Opening Address

Hon'ble Minister for Steel Et Mines Mr. N. K. P. Salve, Mr. Mody, Mr. Samarapungavan, Dr. Altekar, Dr. Dastur, Dr. Kumar, distinguished delegates and colleagues, It is an honour and privilege indeed to deliver the opening address of this National Seminar on 'Problems Et Prospects of Ferro Alloy Industry in India' which is being organised by the NML and the Iron Et Steel Division of the IIM

Fear and Loathing in Britain: A Framing Analysis of News Coverage during the Foot and Mouth Disease Outbreaks in the United States

Communicating science is a complex task filled with challenges for scientists and communicators. In the field of agricultural communications, some of the most complex and controversial topics covered in today’s media are related to contagious animal diseases. The purpose of this study was to explore the use of frames in two daily newspapers, The New York Times in the U.S., and The Guardian in the U.K., during both the 2001 and 2007 outbreaks of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in Britain. The analysis showed that the primary frame used in articles published during the outbreaks was fear, followed closely by a connection of FMD to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or mad cow disease) and the potential for human infection. Secondary frames included criticism of government and politics, and a military/war frame. This research shows that the use of frames in media has the potential to create unnecessary fear among consumers who already possess low levels of knowledge regarding agricultural production practices. Future research in this area should include an evaluation of headlines corresponding to newspaper articles, as well as a study of the sources of information and quotations used in such stories. Through the use of such framing analyses, agricultural communications scholars can begin to take a concrete step in exploring the ways in which the public interprets, creates meaning and values information related to agriculture

Entanglement vs. gap for one-dimensional spin systems

We study the relationship between entanglement and spectral gap for local Hamiltonians in one dimension. The area law for a one-dimensional system states that for the ground state, the entanglement of any interval is upper-bounded by a constant independent of the size of the interval. However, the possible dependence of the upper bound on the spectral gap Delta is not known, as the best known general upper bound is asymptotically much larger than the largest possible entropy of any model system previously constructed for small Delta. To help resolve this asymptotic behavior, we construct a family of one-dimensional local systems for which some intervals have entanglement entropy which is polynomial in 1/Delta, whereas previously studied systems, such as free fermion systems or systems described by conformal field theory, had the entropy of all intervals bounded by a constant times log(1/Delta).Comment: 16 pages. v2 is final published version with slight clarification

Extended Spectrum Beta-Lactamase Carriage State among Elderly Nursing Home Residents in Beirut

Introduction. ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae can cause severe infections, but they are also isolated from the stool of asymptomatic subjects. Faecal carriage of such organism is poorly understood. Methods. First phase of the study was cross-sectional with prevalence and epidemiology of ESBL faecal carriage in two nursing homes in Beirut: 57 residents in the first (NH1) and 151 residents in the second (NH2). In second phase, faecal swabs from cohort of NH1 residents were examined for carriage at six-week intervals over three-month period. Residents’ charts were reviewed to assess carriage risk factors. Results. Over 3 consecutive samplings at NH1, 81% of residents were at least one-time carriers with 50% at the first round, 60.4% at the second, and 74.5% at the last one. At NH2, 68.2% of residents were carriers. Constipation (in NH1) and antibiotic intake (in NH2) were significantly associated with higher ESBL faecal carriage while the length of stay at the nursing home (in NH2) was associated with less carriage. Conclusion. Faecal carriage of ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae is high among nursing home patients in Beirut. The rate of carriage changes rapidly and significantly over time either with multiple factors playing a possible role like outbreak spreading, antibiotic, and health care system exposure

Developing Strong International Agricultural Education Programs by Understanding Cognition

International experiences provide culturally rich, complex situations for learners to process in both the affective and cognitive domains. By better understanding how learners process the information they receive in international settings, educators can develop quality international programs that encourage learners to more fully develop their cognitive abilities. The purpose of this study was to explore the cognitive relationships between participants’ learning styles, problem solving styles, and critical thinking dispositions in an international setting. Relationships were found between learning style preferences and critical thinking disposition, and learning style preferences and problem solving style. Given these results, instructors working in international settings should expect students to differ in terms of their cognitive processes and associated cognitive styles such as learning style. Instructors should be prepared to address these differences in style as they would in a traditional instructional setting. Further, instructors can use assessment tools to group students to work together most effectively and/or to achieve diversity in their thinking styles and approaches to solving problems

Increased colonic propionate reduces anticipatory reward responses in the human striatum to high-energy foods

Background: Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), metabolites produced through the microbial fermentation of nondigestible dietary components, have key roles in energy homeostasis. Animal research suggests that colon-derived SCFAs modulate feeding behavior via central mechanisms. In humans, increased colonic production of the SCFA propionate acutely reduces energy intake. However, evidence of an effect of colonic propionate on the human brain or reward-based eating behavior is currently unavailable. Objectives: We investigated the effect of increased colonic propionate production on brain anticipatory reward responses during food picture evaluation. We hypothesized that elevated colonic propionate would reduce both reward responses and ad libitum energy intake via stimulation of anorexigenic gut hormone secretion. Design: In a randomized crossover design, 20 healthy nonobese men completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) food picture evaluation task after consumption of control inulin or inulin-propionate ester, a unique dietary compound that selectively augments colonic propionate production. The blood oxygen level–dependent (BOLD) signal was measured in a priori brain regions involved in reward processing, including the caudate, nucleus accumbens, amygdala, anterior insula, and orbitofrontal cortex (n = 18 had analyzable fMRI data). Results: Increasing colonic propionate production reduced BOLD signal during food picture evaluation in the caudate and nucleus accumbens. In the caudate, the reduction in BOLD signal was driven specifically by a lowering of the response to high-energy food. These central effects were partnered with a decrease in subjective appeal of high-energy food pictures and reduced energy intake during an ad libitum meal. These observations were not related to changes in blood peptide YY (PYY), glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), glucose, or insulin concentrations. Conclusion: Our results suggest that colonic propionate production may play an important role in attenuating reward-based eating behavior via striatal pathways, independent of changes in plasma PYY and GLP-1. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00750438

Camera motion estimation through planar deformation determination

In this paper, we propose a global method for estimating the motion of a camera which films a static scene. Our approach is direct, fast and robust, and deals with adjacent frames of a sequence. It is based on a quadratic approximation of the deformation between two images, in the case of a scene with constant depth in the camera coordinate system. This condition is very restrictive but we show that provided translation and depth inverse variations are small enough, the error on optical flow involved by the approximation of depths by a constant is small. In this context, we propose a new model of camera motion, that allows to separate the image deformation in a similarity and a ``purely'' projective application, due to change of optical axis direction. This model leads to a quadratic approximation of image deformation that we estimate with an M-estimator; we can immediatly deduce camera motion parameters.Comment: 21 pages, version modifi\'ee accept\'e le 20 mars 200

Inclusion Distribution in Ingots - A Guide to Segragation Mechanism

The melting point of non-metallic inclusion, and their nature and distribution can be a guide in deciphering the mode of solidification and segregation in an ingot. A commercial ingot was sectioned, and examined micros-copically. Inclusion identification was carried out by optical method as well as by electron probe micro analy-sis. The exten of segregation was obtained by extensive spectro-chemical analysis. It has been found that the shape and position of bottom cone of negative segregation coincide with that of bottom cone of inclusions. A theory of ingot segregation has been suggested that the bottom cone of oxide inclusions is a result of incorporation of these inclusions inthe dendrites of equiaxed grains. The inclusions drop to the bottom end with the shower of relatively pure equiaxed grains. While the interdendritic fluid is enriched in elements like C, Mn, S, P, it is denuded of oxygen. Since the oxygen solubility is low, oxygen enrichment leads to immediate precipitation of oxides