Application of Geographic Information System For Irrigation Management

Water plays an important role in crop production. A good irrigation water management system has to be provided to give adequate and timely supply of water to improve the crop production. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to have adequate water source, a good conveyance system, a good distribution system and a strong database to store all the required data. Improved management can be achieved when the study area has been provided with a good database to store the real time data according to the seasons that will help the users and the decision makers to make a firm decision with respect to the management aspect. Visual Basic and GIS can greatly help to achieve efficient water management. The Tanjung Karang Rice Irrigation Project in Northwest Selangor Malaysia was selected for this study and three compartments Sawah Sempadan, Sungai Burong and Sungai Nipah were considered for the study. The Visual Basic program designed in this study with several screens provides unique results based on the water management. The program was designed, tested and the results stored in MS-Access database. This study concentrates on creating an irrigation water management database and providing a user-friendly on-farm decision support system to benefit the farmers and the farm managers. Critical solutions can be achieved by creating a useful database for irrigation management. The designed database can store, edit, update and delete the data records whenever necessary. The GIS user interface for the irrigation system promIses to provide comprehensible results to improve the decision making process in the operation and management of the scheme. MapInfo Professional Software 5.0 was used to digitize the Tanjung Karang study area. The digitized maps were exported from MapInfo to ArcView GIS 3.1 using Universal Translator. ArcView GIS 3.1 was used for analysis and the results shown in the form of thematic maps, tables, graphs and charts to benefit the users and decision makers involve with irrigation water management

Psychosocial Effects of a Holistic Ayurvedic Approach to Well-being in Health and Wellness Courses.

BackgroundAs individuals are increasingly attending health and wellness courses outside of the conventional medical system, there is a need to obtain objective data on the effects of those programs on well-being.MethodsIn total, 154 men and women (mean age 54.7 years; range 25-83) participated in 3 different holistic wellness programs based on Ayurvedic Medicine principles (Seduction of Spirit, Journey into Healing, and Perfect Health) or a vacation control group. Psychosocial outcomes included spirituality (Delaney Spirituality Scale), mindful awareness (Mindful Attention Awareness Scale), psychological flexibility (Acceptance and Action Questionnaire), mood (Center for Epidemiology Studies-Depression), and anxiety (Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement System Anxiety Scale).ResultsParticipants in the Seduction of Spirit (P < .004), Journey into Healing (P < .05), and Perfect Health (P < .004) courses showed significant increases in spirituality as compared to vacation controls. Participants in Seduction of Spirit (P < .007) also showed significant increases in mindfulness as compared to vacation controls. Participants in the Seduction of Spirit (P < .001) and Journey into Healing (P < .05) courses showed significant decreases in depressed mood as compared to those in the Perfect Health and vacation control groups. All study participants showed similar increases in psychological flexibility (P < .01) and decreases in anxiety (P < .01).ConclusionParticipation in wellness courses that incorporate a mind-body-spirit approach to health improves multiple domains of psychosocial well-being, which persists even after course participation

Interaction of small gold clusters with carbon nanotube bundles: formation of gold atomic chains

We use first-principles density functional theory to simulate the interaction of bundles of semiconducting (10, 0) and metallic (6, 6) carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with small gold clusters (Aun, n = 3, 5) inserted in their interstitial spaces. We find that gold clusters spontaneously evolve to form atomic chains along the axis of nanotubes and induce weak metallicity in the semiconducting nanotubes through charge transfer. We further show that a similar structural evolution of Pt3 clusters occurs in the interstitial spaces of a (10, 0) CNT bundle. Our calculations show that these structural changes, along with interesting changes in the electronic structure, occur at moderate pressures that are readily achievable in a laboratory, and should be relevant to devices that make use of gold-nanotube contacts

trans-1,2-Difluoro-3,4,5,6,7,8-hexaphenyltricyclo[4.2.0.0^(2,5)]octa-3,7-diene

In order to probe the possible mechanism of the rearrangement of trans-hexaphenyldifluorotricyclooctadiene (a dimer of fluorotriphenylcyclobutadiene) to pentaphenyldihydrodifluoropentalene via C-F bond migration, a high-temperature study of the title compound, C_(44)H_(30)F_2, was performed at 400 (2) K. In the title compound, there are three fused four-membered rings with the resulting eight-membered tricyclo¬octa¬diene ring adopting a sofa conformation. The dihedral angles between the central four-membered ring and the two outer rings are 66.03 (2) and 65.39 (2)°. The crystal structure contains centrosymmetric dimers formed by C-H… π inter¬actions

Searching for Galactic White Dwarf Binaries in Mock LISA Data using an F-Statistic Template Bank

We describe an F-statistic search for continuous gravitational waves from galactic white-dwarf binaries in simulated LISA Data. Our search method employs a hierarchical template-grid based exploration of the parameter space. In the first stage, candidate sources are identified in searches using different simulated laser signal combinations (known as TDI variables). Since each source generates a primary maximum near its true "Doppler parameters" (intrinsic frequency and sky position) as well as numerous secondary maxima of the F-statistic in Doppler parameter space, a search for multiple sources needs to distinguish between true signals and secondary maxima associated with other, "louder" signals. Our method does this by applying a coincidence test to reject candidates which are not found at nearby parameter space positions in searches using each of the three TDI variables. For signals surviving the coincidence test, we perform a fully coherent search over a refined parameter grid to provide an accurate parameter estimation for the final candidates. Suitably tuned, the pipeline is able to extract 1989 true signals with only 5 false alarms. The use of the rigid adiabatic approximation allows recovery of signal parameters with errors comparable to statistical expectations, although there is still some systematic excess with respect to statistical errors expected from Gaussian noise. An experimental iterative pipeline with seven rounds of signal subtraction and re-analysis of the residuals allows us to increase the number of signals recovered to a total of 3419 with 29 false alarms.Comment: 29 pages, 11 figures; submitted to Classical and Quantum Gravit

Symmetry structure and phase transitions

We study chiral symmetry structure at finite density and temperature in the presence of external magnetic field and gravity, a situation relevant in the early Universe and in the core of compact stars. We then investigate the dynamical evolution of phase transition in the expanding early Universe and possible formation of quark nuggets and their survival.Comment: Plenary talk given at the 4th. ICPAQGP held at Jaipur, India from Nov 26-30, 2001.laTex 2e file with 8 ps figures and 12 page

Evaluation of Health and Safety performance in Brunei Construction Industry

An evaluation of Health and Safety (H&S) performance in the Brunei Darussalam construction industry (BDCI) is not only important; but integrating the concept based on Total Quality Management (TQM) would greatly enhance and improve the industry practices. H&S of any workforce in any part of the world is an important issue deserving the attention of engineers and safety officers in the construction industry. The need for good quality management in any good construction site is crucial for the overall success of achieving H&S. The present trend where the rates and frequency of accidents arising from poor implementation or non-compliance on H&S code based on TQM principles in the industry is relatively higher. The research paper seeks to evaluate the significance and existence of H&S performance in the BDCI with regards to TQM. Questionnaires form an important method of data collection in this research paper. From the survey conducted, it can be seen that the implementation of H&S and TQM develop and reinforce a positive impact and environmental values in the organization. In the current performance of BDCI, there is still need for continuous development in terms of enhancing H&S based on TQM. Keywords: Health and Safety, Total Quality Management, Accidents, Construction Industr

Scaling relation for determining the critical threshold for continuum percolation of overlapping discs of two sizes

We study continuum percolation of overlapping circular discs of two sizes. We propose a phenomenological scaling equation for the increase in the effective size of the larger discs due to the presence of the smaller discs. The critical percolation threshold as a function of the ratio of sizes of discs, for different values of the relative areal densities of two discs, can be described in terms of a scaling function of only one variable. The recent accurate Monte Carlo estimates of critical threshold by Quintanilla and Ziff [Phys. Rev. E, 76 051115 (2007)] are in very good agreement with the proposed scaling relation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Nonlinear optical interactions in silicon waveguides

The strong nonlinear response of silicon photonic nanowire waveguides allows for the integration of nonlinear optical functions on a chip. However, the detrimental nonlinear optical absorption in silicon at telecom wavelengths limits the efficiency of many such experiments. In this review, several approaches are proposed and demonstrated to overcome this fundamental issue. By using the proposed methods, we demonstrate amongst others supercontinuum generation, frequency comb generation, a parametric optical amplifier, and a parametric optical oscillator

THE ROLE OF EHEALTH IN DISASTERS: A STRATEGY FOR EDUCATION, TRAINING AND INTEGRATION IN DISASTER MEDICINE

This paper describes the origins and progress of an international project to advance disaster eHealth (DEH) – the application of eHealth technologies to enhance the delivery of healthcare in disasters. The study to date has focused on two major themes; the role of DEH in facilitating inter-agency communication in disaster situations, and the fundamental need to promote awareness of DEH in the education of disaster managers and health professionals. The paper deals mainly with on-going research on the second of these themes, surveying the current provision of disaster medicine education, the design considerations for a DEH programme for health professionals, the key curriculum topics, and the optimal delivery mode