Mizoram and Manipur are the two north-eastern states of India, where maximum diversity of
Capsicum frutescens
is found. Seventy two
Capsicum
landraces, consisting predominantly of
C. frutescens
...accessions were collected from the major growing states of north-eastern India. Landraces were compared for 29 qualitative traits and 14 quantitative traits using multivariate methods, including clustering and principal component analysis to assess the patterns of morphological variation. Landraces collected revealed significant differences (
P
< 0.0001) for all the quantitative traits. Fruit length of >4 cm was found in three landraces (MN-1, MN-2 and MZBEC-2), whereas smallest
C. frutescens
landraces (in length) were MZBEC-42 (1.15 cm), MZBEC-13 (1.17 cm) and MZBEC-55 (1.27 cm); a variation of 6.5 folds was found in fruit length. Among the 91 inter correlation coefficients studied in quantitative traits, 17 were positively significant (8 at
P
< 0.01 and 9 at
P
< 0.05) and three were negatively significant (2 at
P
< 0.01 and 1 at
P
< 0.05). Five significant principal components (PC) were identified and accounted for a cumulative variation of 69.88%. Hierarchical cluster analysis grouped 72 landraces into five clusters based on the qualitative traits and into six clusters based on quantitative traits. Altogether, the present study has generated baseline information about the vast intra-specific diversity of
C. frutescens
landraces of North-East India.
The present study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of α-eleostearic acid and punicic acid, two isomers of conjugated linolenic acid (CLnA) present in bitter gourd (Momordica charantia) and snake ...gourd oil (Trichosanthes anguina), respectively, against oxidative stress, inflammatory challenge and aberration in erythrocyte morphology due to streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes. Male albino rats were divided into four groups consisting of eight animals in each group. The first group served as control and diabetes was induced in rats in groups 2-4 by a single intraperitoneal injection of STZ. Moreover, rats in groups 3 and 4 were treated with 0·5 % of α-eleostearic acid and 0·5 % of punicic acid of the total lipid given, respectively, by oral administration once per d. After administration, CLnA isomers had significantly reduced oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation and restored antioxidant and pro-inflammatory enzymes such as superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase, reduced glutathione, NO synthase level in pancreas, blood and erythrocyte lysate. The ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay of plasma showed that CLnA treatment caused improvement in the FRAP value which was altered after STZ treatment due to an increased level of free radicals. Expression of inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α and IL-6 in blood and expression of hepatic NF-κB (p65) increased significantly after STZ treatment due to increased inflammation which was restored with the administration of CLnA isomers. From the obtained results, it could be concluded that α-eleostearic acid and punicic acid showed potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity with varying effectivity.
In this paper, the combined kinematic and sensitivity optimization of a rack-and-pinion steering linkage is performed. This steering linkage is the most common steering system used in passenger cars. ...Although, the steering linkage has received a lot of attention for the minimization of the steering errors, no attempt has been made so far to investigate the sensitivities of optimum dimensions relative to variation of link lengths. The kinematic optimization of the linkage is carried out using three homogenous design parameters. The objective of the proposed optimization is to minimize maximum steering error during cornering. This is followed by a sensitivity analysis to predict how the steering error is affected by manufacturing tolerances, assembly errors, and clearances resulting due to wear. Since the optimized kinematic error is very sensitive to the variations of the linkage parameters, the kinematic and post-optimal sensitivity optimization of the steering linkage is performed in an integrated manner. The methodology proposed in this work helps the designers of rack-and-pinion steering linkage to choose the linkage parameters whose maximum steering error (MSE) and sensitivity are minimum.
This study investigates the possible changes in future winter temperature and precipitation extremes in the Arctic using the regional climate model HIRHAM4. Under the B2 emission scenario conditions, ...frequency and intensity of future (2037–2051) extremes have changed significantly compared to the present‐day (1981–1995) extremes. Extreme precipitations have intensified and the number of extreme events has changed significantly over East Siberia and Barents Sea. Extreme warm and extreme cold temperatures have become warmer with maxima over Barents Sea and Central Eurasia. Changes in the mean climate and its variability are modulating the future winter extreme events.
Numerical study of heat transfer phenomena has become a major field of research nowadays. In engineering applications, different boundary conditions arise which have various effects on heat transfer ...characteristics. For the present work, a triangular-shape cavity has been analyzed for the sine-squared thermal boundary condition which is common in practical cases. The augmentation of heat transfer has been done by introducing a nanofluid inside the cavity. Different solid volume fractions
(φ
= 0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2
)
of water-CuO, water-Al
2
O
3
, and water-TiO
2
nanofluid have been tested for the cavity with a wide range of Rayleigh number
(Ra
= 10
5
-10
8
)
and for dimensionless time
(τ
= 0.1 to 1
)
. The Galerkin weighted residual finite-element method has been applied for the numerical solution, and numerical accuracy has been checked by code validation. The heat transfer augmentation for different nanofluids has been done in the light of local
(
Nu
L
)
and overall Nusselt number
(Nu
av
)
, and the results have been presented with streamline, isotherm, and related contours, in graphs and charts. It has been found that variable boundary condition has significant effect on flow and thermal fields and increase of solid volume fraction enhances the heat transfer.
Quantitative land evaluation procedures, namely USDA Land Capability Classification (LCC) and FAO Land Evaluation Procedure for Soil Site Suitability for various land utilization types have been used ...to assess the land suitability for different crops and for generating cropping pattern for kharif (summer) and rabi (winter) seasons in a watershed. The database on soil, land use/land cover rainfall, and temperature was generated from data derived from Landsat TM remote sensing satellite and soil survey to perform an integrated analysis in the geographic information system environment. Arable and non-arable lands were delineated in the watershed using the USDA LCC and non-arable areas were masked for removal from future analysis. Different land quality parameters, viz. soil texture, depth, erosion, slope, flooding and course fragments under various land units were evaluated for a number of crops. Subsequently all of them were integrated using a sequence of logical operations to generate the land suitability maps for various crops. Kharif and rabi season cropping patterns were developed by integrating crop suitability maps for the winter and summer seasons separately. Finally, cropping system maps for the watershed were obtained by integrating the two season cropping sequences within the crop calendar. Results indicated that the present agricultural area of 47% could be increased to 71% by adopting scientific land evaluation methods for watershed development. It was also found that better landuse options could be implemented in different land units as the conventional land evaluation methods suffer from limitation of spatial analysis for the suitability of various crops.
In this article, we discuss a method for finding an approximate solution of a class of two-dimensional linear Volterra weakly partial integro-differential equations. The operational matrices of ...integration, differentiation, and product are utilized to reduce the solution of the weakly partial integro-differential equation to the linear algebraic system of equations. Furthermore, some useful theorems are discussed to establish the convergence analysis of the proposed technique. Some numerical examples are solved by applying the presented scheme to show the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed scheme and also a comparison of error values between the two wavelets has been presented. Furthermore, some figures are plotted to demonstrate the error analysis of the proposed scheme.
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