London's urban heat island: Impact on current and future energy consumption in office buildings

This article is available open access and shared under a Creative Commons license: (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Copyright @ 2011 Elsevier B.V.This paper presents the results of a computational study on the energy consumption and related CO2 emissions for heating and cooling of an office building within the Urban Heat Island of London, currently and in the future. The study developed twenty weather files in an East-West axis through London; the weather files were constructed according to future climate change scenario for 2050 suitable for the UK which have been modified to represent specific locations within the London UHI based on measurements and predictions from a program developed for this purpose (LSSAT). The study simulated an office with typical construction, heat gains and operational patterns with an advanced thermal simulation program (IESVE). The predictions confirm that heating load decreases, cooling load and overheating hours increase as the office location moves from rural to urban sites and from present to future years. It is shown that internal heat gains are an important factor affecting energy performance and that night cooling using natural ventilation will have a beneficial effect at rural and city locations. As overheating will increase in the future, more buildings will use cooling; it is shown that this might lead to a five-fold increase of CO2 emission for city centre offices in London in 2050. The paper presents detailed results of the typical office placed on the East-West axis of the city, arguing the necessity to consider using weather files based on climate projections and urbanheat island for the design of currentbuildings to safeguard their efficiency in the future.EPSR

Comparative evaluation of procoagulant and proinflammatory markers in drug naive versus oral contraceptive pill’s (OCP’s) treated Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) women.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrine disorder of young women. There is a spectacular increase in the prevalence of PCOS all over world especially in Asia. The condition seems to be on rise in Kashmir valley although systemic studies on the subject are underway. First line of treatment is often the oral contraceptive pills (OCP’s) as most of these women attend to various gynaecologists and they desire menstrual regulation. Since there is plethora of data that PCOS women have evidence of enhanced markers of inflammation and indicators of coagulation. Therefore treatment with OCP’s may worsen the metabolic, inflammatory and coagulation parameters in this population. We undertook this study to investigate the effect of OCP treatment procoagulant and proinflammatory markers in women with PCOS. The results may therefore translate in to the clinical practice

A Study on Awareness and Ease of Using E-Resources with Special Reference to Bengaluru City University Affiliated Colleges

The main purpose of the study is to investigate the awareness and use of electronic resources or e-resources among the faculty and students of Bengaluru City University (BCU). A questionnaire based survey method has been adopted and used in this research to collect the primary data from the respondents. The analysis of the collected data also covers the purpose of using e-resources, how users learned about the e-resources, method of access, frequency of the type of e-resources used, users preferred format, problems faced while using e-resources and satisfaction level of the users. In the study found that 89% of the respondents are aware of the e-resources, 52% of the users preferred print as well as the e-resources, 64% of the users satisfied with the available e-resources, low internet speed and the difficulty in finding the right information is the biggest barrier as reported by the respondent

Effect of Metal Toxicity in Cyprinus carpio Linnaeus and Schizothorax niger Heckel with emphasis on Biochemical and Histopathological Parameters.

Due to scanty information regarding the metal toxicity in water bodies of Kashmir valley and their effects on the aquatic fauna, the present study was designed with the following objectives: 1) To study the toxicity of some metals viz. copper, zinc, iron, and manganese in Dal lake and River Jhelum. 2) To study the concentration of these metals through Atomic absorption spectrophotometer in various organs/tissues viz. gills, liver, kidneys, and muscles of Schizothorax niger and Cyprinus carpio spp. 3) To study the subsequent effects of metals on biochemical parameters viz. total protein, albumin, globulin, blood glucose, urea, serum creatinine and cholesterol in both the fishes. 4) To study the subsequent effects of these metals, on the histomorphology of gills, liver, kidney and muscles of both the fishes.Digital copy of Thesis.University of Kashmir

Incidence, Histopathology and Immunodiagnosis of Paramphistomiasis in Sheep.

Kashmir is primarily an agricultural State and sheep treasure is an important source of earning to farming community. Sheep farming is an important source of livelihood for small and marginal farmers and landless labourers as it plays an important role in providing food, mutton, fibers, hides and manures. Mutton is consumed by a large fraction of total population of J&K, especially in Kashmir. These economically important animals graze in grasslands, meadows and other pasturelands viz., low and high altitudes. All these areas are bound by a number of small water bodies like ponds, ditches, wetlands etc. which form congenial habitat for different species of snails regarded to be intermediate host of Paramphistomes. It is at these sites that livestock is prone to get the infection of Paramphistomes by eating grass contaminated with metacercaria of said fluke.Digital copy of ThesisUniversity of Kashmi

In vitro and In vivo Validation of Folk Lore Claims of Thymus serpyllum

Traditional medicinal plants have a long history of therapeutic use. The beneficial health effects of medicinal plants is often attributed to their potent antioxidant activities due to the presence of secondary metabolites like the polyphenols, since diets rich in antioxidants are epidemiologically associated with a decreased incidence of age-related diseases in humans. Thymus serpyllum commonly known as Jawand in Kashmir is used as a culinary herb, as well as for aromatizing and traditional medicinal purposes. In the present study, the hexane, ethyl-acetate, ethanol, methanol and the aqueous extracts of Thymus serpyllum were studied for the antioxidant, antimicrobial and the anti inflammatory activities. The antioxidant activity was checked by four different methods- DPPH assay, lipid peroxidation assay of liver microsomes, lipid peroxidation assay and hydroxyl radical scavenging assay. The ethyl-acetate, butanol, ethanol, methnol and the aqueous extracts of Thymus serpyllum showed good antioxidant activities, but the methanolic extract being the most active one causing 89.84%, 57.32%, 66.8% and 77.14% inhibition of the radical activity in DPPH assay, lipid peroxidation assay of liver microsomes, lipid peroxidation assay and the hydroxyl radical scavenging assay respectively. The antimicrobial activity was checked by broth micro dilution method. The ethyl-acetate and the methanolic extract were found to be active against bacteria (both gram positive and gram negative) and fungi with MIC values ranging from 2000 to 4000μg/ml. The anti inflammatory activity was assessed by using the model of carregeenen induced edema in rats. The butanolic extract was found to beneficial against inflammation, causing a reduction of 25.23% and 56.07% of edema at doses 250mg/Kg body weight and 500mg/Kg body weight respectively

Effect of Single and Mixed Surfactants on Antioxidant Activity of Bio-Active Molecules

Surfactants have unique physico-chemical properties as a result of their amphiphillic molecular structure and are fundamental to life and living bodies.1 Most of amphiphiles display very important phenomena such as surface activity, wetting adsorption and micelle formation with the resultant functions like solubilization, emulsification, dispersion, drug delivery, ion transport etc.2,3 Micelles are colloidal particles with the size in the nanometre range, into which many amphiphillic molecules self assemble spontaneously.4 They are versatile products and have found application in emulsion polymerization,5,6 enhanced oil recovery,7 biomedical materials,8 and biomemitism.9 Surfactant mixtures have become more interesting than single surfactant solutions due to their wide technological applications and their molecular interactions on complex supramolecular systems.10 The interactions between water soluble polymers and surfactants are of considerable interest from an industrial point of view as well as because they mimic protein membrane interactions.11 The use of aqueous miceller media in kinetic studies is rapidly increasing with the aim to replace the conventional organic solvent based syntheses by micelle based syntheses, which not only provides a greater control over stereoselectivity but is environment friendly as well.12,1