The present study investigated the mediating effects of work ethics culture in the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ job satisfaction perceptions, in an attempt to explore the impact of perceived work ethics culture. Ethical leadership was measured by the Ethical Leadership Scale, while job satisfaction was measured by the Job Satisfaction Questionnaire, and work ethics culture by the Corporate Ethical Virtues. The sample comprised of 839 employees from a railway organisation in the DRC. Mediation analysis and partial least squares SEM (PLS-SEM) were used to analyse the data. The results revealed that the work ethics culture emerged as mediator of ethical leadership and employees’ job satisfaction relationships. This research provides suggestions for human resources practitioners and leaders when developing strategies to foster and enforce a positive and ethical work environment, which may increase workers’ satisfaction and their performance, and decrease their turnover intention

Optimal Reactive Power Dispatch Formulated as Quadratic OPF and Solved via CS-SLP

Increased penetration of inverter interfaced renewable energy resources creates challenges and opportunities for reactive power management in the modern electricity grid. Because of the multiplicity of new resources, new computational tools and optimization models are needed in formulating and solving the Optimal Reactive Power Dispatch Problem (ORPD). In this paper, we propose (1) an object-oriented ORPD formulation based on high-fidelity modeling of each device in the network, especially those with VAR/V control capability and (2) a two-step Convex Solution-Sequential Linear Programming algorithm. The proposed method introduces two innovations: (a) high fidelity quadratized models of each component of the power system with emphasis on those components that have VAR/V control capability; and (b) an object oriented convexification of the resulting quadratic OPF problem; the solution is obtained by first solving the convex problem using public solvers for convex problems and them removing the relaxation and solving the original OPF using SLP, starting from the solution of the relaxed (convex) problem