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Abstract Concerning the robustness of predicting the forced response of the El Niño—Southern Oscillation-Indian summer monsoon (ENSO-ISM) teleconnection based on 9 CMIP-class models, we come to distinguish three time periods. (1) In the late 20th century, the trend was insignificant in most models, which does not permit a statement on robustness in this period. Thus the weakening of the teleconnection reported from the observational data might not be truly forced. (2) Furthermore, we find it typical that under global warming in the first part of the 21st century, the teleconnection is strengthening or non-decreasing. This considerable inter-model robustness is owed to an increasing ENSO variability as well as coupling strength. (3) At the end of the 21st century, however, under strong forcing, the teleconnection change is not robustly modeled: the ENSO variability change is not projected robustly across models, either with respect to the start or the rate of the ENSO variance decline, competing this time with an increase of the coupling strength. The difference in the projected coupling coefficient between models is mainly attributed to the disagreement in the projected ENSO-induced changes in the regional Hadley cell and SST patterns over the ISM domain, despite the agreement on the projected eastward shift of the Walker cell over the Pacific Ocean.

A strenuous effort has been made to design multifunctional lead-free organic–inorganic hybrid (OIH) halide compounds, which are envisioned as next generation solar cell materials. However, it is challenging to design OIH halides that can exhibit both long-range magnetic ordering and high photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) since the dimensionality of the compounds has a contrasting effect on them. In this article, we have shown an approach to enhance PLQY in two-dimensional (2D) Heisenberg antiferromagnets by increasing the alkylene chain length of [H3N–(CH2)m–NH3]MnCl4 (m = 2, 3, and 4) compounds. All these compounds exhibit 2D layers of corner-sharing MnCl6 octahedra where the organic cations are intercalated between them. These compounds exhibit long-range antiferromagnetic ordering confirmed by the DC magnetic susceptibility and heat capacity measurements. The Néel temperature (TN) decreases with increasing the length of spacer cations due to a decrease in interlayer exchange interactions; however, interestingly, the lifetime of photoexcited electrons and PLQY enhances from 24 to 56 µs and 8% to 23%, respectively. Furthermore, the temperature-dependent photoluminescence measurements provide insight into thermal quenching and exciton binding energy. We believe this study can help to design new OIH halides with long-range magnetic ordering and high PLQY.

Galangin (GA) is an active flavonoid of the rhizome of Alpinia galanga that belongs to the ginger family. GA exhibit potent anti-inflammatory properties. Therefore, we evaluated the preventive effects of GA against isoproterenol (ISO)-induced inflammation and myocardial fibrosis in male albino Wistar rats. We found that GA (1 mg/kg b.wt.) pretreatment attenuated the ISO-mediated (5 mg/kg b.wt. for 14 consecutive days) elevation of heart rate, activities of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatine kinase (CK), creatine kinase-MB (CKMB) in the rat serum. We also noticed that GA prevented the ISO-mediated cardiac markers i.e. cardiac troponin T and I (cTnT and cTnI) expression in the serum of rats. Further, GA pretreatment prevented ISO-mediated lipid peroxidation and diminished blood pressure and loss of antioxidants status in the heart tissue of ISO treated rats. In addition, GA treatment modulates ISO-induced alterations the expressions of tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases-1 (TIMP-1), p-AKT, glycogen synthase kinase-3β (p-GSK-3β) and peroxisome proliferators-activated receptor-γ (PPAR-γ) in the heart tissue. Furthermore, molecular analysis (PCR array and western blot) revealed that GA pretreatment prevented inflammation and fibrosis related gene expression pattern in ISO-induced rats. Taken together, the results indicate the cardioprotective effect of GA against ISO-induced inflammation and fibrosis. The antioxidant and anti-inflammatory potential of GA could be considered for its cardioprotective effect in the ISO-treated rats.

Combining ferroelectricity and magnetism in the same material remains a challenge because it involves complex crystal chemistry and stringent symmetry requirements. In conventional ferroelectrics, the polarization arises from the second-order Jahn–Teller effect associated with cations of d0 or s2 lone pair electronic configuration. In contrast, the magnetism arises from cations with partially filled d or f electrons. Materials that incorporate these two kinds of cations in different crystallographic sites exhibit multiferroic properties but with weak coupling between magnetism and ferroelectricity. On the other hand, a strong cross-coupling occurs in some materials, where specific spin structures induce weak ferroelectricity below the magnetic ordering temperature. In this article, we discuss a new class of multiferroics where the polar distortion results from chemical ordering. These polar oxides are mainly pyroelectric in the entire temperature range and exhibit magnetoelectric coupling below the magnetic ordering temperatures.

Cloud computing offers scalable services to the user where computing resources are owned by a cloud provider. The resources are offered to clients on pay-per-use basis. However, since multiple clients share the cloud’s resources, they could potentially interfere with each others’ task during peak load instances. The environment changes every instant of time with a new set of job requests demanding resource while another set of jobs relieving another set of resources. A major challenge among the service providers is to maintain a balance without compromising Service Level Agreement (SLA). In case of peak load, when each client strives for a particular resource in minimal time, the resource allocation problem becomes more challenging. The important issue is to fulfil the SLA criterion without delaying the resource allocation.