223 research outputs found
Development of macro and micro-nutrient rich integrated Jeevamrutha bio-fertilizer systems using rural and commercial precursors
No full textCow dung-based bio-fertilizers often requires additional organic amendments to demonstrate the nutritional necessities for field applications. Thereby, the present study validated the need for an integrated farming technique with the readily available rural and commercial precursors (such as vermicompost, neem cake, tea waste and water hyacinth) into the cow-excreta-based Jeevamrutha organic bio-fertilizer. Hence, physio-chemical, nutritional content and microbial characteristics were targeted. The ratios of Jeevamrutha and the above-mentioned precursors were varied as 1:4 for vermicompost, 1:3 for neem cake, 1:2 for tea waste and 1:3–1:4 for water hyacinth at an ambient temperature between 12 and 38ºC during winter and summer seasons respectively. The wide range of temperature was considered to accomodate the average temperatures of summer and winter seasons of Guwahati, India. Nutritional factors such as total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), ammonium nitrogen (AN) and phosphate (P) was maximum for tea waste-integrated Jeevamrutha bio-fertilizer. These respectively varied as 1.94–3.22 %, 726.8–1076.4 mg/L and 0.57–0.65 % during the winter and summer seasons. Similar nutrient trend was followed by neem cake-integrated Jeevamrutha bio-fertilizer (TKN:1.78–2.24 %; AN:623.4–873.56 mg/L and P:0.64–0.71 %) during winter and summer seasons. Phytotoxicity assay shows that desired concentration of the optimal compositional set was 50 % (v/v) and 20 % (v/v) for the seasons. Cost analysis for the bio-fertilizer systems revealed a minimal expenditure associated for tea waste (Rs. 10.56/kg) followed by water hyacinth-integrated Jeevamrutha bio-fertilizer (Rs. 12.68/kg) in comparison with the conventionally used jaggery-based Jeevamrutha bio-fertilizer (Rs. 17.3/kg). Here, jaggery refers to the product obtained as a product in rural India
LPWAN Performance Enhancement for IoT in the Smart Grid
No full textWith the proliferation of IoT devices across the globe, the adoption of IoT related technologies has been increasing rapidly. Newer technologies which fall in the category of Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) have increased this adoption even further. A lot of research is being done in LPWAN licensed band as well as unlicensed band technologies to make them more efficient, such as in terms of power consumption and latency. In this thesis the author has focused on cellular IoT technologies (licensed spectrum LPWAN technologies), to improve the end-to-end behavior. The focus is to see and improve the effect of the device on the network behavior. We have done tests on different networks and went through the 3GPP Specification Release 14 to find possible areas of improvement. Keeping this in mind we have designed a solution to increase the number of pageable devices that can be maintained by the network compared to its original capacity (when not using our solution). This solution can be used to optimize as per the use case, whether to provide lower latency or save energy consumption of the device. To verify that the solution can be used in real life, we have tested it with Stedin critical application device in their substation.Electrical Engineering | Embedded System
Understanding Interactions in Social Networks and Committees
Get PDFWhile much of the literature on cross section dependence has fo?cused mainly on estimation of the regression coefficients in the under?lying model, estimation and inferences on the magnitude and strength of spill-overs and interactions has been largely ignored. At the same time, such inferences are important in many applications, not least because they have structural interpretations and provide useful inter?pretation and structural explanation for the strength of any interac?tions. In this paper we propose GMM methods designed to uncover underlying (hidden) interactions in social networks and committees. Special attention is paid to the interval censored regression model. Our methods are applied to a study of committee decision making within the Bank of England¡¯s monetary policy committee.Committee Decision Making, Social Networks, Cross Section and Spatial Interaction, Generalised Method of Moments, Censored Regression Model, Expectation-Maximisation Algorithm, Monetary Policy, Interest Rates.
COVID-19 and persistence in the stock market: a study on a leading emerging market
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.In this study, we examine how sectors of the National Stock Exchange from India respond to the uncertainties introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic. By examining the synchronization between the sector-specific and overall market index (NIFTY 50) reaction to COVID-19, we contribute to the inconclusive ongoing academic literature regarding the impact of COVID-19 on the stock market, especially in the context of persistence in an emerging market. To analyze the persistence of sectoral indices, we apply multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MFDFA). We use the generalized Hurst exponent and singularity spectrum as indicators for persistence and spectral width as a measure of volatility. Our analysis shows that the sample sectoral indices are persistent before and after the announcement of COVID-19; however, volatility in some sectors reduces post-announcement of COVID-19. The findings will enrich the academic literature on the relationship between sector-specific and overall market indexes. In practice, the paper will guide investors to organize their portfolios, especially during future economic uncertainty
Exploring sustainable strategies for mitigating microplastic contamination in soil, water, and the food chain: A comprehensive analysis
No full textUnderstanding the origins, distribution, and composition of microplastics (MPs) from their primary sources such as synthetic textiles, packaging, industrial effluents and adopting appropriate mitigation strategies is a challenging task. Annually, hundreds of millions of tonnes of plastic are produced for various societal applications, with a portion inevitably making its way into the environment and the food chain. MPs primarily from fibre, fragments and beads, accumulates in urban and agricultural zones where they can disrupt local food chains. This can happen through ingestion by smaller organisms, which are then consumed by larger predators, thereby introducing contaminants in the food web. Although much of the research on MPs has concentrated on marine environments, there remains a substantial lack of understanding soil and terrestrial ecosystems, which also serve as important sources and transport pathways by wind, water currents, and human activities for plastics entering the water bodies. In soil environments, the diverse physical and chemical properties of various soil types can complicate the detection and quantification of MPs. In this regard, techniques such as spectroscopy, pyrolysis-gas chromatography–mass spectrometry are used. Additionally, the interactions between MPs and soil microorganisms can influence their behaviour and consequence, making it difficult to predict their ecological impacts. Nevertheless, varying environmental conditions, such as temperature and salinity, can affect the degradation and accumulation of MPs, adding another layer of complexity in the marine environments. This review provides a comprehensive overview of microplastic pollution, highlighting its widespread impact on soil ecosystems, marine environment and food chain. Further, the article suggests a cost effective, efficient, and sustainable strategy to intercept MPs infiltration in the food chain and establish practical data applicability in real-life scenarios
<i>Desulfitobacterium elongatum</i> sp. nov. NIT-TF6 Isolated from Trichloroethene-Dechlorinating Culture with Formate
No full textA strictly anaerobic bacterium denoted as strain NIT-TF6 of the genus Desulfitobacterium was isolated from a trichloroethene-dechlorinating culture with formate. Cells were straight rods of 1.6–6 µm long and 0.25–0.5 µm in diameter and used H2, lactate, pyruvate, and malate as electron donors and thiosulfate and Fe (III)-citrate as electron acceptors. The genome of strain NIT-TF6 was 4.8 Mbp in size and included nine 16S rRNA genes. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA sequences showed that NIT-TF6 shared the highest sequence similarity (96.39%) with Desulfitobacterium hafniense DCB-2ᵀ, forming an independent clade in the phylogenetic tree. Digital DNA-DNA hybridization (dDDH) and average nucleotide identity (ANI) values between strain NIT-TF6 and other Desulfitobacterium species ranged from 15.9 to 16.9% and from 71.68 to 72.51%, respectively. These are well below the thresholds for species delineation. A distinguishing feature of strain NIT-TF6 was its possession of both L-lactate dehydrogenase (L-LDH) and D-lactate dehydrogenase (D-LDH), in contrast to other Desulfitobacterium strains that exclusively express D-LDH. Based on the dDDH and ANI results, combined with physiological, phylogenetic, morphological, biochemical, genomic, and metabolic iron-related characteristics, strain NIT-TF6 has been proposed as a novel species within the genus Desulfitobacterium. The name Desulfitobacterium elongatum sp. nov. has been proposed for this strain, with NIT-TF6ᵀ designated as the type strain
Architectural Support for Address Translation on GPUs
No full textThe proliferation of heterogeneous compute platforms, of which CPU/GPU is a prevalent example, necessitates a manageable programming model to ensure widespread adoption. A key component of this is a shared unified address space between the heterogeneous units to obtain the programmability benefits of virtual memory. Indeed, processor vendors have already begun embracing heterogeneous systems with unified address spaces (e.g., Intel’s Haswell, AMD’s Berlin processor, and ARM’s Mali and Cortex cores). We are the first to explore GPU Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLBs) and page table walkers for address translation in the context of shared virtual memory for heterogeneous systems. To exploit the programmability benefits of shared virtual memory, it is natural to consider mirroring CPUs and placing TLBs prior (or parallel) to cache accesses,
making caches physically addressed. We show the performance challenges of such an approach and propose modest hardware augmentations to recover much of this lost performance.We then consider the impact of this approach on the design of general purpose GPU performance improvement schemes. We look at: (1) warp scheduling to increase cache hit rates; and (2) dynamic warp formation to mitigate control flow divergence overheads. We show that introducing cache-parallel address translation does pose challenges, but that modest optimizations can buy back much of this lost performance. Overall, this paper explores address translation mechanisms on GPUs. While cache-parallel address translation does introduce non-trivial performance overheads, modestly TLB-aware designs can move overheads into a range deemed acceptable in the CPU world (5-15% of runtime). We presume this initial design leaves room for improvement but hope the larger result, that a little TLB-awareness goes a long way in GPUs, spurs future work in this fruitful area.Technical report DCS-TR-70
Author Experiences with the IS Journal Review Process
Get PDFResearch publication in peer-reviewed journals is an important avenue for knowledge dissemination. However, information on journal review process metrics are often not available to prospective authors, which may preclude effective targeting of their research work to appropriate outlets. We study these metrics for information systems (IS) researchers through a survey of actual author experiences of the IS journal review process. Our results provide a knowledge base of the length and quality of the review process in various journals; responsiveness of the journal office and publication delay; and correlations of metrics with published studies of journal rankings. The data should enable authors to make effective submission decisions, as well as help to benchmark journal review processes among competing journals
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