A field experiment was conducted during the rainy (kharif) seasons of 2014 and 2015 at Patna, Bihar to optimise the seeding rates and nitrogen scheduling for direct-seeded rice (Oryza sativa L.) under the rainfed drought-prone environment. The soil of the experimental plot was loamy, low in organic carbon (0.42) and available N (149.6 kg/ha), high in available phosphorus (25.8 kg/ha), medium in available potash content (183.6 kg/ha) and slightly alkaline (pH 7.7). The treatments consisted of 3 seeding rates (S1: 20 kg/ha; S2 : 30 kg/ha; and S3 : 40 kg/ha) in main-plot and four nitrogen schedules (N1 , 1/3 N as basal and 2/3 N at maximum tillering; N2 , 1/3 N as basal and 1/3 N at maximum tillering and 1/3 N at panicle initiation; N3 , 1/2 N at first shower/enough moisture availability preferably after first weeding and 1/2 N at maximum tillering; and N4 , 1/3 N at first shower/enough moisture availability preferably after first weeding, 1/3 N at maximum tillering and 1/3 N at panicle initiation stage) in sub-plot and replicated thrice in split-plot design. The results revealed that the grain yield was significantly higher with S3 (3.2 t/ha) than that to S1 (2.4 t/ha), but statistically at par with that obtained with S2 (3.1 t/ha). Varying nitrogen schedules did not affect the grain yield markedly. Comparatively higher grain yield was recorded with N4 (3.0 t/ha) followed by N3 (2.94 t/ha) and N1 (2.87 t/ha). The gross returns (32.1 ×103 /ha), net returns (15.9 × 103 /ha) and benefit: cost ratio (1.64) were significantly higher with 40 kg/ha seed rate compared to 20 kg/ha ( 22.4 ×103/ha, 6.2 ×103/ha and 1.26 but statistically similar to 30 kg/ha ( 28.9 ×103 /ha, 13.4 ×103/ha and 1.55. The net returns were significantly higher with N4 closely followed by N3. Hence, growing of direct-seeded rice using 40 kg/ha seed rate along with split application of 1/3rd N at first shower/enough moisture availability preferably after first weeding, 1/3rd N at maximum tillering and 1/3rd N at panicle initiation stage is an ideal and sustainable approach in terms of productivity and profitability under rainfed drought-prone environment of Eastern India.

Nickel oxide is found to have a wide-range of applications in opto-electronic fields. So, we have synthesized the NiO with 0, 1, 2.5, 5 and 7.5 wt% Ce ion through one pot flash combustion route facilely at 450 degrees C and subjected to various state of art-excremental studies. Structural study points out that the major phase is belongs to cubic NiO, however, low intensity peaks were observed for cubic CeO2 as well. Hence, it confirms the Ce doping in NiO. This was further confirmed from FT-Raman spectroscopy analysis in which the extra vibrational mode at 450 +/- 5 is belongs to Ce2O at higher content of Ce. Further confirmation of Ce presence and its homogeneity in the final product was approved through energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy/e-mapping measurements. The morphological investigation was done by SEM and Field emission-SEM which confirm the formation of low dimension nanoparticles of size within the range of 41-75 nm. Diffused reflectance spectra were used to obtain energy gap using Kubelka-Munk relation and noticed in range of 3.42-3.55 eV for NiO@Ce NPs. Frequency dependent dielectric and electrical properties were also studied and discussed in detail.

In the present study, undoped and Mn-doped ZnS, Zn1 – xMnxS (x = 0, 0.02, 0.06, 0.10) quantum dots (QDs) were successfully synthesized using the simple co-precipitation method. The synthesized samples were thoroughly studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-visible absorption, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) with selected area of the electron diffraction, scanning electron microscope with energy dispersive X-ray spectra, photoluminescence emission (PLE), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The XRD pattern confirmed the cubic zinc-blende phase at low doping concentration; however, at higher Mn-doping concentration hetaerolite phase formation was observed. The calculated particle size using Debye–Scherrer relation was found between 1.90–2.35 nm, which was also confirmed by HRTEM analysis. The blue shift in the absorption peak of all the prepared ZnS QDs as compared to bulk ZnS was indicative of the formation of nanoparticles and the calculated band gap was in the range of 3.94–4.11 eV. The PLE spectroscopy of the synthesized QDs was performed at the excitation wavelength of 280 nm and corresponding emission spectroscopy confirmed the surface defects in synthesized ZnS QDs.

Bael is a medicinal cum fruit tree with multipurpose utility and propagated mostly through seeds. It is mostly found in India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Thailand and China. Focus on collection of bael variability has increased in recent times with an aim towards their utilization as fresh or made into ‘Sharbat’, one of the most popular drinks in the Indian. Its lots of evidence have showed immense potential of nutritional and medicinal properties used in various ethnic societies. The present investigation was carried out to exploit genetic variability in bael fruits. Seventy-five genotypes were characterized for sixteen fruit traits viz. fruit weight, fruit length, fruit width, skin weight, no. of seed, seed weight, pulp weight, skin per cent, seed per cent, pulp per cent, skin thickness, fruit volume, TSS, acidity, reducing sugar and total sugars during 2015. Observations of growing seedling trees showed rich genetic variations regarding their fruit characteristics. The fruit characteristics, viz., fruit weight ranged from (315.20–1608.65 g), fruit length (81.39–173.43 mm), fruit width (89.76–136.35 mm), skin weight (88.62–358.07 g), number of seed (37.67–195.40), seed weight (7.48–54.33 g), pulp weight (201.17–1243.87 g), skin % (9.59–42.83%), seed % (0.97–7.97%), pulp % (53.72–89.33%), skin thickness (1.43–4.10 mm), volume of fruit (285.00–1555.00 cc), TSS (24.40–47.80°Brix), acidity (0.15–0.40%), reducing sugar (0.37–11.90 mg/100 g) and total sugars (7.14–20.83 mg/100 g) among the different genotypes. On the basis of overall assessment, one genotype, ICAR-RCER BS 6/1 was found to be the most promising. Based on fruit properties, principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to qualitatively and quantitatively discriminate the germplasm difference. Eight principal components, which contribute 94.80% of the total variability, were selected for analysis. Biplot between PC1 and PC2 showed that genotypes namely ICAR-RCER BS 6/1, 18/2, 25/5, 21/1, 17/3, 26/1, 18/5, 1/11, 8/1 and 14/4 were very different from each other.

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance and characterize plant growth behaviour, light profile and soil fertility status of seventeen different trees (12 years old). The study indicated higher biomass production potential of Gmelina arborea, Dalbergia sissoo and Leucaena leucocephala. Higher photosynthetically active radiation value below tree canopy indicates compatibility of trees with a majority of agricultural crops. In the present study, a significant increase in pH and decrease in EC of trees were observed. The significant reduction in nutrients in different trees indicated a need for replenishment of nutrients in soil for maintaining soil fertility in agroforestry systems on long-term basis.

La-doped SnO2 thin films (1, 2.5, 5.0, 7.5 and 10%) have been coated on FTO substrates by a sol-gel spin coating technique. XRD studies confirms the (100) orientation of all prepared films of polycrystalline nature. Vibrational modes confirm the fabrication of single phase SnO2 films. EDX/SEM mapping confirms the presence of La in SnO2 films. AFM reveals the grain size in range of 17-82 nm along with RMS roughness in 13 and 38 nm. The direct band gap values of pure and La doped SnO2 thin films are varying between 4.15 and 3.95 eV. The refractive index (n) and absorption index (k) values were found to be reducing below 5% La doping and showed an increasing tendency beyond 5% doping. Further, the investigated values (chi(1)) , (chi(3)) and n(2) were found in the range of 0.032-47, 1.5 x 10(-8) to 8 x 10(-4) esu and 2.3 x 10(-7) to 1.2 x 10(-3), respectively.

In this paper we propose a distributed locality sensitive hashing based framework for image super resolution exploiting computational and storage efficiency of cloud. Now days huge multimedia data is available on the cloud which can be utilized using store anywhere and excess anywhere model. It may be noted that super resolution is required for consumer electronics display devices due to various reasons. The propose framework exploits the image correlation for image super resolution using locality sensitive hashing (LSH) for manifold learning. In our work we have exploited the benefits of manifold learning for image super resolution, which in-turn is a highly time complex operation. The time complexity is involved due to finding the approximate nearest neighbors from trillion of image patches for locally linear embedding (LLE) operation. In our approach it is mitigated by using a distributed framework which internally uses hash tables for mapping of patches in the target image from a database of internet picture collection. The proposed framework for super resolution provides promising results in comparison to existing approaches.

Steganography is the craft of conveying a message by implanting it into interactive media information. Unlike cryptography, steganography hides the existence of information in interactive medium. There are various methods for hiding data in special and frequency domain. A speculation of the established LSB inserting strategy is performed in this technique. The double-precision binary floating format representation of dim level pictures requires 64 bit planes rather than the standard 8 planes of binary representation. Tested result demonstrate that, this plan beats the all established LSB technique. In 8-bit plane binary number, change in one bit causes large change in pixel value of cover image. Due to this reason error in stego image is comes out high. Unlike 8-bit plane, 64-bit plane floating point number causes very less error in stego image. This leads to high PSNR and high PSNR implies to large payload.

The effect of microwave assissted extraction of pigments from beetroot peels was studied. Oven Drying followed by microwave assisted extraction was decided as the experimental procedure to be followed because of better absorbance in the range of 0.2-0.4. A microwave assisted extraction procedure is said to open the vacuolar pores inside beetroot powder.The Box-Behnken method was used as the RSM optimization technique. A quadratic model was suggested for both the solvents used. The optimized conditions for Solvent A were pH 5.20, Microwave Power of 224.61MW and Time 57.06 seconds for a Betanin Concentration of 229.264mg/L. The optimized conditions for Solvent B were found to be pH4.74, Microwave Power 384.25MW, Time 74.91 seconds and Betanin Concentration 472.113mg/L. The order of the extraction process was calculated as 1.42 and the rate constant as 0.00126. FTIR results confirm similar functional groups before and after the treatment. FTIR results confirm the presence of O–H stretch, C-H stretch, H–bonded, C-C stretch, N–H bend.

An attempt was made at ICAR RCER, Research Centre, Ranchi to analyse the plant growth behaVior, productivity of different component crops, profitability, soil fertility status and carbon sequestration potential of 20 different agri horticultural systems during young bearing stage (6(th) to 10(th) year) of mango plants. The field trial was established during the year 1999-2000 to standardize suitable filler crop and intercrop combinations for mango based agri-horticultural systems under rainfed uplands of eastern plateau and hill region. The study indicated enhanced growth of mango and filler plants with paddy as intercrop. With respect to soil fertility, reduction in the content of available nitrogen and potassium was recorded after 10 years of planting particularly under Mango + Guava + Paddy agri-horticultural system. Among all the systems, the maximum cumulative Rice equivalent yield was recorded under Mango + Guava + French Bean. During all the five years, the significantly higher REY was recorded in case of Agri-horti systems with either guava as filler crop or French bean as intercrop.

ABSTRACT: Solar cabinet dryer for drying of dates is one of the promising technology for obtaining good quality dried dates which is again energy and cost effective technology. From the cost analysis of the solar cabinet dryer installed at CCE, Oman there is a clear indication that the energy per unit cost was comparable to any other modern drying technology like freeze drying, where energy consumption is more. As per the annual life cycle costing (ALCC) carried out for solar cabinet dryer the cost per unit energy obtained was Rs.63.36/kWh, when 5 hours of potential sunshine hour was taken into account. Under the test condition, the specific moisture extraction rate was found to be 0.84 kg/kWh and it took only 24 hours to dry dates from moisture content of 49.01% to 35.21% in cabinet dryer compared to sun drying which took 48 hours which is double. In the presence of heat storage unit, the thermal efficiency of solar dryer for forced convection drying obtained for the period of study was 26%. Due to the presence of heat storage unit five plus two hours extended drying time was available. In that case the cost per unit energy was Rs. 45.28/kWh. If this solar dryer unit is produced in bulk surely the production cost or the capital cost will come down drastically. This would in turn reduce the cost/unit of energy. However the cost of raw material and the selling price of dried dates were not taken into account. If they were taken into account surely more cost reduction could be expected.

Modeling of adsorption of Cr6+ on to activated carbon prepared from Sterculia foetida dried seed shells under different drying techniques namely sun, oven, and microwave drying (450W, 600W, 900W power). Optimization of process parameters such as pH, adsorbent dosage (g/ml), temperature (°C), contact time (min) were evaluated using Central Composite Rotatable Design (CCRD) of Response Surface Methodology (RSM). For batch adsorption studies at pH 3, adsorbent dosage of 1.5 g/ml, temperature 35°C and contact time 90 min were found to be optimum for the system under consideration and Microwave Activated Carbonized Sterculia foetida (MACSF) at 450W was found to be best suited for the adsorption of Cr+6 ions. The system was found to follow Langmuir type monolayer adsorption for the given operational parameters. SEM analysis was used to study the surface morphology of the carbon samples and the effect of pretreatment on carbonization.

To develop a product, banana chips of high consumer acceptability, the banana slices of 2 mm thickness were first osmotically pretreated and then convectively dried in oven at constant air temperature of 40°C to safe moisture level followed by microwave drying. Different experimental combinations of osmotic process parameters, i.e., palm sugar concentration, solution temperature and immersion time is to be tried using Box-Behnken design of experiments. Response surface methodology has to be used to investigate the effect of sugar concentration (40-45°Brix), solution temperature (40-60°C), and immersion time (30-150 min) on the water loss and solute gain. The experimental data was fitted to different empirical kinetic models including Peleg, Page and Midilli equations. Determination of coefficient (R2), root mean square error and mean relative deviation modulus were used for determination of the best suitable model. The present work shows that the Peleg empirical model satisfactorily described the dehydration kinetics for osmotic dehydration where as page and Midilli for microwave drying.

This investigation was to test different blends of tertiary amine; triethanolamine (TEA) into primary amine; Monoethanolamine (MEA) usedto capture CO2 in packed bed scrubber with recycle stream. Four different operating parameters: Amine Combination (A), Dilution Water (B),Liquid Flow rate (C), and Gas Flow rate (D) were varied to study the behavior of the system. Moreover, Taguchi method was employed to establishthe order of importance of different parameters in the process. A 4 factor and 3 level was chosen for the study and it was explored using L9 (34)orthogonal array design. According to 3-level design 0%, 20% and 30% were chosen for A, 10%, 20% and 30% for B, 1 Lmin−1, 1.5 Lmin−1 and2 Lmin−1 for C, 8 Lmin−1, 16 Lmin−1 and 20 Lmin−1 for D. To understand the effectiveness order of different operating parameters, three factorsnamely Absorption efficiency (E), Absorption Rate (RA), and Scrubbing Factor (E) were calculated upon which the order was compared. Thehighest efficiency of 92.2% was achieved with 20% TEA. However, with 30% of TEA and 20% solvent mix maximum scrubbing factor (E) of0.63 mol-CO2/mol-Solvent was achieved. As per Taguchi analysis the significance sequence for absorption efficiency (ϕ) was B > C > D > A; forabsorption rate C > B > D > A and for scrubbing factor it was C > B > D > A. The blending of tertiary amine seemed advantageous for carbondioxide capture process.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to harness the potential of microwave pre-treatment to prepare carbon from locally available Sterculia foetida fruit shells for adsorption of heavy metals, particularly Nickel ions (Ni++), from effluent. Design/methodology/approach – The pre-treatment methods comprise conventional methods as sun drying and oven drying as well as high intensity microwave drying. Response surface methodology was employed to analyse the optimization of the process. The adsorption behavioural characteristics of the material were established applying adsorption isotherms. Findings – Adsorption of Ni++ was found to be effective in microwave drying at output power of 300 W. It was observed that the maximum adsorption capacity was attained at pH 6; an adsorbent dosage of 0.25 mgml−1 and initial metal ion concentration of 20 ppm with an interactive effect of initial concentration and dosage. Originality/value – The research puts emphasise on prospecting of novel biomass for carbonization and application of the same for effective adsorption. Available literature on Sterculia foetida is very limited and this work will serve to create database on the amenability of processing.

Walnut (Julgans regia L.) shells, an agro-forestry waste, are a rich source of phytochemicals with anti-oxidative and medicinal properties. Whilst recent research efforts focus on waste valorization, the present investigation demonstrates a process to extract and characterize bio-components from physically pretreated walnut shells. Pretreatment was undertaken using microwave irradiation and ultra-sonication with two different solvents (methanol and acetone). The extract obtained was optimized using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). Further, the bio-components in the extract were identified using GCMS and FTIR analyses. Through the experimental runs, it was observed that pretreatment enhanced the total extract yield from the process relative to conventional Soxhlet extraction. As a method of pretreatment, microwave irradiation was found to suit the extraction better than ultra-sonication. In addition, acetone performed better as a solvent than methanol in the bio-components recovery. Relative to conventional Soxhlet extraction, microwave pretreatment allowed for enhanced separation by 4.06 folds for methanol and 5.25 for acetone. The yield was found to be the highest (46 mg/g) while using acetone, when pretreated with microwaves at 180 W for 4 min.