Diet of Bengal Tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) in Chitwan National Park, Nepal

We studied the diet of the Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) in Chitwan National Park, Nepal, by identifying 109 prey items from 85 tiger scats. Tigers in this region fed upon eight different mammal species. Chital (Axis axis) was the major prey with a frequency of 45% of the Tigers’ diet. The occurrence of other prey species included sambar (Cervus unicolor, 23%), wild pig (Sus scrofa, 15%), hog deer (Axis porcinus, 9%), barking deer (Muntiacus muntjak, 4%), and gaur (Bos gaurus, 2%). Tigers also hunted livestock, but this prey comprised a small component of the relative biomass (buffalo 5% and cow 2%). Our study suggests that the tiger depends mostly upon wild prey for its subsistence in the Chitwan National Park, but will also sporadically hunt livestock

Design and evaluation of customizable area whole farm insurance

The customizable area whole farm insurance (CAWFI) is proposed and evaluated as a possible wholearm revenue protection design for crop farms. The evaluation included assessing appropriate weight, optimal scale, and optimal coverage level. The optimal CAWFI was tested against no insurance program, 90% farm level whole farm insurance (90% CFWFI), and CAWFI with scale and coverage level as provisioned in GRP product (restricted CAWFI) in representative farm in Kansas, North Dakota, Illinois, and Mississippi. The study finds the optimal CAWFI outperforms no insurance program and restricted CAWFI asserting that CAWFI is a workable insurance model and relaxing restriction on scale and coverage level can increase expected utility of farmers. The optimal CAWFI results in a risk reduction roughly equal with 90% farm-level wholefarm insurance though the expected indemnities in it are at least three fold

Power Management of Remote Microgrids Considering Battery Lifetime

Currently, 20% (1.3 billion) of the world’s population still lacks access to electricity and many live in remote areas where connection to the grid is not economical or practical. Remote microgrids could be the solution to the problem because they are designed to provide power for small communities within clearly defined electrical boundaries. Reducing the cost of electricity for remote microgrids can help to increase access to electricity for populations in remote areas and developing countries. The integration of renewable energy and batteries in diesel based microgrids has shown to be effective in reducing fuel consumption. However, the operational cost remains high due to the low lifetime of batteries, which are heavily used to improve the system\u27s efficiency. In microgrid operation, a battery can act as a source to augment the generator or a load to ensure full load operation. In addition, a battery increases the utilization of PV by storing extra energy. However, the battery has a limited energy throughput. Therefore, it is required to provide a balance between fuel consumption and battery lifetime throughput in order to lower the cost of operation. This work presents a two-layer power management system for remote microgrids. The first layer is day ahead scheduling, where power set points of dispatchable resources were calculated. The second layer is real-time dispatch, where schedule set points from the first layer are accepted and resources are dispatched accordingly. A novel scheduling algorithm is proposed for a dispatch layer, which considers the battery lifetime in optimization and is expected to reduce the operational cost of the microgrid. This method is based on a goal programming approach which has the fuel and the battery wear cost as two objectives to achieve. The effectiveness of this method was evaluated through a simulation study of a PV-diesel hybrid microgrid using deterministic and stochastic approach of optimization

Community participation should be at the heart of Nepal’s post-earthquake reconstruction

Little progress has been made in reconstruction efforts following the twin earthquakes in Nepal last year. Bishal Chalise writes that a key problem has been the exclusion of the affected communities from the reconstruction process, and argues that giving these groups a voice would help to ensure a more tailored, effective and accountable process. This article forms part of our Nepal Earthquake Anniversary series. Read previous posts here

If India wants a meaningful place in the Asian Century it must act big and act now

The 1990s saw high and sustained growth for India but this has slowed in recent years. Bishal Chalise writes while that another wave of holistic reforms is required to address structural bottlenecks, India also needs to invest in its human capital and operate closer to the global technology frontier if it wants to become a high-income economy in the long term

Design and evaluation of customizable area whole farm insurance

The customizable area whole farm insurance (CAWFI) is proposed and evaluated as a possible wholearm revenue protection design for crop farms. The evaluation included assessing appropriate weight, optimal scale, and optimal coverage level. The optimal CAWFI was tested against no insurance program, 90% farm level whole farm insurance (90% CFWFI), and CAWFI with scale and coverage level as provisioned in GRP product (restricted CAWFI) in representative farm in Kansas, North Dakota, Illinois, and Mississippi. The study finds the optimal CAWFI outperforms no insurance program and restricted CAWFI asserting that CAWFI is a workable insurance model and relaxing restriction on scale and coverage level can increase expected utility of farmers. The optimal CAWFI results in a risk reduction roughly equal with 90% farm-level wholefarm insurance though the expected indemnities in it are at least three fold

Sounds of Silence: A Study of Stability and Diversity of Web Audio Fingerprints

Browser fingerprinting presents a grave threat to privacy as it allows user tracking even in private browsing modes. Prior measurement studies on HTML5-based fingerprinting have been limited to Canvas and WebGL but not Web Audio APIs. We aim to fill this gap by conducting the first large-scale systematic study of web audio fingerprints and studying their stability as well as diversity properties. Using MTurk and social media platforms, we collected 8 different audio fingerprints from 694 users. Firstly, we show that the audio fingerprints are unstable unlike other fingerprinting methods with some users having as many as 20 different fingerprints. Despite this, we show that audio fingerprinting can still be used as an effective fingerprinting vector as most fingerprints tend to repeat quite often. We devised a graph-based fingerprint matching mechanism to measure the diversity of audio fingerprints. Our results show that audio fingerprints are much less diverse with only 45 distinct fingerprints among 694 users

Astoria is tired of nickname: Asthma Alley and Is calling for Clean Electricity

As summer arrives every year, the most awaited day, the 4th of July brings friends and families together to either parks or backyards for a barbeque cook-off. Besides inhaling the juicy smell of BBQ as it is being prepared, the residents of Astoria in Queens, New York, also inhale polluted air released from an oil burning power station, nearby. According to HuffPost, Ravenswood Generating Station and The Astoria Generating Station located in northwestern Queens provides nearly half the city’s electricity by burning number 6 fuel oil, which is considered one of the most polluting energy sources in the world. The city council passed a law in 2015 that requires the power stations in the city to eliminate number 6 and number 4 fuel oils by 2020 and 2030, respectively, due to the serious health risks associated with these oils. Image Citation: Eastern Power Generation Company. Eastern Power Generating Company, Astoria Comments, www.easterngeneration.com/portfolio/astoria/nggallery/image/portfolio_astoria_pic_revised-jpghttps://digitalworks.union.edu/eco228_2019/1008/thumbnail.jp