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Not AvailableThe effects of climate change on agriculture are being witnessed all over the world. Rainfed agriculture is likely to be impacted severely in view of its’ high dependency on monsoon, the likelihood of increased extreme weather events due to aberrant behavior of south west monsoon. Anantapur, Akola, Solapur and Bijapur districts in India were selected for the study because, rainfed area is more than irrigated area and rainfall is the most critical factor affecting crop production in these districts. Major perceptions of climate change in the four rainfed study districts were prolonged dry spells, rise in temperatures, and delayed and shorter rains. Major adaptation measures towards climate change in four study districts were insurance, change in planting dates and cropping pattern. Majority of farmers positively agreed with attitude towards climate change statements which augurs well for current and future adaptation actions. As farm level adaptation becomes an increasingly important across the world, policies at all levels will need to be accounted for appropriate factors, including perceptions and how perceptions affect human behavior and adaptive actions. Adaptation through transformation (in the present study diversify to livestock and work as labor) has the potential to become an inclusive, engaging and empowering process that contributes to alternative and sustainable development pathways which needs to be encouraged. The present findings contribute to research on climate change adaptation decision making both as a function of intra-individual processes such as knowledge, attitudes; and extra-individual factors like policies, infrastructure, information, forecasts etc. along with socio-economic contributory factors which deserve due attention in the light of scaling up adaptations.Not Availabl

Spin glass behavior in frustrated quantum spin system CuAl2O4 with a possible orbital liquid state

CuAl2O4 is a normal spinel oxide having quantum spin, S = 1/2 for Cu2+. It is a rather unique feature that the Cu2+ ions of CuAl2O4 sit at a tetrahedral position, not like the usual octahedral position for many oxides. At low temperatures, it exhibits all the thermodynamic evidence of a quantum spin glass. For example, the polycrystalline CuAl2O4 shows a cusp centered at ∼2 K in the low-field dc magnetization data and a clear frequency dependence in the ac magnetic susceptibility while it displays logarithmic relaxation behavior in a time dependence of the magnetization. At the same time, there is a peak at ∼2.3 K in the heat capacity, which shifts towards a higher temperature with magnetic fields. On the other hand, there is no evidence of new superlattice peaks in the high-resolution neutron powder diffraction data when cooled from 40 to 0.4 K. This implies that there is no long-ranged magnetic order down to 0.4 K, thus confirming a spin glass-like ground state for CuAl2O4. Interestingly, there is no sign of structural distortion either although Cu2+ is a Jahn-Teller active ion. Thus, we claim that an orbital liquid state is the most likely ground state in CuAl2O4. Of further interest, it also exhibits a large frustration parameter, f = |θ CW/T m| ∼ 67, one of the largest values reported for spinel oxides. Our observations suggest that CuAl2O4 should be a rare example of a frustrated quantum spin glass with a good candidate for an orbital liquid state. © 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd141sciescopu