Declustering and load-balancing methods for parallelizinggeographic information systems

Declustering and load balancing are important issues in designing a high performance geographic information system (HPGIS), which is a central component of many interactive applications such as real time terrain visualization. The current literature provides efficient methods for declustering spatial point data. However, there has been little work toward developing efficient declustering methods for collections of extended objects, like chains of line segments and polygons. We focus on the data partitioning approach to parallelizing GIS operations. We provide a framework for declustering collections of extended spatial objects by identifying the following key issues: (1) work load metric; (2) spatial extent of the work load; (3) distribution of the work load over the spatial extent; and (4) declustering method. We identify and experimentally evaluate alternatives for each of these issues. In addition, we also provide a framework for dynamically balancing the load between different processors. We experimentally evaluate the proposed declustering and load balancing methods on a distributed memory MIMD machine (Cray T3D). Experimental results show that the spatial extent and the work load metric are important issues in developing a declustering method. Experiments also show that the replication of data is usually needed to facilitate dynamic load balancing, since the cost of local processing is often less than the cost of data transfer for extended spatial objects. In addition, we also show that the effectiveness of dynamic load balancing techniques can be improved by using declustering methods to determine the subsets of spatial objects to be transferred during runtime     

Influence of altitudinal variation on the antioxidant potential of tartar buckwheat of Western Himalaya

In the present work, the effect of altitudinal variations on the total phenol, flavonoid, and antioxidant potential of seeds and hull of Tartar buckwheat collected from 15 different locations of Western Himalaya has been investigated. Methanolic and acetonic extracts of seed and hull powder showed significantly increasing amounts of total polyphenol content, and antioxidant potential with rising altitude. Methanolic extract of seed and hull powder were found to have significantly greater polyphenol, and antioxidant potential as compared to acetonic extract. The methanolic seed extract of Inderdhara (3,133 m) showed the maximum total phenolic content 1,651 μg gallic acid equivalent/50 mg of dry weight. The methanolic seed extract of Inderdhara showed the maximum antioxidant activity (77.29±1.2%) and antiradical activity (55.5±0.5%) also. The results of this study exhibited good correlation with total polyphenol and antioxidant potential in all the samples followed by the increasing tendency towards rising altitude.     

Genome-Wide Identification and Characterization of PIN-FORMED (PIN) Gene Family Reveals Role in Developmental and Various Stress Conditions in Triticum aestivum L.

PIN-FORMED (PIN) genes play a crucial role in regulating polar auxin distribution in diverse developmental processes, including tropic responses, embryogenesis, tissue differentiation, and organogenesis. However, the role of PIN-mediated auxin transport in various plant species is poorly understood. Currently, no information is available about this gene family in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). In the present investigation, we identified the PIN gene family in wheat to understand the evolution of PIN-mediated auxin transport and its role in various developmental processes and under different biotic and abiotic stress conditions. In this study, we performed genome-wide analysis of the PIN gene family in common wheat and identified 44 TaPIN genes through a homology search, further characterizing them to understand their structure, function, and distribution across various tissues. Phylogenetic analyses led to the classification of TaPIN genes into seven different groups, providing evidence of an evolutionary relationship with Arabidopsis thaliana and Oryza sativa. A gene exon/intron structure analysis showed a distinct evolutionary path and predicted the possible gene duplication events. Further, the physical and biochemical properties, conserved motifs, chromosomal, subcellular localization, transmembrane domains, and three-dimensional (3D) structure were also examined using various computational approaches. Cis-elements analysis of TaPIN genes showed that TaPIN promoters consist of phytohormone, plant growth and development, and stress-related cis-elements. In addition, expression profile analysis also revealed that the expression patterns of the TaPIN genes were different in different tissues and developmental stages. Several members of the TaPIN family were induced during biotic and abiotic stress. Moreover, the expression patterns of TaPIN genes were verified by qRT-PCR. The qRT-PCR results also show a similar expression with slight variation. Therefore, the outcome of this study provides basic genomic information on the expression of the TaPIN gene family and will pave the way for dissecting the precise role of TaPINs in plant developmental processes and different stress conditions.     

Seismic life-cycle cost analysis of ageing highway bridges under chloride exposure conditions: modelling and recommendations

Chloride-induced corrosion of highway bridges constitutes a critical form of environmental deterioration and may result in significant escalation of seismic life-cycle costs due to increased fragility during earthquake events. Most of existing literature tends to adopt simplistic uniform area loss assumptions in lieu of potentially complex, yet realistic and more detrimental, pitting corrosion models for seismic vulnerability analysis. Since the degree of deterioration depends on the severity and duration of exposure, there exists a need to investigate the influence of uniform vs. pitting corrosion assumption on seismic life-cycle costs for varied chloride exposure conditions. A case-study example of a highway bridge in Central and Southeastern US reveals consideration of pitting corrosion as critical for extreme exposures compared to relatively minor settings. Subsequently this study provides recommendations to aid bridge engineers and stakeholders to balance between computational cost and accuracy of results to aid prompt decisions on rehabilitation of ageing bridges in different exposure conditions. A framework is also included to compute seismic life-cycle costs from generic measures of corrosion, independent of assumed exposure scenario. This framework is particularly helpful for seismic loss assessment of highway bridges in chloride exposure zones with periodic field measurements to estimate the extent of structural deterioration.     

Enhancement of Tensile and Microhardness of AA 6082-T6 Friction Stir Welds via Brass Interlayers

Russian Journal of Non-Ferrous Metals - This paper investigates the effects of brass interlayer on the microstructural and mechanical properties of friction stir welded AA 6082-T6. To analyze the...     

Synthesis and Humidity Sensing Properties of NiO Intercalated Polyaniline Nanocomposite

The exercising cooperative and interfacial properties of metal oxide and conducting polymer as a sensing material for humidity detection was the focal point of this study. In this piece of work nano sized NiO and its composite with polyaniline has been prepared. The cooperative effects of NiO on stuructural, morphology, humidity sensing behaviour of PANI has been investigated. Prepared materials were characterized by infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM),UV–VIS spectroscopy and Four probe techniques. The result reveals that the NiO strongly influences on polymer chain, crystallinity, stability, electrical and optical properties of PANI, which improves its viability in technology development. Finally, PANI/NiO was used for electrochemical humidity sensing of a closed atmosphere. The result reveals that 100 times increase in sensitivity of PANI due to the presence of NiO nano particles. Finally, the results indicate that the impact of NiO on PANI makes it promising perspective materials for humidity monitoring of closed chamber with improved sensing parameters over several method and materials.     

MgNb2O6:Dy3+ nanophosphor: A facile preparation,down conversion photoluminescence and UV driven photocatalytic properties

Series of (1–9 mol %) dysprosium (Dy³⁺) ions doped MgNb₂O₆ (MNO) nanophosphors were synthesized by chemical combustion process and their photo luminescent and photocatalytic behaviours were examined. Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) reveals the columbite structure and crystal structure parameters were calculated. The average crystallite size was found to be in the range of 20–30 nm as calculated by Scherrer's method. The photoluminescence (PL) of MgNb₂O₆:Dy³⁺ (λ_exc-393 nm) reflects white emission for the prepared samples as confirmed by CIE and CCT. The photocatalytic activities of these nanophosphors were probed for the decolorization of acid red 88 (AR-88) under UV light irradiation. The photocatalyst with MgNb₂O₆:Dy³⁺ (5 mol %) showed enhanced activity of 97%, attributed to effective separation of charge carriers. All the above experimental results confirm that, the optimized phosphor is quite useful for WLEDs, solid-state lighting applications and as a photocatalyst.     

Evaluation of hydrogen metabolism by Escherichia coli strains possessing only a single hydrogenase in the genome

The four hydrogenase isozymes; hydrogenase 1 (Hyd-1), hydrogenase 2 (Hyd-2), hydrogenase 3 (Hyd-3) and hydrogenase 4 (Hyd-4) of Escherichia coli have been reported for their crucial functions in the hydrogen metabolism; however, their distinctive roles could not be completely understood. In this study, four ideal hydrogenase operon mutants, Δhyb hyc hyf, Δhya hyc hyf, Δhya hyb hyf, and Δhya hyb hyc, in which only a single hydrogenase is intact in the genome, were constructed as well as one quadruple mutant (Δhya hyb hyc hyf) that all four hydrogenase operons were deleted. First, single operon mutants and single-gene mutants for each hydrogenase showed different hydrogen productivity and growth in the anaerobic fermentation, indicating that bacterial phenotype regarding the hydrogen metabolism via the deletion of each operon is different with that of each single gene. Then, 4 triple hydrogenase operon mutants and one quadruple mutant were investigated to evaluate the hydrogen metabolism (hydrogen production and uptake) using glucose or glycerol as a substrate of hydrogen fermentation. With both the carbon sources, only Hyd-2 and Hyd-3 were able to produce hydrogen. Furthermore, all the hydrogenases showed hydrogen uptake activity. In addition, no hydrogen production and hydrogen uptake were detected in the quadruple mutant which does not have all 4 hydrogenases. Hydrogen production from Hyd-2 and Hyd-3 was further confirmed by complementing their operons in the cloning vector pBR322.