Biosynthesised silver and copper nanoformulation as foliar spray to control bird's eye spot disease in tea plantations

Tea leaves have economic importance in preparation of the popular beverage of the world “tea”. Bird’s eye spot disease of tea leaves creates significant revenue loss in tea trade of many tea plant cultivating countries. Management of this disease by silver (AgNps) and copper (CuNps) nanoparticles that are biosynthesised by efficient antagonists was studied. The biocontrol agents like Pseudomonas fluorescens, Trichoderma atroviride and Streptomyces sannanensis were evaluated for nanoparticle synthesis against Cercospora theae isolates namely KC10, MC24 and VC38. Initially, the freshly prepared extracellular AgNps showed high disease control (59.42 – 79.76%), but the stability of antagonistic property in stored nanoparticles were significantly high in CuNps (58.71 – 73.81%). Greenhouse studies on various treatments imposed also showed reduced disease incidence percentage of 13.4, 7.57 and 10.11% when treated with CuNps synthesized by P. fluorescens, T. atroviride and S. sannanensis respectively. Various treatment schedule in fields suggested the use of Bionanocopper@1.5 ppm for highest yield (3743 kg/ha) with 66.1% disease prevention. The results suggest the use of biosynthesised CuNps using Streptomyces sannanensis for controlling the tea plant pathogens causing foliar disease with higher stability in releasing the antagonistic activity during sporadic disease incidence of bird’s eye spot disease in tea plants.Inspec keywords: silver, copper, crops, plant diseases, nanoparticles, air pollution, agrochemicals, nanobiotechnologyOther keywords: biosynthesised silver, biosynthesised copper, nanoformulation, foliar spray, bird eye spot disease control, tea plantations, tea leaves, economic importance, revenue loss, tea trade, tea plant cultivating countries, silver nanoparticles, AgNps, copper nanoparticles, CuNps, biocontrol agents, nanoparticle synthesis, Cercospora theae isolates, KC10, MC24, VC38, greenhouse studies, antagonistic property, P. fluorescens, T. atroviride, S. sannanensis, fungicides, synthetic nanomaterials, bionanomaterials, disease prevention, green leaf yield, BionanoCu, tea plant pathogens, foliar disease     

Orientation-Dependent Developments in Misorientation and Residual Stress in Rolled Aluminum: The Defining Role of Dislocation Interactions

Orientation-dependent developments in misorientation and residual stress, in rolled aluminum, were quantified experimentally and simulated numerically. The latter involved analysis using a crystal plasticity finite element model, accounting for anisotropies in slip system hardening but neglecting near-neighbor interactions, and discrete dislocation dynamics of the single crystals. Both were successful in capturing the experimental patterns of orientation dependence. Numerical simulations, without slip transfer across the neighboring grains, thus established the defining role of dislocation interactions in establishing orientation-sensitive microstructural evolution.     

Direct Experimental Observations on Concurrent Microstructure and Magnetic Property Developments in Non-Grain Oriented Electrical Steel

Non-grain oriented electrical steel, with minor in-grain orientation gradients, was subjected to interrupted tensile deformations and concurrent microtexture, magnetic property and residual stress measurements. After the upper yield point, clear signatures of mechanical stress relief were observed. Changes in orientation gradients led to annihilation of low-angle (1 to 3 deg) boundaries. Prior deformation compressive residual stresses became tensile and magnetic properties improved. Beyond an optimum true strain of 0.01, this boundary annihilation ceased, compressive stresses were generated, and magnetic properties degraded.     

Cost optimal, parallel reliability systems with fixed repair sanction

Optimisation methods under varied criteria for different parameters in stochastic reliability systems are being increasingly developed and have been reported in recent literature. The large interest evinced in this fascinating area is primarily due to its applicational value and operational role in the decision making process. Recently a parallel system has been considered and the optimal number of units discussed, as well as optimal replacement times for the system based on acquisition and replacement costs.In this paper we consider an improved version of the model formulation, by bringing in additionally the maintenance and per unit repair time costs, and develop a procedure to obtain the optimal number of components in the system with the condition that the system is allowed to undergo a prefixed maximum number of repairs, after which the system is to be replaced.The applicational use of the results is illustrated through numerical work, specialising to some known laws governing the system parameters and corresponding to different fixed number of repair sanctions.     

Local cloning of multipartite entangled states

No cloning theorem is a very fundamental issue in quantum mechanics. But the issue is much more involved if we consider quantum state shared among two or more than two parties and allow only local operation and classical communication. In the context of the fact that no known bipartite entangled state can be cloned by local operation and classical communication (LOCC) without assistance of extra entangled state, the cloning of unknown orthogonal entangled state becomes meaningful when there is some supply of free entanglement. With restriction on supply of free entanglement, various cases have been studied. In this paper, we try to give an overview of the subject and results that have been obtained across the literature along with a new result on probabilistic LOCC cloning of four Bell states.     

Extended Golomb Code for Integer Representation

In this paper, we have proposed two methods to represent nonnegative integers based on the principle used in Golomb code (GC). In both methods, the given integer is successively divided with a divisor, the quotient and the remainders are then used to represent the integer. One of our methods is best suited for representing short integers and gives bit length comparable to that of Elias radic code which is best for representing short-range integers. Another of our methods is best suited for representing both short and long integers and gives a bit length comparable to that of Fibonacci code which is best for representing long integers. Application of our methods as a final stage encoder of the Burrows-Wheeler transform compressor shows that our codes give a better compression rate than the Elias, Fibonacci, punctured, and GC codes     

A fuzzy-controlled Hooke-Jeeves optimization algorithm

This article presents an approach to enhance the Hooke-Jeeves optimization algorithm through the use of fuzzy logic. The Hooke-Jeeves algorithm, similar to many other optimization algorithms, uses predetermined fixed parameters. These parameters do not depend on the objective function values in the current search region. In the proposed algorithm, several fuzzy logic controllers are integrated at the various stages of the algorithm to create a new optimization algorithm: Fuzzy-Controlled Hooke-Jeeves algorithm. The results of this work show that incorporating fuzzy logic in the Hooke-Jeeves algorithm can improve the ability of the algorithm to reach an extremum in different typical optimization test cases and design problems. Sensitivity analysis of the variables of the algorithm is also considered.     

Multi-Camera Human Activity Monitoring

With the proliferation of security cameras, the approach taken to monitoring and placement of these cameras is critical. This paper presents original work in the area of multiple camera human activity monitoring. First, a system is presented that tracks pedestrians across a scene of interest and recognizes a set of human activities. Next, a framework is developed for the placement of multiple cameras to observe a scene. This framework was originally used in a limited X, Y, pan formulation but is extended to include height (Z) and tilt. Finally, an active dual-camera system for task recognition at multiple resolutions is developed and tested. All of these systems are tested under real-world conditions, and are shown to produce usable results. This work has been supported by the NSF through grants #IIS-0219863, #CNS-0224363, #CNS-0324864, #IIP-0443945, #CNS-0420836, #IIP-0726109, and #CNS-0708344.