Climate change and monsoons: a paleo perspective

History repeats” goes a popular adage. Thus, by understanding monsoons in the ancient climates that are analogous to what is expected in the future, we can develop more confidence in the prediction of 21st century climate and be prepared accordingly. Monsoons of the distant past are inferred through indirect measurements, called proxies. Proxies suggest that monsoon strength has varied in step with periodic oscillations in the Sun-Earth geometry. These oscillations with periods 23 ky, 41 ky, and 100 ky (years – y, 1000 years - ky) modulate the solar radiation reaching the Earth. The growth and decay of ice sheets and the rise and fall of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere through the ice ages also modulate the monsoons. An emerging theory of monsoons known as “energetics of monsoons” can decipher the impact of these climate drivers and the ensuing feedbacks. We find that long-term monsoon evolution is determined by only two variables: the net energy flux into the atmosphere and water vapor. Furthermore, we have shown that the energy released by the oceans plays a crucial role in determining the local rainfall over the oceans. The anthropogenic global warming will enhance the moisture content in the atmosphere and lead to an increase in the monsoon rainfall

Some implications of the sociological research on diffusion and adoption of farm practices and their application to extension education

The present study was made for the purpose of considering possible solutions to the above stated problem. The main purposes of this investigation, then, were: 1. To summarize and analyze the results of research work on diffusion and adoption of new farm practices according to a generally accepted classification scheme. 2. To identify and consider the implications of these results for extension education. 3. To make suggestions for application of such implications to the Community Development Program of India

Response of the low-level jet to precession and its implications for proxies of the Indian Monsoon

The long-term variations in the South Asian monsoon have been inferred based on the variations in the ocean productivity along the western coast of the Arabian Sea. The variations in ocean productivity were previously thought to be primarily influenced by the intensity of upwelling. Here, using idealized precession experiments in fully coupled climate models, we have shown that the area as well as the region of maximum upwelling change with precession. When summer occurs at perihelion (stronger summer insolation and monsoon precipitation), the area of upwelling is narrow. In contrast, during summer at aphelion (weaker summer insolation and monsoon precipitation), upwelling occurs over a broader region. This is due to the effect of convective heating over northeastern Africa and the western equatorial Indian Ocean on the width and meridional location of the low-level jet. Therefore, the upwelling inferred from proxies does not necessarily indicate the Indian summer monsoon strength. © 2022. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved

To Find and to Form: Cellular Strategies for Intracellular Target Search and Higher-Order Assembly

Eukaryotic RNA-protein complexes have been widely reported to form membrane-less, higher-order assemblies inside cells under a range of conditions. How these structures contribute to the regulation of intracellular biochemistry remains poorly understood. Recent biophysical studies have revealed how phase-separation, a passive, thermodynamically driven process, can explain the assembly of such structures, referred to as condensates. This dissertation explores the relationship between macromolecular interactions that mediate the formation of dynamic condensates and the biochemical consequences of the resulting reorganization of the intracellular space. Organized into three parts, it implements and leverages new live-cell fluorescence microscopy approaches to visualize the formation of and localization of RNAs to condensates in real-time and at single-molecule resolution to address fundamental questions around intracellular biochemical regulation. First, the dissertation explores the RNA-sequence and protein translation-dependence of RNA localization to intracellular condensates called P-bodies. This work revealed that RNAs in P-bodies localize differently to the periphery or the core of these condensates depending on their translatability, and that stable RNA localization requires specific RNA-protein interactions. It next provides evidence for ubiquitous, proteome-wide, homomultimerization-driven phase-separation in response to osmotic volume fluctuations. These observations expand the molecular grammar of protein domains known to drive phase-separation, suggesting that a large fraction of the proteome may be poised to undergo rapid spatial reorganization upon small perturbations in intracellular molecular crowding. Additionally, these results provide possible explanations for previously reported features of osmotic stress response, by suggesting that hyperosmolarity-induced phase-separation of CPSF6 protein might provide a mechanistic basis for the widespread loss of premRNA cleavage activity under such conditions. These observations paint a new picture of the nature of the intracellular milieu, in which the organization of the intracellular space is inextricably linked with the macromolecular sequence of its constituents, where the concentration of individual molecular species can affect both its biochemical function and spatial organization. In the third part, the thesis discusses evidence that microRNA-induced silencing complexes may use a two-pronged strategy to search for mRNA targets inside the cell: on the one hand, transient binding and 3D search allow for rapid exploration; on the other hand, induced clustering of target mRNAs reduces the search space, such that these complexes can efficiently engage with their targets even when the concentration is limiting. Comparing the kinetics of individual microRNA-mRNA interactions in the cell across a range of mRNAs differing in the number of microRNA binding sites suggests that binding site number, a conserved feature of mRNAs, serves to both stabilize microRNA binding and promote AGO2-dependent clustering of mRNAs. This work refines an emerging paradigm in cell biology in which the intracellular space, far from being spatially homogeneous, is highly compartmentalized. Further, it demonstrates that such compartmentalization can be highly dynamic, and this dynamic organization is encoded by macromolecular sequence and biochemical activity. By applying single particle tracking to understand the assembly of intracellular condensate dynamics, this work opens up new ways for studying non-equilibrium phase separation and condensate formation in cells. Studying molecular association processes at single-molecule resolution in living cells represents a significant advance in quantitative cell biology by bridging single-molecule measurements in vitro and qualitative observations in vivo. This dissertation therefore advances the study of intracellular biochemistry by describing new methods and by applying them to uncover insights into the relationship between macromolecular sequence and subcellular organization.PHDCellular & Molecular BiologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/168104/1/ameyapj_1.pd

DESIGN, SYNTHESIS, AND EVALUATION OF NEW DERIVATIVE OF 1,2,4-TRIAZOLES FOR ANTIMICROBIAL AND ANTI-INFLAMMATORY ACTIVITY

Objective: The object of the study is to design, synthesize and biological evaluation of isoniazid derived 1,2,4-triazoles compounds.Methods: Isoniazid based 1,2,4-triazoles derivatives have been synthesized by reaction of Isoniazid with carbon disulfide in basic medium (KOH) to form Potassium dithiocarbazinate salt and reaction with hydrazine hydrate converted into 4-amino-5-(pyridin-4-yl)-4H-1,2,4-triazole-3-thiol. These compounds were reacted with seven different benzaldehyde to form 4-[(substituted phenyl)-methylene]-amino-5-(pyridine-4-yl)-4H-1,2,4-triazol-3-thiol (4). The final compounds were synthesized by reaction with four different acetanilide to form 4-[substituted phenyl)-methylene]-amino-3-(N-substitutedcarboxamidomethylthio)-5-(pyridine-4-yl)-4H-1,2,4-triazoles derivatives. All these compounds were characterized by IR, 1H-NMR, [13]C-NMR and elemental analysis. The antimicrobial activity was determined by the cup plate method. Acute anti-inflammatory activity determined by using carrageenan-induced rat paw edema model.Results: Series PJ-A4, PJ-A7 and PJ-A13 showed more than 90% of the zone of inhibition against both Gram positive and Gram negative organisms. The antifungal study suggested that among synthesized compounds series PJ-A4, A7, A9, A11 and A13 showed more than 90% of zone of inhibition, A2, A10 and A12 shows more than 80% of the zone of inhibition. Anti-inflammatory study data indicate that compounds PJ-A4, PJ-A8, PJ-A9 and PJ-A13 produced 70 to 76% of paw edema inhibition compare to standard drug Ibuprofen which showed 83.3% after 5 h. Conclusion: Results suggested that the isoniazid based 1,2,4-triazole derivatives have significant antibacterial, antifungal and anti-inflammatory activity

Museums and Heritage Sites — The Missing Link in Smart City Planning: A Case Study of Pune City, India

The process of urbanisation has dramatically increased in India in recent years. The Government of India launched Smart City Mission in 2015 which was intended to transform 100 cities into smart cities. The focus of our research is one such city in India on its path to smartification. Pune’s smart city mission focuses on techno-infrastructural development to increase mobility and digital connectivity. Social-cultural and historical indicators are not considered an integral part of this development. Given this, does the smart city mission of Pune privilege the techno-infrastructural development of a city over its social and cultural development?  In this paper, we identify museums and heritage sites in Pune as signifiers of a city's culture and analyse metro development plans through GIS to understand whether the museums' current geography mentioned above and heritage sites require alignment with Pune’s planned smart city mission. The research shows that the quest to ‘upgrade’ and ‘modernise’ is not adequately aligned with the role of key historic-cultural institutions such as museums and heritage sites. The case of Pune city shows that, without careful and inclusive development plan, a full roll-out of the smart city project will exclude a large number of historical and cultural spaces such as museums and heritage sites from emerging as an integral part of smart cities across the country and render them peripheral to modern urban life. &nbsp