Oh, I love love love love the world!: Dramaturgical explorations in Homebody/Kabul

This thesis equivalent projects documents the internal and external devices of Tony Kushner’s 2004 play Homebody/Kabul through the lens of dramaturgy. Chapter One, Introduction, establishes definitions of dramaturgy from noted scholars Anne Cattaneo and Martin Esslin. Chapter Two, Dramaturgical Analysis of the Text, provides a frame for the external structure of the play, and investigates questions of the playwrights past work, the place production history, and the use of Nany Hatch Dupree’s book, A Historical Guide to the City of Kabul, and the changes in the text from the 2001 First Edition to the 2004 Revised Edition of Homebody/Kabul. The third chapter, Areas of Dramaturgical Inquiry, discusses eight key areas, including the history of Afghanistan; the development of the Taliban; the timeline suggested in the play by the 1998 embassy bombings; the multiple cases of substance abuse; questions about the alleged grave of Cain; the role of Frank Sinatra\u27s music in the play; the sevem foreign languages spoken in the text; and the changes in the script since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001

Formation of water and methanol in star forming molecular clouds

We study the formation of water and methanol in the dense cloud conditions to find the dependence of its production rate on the binding energies, reaction mechanisms, temperatures, and grain site number. We wish to find the effective grain surface area available for chemical reaction and the effective recombination timescales as functions of grain and gas parameters. We used a Monte Carlo simulation to follow the chemical processes occurring on the grain surface. We find that the formation rate of various molecules is strongly dependent on the binding energies. When the binding energies are high, it is very difficult to produce significant amounts of the molecular species. Instead, the grain is found to be full of atomic species. The production rates are found to depend on the number density in the gas phase. We show that the concept of the effective grain surface area, which we introduced in our earlier work, plays a significant role in grain chemistry. We compute the abundance of water and methanol and show that the results strongly depend on the density and composition in the gas phase, as well as various grain parameters. In the rate equation, it is generally assumed that the recombination efficiencies are independent of the grain parameters, and the surface coverage. Presently, our computed parameter $\alpha$ for each product is found to depend on the accretion rate, the grain parameters and the surface coverage of the grain. We compare our results obtained from the rate equation and the one from the effective rate equation, which includes $\alpha$. At the end we compare our results with the observed abundances.Comment: 12 pages, 16 figures in eps forma

“The media will always have axes to grind but the police have the capacity to project their side of the story better” – Neeraj Kumar

Neeraj Kumar recently retired as the Commissioner of Police Delhi, having served in the Indian Police Service for over 37 years in a wide range of roles. He has now penned his first book, a collection of stories pertaining to high-profile cases solved during his nine year tenure at the Central Bureau of Investigation. Ahead of the London launch of the book, he spoke to Sonali Campion about the IPS, security and corruption in India. Dial D for Don: Inside stories of CBI missions will be launched at the Nehru Centre on 13 July at 6.30pm. The event is free and open to all and will include a panel with leading journalist Owen Bennett Jones and the author. Details here

Baleful Effects of the Commercial Birth Control Pills and Focus on Frontier Herbal Contraceptives Devoid of Side Effects

Abstract: The present review encompasses the contraception, methods of contraception, hormonal or chemical birth control pills and the herbal products having contraceptive activity with their merits and demerits. The commercially available birth control pills are detrimental to women health, might be life-threatening sometimes. The detrimental effects posed by such pills are: fat deposition in the liver, kidney and uterus, prevention of metabolism and further conception, disruption of the epithelial layer of the uterus, irregular and painful menstruation, breast cancer and ultimately permanent infertility. This study will help us to view the undeniable baleful effects of the commercial birth control pills and thus will rush us to explore some herbal birth control pills that will be cheaper, having no side effects and might be effective for the sexes (male & female). A research work has already been conducted in this regard which might be an evolutionary step in this realm

Influence of blanching and guar gum pretreatments on total phenolic content and antioxidant activity of cabinet-dried white bitter gourd Momordica charantia L.

Currently, the global food industry is experiencing a shift in consumer preference towards natural sources of antioxidants derived from edible fruits and vegetables. In view of this, white skinned bitter gourd with bioactive properties has great potential. Additionally, guar gum has the characteristic ability to form strong hydrogen bonds with water molecules, thereby reducing shrinkage during dehydration. Thus, the present investigation was carried out to study the influence of blanching and guar gum pretreatment on the retention of the total phenolic content (TPC) stability and antioxidant activity (AA) of white Momordica charantia L. when cabinet dried at 60±5 °C. The results are indicative of a significant (P values of < 0.05) impact of using guar gum along with blanching before dehydration of white Momordica charantia. The findings obtained clearly show the positive impact of guar gum on the stability and retention of TPC (Folin Ciocalteau) and AA (percentage of 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl DPPH scavenging activity) in the dried product in comparison to the untreated control. Water Blanching + 1% Guar gum (T5) and 2%Salt Blanching + 0.2% Potassium meta bisulphite + 1%Sodium carbonate + 1% Guar gum (T16) showed higher AA [20.29% (T5) and 40.13% (T16)] and TPC [30.8 (T5) and 39.5 (T16) GAE per 100 g of dried weight (DW)]. Therefore, the application of guar gum as a pretreatment with blanching turns out to be beneficial for higher retention of TPC and AA, thereby maintaining product quality as a whole

A Real-Time Approach for Smart Building Operations Prediction Using Rule-Based Complex Event Processing and SPARQL Query

Due to intelligent, adaptive nature towards various operations and their ability to provide maximum comfort to the occupants residing in them, smart buildings are becoming a pioneering area of research. Since these architectures leverage the Internet of Things (IoT), there is a need for monitoring different operations (Occupancy, Humidity, Temperature, CO2, etc.) to provide sustainable comfort to the occupants. This paper proposes a novel approach for intelligent building operations monitoring using rule-based complex event processing and query-based approaches for dynamically monitoring the different operations. Siddhi is a complex event processing engine designed for handling multiple sources of event data in real time and processing it according to predefined rules using a decision tree. Since streaming data is dynamic in nature, to keep track of different operations, we have converted the IoT data into an RDF dataset. The RDF dataset is ingested to Apache Kafka for streaming purposes and for stored data we have used the GraphDB tool that extracts information with the help of SPARQL query. Consequently, the proposed approach is also evaluated by deploying the large number of events through the Siddhi CEP engine and how efficiently they are processed in terms of time. Apart from that, a risk estimation scenario is also designed to generate alerts for end users in case any of the smart building operations need immediate attention. The output is visualized and monitored for the end user through a tableau dashboard

Critical analysis of disaster management plan in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Disaster in hospital is when the resources of the hospitals (infrastructure, trained manpower and organization) are over-whelmed beyond its normal capacity and additional contingency measures are required to control the event. The calculation of hospital treatment capacity provides a baseline for Hospital Administration to plan accordingly. Critical anaylsis of the disaster management strategies as per the hospital emergency response checklist – an all hazards tool for hospital administrators and emergency managers helps in identifying the gaps and strengthening the disaster management plan.Methods: The study is a retrospective analysis of the response of a tertiary care hospital vis a vis hospital emergency response checklist.Results: The disaster preparedness was analyzed according to the hospital emergency response checklist and gaps were identified.Conclusions: The need for a comprehensive and easily deployable disaster management plan cannot be emphasized enough. The tools of continuous quality improvement can be used and analysis may be used to further strengthen the plan.