2,545 research outputs found
Socio-economic and Environmental Perspectives of Sustainable Watershed Eco-System in Union Territory of Pondicherry
The study conducted in the Karaikal region of the Union Territory of Pondicherry during 2004-05 has made a comparison of watershed and conventional systems. The crop diversification index has been found 0.28 in watershed and 0.32 in the conventional system. The study has revealed that nearly all the farmers in the watershed and only 40 per cent in the conventional system apply organic fertilizers. Moreover, farmers apply more fertilizers in the conventional (235 kg/ha) than watershed (210 kg/ha) system. The index of yield stability for all the crops has been found to be 0.98 in the watershed and 0.84 in the conventional system. The gross return has been found higher by 11.65 per cent, and net return by 32.18 per cent in the watershed than the conventional system. The input self-sufficiency ratio has been found to be 0.52 in the watershed and 0.47 in the conventional system. The analysis has indicated that if the agricultural income were considered, there has been no significant variation in food security in the two systems. The analysis has further revealed that there is a potential in promoting watershed system of farming for which it is necessary to devise policies that will provide incentives to watershed farmers both directly and indirectly. Until effective biological measures of soil fertilization are introduced, polices could be adopted to promote the application of biological and chemical fertilizers in a balanced way, so as to maintain soil structure and sustain or increase crop yields.Agricultural and Food Policy,
In silico identification of potential inhibitors for human aurora kinase b
Cell cycle progression through mitosis and meiosis involves regulation by serine/threonine kinases from the aurora family. Aurora kinase b (Aurkb) is mainly involved in the proper segregation of chromosomes during mitosis as well as meiosis. However, over expression of Aurkb leads to the unequal distribution of genetic information creating aneuploid cells, a hallmark of cancer. Thus, Aurkb can be used as an effective molecular target for computer-aided drug discovery against cancer. Existing Aurkb inhibitors are less efficient, hence an in silico work was carried out to identify novel potent inhibitors. Three published inhibitors azd1152, zm447439 and N-(4-{[6-methoxy-7-(3-morpholin-4-ylpropoxy) quinazolin- 4-yl] amino} phenyl) benzamide were subjected to high throughput virtual screening of over 1 million entries from a ligand info meta database, to generate a 1161 compound library. The crystal structure was optimized and energy was minimized applying an OPLS force field in Maestro v9.0. Molecular docking using Glide was performed to predict the binding orientation of the prepared ligand molecule into a grid of 20*20*20 Å created around the centroid of the optimized human Aurkb protein. Nine lead molecules with good binding affinity with human Aurkb were identified. In silico pharmacokinetics study for these nine lead molecules has shown no ADME violation. Analysis of lead ‘1’- human Aurkb docking complex has revealed a XP Gscore of -10.20 kcal/mol with a highly stabilized hydrogen bond network with Asp218 and Ala157 and good Van der wall interactions. The docking complex coincides well with the native co- crystallized human Aurkb and inhibitor zm447439 complex. Thus, lead 1 would be highly useful for developing potential drug molecules for the treatment of cancer
A Resistive Wideband Space Beam Splitter
We present the design, construction and measurements of the electromagnetic
performance of a wideband space beam splitter. The beam splitter is designed to
power divide the incident radiation into reflected and transmitted components
for interferometer measurement of spectral features in the mean cosmic radio
background. Analysis of a 2-element interferometer configuration with a
vertical beam splitter between a pair of antennas leads to the requirement that
the beam splitter be a resistive sheet with sheet resistance {\eta}o /2, where
{\eta}o is the impedance of free space. The transmission and reflection
properties of such a sheet is computed for normal and oblique incidences and
for orthogonal polarizations of the incident electric field. We have
constructed such an electromagnetic beam splitter as a square soldered grid of
resistors of value 180 Ohms (approximately {\eta}o /2) and a grid size of 0.1
m, and present measurements of the reflection and transmission coefficients
over a wide frequency range between 50 and 250 MHz in which the wavelength well
exceeds the mesh size. Our measurements of the coefficients for voltage
transmission and reflection agree to within 5% with physical optics modeling of
the wave propagation, which takes into account edge diffraction.Comment: 14 pages,17 figure
Test of Convergence in Agricultural Factor Productivity: A Semiparametric Approach
We tested for club convergence in U.S. agricultural total factory productivity using a sigma convergence test. We used the same club of states as used by McCunn and Huffman as well as different states within 10 clubs identified by the cluster analysis. Results showed convergence was evident only in a few club groups. Clusters group identified using a statistical method identified only converging clubs. Variables affecting total factor productivity among states were identified using parametric, semiparametric and nonparametric methods. Semiparametric and nonparametric methods gave a better fit than a parametric method as indicated by the specification test. Our results indicated that health care expenditure, public research and extension investment, and private expenditure are important variables impacting total factor productivity differences across states.Clubs, sigma convergence, cluster analysis, semiparametric and nonparametric methods, Productivity Analysis, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,
Development of a scalable generic platform for adaptive optics real time control
The main objective of the present project is to explore the viability of an
adaptive optics control system based exclusively on Field Programmable Gate
Arrays (FPGAs), making strong use of their parallel processing capability. In
an Adaptive Optics (AO) system, the generation of the Deformable Mirror (DM)
control voltages from the Wavefront Sensor (WFS) measurements is usually
through the multiplication of the wavefront slopes with a predetermined
reconstructor matrix. The ability to access several hundred hard multipliers
and memories concurrently in an FPGA allows performance far beyond that of a
modern CPU or GPU for tasks with a well defined structure such as Adaptive
Optics control. The target of the current project is to generate a signal for a
real time wavefront correction, from the signals coming from a Wavefront
Sensor, wherein the system would be flexible to accommodate all the current
Wavefront Sensing techniques and also the different methods which are used for
wavefront compensation. The system should also accommodate for different data
transmission protocols (like Ethernet, USB, IEEE 1394 etc.) for transmitting
data to and from the FPGA device, thus providing a more flexible platform for
Adaptive Optics control. Preliminary simulation results for the formulation of
the platform, and a design of a fully scalable slope computer is presented.Comment: Paper presented as part of SPIE ICOP 2015 Conference Proceeding
A Study of Corporate Diversification and Restructuring Activities in the 1980s and 1990s Using Multiple Measures
Using popular/common measures of diversification employed by industrial organization scholars (Jacquemin-Berry entropy measure) and strategy scholars (size of the primary business segment), this study examines the corporate diversification and restructuring activities of American firms (sample from the Fortune 250 list) in the 1980s and 1990s. There is empirical support for the widespread notion that in the 1980s and 1990s, firms underwent major restructuring efforts by divesting unrelated (unprofitable) businesses and strengthening their core business units and related segments. Additionally, the results illustrate the consistencies and discrepancies between the above measures
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