Behaviour of steel fibre reinforced concrete under cyclic compressive loading

An experimental study was carried out to investigate the behaviour of steel fibre reinforced concrete under cyclic compressive loading. Cylindrical specimens containing two volume fractions (one percent and two percent) of steel fibres and plain concrete specimens were tested under uniaxial monotonic and cyclic compressive loading to establish the stress-strain envelope curve, locus of common points and stability points. An analytical expression is established to represent these curves for SFRC. It was also observed that the permissible stress level depends on the plastic strain present in the material. The plastic strain curves are presented and a general form of second order equation is proposed to represent these curves

Advanced Techniques of Foreground, Background and Object Identification in Video Application

Volume 7 Issue 10 (October 201

From farmers' fields to data fields and back: A Synthesis of Participatory Information Systems for Irrigation and other Resources: Proceedings of an International Workshop held at the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, Rampur, Nepal, 21-26 March 1993

Irrigation / Forestry / Natural resources / Farmer participation / Participatory rural appraisal / Rapid rural appraisal / GIS / Data collection / Databases / Field tests / Farmers' associations / Training / Water rights / Water law / Institutions / Non-governmental organizations / India / Nepal

Optimization of the level of ingredients for functional dairy beverage using response surface methodology (RSM)

The present investigation was undertaken to optimize the level of ingredients (milk fat, sugar, and mango pulp) for functional dairy beverage using Response Surface Methodology. Central Composite Rotatable Design with milk fat (%), sugar (%), and mango pulp (var. Chaunsa, %) as independent variables produced 20 different combinations that were used to investigate the effect on viscosity (cP), antioxidant activity, and overall acceptability. The response surface three dimensional graphs were plotted as a function of two variables to show the effect of level of ingredients on physico-chemical and sensory properties of the beverage. Significant correlation models were established with the coefficient of correlation (R2) greater than 0.8. An optimization of process variables was attempted for maximum antioxidant activity and overall acceptability. ANOVA tables revealed that increase in fat and sugar levels lowered the antioxidant activity, while enhancement of mango pulp significantly increased both antioxidant activity and overall acceptability of the beverage. The optimized levels of ingredients were 0.5% milk fat, 6.0% sugar and 30% mango pulp

Histopathological alterations in gills of freshwater prawn, Macrobrachium dayanum (Crustacea - Decapoda) after acute and sub-acute exposure of lead nitrate

Lead is a nonessential “grey listed” heavy metal, used in fuels, ceramics, paints and glass wares in industries and vehicles. After taking entry in aquatic ecosystem it becomes toxic and cause serious problem to plants and animals. Haematological, neurological, nephrological and histopathological effects of lead are well known. Fresh water prawn, Macrobrachium dayanum, a potential animal for freshwater aquaculture, subjected to acute and sub-acute concentration of lead nitrate (116.46 mg/l; 96h LC50 and 29.12 mg/l; 25% of 96h LC50) showed severe histopathological alterations in gills after 24, 48, 72 and 96h and 10, 20 and 30 day exposure. Chief alterations during acute exposure were thickening of gill plates, reduction in inter lameller spaces, cuticular irruption, inflammation and necrosis where as clumping of gill plates, hyperplasia, hypertrophied haemocytes with nuclear pycnosis and leakage of haemocytes in inter-lameller spaces as well as deposition of broken tissue debris near gill base were observed during sub-acute exposure. The severity of histopathological alterations was found duration dependant. Present study reveals that histological bio- markers provides complete information regarding heavy metal toxicity particularly lead to these economically important fresh water prawns, which can themselves serve as bio-indicator of worsening status of surface aquatic bodies.&nbsp

Chiral properties of hematite ({\alpha}-Fe2O3) inferred from resonant Bragg diffraction using circularly polarized x-rays

Chiral properties of the two phases - collinear motif (below Morin transition temperature, TM=250 K) and canted motif (above TM) - of magnetically ordered hematite ({\alpha}-Fe2O3) have been identified in single crystal resonant x-ray Bragg diffraction, using circular polarized incident x-rays tuned near the iron K-edge. Magneto-electric multipoles, including an anapole, fully characterize the high-temperature canted phase, whereas the low-temperature collinear phase supports both parity-odd and parity-even multipoles that are time-odd. Orbital angular momentum accompanies the collinear motif, while it is conspicuously absent with the canted motif. Intensities have been successfully confronted with analytic expressions derived from an atomic model fully compliant with chemical and magnetic structures. Values of Fe atomic multipoles previously derived from independent experimental data, are shown to be completely trustworthy

Complexes of Lewis Bases with Zn (II), Cd (II), Hg (II), Fe (II), Pd(II), Co(II), Ni(II) & Cu(II) Thiocyanates & Cyanates

684-68

Growth and production potential of pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan L.) as influenced by intercropping and integrated nutrient management

A field experiment was conducted during the rainy season of 2010-11 at Varanasi to evaluate the production potential of pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan L. Mill sp.) in intercropping with different fertility levels. The pigeonpea+urdbean intercropping system exhibited its superiority by recording higher growth attribute i.e. plant height (231.22 cm plant-1), no. of branches (18.20 plant-1), dry matter accumulation (213.25 g plant-1), LAI (3.45), yield attribute i.e. no. of pods (135.57 plant-1), no. of grain (4.06 pod-1), Test weight (106.07g), and yield i.e. grain yield (1792.29 kg ha-1) and stalk yield (7614.97 kg ha-1). Application of 100% recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF)+2.5t VC fertility level recorded its superiority by recording higher growth attribute i.e. plant height (232.42 cm plant-1), no. of branch (19.07 plant-1), dry matter accumulation (214.65 g plant-1), LAI (3.62) and yield attributes i.e. no. of pods (141.42 plant-1), no. of grain (4.13 pod-1) and test weight (108.22 g) and yield i.e. grain yield (1831.82 kg ha-1), and stalk yield (8221.61 kg ha-1) over all fertility levels. In the cultivation of long duration crops, the short duration crop may be used as intercrop to generate additional income for farmers’ and INM practices also reduce cost of fertilizer as well as environmental pollution

Correlation of DNA Ploidy with Progression of Cervical Cancer

The majority of squamous cell carcinomas of cervix are preceded by visible changes in the cervix, most often detected by cervical smear. As cervical cancer is preceded by long precancerous stages, identification of the high-risk population through detection of DNA ploidy may be of importance in effective management of this disease. Here we attempted to correlate aneuploid DNA patterns and their influence on biological behavior of flow-cytometry analysis of DNA ploidy which was carried out in cytologically diagnosed cases of mild (79), moderate (36), and severe (12) dysplasia, as well as “atypical squamous cells of unknown significance (ASCUS)” (57) along with controls (69), in order to understand its importance in malignant progression of disease. Cytologically diagnosed dysplasias, which were employed for DNA ploidy studies, 39 mild, 28 moderate, and 11 severe dysplasia cases were found to be aneuploid. Out of the 69 control subjects, 6 cases showed aneuploidy pattern and the rest 63 subjects were diploid. An aneuploidy pattern was observed in 8 out of 57 cases of cytologically evaluated ASCUS. The results of the followup studies showed that aberrant DNA content reliably predicts the occurrence of squamous cell carcinoma in cervical smear. Flow cytometric analysis of DNA ploidy may provide a strategic diagnostic tool for early detection of carcinoma cervix. Therefore, it is a concept of an HPV screening with reflex cytology in combination with DNA flow cytometry to detect progressive lesions with the greatest possible sensitivity and specificity

Phase diagram of the random field Ising model on the Bethe lattice

The phase diagram of the random field Ising model on the Bethe lattice with a symmetric dichotomous random field is closely investigated with respect to the transition between the ferromagnetic and paramagnetic regime. Refining arguments of Bleher, Ruiz and Zagrebnov [J. Stat. Phys. 93, 33 (1998)] an exact upper bound for the existence of a unique paramagnetic phase is found which considerably improves the earlier results. Several numerical estimates of transition lines between a ferromagnetic and a paramagnetic regime are presented. The obtained results do not coincide with a lower bound for the onset of ferromagnetism proposed by Bruinsma [Phys. Rev. B 30, 289 (1984)]. If the latter one proves correct this would hint to a region of coexistence of stable ferromagnetic phases and a stable paramagnetic phase.Comment: Article has been condensed and reorganized; Figs 3,5,6 merged; Fig 4 omitted; Some discussion added at end of Sec. III; 9 pages, 5 figs, RevTeX4, AMSTe