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Mulch laying is a resource conservation technology. Mulch laying technology having advantages of weed suppression, gain in root growth, and nutrient uptake, earlier ripening resulted in a higher yield of crops with minimum inputs. Mulch laying technology has proven advantages over traditional practices, but the machines meant for this purpose having a very slow rate of adoption due to insufficient knowledge, high cost, and performance issues. Many of the technology having potential but needs some modifications and refinements. The review paper presents an overview of mulch laying technology in India and can be used to guide the activities of those involved in the design, development, and promotion of mulch laying technology. Mulch laying technology that combines soil bed preparation, drip laying, mulch laying, mulch covering, and making holes for transplanting, using the commercially available materials could enhance the adoption of the technology. In the long-run policy, measures need to be adopted for the reuse of plastic mulch to reduce waste to gain environmental benefits.

According to tooling industries, grinding is the most effective and economical machining for AISI D2 tool steel owing to its low thermal conductivity. The first objective is to investigate the effect of grinding environments on surface integrity of AISI D2 tool steel. Grinding performance like force ratio and grinding temperature was investigated under wet and dry environments. The second objective is to qualitatively assess the thermal damage of ground surface using non-destructive hysteresis loop (HL) technique. The result shows that higher force ratio and surface roughness were obtained under flood grinding. Maximum thermal damage in terms of drastic variation in microstructure and microhardness were observed under dry grinding owing to serious plastic deformation at higher grinding temperature. HL outcomes like lower average permeability, higher coercivity and remanence were obtained with higher thermal damage on ground surface. Finally, linear correction was obtained between HL outcomes and microhardness of ground samples.

The aim of present study is to experimentally investigate and compare the effect of grinding parameters, i.e. downfeed, work velocity and lubricating environments, on the surface integrity of hardened AISI D2 tool steel. The surface integrity of ground surface was evaluated in terms of surface roughness, surface topography, microstructure and microhardness variation. Grinding performance was investigated concerning grinding force, specific grinding energy and grinding temperature. Quasi-steady-state moving heat source model was used to estimate grinding temperature under different environments, viz. dry and flood. The second objective of the present work is the non-destructive evaluation of thermally damaged ground surface by the novel Barkhausen noise technique. The results showed that flood environment reduces grinding force, specific grinding energy and grinding temperature owing to effective cooling and lubrication medium. A thick redeposition layer over ground surface along with minimum surface roughness was observed under dry grinding. Further, drastic change in microstructure and microhardness was observed under dry environment due to a number of passes of grinding wheel over ground surface without coolant, which induced excess heat and developed martensite layer near the nascent surface. Finally, poor BN response such as lower root mean square (rms) and peak value was found in thermally damaged sample owing to large obstacles for magnetic domain wall displacement.

Background:Flacourtia indica(Burm. f.) Merr. is a medicinal plant indigenous to India and is broadly used worldwide for the treatment of a variety of health ailments. The present study was experimented on hyperlipidemic Charles Foster rats with the aim to explore the possible mechanism responsible for the antidyslipidemic activity of the hydromethanolic extract from F. indicaleaves (FIL).

The lipid lowering effects of Senna didymobotrya (Leguminoceae) root extract (250 mg/kg) and pure isolates (100 mg/kg) were investigated for hypolipidemic activity on Triton-induced hyperlipidemic rats (in-vivo). The extracts and isolates showed significant (p≤0.01) reduction in serum lipid contents, and reactivation of the lipolytic enzymes, relative to the Triton-treated group. Ethyl acetate extract exhibited the highest lipid lowering (p≤0.01) compared to other fractions. Seven anthraquinones, obtusifolin (1), 1,6-di-O-methylemodin (2), nataloemodin-8-methyl ether (3), chrysophanol (4), physcion (5), chrysophanol-10,10'-bianthrone (6), physcion-10,10 -bianthrone (7) and stigmasterol (8) were isolated from the ethyl acetate extract. Compounds 3, 5 and 7 displayed significant (p≤0.01) lipid lowering effects. The hypolipidaemic activities prompted the determination of inhibition of differentiation of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes into adipocytes by the compounds 3, 5 and 7. Only compound 7 exhibited potent anti-adipogenic activity without significant cytotoxicity. The result indicated that extracts of S. didymobotrya root extract can provide good antidyslipidaemic and adipocytes maturation inhibitors.

Alcoholic extract of Trigonella foenum graecumseeds fenugreek seed extract (FSE) was studied in triton-induced and high-fat diet–induced hyperlipidemia to evaluate antidyslipidemic effect. Plasma cholesterol (26.19) and triglycerides (36.6) were found to be lowered by FSE maximum at a dose of 200 mgkg body weight in triton-treated hyperlipidemic rats. Chronic feeding of FSE (200 mgkg body weight) caused lowering in plasma and hepatic lipid levels by activating lecithin–cholesterol acyltransferase (47), postheparin lipolytic activity (35), triglyceride lipase (34), lipoprotein lipase (20.8), and increased excretion of fecal bile acids (36–45). The FSE shows potent antioxidant activity in both in vitro and in vivo systems. It inhibited generation of superoxide anion and hydroxyl free radicals in both enzymatic and nonenzymatic systems significantly at 200 µM concentration. Furthermore, FSE normalizes the activities of antioxidant enzymes, that is, superoxide dismutase and catalase, and reduces plasma lipid peroxidation (33.9), hepatic 4-hydroxynonenal (27), and isoprostanes (28). Data of the present study demonstrated that the T. foenum graecumseed extract has both antidyslipidemic and antioxidant properties.

Most efforts in business process reengineering to date are motivated by potential improvement in performance measures such as costs, quality of products or services, and cycle time for their delivery. While obviously important, these factors do not necessarily reflect any intrinsic improvement in how work is organized. This paper presents an approach to the structural analysis of business processes. The goal is to capture an inherent degree of synchronization of the various interdependent activities involved. This way, the process before and after reengineering, or alternative designs, can be compared without arbitrary scaling effects introduced by nonstructural variables. Our methodology for modeling and analysis incorporates established techniques in fuzzy logic and systems. Its application to a well-known example is used as illustration.