London's urban heat island: Impact on current and future energy consumption in office buildings

This article is available open access and shared under a Creative Commons license: (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Copyright @ 2011 Elsevier B.V.This paper presents the results of a computational study on the energy consumption and related CO2 emissions for heating and cooling of an office building within the Urban Heat Island of London, currently and in the future. The study developed twenty weather files in an East-West axis through London; the weather files were constructed according to future climate change scenario for 2050 suitable for the UK which have been modified to represent specific locations within the London UHI based on measurements and predictions from a program developed for this purpose (LSSAT). The study simulated an office with typical construction, heat gains and operational patterns with an advanced thermal simulation program (IESVE). The predictions confirm that heating load decreases, cooling load and overheating hours increase as the office location moves from rural to urban sites and from present to future years. It is shown that internal heat gains are an important factor affecting energy performance and that night cooling using natural ventilation will have a beneficial effect at rural and city locations. As overheating will increase in the future, more buildings will use cooling; it is shown that this might lead to a five-fold increase of CO2 emission for city centre offices in London in 2050. The paper presents detailed results of the typical office placed on the East-West axis of the city, arguing the necessity to consider using weather files based on climate projections and urbanheat island for the design of currentbuildings to safeguard their efficiency in the future.EPSR

Evaluation of Thymidylate Synthase Polymorphisms in ALL patients of Kashmir

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a malignant disorder of lymphoid progenitor cells, affects both children and adults, with peak prevalence between the ages of 2 and 5 years, and is the most common paediatric cancer. Genetic susceptibility to leukemias can be related to the polymorphisms in multiple genes and consistent with this paradigm; several polymorphisms have been identified in the pathogenesis of lymphoid malignancies. The enzyme encoded by Thymidylate Synthase (TS) gene is a crucial enzyme in the folate metabolism and plays an important role in the DNA synthesis and repair pathway. Impairments in this enzyme have been associated with chromosome breaks and fragile site induction, which in turn have been associated with the development of lymphoid malignancies including leukemias. The aim of the study was to investigate whether the tandem repeat polymorphism in the TS promoter region is a risk factor for the development of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in Kashmiri population. The repeat polymorphism in the TS gene was evaluated in 72 ALL cases and 82 (age, sex and region matched, non malignant) controls by PCR analysis of DNA obtained from the blood of the subjects and direct sequencing of the PCR products. We observed that the TS triple tandem repeat (3R) allele frequency was 73.75 % in the controls and 67.91% in cases. This difference in frequency was found to be statistically insignificant with a P = 0.2713(P> .05). The TS 2R/2R genotype was found to be present in 13.88% of the cases and 9.75% of the controls, the 2R/3R variant in 31.94% of the cases and 31.70% of controls, and the 3R/3R genotype in 47.22% of cases and 56.09% of controls. We observed that although the proportion of patients who were homozygous for the TS tandem repeat(3R/3R) was lower in cases than in controls, the difference was not statistically significant when using 2R/2R genotype as a reference (OR= 0.5913; 95% CI, 0.2111-1.657; P = 0.3143). Similarly, we observed the frequency of the heterozygous genotype (2R/3R) when compared with 2R/2R genotype was not much different between the cases and controls hence, statistically insignificant (OR=0.7077; 95% CI, 0.2389- 2.097; P= 0.5317). Thus, our study suggests that there is no association between TS tandem repeat polymorphism and the development of ALL in Kashmiri population. However these findings need to be substantiated with larger sample size to clarify the real contribution of this gene in the susceptibility to ALL in different world populations

Bio-prospecting natural products for the development of Lead molecules.

Healing with medicinal plants is as old as mankind itself. The connection between man and his search for drugs in nature dates from the far past, of which there is ample evidence from various sources. Plants produce an enormous variety of natural products with high structural diversity. Chemical features of medicinal plants serve as an integral determinant of their pharmacological properties and enable their wide use in medical practice. Natural products have been the single most productive source of leads for the drug development. The use of combinatorial chemistry approaches are also based on natural product scaffolds to create screening libraries that closely resemble drug-like compounds. Currently various screening approaches are being taken up to improve the ease with which natural products can be used in drug discovery. In the area of cancer, more than 60% drugs are either natural products or directly derived there from. In other areas, the influence of natural product structures is quite marked, with, the anti-infective area mostly being dependent on natural products and their analogs. It is hoped that the more efficient and effective application of natural products will improve the drug discovery process.Digital copy of Ph.D thesis.University of Kashmir

In vitro and In vivo Validation of Folk Lore Claims of Thymus serpyllum

Traditional medicinal plants have a long history of therapeutic use. The beneficial health effects of medicinal plants is often attributed to their potent antioxidant activities due to the presence of secondary metabolites like the polyphenols, since diets rich in antioxidants are epidemiologically associated with a decreased incidence of age-related diseases in humans. Thymus serpyllum commonly known as Jawand in Kashmir is used as a culinary herb, as well as for aromatizing and traditional medicinal purposes. In the present study, the hexane, ethyl-acetate, ethanol, methanol and the aqueous extracts of Thymus serpyllum were studied for the antioxidant, antimicrobial and the anti inflammatory activities. The antioxidant activity was checked by four different methods- DPPH assay, lipid peroxidation assay of liver microsomes, lipid peroxidation assay and hydroxyl radical scavenging assay. The ethyl-acetate, butanol, ethanol, methnol and the aqueous extracts of Thymus serpyllum showed good antioxidant activities, but the methanolic extract being the most active one causing 89.84%, 57.32%, 66.8% and 77.14% inhibition of the radical activity in DPPH assay, lipid peroxidation assay of liver microsomes, lipid peroxidation assay and the hydroxyl radical scavenging assay respectively. The antimicrobial activity was checked by broth micro dilution method. The ethyl-acetate and the methanolic extract were found to be active against bacteria (both gram positive and gram negative) and fungi with MIC values ranging from 2000 to 4000μg/ml. The anti inflammatory activity was assessed by using the model of carregeenen induced edema in rats. The butanolic extract was found to beneficial against inflammation, causing a reduction of 25.23% and 56.07% of edema at doses 250mg/Kg body weight and 500mg/Kg body weight respectively

Effect of Some Alien Invasive Plant Species on Soil Microbial Structure and Function

key driver of global environmental change is the invasion of ecosystems by alien species, many of which attain sufficiently high abundance to alter ecosystem structure and function (D‘Antonio and Vitousek, 1992; Ogle et al., 2003; Meffin et al., 2010). Biological invasions affect virtually all ecosystems on earth, but the extent of invasion of different regions and biomes, and the quality of information emanating from them varies greatly (Foxcroft et al., 2010). The invasions by alien species are also known to impact ecosystem services (Charles and Dukes, 2008) and human well-being (Pejchar and Mooney, 2009; Vilà et al., 2011). Invasive alien plants, because of their ability to alter ecological processes, such as carbon and nitrogen cycling (Liao et al., 2008; Ehrenfeld, 2010), hydrological cycles (Calder and Dye, 2001), frequency and/or intensity of fire (Brooks et al., 2004) and alteration of the normal disturbance regimes in the native communities (D‗Antonio and Meyerson, 2002; Werner et al., 2010), have transformed many ecosystems by out competing native species (Lankau, 2010) and thus, are rightly regarded as one of the most substantial threats to biodiversity on earth (Cronk and Fuller, 1995; Chapin et al., 2000; Kowarik, 2003; Werner et al., 2010). Invasive species are known to directly compete for resources with native species (Werner et al., 2010), disrupt inherent co-evolved interactions among long-associated native species (Callaway and Aschehoug, 2000; Callaway et al., 2008; Werner et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2010), like pollination (Butz Huryn, 1997; Simberloff and Von Holle, 1999; Chittka and Schürkens, 2001; Aizen et al., 2008) and seed dispersal (Knight, 1986; Riera et al., 2002; Traveset and Riera, 2005; Cavallero and Raffaele, 2010) and result in modification of interspecific interactions, community structure, and ecosystem processes in the native communities (Vitousek et al., 1997; Lonsdale, 1999; Richardson et al., 2000; Ehrenfeld et al., 2001; Le Maitre et al., 2002; Karl et al., 2005; Traveset and Richardson, 2006; Emer and Fonseca, 2011). Recent global meta-analysis of 199 A Ph. D Thesis 18 research studies dealing with 1041 field studies involving 135 alien plant taxa revealed that abundance and diversity of resident species decreased in invaded sites, whereas primary production and several other ecosystem processes were enhanced (Vilà et al., 2011). But most of the studies exploring the effects of plant invasions have focused on aboveground flora and fauna (Levine et al., 2003), although soil organisms play important roles in regulating ecosystem-level processes (Wardle et al., 2004), and soils contain much of the biodiversity of terrestrial ecosystems (Torsvik et al., 1990; Vandenkoornhuyse et al., 2002), because aboveground communities are relatively easy to observe and quantify (Belnap and Phillips, 2001) and also because there are methodological limitations in studying belowground diversity. As a result, few studies to date have considered the effects of invasive organisms on the abundance, composition and activity of the soil biota. However, the advent of tools and techniques that exploit presence of signature biomolecules, such as Phospholipid Fatty Acids (PLFA), Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE), Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (T-RFLP) etc. has revolutionized the field of soil microbial ecology. These techniques have been used to monitor changes in microbial communities in many plant invasion studies (Meyer, 1994; Kourtev et al., 2002a, 2003; Angeloni et al., 2006; Batten et al., 2006; Li et al., 2006; Kulmatiski and Beard, 2008; Zhang et al., 2010), and the results have revealed that invasive alien plants may suppress harmful rhizosphere soil microbes (Bais et al., 2004a; Lorenzo et al., 2010) and enrich beneficial ones thereby establishing positive feedback which could contribute to their proliferation (Klironomos, 2002; Batten et al., 2006; Kulmatiski and Beard, 2008; Sanon et al., 2011) to the detriment of native biodiversity (Callaway et al., 2004a; Lorenzo et al., 2010). On the other hand, several studies have also revealed negative effect of invasive plants on soil fungi due to invasion by Bromus tectorum (Belnap et al., 2005), arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in Ph. D Thesis 19 response to dominance of non-mycorrhizal Alliaria petiolata in North American forests (Roberts and Anderson, 2001; Wolfe and Klironomos, 2005; Stinson et al., 2006; Callaway et al., 2008; Wolfe et al., 2008; Pringle et al., 2009; Vogelsang and Bever, 2009), microbial biomass C and ratio of fungi to bacteria due to Falcataria moluccana (Allison et al., 2006), both soil fungi as well as bacteria due to Acacia dealbata invasion (Lorenzo et al., 2010). Invasive alien plants also significantly influence catabolic diversity of the soil microbial communities through their impact on the activity of soil enzymes, which represent a link between litter decomposition, microbial activity, and nutrient availability (Sinsabaugh et al., 2000; Elk, 2010). The influence of exotic plants on the activity of soil enzymes has been reported by several workers (Kourtev et al., 2002b; Allison et al., 2006; Chapuis-Lardy et al., 2006; Li et al., 2006; Fan et al., 2010). It is clear from the growing number of studies that invasive alien species can alter ecosystem processes through a wide variety of mechanisms, over a variety of spatial and temporal scales (Ehrenfeld, 2010). Indeed, multiple mechanisms have been indentified that interact and reinforce each other in bringing about ecosystem change. Thus, it is necessary to search for mechanisms of impact of invasive alien species through documentation of interacting mechanisms, rather than to focus on single causative pathways as a ―holy grail‘ of universal explanation (Simberloff, 2010). The need for studies that explore the impact of invasive alien species has assumed urgency in India and Kashmir in view of reported occurrence of 1,599 species, belonging to 842 genera in 161 families in India representing 8.5% of the total Indian vascular flora (Khuroo et al., 2011). Likewise, total alien flora of the Kashmir Himalaya is represented by 571 plant species, belonging to 352 genera and 104 families. Of the 787 and 436 species that have either escaped from Ph. D Thesis 20 intentional cultivation, or spread after unintentional introduction in India and Kashmir, respectively, 225 species are invasive in India (Khuroo et al., 2011) and 77 species are invasive in Kashmir (Khuroo et al., 2008). While studies related to demography phenotypic plasticity (Allaie et al., 2005), allelopathy (Allaie et al., 2006), mycorrhizal mutualism (Shah and Reshi, 2007; Shah et al., 2008a and b), herbivore induced over-compensatory growth (Rashid et al., 2006) and seed germination (Rashid et al., 2007) have been carried out on various invasive plant species in Kashmir, very few studies have documented the impact of alien species (Shah et al., 2008a; Khuroo et. al., 2010) in the Kashmir Valley. It is because of these lacunae that broad quantitative syntheses of how impacts vary in response to the attributes of recipient ecosystems and of the invaders themselves (Levine et al., 2003) are not available. This absence of a broad-scale assessment limits the ability to generalize and predict when and where impacts might be most deleterious (Vilà et al., 2011). Besides, there are many studies in which the same invasive alien species causes quite different impacts on ecosystem processes at different sites or at different times. This variability in effect emphasizes the importance of ecological context in understanding and anticipating impact on ecosystems. It is in this context that the present study was carried out to evaluate the impact of three invasive alien plant species, namely Conyza canadensis (L.) Cronq. Sambucus wightiana Wall. ex Wt. and Arn. and Anthemis cotula L. on soil microbial structure and function. While S. wightiana (Adoxaceae) invades the understory of coniferous forests in the Kashmir Valley, A. cotula and C. canadensis (both belonging to Asteraceae) are dominant elements of vegetation in ruderal habitats. The specific questions addressed during the present study were

On an inequality of S. Bernstein and estimates for the moduli of the zeros of a polynomial.

The present thesis entitled “On an inequality of S. Bernstein and estimates for the moduli of the zeros of a polynomial" is an outcome of the work carried out by author during the last two years at the Post Graduate Department of Mathematics, University of Kashmir, Srinagar. This Thesis consists of four chapters. In the first chapter, we have studied inequalities on the Maximum Modulus of a Polynomial and its Derivative. In the second chapter, we considered Lacunary type polynomials and obtain inequalities concerning the polar derivative of a polynomial. The third chapter deals with certain problems concerning a family of B operators preserving the inequalities between polynomials. Fourth chapter concerns with the location of the zeros of a polynomial with restricted coefficients.Digital copy of Ph.D thesis.University of Kashmir