Commercialization unsustainable to Himalayan environment

Indigenous people of north western Himalayan region of India utilize a wide range of biological resources for subsistence. The age-old practices of resource utilization have supported the rural economy with equity and social justice and conservation of resources since generations. However, in recent times, due to market demand, the biological resources are subjected to premature and frequent harvesting of ruthless exploitation by unskilled people particularly from outskirt of people. In addition to this, unfavorable government forest policy and ignoring people’s participation in decision-making and changing climatic conditions are some of the prime factors responsible for changing traditional resource management practices. Over increasing population pressure demand lead for market oriented commercial demand has resulted in over-exploitation of some of the plant resources at alarming pace. This calls for the development of resource management techniques built up on traditional knowledge capable of meeting the challenges of conservation on the one hand and socio-economic development of the local people on the other. Changing indigenous resource management practices in north western Himalaya imperils herbal based health care system and livelihood pattern

Effect of Panchagavya and GA3 on Germination and Seedling Growth in Cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.)

An experiment consisting of three sowing periods (March-May, June-August and September-November) and seven pre-sowing treatments was undertaken to study the effect of these factors on seed germination and initial seedling growth in cashew. Seeds sowing during June - August gave significantly better germination and initial seedling growth. However, maximum germination percentage, maximal seedling growth and minimum days to germination were observed with GA3 200ppm during all three sowing periods compared to that in other treatments. As for panchagavya, @ 10% and 20%, was found to be beneficial in treated seeds. All the growth parameters studied were also superior with GA3 application,excepting root growth. Best root growth was recorded with panchagavya at 20%

Ion-Solvent Interaction in Propylene Carbonate from Conductivity Data

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A Diagnostic Method for Fog Forecasting Using Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) Model Outputs

An attempt has been made in the present study to forecast fog with adiagnostic method using the outputs of global NWP model. The diagnosticmethod is based on the combination of thresholds of meteorologicalvariables involved in fog formation. The thresholds are computed usingthe observations during fog. These thresholds are applied to the output of aglobal NWP model for forecasting fog. The occurrence of fog is a commonphenomenon during winter season over the northern plains of India. Thediagnostic method is used to predict fog occurrences over three stations innorth India. The proposed method is able to predict both occurrences andnon-occurrences of fog at all the three stations. It is found that 94% of thefog events forecasted by the model using the diagnostic method have beenactually observed at the selected stations. The performance of method inpredicting fog is found best over Delhi with the highest accuracy (0.61) andprobability of detection (0.60). The study signifies that diagnostic approachbased on the output of a global model is a useful tool for predicting fogover a single location

Damage and Remedial Measures for Buildings on Hill Slopes

The paper deals with details of geotechnical investigations carried out for evaluating the reasons of damage to the buildings resting on hill slopes in northern region of India and also to evaluate the soil parameters for designing retaining walls and other remedial measures for preventing further damage to structures. Three causes of failure were identified namely (i) instability of slopes, (ii) improper design of retaining walls and (iii) differential settlement of structures. Shear strength parameters of the soil mass required for the analysis of slope stability and stability of retaining wall sections have been chosen based on three methods of investigations viz. large scale direct in-situ shear tests, plate load tests and the back analysis method. The stability analysis of various sections of slopes have been carried out and measures for strengthening of slopes have been suggested

Multimodal Human Eye Blink Recognition Using Z-score Based Thresholding and Weighted Features

A novel real-time multimodal eye blink detection method using an amalgam of five unique weighted features extracted from the circle boundary formed from the eye landmarks is proposed. The five features, namely (Vertical Head Positioning, Orientation Factor, Proportional Ratio, Area of Intersection, and Upper Eyelid Radius), provide imperative gen (z score threshold) accurately predicting the eye status and thus the blinking status. An accurate and precise algorithm employing the five weighted features is proposed to predict eye status (open/close). One state-of-the-art dataset ZJU (eye-blink), is used to measure the performance of the method. Precision, recall, F1-score, and ROC curve measure the proposed method performance qualitatively and quantitatively. Increased accuracy (of around 97.2%) and precision (97.4%) are obtained compared to other existing unimodal approaches. The efficiency of the proposed method is shown to outperform the state-of-the-art methods

Magnetic, Transport, and Thermal Properties of Single Crystals of the Layered Arsenide BaMn2As2

Growth of BaMn2As2 crystals using both MnAs and Sn fluxes is reported. Room temperature crystallography, anisotropic isothermal magnetization M versus field H and magnetic susceptibility chi versus temperature T, electrical resistivity in the ab plane rho(T), and heat capacity C(T) measurements on the crystals were carried out. The tetragonal ThCr2Si2-type structure of BaMn2As2 is confirmed. After correction for traces of ferromagnetic MnAs impurity phase using M(H) isotherms, the inferred intrinsic chi(T) data of the crystals are anisotropic with chi_{ab}/chi_{c} \approx 7.5 at T = 2 K. The temperature dependences of the anisotropic chi data suggest that BaMn2As2 is a collinear antiferromagnet at room temperature with the easy axis along the c axis, and with an extrapolated Neel temperature T_N \sim 500 K. The rho(T) decreases with decreasing T below 310 K but then increases below \sim 50 K, suggesting that BaMn2As2 is a small band-gap semiconductor with an activation energy of order 0.03 eV. The C(T) data from 2 to 5 K are consistent with this insulating ground state, exhibiting a low temperature Sommerfeld coefficient gamma = 0.0(4) mJ/mol K^2. The Debye temperature is determined from these data to be theta_D = 246(4) K. BaMn2As2 is a potential parent compound for ThCr2Si2-type superconductors.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures; v2: typos corrected, additional data and discussion, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Kemiskinan Adalah Satu Fenomena Multidimensi: Suatu Pemerhatian Awal

Kemiskinan merupakan satu fenomena yang dialami oleh seseorang individu tanpa kerelaan dan kehendak mereka. Kemiskinan boleh dikategorikan kepada dua jenis iaitu material dan bukan material. Miskin material terdiri daripada miskin pendapatan dan bukan pendapatan iaitu pendidikan, akses kepada kesihatan, pekerjaan dan kemudahan awam. Manakala miskin bukan material ialah berkait berkenaan ciri-ciri sahsiah seperti emosi, psikologi dan rohani. Kesemua keadaan yang berlaku ini menyebabkan seseorang yang miskin mengalami kesukaran untuk keluar dari situasi kemiskinan sekiranya tiada tindakan yang dilakukan oleh pihak bertanggungjawab. Pengukuran kemiskinan adalah langkah awal dalam mengenal pasti golongan miskin. Terdapat dua jenis iaitu pengukuran kemiskinan undimensi yang melihat kemiskinan dari sudut pendapatan sahaja dan pengukuran kemiskinan multidimensi yang melihat pada aspek holistik serta kemanusiaan. Terdapat banyak kelemahan pada pengukuran unidimensi kerana ia hanya mengukur kemiskinan dari perspektif pendapatan sahaja. Hal ini sudah tentulah tidak komprehensif dalam pengenalpastian golongan yang miskin. Oleh itu pengukuran kemiskinan multidimensi akan diterokai bagi memahami dengan lebih lanjut seperti perbezaannya dengan pengukuran unidimensi dan mengapakah Indeks Kemiskinan Multidimensi (IKM) adalah pengukur kemiskinan yang paling sesuai lagi berkesan. Kajian ini menggunakan data sekunder sebagai metodologi kajian. Hasil kajian ini dijangka bukan sahaja boleh mengetahui berapa ramai yang miskin dan peratusannya, malahan kita juga boleh mengetahui dimensi penyumbang utama kepada masalah kemiskinan. Melalui pengukuran ini, sesuatu program atau pemberian insentif dapat disalurkan dengan tepat kepada kumpulan sasaran

Chemical Stabilisation of Sand : Part* II Construction and Studies of 50m X 4m Road

An experimental track (50m X 4m) was constructed on a loose sand bed by using two chemical-sand composition containing either 9 per cent urea formaldehyde (UF) resin or 11 per cent sodium silicate binder (on solid content basis). The trafficability studies on 5-6 cm thick stabilised track was found to vary from 1625 to 1700 psi in UF stabilised track and from 1340 to 1460 psi in silicate stabilised track. The effect of resin, desert environmental conditions and trafficability studies showed cumulative loss of load bearing capacity from 1625-1700 to 645-1125 psi