Israr Ahmad

This work examines whether the inherent inertness of Prosopis juliflora biochar can extend its known ambient benefits to cementitious mortars exposed to harsher conditions. Building on earlier reports that biochar is stable, carbon-rich, and largely inert under normal environments, the study evaluates purposely low dosages (0.1–0.6 wt.%) as a case study under combined thermal and chemical stress. After heating to 600 °C, biochar-modified mortars exhibited refined crack patterns, higher ultrasonic pulse velocity (1985 → 2260 m/s), and greater residual strength (57% → 64%). TGA indicated a higher bound-water loss, reflecting enhanced hydration and microstructural stabilization through nucleation effects. Under sulfuric acid exposure, biochar mixes showed slightly reduced mass loss (8% → 7%) and marginally improved strength retention (93% → 95%). These modest but consistent gains suggest improved durability and slower deterioration in chemically aggressive environments. SEM analysis further revealed increased compactness, higher crack tortuosity, crack-bridging features, and stable biochar morphology, all of which support the observed performance trends. Overall, the findings indicate that small, optimized biochar dosages can positively influence mortar behavior in harsh conditions, with the inherent stability of Prosopis juliflora biochar playing a key role in this response.

Central and high Asia remains notably absent from global thunderstorm climatology despite significant convective activity affecting over 70 million people across topographically complex terrain. Using 14 years (2010–23) of World Wide Lightning Location Network observations, we establish the first comprehensive lightning-based thunderstorm climatology for this region through analysis of 918 615 discrete convective events across a 0.1° × 0.1° grid. The analysis reveals fundamental characteristics distinguishing continental mountain convection from maritime systems. Mountain elevations (2000–3000 m) exhibit optimal thunderstorm frequency (1.74× plains baseline), while high elevations (>3000 m) show suppression, establishing discrete convective windows rather than monotonic orographic enhancement. Terrain analysis demonstrates 80.6% of storms develop on gentle slopes (<5°), identifying thermal forcing rather than mechanical orographic lifting as the dominant initiation mechanism. Peak activity occurs in the Kashmir–Himalayan region (34.6 days yr −1 ), with spatial patterns validated against independent ground observations. Electrical intensity analysis reveals a striking paradox: High mountain storms exhibit 41.5% enhanced electrical activity despite a 12% reduced frequency. This intensity–frequency paradox reflects environmental selection where moisture-limited high-elevation conditions permit only the most dynamically vigorous storms to develop, with critical implications for lightning hazard assessment in mountain communities. Temporal patterns show pronounced seasonality (50.1% summer), a consistent afternoon maxima, and systematic east-northeast propagation (53.2% of organized systems with calculable bearings). Storm characteristics indicate predominantly brief cellular convection (71.9% < 15 min) with a duration–area correlation ( R = 0.453) characterizing total lightning footprint extent. The stable period (2013–23) establishes a robust baseline (70 318 ± 10 709 events annually) for detecting future climate-driven changes in this understudied region.

Every Power BI developer knows the pain. You build a card visual, then spend the next 20 minutes hunting through format pane tabs — turning…

The Visual Computer , May 2026 Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) have achieved remarkable performance across vision-language tasks, yet their