Environment and Changing Agricultural Practices: Evidence from Orissa, India

In this paper attempt is made to examine vulnerability of farm households’ to adverse consequences of climate variables and extreme conditions like: food and cyclone. Three key components impeding food security with in the substance production structure are identified as (i) Inadequate food production by farm households. (ii). Distribution and marketing constrains and (iii) Low households’ income & procurement. Sampled data was used in the Cobb-Douglass function. This model and its results reveal that agriculture is largely dependent upon input prices, prices of livestock, and that of fertilizers. Highly significant response of farms’ income to precipitation reveals that investment in irrigation would improve farms’ income.Environment, Vulnerability of Households, Changing Climate, Agriculture Production and Income

Localized reversible nanoscale phase separation in Pr_0.63Ca_0.37MnO_3 single crystal using a scanning tunneling microscope tip

We report the destabilization of the charge ordered insulating (COI) state in a localized region of Pr_0.63Ca_0.37MnO_3 single crystal by current injection using a scanning tunneling microscope tip. This leads to controlled phase separation and formation of localized metallic nanoislands in the COI matrix which have been detected by local tunneling conductance mapping. The metallic regions thus created persist even after reducing the injected current to lower values. The original conductance state can be restored by injecting a current of similar magnitude but of opposite polarity. We thus achieve reversible nanoscale phase separation that gives rise to the possibility to "write, read, and erase" nanosized conducting regions in an insulating matrix with high spatial resolution.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, Appl. Phys. Lett (accepted for publication

Focusing of branes in warped backgrounds

Branes are embedded surfaces in a given background (bulk) spacetime. Assuming a warped bulk, we investigate, in analogy with the case for geodesics, the notion of {\em focusing} of families of such embedded, extremal 3--branes in a five dimensional background . The essential tool behind our analysis, is the well-known generalised Raychaudhuri equations for surface congruences. In particular, we find explicit solutions of these equations, which seem to show that families of 3--branes can focus along lower dimensional submanifolds depending on where the initial expansions are specified. We conclude with comments on the results obtained and possibilities about future work along similar lines.Comment: 11 pages, one figur