Exploitation of mica deposits at Nellore mica belt, Andhra Pradesh, India

India is the leading producer of sheet mica and a major part of this is exported. Nellore mica belt is the largest mica-producing area covering part of Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh, India. As most of the mines are old and privately operated, they are developed and operated purely based on local experiences. In this article, we highlight the problems associated with the present mica-mining practices in the Nellore mica belt, and scientific approaches that have been adopted for fixing different parameters associated with mica extraction. Based on detailed field study, geo-mechanical data and tested rock properties, extensive numerical modelling is done to suggest the best possible method of mining for safe and sustainable mica extraction from the area

Accelerating Malnutrition Reduction in Orissa

Orissa has performed better than the Indian average in terms of the rate of malnutrition reduction. This positive trend is supported by NFHS data, independent survey data and the State's own monitoring data. Despite this good news, absolute rates remain high with 40 per cent of children under five malnourished, rising to 54 per cent amongst the tribal population. Encouraging progress but recognition of a long way to go has triggered the Department of Women and Child Development to develop a new operational plan to accelerate the pace of malnutrition reduction. The Nutrition Plan is based on five principles, the key being targeting the most vulnerable in high burden districts. Review of national and international experience, analysis of the Department's data, plus primary data collection to fill information gaps, have created an evidence?based Plan which provides a challenging but realistic map for reaching an average annual malnutrition reduction of 3.5 percent

A plasmodium calcium-dependent protein kinase controls zygote development and transmission by translationally activating repressed mRNAs

Calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPKs) play key regulatory roles in the life cycle of the malaria parasite, but in many cases their precise molecular functions are unknown. Using the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei, we show that CDPK1, which is known to be essential in the asexual blood stage of the parasite, is expressed in all life stages and is indispensable during the sexual mosquito life-cycle stages. Knockdown of CDPK1 in sexual stages resulted in developmentally arrested parasites and prevented mosquito transmission, and these effects were independent of the previously proposed function for CDPK1 in regulating parasite motility. In-depth translational and transcriptional profiling of arrested parasites revealed that CDPK1 translationally activates mRNA species in the developing zygote that in macrogametes remain repressed via their 3′ and 5′UTRs. These findings indicate that CDPK1 is a multifunctional protein that translationally regulates mRNAs to ensure timely and stage-specific protein expression

Temperature and areal number density dependent various physical quantities like complex dielectric function, dynamical structure factor in two-dimensional two-component weakly coupled classical and quantum hot plasmas

480-489Wave vector and frequency dependent complex dielectric functions for the two-component weakly coupled classical and quantum plasmas have been evaluated in the entire wave vector and frequency domain. Dynamical structure factor, static pair correlation function of elcctrons around a positron and reflectivity percentage of low energy photons, all of which are dependent on full complex dielectric function have been computed at different temperatures, areal number densities, mass of the positive component etc. The physical quantities are quite sensitive with the variation of these parameters and can be observed experimentally

Reflectivity of low energy photons from one- and two-dimensional rare hot quantum and classical plasmas

927-929The reflectivity of low energy photons from wave vector dependent plasma modes present in one- and two-dimensional rare hot quantum and classical one component plasmas has been computed. The computations have been made for different densities—linear in 1D and areal in 2D at various temperatures to bring out the difference between quantum and classical plasmas. It turns out that the effect of Landau damping is quite significant amongst other results

Complex dielectric function and collective dynamics of one-dimensional weakly coupled quantum and classical hot plasmas

518-523The complete expressions for the wave vector and frequency dependent complex dielectric function for one-dimensional weakly coupled one component quantum and classical hot plasmas have been derived. These expressions, which are valid for the entire domain of frequency and wave vector, are used to obtain the knowledge about the collective dynamics of the plasma by computing the dynamical structure factor at different temperatures and wave vector. The results obtained are quite different from those in three- and two-dimensional cases