Agricultural diversification in India and role of urbanization

Indian agriculture is diversifying during the last two decades towards High-Value Commodities (HVCs) i.e., fruits, vegetables, milk, meat, and fish products. The pace has been accelerated during the decade of 1990s. HVCs account for a large share in the total value of agricultural production. Supply and demand side factors coupled with infrastructural development and innovative institutions drive these changes. In this paper, the focus is on diversification towards HVCs in the context of urbanization. Group of urban districts (districts with >1.5 million urban population) have a higher share of HVCs compared to the urban-surrounded (near urban districts) and other districts (districts in the hinterland). Among the HVCs, vegetables and meat products have a higher share in urban districts compared to the other two groups. Milk production is more widespread due to excellent network of co-operatives and infrastructure facilities. Using GIS (geographic Information System) approach it was found that urban-surrounded districts with better road network connection to urban centers have been able to diversify towards HVC's to meet the demand in the urban centers. Model results further confirm these findings. Thus, urbanization is a strong demand side driver promoting HVCs. Since urban population is growing at more than 3% per annum, demand for HVCs will drive their production. The analysis has also brought out regional variations in HVCs across different districts in the country that has implications on regional development and planning, and consequently on public and private sector investment strategies.

Self emulsifying drug delivery system (SEDDS): a review

Self-emulsifying drug delivery system is mixture of oils, surfactant, cosurfactant, which are emulsified in aqueous media under condition of gentle stirring and digestive motility that would be encountered in the gastrointestinal tract. SEDDS is one of the approaches to improve the oral bioavailability of the hydrophobic drugs. The liquid SEDDS can be converted into solid dosage form without affecting drug release property. Due to its small size the micro/nano emulsified drug can easily be absorbed through lymphatic pathways thereby bypassing the hepatic first-pass effect. The main benefit of this approach is that pre-dissolving the compound overcomes the initial rate limiting step of particulate dissolution in the aqueous environment within the GI tract. Self-emulsification occurs when entropy changes that favor dispersion is greater than the energy required to increase the surface area of the dispersion

Nonlinear DC-response in Composites: a Percolative Study

The DC-response, namely the $I$-$V$ and $G$-$V$ charateristics, of a variety of composite materials are in general found to be nonlinear. We attempt to understand the generic nature of the response charactersistics and study the peculiarities associated with them. Our approach is based on a simple and minimal model bond percolative network. We do simulate the resistor network with appropritate linear and nonlinear bonds and obtain macroscopic nonlinear response characteristics. We discuss the associated physics. An effective medium approximation (EMA) of the corresponding resistor network is also given.Comment: Text written in RevTEX, 15 pages (20 postscript figures included), submitted to Phys. Rev. E. Some minor corrections made in the text, corrected one reference, the format changed (from 32 pages preprint to 15 pages

Thin-shell wormholes in dilaton gravity

In this work we construct charged thin-shell Lorentzian wormholes in dilaton gravity. The exotic matter required for the construction is localized in the shell and the energy conditions are satisfied outside the shell. The total amount of exotic matter is calculated and its dependence with the parameters of the model is analysed.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure; v2: shortened and improved. Accepted for publication in Physical Review

Evolving wormhole geometries

We present here analytical solutions of General Relativity that describe evolving wormholes with a non-constant redshift function. We show that the matter that threads these wormholes is not necessarily exotic. Finally, we investigate some issues concerning WEC violation and human traversability in these time-dependent geometries.Comment: 12 pages latex, 3 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. D., Title correcte

Anisotropic Null String Cosmologies

We study string propagation in an anisotropic, cosmological background. We solve the equations of motion and the constraints by performing a perturbative expansion of the string coordinates in powers of c^2, the world-sheet speed of light. To zeroth order the string is approximated by a tensionless string (since c is proportional to the string tension T). We obtain exact, analytical expressions for the zeroth and the first order solutions and we discuss some cosmological implications.Comment: 9 pages, plain Te

Exact solutions in two-dimensional string cosmology with back reaction

We present analytic cosmological solutions in a model of two-dimensional dilaton gravity with back reaction. One of these solutions exhibits a graceful exit from the inflationary to the FRW phase and is nonsingular everywhere. A duality related second solution is found to exist only in the ``pre-big-bang'' epoch and is singular at $\tau = 0$. In either case back reaction is shown to play a crucial role in determining the specific nature of these geometries.Comment: Shortened slightly, references added, to appear in Physical Review D (Rapid Communications). 16 pages, RevTex, 3 PostScript figure