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The need for innovative study and formulation is praised from the claim of those occupational personnel including software Engineers, those who get tremendously tired after their office work 9:00am -05:00pm. That time tea/coffee/health drinks won’t work with many pros and cons because it takes a long time to prepare and to initiate action, sometimes addiction, its lengthy preparation and blending processes and single mild stimulation drug efficiency. The method development and preparation of a formulation processing the cumulative effects of CNS stimulant, effective natural vasodilatation, energy boosting to brain, normalize function of immune system to reduce tiredness and fatigue, as brain tonic with caffeine dust, Theobroma Cacao dust, glucose/sucrose, vitamin –C, Brahmi’s leaf extract respectively. These components were in the form of solid cubes formulation with dispersible deliquescent additives of sodium citrate. Thus, get soluble in a low temperature 60-70°C of Luke warm liquid medium for drinks. These low temperature instant-energy boosters take less time to prepare and avoid thermo-labile constituent’s degradation. This formulation acts as multifactor benefits to the volunteers as instant stimulation and steady energy–brain tonic along with zero recurrent hangovers.

Fucoidanases are hydrolytic enzymes that degrade fucoidan to a lower molecular weight while retaining the side substituent groups of the polymer. Fucoidanases are produced by marine organisms: bacteria, fungi, algae, molluscs, echinoderms. Fucoidanases are rare and little studied enzymes. There is currently no information on the structural organization of fucoidanases, the size of active centers, their secondary and tertiary structures. This review summarizes the data on fucoidanase sources and factors influencing fucoidanase activity. It was found that that such factors include medium pH, temperature, and the presence of metal ions. The principles of classification of fucoidanases were analyzed. Fucoidanase was found to have high biological activity. Fucoidanases are known to hydrolyze fucoidan to oligosaccharides that have anti-inflammatory, antiangiogenic, anticancer, antiviral, prebiotic, and anticoagulant properties. Thus, research into sources, isolation methods, the effect of fucoidanase on fucoidan, and its enzymatic activity is promising, and can be used to build the body’s resistance to adverse environmental factors (difficult working conditions, stress, and overwork), as well as restore and stimulate the immune response.

In-Memory computation has received considerable attention in the light of recent advances made in the memristor-based design. Non-volatile memristor devices are compatible with both the crossbar structure, CMOS technology, and can perform logical operations when subjected to suitable voltages. In this work, a generalized synthesis technique is presented to implement the logic functions inside pure memristive-crossbar. To initiate the process, two novel memristive-designs are proposed for 2:1 multiplexer (MUX) that follow Memristor Aided loGIC (MAGIC) design style. Experimental results showed that each design is at least 68.05 %, 35.92 % more energy-efficient than their existing IMPLY, MAGIC-based designs, respectively. One of our proposed MUX designs is optimized in memristor-count, and the other is latency-optimized. The latency-optimized design offers 20 % improvement in performance compared to its existing IMPLY, MAGIC-based peers. Based on the simulation methodology presented in this work, the memristive-MUXes are simulated in Cadence Virtuoso. Subsequently, our proposed MUX designs are used for the technology mapping of the nodes of the Binary Decision Diagrams (optimized in terms of node, path counts) for the logic functions. Our proposed technique optimizes the implemented logic circuits in terms of memristor-count, step-count, and provides the details for – latency, required memristors, energy, area. Comparison of the synthesis results showed that the circuits generated using our proposed MAGIC-MUXes, are at least 82.21 %, 44 % more energy-efficient, and can offer 18.94 %, 18.92 % more performance-improvements than their peers, realized using the existing IMPLY, MAGIC-MUX designs, respectively. Also, our proposed-MUX based circuits need at least 56.73 % lesser crossbar-areas than their existing MAGIC-MUX based peers, which indicates the scope for large scale parallel processing inside a given memristive-memory.

Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is the key step involved both in water splitting devices and rechargeable metal-air batteries, and hence, there is an urgent need for a stable and low-cost material for efficient OER. In the present investigation, Co−Fe−Ga−Ni−Zn (CFGNZ) high entropy alloy (HEA) has been utilized as a low-cost electrocatalyst for OER. Herein, after cyclic voltammetry activation, CFGNZ-nanoparticles (NPs) are covered with oxidized surface and form high entropy (oxy) hydroxides (HEOs), exhibiting a low overpotential of 370 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA/cm2 with a small Tafel slope of 71 mV/dec. CFGNZ alloy has higher electrochemical stability in comparison to state-of-the art RuO2 electrocatalyst as no degradation has been observed up to 10 h of chronoamperometry. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies after 10 h of long-term chronoamperometry test showed no change in the crystal structure, which confirmed the high stability of CFGNZ. The density functional theory (DFT) based calculations show that the closeness of d(p)-band centers to the Fermi level (EF) plays a major role in determining active sites. This work highlights the tremendous potential of CFGNZ HEA for OER, which is the primary reaction involved in water splitting.

This paper elaborates a unique development of ZigBee enabled fail proof home area network (ZFPHAN). A decentralized multi-layer partial mesh (MLPM) topology is proposed in order to monitor and control domestic and/or commercial appliances. The advantages of partial mesh network are extracted to provide alternate paths in case of malfunctioning of intermediate node(s). The concept of multi-layer is introduced where each layer contains active gateway (AG), pseudo gateway (PG)and ZigBee control boards (ZCBs) for uninterrupted communication. The PG coordinates with AG such that it becomes a new AG by forming a new layer in case of failure of earlier AG. Another PG is then evoked from the descending order schedule of degree distribution of existing ZCBs. The ZigBee transmit power is minimized to maintain whispering distance with neighbor nodes for energy efficient and eco-friendly purposes. The proposed system is simulated with 15 numbers of nodes to estimate the MLPM working with propagation delay, alternate path for malfunctioning node and its robustness. For experimental verification, five numbers of customized ZCB are used and the performance of HAN is tested with all possible conditions and fail proof networking is observed. The experimental result suggests the successful implementation of this ZFPHAN1

The objective of this study is inspired from the immeasurable difference of COVID-19 incidence data between African & Indian population at peak prevalence month of its pandemic. Raw data analysis of Africa and India was schemed when COVID-19 situation as in peak on pandemic all over the world. The detected data distributions of inter-countries and other countries of Africa were comparatively studied on statistical basis of Correlation coefficient. The evaluation of p-values, ANOVA study with graphical representation on the comparative basis was carried out and interpreted. The screening of the large variation of data distribution has made uniform to get proper variation. The different mean± SD values are 67.142 ±69.91, 76.642± 66.747 & 77.21 ± 67.0215 and CV of these African countries shows 1.080, 0.90377 & 0.90076 respectively. Thus, ANOVA study showed no significance value, p < .05, where P-value is 0.913928 because of least variations. On the other hand, the % distribution of COVID-19 pandemic represents the wide difference of inter-continental difference of Africa from India, specifically of pie-chart. However, due to vast difference in COVID-19 intercontinental cases on restricted travellers interconnectivity tends to focus our attention to examine dietary roles in COVID-19.

When digging in the ground during egg laying the female locust extends her abdomen to 2-3 times of its original length. How the abdominal nervous system accommodates such extreme elongation remains unknown. We characterized and quantified the system's biomechanical response using controlled

This designed medical gadget has the ability to trace the action potential (AP) variation over the complete spinal vertebral cord. Due to different locative organ failure and follow-up therapeutic activity, impulsive fluctuation is created across each spinal segment. The device, which is electronically embedded with logistic sensor electrodes and glides over a carbon composite strip conveyor from the C1 (first cervical) to the coccyx (terminal) and vice versa, calibrates the remarked AP through (-emV/emf) during expected organ dysfunction and/or drug administration under therapy. The mechanism praised is the neural electrical flux catching techniques amplifying the AP through a detector device. That’s how specifically its traced lumber region and the path physiology of same was perfectly determined through specified interference generated deflected readings. Thus, signifies the detection of neural (ANS) level and its abnormal status in gastrointestinal disorders and after drug therapy. This challenges to confirm, that cross-checking through MRI, leads to duodenum diverticulitis.

Dextran, a renewable hydrophilic polysaccharide, is nontoxic, highly stable but intrinsically biodegradable. The α-1, 6 glycosidic bonds in dextran are attacked by dextranase (E.C. 3.2.1.11) which is an inducible enzyme. Dextranase finds many applications such as, in sugar industry, in the production of human plasma substitutes, and for the treatment and prevention of dental plaque. Currently, dextranases are obtained from terrestrial fungi which have longer duration for production but not very tolerant to environmental conditions and have safety concerns. Marine bacteria have been proposed as an alternative source of these enzymes and can provide prospects to overcome these issues. Indeed, marine bacterial dextranases are reportedly more effective and suitable for dental caries prevention and treatment. Here, we focused on properties of dextran, properties of dextran—hydrolyzing enzymes, particularly from marine sources and the biochemical features of these enzymes. Lastly the potential use of these marine bacterial dextranase to remove dental plaque has been discussed. The review covers dextranase-producing bacteria isolated from shrimp, fish, algae, sea slit, and sea water, as well as from macro- and micro fungi and other microorganisms. It is common knowledge that dextranase is used in the sugar industry; produced as a result of hydrolysis by dextranase and have prebiotic properties which influence the consistency and texture of food products. In medicine, dextranases are used to make blood substitutes. In addition, dextranase is used to produce low molecular weight dextran and cytotoxic dextran. Furthermore, dextranase is used to enhance antibiotic activity in endocarditis. It has been established that dextranase from marine bacteria is the most preferable for removing plaque, as it has a high enzymatic activity. This study lays the groundwork for the future design and development of different oral care products, based on enzymes derived from marine bacteria.

The effects of dietary administration of inorganic zinc (zinc sulphate, ZnSO₄) and nano zinc (zinc oxide nanoparticles, ZnO‐NP) were evaluated in rohu, Labeo rohita fingerlings. Fish were fed with a basal diet (Control) supplemented with ZnSO₄ (T1, T2 and T3) and ZnO‐NP (T4, T5 and T6) at 10, 20 and 30 mg/kg, respectively, for a duration of 45 days. The results revealed that fish fed diet containing 20 mg ZnO‐NP per kg (T5) had the highest weight gain and specific growth rate (SGR, % per day), which was significantly different (p

The female locust has a unique mechanism for digging in order to deposit its eggs deep in the ground. It utilizes two pairs of sclerotized valves to displace the granular matter, while extending its abdomen as it propagates underground. This ensures optimal conditions for the eggs to incubate, and provides them with protection from predators. Here, two major axes of operation of the digging valves are identified, one in parallel to the propagation direction of the ovipositor, and one perpendicular to it. The direction-dependent biomechanics of the locust major, dorsal digging valves are quantified and analyzed, under forces in the physiological range and beyond, considering hydration level, as well as the females’ age, or sexual maturation state. Our findings reveal that the responses of the valves to compression forces in the specific directions change upon sexual maturation to follow their function, and depend on environmental conditions. Namely, in the physiological force range, the valves are resistant to mechanical failure. In addition, mature females, which lay eggs, have stiffer valves, up to roughly nineteen times the stiffness of the pre-mature locusts. The valves are stiffer in the major working direction, corresponding to soil shuffling and compression, compared to the direction of propagation. Hydration of the valves reduces their stiffness but increases their resilience against failure. These findings provide mechanical and materials guidelines for the design of novel non-drilling excavating tools, including 3D-printed anisotropic materials based on composites.Statement of significanceThe female locust lay its eggs underground in order to protect them from predators and to provide them with optimal conditions for hatching. In order to dig into the ground, it uses two pairs of valves: The ventral pair is plugged as a wedge, while the dorsal pair performs the digging of the oviposition tunnel. We study the mechanical response of the digging valves, depending on age, hydration level and direction of operation. Our findings show that during the course of roughly two weeks in the life of the adult female, the digging valves become up to nineteen-fold stiffer against failure, in order to fulfill their function as diggers. While hydration reduces the stiffness, it also increases the resilience against failure and renders the valves unbreakable within the estimated physiological force range and beyond. The digging valves are consistently stiffer in the digging direction than in the perpendicular direction, implying on their form-follows-function design.Graphical Abstract

The nanoengineered high entropy alloy (HEAs) catalysts have attracted the attention of the scientific community due to their exceptional characteristics; wide range of compositional tunability and the utilization of low-cost transition metals. During various electrochemical reactions, the oxidation of carbon-mono-oxide (CO) is an intermediate and it acts as a poison to reduce the efficiency of the reactions. A nanocrystalline HEA catalyst (CoFeNiGaZn) is prepared by easily scalable cast-cum-crush method, providing pristine catalyst surfaces. It is capable of catalyzing the CO-oxidation to CO2 with high conversion efficiency (99.8%). DFT calculations show that the high activity of the HEA can be attributed to the presence of a considerable amount of filled states of dxz and dyz orbital near the Fermi level for Ni atoms over the surface. Due to the favourable transfer of electrons from this orbital to the LUMO of reactant molecules, the endothermicity of the rate-determining step is 1.13 eV.

Bio-inspired reversible adhesives have attracted great attention because of their promising applications in the electronic, biomedical, and robotic fields. Here, to achieve in situ reversible adhesion, a new concept is demonstrated by modulating the conformations of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) chains. The new adhesive, termed BGPP, is composed of the graphene/PDMS composite (GP) as the backing layer and PDMS as the micropillar array. The photothermal effect of graphene under UV irradiation heats up the micropillars, resulting in an increase in the chain conformations of PDMS and thus the contact points with the counterpart surface. The more contact points together with the alignment of PDMS chains during the shearing result in an adhesion much higher than that without UV irradiation. The adhesion switching thus does not rely on the changing of the contact area, and so the macroscopic deformation of structures is avoided. The results suggest a new design principle for light-controllable structured adhesive, which could be conceptualized into other rubbery materials.

Background: There is a scope of increasing the aquaculture production by use of fish feed produced from non-conventional ingredients and also improvement in the quality of feed by solid-state fermentation. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of solid-state fermented aquafeed on growth performance, digestive enzymes and innate immunity of rohu, Labeo rohita.Methods: Fish feed containing sesame oil cake and mahua oil cake was fermented through solid-state fermentation by yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and then compared with a non-fermented control feed with the same formula.Result: Solid-state fermentation increased crude protein (CP), decreased crude fibre (CF) and also lowered (p less than 0.05) anti-nutritional factors (ANF) of fish feed. After five months of experimental feeding, weight gain and digestibility of nutrients like dry matter, crude protein and ether extract were significantly higher (p less than 0.05) and feed conversion ratio was significantly lower in fish of fermented feed fed group than the control group. Furthermore, non-specific immune parameters such as lysozyme, myeloperoxidase and haemolytic activities and intestinal enzyme activity of fish fed with fermented feed increased significantly (p less than 0.05) compared to fish fed control feed. It is concluded that feeding of Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermented feed could improve the growth, digestive enzymes activity and immunity of Rohu, Labeo rohita.

Lignocellulose, the main component of plant cell walls, comprises polyaromatic lignin and fermentable materials, cellulose and hemicellulose. It is a plentiful and renewable feedstock for chemicals and energy. It can serve as a raw material for the production of various value-added products, including cellulase and xylanase. Cellulase is essentially required in lignocellulose-based biorefineries and is applied in many commercial processes. Likewise, xylanases are industrially important enzymes applied in papermaking and in the manufacture of prebiotics and pharmaceuticals. Owing to the widespread application of these enzymes, many prokaryotes and eukaryotes have been exploited to produce cellulase and xylanases in good yields, yet yeasts have rarely been explored for their plant-cell-wall-degrading activities. This review is focused on summarizing reports about cellulolytic and xylanolytic yeasts, their properties, and their biotechnological applications.

Spatial organization of chromatin plays a critical role in genome regulation. Previously, various types of affinity mediators and enzymes have been attributed to regulate spatial organization of chromatin from a thermodynamics perspective. However, at the mechanistic level, enzymes act in their unique ways and perturb the chromatin. Here, we construct a polymer physics model following the mechanistic scheme of Topoisomerase-II, an enzyme resolving topological constraints of chromatin, and investigate how it affects interphase chromatin organization. Our computer simulations demonstrate Topoisomerase-II's ability to phase separate chromatin into eu- and heterochromatic regions with a characteristic wall-like organization of the euchromatic regions. We realized that the ability of the euchromatic regions to cross each other due to enzymatic activity of Topoisomerase-II induces this phase separation. This realization is based on the physical fact that partial absence of self-avoiding interaction can induce phase separation of a system into its self-avoiding and non-self-avoiding parts, which we reveal using a mean-field argument. Furthermore, motivated from recent experimental observations, we extend our model to a bidisperse setting and show that the characteristic features of the enzymatic activity-driven phase separation survive there. The existence of these robust characteristic features, even under the non-localized action of the enzyme, highlights the critical role of enzymatic activity in chromatin organization., eLife, 11, ISSN:2050-084X

Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is the key step involved both in water splitting devices as well as in rechargeable metal-air batteries and there is an urgent requirement for a highly stable and low-cost material for efficient OER. In this article, for the first time, electrocatalyst based on high entropy alloy (HEA) of FeCoNiZnGa has been reported for OER. Nano-crystalline high entropy alloys materials withdrew the attention of the research academia due to their emerging unique properties due to the cocktail effect and synergetic effect between the constituent elements. The existing materials (IrO2, RuO2, etc.) being utilized in the OER reaction contain precious metals. Thus, high entropy alloy made up of low-cost elements has been formulated and tested for the OER, which is found to be highly stable and more efficient. The formulation of nanocrystalline HEA (FeCoNiZnGa) utilized a unique recipe casting-cum-comminution (CCC). After electrochemical CV activation, transition metal oxides formation at the HEA surface helps in OER activities. HEA exhibits a low overpotential of 370 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm-2 with a very small Tafel slope of 71 mV dec-1 and exceptional long term stability of electrolysis for over 10 h in 1 M KOH alkaline solution, which is extremely stable in comparison to the state-of-the-art OER electrocatalyst RuO2. Transmission electron microscopic (TEM) studies after 10 h of long term chronoamperometry testing confirmed high stability of HEA as no change in the crystal structure observed. Our work highlights the great potential of HEA towards oxygen evolution reaction which is primary reaction involved in water splitting.

Here, we report on the fabrication of flame retardant hydrophobic cotton fabrics based on the coating with two-dimensional hexagonal boron nitride (2D hBN) nanosheets. A simple one-step solution dipping process was used to coat the fabrics by taking advantage of the strong bonding between diethylenetriamine and hBN on the cotton surface. Exposure to direct flame confirmed the improvement of the flame retardant properties of the coated cotton fabrics. In turn, removal of the flame source revealed self-extinguishing properties. Molecular dynamics simulations indicate that hBN hinders combustion by reducing the rate at which oxygen molecules reach the cotton surface. This time-saving and one-step approach for the fabrication of flame-retardant cotton fabrics offers significant advantages over other, less efficient production methods.

Background: de Quervain’s stenosing tenosynovitis (dQSTS) is a tenosynovial disorder which is characterized by impaired gliding of the tendons of the abductor pollicis longus (APL) and extensor pollicis brevis (EPB) muscles over the tendon sheath covering these tendons. The most sensitive clinical test to diagnose dQSTS is Finkelstein's manoeuvre. The management of the disease differs based on the severity of the condition. Objectives: To prospectively review and compare the efficacy, feasibility and durability of conservative & physical therapy, corticosteroid therapy and platelet rich plasma therapy in the view of (1) symptomatic pain relief, (2) improved the visual analogue scale (VAS) score and functional Mayo’s wrist scores, (3) durability of treatment given and (4) alleviation of need of surgery in patients with de Quervain’s tenosynovitis. Materials and Methods: After screening of cases, 217 cases entered into the study and the cases were randomized into three groups according to our study protocol. Group a cases were treated with conservative & physical therapy, Group B cases were treated with corticosteroid therapy and Group C cases were treated with autologous platelet rich plasma injection with due pre and post procedural care. The cases were followed up on day 0, at the end of 1st week, 1st and 6th month for pain and range of movements. The patients were followed up for complications and the data were analysed statistically. Results: A total of 25 (30.06%) cases in group A, 48 (69.56%) cases in group B and 64 (95.52%) cases in group C had recovered from disease at the end of 2nd dose of treatment. At the end of 6th month follow up, a total of 39 (60.93%) cases in group A, 21 (30.43%) cases in group B and 3 (4.47%) cases in group C had recurrence. All these patients were followed up for 1 year which showed a statistical difference with P value of

The near-future possibility of Quantum supremacy, which aspires to establish a set of algorithms running efficiently on a Quantum computer – have significantly fuelled the interest in design and automation of Quantum circuits. Multiple technologies such as Ion-Trap, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), have made great progress in recent years towards a practical Quantum circuit implementation. For all these technologies, in order to suppress the inherent computation noise, fault-tolerance is a desirable feature. Fault tolerance is achieved by Quantum error correction codes, such as surface code. Due to the efficient realization of surface codes using Clifford + T gate library of Quantum logic gates, it is now becoming de facto gate library for Quantum circuit implementation. In this paper, we improve two key performance metrics, T − depth and T − count, for Quantum circuit realization using Clifford + T gates. In contrast with the previous approaches, we have incorporated two techniques - 1) restructuring of the gate positions in the designs to make it amenable towards a lower T − depth 2) using Binary Decision Diagrams (BDD) as an intermediate representation for achieving scalability. To validate our proposed optimizations, we have tested a wide spectrum of benchmarks, registering an average improvement of 74% and 21% on T − depth and T − count in compared works.

Since last decade, optical computing has emerged as one of the promising computing paradigm in the field of ultra-fast computations and the recent advancements of fabrication technology in photonic industry has further boosted research interests to investigate in this field. In this conjuncture, strategies for designing efficient optical circuits bear much significance toward building cost efficient logic circuits. Not only synthesis schemes but manual designs for logic components are found very effective in way to produce optimal designs. In this work, we present the optical domain designs of an important logic module of ALU—adder circuit. Not only we have made the adder circuit optical domain supporting one but also we have ensured that the designs are optimized too. Here we have worked with two types of adder circuits Carry-Lookahead Adder and Carry-Skip Adder. All the designs are made using Mach–Zehnder interferometers based optical components and interconnect. For both the adder types, two different designs are shown and in each of these designs both the circuit cost parameters and response time is improved. Design overhead and hardware complexities for all the circuits are computed and have compared with related work’s design, where we have found that our designs are having less delay and cost efficient compared to the existing ones.

We present a brief review and perspective on the development of eutectic alloys, emphasizing the emergence of complex microstructures during eutectic solidification of ternary and higher-order multicomponent alloys. Such alloys' abundant existence promises a large domain in the alloy development space for newer materials suitable for high-temperature applications. Hence the review explores these developments in eutectic alloys based on aluminum, titanium, nickel, intermetallics, and recently developed high entropy alloys. While the importance of fundamental understanding and various functional properties of the eutectic alloys cannot be ignored, this paper focuses primarily on the microstructure and their mechanical properties. The possibilities of ultrafine eutectics and multiscale variation of length scale and morphologies are emphasized. It highlights the potential for the future emergence of these alloys as high-strength structural materials for engineering applications.

The advancement of fabrication technology in VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) and photonic industry has gained significant interest due to the feasibility of performing functional computations on-chip using ultra-high speed optical devices and low-power interconnects. Here, the necessity of optical circuits arises as they are inevitable components in developing optical Integrated Circuits (ICs). In this conjuncture, methodologies to design highly scalable optical circuits and their synthesis schemes have received interest. In recent years, several works and their findings have been reported in various research articles where researchers have mainly designed combinational and sequential memory elements using optical devices. The use of Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs) to construct optical circuits has been reported recently. However, the costs of the resulting circuits are still rather high. Furthermore, they include a substantial amount of splitters, which is a significant drawback as they degrade the signal strength in the circuits. In this paper, we propose an improved design technique where we use BDDs to construct optical circuits. Rather than generating a single graph for multi-output functions, we consider individual graphs for each output separately which, afterwards are combined to realize the entire function. In our experiments, we find that this approach performs better in comparison to related techniques – a cost improvement of approx. 34% is observed on average. As these optical circuits are mainly designed with MZIs, beam combiners and beam splitters, the use of beam splitters in the circuit degrades the signal quality at the receiver end. To address this concern, in a second phase of our design, we make all the circuits free from splitters. Experimental results for both the design schemes are given and analyzed.

We report a study on the competition between soft ferromagnetism (FM) and enhanced Pauli paramagnetism (PM) in Ce(Fe 1− x Ni x ) 2 ( x =0.0, 0.5, 0.8) compounds under doping. We provide convincing experimental evidence for the occurrence of a ferromagnetic (FM) phase and a paramagnetic (PM) phase at different concentrations. The quality of the samples was established by X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Quantification of f - d hybridization was made from high-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. A proportionality was found between ‘ x ' dependencies of fall of f - d hybridization strength and magnetic order. A prediction that a quantum critical point may exist at a nickel concentration x close to 0.69 can be made from the extrapolation of x dependent Curie temperature (T c ) plot.

Hybridization between Ce $f$ and conduction $d$ states has been speculatively known to be one of the mechanisms responsible for magnetic instability of the ferromagnetic ground state of CeFe$_2$. Substituting Fe by small amounts of certain elements stabilizes it to an antiferromagnetic state below the Curie temperature via a first-order second phase transition. In the present work, we seek any direct relation between the $f-d$ hybridization and the second transition by measuring primarily dc magnetization and Ce M$_{4,5}$ edge x-ray absorption spectra of Ce(Fe$_{1-x}$M$_x$)$_2$ pseudobinaries, with M = Cr, Ag and Au. X-ray diffraction and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements are also performed essentially to monitor the quality of the samples. Whereas Cr impurity is found to cause the second transition, Ag and Au apparently do not induce any. In the former, the Curie and second transition temperatures vary systematically, but differently, with $x$. Our results imply that there is a definite proportionality between the $x$ dependences of the second transition temperature and the $f-d$ hybridization strength estimated qualitatively from the absorption spectra., 15 pages, 9 figures

We introduce a minimal model for a two-dimensional polar flock with nonquenched rotators, and show that the rotators make the usual macroscopic long-range order of the flock more robust than the clean system. The rotators memorise the flock-information which helps in establishing the robustness. Moreover, the memory of the rotators assists in probing the moving flock. We also formulate a hydrodynamic framework for the microscopic model that makes our study comprehensive. Using linearised hydrodynamics, it is shown that the presence of such nonquenched heterogeneities increases the sound speeds of the flock. The enhanced sound speeds lead to faster convection of information and consequently the robust ordering in the system. We argue that similar nonquenched heterogeneities may be useful in monitoring and controlling large crowds.

Aquaculture is the fastest growing animal food-producing sector, growing at nearly a rate of 7% annually. However, rapid aquaculture growth has been accompanied by increased incidences of occurrence of infectious diseases, causing severe economic loss to the farming community. Aquaculture needs innovative biotechnological interventions to overcome challenges in terms of rapid disease diagnosis, production of disease-free or high health broodstock for seed production, suitable preventive and therapeutic measures to control disease outbreaks. During the last few years, molecular techniques have been increasingly employed to diagnose fish disease. These techniques are potentially faster and more sensitive than traditional culture, serology, and histology methods. DNA-based techniques like polymerase chain reaction (PCR), real-time-PCR (qPCR), multiplex PCR, DNA probe-based in situ hybridization, and microarray, etc. have a wide scope of application in fish disease diagnosis. Again, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, amplified fragment length polymorphism, ribotyping, repetitive element sequence-based PCR, enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus-polymerase chain reaction, and multilocus sequence typing -based genomic fingerprinting methods, combined with computer-assisted pattern analysis have been useful in typing and characterization of fish pathogens. qPCR assays are also helpful to determine the presence of specific genes and alleles, typing of strains and isolates, antimicrobial resistance profiling, and toxin production. As in other animal sectors, probiotic and bioremediation products have scope of application in aquaculture for disease and environmental management and are being used in fish and shrimp farming to control disease outbreaks and upkeep of culture environment. There is an urgent need for development of suitable prophylactic measures in terms of single or multivalent vaccines, DNA vaccines, immunostimulants, organic products, nanotechnology-based products, etc. to control disease outbreaks. These biotechnological tools can be used as a routine tool for rapid diagnosis of fish pathogens in filed diagnosis besides their use in epidemiological studies of infectious fish diseases.

This paper describes a state-of-the-art development of energy monitoring system (EMS) to store the energy related information in a remote server. The energy flow in a battery energy storage (BESS) based grid tied solar photo-voltaic supply system in measured with multi-function metering (MFM) arrangements in a substation. The measured data from the MFMs are communicated to a remote central server with Zigbee based networking arrangement. The Zigbee mesh networking is made based on neighborhood area networking (NAN) protocol in order to provide sufficient redundant path. The AODV based networking algorithm is used and is implemented using a dedicated Microcontroller based system. The algorithm is tested with the malfunctioning of one node and to search for an alternate path so that the data can reach to the server without any loss of frame.

In this work, novel Cu-Ga-In alloys are designed with systematic variation in the liquid and solid solution phases to mimic the nature-inspired structures and their properties. A combination of characterization techniques such as X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and 3D X-ray tomography along with thermodynamic calculations confirm the presence of liquid and solid solution phases in the microstructure. The effect of the liquid phase in increasing the ductility and toughness is clearly demonstrated in the present study. It is shown that the liquid phase can arrest the crack movement during the fracture that leads to improved toughness in the Cu-Ga-In based alloys. Moreover, the presence of the liquid phase also improves the wear properties of these alloys. The present alloys exhibited better hardness and reasonable yield strength compared to the existing Cu alloys in the literature. Especially Cu65In20Ga15 alloy exhibits the hardness of 660Hv and the yield strength of 335.49 MPa which is higher than conventional copper alloys.

The elastomeric nanocomposites having high mechanical stability and shape memory property were fabricated via in situ cationic polymerization of vegetable oil (linseed oil) in the presence of nano fly ash (NFA). The enhanced dynamic moduli and Young's modulus of nanocomposites with respect to matrix elastomers were witnessed. The vibration damping behavior of nanocomposites in wide frequency region, observed under a laboratory fabricated machine reveals their effectiveness to attenuate hazardous vibration in broad application regions. Under thermally stimulated shape memory test, the nanocomposites exhibit 100% shape recovery, and the shape recovery time improves when the content of NFA filler increases.

New-generation structural materials with superior properties are a constant demand in applications involving extreme environments. Here, we demonstrate the fabrication of a high-strength, high-dense W-TaC-Ta2O5 nanocomposite for such applications on a large scale by a simple, cost-effective, scalable, bottom-up powder metallurgy approach using plasma sintering. The first clear microstructural evidence of the scavenging effect of carbide particles in the W-MC composites (M = Ta, Zr, Hf, Ti) is demonstrated through atom probe studies. Localized plastic deformation and the unique stress-induced amorphization in tungsten are observed due to dislocation activities, and these phenomena are corroborated by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Optimized composition and processing conditions yield high Vickers hardness ~540 HV10 and super-high transverse rupture strength (TRS) ~ 1650 MPa, in upscaled components of 100 mm diameter. The enhanced mechanical properties are attributed to the cumulative effect of the grain boundary strengthening and dispersion strengthening from the refined tungsten grains and the second phase intragranular nanocrystalline particles, respectively, the coherent particle-matrix interfaces, the low oxygen-segregation at grain boundaries and the ‘dual nanocrystalline-amorphous’ microstructure present in the matrix.