STOCHASTIC TECHNOLOGY, RISK PREFERENCES, AND THE USE OF POLLUTING INPUTS

We investigate the comparative static effects of environmental and agricultural policies on pesticide and fertilizer use. Since such effects depend on technology and risk preference parameters, we estimate these from a panel data set of Illinois farms. Generalized method of moments is used on a set of nonlinear first order conditions.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Karyotype of a Bagrid catfish, Mystus vittatus, from the freshwater system of Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, India

Karyological characters of Mystus vittatus (Bagridae) in the freshwater system of Chidambaram were studied by examining metaphase chromosome spreads from the gill tissues. The examination of 149 metaphase spreads prepared from 25 fingerling specimens indicated that the chromosome number of this species was 2n=54 and the arm number was 12 for metacentric, 36 for submetacentric, and 30 for acrocentric type. The prepared karyotypes of this species consisted, of 3 pairs of metacentric (m), 9 pairs of submetacentric (sm) and 15 pairs of acrocentric (a) chromosomes. The chromosome formula can be represented as 2n = 3m + 9sm + 15a. This karyotype is significantly different from same species reported by others. Karyological parameters showed that centrometric index, arm ratio, relative length, and length variation range of chromosome of this fish species are between 14.97-50.00, 1.00-5.68, 3.12-18.48, and 0.60-3.56, respectively. The largest chromosome in this species is a pair of submetacentric chromosomes. Considering the number of chromosomes, it seems likely that M. vittatus, is a diploid origin fish

Extreme events enhance phytoplankton bloom in the south-western Bay of Bengal

253-258A study on MODIS (Moderate Resolution imaging Spectroradiometer)-derived chlorophyll-a concentration data was carried out for 12 years (2003 to 2014), to know the reasons for two episodic phytoplankton bloom events occurred in 2005 and 2013. During the month of December 2005 and 2013, magnitude of the production increased to two to three times of climatological value over the south-western Bay of Bengal region. Reasons for the bloom were examined with the available satellite resources and it was identified that the strong cyclonic eddy, with long residence time, caused the increase of the production. This production intensified when cyclones passed through or were close to the eddy. The vertical mixing enhanced (2013) when very severe cyclonic storms passed through or moved close to the eddy compared to depressions passing over it which caused further intensification of the primary production

ECOSENSE: An Energy Consumption Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

AbstractThis paper ‘ECOSENSE’ proposes a medium access protocol derived for wireless sensor networks. Energy is a precious resource for wireless sensor networks, as sensor nodes are powered by small batteries. Various approaches have been proposed so far, to increase the life of wireless sensor networks. With the goal of developing a practical, efficient energy consumption protocol for wireless sensor networks, we introduced a threshold policy for the nodes in the entire network, where the sensors are distributed activated, whenever they are required. We calculated the life period of sensors and using priority levels and threshold values, we prolong the lifespan of sensor nodes. Scheduling is done according to the remaining life period of sensor nodes. We compare our algorithm with the existing S-MAC protocol and found considerably better due to its reconfigurable activation policy

LEAKAGE POWER REDUCTION IN CMOS CIRCUITS USING LEAKAGE CONTROL TRANSISTOR TECHNIQUE IN NANOSCALE TECHNOLOGY

In CMOS circuits, as the technology scales down to nanoscale, the sub-threshold leakage current increases with the decrease in the threshold voltage. LECTOR, a technique to tackle the leakage problem in CMOS circuits, uses two additional leakage control transistors, which are self-controlled, in a path from supply to ground which provides the additional resistance thereby reducing the leakage current in the path. The main advantage as compared to other techniques which involves the sleep transistor is that LECTOR technique does not require any additional control and monitoring circuitry, thereby limits the area increase and also the power dissipation in active state. Along with this, the other advantage with LECTOR technique is that it does not affect the dynamic power which is the major limitation with the other leakage reduction techniques

Study of distribution of ABO blood groups in ß-thalassemia patients

Background: ß-thalassemia is an inherited hematological disorder caused by reduced or absent synthesis of ß globin chains of the hemoglobin which causes hemolysis and impair erythropoiesis. Affected children thus require regular lifelong blood transfusions. Blood group is one of the important and comparatively known parameter today which exhibits a strong correlation with some common diseases like cardiovascular diseases, gastric cancer, HIV infection etc. Aim of this study hence was to study relation between ABO blood groups and ß-thalassemia and to study complications in each blood groups to make it easy to predict the type of population which is more prone or resistant to ß-thalassemia for understanding the regional demand of rare blood groups and to tide over the demands.Methods: This was a cross sectional, single centric, open labeled, observational study in which 100 patients of ß-thalassemia were screened for their ABO blood groups after permission from institutional ethics committee and informed consent from the patient.Results: Most common blood group in ß-thalassemia patient is O +ve. Post-disease complication is commonly seen with B +ve. Early onset of beta-thalassemia is seen in A +ve and B +ve. Late onset is seen with O +ve. Severity more with B –ve while O +ve shows disease in less severe form.Conclusions: On analysis, it was found that the most common blood group getting affected by the disease ß-thalassemia is O +ve with the same people having higher chances of family history of the same disease. Within the family members who have the positive history of the disease, most common was O +ve blood group again

ANDROID BASED HOME AUTOMATION AND ENERGY CONSERVATION

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of three main components: nodes, gateways, and software. The spatially distributed measurement nodes interface with sensors to monitor assets or their environment. In a WSN network the devices are connected to WSN nodes wherein the entire nodes uses Zigbee network to transfer the status of connected applications to a controller which controls the whole applications but the main drawback of Wireless sensor networks is its high interference, low coverage area and ability to control only low power devices. In order to overcome these drawbacks Android equipped devices are used to control the applications over GPRS network. Android equipped devices allow the user to control various applications over wireless networks. Being an open sourced platform it allows the user to design a custom module which controls the home applications by connecting the android equipped device and its corresponding home applications to an MCU wherein it uses relay circuits to connect the entire applications using GPRS network to connect the application controller and the android device. These devices can be used to control industrial applications, home applications like light, fan etc., and thereby conserving electricity

Physical properties and solubility studies of Nifedipine-PEG 1450/HPMCAS-HF solid dispersions

Low-order high-energy nifedipine (NIF) solid dispersions (SDs) were generated by melt solvent amorphization with polyethylene glycol (PEG) 1450 and hypromellose acetate succinate (HPMCAS-HF) to increase NIF solubility while achieving acceptable physical stability. HPMCAS-HF was used as a crystallization inhibitor. Individual formulation components, their physical mixtures (PMs), and SDs were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry, powder X-ray diffraction, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). NIF solubility and percent crystallinity (PC) were determined at the initial time and after 5 days stored at 25 °C and 60% RH. FTIR indicated that hydrogen bonding was involved with the amorphization process. FTIR showed that NIF:HPMCAS-HF intermolecular interactions were weaker than NIF:PEG 1450 interactions. NIF:PEG 1450 SD solubilities were significantly higher than their PM counterparts (p \u3c 0.0001). The solubilities of NIF:PEG 1450:HPMCAS-HF SDs were significantly higher than their corresponding NIF:PEG 1450 SDs (p \u3c 0.0001-0.043). All the SD solubilities showed a statistically significant decrease (p \u3c 0.0001) after storage for 5 days. SDs PC were statistically lower than their comparable PMs (p \u3c 0.0001). The PCs of SDs with HPMCAS-HF were significantly lower than SDs not containing only PEG 1450. All SDs exhibited a significant increase in PC (p \u3c 0.0001–0.0089) on storage. Thermogravimetric analysis results showed that HPMCAS-HF bound water at higher temperatures than PEG 1450 (p \u3c 0.0001–0.0039). HPMCAS-HF slowed the crystallization process of SDs, although it did not completely inhibit NIF crystal growth