The Paradox of Shorebird Diversity and Abundance in the West Coast and East Coast of India: A Comparative Analysis

Migratory shorebirds that move across continents along their flyways are undergoing a drastic decline globally. A greater proportion of them that regularly winter along the Indian coasts within the Central Asian Flyway (CAF) are also undergoing severe declines. However, the mechanisms underlying the population trends in these areas remain little understood. This study investigated the diversity, abundance, population dynamics and distribution patterns of shorebirds along the Indian coasts based on the available literature. The west coast of India is relatively less studied than the east coast in the CAF. Further, we observed that the diversity, abundance, population dynamics and distribution pattern of the shorebirds follow different trends on the west coast compared to the east coast. These variations are in accordance with the differences in topography and biotic and abiotic factors between the coasts. Anthropogenic activities have far-reaching effects on the survival and persistence of shorebirds along the coasts. The west coast is evidently more productive than the east coast at every trophic level and thus the west coast is expected to account for more abundance and diversity of shorebirds. Paradoxically, we found that the east coast supports a greater abundance and diversity of shorebirds than the west coast. The west coast, therefore, requires further investigations to obtain a better understanding of the causes of apparent differences in abundance and diversity as well as the observed declines in shorebirds, compared to the east coast of India

Optimization of process conditions for maximum metal recovery from spent zinc‐manganese Batteries: Illustration of Statistical based Automated Neural Network approach

Recovery of the vital metals from spent batteries using bioleaching is one of the commonly used method for recycling of spent batteries. In this study, a Statistical based Automated Neural Network approach is proposed for determination of optimum input parameters values in bioleaching of zinc‐manganese batteries. Experiments are performed to measure the recovery of zinc and manganese based on the input parameters such as energy substrates concentration, pH control of bioleaching media, incubating temperature and pulp density. It was found that the proposed model based metal extraction models precisely estimated the yields of zinc and manganese with higher values of coefficient of determination of 0.94. Based on global sensitivity analysis, it was found that for the extraction of zinc, the most contributing parameters are pulp density and pH while for extraction of Mn the most contributing parameters are pulp density and incubating temperature. The optimum parameter values for maximum recovery of zinc and maximum recovery of manganese are determined using optimization method of simulated annealing. The optimum parameter values obtained for maximum recovery of Zn metal are as substrates concentration 32 g/L, pH 1.9‐2.0, incubating temperature 30 °C, pulp density 10% and substrates concentration 32 g/L, pH 2.0, incubating temperature 35 °C, pulp density 8% for maximum recovery of Mn

Is SAX J1808.4-3658 a Strange Star ?

One of the most important questions in the study of compact objects is the nature of pulsars, including whether they are composed of $\beta$-stable nuclear matter or strange quark matter. Observations of the newly discovered millisecond X-ray pulsar \sax with the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer place firm constraint on the radius of the compact star. Comparing the mass - radius relation of \sax with the theoretical mass - radius relation for neutron stars and for strange stars, we find that a strange star model is more consistent with SAX J1808.4-3658, and suggest that it is a likely strange star candidate.Comment: 5 pages, Latex, 1 figure, corrected for some typo

QCD phase transitions from relativistic hadron models

The models of translationally invariant infinite nuclear matter in the relativistic mean field models are very interesting and simple, since the nucleon can connect only to a constant vector and scalar meson field. Can one connect these to the complicated phase transitions of QCD ? For an affirmative answer to this question, one must consider models where the coupling constants to the scalar and vector fields must depend on density in a non-linear way, since as such the models are not explicitly chirally invariant. Once this is ensured, indeed one can derive a quark condensate indirectly from the energy density of nuclear matter which goes to zero at large density and temperature. The change to zero condensate indicates a smooth phase transition.Comment: 12 pages latex file, 1 table, 12 Postscript figures. To appear in Zeit. f. Phys.

Brief isoflurane administration as an adjunct treatment to control organophosphate-induced convulsions and neuropathology

Organophosphate-based chemical agents (OP), including nerve agents and certain pesticides such as paraoxon, are potent acetylcholinesterase inhibitors that cause severe convulsions and seizures, leading to permanent central nervous system (CNS) damage if not treated promptly. The current treatment regimen for OP poisoning is intramuscular injection of atropine sulfate with an oxime such as pralidoxime (2-PAM) to mitigate cholinergic over-activation of the somatic musculature and autonomic nervous system. This treatment does not provide protection against CNS cholinergic overactivation and therefore convulsions require additional medication. Benzodiazepines are the currently accepted treatment for OP-induced convulsions, but the convulsions become refractory to these GABAA agonists and repeated dosing has diminishing effectiveness. As such, adjunct anticonvulsant treatments are needed to provide improved protection against recurrent and prolonged convulsions and the associated excitotoxic CNS damage that results from them. Previously we have shown that brief, 4-min administration of 3%–5% isoflurane in 100% oxygen has profound anticonvulsant and CNS protective effects when administered 30 min after a lethal dose of paraoxon. In this report we provide an extended time course of the effectiveness of 5% isoflurane delivered for 5 min, ranging from 60 to 180 min after a lethal dose of paraoxon in rats. We observed substantial effectiveness in preventing neuronal loss as shown by Fluoro-Jade B staining when isoflurane was administered 1 h after paraoxon, with diminishing effectiveness at 90, 120 and 180 min. In vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) derived T2 and mean diffusivity (MD) values showed that 5-min isoflurane administration at a concentration of 5% prevents brain edema and tissue damage when administered 1 h after a lethal dose of paraoxon. We also observed reduced astrogliosis as shown by GFAP immunohistochemistry. Studies with continuous EEG monitoring are ongoing to demonstrate effectiveness in animal models of soman poisoning

Study of qqqccˉqqqc\bar{c} five quark system with three kinds of quark-quark hyperfine interaction

The low-lying energy spectra of five quark systems $uudc\bar{c}$ (I=1/2, S=0) and $udsc\bar{c}$ (I=0, S=-1) are investigated with three kinds of schematic interactions: the chromomagnetic interaction, the flavor-spin dependent interaction and the instanton-induced interaction. In all the three models, the lowest five quark state ($uudc\bar{c}$ or $udsc\bar{c}$) has an orbital angular momentum L=0 and the spin-parity $J^{P}=1/2^{-}$; the mass of the lowest $udsc\bar{c}$ state is heavier than the lowest $uudc\bar{c}$ state

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level