Effect of Grain Refinement on Microstructure and Wear Behavior of Cast Al-7Si Alloys

The present work deals with the study of wear of Al-7Si alloys without and with the addition of grain refinerssuch as, Al-5Ti-1.25C, Al-5Ti-0.8C and Al-5Ti-1B individually. Grain refiner additions have shown grainrefinement in the cast Al-7Si alloys. Microstructures showed morphological changes in a- Al phases fromdendrite to equiexed. These changes in structure showed improvement in wear resistance of Al-7Si alloys.Forthis, pin-on-disc test has been performed on Al-7Si alloy samples with varying addition level of grain refiners.The worn-out surfaces of the samples were characterized by SEM studies in order to understand the wearmechanism of Al-7Si alloys against steel disc. Worn-out surfaces of Al-7Si alloys pins exhibited different surfacemorphologies. Although it has been found that wear mechanism was same for both without and with grainrefined Al-7Si alloys. However untreated samples exhibits higher wear loss than that of grain refined samples. Itwas noticed that with addition of grain refiner, the samples gave smaller debris particles.This showed less wear loss during such conditions

Zinc and Iron Nutrition to Increase the Productivity of Pearl Millet-Mustard Cropping System in Salt Affected Soils

The abiotic stresses, such as soil salinity and sodicity are largely responsible for the low productivity of crops mainly due to low availability of micro-nutrients especially as zinc (Zn) and iron (Fe). Therefore, judicious management of plant nutrients in these soils is as important as their reclamation. A field experiment was conducted for 4 consecutive years, consisting of 12 treatments laid out in randomized block design to evaluate the effect of rate and methods of zinc and iron as single or combined soil as well as foliar application in pearl millet-mustard cropping system grown on salt affected soils. Soil application of Zn and Fe were applied at the time of sowing with FYM or without FYM (addition of FYM done only in pearl millet) and foliar application of respective nutrients were also applied at 30 and 45 days after sowing of crops. The results of experiment showed that, application of FYM 10 t ha-1 along with 5 kg Zn+10 kg Fe significantly (p=0.05) improved the yield parameters of pearl millet and mustard followed by 5 kg ha-1 Zn and 10 kg ha-1 Fe as soil application. The results also indicated that combined soil application of 5 kg Zn+10 kg Fe +10 t FYM increased the pearl millet grain yield (36.6 q ha-1) and mustard seed yield (22.7 q ha-1) by 57.1% and 42.8% higher over control, however, yield improvement was 35.6 and 20.7 % due to application of 5 kg Zn+10 kg Fe without FYM, respectively, in pearl millet and mustard over control. Ferrous-iron content in both crops proved to be a better index of Fe nutrition status compared to total plant Fe and DTPA- extractable soil Fe under salt affected soils. Salt affected soils are having vast potential to produce a significant amount of food grain by applying optimum dose of Zn, Fe and FYM in pearl millet and mustard. Combined foliar application of Zn and Fe also increased the yields of pearl millet and mustard grown in saline soils. Ferrous iron (Fe2+) is better indicator for iron nutrition in crops

Modelling and Prediction of Soil Organic Carbon using Digital Soil Mapping in the Thar Desert Region of India

Not AvailableIn the present study, the distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) was investigated using digital soil mapping for an area of ~29 lakhs ha in Bikaner district, Rajasthan, India. To achieve this goal, 187 soil profiles were used for SOC estimation by Quantile regression forest (QRF) model technique. Landsat data, terrain attributes and bioclimatic variables were used as environmental variables. 10-fold cross-validation was used to evaluate model. Equal-area quadratic splines were fitted to soil profile datasets to estimate SOC at six standard soil depths (0-5, 5-15, 15-30, 30-60, 60-100 and 100-200 cm). Results showed that the mean SOC concentration was very low with values varied from 1.18 to 1.53 g kg-1 in different depths. While predicting SOC at different depths, the model was able to capture low variability (R2 = 1–7%). Overall, the Lin’s concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) values ranged from 0.01 to 0.18, indicating poor agreement between the predicted and observed values. Root mean square error (RMSE) and mean error (ME) were 0.97 and 0.16, respectively. The values of prediction interval coverage probability (PICP) recorded 87.2–89.7% for SOC contents at different depths. The most important variables for predicting SOC concentration variations were the annual range of temperature, latitude, Landsat 8 bands 2, 5 and 6. Temperature-related variables and remote sensed data products are important for predicting SOC concentrations in arid regions. We anticipate that this digital information of SOC will be useful for frequent monitoring and assessment of carbon cycle in arid regions.Not Availabl

Measurement of the azimuthal anisotropy of Y(1S) and Y(2S) mesons in PbPb collisions at √S^{S}NN = 5.02 TeV

The second-order Fourier coefficients (υ$_{2}$) characterizing the azimuthal distributions of Υ(1S) and Υ(2S) mesons produced in PbPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV are studied. The Υmesons are reconstructed in their dimuon decay channel, as measured by the CMS detector. The collected data set corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1.7 nb$^{-1}$. The scalar product method is used to extract the υ$_{2}$ coefficients of the azimuthal distributions. Results are reported for the rapidity range |y| < 2.4, in the transverse momentum interval 0 < p$_{T}$ < 50 GeV/c, and in three centrality ranges of 10–30%, 30–50% and 50–90%. In contrast to the J/ψ mesons, the measured υ$_{2}$ values for the Υ mesons are found to be consistent with zero

Measurement of prompt D0^{0} and D‾\overline{D}0^{0} meson azimuthal anisotropy and search for strong electric fields in PbPb collisions at root SNN\sqrt{S_{NN}} = 5.02 TeV

The strong Coulomb field created in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions is expected to produce a rapiditydependent difference (Av2) in the second Fourier coefficient of the azimuthal distribution (elliptic flow, v2) between D0 (uc) and D0 (uc) mesons. Motivated by the search for evidence of this field, the CMS detector at the LHC is used to perform the first measurement of Av2. The rapidity-averaged value is found to be (Av2) = 0.001 ? 0.001 (stat)? 0.003 (syst) in PbPb collisions at ?sNN = 5.02 TeV. In addition, the influence of the collision geometry is explored by measuring the D0 and D0mesons v2 and triangular flow coefficient (v3) as functions of rapidity, transverse momentum (pT), and event centrality (a measure of the overlap of the two Pb nuclei). A clear centrality dependence of prompt D0 meson v2 values is observed, while the v3 is largely independent of centrality. These trends are consistent with expectations of flow driven by the initial-state geometry. ? 2021 The Author. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY licens

Performance of the CMS Level-1 trigger in proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV

At the start of Run 2 in 2015, the LHC delivered proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13\TeV. During Run 2 (years 2015–2018) the LHC eventually reached a luminosity of 2.1× 10$^{34}$ cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$, almost three times that reached during Run 1 (2009–2013) and a factor of two larger than the LHC design value, leading to events with up to a mean of about 50 simultaneous inelastic proton-proton collisions per bunch crossing (pileup). The CMS Level-1 trigger was upgraded prior to 2016 to improve the selection of physics events in the challenging conditions posed by the second run of the LHC. This paper describes the performance of the CMS Level-1 trigger upgrade during the data taking period of 2016–2018. The upgraded trigger implements pattern recognition and boosted decision tree regression techniques for muon reconstruction, includes pileup subtraction for jets and energy sums, and incorporates pileup-dependent isolation requirements for electrons and tau leptons. In addition, the new trigger calculates high-level quantities such as the invariant mass of pairs of reconstructed particles. The upgrade reduces the trigger rate from background processes and improves the trigger efficiency for a wide variety of physics signals

Measurement of the Y(1S) pair production cross section and search for resonances decaying to Y(1S)μ⁺μ⁻ in proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV

The fiducial cross section for Y(1S)pair production in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13TeVin the region where both Y(1S)mesons have an absolute rapidity below 2.0 is measured to be 79 ± 11 (stat) ±6 (syst) ±3 (B)pbassuming the mesons are produced unpolarized. The last uncertainty corresponds to the uncertainty in the Y(1S)meson dimuon branching fraction. The measurement is performed in the final state with four muons using proton-proton collision data collected in 2016 by the CMS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9fb$^{-1}$. This process serves as a standard model reference in a search for narrow resonances decaying to Y(1S)μ$^{+}$μ$^{-}$ in the same final state. Such a resonance could indicate the existence of a tetraquark that is a bound state of two bquarks and two b̅ antiquarks. The tetraquark search is performed for masses in the vicinity of four times the bottom quark mass, between 17.5 and 19.5GeV, while a generic search for other resonances is performed for masses between 16.5 and 27GeV. No significant excess of events compatible with a narrow resonance is observed in the data. Limits on the production cross section times branching fraction to four muons via an intermediate Y(1S)resonance are set as a function of the resonance mass

Risk profiles and one-year outcomes of patients with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation in India: Insights from the GARFIELD-AF Registry.

BACKGROUND: The Global Anticoagulant Registry in the FIELD-Atrial Fibrillation (GARFIELD-AF) is an ongoing prospective noninterventional registry, which is providing important information on the baseline characteristics, treatment patterns, and 1-year outcomes in patients with newly diagnosed non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). This report describes data from Indian patients recruited in this registry. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 52,014 patients with newly diagnosed AF were enrolled globally; of these, 1388 patients were recruited from 26 sites within India (2012-2016). In India, the mean age was 65.8 years at diagnosis of NVAF. Hypertension was the most prevalent risk factor for AF, present in 68.5% of patients from India and in 76.3% of patients globally (P < 0.001). Diabetes and coronary artery disease (CAD) were prevalent in 36.2% and 28.1% of patients as compared with global prevalence of 22.2% and 21.6%, respectively (P < 0.001 for both). Antiplatelet therapy was the most common antithrombotic treatment in India. With increasing stroke risk, however, patients were more likely to receive oral anticoagulant therapy [mainly vitamin K antagonist (VKA)], but average international normalized ratio (INR) was lower among Indian patients [median INR value 1.6 (interquartile range {IQR}: 1.3-2.3) versus 2.3 (IQR 1.8-2.8) (P < 0.001)]. Compared with other countries, patients from India had markedly higher rates of all-cause mortality [7.68 per 100 person-years (95% confidence interval 6.32-9.35) vs 4.34 (4.16-4.53), P < 0.0001], while rates of stroke/systemic embolism and major bleeding were lower after 1 year of follow-up. CONCLUSION: Compared to previously published registries from India, the GARFIELD-AF registry describes clinical profiles and outcomes in Indian patients with AF of a different etiology. The registry data show that compared to the rest of the world, Indian AF patients are younger in age and have more diabetes and CAD. Patients with a higher stroke risk are more likely to receive anticoagulation therapy with VKA but are underdosed compared with the global average in the GARFIELD-AF. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION-URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01090362