Concept of Dharma in Shashi Tharoor’s Novel show business (1991)

Dharma is the total cosmic responsibility, including gods, a universal justice for more inclusive, wider and profounder than any western equivalent, such as duty. What is Dharma? This is the question that Shashi Tharoor explores repeatedly in his novel; though the situations, settings and characters are sufficiently varied each time to make quests dissimilar. His preoccupations are essentially abstract. The choice that a man has to make to remain true to himself, the corrosion of values in a world that puts premium on material success, the human price of ambition in a competitive society, and the possibility of making an authentic decision in a set up where an individual is allowed very little freedom-these are the recurrent concerns running through his novel – Show Business. Shashi Tharoor shows his socio-Moral vision and mourns for the lack of Dharma in modern times. In a Post Modernistic world, where all moral values are gone with the wind, there are very few committed artists with the philosophic vision, who can wage a strong war against the advent of basic human values. Tharoor considers his art as a medium through which he tries to resurrect the lost dignity of the human being. Art therefore seems to turn into a didactic weapon by which he reinstates the lost glory of the world

Pinning down neutrino oscillation parameters in the 2-3 sector with a mgnetised atmospheric neutrino detector: a new study

We determine the sensitivity to neutrino oscillation parameters from a study of atmospheric neutrinos in a magnetised detector such as the ICAL at the proposed India-based Neutrino Observatory. In such a detector that can {\em separately} count $\nu_\mu$ and $\overline{\nu}_\mu$-induced events, the relatively smaller (about 5\%) uncertainties on the neutrino--anti-neutrino flux ratios translate to a constraint in the $\chi^2$ analysis that results in a significant improvement in the precision with which neutrino oscillation parameters such as $\sin^2\theta_{23}$ can be determined. Such an effect is unique to all magnetisable detectors and constitutes a great advantage in determining neutrino oscillation parameters using such detectors. Such a study has been performed for the first time here. Along with an increase in the kinematic range compared to earlier analyses, this results in sensitivities to oscillation parameters in the 2--3 sector that are comparable to or better than those from accelerator experiments where the fluxes are significantly higher. For example, the $1\sigma$ precisions on $\sin^2\theta_{23}$ and $|\Delta{m^2_{32(31)}}|$ achievable for 500 kTon yr exposure of ICAL are $\sim9\%$ and $\sim2.5\%$ respectively for both normal and inverted hierarchies. The mass hierarchy sensitivity achievable with this combination when the true hierarchy is normal (inverted) for the same exposure is $\Delta\chi^2\approx8.5$ ($\Delta\chi^2\approx9.5$)

A deep survey of the low-surface-brightness radio sky

We have made a radio survey--the Australia Telescope Low Brightness Survey (ATLBS)--of 8.4 square degrees sky area, using the Australia Telescope Compact Array in the 20-cm band, in an observing mode designed to provide wide-field images with exceptional sensitivity in surface brightness, and thereby explore a new parameter space in radio source populations. The goals of this survey are to quantify the distribution in angular sizes, particularly at weak surface brightness levels: this has implications for the confusion in deep surveys with the SKA. The survey is expected to lead to a census of the radio emission associated with low-power radio galaxies at redshifts 1-3, without any missing extended emission, and hence a study of the cosmic evolution of low-power radio galaxies to higher redshift and a comprehensive study of the AGN feedback during the intense black hole growth phase during this redshift range.Comment: 5 pages, includes 2 figures and 1 table. To appear in the proceedings of "From Planets to Dark energy: the modern radio universe" in the online journal Proceedings of Science - Po

Electron-Electron Interactions on the Edge States of Graphene: A Many Body Configuration Interaction Study

We have studied zigzag and armchair graphene nano ribbons (GNRs), described by the Hubbard Hamiltonian using quantum many body configuration interaction methods. Due to finite termination, we find that the bipartite nature of the graphene lattice gets destroyed at the edges making the ground state of the zigzag GNRs a high spin state, whereas the ground state of the armchair GNRs remains a singlet. Our calculations of charge and spin densities suggest that, although the electron density prefers to accumulate on the edges, instead of spin polarization, the up and down spins prefer to mix throughout the GNR lattice. While the many body charge gap results in insulating behavior for both kinds of GNRs, the conduction upon application of electric field is still possible through the edge channels because of their high electron density. Analysis of optical states suggest differences in quantum efficiency of luminescence for zigzag and armchair GNRs, which can be probed by simple experiments.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

An Evaluation of Soil Moisture Retrievals Using Aircraft and Satellite Passive Microwave Observations during SMEX02

The Soil Moisture Experiments conducted in Iowa in the summer of 2002 (SMEX02) had many remote sensing instruments that were used to study the spatial and temporal variability of soil moisture. The sensors used in this paper (a subset of the suite of sensors) are the AQUA satellite-based AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer- Earth Observing System) and the aircraft-based PSR (Polarimetric Scanning Radiometer). The SMEX02 design focused on the collection of near simultaneous brightness temperature observations from each of these instruments and in situ soil moisture measurements at field- and domain- scale. This methodology provided a basis for a quantitative analysis of the soil moisture remote sensing potential of each instrument using in situ comparisons and retrieved soil moisture estimates through the application of a radiative transfer model. To this end, the two sensors are compared with respect to their estimation of soil moisture

Space Motion Sickness - Analysis of Medical Debriefs Data for Incidence and Treatment

Astronauts use medications for the treatment of a variety of illnesses during space travel. Data mining efforts to assess minor clinical conditions occurring during Shuttle flights STS-1 through STS-94 revealed that space motion sickness (SMS) was the most common ailment during early flight days, occurring in approx.40% of crewmembers, followed by digestive system disturbances (9%) and infectious diseases, which most commonly involved the respiratory or urinary tracts. A more recent analysis of postflight medical debriefs data to examine trends with respect to medication use by astronauts during spaceflights indicated that ~37% of all prescriptions recorded was for pain followed by sleep (22%), SMS (18%), decongestion (14%), and all others (14%). Further analysis revealed that about 150 of 317 crewmembers experienced symptoms of SMS. Nearly all (132 of 150) crewmembers took medication for the treatment of symptoms with a total of 387 doses. Promethazine was taken most often (201 doses); in most cases this resulted in alleviation of symptoms with 130 crewmembers (65%) reporting feeling much or somewhat better. Although fewer total doses of the combination of promethazine and dextroamphetamine (Phen/Dex) were taken (45 doses), slightly more than half of these doses resulted in improvement. The combination of scopolamine and dextroamphetamine (Scop/Dex) was reported to be effective in only 37% of cases, with 36 of 97 total doses resulting in improvement. A higher percentage (24%) of Scop/Dex doses was reported to be ineffective compared with promethazine alone or as Phen/Dex (10% and 7%, respectively). Comparisons of the effectiveness of the different dosage forms of promethazine revealed that intramuscular injection was most effective in alleviating symptoms with 55% feeling much better, 16% feeling somewhat better, and only 7% feeling no effect or worse. Overall, it appears that promethazine alone was used more frequently during flight and was reported effective for the treatment of SMS