The dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) has emerged as one of the most important frameworks for theoretical investigations of strongly correlated lattice models and real material systems. Within DMFT, ...a lattice model can be mapped onto the problem of a magnetic impurity embedded in a self-consistently determined bath. The solution of this impurity problem is the most challenging step in this framework. The available numerically exact methods such as quantum Monte Carlo, numerical renormalization group or exact diagonalization are naturally unbiased and accurate, but are computationally expensive. Thus, approximate methods, based e.g. on diagrammatic perturbation theory have gained substantial importance. Although such methods are not always reliable in various parameter regimes such as in the proximity of phase transitions or for strong coupling, the advantages they offer, in terms of being computationally inexpensive, with real frequency output at zero and finite temperatures, compensate for their deficiencies and offer a quick, qualitative analysis of the system behavior. In this work, we have developed such a method, that can be classified as a multi-orbital iterated perturbation theory (MO-IPT) to study
N
-fold degenerate and non degenerate Anderson impurity models. As applications of the solver, we have embedded the MO-IPT within DMFT and explored lattice models like the single orbital Hubbard model, covalent band insulator and the multi-orbital Hubbard model for density-density type interactions in different parameter regimes. The Hund’s coupling effects in case of multiple orbitals is also studied. The limitations and quality of results are gauged through extensive comparison with data from the numerically exact continuous time quantum Monte Carlo method (CTQMC). In the case of the single orbital Hubbard model, covalent band insulators and non degenerate multi-orbital Hubbard models, we obtained an excellent agreement between the Matsubara self-energies of MO-IPT and CTQMC. But for the degenerate multi-orbital Hubbard model, we observe that the agreement with CTQMC results gets better as we move away from particle-hole symmetry. We have also integrated MO-IPT+DMFT with density functional theory based electronic structure methods to study real material systems. As a test case, we have studied the classic, strongly correlated electronic material, SrVO
3
. A comparison of density of states and photo emission spectrum (PES) with results obtained from different impurity solvers and experiments yields good agreement.
The fundamental aim of this study is to establish the role of antioxidant supplementation in alleviating acute amitriptyline induced oxidative stress. The effect of supplementation was compared on ...treatment of acute amitriptyline intoxication cases for pain management, with alpha lipoic acid (ALA) alone or with vitamin C, with that of healthy individuals (group I), and those receiving only routine standard treatment (RST) as control (group II). A total of 132 human subjects divided into 5 groups were supplemented with either placebo, RST, RST with vitamin C, RST with ALA, or RST with vitamin C, and ALA. Results of this study revealed that the decrease in the level of oxidative stress and enzyme activity was observed among those supplemented with either alpha lipoic acid alone or along with vitamin C, with a slightly more decrease in the latter group.
P
value of < 0.001 was considered statistically significant. The percentage of benefit of treatment on supplementation with vitamin C and alpha lipoic acid showed a marked increase in group V cases after supplementation with both in combination. The results provided that the oxidative stress induced by acute amitriptyline poisoning is comparatively decreased by supplementation with antioxidants like alpha lipoic acid and vitamin C, than those only on routine standard treatment.
Today's technologies, techniques, and systems leveraged for managing energy trading operations in electric vehicles fall short in providing operational transparency, immutability, fault tolerance, ...traceability, and trusted data provenance features. They are centralized and vulnerable to the single point of failure problem, and less trustworthy as they are prone to the data modifications and deletion by adversaries. In this paper, we present the potential advantages of blockchain technology to manage energy trading operations between electric vehicles as it can offer data traceability, immutability, transparency, audit, security, and confidentiality in a fully decentralized manner. We identify and discuss the essential requirements for the successful implementation of blockchain technology to secure energy trading operations among electric vehicles. We present a detailed discussion on the potential opportunities offered by blockchain technology to secure the energy trading operations of electric vehicles. We discuss several blockchain-based research projects and case studies to highlight the practicability of blockchain technology in electric vehicles energy trading. Finally, we identify and discuss open challenges in fulfilling the requirements of electric vehicles energy trading applications.
Product recall management in the automotive industry is a challenging problem that affects human lives and the safe operation of automobiles. Product recalls can assist in removing potentially unsafe ...products from the marketplace and minimizing a company's responsibility for corporate negligence. Today's systems and technologies leveraged for product recall management in the automotive supply chain fall short in providing transparency, traceability, reliability, audit, security, and trust features. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based approach to overcome the aforementioned problems related to product recall management. We employ the public Ethereum blockchain and integrate it with the decentralized storage of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) to deal with the large-sized data problem. We present the system design and six algorithms explaining the working principles, information exchange flow, and stakeholders' detail and their sequential interactions. We discuss the implementation details, generalization aspects, and cost and security analyses to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. The proposed solution is cost-effective, secure, and enables automakers to have end-to-end visibility of information during product recalls. We make the smart contracts' code publicly available on GitHub.
Abstract
We present the detection of 661 known pulsars observed with the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope at 888 MHz as part of the Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey (RACS). Detections were ...made through astrometric coincidence and we estimate the false alarm rate of our sample to be ∼0.5%. Using archival data at 400 and 1400 MHz, we estimate the power-law spectral indices for the pulsars in our sample and find that the mean spectral index is −1.78 ± 0.6. However, we also find that a single power law is inadequate for modeling all the observed spectra. With the addition of flux densities between 150 MHz and 3 GHz from various imaging surveys, we find that up to 40% of our sample show deviations from a simple power-law model. Using Stokes
V
measurements from the RACS data, we measured the circular polarization fraction for 9% of our sample and find that the mean polarization fraction is ∼10% (consistent between detections and upper limits). Using the dispersion-measure-derived distance, we estimate the pseudo-luminosity of the pulsars and do not find any strong evidence for a correlation with the pulsars’ intrinsic properties.
An attempt has been made for the first time to convert waste biomass such as water hyacinth (WH) to a functional energy material in a cost-effective way. The present research describes a novel ...exo-templating methodology to develop engineered microstructure of Ga-doped Li7La3Zr2O12 (Li6.25La3Ga0.25Zr2O12, referred as WH-Ga-LLZO) solid-state electrolyte for its use in all solid-state lithium batteries (ASSLBs) by mimicking the intercellular structure of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), an invasive and noxious aquatic plant. The developed exo-templated methodology offers a low calcination temperature of 1000 °C in air where all the major peaks could be indexed as cubic garnet, as confirmed by XRD. The FESEM micrographs revealed a unique “plate-like” morphology that mimicked the intercellular structure of water hyacinth fiber. The bulk lithium-ion conductivity in the WH-Ga-LLZO electrolyte was found to be 3.94 × 10–5 S/cm. Li/WH-Ga-LLZO/Li cells were galvanostatically cycled for a continuous 295 h with increasing step current densities from 28 μA/cm2 without a short circuit. The highest current density as measured for maximum polarization in a symmetric cell was found to be 452 μA/cm2. The WH exo-templated methodology was thus developed and optimized and can be extended for synthesizing any application-specific multifunctional materials.
Besides apple mosaic virus (ApMV), apple necrotic mosaic virus (ApNMV) has also been found to be associated with apple mosaic disease. Both viruses are unevenly distributed throughout the plant and ...their titer decreases variably with high temperatures, hence requiring proper tissue and time for early and real-time detection within plants. The present study was carried out to understand the distribution and titer of ApMV and ApNMV in apple trees from different plant parts (spatial) during different seasons (temporal) for the optimization of tissue and time for their timely detection. The Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) and Reverse Transcription-quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-qPCR) was carried out to detect and quantify both viruses in the various plant parts of apple trees during different seasons. Depending on the availability of tissue, both ApMV and ApNMV were detected in all the plant parts during the spring season using RT-PCR. During the summer, both viruses were detected only in seeds and fruits, whereas they were detected in leaves and pedicel during the autumn season. The RT-qPCR results showed that during the spring, the ApMV and ApNMV expression was higher in leaves, whereas in the summer and autumn, the titer was mostly detected in seeds and leaves, respectively. The leaves in the spring and autumn seasons and the seeds in the summer season can be used as detection tissues through RT-PCR for early and rapid detection of ApMV and ApNMV. This study was validated on 7 cultivars of apples infected with both viruses. This will help to accurately sample and index the planting material well ahead of time, which will aid in the production of virus-free, quality planting material.
Morphologically engineered Li7La3Zr2O12 (LLZO) impregnated with a common solvated ionic liquid (SIL) can greatly influence the cycling performance (360 cycles), coulombic efficiency (>99%), and high ...rate capability (0.05–1.2 mA·cm–2) of pseudo-solid-state lithium metal batteries (SSLMBs). In this report, to obtain a unique microstructure of cubic-LLZO, a fine-tuned combustion synthesis process was first designed; synthetic parameters were duly optimized, and powders were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), 1H NMR, and Raman spectroscopy. An in-depth analysis of powder properties and electrochemical behavior of the fabricated SSLM cells revealed that impurities present in LLZO significantly facilitated electrochemical cell performances. Such a combination of the engineered LLZO impregnated with the SIL enabled the plating and stripping cycles in Li symmetric cells with up to 200 h of operation at a constant current density of 0.05 mA·cm–2 avoiding short circuit. The critical current density (CCD) was found to be 450 μA cm–2, which is significantly higher than the other reported CCD values for pristine LLZO. The post-electrochemical study revealed that transgranular lithium dendritic growth, a genuine problem in SSLMBs, was impeded to a significant extent by the engineered LLZO and an in situ formed phase, Li0.5Al0.5La2O4, at grain boundaries during cycling. The multicathode compatibility tests as performed (Li/LLZO-SIL/LMO, Li/LLZO-SIL/LFP, and Li/LLZO-SIL/NMC111) exhibited that morphologically altered LLZO with the SIL interface is compatible with most of the commercial cathodes. The study thus envisaged that the engineered LLZO solid electrolyte impregnated with the SIL can exert a synergistic effect to enhance faster Li-ion conduction as well as resistance to Li dendritic growth, providing a path for developing high-performance SSLMBs.
•The 29 Malus baccata wild apple accessions were used to divulge their genetic diversity using morpho-molecular markers.•Based on morphological characters, Mahalanobis D2 statistics resolved all ...accessions in four clusters.•Population structure differentiated the 29 accessions into two populations, with sub-population i accounts for 18 accessions and sub-population II consisted of only 9 accessions.•The morpho-molecular markers revealed significant level of genetic diversity along with population differentiation among the maintained accessions.
Out of five wild Malus species in the world, Malus baccata (L.) Borkh (MB) is reported from the extremely cold areas of north western Himalayas. These are widely used as a rootstock or source of resistance against various biotic and abiotic stresses due to its ecological adaptability and cold hardiness. The study of genetic diversity is an important aspect to be covered for proper utilization of the wild apple germplasm for breeding purpose. The 29 Malus baccata accessions were used to divulge their genetic diversity using morpho-molecular markers. Based on morphological characters, Mahalanobis D2statistics resolved all accessions in four clusters. A set of 85 SSR were used to study molecular diversity among the accessions. The AMOVA stated genetic diversity between populations of genotypes was lower (7%) compared to that observed within and among the individuals of the populations (93%). The effective allele number (2.63) was found to be lower than mean allele number (3.7), with mean heterozygosity as 0.51. The gene diversity varied between 0.10 for Hi02d05 to 0.79 for CH-Vf1.The expected heterozygosity was greater than observed heterozygosity for total analysed loci of SSR. The average PIC value was found as 0.50. The accessions were segregated into two distinct classes using heirarchical clustering method. Further, population structure also differentiated the 29 accessions into two populations, with sub-population I accounts for 18 accessions and sub-population II consisted of only 9 accessions. MB-5 and MB-20 accessions fall in the admixture group. The differentiated populations were validated and reconfirmed by the PCoA analysis. . The morphological features and molecular markers revealed significant level of genetic diversity along with population differentiation among the maintained accessions.
Many viruses have been found associated with apple mosaic disease in different parts of the world. In order to reveal and characterize the viruses and viroids in symptomatic apple plants, ...next-generation sequencing (RNA seq.) of rRNA-depleted total RNA using Illumina Hiseq2500 was applied to two cultivars, Oregon Spur and Golden Delicious, with symptoms of mosaic and necrosis and one cultivar, Red Fuji, which was asymptomatic. The RNA sequencing detected five viruses, viz., apple necrotic mosaic virus (ApNMV), apple mosaic virus (ApMV), apple stem grooving virus (ASGV) and apple stem pitting virus (ASPV), apple chlorotic leaf spot virus (ACLSV), and one viroid i.e., apple hammerhead viroid (AHVd). RT-PCR amplification and sequencing also confirmed the presence of all these five viruses and viroids detected in HTS of total RNA. The complete genomes of five viruses and AHVd were reconstructed. The phylogenetic analysis of these viruses and AHVd revealed genetic diversity by forming subclusters with isolates from other countries. Recombination events were observed in all five viruses while single-nucleotide variants were detected only in ApMV and ApNMV. The absence of ApMV and ApNMV in asymptomatic samples from the same cultivars in an RT-PCR assay indicated that these two viruses are associated with mosaic disease of apples in India. This is the first viral genome analysis of symptomatic and asymptomatic apple plants and the first report of genome characterization of viruses associated with apple mosaic disease from India. High-throughput RNA sequencing is a powerful tool to characterize the genome of viruses and viroids in plants previously undetected by conventional methods. This would also help in the indexing and certification of large-scale germplasm.
PDF
