Stability of Adult Emergence and Activity/Rest Rhythms in Fruit Flies Drosophila melanogaster under Semi-Natural Condition

Here we report the results of a study aimed at examining stability of adult emergence and activity/rest rhythms under seminatural conditions (henceforth SN), in four large outbred fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster populations, selected for emergence in a narrow window of time under laboratory (henceforth LAB) light/dark (LD) cycles. When assessed under LAB, selected flies display enhanced stability in terms of higher amplitude, synchrony and accuracy in emergence and activity rhythms compared to controls. The present study was conducted to assess whether such differences in stability between selected and control populations, persist under SN where several gradually changing time-cues are present in their strongest form. The study revealed that under SN, emergence waveform of selected flies was modified, with even more enhanced peak and narrower gate-width compared to those observed in the LAB and compared to control populations in SN. Furthermore, flies from selected populations continued to exhibit enhanced synchrony and accuracy in their emergence and activity rhythms under SN compared to controls. Further analysis of zeitgeber effects revealed that enhanced stability in the rhythmicity of selected flies under SN was primarily due to increased sensitivity to light because emergence and activity rhythms of selected flies were as stable as controls under temperature cycles. These results thus suggest that stability of circadian rhythms in fruit flies D. melanogaster, which evolved as a consequence of selection for emergence in a narrow window of time under weak zeitgeber condition of LAB, persists robustly in the face of day-to-day variations in cycling environmental factors of nature.

Non-Stationary Semi-Markov Decision Processes on a Finite Horizon

We introduce and study a class of non-stationary semi-Markov decision processes on a finite horizon. By constructing an equivalent Markov decision process, we establish the existence of a piecewise open loop relaxed control which is optimal for the finite horizon problem.

Semi-supervised SVMs for classification with unknown class proportions and a small labeled dataset

In the design of practical web page classification systems one often encounters a situation in which the labeled training set is created by choosing some examples from each class; but, the class proportions in this set are not the same as those in the test distribution to which the classifier will be actually applied. The problem is made worse when the amount of training data is also small. In this paper we explore and adapt binary SVM methods that make use of unlabeled data from the test distribution, viz., Transductive SVMs (TSVMs) and expectation regularization/constraint (ER/EC) methods to deal with this situation. We empirically show that when the labeled training data is small, TSVM designed using the class ratio tuned by minimizing the loss on the labeled set yields the best performance; its performance is good even when the deviation between the class ratios of the labeled training set and the test set is quite large. When the labeled training data is sufficiently large, an unsupervised Gaussian mixture model can be used to get a very good estimate of the class ratio in the test set; also, when this estimate is used, both TSVM and EC/ER give their best possible performance, with TSVM coming out superior. The ideas in the paper can be easily extended to multi-class SVMs and MaxEnt models.

Remoulded shear strength at plastic and semi-solid states

The undrained shear strength of remoulded soils is of great concern in geotechnical engineering applications. This study aims to develop a reliable approach for determining the undrained shear strength of remoulded fine-grained soils, through the use of index test results, at both the plastic and semi-solid states of consistency. Experimental investigation and subsequent analysis involving a number of fine-grained soils of widely varying plasticity and geological origin have led to a two-parameter linear model of the relationship between logarithm of remoulded undrained shear strength and liquidity index. The numerical values of the parameters are found to be dependent to a lesser extent on the soil group and to a greater extent on the soil state. Based on the values of regression coefficient, ranking index and ranking distance, it seems that the relationship represents the experimental results well. It may be pointed out that the possibility of such a relationship in the semi-solid state of a soil has not been explored in the past. It is also shown that the shear strength at the plastic limit is about 32-34 times that at the liquid limit.

Discussion: Remoulded shear strength at plastic and semi-solid states

The undrained shear strength of remoulded soils is of great concern in geotechnical engineering applications. This study aims to develop a reliable approach for determining the undrained shear strength of remoulded fine-grained soils, through the use of index test results, at both the plastic and semi-solid states of consistency. Experimental investigation and subsequent analysis involving a number of fine-grained soils of widely varying plasticity and geological origin have led to a two-parameter linear model of the relationship between logarithm of remoulded undrained shear strength and liquidity index. The numerical values of the parameters are found to be dependent to a lesser extent on the soil group and to a greater extent on the soil state. Based on the values of regression coefficient, ranking index and ranking distance, it seems that the relationship represents the experimental results well. It may be pointed out that the possibility of such a relationship in the semi-solid state of a soil has not been explored in the past. It is also shown that the shear strength at the plastic limit is about 32–34 times that at the liquid limit.

Rheological characterization of semi-solid A356 aluminium alloy

Rheological behavior of semi-solid slurries forms the backbone of semi-solid processing of metallic alloys. In particular, the effects of several process and metallurgical parameters such as shear rate, shear time, temperature, rest time and size, distribution and morphology of the primary phase on the viscosity of the slurry needs in-depth characterization. In the present work, rheological behaviour of the semisolid aluminium alloy (A356) slurry is investigated by using a high temperature Searle type Rheometer using concentric cylinders. Three different types of experiment are carried out: isothermal test, continuous cooling test and steady state test. Continuous decrease in viscosity is observed with increasing shear rate at a fixed temperature (isothermal test). It is also found that the viscosity increases with decreasing temperature for a particular shear rate due to increasing solid fraction (continuous cooling test). Thixotropic nature of the slurry is confirmed from the hysteresis loops obtained during experimentation. Time dependence of slurry viscosity has been evaluated from the steady state tests. After a longer shearing time under isothermal conditions the starting dendritic structure of the said alloy is transformed into globular grains due to abrasion, agglomeration, welding and ripening.

Phase Field Simulation of Equiaxed Microstructure Formation during Semi-solid Processing of A380 Al Alloy

A phase field modelling approach is implemented in the present study towards simulation of microstructure evolution during cooling slope semi solid slurry generation process of A380 Aluminium alloy. First, experiments are performed to evaluate the number of seeds required within the simulation domain to simulate near spherical microstructure formation, occurs during cooling slope processing of the melt. Subsequently, microstructure evolution is studied employing a phase field method. Simulations are performed to understand the effect of cooling rate on the slurry microstructure. Encouraging results are obtained from the simulation studies which are validated by experimental observations. The results obtained from mesoscopic phase field simulations are grain size, grain density, degree of sphericity of the evolving primary Al phase and the amount of solid fraction present within the slurry at different time frames. Effect of grain refinement also has been studied with an aim of improving the slurry microstructure further. Insight into the process has been obtained from the numerical findings, which are found to be useful for process control.

Formation of annular austenitic ring between outer ferrite layer and solid globule in a semi-solid processed SS 304L

The microstructure of an austenitic SS 304L rapidly quenched from its semi-solid state shows a unique annular austenitic ring in between the core of each globule and its ferritic outer layer. On the basis of experimental results and microstructural analysis, it is proposed that the ring is formed as a result of preferential austenitic phase nucleation in a small quantity of liquid entrapped between adjacent solid globules during rapid quenching, in spite of the fact that ferrite is the thermodynamically stable phase for the alloy. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Study of Microstructure Evolution during Semi-Solid Processing of an In-Situ Al Alloy Composite

In the present work, effect of pouring temperature (650 degrees C, 655 degrees C, and 660 degrees C) on semi-solid microstructure evolution of in-situ magnesium silicide (Mg2Si) reinforced aluminum (Al) alloy composite has been studied. The shear force exerted by the cooling slope during gravity driven flow of the melt facilitates the formation of near spherical primary Mg2Si and primary Al grains. Shear driven melt flow along the cooling slope and grain fragmentation have been identified as the responsible mechanisms for refinement of primary Mg2Si and Al grains with improved sphericity. Results show that, while flowing down the cooling slope, morphology of primary Mg2Si and primary Al transformed gradually from coarse dendritic to mixture of near spherical particles, rosettes, and degenerated dendrites. In terms of minimum grain size and maximum sphericity, 650 degrees C has been identified as the ideal pouring temperature for the cooling slope semi-solid processing of present Al alloy composite. Formation of spheroidal grains with homogeneous distribution of reinforcing phase (Mg2Si) improves the isotropic property of the said composite, which is desirable in most of the engineering applications.

Optimality Conditions and Duality for Semi-Infinite Mathematical Programming Problem with Equilibrium Constraints

This article considers a semi-infinite mathematical programming problem with equilibrium constraints (SIMPEC) defined as a semi-infinite mathematical programming problem with complementarity constraints. We establish necessary and sufficient optimality conditions for the (SIMPEC). We also formulate Wolfe- and Mond-Weir-type dual models for (SIMPEC) and establish weak, strong and strict converse duality theorems for (SIMPEC) and the corresponding dual problems under invexity assumptions.

Retrieval and Multi-scale Validation of Soil Moisture from Multi-temporal SAR Data in a Semi-Arid Tropical Region

The current study presents an algorithm to retrieve surface Soil Moisture (SM) from multi-temporal Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. The developed algorithm is based on the Cumulative Density Function (CDF) transformation of multi-temporal RADARSAT-2 backscatter coefficient (BC) to obtain relative SM values, and then converts relative SM values into absolute SM values using soil information. The algorithm is tested in a semi-arid tropical region in South India using 30 satellite images of RADARSAT-2, SMOS L2 SM products, and 1262 SM field measurements in 50 plots spanning over 4 years. The validation with the field data showed the ability of the developed algorithm to retrieve SM with RMSE ranging from 0.02 to 0.06 m(3)/m(3) for the majority of plots. Comparison with the SMOS SM showed a good temporal behaviour with RMSE of approximately 0.05 m(3)/m(3) and a correlation coefficient of approximately 0.9. The developed model is compared and found to be better than the change detection and delta index model. The approach does not require calibration of any parameter to obtain relative SM and hence can easily be extended to any region having time series of SAR data available.

A semi-automated, field-portable microscopy platform for clinical diagnostic applications

Clinical microscopy is a versatile diagnostic platform used for diagnosis of a multitude of diseases. In the recent past, many microfluidics based point-of-care diagnostic devices have been developed, which serve as alternatives to microscopy. However, these point-of-care devices are not as multi-functional and versatile as clinical microscopy. With the use of custom designed optics and microfluidics, we have developed a versatile microscopy-based cellular diagnostic platform, which can be used at the point of care. The microscopy platform presented here is capable of detecting infections of very low parasitemia level (in a very small quantity of sample), without the use of any additional computational hardware. Such a cost-effective and portable diagnostic device, would greatly impact the quality of health care available to people living in rural locations of the world. Apart from clinical diagnostics, it's applicability to field research in environmental microbiology has also been outlined. (C) 2015 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Coupling geomorphology parameters with lithology for micro-level groundwater resource assessment: a case study from semi-arid hard rock terrain in Tamil Nadu, India

The standard procedure of groundwater resource estimation in India till date is based on the specific yield parameters of each rock type (lithology) derived through pumping test analysis. Using the change in groundwater level, specific yield, and area of influence, groundwater storage change could be estimated. However, terrain conditions in the form of geomorphological variations have an important bearing on the net groundwater recharge. In this study, an attempt was made to use both lithology and geomorphology as input variables to estimate the recharge from different sources in each lithology unit influenced by the geomorphic conditions (lith-geom), season wise separately. The study provided a methodological approach for an evaluation of groundwater in a semi-arid hard rock terrain in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India. While characterizing the gneissic rock, it was found that the geomorphologic variations in the gneissic rock due to weathering and deposition behaved differently with respect to aquifer recharge. The three different geomorphic units identified in gneissic rock (pediplain shallow weathered (PPS), pediplain moderate weathered (PPM), and buried pediplain moderate (BPM)) showed a significant variation in recharge conditions among themselves. It was found from the study that Peninsular gneiss gives a net recharge value of 0.13 m/year/unit area when considered as a single unit w.r.t. lithology, whereas the same area considered with lith-geom classes gives recharge values between 0.1 and 0.41 m/year presenting a different assessment. It is also found from this study that the stage of development (SOD) for each lith-geom unit in Peninsular gneiss varies from 168 to 230 %, whereas the SOD is 223 % for the lithology as a single unit.