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Twisted top disease (TTD), also known as pokkah boeng(PB), caused by many Fusariumspp is reported throughout the world. In the recent years, the disease has become a major biotic constraint of sugarcane from the status of minor disease in many countries, necessitating disease management strategies to prevent crop losses. Recently,cause of the wilt and TTD by the same Fusarial pathogen in a sugarcane plant was found and this new phenomenon added a complexity in twisted top disease epidemiology in sugarcane. In many varieties, after TTD damage, the pathogenic infection becomes systemic, leading to wilting of the affected plants and severe crop losses were recorded. During the last three seasons, TTD and wilt severity in sugarcane varieties has increased in India with total crop losses due to infestation of crown mealy bug Phenacoccus saccharifoliiduring early crop growth phases. The sucking insect pest colonizes the crown region and aggravates TTD severity in sugarcane. Due to that, the leaves in the crown are extremely shortened with severe abnormalities and extensive bud sprouting. All the varieties under cultivation encounter losses due to TTD and mealy bug complex, management through fungicides and insecticides and agronomical measures are suggested to reduce the crop losses. The present study reports the severe damages of sugarcane twisted top disease in India.

Sugarcane yellow leaf disease (YLD) has emerged as a serious threat to sugarcane cultivation worldwide, particularly in India. The aphid, Melanaphis sacchari, has been proved to be the vector for the causative agent sugarcane yellow leaf virus (ScYLV) across the world. However, the population dynamics of the aphid are not established under field conditions. Hence, this study was conducted with the aim of studying the population dynamics of M. saccharifor four consecutive years (2015–2019) under the typical tropical conditions. The sugarcane aphid starts colonizing the crop in April, reaches its maximum in June–July, starts declining in August, and almost vanishes in September. Thus, the 5–7-month-old crop supports higher aphid population irrespective of the varieties, provided the climatic conditions are near-normal. A significant variation in the climatic conditions observed in 2016–2017 significantly altered the population dynamics of the aphid on sugarcane varieties. In 2016–2017, the aphid appeared late in May and extended till December. It was interesting to note that the aphid population was recorded to be higher in the diseased plants as compared with the healthy ones of the same variety. Further, the YLD-susceptible cvs CoC 671, Co 86032, Co 86010, CoPant 84211, and B38192 were recorded with comparatively higher numbers of aphid during the peak season in all the 4 years. The colonization of aphid was observed to be aggregate in nature and not uniform in all the plants of a variety and leaves of an infested plant. Increased levels of aphid infestation was found between + 5 and + 7 leaves in sugarcane plants, across the seasons and varieties, and rainfall was negatively associated with the build-up of aphid colonization. The study provides new findings on the dynamics of M. sacchariunder tropical climate in India for the first time and contributes to the understanding of the disease epidemiology.

Sugarcane wilt caused by Fusarium sacchariis an important stalk disease in India which affects sugarcane production both in tropical and sub-tropical regions. Both the sett (stem cutting) and soil borne inocula of the pathogen are responsible for pre and post-germination death of settlings, expression of pokkah boeng(PB) and wilt during different growth stages leading to losses in number of millable (harvestable) canes, cane weight and juice quality. It is presumed that F. sacchariinfection and severity are associated with different biotic and abiotic factors in different regions and the root borer, Polyocha depressellais assumed to play a major role in wilt epidemiology. During 2014–2017 we observed severe outbreaks of wilt in the parental collections, and hence undertook a detailed study on wilt and infestation of insect pests with more emphasis on root borer (RB). We analysed the data to establish the possible role played by the insect pests in predisposing the wilt in sugarcane clones. Of the total clones it was found that 321 (57.6%) clones were infested by root borer and 354 (63.6%) clones were prone to wilt at various levels of severities either as mild drooping/yellowing of leaves to severe wilting and drying of canes. Among the 354 clones with wilt infection, ~ 223 had RB infestation and ~ 131 exhibited wilt alone with no RB infestation. Of the 321 clones with RB infestation, 98 remained free from any wilt incidence which indicated that 37% of the wilt affected canes did not show an association of RB and 30.5% of RB infested canes did not show F. sacchariinfection revealing a weak relation between the two. Further, the severity of RB infestation remained low at 10% or less and ~ 23 clones exhibited moderate incidence. The present study established that F. sacchariinfection in sugarcane occurs independently of RB and other pests attack under field conditions.

From the classifications, an effective brain tumor classification and segmentation is the curious part for identifying the tumor and non-tumor cells in brain and the cell levels are evaluated. The brain tumor segmentation and classification is established on their experiences. The accuracy of tumor segmentation is very crucial to diagnosis accuracy. So, in our work we are align and improve an approach for tumor identification applying brain MR image segmentation. With an efficient, accurate and reproducible manner, the aim of our suggested method is to evaluate the tumor. Then the brain tumor is separated by using the effective techniques. For segmentation process, first the MRI image must be preprocessed. Next, the process of feature extraction is done by using preprocessed images. In feature extraction process, a raised Gabor wavelet transform (IGWT) is applied. In this research, the means of optimization technique is changed from the traditional Gabor wavelet transform. And the effectiveness of that optimization technique is aligned by using an oppositional fruit fly algorithm. At the end of the process, feature values are transferred in to the clustering process for segmentation. In this article we are introduced an algorithm called as rough k means clustering algorithm for segmentation. Here, we are applying an oppositional fruit fly algorithm to develop an effectiveness of the Gabor filter. Further to raise the classification accuracy of brain tumor we are introduced a multi kernel support vector machine algorithm.

The present study aims to identify activity-specific risk factors associated with musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among workers from small-scale foundries in western India. The modified Nordic questionnaire is adopted to explore the prevalence of MSDs and associated critical ergonomic risk factors among 181 male foundry workers. Further, logistic regression is applied to explore critical factors causing MSDs in a foundry context. This study investigates manual materials handling (MMH) effect on MSDs prevalence and highlights 'load-handled' as the most critical risk factor. In the process, the study emphasises lower back, neck and knee as the vulnerable body parts. Additionally, it was investigated that workers from melting sections of the foundries are prone to MSDs risks that require immediate intervention. A work system model was used to frame the study and interpreted the results in the context of human-machine interaction occurring at the workspace. The results can be further coupled with engineering interventions for improved productivity in the foundry.

The main aim is to control thermal expansion in aluminium piston at high working condition. A plasma sprayed ceramic coating (TBC) is applied on the piston crown as a top coat and NiCrAl is applied as the middle layer as bond coat to improve the addition strength between the top coat and the metal subtract layer as AlSi alloy; we introduce a thermal slot on the piston shrink to regulate the heat flow in piston and make it cooler. We analyse the piston with these two implementations to determine the thermal analysis of the piston. The results can be shown in the various comparisons of coating thickness of top coat with thermal slots on the piston shrink. Increase in coating thickness reduces the stress in the coatings. It is observed that 85°C increase in 0.8mm coat than the ordinary piston.

The present investigation demonstrates the formation of silver nanoparticles by the reduction of the aqueous silver metal ions during exposure to the seaweed (Chaetomorpha linum) extract.The silver nanoparticles obtained were characterized by UV–visible spectrum, FTIR and scanning electron microscopy. The characteristic absorption peak at 422 nm in UV–vis spectrum confirmed the formation of silver nanoparticles. The colour intensity at 422 nm increased with duration of incubation. The size of nanoparticles synthesized varied from 3 to 44 nm with average of ~30 nm. The FTIR spectrum of C. linumextract showed peaks at 1,020, 1,112, 1,325, 1,512, 1,535, 1,610, 1,725, 1,862, 2,924, 3,330 cm−1. The vibrational bands corresponding to the bonds such as –C=C (ring), –C–O, –C–O–C and C=C (chain) are derived from water-soluble compounds such as amines, peptides, flavonoids and terpenoids present in C. linumextract. Hence, it may be inferred that these biomolecules are responsible for capping and efficient stabilization. Since no synthetic reagents were used in this investigation, it is environmentally safe and have potential for application in biomedicine and agriculture.

The focus of the paper is to analyse the downlink performance of a wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) system with site selection diversity transmission (SSDT) power control during soft handoff (SHO) mode and to find the optimum SHO margin (MSH) in terms of maximum system capacity under energy-per-bit to noise spectral density ratio (Eb/N0) quality requirements. Analysing the dependency of the connection probabilities, percentage of users connected to one, two, or three base stations (BSs) simultaneously as a function of the MSH. We analysed the system capacity and required resources dependency on MSH for voice service and combined multimedia mobile services. System capacity dependency on MSH is analysed, by considering two types of user distributions, namely: 1) uniform user distribution; 2) a concentration of all the users in the location that requires maximum transmitted power (the worst case). The result of this analysis shows an increase in user capacity of about 16%-20% for the optimum MSH of 5-5.5 dB. Nevertheless, the resources required (number of scrambling codes) by the base station increases faster than the number of active users in terms of MSH.

In a competitive electric power market, the knowledge of Available Transfer Capability (ATC) can help power marketers, sellers and buyers in planning, operation and reserving transmission services. Capacity Benefit Margin (CBM) is an important factor in the calculation of ATC, without which ATC may be overestimated and this will lead to the risk of having generation unreliability. In this paper, a new algorithm using Differential Evolution along with Monte Carlo is proposed to evaluate CBM. The superiority of the proposed algorithm is tested on modified IEEE 30 bus system, over PSO.

Abstract: Single-channel recordings from membrane patches frequently exhibit multiple conductance levels. In some preparations, the steady-state probabilities of observing these levels do not follow a binomial distribution. This behavior has been reported in sodium channels, potassium channels, acetylcholine receptor channels and gap junction channels. A non-binomial distribution suggests interaction of the channels or the presence of channels with different open probabilities. However, the current trace sometimes exhibits single transitions spanning several levels. Since the probability of simultaneous transitions of independent channels is infinitesimally small, such observations strongly suggest a cooperative gating behavior. We present a Markov model to describe the cooperative gating of channels using only the all-points current amplitude histograms for the probability of observing the various conductance levels. We investigate the steady-state (or equilibrium) properties of a system ofN channels and provide a scheme to express all the probabilities in terms of just two parameters. The main feature of our model is that lateral interaction of channels gives rise to cooperative gating. Another useful feature is the introduction of the language of graph theory which can potentially provide a different avenue to study ion channel kinetics. We write down explicit expressions for systems of two, three and four channels and provide a procedure to describe the system ofN channels.

New digital filter structures based on the concept of generalized-immittance convertors (GICs) are proposed. These structures are shown to possess better sensitivity and noise properties than the already known GIC structures. A comparison study is carried out using different types of sensitivity and noise measures. Further, it is shown that the limit cycles under zero-input and forced response conditions can be eliminated in the proposed filters. With suitable modifications, these filters can be stabilized against constant-input limit cycles as well.

For designing nth-order digital filters from an active reference configuration comprising generalised-immittance convertors and resistors, a method proposed in earlier work makes use of second-order filter sections as building blocks in a cascade synthesis. A direct approach for designing such filters is presented in this letter. The proposed method yields a new class of wave digital filters distinct from the already known structures which are based on the doubly-terminated LC networks.