Impact of Changes in Management Regime on Fisheries: A Temporal Case Study of Dhir Beel in Assam

The floodplain wetlands (beels) constitute important fisheries resources of Assam. These resources are managed through a complex social framework. The state of this management regime determines the level and sustainable utilization with implications on fisheries and livelihoods. To find the impact of such management regime, a case study has been undertaken in the Dhir beel of Assam. The impact of the change in the management regime on the sustainability of fisheries and livelihoods of fishers has been evaluated. This change in the management regime has been due to immigration of a large number of people from the nearby areas since 1985. The study has compared the scenario that existed ‘before 1985’ (data of 1982-84) and “after 1985’ (data of 2004). There has been a significant increase in the fishing pressure with new fishing practices (1.5 to 5 times) as well as intensity of effort (3 to 7 times). The weakening of the regulating institutions has led to irrational practices which in turn, have resulted in a decline (22.32%) in the production and productivity of the beel. The decline has been more (31.79%) in terms of value than production of fish, indicating a definite decline in the quality of the fish available in these resources. In the changed scenario, the economics of the management has gone against the resource managers as they are to spend more money on monitoring and enforcing the rules. The livelihood of the fishers has also declined with the high degree of sharing of fish among the fishers.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Institutional repository of CSIR-NML and the global information seeker

CSIR-National Metallurgical Laboratory (NML) Jamshedpur established its institutional repository – Eprints@NML inSeptember 2009. The study looks at the use of the repository based on the repository log data. It was found that NMLScientists received 1847 enquires for their articles/projects until September, 2012 which motivated them further to enrich therepository by uploading their research outputs. As a result, by the end of September 2012 there were 5071 uploads as against3972 documents uploaded in December 2011. A total of 27, 40,343 hits were received from different countries duringAugust 2011 to September 2012 and a cumulative total of over 4.86 million hits since inception. The maximum number ofhits was 0.27 million in August, 2012. More than 75% of NML scientists/researchers have registered with Eprints@NMLfor uploading their documents. The top twenty countries accessing the repository were United States, India, Russia, China,UK, Hong Kong, Germany, Netherlands, Iran, Japan, France, Italy, Canada, Korea, Ukraine, Brazil, Poland, Australia,Turkey and South Africa

A review of biofuels in India: challenges and opportunities

Economic development in India has raised millions of people out of poverty and brought about the modernization of society. Economic ambition though has not been reached without costs. India has become more reliant of imports of energy which affects energy security. Pollution from industry, transport and traditional cook stoves affects air quality and is increasing emissions of greenhouse gases and contributing to climate change. . India initiated bio-fuel production nearly a decade ago to reduce its dependence on imported oil and thus improve energy security and is now one of the largest producers of Jatropha oil. The country began 5% ethanol blending (E5) pilot program in 2001 and formulated the National Mission on Biodiesel in 2003 to achieve 20% biodiesel blends by 2011–2012 (Government of India, 2002, 2003). Similar to many countries around the world, India's biofuel programs experienced setbacks, primarily because of supply shortages and global concerns over food security. India’s National Policy on Biofuels in 2009 proposed a non-mandatory target of a 20% blend for both biodiesel and ethanol by 2017, and outlines a broad strategy for the biofuels program and policy measures to be considered to support the program. The aim of the paper is to review the potential for biofuels to off-set the use of fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in India. The recent historic use of biofuels in the context of Government policy developments will be presented. Example materials (crops, wastes, residues) that can be used for biofuels will be reviewed taking a systems approach through whole lifecycle assessment. Case studies highlighting failure and successes with biofuel utilization will be presented as examples of the challenges and opportunities for the use of biofuels in India, with suggestions made on the role of biofuels in the future

CFD Simulation to Optimise Single Stage Pulse Tube Refrigerator Temperature Below 6oK

AbstractAn optimize result of the single stage iterance tube pulse tube refrigerator (ITPTR) has been found by the use of a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) solution method. A well CFD solution software FLUENT is used for solution purpose. A number of case has been solved by changing the pulse tube length by taking diameter constant out of which it is found that a length of about 125mm at which the minimum temperature is achieved at cold heat exchanger end of 58K. The variation in any parameter of ITPTR will affect the cooling temperature that may be the length or diameter of pulse tube or inertance tube or change in operating frequency but it is essential to achieve lower temperature than till date achieved by same method. So for optimization purpose we take the length of pulse tube length as the varying Para-meter and the operating frequency 34Hz, pulse tube diameter 5mm remains constant. To get an optimum parameter experimentally is a very tedious for iterance tube pulse tube refrigerator job so the CFD approach gives a better solution which is the main purpose of the present work

Measuring fidelity, feasibility, costs: an implementation evaluation of a cluster-controlled trial of group antenatal care in rural Nepal

Background Access to high-quality antenatal care services has been shown to be beneficial for maternal and child health. In 2016, the WHO published evidence-based recommendations for antenatal care that aim to improve utilization, quality of care, and the patient experience. Prior research in Nepal has shown that a lack of social support, birth planning, and resources are barriers to accessing services in rural communities. The success of CenteringPregnancy and participatory action women’s groups suggests that group care models may both improve access to care and the quality of care delivered through women’s empowerment and the creation of social networks. We present a group antenatal care model in rural Nepal, designed and implemented by the healthcare delivery organization Nyaya Health Nepal, as well as an assessment of implementation outcomes. Methods The study was conducted at Bayalata Hospital in Achham, Nepal, via a public private partnership between the Nepali non-profit, Nyaya Health Nepal, and the Ministry of Health and Population, with financial and technical assistance from the American non-profit, Possible. We implemented group antenatal care as a prospective non-randomized cluster-controlled, type I hybrid effectiveness-implementation study in six village clusters. The implementation approach allows for iterative improvement in design, making changes to improve the quality of the intervention. Assessments of implementation process and model fidelity were undertaken using a mobile checklist completed by nurse supervisors, and observation forms completed by program leadership. We evaluated data quarterly using descriptive statistics to identify trends. Qualitative interviews and team communications were analyzed through immersion crystallization to identify major themes that evolved during the implementation process. Results A total of 141 group antenatal sessions were run during the study period. This paper reports on implementation results, whereas we analyze and present patient-level effectiveness outcomes in a complementary paper in this journal. There was high process fidelity to the model, with 85.7% (95% CI 77.1–91.5%) of visits completing all process elements, and high content fidelity, with all village clusters meeting the minimum target frequency for 80% of topics. The annual per capita cost for group antenatal care was 0.50 USD. Qualitative analysis revealed the compromise of stable gestation-matched composition of the group members in order to make the intervention feasible. Major adaptations were made in training, documentation, feedback and logistics. Conclusion Group antenatal care provided in collaboration with local government clinics has the potential to provide accessible and high quality antenatal care to women in rural Nepal. The intervention is a feasible and affordable alternative to individual antenatal care. Our experience has shown that adaptation from prior models was important for the program to be successful in the local context within the national healthcare system. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02330887, registered 01/05/2015, retroactively registered

Proximity effect at superconducting Sn-Bi2Se3 interface

We have investigated the conductance spectra of Sn-Bi2Se3 interface junctions down to 250 mK and in different magnetic fields. A number of conductance anomalies were observed below the superconducting transition temperature of Sn, including a small gap different from that of Sn, and a zero-bias conductance peak growing up at lower temperatures. We discussed the possible origins of the smaller gap and the zero-bias conductance peak. These phenomena support that a proximity-effect-induced chiral superconducting phase is formed at the interface between the superconducting Sn and the strong spin-orbit coupling material Bi2Se3.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

Heavy Quarks and Heavy Quarkonia as Tests of Thermalization

We present here a brief summary of new results on heavy quarks and heavy quarkonia from the PHENIX experiment as presented at the "Quark Gluon Plasma Thermalization" Workshop in Vienna, Austria in August 2005, directly following the International Quark Matter Conference in Hungary.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, Quark Gluon Plasma Thermalization Workshop (Vienna August 2005) Proceeding

Centrality Dependence of the High p_T Charged Hadron Suppression in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 130 GeV

PHENIX has measured the centrality dependence of charged hadron p_T spectra from central Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=130 GeV. The truncated mean p_T decreases with centrality for p_T > 2 GeV/c, indicating an apparent reduction of the contribution from hard scattering to high p_T hadron production. For central collisions the yield at high p_T is shown to be suppressed compared to binary nucleon-nucleon collision scaling of p+p data. This suppression is monotonically increasing with centrality, but most of the change occurs below 30% centrality, i.e. for collisions with less than about 140 participating nucleons. The observed p_T and centrality dependence is consistent with the particle production predicted by models including hard scattering and subsequent energy loss of the scattered partons in the dense matter created in the collisions.Comment: 7 pages text, LaTeX, 6 figures, 2 tables, 307 authors, resubmitted to Phys. Lett. B. Revised to address referee concerns. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/phenix/WWW/run/phenix/papers.htm

Single Electrons from Heavy Flavor Decays in p+p Collisions at sqrt(s) = 200 GeV

The invariant differential cross section for inclusive electron production in p+p collisions at sqrt(s) = 200 GeV has been measured by the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider over the transverse momentum range $0.4 <= p_T <= 5.0 GeV/c at midrapidity (eta <= 0.35). The contribution to the inclusive electron spectrum from semileptonic decays of hadrons carrying heavy flavor, i.e. charm quarks or, at high p_T, bottom quarks, is determined via three independent methods. The resulting electron spectrum from heavy flavor decays is compared to recent leading and next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations. The total cross section of charm quark-antiquark pair production is determined as sigma_(c c^bar) = 0.92 +/- 0.15 (stat.) +- 0.54 (sys.) mb.Comment: 329 authors, 6 pages text, 3 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm