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We present results of a state-of-the-art computational study of the atomic and electronic structure of ${\mathrm{Cs}}_{2n+2}{M}_{n}{M}_{n}^{{}^{\ensuremath{'}}}{X}_{6n+2}$ ($M=\mathrm{Cu}$, Ag; ${M}^{\ensuremath{'}}=\mathrm{In}$, Bi; $X=\mathrm{Cl}$, Br, I) layers with up to three-unit-cell thickness ($n=3$) as well as their bulk counterparts in the search for economical and stable halide double perovskites (HDPs) with a direct band gap and strong light absorption. Among the 24 layers we have studied, seven are found to be suitable for light emitting diodes, whereas one is proposed for solar cell applications. Our results on bulk ${\mathrm{Cs}}_{2}\mathrm{Ag}M{}^{\ensuremath{'}}{X}_{6}$ (${M}^{\ensuremath{'}}=\mathrm{In}$, Bi; $X=\mathrm{Cl}$, Br) HDPs agree with previous studies. Interestingly, we find that HDP layers as well as bulk are more stable than their respective lead-halide perovskites. The Cu-based HDPs are cost effective compared with those based on Ag and are found to be equally suitable as absorber materials with a lower band gap. However, bulk ${\mathrm{Cs}}_{2}\mathrm{CuIn}{X}_{6}$ ($X=\mathrm{Cl}$, Br) HDPs are found to be dynamically unstable. Our calculations show a combined effect of confinement and spin-orbit coupling in deciding the nature of the band gap for one (two)-unit-cell thick layers of ${\mathrm{Cs}}_{4}\mathrm{AgBi}{X}_{8}$ (${\mathrm{Cs}}_{8}{\mathrm{Cu}}_{2}{\mathrm{Bi}}_{2}{X}_{14}$). Furthermore, strong confinement effects are found to be crucial in making the thinnest layers of ${\mathrm{Cs}}_{4}\mathrm{CuBi}{X}_{8}$ ($X=\mathrm{Cl}$, Br) direct band gap semiconductors. The reduction in the dimension from three to two dimensions introduces distortions in the layers of the HDPs, and it is more in the case of the Cu-based layers. The nature of the band gap becomes direct for very thin layers of ${\mathrm{Cs}}_{2n+2}{\mathrm{Ag}}_{n}{\mathrm{Bi}}_{n}{X}_{6n+2}$ ($n=1$) and ${\mathrm{Cs}}_{2n+2}{\mathrm{Cu}}_{n}{\mathrm{Bi}}_{n}{X}_{6n+2}$ ($n=1$, 2) compared with indirect band gap in bulk. The HDP layers with a direct band gap and enhanced stability also have a strong absorption coefficient of the order of ${10}^{5}\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^{\text{--}1}$, making them interesting for solar cell applications. The effects of surfaces on the electronic structure of direct band gap layers of ${\mathrm{Cs}}_{2n+2}{\mathrm{Cu}}_{n}{\mathrm{Bi}}_{n}{\mathrm{Br}}_{6n+2}$ ($n=1$, 2) and ${\mathrm{Cs}}_{2n+2}{\mathrm{Ag}}_{n}{\mathrm{In}}_{n}{\mathrm{Cl}}_{6n+2}$ ($n=3$) are also shown with surface states. We hope that our results on HDPs will stimulate further research on these materials.

In modern agricultural practices, Metsulfuron-methyl (sulfonylurea herbicide) is widely employed to inhibit the weeds and grasses. The current study revealed that Metaphire posthuma was more sensitive than Eisenia fetida against Metsulfuron-methyl (MSM). The LC

We report results of the state-of-the-art ab initio calculations on two-dimensional (2D) hybrid halide perovskites capped with surface ligands to understand their effects on the stability with respect to bulk MASnBr3 (MA = CH3NH3). Considering the thinnest (one-unit-cell thick) layers R2SnBr4 with surface ligands of different lengths (R = MA, ethyl ammonium (EA), butyl ammonium (BA), and phenylethyl ammonium (PEA)), it is found that van der Waals (vdW) interactions between the long chain molecules play a crucial role in enhancing the stability of the layers. The vdW contribution in ligand–ligand interactions increases with increasing length of the ligands, and interestingly, the stability of BA2SnBr4 and PEA2SnBr4 layers becomes better than bulk MASnBr3 and comparable to that of inorganic bulk CsSnBr3. Furthermore, our calculations on the 2D-3D BA2SnBr4 system in which the surface ligands connect the neighboring perovskite layers suggest further enhancement in the stability of the layers. The present stud...

Clustering based unsupervised segmentation approaches have become important tools to model data and infer knowledge. Such approaches are often used in various biomedical applications to assist experts in analyzing the data. Segmentation of brain magnetic resonance (MR) images has become a very challenging task due to the presence of Rician noise and intensity inhomogeneity. The existing methods dealing with such issues work in the spatial domain. These methods are prone to losing image details while reducing the effect of noise. The proposed method works in the moment domain, and for this purpose, we have selected Zernike moments (ZMs). The ZMs are orthogonal, rotation invariant and robust to image noise. The proposed method is based on our previous work on Zernike moments-based unbiased nonlocal means (ZM-UNLM) approach for denoising MR images affected by the Rician noise. The ZM-UNLM-based approach uses both the local and nonlocal information while eliminating Rician noise from brain MR images which have fine image details along with the noise components. Keeping in view the superior performance of the ZM-UNLM, we extend it to segment brain MR images and propose a method called local ZMs (LZM)-based unbiased nonlocal means fuzzy C-means (LZM-UNLM-FCM) approach which provides much-improved segmentation accuracy as compared to the existing spatial domain-based state-of-the-art techniques. It is shown how the LZMs based technique reduces the effect of the Rician noise while retaining the fine structures, edges, and other image details in the moment domain. The complete framework consists of an intelligent knowledge-driven approach that segments tissues from brain MR images using both the local and nonlocal information in the moment domain. The proposed approach has significance in developing future expert and intelligent systems that do not require any human intervention to manually annotate data and saves time for diagnostic related tasks. Detailed experimental results are provided to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed method over the existing state-of-the-art methods.

Segmentation of brain magnetic resonance (MR) images has a significant impact on the computer-aided diagnosis and analysis. However, due to the presence of noise in medical images, many segmentation methods suffer from limited segmentation accuracy. To reduce the effect of noise and achieve high segmentation accuracy many approaches based on the local and nonlocal information in the spatial domain have been proposed in the past. Recently, the authors have proposed a discrete cosine transform (DCT)-based local and nonlocal fuzzy C-means method (DCT-LNLFCM) which performs much better than the existing methods. However, the method is slow in speed. This paper presents a fast DCT-based nonlocal fuzzy C-means (DCT-NLFCM) segmentation method which is not only very fast than the DCT-LNLFCM, but also provides better segmentation results. The proposed method uses DCT-based MR pre-filtered image to achieve high segmentation accuracy and its histogram enables to achieve very high computation speed. Detailed experiments are conducted to establish the superiority of the proposed method over the state-of-the-art unsupervised methods.

We present novel techniques for realising reliable low overhead logic functions and more complex systems based on the switching characteristics of memristors. Firstly, we show that memristive circuits have inherent properties for realising multiple valued MIN-MAX operations over the post algebra. We then present an efficient hybrid 1T-4M logic architecture for dual XOR/AND and XNOR/OR functionality, which can be seamlessly integrated with the existing CMOS technology. Although memristors are usually considered to operate at lower frequencies, however, recent advances in technology show their potentiality at high frequencies. To this end, we also explore the effects of high frequencies on their performance and thereby propose reliable high frequency design techniques based on our 1T-4M architectures. Experimental results, based on the design of full adders and multipliers over GF, show that the proposed designs require significantly lower power and overhead while maintaining reliable performance at low as well as at high frequencies compared to the existing techniques.

We study the stability of the rare-earth dopant, Eu, in metal-halide perovskite CsPbBr3 with cubic and orthorhombic structures from first-principles calculations. In these perovskites, Eu is substi...

TAG (terbium aluminum garnet, (Tb3Al5O12) is being investigated recently for their applications in the realization of photonic devices because of its broad transmission ranging from 350 to 1500nm. An emission property of any material depends upon electronic transition levels, temperature, excitation wavelength etc. A lot of research had been reported on temperature dependent emission properties of TAG. In this study an attempt had been made to explore the excitation dependent emission properties of TAG. TAG was prepared by sol gel technique followed by sintering at 1100°C. Structural phase was analysis from the XRD spectra. XRD studies confirmed the formation of nano material and has cubic structure. The emission properties were studied by exciting the TAG by UV light and blue light i.e. 280nm, 300nm, 380 nm, 400nm, 480 and 484nm. Spectra power distribution curve was obtained from emission data excited by with UV radiation and blue light. From emission spectra, Colour co-ordinates (CIE), colour correlated temperature (CCT) and colour purity were calculated for TAG at different excitation. Emission properties indicates that TAG is potential nanophosphor for optical devices.

Background: Caesarean delivery is defined as an operative procedure to deliver the fetus or foetuses after the period of viaility through an incision on the adominal wall and uterine wall in an intact uterus. The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified an ideal caesarean section (CS) rate for a nation of around 10-15%1. The objective of the present study was to find the rate of primary caesarean deliveries in and its contribution to total caesarean rate and to analyze the indications of the caesarean sections. Methods: It is a retrospective observational study conducted in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Regional hospital,Bilaspur. A total of 90 primary caesarean deliveries were studied. Results: The total deliveries during the study period were 809 and the total caesarean section rate observed was 14.96%. The caesarean section rate among primigravidae was 74.38%. Out of the total number of primicaesarean deliveries, 92.22% were performed in emergency and 7.78% were performed electively. Among the emergency caesarean sections performed, 60.24% of patients had induced labor and 39.76% had spontaneous labor. The most common indication of caesarean section was fetal distress (43.33%) followed by failed induction(18.89%) and malpresentations (16.67%). Conclusions: Caesarean audit should be performed routinely and every case should be scrutinised. Reducing the primary caesarean rate not only decreases total caesarean rate but also many long-term complications associated with previous caesarean sections like adherent placenta ,rupture uterus

Parthenium hysterophorus L. is one of the most harmful and aggressively colonizing terrestrial weed which is invading and degrading the natural ecosystems in India. It is causing a serious impact on the human health, economy and environment. It also threatens the native biodiversity of India. Its immediate management is the need of the hour to maintain the ecological balance in terrestrial habitat. To manage the menace of Parthenium weed, a number of management approaches have been used, but unfortunately each has its own limitations. An effective tool for the management of invasive Parthenium weed is vermitechnology. This chapter discusses the hazards associated with the Parthenium weed and its mitigation with vermicomposting by using locally available epigeic earthworms.

In the present scenario, due to industrialization and urbanization, wastewater management is a major issue. In order to overcome the issue of wastewater treatment, vermifiltration is one of the best remedies available. Vermifiltration is the procedure of wastewater remediation that includes the joint action of earthworms and microbes. Vermifiltration coupled with phytoremediation could prove to be an efficient and easy-to-adapt technology that could be adopted at a community level. The treated wastewater obtained after vermifiltration is reported to have its utility in gardening, irrigation, and other reuse applications. To make the process more efficient, there is a future scope of study on earthworm-microorganism-plant interaction in the vermifiltration process integrated with plants. Treatment by vermifiltration could also be adopted at a micro level by the local communities. The process could provide an efficient mode of treatment wherever there is a lack of proper and adequate conventional treatment facilities. Future perspectives of this technology will thus depend on a large extent on the cost-benefit analysis of the process. The process could be made more cost efficient by incorporating the plants in combination with vermifiltration.

With the development of technology, mud plaster has been replaced by cement plaster for supporting bamboo mesh in wall panels and known as ekra wall or bamcrete wall. Usually, low grade mortar is used in making the bamcrete wall, while the latest studies have used high strength mortar. Bamboo burns through pyrolysis process like wood when it is exposed to the fire condition. Fire safety is one of the major challenges for the construction industry to use the bamcrete wall panel. In the present study, performance of bamboo reinforced panels at elevated temperature is presented. Bamboo strips were inter-woven and protected by the cement mortar. The weight-loss and loss of mechanical strength of wall panel has been studied at 100 ℃, 200 ℃, 300 ℃, and 400 ℃ maintained for a fixed time period.

Accurate segmentation of brain tissues from magnetic resonance images (MRI) is a crucial requirement for the quantitative analysis of brain images. Due to the presence of noise in brain MRI, many segmentation methods suffer from low segmentation accuracy. The existing methods deal the noise sensitivity of the MRI segmentation in the spatial domain by combining the local and nonlocal information in the fuzzy C-means (FCM) method. These methods are prone to loosing image details while reducing the effect of noise. In this paper, we propose a transform domain approach using the discrete cosine transform (DCT). Working in the transform domain has an advantage over the spatial domain in which the intensity of the image is decorrelated and the image information is represented by the independent frequency bands. The low and middle level frequency bands represent the holistic and fine structures of the image and the high frequency band mostly carries the noise information. In the proposed method, called the DCT-based local and nonlocal FCM (DCT-LNLFCM), the distance function of the FCM is represented as the sum of the local and nonlocal distances which themselves are the weighted values of the Euclidean distance used in the FCM. Since the weights are computed in the transform domain, a good tradeoff is achieved between noise insensitivity and preservation of the image details. This results in the high accuracy of the MRI segmentation. Detailed experimental results are presented and comparison with the state-of-the-art techniques is performed to demonstrate the high performance of the proposed approach. The proposed method provides an improvement in the average segmentation accuracy from 1.10% to 2.03% on simulated images and 1.52% to 1.91% on real images.

Thin layers of inorganic halide perovskites An+1MnX3n+1 (n = 1–6, A= Cs, M = Pb and Sn, and X = Cl, Br, and I) have been studied in orthorhombic and cubic phases along with layers of monoclinic CsSnCl3. It is found that one-unit-cell-thick layers have low stability except the monoclinic CsSnCl3 for which formation energy is slighly less than the bulk value. However, Cs2PbI4 is unstable in both cubic and orthorhombic phases. The formation energy for n > 3 becomes comparable to bulk, but the inclusion of spin–orbit coupling is found to be important for the stabilization particularly for layers with Pb. Importantly, layers of environmentally friendly Sn-based systems have similar values of formation energy in the orthorhombic and cubic phases as well as similar band gaps which make them good materials for solar cell applications as temperature range changes during their operation. The studied 66 cubic and orthorhombic nanosystems have direct band gap (0.6–2.9 eV) using generalized gradient approximation for...

Remotely sensed data have been used to extract relevant information on various natural resources and environment. Satellite derived information may be contaminated by a variety of factors. A robust approach for the reconstruction of the temporal profile of NDVI is proposed in this study. The proposed approach consider the crop growth pattern in the Himalayan foothills region so as to make the road map for optimized information extraction. The data mining and the decision tree classification approach has been used to discriminate the crops in the study area. The study has been focused on to extract the information related to crops such as discrimination of different crops at various levels of classification, estimation of the crop yield and monitoring the growth of the crops. A classification model with a good accuracy has been obtained. The results revealed the potential of reconstruction, data mining and decision tree techniques to analyze remote sensing data.

Micro holes with high aspect ratio in high strength materials are difficult to produce using mechanical micro drilling because of high tool wear, frequent tool breakage and deterioration of hole quality. EDM drilling is most preferred non-contact thermal erosion process for producing micro holes in hard to machine materials. But still there are some challenges for EDM drilling such as high tool wear rate, expansion of hole diameter and taper in drilled hole etc. In present work, an experimental investigation is presented to determine the influence of process parameters on hole diameter expansion and taper rate in drilling micro holes of high aspect ratio. The parameters investigated are discharge current (Ip), pulse-on time (Ton), pulse off time (Toff), electrode material, electrode rotation speed, depth of drilling and electrode diameter while micro drilling in Ti-6Al-7Nb. The diametric expansion and taper rate for Ti-6Al-7Nb are compared with two other high strength materials namely WC-Co and Nimonic-90.

Heterotopic pregnancy is defined as multiple gestation in which intrauterine and extrauterine gestational sacs co-exist. The extra uterine gestational sac is most commonly tubal ectopic pregnancy. We presented case of a 26 years old multigravida who presented to emergency with complaints of pain abdomen and giddiness for 2-3 days. She was at period of gestation (POG) 7 weeks and on clinical examination patient was anxious with mild pallor, mildly tachycardiac and blood pressure (BP) was 90/60 mm of Hg. After thorough clinical examination and sonography diagnosis of heterotopic pregnancy with ruptured tubal ectopic was made. She was taken up for Emergency laparotomy after investigations and consent. Left salpingectomy was done and she was discharged with a single intrauterine live pregnancy on 6th post op day. For early detection of cases of heterotopic pregnancy careful evaluation of adnexa is mandatory in early gestation scan.

Accumulation of a huge volume of waste tires every year due to rubber tires' non-biodegradable nature is a major environmental concern worldwide. The scientific community has accelerated its efforts to find waste tire disposal alternatives because of the serious consequences. The construction sector is a major contributor to global warming and environmental degradation because of its dependence on natural resources that are diminishing or under huge pressure to meet the growing population’s demand. The utilization of discarded tires in the construction industry is an economical and sustainable solution to meet the current and future environmental challenges. In the present study, the research work on thermal resistivity, sound absorption, and vibration damping of rubberized concrete (RC) has been reviewed and compiled. Significant research has been conducted to determine the concrete composites’ behaviour with recycled rubber’s substitution in varying sizes and proportions. The addition of rubber particles results in lightweight structures with reduced mechanical strength but having higher energy dissipation capacity, thermal resistance, and sound absorption capability. Chemically and physically treated rubber particles yield better performance as compared to untreated rubber particles. Increasing rubber contents increases the porosity of concrete mix, increasing thermal resistivity and sound absorption. The coefficient of noise reduction is more significant in the higher frequency beyond 500 Hz. Rubberized concrete exhibits higher damping ratio and shows ductile behaviour under external loading. Thus, rubberized concrete elements are more promising for impact-resisting applications and energy savings in industrial, commercial, and residential buildings.

Ficus thonningii is a plant that is widely utilised in African ethnomedicine to cure a variety of ailments. a rational examination of F. thonningii's nutritional, phytochemical, and pharmacological characteristics in connection to its medicinal uses.Alkaloids, terpenoids, flavonoids, tannins, and active proteins are among the bioactive components found in Ficus thonningii, all of which contribute to its therapeutic qualities.Continue to discover, isolate, and quantify the active components, as well as establish the processes behind its curative powers.

Traditionally, lead and heavy metal containing inorganic oxides dominate the area of ferroelectricity. Although, recently, lightweight non-toxic organic ferroelectrics have emerged as excellent alternatives, achieving higher temperature up to which the ferroelectric phase can persist has remained a challenge. Moreover, only a few of those are single-component molecular ferroelectrics and were discovered upon revisiting their crystal structures. Here we report a novel phenanthroimidazole derivative, which not only displays notable spontaneous and highly stable remnant polarizations with a low coercive field but also retains its ferroelectric phase up to a record-high temperature of ∼521 K. Subsequently, the crystal undergoes phase transition to form non-polar and centrosymmetric polymorphs, the first study of its kind in a single-component ferroelectric crystal. Moreover, the compound exhibits a significantly high thermal stability. Given the excellent figures-of-merit for ferroelectricity, this material is likely to find potential applications in microelectronic devices pertaining to non-volatile memory.

Social Media marketing has been growing rapidly. Statista (2016) reported that spending social media marketing in the United States totaled approximately $7.52 billion and is expected to increase by almost $10 billion to $ 17.34 billion. Social media marketing has been defined as a form of Internet marketing utilizing social networking sites (SNS) as marketing tools, thereby gaining traffic, brand exposure, and interaction with customers through social media (Dodson, 2016). Most of the companies are increasing the allocation of budget for social media marketing. Marketing mangers understand that consumers trust the content created by the users rather than the firm. Social media marketing has been studied by various researchers since 2000. Specific journals like Journal of Interactive Marketing covering the areas of digital and social media marketing has been launched. Thus, substantial body of research on social media marketing has been published in the marketing journals. Academicians have published review studies on the given subject and covered the topic till 2015. The present article is an attempt to review the current scenario of social media marketing. It should be noted that the purpose is not to provide a comprehensive literature or to cite every article in this domain. The present article offers a macro-level and thematic discussion of social media marketing topics between 2016 and 2018. Thus, our contribution lies in helping the researchers understand the current scenario of social media marketing and developing the new research directions to advance the literature.

An efficient memristor MIN function based activation circuit is presented for memristive neuromorphic systems, using only two memristors and a comparator. The ReLU activation function is approximated using this circuit. The ReLU activation function helps to significantly reduce the time and computational cost of training in neuromorphic systems due to its simplicity and effectiveness in deep neural networks. A multilayer neural network is simulated using this activation circuit in addition to traditional memristor crossbar arrays. The results illustrate that the proposed circuit is able to perform training effectively with significant savings in time and area in memristor crossbar based neural networks.

A highly efficient memristor MIN function based activation circuit is presented for memristive neuromorphic systems, using only two memristors and a comparator. The ReLU activation function is approximated using this circuit for the first time. The ReLU activation function helps to significantly reduce the time and computational cost of training in neuromorphic systems due to its simplicity and effectiveness in deep neural networks. A multilayer neural network is simulated using this activation circuit in addition to traditional memristor crossbar arrays. The results illustrate that the proposed circuit is able to perform training effectively with significant savings in time and area in memristor crossbar based neural networks.

Brain magnetic resonance images (MRI) suffer from many artifacts such as noise and intensity inhomogeneity. Moreover, they contain an abundant amount of fine image structures, edges, and corners in various areas of the image. These anomalies and structural complexities affect the segmentation process of the brain MRI which is required by physicians for the diagnosis purpose. Recently, we have proposed a local Zernike moment (LZM)-based unbiased nonlocal means fuzzy C-means (LZM-UNLM-FCM) approach that has dealt with the noise artifact in the moment domain using the LZM approach. The method provides high segmentation results for the MR images corrupted with Rician noise. However, the method does not deal with the intensity inhomogeneity artifact effectively. Moreover, the method uses a regularization parameter that needs to be adjusted to obtain effective segmentation results. This paper presents an unsupervised local Zernike moment and unbiased nonlocal means-based bias corrected fuzzy C-means (LZM-UNLM-BCFCM) approach that deals with both noise and intensity inhomogeneity artifacts. The main concept behind the proposed method is to use the attractive properties of the LZMs to effectively filter the image by determining a large number of similar regions in an MR image which is mostly corrupted by Rician noise and intensity inhomogeneity. The ability of the LZMs to determine such regions in MR images consisting of fine tissue structures in any orientation is well utilized for dealing with the high levels of noise. The intensity inhomogeneity is removed by estimating the bias field pixel-by-pixel during the segmentation process using the filtered image without the use of regularization parameter. The bias field is estimated as a linear combination of the orthogonal polynomials in which the weights are obtained by minimizing the fuzzy objective function. Experimental results on both simulated and real MR images show the superiority of the proposed method as compared to other unsupervised state-of-the-art approaches.

Visible-light (Blue LED lamp: hν=425±15 nm) photocatalyzed cross-coupling reactions of arylsulfonyl chloride with N-methylpyrrole, furan, thiophene and their derivatives have been achieved in moderate to good yields at room temperature. A plausible mechanism has been proposed for the reaction. The arylation takes place at the C–H bond (C2–H or C5–H) next to the heteroatom with a high regioselective manner! Moreover, arylsulfonyl chlorides utilized in this study are inexpensive, environmentally benign and relatively more stable towards temperature, moisture and air as compared to diazonium salts normally used as coupling partners in the previously reported methods for the synthesis of heterobiaryls through visible-light photocatalyzed conditions.

This paper presents a new and efficient approach for recovering surface height from its image gradients. In order to compensate noise effect in image intensities, Gaussian filter is used to smooth the intensity values. Image gradient is calculated from the smoothen image by taking the central difference of intensity values. A minimization problem is formulated in terms of gradient values. This minimization problem is solved in Fourier domain to avoid the iterative minimization. The experiments have been performed on real and synthetic images to demonstrate the accuracy of the approach using Gaussian filter. Several different measures have been used for error estimation.

Memristor is being considered as a game changer for the realization of neuromorphic hardware systems due to its similarity with biological synapse. Recent studies show that memristor crossbar can provide high density and high performance neural network hardware implementation at low power due to its physical layout, nano scale size and low power consumption feature. This paper describes the training method that can be used for the implementation of memristive multi-layer neural network with ex-situ method. We mimic the behavior of memristor crossbar in software training process to achieve more accurate and close computations to hardware. Voltage divider has been used to calculate the dot product in this method. To demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of this method, different patterns and non-separable functions using memristor crossbar structures are simulated. The results demonstrate that more accurate computations can be produced using this learning method for ex-situ. It also reduces the learning time of functions.

Starch from water chestnuts ( Trapa natans ) was isolated and modified by dry heating and hydrocolloids [carboxy methyl cellulose (CMC) and sodium alginate]. Native and modified starches were evaluated for their physicochemical, pasting, thermal and morphological properties. Pasting and thermal properties were studied using Rapid Visco Analyzer (RVA) and Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) respectively. Morphological properties were studied by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Modification of the starch by dry heating with and without gums reduced paste clarity and increased the water and oil binding capacity; solubility and swelling power decreased. Dry heating of native starch increased peak viscosity; however, with addition of CMC, peak viscosity decreased. Starch modified with CMC and 4 h heating exhibited lowest gelatinization temperature ( T 0 ). Pasting characteristics of native water chestnut starch were largely affected by the addition of gums and/or heat treatment. Overall onset gelatinization temperature reduced with heat treatment and addition of gums. Morphological studies revealed no significant variation in starch granule size. Starch granules were seen agglomerated because of leaching of amylose and granule interspacing decreased with addition of gums.

This paper presents a circuit level analysis of write operation in memristor crossbar memory array with and without line resistance. Three write schemes: floating line, 1/2 and 1/3 are investigated. Analysis shows that floating line scheme could also be considered reliable in arrays with aspect ratio of 1:1 and negligible line resistance just like the latter two schemes. Further analysis also shows that high density crossbar structures cannot be designed using any of the three schemes with worst case line resistance and data distribution within the array. The presented analyses are suitable for modeling the crossbar array as well as evaluating performances during write operation. The output of this work provides the necessary design models that will assist designers in implementation of write techniques in crossbar array in future systems.

This work on elemental and binary nanowires of Cr and Mn, exploring their non-magnetic, ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic states, shows that alloying increases the stability of binary linear chains in comparison to their elemental counterpart. In addition, it also favors not only the linearization of CrAs and MnAs nanowires but also a better magnetic stability for binary linear chains, in general. Furthermore, it is encouraging to note that, besides being more stable, the alloy nanowires are also endowed with a large magnetic moment. Also, the binary nanowires show more feasibility towards tailoring of magnetic state with stretching, in comparison to elemental nanowires. We note that the cohesive energy of studied nanowires is effectively dictated by the X atoms (X = Si, Ge, and As) whereas their magnetic properties are decided by the magnetic M atoms (M = Cr and Mn). Density of states conveys that hybridization of d-states of M atoms and p -states of X atoms plays an important role in higher stability of binary nanowires. The band structure indicates tuning of optical properties of nanowires, while linear chains of MnAs seem suitable for spintronics.

We present techniques for realising reliable logic functions and more complex systems based on the switching characteristics of memristors. First we show that memristors have inherent properties for representing multiple valued MIN-MAX logic over the post algebra. We also present efficient architectures for realising multifunction logic gates, and present a technique with hybrid 1T-4M architecture for seamless integration with existing CMOS logic. Memristors have tremendous potential for security aware hardware synthesis. To this end, we present design methods for realising highly efficient Galois Field circuits, which are widely used in crypto hardware, based on our 1T-4M architectures. Experimental results show that our proposed design requires significantly lower power while maintaining reliable operations at high frequencies compared to the CMOS counterparts.

Visible-light (Blue LED lamp: hν=425±15 nm) photocatalyzed cross-coupling reactions of arylsulfonyl chloride with N-methylpyrrole, furan, thiophene and their derivatives have been achieved in moderate to good yields at room temperature. A plausible mechanism has been proposed for the reaction. The arylation takes place at the C–H bond (C2–H or C5–H) next to the heteroatom with a high regioselective manner! Moreover, arylsulfonyl chlorides utilized in this study are inexpensive, environmentally benign and relatively more stable towards temperature, moisture and air as compared to diazonium salts normally used as coupling partners in the previously reported methods for the synthesis of heterobiaryls through visible-light photocatalyzed conditions.

Resistive memories have simpler structures and are capable of producing highly dense memory through crossbar architecture without the use of access devices. Reliability however remains a problem of resistive memories especially in its basic read operation. This paper presents a comprehensive model for resistive devices in crossbar array as well as models for four crossbar read schemes. These models are non-restrictive and are suitable for accurate analytical analysis of crossbar arrays and the evaluation of their performance during read operation.

This article highlights the amendments made to the existing Indian patent rules by the Indian Government which came into force in May, 2016.

Functional and sensory properties of cookies prepared by supplementing different proportions of cassava flour (CF) and water chestnut flour (WCF) blends (0–100%) to wheat flour (WF) were studied. Seven formulations of cookies were prepared from (a) Control (100% WF), (b) 30% WF, 35% WCF and 35% CF, (c) 27% WF, 37.5% WCF and 37.5% CF, (d) 20% WF, 40% WCF and 40% CF, (e) 15% WF, 42.5% WCF and 42.5% CF, (f) 10% WF, 45% WCF and 45% CF, and (g) 0% WF, 50% WCF and 50% CF. Cookies were subjected to physical analysis (cookie diameter, cookie thickness, spread ratio, bulk volume, bulk density, breaking strength, and color analysis) and evaluated for consumer acceptance by descriptive sensory analysis. Cookies prepared from water chestnut and cassava flour had low moisture content (5.63%), low fat (24.87%), higher spread ratio (8.148), decreased L, a and b values (dark color), and low breaking strength than control ones. Sensory evaluation established that cookies prepared from 50% WCF and 50% CF were more acceptable than cookies prepared from other formulations.

The experiment was laid out in a Completely Randomized Design (factorial) consisting of three cultivars and six calcium nitrate doses (0, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 g/m2). Among the cutivars, maximum bulblet multiplication was found in UHFS LA Lily Collection 1 (2.59) followed by Batistero (2.48) and Frans Hals (2.32), respectively. Among the different calcium nitrate doses, 10 g/m2 calcium nitrate dose gave best results for per cent sprouting (76.03%), minimum days taken for sprouting (102.00 days), sprout length (9.60 cm), fresh weight of bulblet/scale (1.69 g), bulblet diameter (9.32 mm) and propagation index (125.69%) when supplied to the scales in ten equal split doses in liquid form. However, for obtaining higher number of leaves/scale (6.38) and maximum multiplication (2.90 bulblets/scale) calcium nitrate application at the rate of 20 g/m2 supplied to these scales proved to be most effective treatment. The interaction between cultivars and calcium nitrate doses has shown variable responses. Highest per cent sprouting was observed in Frans Hals (77.14%) with 15 g/m2 and 25 g/m2 calcium nitrate and in UHFS LA Lily Collection 1 (77.14%) with 10 g/m2, whereas maximum sprout length (10.18 cm), number of bulblets/scale (3.01) and bulblet diameter (9.77 mm) were found in cultivar UHFS LA Lily Collection 1 with 10 g/m2 and number of leaves/scale (7.03) in cultivar Batistero with 25 g/m2 calcium nitrate dose.