A Study of Language Preference among the Children of Kashmiri Speech Community Living in Jizan Region, Saudi Arabia

“A language dies when nobody speaks it anymore” (Crystal, 2000). He further says that the most common process leading to language death is one in which a community of speakers of one language becomes bilingual with another language, and gradually shifts allegiance to the second language until they cease to use their original, heritage language. Kashmir is a multilingual area where Kashmiri forms the mother tongue of majority of population; Urdu serves as the second language followed by English. This linguistic scenario changes when children reside in an international community. They shift from Kashmiri to other language/s due to less contact with their own speech community. As a result, the language preference changes according to their linguistic requirement. The present study aimed at investigating the linguistic effect on children residing in Saudi Arabia especially in Jizan region. In addition, the research focused on the intergenerational transmission of languages by exploring the reasons which languages, as their first and second, parents wanted their children to learn. The data for the present study was collected online by distributing online structured questionnaires to the target population. Several social media platforms were used to collect data. The preferred method of data collection ensured that there was an equal representation of the target population (children aged 6-16 years). The respondents were the Kashmiri children who study in different international schools in Jizan region of Saudi Arabia. The data was tabulated and analyzed by applying descriptive statistical methods. The research concluded that the target group is bilingual in Urdu and English. Though Kashmiri is the home language of the respondents, but it is not the first language (L1) of all. Urdu is the major language used in home context while as English remains the first choice for outside home situations. The use of Kashmiri is restricted to occasions like interaction with back home relatives. Keywords: Kashmiri language, bilingualism, intergenerational, speech community, language shift. DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/13-12-08 Publication date:June 30th 202

Studies on mutagenic effectiveness and efficiency in Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.)

A comparative study on effect of different dose/concentration of gamma rays, ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) and sodium azide (SA) on various biological parameters (seed germination, seedling height, plant survival, pollen fertility and chromosomal aberrations) in M1 generation and spectrum and frequency of macro-mutations (chlorophyll and other morphological mutations) induced in the M2 generation was carried out in fenugreek in the present investigation. Mutagenic effectiveness decreased with the increase in dose/concentration of the mutagen where as the efficiency of mutagens showed variable trend depending on the criteria selected for its calculation. The lower or intermediate treatments of all the mutagens were found more efficient in causing less biological damage and inducing maximum macro-mutations. The order of mutagenic efficiency was EMS > SA > ϒ- rays.Keywords: Fenugreek, biological damage, morphological mutations, gamma rays, EMS, SAAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(18), pp. 2437-244

Estimation of Soil Moisture in Bare Soils of the Northern Dry Zone of the Deccan Plateau, Karnataka, using Sentinel-1 Band C imagery

Soil moisture information is acritical input to water resource allocation, irrigation scheduling and climate risk management.The date of sowing is an important decision farmers take after initial rainfall occurs based on traditional knowledge and physical estimation of soil moisture. The present study was conducted on bare agriculture fields of Siruguppasub-district in Karnataka state in India to estimate surface soil moisture us in gradar remote sensing with the aim of developing an accurate and scalable methodology

Solid Biomass to Medium CV Gas Conversion With Rich Combustion

A modified cone calorimeter for controlled atmosphere combustion was used to investigate the gases released from fixed bed rich combustion of solid biomass. The cone calorimeter was used with 50 kW/m2 of radiant heat that simulated a larger gasification system. The test specimen in the cone calorimeter is 100mm square and this sits on a load cell so that the mass burn rate can be determined. Pine wood was burned with fixed air ventilation that created rich combustion at 1.5–4 equivalence ratio, Ø. The raw exhaust gas was sampled using a multi-hole gas sample probe in a discharge chimney above the cone heater, connected via heated sample lines, filters and pumps to the heated Gasmet FTIR. The FTIR was calibrated for 60 species, including 40+ hydrocarbons. The hydrogen in the gas was computed from the measured CO concentration using the water-gas shift reaction. The exhaust gas temperature was also measured so that the sensible heat from the gasification zone was included in the energy balance. The GCV of the pine was 18.8 MJ/kgpine and at the optimum Ø the energy in the rich combustion zone gases was 14.5 MJ/kgpine, which is a 77% energy conversion from solid biomass to a gaseous fuel feed for potential gas turbine applications. This conversion efficiency is comparable with the best conventional gasification of biomass and higher than most published conversion efficiencies for coal gasifiers. Of the energy in the gas from the rich combustion 35% was from the CO, 20% from hydrogen, 35% from hydrocarbons and 10% sensible heat. Ash remained in the rich burning gasification zone. As the biomass is a carbon neutral fuel there is no need to convert the gasified gases to hydrogen, with the associated energy losses

Saturation of adrenomedullin receptors plays an important role in reducing pulmonary clearance of adrenomedullin during the late stage of sepsis

AbstractAdrenomedullin (AM) is a potent vasodilator that plays a major role in the cardiovascular response during the progression of sepsis. Although pulmonary clearance of AM (i.e., the primary site of AM clearance) is reduced during the late, hypodynamic stage of sepsis, the role of AM receptors under such conditions remains unclear. This study was carried out to test the hypothesis that saturation of AM receptors is responsible for the decreased clearance of AM in the lungs during sepsis. Polymicrobial sepsis was induced in male adult rats by cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). At 20 h after CLP (i.e., the late phase), 125I-labeled rat AM was administered through the jugular vein, both with (+) and without (−) pre-injection of the human AM fragment AM22–52 (an AM receptor antagonist). Pulmonary tissue samples were harvested after 30 min and the radioactivity was determined. In addition, lung levels of AM were determined at 5 and 20 h after CLP by radioimmunoassay. Alterations in gene expression of the recently identified AM receptor subunits calcitonin receptor-like receptor (CRLR) and receptor activity modifying protein-2 and -3 (RAMP-2 and -3) were assessed in the lungs by reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT–PCR) at 5 and 20 h after CLP. The results indicate that there was a significant decrease in pulmonary [125I]AM clearance at 20 h in −AM22–52 CLP animals. Lung clearance in +AM22–52 sham animals was significantly lower than in −AM22–52 sham animals and was not statistically different from the −AM22–52 CLP group. There was no statistical difference between +AM22–52 and −AM22–52 CLP groups. However, there was a significant increase in lung AM levels at 20 but not 5 h after CLP. In addition, RAMP-3 expression was significantly upregulated at 5 but not 20 h after CLP. There were no alterations in the expression of CRLR or RAMP-2 at either time point. These results suggest that pulmonary AM receptors become saturated as more AM enters the bloodstream, thereby reducing the ability of the lungs to clear this peptide during late sepsis. Early upregulation of RAMP-3 may be a compensatory mechanism to help clear the upregulated AM from the bloodstream. The lack of upregulation of RAMP-3 during late sepsis could also contribute to the decreased clearance observed during this phase

Development of the Controlled Atmosphere Cone Calorimeter to Simulate Compartment Fires

The cone calorimeter with the controlled atmosphere compartment was used to control the fire air ventilation and to simulate the behaviour of materials in compartment fires, with rich burning under post flashover conditions. The standard cone calorimeter with controlled atmosphere design has to be improved, by compartment wall insulation, to reduce heat losses which reduced the fire temperature. Heat losses from the test section to the water cooled load cell were shown to be significant and the test specimen was insultated from the support. A chimney was added to the cone outlet to enable the measurement of the mean composition of the raw discharge gases. A method was developed for determining the mean gas sample and to prevent back flow of external air. This improved design was used to create under ventilated fires with pine wood where the equivalence ratio was controlled by the air flow into the compartment. These modified procedures for the cone calorimeter greatly extend its usefulness in material testing to conditions close to those encountered in post flashover compartment fires

Impact of habitat variability on growth dynamics of Bergenia ciliata (Haw.) Sternb. along an altitudinal gradient in Kashmir Himalaya

Bergenia ciliata (Haw.) Sternb. is an important medicinal plant of the Himalayan region. Phenotypic attributes of a particular plant species varies along different altitudes in order to adapt and to overcome the changeable and stressful conditions. A number of environmental factors such as mean temperature, precipitation, soil characteristics, radiation intensity etc. changes with altitudinal gradient and thereby affect the morphological pattern of a plant species. The present study was undertaken to reveal the impact of the elevational gradient and habitat variability on the morphological features of the selected species. Under different environmental conditions the species exhibited enormous variability in its phenotypic traits. The plants were shorter at high altitude site, Gulmarg while the plants of low altitude site, Kashmir University Botanical Garden (KUBG) were taller and more vigorous. A significant decrease in the plant height, inflorescence length, leaf length, leaf breadth and petiole length occurred with increasing altitude. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that the habitat of KUBG and Ferozpora (Tangmarg) proved relatively better for the growth of B. ciliata. The regression analysis revealed positive correlation between plant height and traits like inflorescence length, leaf length, leaf number and thus predicting a direct impact of plant height on other traits. Our findings present a comprehensive account on the variability of phenotypic characteristics, in relation to the environmental conditions of this valuable medicinal plant species