Toxicological health risk through groundwater uranium exposure for different age groups in the Chandrapur district, Maharashtra

Overexploitation and pollution of groundwater are one the reasons for its contamination. In this context, natural uranium contamination in groundwater is of more concern due to its toxicological risk. In this research carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic risks due to uranium contamination were evaluated referring standard equations given by United State Environmental Protection Agency and compared with the guidelines prescribed by Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) and World Health Organization (WHO). While conducting this research 116 groundwater samples were collected from 15 talukas of Chandrapur district and analyzed for uranium using LED fluorimeter. The concentration of uranium was found between 0.02 µg/L to 417.74 µg/L. Additionally, during this investigation carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic risk for 10-year children and 70-year adult was calculated. Excess Cancer Risk (ECR) values for children were in the range between 8.26E-09 to 1.40E-04 for mortality and 8.26E-09 to 1.40E-04 for morbidity. ECR for 70-year adult was found to be in the range of 7.19E-08 to 1.22E-03 for mortality and 1.17E-07 to 1.99E-03 for morbidity. Thus, 8.62% of the adults showed ECR for mortality and 12.06% for morbidity and were above the guidelines of AERB. For children, both mortality and morbidity values were below the standard. The noncarcinogenic risks (LADD) for adults and children were found in 6.89% samples. The HQ for adult and children was observed in 6.89% and 7.75% samples, respectively and was above the guidelines of WHO. The Annual Effective Dose was below the guideline of WHO for both life stages. Thus, in this investigation out of 116 samples 15 samples were above the permissible guidelines of WHO for uranium. On the basis of ECR, LADD and HQ values adults are more exposed to the carcinogenic effects as compared to the children but children are more exposed to chemotoxical effects than the radiological effects

Residual activity of diclosulam applied to soybean on cotton crop in succession.

The application of alternative herbicides to replace glyphosate can affect the succession cropping due to the persistence in the soil. The aim of this work was to evaluate the residual activity of diclosulam applied to a pre-emergence soybean crop on a cotton plant grown in succession. The present study used a randomized complete block design with five replicates and seven doses of diclosulam (0, 2.19, 4.38, 8.75, 17.5, 35 and 70 g a.i. ha-1). The cotton was sown 112 days after application of the herbicide, with accumulated rainfall of 637 mm during the soybean cycle. Variables related to photosynthetic characteristics, phytointoxication, growth, components of production and productivity were evaluated in both crops. Diclosulam did not affect the soybean cultivar M7739 IPRO. The residual activity of diclosulam (35 g ha-1) on cotton caused phytointoxication at a rate of 5% at 14, 20 and 27 days after sowing (DAS). However, the components of production, productivity and the cotton fiber quality were not affected up to 70 g ha-1 of diclosulam

Complete classification of purely magnetic, non-rotating and non-accelerating perfect fluids

Recently the class of purely magnetic non-rotating dust spacetimes has been shown to be empty (Wylleman, Class. Quant. Grav. 23, 2727). It turns out that purely magnetic rotating dust models are subject to severe integrability conditions as well. One of the consequences of the present paper is that also rotating dust cannot be purely magnetic when it is of Petrov type D or when it has a vanishing spatial gradient of the energy density. For purely magnetic and non-rotating perfect fluids on the other hand, which have been fully classified earlier for Petrov type D (Lozanovski, Class. Quant. Grav. 19, 6377), the fluid is shown to be non-accelerating if and only if the spatial density gradient vanishes. Under these conditions, a new and algebraically general solution is found, which is unique up to a constant rescaling, which is spatially homogeneous of Bianchi type $VI_0$, has degenerate shear and is of Petrov type I($M^\infty)$ in the extended Arianrhod-McIntosh classification. The metric and the equation of state are explicitly constructed and properties of the model are briefly discussed. We finally situate it within the class of normal geodesic flows with degenerate shear tensor.Comment: 12 pages; introduction partly rewritten, notation made more clear, table of results adde

Gravitomagnetism and the Clock Effect

The main theoretical aspects of gravitomagnetism are reviewed. It is shown that the gravitomagnetic precession of a gyroscope is intimately connected with the special temporal structure around a rotating mass that is revealed by the gravitomagnetic clock effect. This remarkable effect, which involves the difference in the proper periods of a standard clock in prograde and retrograde circular geodesic orbits around a rotating mass, is discussed in detail. The implications of this effect for the notion of ``inertial dragging'' in the general theory of relativity are presented. The theory of the clock effect is developed within the PPN framework and the possibility of measuring it via spaceborne clocks is examined.Comment: 27 pages, LaTeX, submitted to Proc. Bad Honnef Meeting on: GYROS, CLOCKS, AND INTERFEROMETERS: TESTING GENERAL RELATIVITY IN SPACE (22 - 27 August 1999; Bad Honnef, Germany

Beans with bugs: Covert carnivory and infested seed selection by the red-nosed cuxiú monkey

Members of the Neotropical primate genus Chiropotes eat large volumes of immature seeds. However, such items are often low in available proteins, and digestion of seeds is further inhibited by tannins. This suggests that overall plant-derived protein intake is relatively low. We examined the presence of insect larvae in partially eaten fruits, compared with intact fruit on trees, and examined fecal pellets for the presence of larvae. We found that red-nosed cuxiú (Chiropotes albinasus) individuals may supplement their limited seed-derived protein intake by ingesting seed-inhabiting insects. Comparison of fruits partially eaten for their seeds with those sampled directly from trees showed that fruits with insect-containing seeds were positively selected in 20 of the 41 C. albinasus diet items tested, suggesting that fruits with infested seeds are actively selected by foraging animals. We found no differences in accessibility to seeds, that is, no differences in husk penetrability between fruits with infested and uninfested seeds excluding the likelihood that insect-infestation results in easier access to the seeds in such fruits. Additionally, none of the C. albinasus fecal samples showed any evidence of living pupae or larvae, indicating that infesting larvae are digested. Our findings raise the possibility that these seed-predating primates might provide net benefits to the plant species they feed on, since they feed from many species of plants and their actions may reduce the populations of seed-infesting insects

The mass shell in the semi-relativistic Pauli-Fierz model

We consider the semi-relativistic Pauli-Fierz model for a single free electron interacting with the quantized radiation field. Employing a variant of Pizzo's iterative analytic perturbation theory we construct a sequence of ground state eigenprojections of infra-red cutoff, dressing transformed fiber Hamiltonians and prove its convergence, as the cutoff goes to zero. Its limit is the ground state eigenprojection of a certain Hamiltonian unitarily equivalent to a renormalized fiber Hamiltonian acting in a coherent state representation space. The ground state energy is an exactly two-fold degenerate eigenvalue of the renormalized Hamiltonian, while it is not an eigenvalue of the original fiber Hamiltonian unless the total momentum is zero. These results hold true, for total momenta inside a ball about zero of arbitrary radius p>0, provided that the coupling constant is sufficiently small depending on p and the ultra-violet cutoff. Along the way we prove twice continuous differentiability and strict convexity of the ground state energy as a function of the total momentum inside that ball.Comment: 44 page

Optical signature of symmetry variations and spin-valley coupling in atomically thin tungsten dichalcogenides

Motivated by the triumph and limitation of graphene for electronic applications, atomically thin layers of group VI transition metal dichalcogenides are attracting extensive interest as a class of graphene-like semiconductors with a desired band-gap in the visible frequency range. The monolayers feature a valence band spin splitting with opposite sign in the two valleys located at corners of 1st Brillouin zone. This spin-valley coupling, particularly pronounced in tungsten dichalcogenides, can benefit potential spintronics and valleytronics with the important consequences of spin-valley interplay and the suppression of spin and valley relaxations. Here we report the first optical studies of WS2 and WSe2 monolayers and multilayers. The efficiency of second harmonic generation shows a dramatic even-odd oscillation with the number of layers, consistent with the presence (absence) of inversion symmetry in even-layer (odd-layer). Photoluminescence (PL) measurements show the crossover from an indirect band gap semiconductor at mutilayers to a direct-gap one at monolayers. The PL spectra and first-principle calculations consistently reveal a spin-valley coupling of 0.4 eV which suppresses interlayer hopping and manifests as a thickness independent splitting pattern at valence band edge near K points. This giant spin-valley coupling, together with the valley dependent physical properties, may lead to rich possibilities for manipulating spin and valley degrees of freedom in these atomically thin 2D materials

Weak Gravitational Field in Finsler-Randers Space and Raychaudhuri Equation

The linearized form of the metric of a Finsler - Randers space is studied in relation to the equations of motion, the deviation of geodesics and the generalized Raychaudhuri equation are given for a weak gravitational field. This equation is also derived in the framework of a tangent bundle. By using Cartan or Berwald-like connections we get some types "gravito - electromagnetic" curvature. In addition we investigate the conditions under which a definite Lagrangian in a Randers space leads to Einstein field equations under the presence of electromagnetic field. Finally, some applications of the weak field in a generalized Finsler spacetime for gravitational waves are given.Comment: 22 pages, matches version published in GER

Gravitational ultrarelativistic spin-orbit interaction and the weak equivalence principle

It is shown that the gravitational ultrarelativistic spin-orbit interaction violates the weak equivalence principle in the traditional sense. This fact is a direct consequence of the Mathisson-Papapetrou equations in the frame of reference comoving with a spinning test particle. The widely held assumption that the deviation of a spinning test body from a geodesic trajectory is caused by tidal forces is not correctComment: 12 page