Socio-economic Impact Assessment of Livelihood Security in Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Aquaculture on the Tsunami-hit Lands of Andaman

Indian subcontinent is highly vulnerable to major natural disasters such as earthquakes, cyclones, floods, droughts, landslides and bushfires. Tsunami, which is a recent addition to this list, had occurred in the early morning of 26th December 2004, after a massive earthquake of 9.2 magnitude on the Richter scale in Andaman & Nicobar islands, resulting in the submergence of large area of farmland, and subsequent drying up of water bodies. It caused moisture stress for the standing crops, livestock and fisheries and affected the livelihood of the people to a large extent. In this context, the present study has been carried out to make the socio-economic impact assessment of livelihood security in agriculture, animal husbandry and aquaculture on the tsunami-hit lands of Andaman. Data have been collected from 150 sample respondents and the survey has been conducted for two periods, pre-tsunami and post-tsunami. The results have indicated that tsunami has ravaged the households, standing crops, farm inputs such as seed, feed and implements, livestock and poultry population, their sheds, fish ponds, etc., thereby affecting the basic livelihood security of the people in Andaman. The rehabilitation measures taken by the government and NGOs have improved their livelihoods by reviving agriculture considerably in the subsequent years and by creating employment opportunities in various farm and non-farm activities. The paper has suggested creating profitable livelihood security to vulnerable sections of the society in the existing socio-economic penury with holistic intervention of the community, government and NGOs.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Analysis of vibration based windmill coupled micromachined energy harvester

The present work exploits the centripetal, Coriolis and Euler forces generated in a rotating windmill. The MEMS device is placed on the blade of a windmill to harvest the energy. Modal analysis is carried out to optimize the dimensions of the structure to match the desired conditions. The real time response of the structure and the voltage generated in the piezoelectric layer are evaluated using transient analysis. It was noticed that Euler and Coriolis forces have a significant contribution in the initial time when the wind turbine accelerates from rest. The later portion is dominated by the Coriolis and Euler forces, and in some instances they cancel out each other. However, there is always a steady contribution from the centripetal force which is proportional to the magnitude of angular velocity of the wind turbine

Border Security using Raspberry Pi

Border Security is one of the major concerns for any country. Issues like political and economic instability in neighboring countries and border distribution demand a good border management and security system. The terrorist attacks that have been taking place over several years have increased the need of an improvised and high level security system. Hence, border infiltration monitoring and prevention is a system built to provide security at the borders. The device is based on the concepts of image capturing, cloud, and wireless data communication. Image processing concepts of noise removal, RGB to gray conversion, background subtraction and histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) are used to detect intrusion. Cloud is used to store the images of the intruder and retrieval at a farther place. Wireless data communication is used to send alert messages from the primary base station to the secondary base station. Further reactions are taken by handling manual robot for fire focusing to the enemy object by targeting and shooting and moving the robot towards enemy with robot detecting metals along its path for safety checking of any bomb present along its way

Estimation of annual risk of tuberculosis infection among children irrespective of BCG scar in the south zone of India

Objective: To estimate the proportion infected and compute Annual Risk of Tuberculosis Infection (ARTI) among children irrespective of BCG scar and compare with that among children without BCG scar. Methodology: Tuberculin survey was conducted in south zone of India as a part of the nation-wide survey to estimate the ARTI in different parts of the country and ARTI was computed among children without BCG scar excluding children with BCG scar. In this exercise, the tuberculin test results of children with BCG scar and irrespective of BCG scar were considered for analysis and the results were compared. Results: The prevalence of infection and ARTI estimated among children irrespective of BCG scar aged 1-9 years were 5.7% and 1.0% (95% C.I: 0.8-1.3) respectively. The corresponding figures among unvaccinated children were 5.9% and 1.0% (95% C.I: 0.7-1.4) respectively. The ARTI among children irrespective of BCG scar were similar to that among unvaccinated children. Conclusion: Estimation of proportion of children infected and computation of ARTI using mirror-image technique could be undertaken among children irrespective of BCG scar among children aged either from 1-9 years or 5-9 years

Ionospheric response to the 2009 sudden stratospheric warming over the equatorial, low, and middle latitudes in the South American sector

The present study investigates the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) and F-layer response in the Southern Hemisphere equatorial, low, and middle latitudes due to major sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event, which took place during January-February 2009 in the Northern Hemisphere. In this study, using 17 ground-based dual frequency GPS stations and two ionosonde stations spanning latitudes from 2.8°N to 53.8°S, longitudes from 36.7°W to 67.8°W over the South American sector, it is observed that the ionosphere was significantly disturbed by the SSW event from the equator to the midlatitudes. During day of year 26 and 27 at 14:00 UT, the TEC was two times larger than that observed during average quiet days. The vertical TEC at all 17 GPS and two ionosonde stations shows significant deviations lasting for several days after the SSW temperature peak. Using one GPS station located at Rio Grande (53.8°S, 67.8°W, midlatitude South America sector), it is reported for the first time that the midlatitude in the Southern Hemisphere was disturbed by the SSW event in the Northern Hemisphere.Fil: Fagundes, P. R.. Universidade do Vale do Paraíba; BrasilFil: Goncharenko, L. P.. Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Estados UnidosFil: De Abreu, A. J.. Universidade do Vale do Paraíba; BrasilFil: Venkatesh, K.. Universidade do Vale do Paraíba; BrasilFil: Pezzopane, M.. Istituto Nazionale Di Geofisica E Vulcanologia; ItaliaFil: De Jesus, R.. Universidade do Vale do Paraíba; BrasilFil: Gende, Mauricio Alfredo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Coster, A. J.. Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Estados UnidosFil: Pillat, V. G.. Universidade do Vale do Paraíba; Brasi

How to assess the acceptance of an electronic health record system?

Being able to access a patient’s clinical data in due time is critical to any medical setting. Clinical data is very diverse both in content and in terms of which system produces it. The Electronic Health Record (EHR) aggregates a patient’s clinical data and makes it available across different systems. Considering that user’s resistance is a critical factor in system implementation failure, the understanding of user behavior remains a relevant object of investigation. The purpose of this paper is to outline how we can assess the technology acceptance of an EHR using the Technology Acceptance Model 3 (TAM3) and the Delphi methodology. An assessment model is proposed in which findings are based on the results of a questionnaire answered by health professionals whose activities are supported by the EHR technology. In the case study simulated in this paper, the results obtained showed an average of 3 points and modes of 4 and 5, which translates to a good level of acceptance.The work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2019.The work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope DSAIPA/DS/0084/2018

Manuscrits lul·lians de la Biblioteca de Catalunya. I

We have studied the correlates of cell death during stalk cell differentiation in Dictyostelium discoideum. Our main findings are four. (i) There is a gradual increase in the number of cells with exposed phosphatidyl serine residues, an indicator of membrane asymmetry loss and increased permeability. Only presumptive stalk cells show this change in membrane asymmetry. Cells also show an increase in cell membrane permeability under conditions of calcium-induced stalk cell differentiation in cell monolayers. (ii) There is a gradual fall in mitochondrial membrane potential during development, again restricted to the presumptive stalk cells. (iii) The fraction of cells showing caspase-3 activity increases as development proceeds and then declines in the terminally differentiated fruiting body. (iv) There is no internucleosomal cleavage of DNA, or DNA fragmentation, in D. discoideum nor is there any calcium- and magnesium-dependent endonucleolytic activity in nuclear extracts from various developmental stages. However, nuclear condensation and peripheralization does occur in stalk cells. Thus, cell death in D. discoideum shows some, but not all, features of apoptotic cell death as recognized in other multicellular systems. These findings argue against the emergence of a single mechanism of 'programmed cell death (PCD)' before multicellularity arose during evolution