A Study of Diabetes among Inmates of Old Age Homes in Mysore City

The human population is graying, and with it concerns about the aged have been growing. Even as birth rates fall steeply, improved healthcare systems have contributed to unprecedented longevity levels. The challenges of taking care of the elderly now increasingly face developing nations. The boundary of old age cannot be defined exactly because it does not have the same meaning in all societies. The United Nations International Assembly on Ageing has taken 60 years as the boundary to define old age.1 Globally, the number of older persons (aged 60 years or over) is expected to be more than double, from 841 million people in 2013 to more than 2 billion in 2050. Presently, about two-thirds of the world’s elderly live in developing countries. By 2050, nearly 8 in 10 of the world’s older population will live in the less developed regions.2 India, as the second most populous country, is witnessing an “aging revolution.” The major issues in India aging are: rapid growth of older segment; feminization of aging; poverty in old age; high growth of 80 + group and decline in family support base.

LOCAL TOURISTS OF RUHUNA (YALA) NATIONAL PARK: ZONAL VISITATION, TRAVEL COST A~ID WILLINGNESS TO PAY

Ruhuna (Yala) National Park, a strict nature reserve which lies on the southern coast of SriLanka, covers 97,878 hectares ofland. The park comprises of secondary forest where manyspecies of mammals, avifauna, reptiles and birds .are living in substantial numbers. ThePark has achieved the international reputation. Evidently, all categories of some 100,000tourists, 70 percent of which are local tourists visit the Park annually. Tourism in asanctuary is both nature based and sustainable, and sustainability incorporatesenvironmental, socio-cultural and economic dimensions. There should be a control ofsupply-oriented management securing the environmental and economic benefits. Thepublic interest and enthusiasm in the Park could be used not only to market the product butalso to conserve the resources. Hence, the study attempted to analyze the local demand ofthe tourists for Ruhuna National Park with the view of improving Ruhuna National Park asan attractive tourist's destination.The local demand of the tourists for Ruhuna National Park is measured as zonal visitationrate, travel cost, and their willingness to pay. The highest visitation rate is recorded fromBadulla (5.6) while the lowest rate is recorded from Matale (2.1) The visitors from Matalehave the highest total travel cost (Rs. 732.50). Hambantota visitors spend Rs. 115.04 as thetotal travel cost. However, the multiple regression analysis shows that the visitation ratewith income, age, educational level and total travel cost excluding the visitors from Mataraand Hambantota districts, is highly correlated (r2 = 0.935). However, the age issignificantly correlated with visitation rate while total travel cost has a significant negativecorrelation with the visitation rate. According to the local visitors, the willingness to payper person per year is calculated as Rs. I l6.41.

Biodiversity baseline survey of up country tea plantations in Nuwara Eliya District, Sri Lanka

Tea plantation is a prominent and very abundant land use type in the up country of Sri Lanka. Though they are disturbed habitats they still sustains a significant portion of up country biodiversity. Here we have studied the floral and faunal diversity of five selected tea estates in the Nuwara Eliya District, Sri Lanka. Though this type of studies has been carried out previously, most of them have only covered a few well known taxa. The present study has covered all vertebrate taxa excluding fishes, three main invertebrate taxa namely butterflies, odonates (dragonflies and damselflies) and land mollusks and higher plants widening the knowledge on biodiversity in up country tea plantations and providing baseline information for biodiversity conservation. Seven major habitat types were surveyed randomly in order to record flora and fauna. They are managed tea plantations, streams and ponds, wet marshy grasslands, fuel wood plantations, abandoned land, rock outcrops and anthropogenic habitats. Field work was carried out randomly from March 2011 to June 2012. Both day and night sampling was done and direct observations, indirect observations and reliable information from local people were used for the survey. Visual encounter survey method was the main sampling technique used during field surveys.Presence of 245 fauna and 158 flora species at the up country tea plantations in Nuwara Eliya district was confirmed during the study carried out. The vertebrates comprises of 22 amphibians, 19 reptiles, 95 birds and 21 mammals including 16, 10, 10 and 2 endemics respectively. The recorded bird fauna consists of 16 migrant species and 1 species known to have both migrant and resident population within the country. The invertebrates recorded from the study comprises of 43 butterflies, 18 land snails and 27 odonates. Respectively these invertebrate taxa consist of 2, 8 and 7 endemic species. A total of 28 vertebrates and 10 invertebrates are threatened species according to the 2007 Redlist of threatened fauna and flora in Sri Lanka. Endangered species such as the agamid lizards Calotes liocephalus and Ceratophora stoddartii, butterflies Udara lanka and Euthalia lubentina were found to be very rare within the study area as all of them were recorded on only one occasion during the study period. The 158 species of flora recorded from the study area comprised of 95 introduced species, 52 native species and 11 endemic species. From the introduced plants 46 were weeds and 17 were invasive plants. 5 of the recorded plant species are nationally threatenedOne of the main conservation issues observed at the study area was the spread of alien invasive species. Invasive fauna such as the mollusks Milax gagates, Allopeas gracile, Bradybaena similaris, Deroceras reticulatum and invasive flora such as Clidermia hirta, Eupatorium riparium and Ludwigia peruviana were commonly found in the surveyed areas. Other main conservation issues are use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and soil erosion. Increase of organic farming practices and habitat enrichment programs may improve the biodiversity in these plantations. Aforestation of native plant species especially butterfly host plants and fruit trees, eradication of alien invasive species, establishment of reserved forest areas are some steps that can be followed in order to achieve this

Quadrupole Anisotropy in Dihadron Azimuthal Correlations in Central dd++Au Collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200 GeV

The PHENIX collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) reports measurements of azimuthal dihadron correlations near midrapidity in $d$$+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}$=200 GeV. These measurements complement recent analyses by experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) involving central $p$$+$Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}$=5.02 TeV, which have indicated strong anisotropic long-range correlations in angular distributions of hadron pairs. The origin of these anisotropies is currently unknown. Various competing explanations include parton saturation and hydrodynamic flow. We observe qualitatively similar, but larger, anisotropies in $d$$+$Au collisions compared to those seen in $p$$+$Pb collisions at the LHC. The larger extracted $v_2$ values in $d$$+$Au collisions at RHIC are consistent with expectations from hydrodynamic calculations owing to the larger expected initial-state eccentricity compared with that from $p$$+$Pb collisions. When both are divided by an estimate of the initial-state eccentricity the scaled anisotropies follow a common trend with multiplicity that may extend to heavy ion data at RHIC and the LHC, where the anisotropies are widely thought to arise from hydrodynamic flow.Comment: 375 authors, 7 pages, 5 figures. Published in Phys. Rev. Lett. v2 has minor changes to text and figures in response to PRL referee suggestions. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm

Cross Section and Transverse Single-Spin Asymmetry of η\eta Mesons in p↑+pp^{\uparrow}+p Collisions at s=200\sqrt{s}=200 GeV at Forward Rapidity

We present a measurement of the cross section and transverse single-spin asymmetry ($A_N$) for $\eta$ mesons at large pseudorapidity from $\sqrt{s}=200$~GeV $p^{\uparrow}+p$ collisions. The measured cross section for $0.5<p_T<5.0$~GeV/$c$ and $3.0<|\eta|<3.8$ is well described by a next-to-leading-order perturbative-quantum-chromodynamics calculation. The asymmetries $A_N$ have been measured as a function of Feynman-$x$ ($x_F$) from $0.2<|x_{F}|<0.7$, as well as transverse momentum ($p_T$) from $1.0<p_T<4.5$~GeV/$c$. The asymmetry averaged over positive $x_F$ is $\langle{A_{N}}\rangle=0.061{\pm}0.014$. The results are consistent with prior transverse single-spin measurements of forward $\eta$ and $\pi^{0}$ mesons at various energies in overlapping $x_F$ ranges. Comparison of different particle species can help to determine the origin of the large observed asymmetries in $p^{\uparrow}+p$ collisions.Comment: 484 authors, 13 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables, 2008 data. v2 is version accepted by Phys. Rev. D. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be)publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm

Cross section for bbˉb\bar{b} production via dielectrons in d++Au collisions at sNN=200\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200 GeV

We report a measurement of $e^+e^-$ pairs from semileptonic heavy-flavor decays in $d$$+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200$ GeV. Exploring the mass and transverse-momentum dependence of the yield, the bottom decay contribution can be isolated from charm, and quantified by comparison to {\sc pythia} and {\sc mc@nlo} simulations. The resulting $b\bar{b}$-production cross section is $\sigma^{d{\rm Au}}_{b\bar{b}}=1.37{\pm}0.28({\rm stat}){\pm}0.46({\rm syst})$~mb, which is equivalent to a nucleon-nucleon cross section of $\sigma^{NN}_{bb}=3.4\pm0.8({\rm stat}){\pm}1.1({\rm syst})\ \mu$b.Comment: 375 authors, 16 pages, 8 figures, 7 tables, 2008 data. Submitted to Phys. Rev. C Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm

Double Spin Asymmetry of Electrons from Heavy Flavor Decays in p+p Collisions at sqrt(s)=200 GeV

We report on the first measurement of double-spin asymmetry, A_LL, of electrons from the decays of hadrons containing heavy flavor in longitudinally polarized p+p collisions at sqrt(s)=200 GeV for p_T= 0.5 to 3.0 GeV/c. The asymmetry was measured at mid-rapidity (|eta|<0.35) with the PHENIX detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The measured asymmetries are consistent with zero within the statistical errors. We obtained a constraint for the polarized gluon distribution in the proton of |Delta g/g(log{_10}x= -1.6^+0.5_-0.4, {mu}=m_T^c)|^2 < 0.033 (1 sigma), based on a leading-order perturbative-quantum-chromodynamics model, using the measured asymmetry.Comment: 385 authors, 17 pages, 15 figures, 5 tables. Submitted to Phys. Rev. D. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm

ϕ\phi meson production in dd++Au collisions at sNN=200\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200 GeV

The PHENIX experiment has measured $\phi$ meson production in $d$$+$Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200$ GeV using the dimuon and dielectron decay channels. The $\phi$ meson is measured in the forward (backward) $d$-going (Au-going) direction, $1.2<y<2.2$ ($-2.2<y<-1.2$) in the transverse-momentum ($p_T$) range from 1--7 GeV/$c$, and at midrapidity $|y|<0.35$ in the $p_T$ range below 7 GeV/$c$. The $\phi$ meson invariant yields and nuclear-modification factors as a function of $p_T$, rapidity, and centrality are reported. An enhancement of $\phi$ meson production is observed in the Au-going direction, while suppression is seen in the $d$-going direction, and no modification is observed at midrapidity relative to the yield in $p$$+$$p$ collisions scaled by the number of binary collisions. Similar behavior was previously observed for inclusive charged hadrons and open heavy flavor indicating similar cold-nuclear-matter effects.Comment: 484 authors, 16 pages, 12 figures, 6 tables. v1 is the version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. C. Data tables for the points plotted in the figures are given in the paper itsel