Further Studies of F-Region at Allahabad

Result of measurement of virtual height of the F-region carried out (mostly at night) during 1937-38 session on several wave frequencies are described. It is found that the nature of the equivalent height change varies in a marked manner from day to day. Sometimes the virtual height shows three maxima during a single night. A good correlation has been found to exist between the hour of occurrence of minimum virtual height of the F-region and the hour at which the barometer at ground level leads maximum pressure. Occasionally echoes from regions above the normal F-layer have been obtained, Occurrence of complex echoes is found to be associated with variation of one or other of the terrestrial magnetic elements. It is seen that contrary to the results obtained by many investigators the F-region exists till about 10 o'clock at nigh

Water poverty in the northeastern hill region (India): potential alleviation through multiple-use water systems: cross-learnings from Nepal Hills

Water poverty index / Construction / Multiple use / Water storage / Farming systems / Villages / Social aspects / Drip irrigation / India / Nepal / Nagaland / Mon district / Lampong Sheanghah

Bianchi type-II cosmological model: some remarks

Within the framework of Bianchi type-II (BII) cosmological model the behavior of matter distribution has been considered. It is shown that the non-zero off-diagonal component of Einstein tensor implies some severe restriction on the choice of matter distribution. In particular for a locally rotationally symmetric Bianchi type-II (LRS BII) space-time it is proved that the matter distribution should be strictly isotropic if the corresponding matter field possesses only non-zero diagonal components of the energy-momentum tensor.Comment: 3 page

SUBSTITUTION OF ROOTS WITH SMALL BRANCHES OF RAUWOLFIA SERPENTINA FOR THERAPEUTIC USES - A PHYTOCHEMICAL APPROACH

Rauwolfia serpentina commonly called Sarpagandha is a medicinal plant widely used in Ayurveda. As per the Ayurvedic literature, roots of this plant are used in cardiac disorder, cancer, mental illness and psychiatric disorder. To collect roots for medicinal purpose whole plant is uprooted on a mass scale from their natural habitat which is leading to depletion of resources, due to which plant may be difficult in near future for use in traditional systems of medicine. Present study was carried out to assess possibilities of using small branches of R. serpentina in place of its roots which will help in conservation of this plant and availability of raw material for therapeutic purposes. Roots and small branches of R. serpentina are compared on the basis of physicochemical analysis, phytochemical analysis, total phenolic contents, total flavonoid contents and high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) to evaluate the possibilities of using small branches in place of its roots. Results of phytochemical analysis and HPTLC of n-hexane, ethyl acetate and ethanol extracts showed many similarities whichsuggest that small branches may have nearly similar active constituents like roots and may be used as a substitute of roots after comparison and confirmation of same for pharmacological activities

Cell transformation assays for prediction of carcinogenic potential: State of the science and future research needs

Copyright @ 2011 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Cell transformation assays (CTAs) have long been proposed as in vitro methods for the identification of potential chemical carcinogens. Despite showing good correlation with rodent bioassay data, concerns over the subjective nature of using morphological criteria for identifying transformed cells and a lack of understanding of the mechanistic basis of the assays has limited their acceptance for regulatory purposes. However, recent drivers to find alternative carcinogenicity assessment methodologies, such as the Seventh Amendment to the EU Cosmetics Directive, have fuelled renewed interest in CTAs. Research is currently ongoing to improve the objectivity of the assays, reveal the underlying molecular changes leading to transformation and explore the use of novel cell types. The UK NC3Rs held an international workshop in November 2010 to review the current state of the art in this field and provide directions for future research. This paper outlines the key points highlighted at this meeting

Background measurements and detector response studies for ISMRAN experiment

We report the measurement of the non-reactor environmental backgrounds and the detector response with the Indian Scintillator Matrix for Reactor Anti-Neutrinos (ISMRAN), which is $\sim$1 ton detector setup by volume, consisting of 10$\times$9 (10 rows and 9 columns) Plastic Scintillator Bars (PSBs) array at BARC, Mumbai, India. ISMRAN is an above-ground anti-neutrino ($\mathrm{\overline\nu_{e}}$) experiment at very short baseline located at Dhruva research reactor facility. It is enclosed by a shielding made of 10 cm thick lead and 10 cm thick borated polyethylene to minimize the backgrounds and is mounted on a movable base structure, situated at $\sim$ 13 m away from the reactor core. These measurements are useful in the context of the ISMRAN detector setup that will be used to detect the reactor $\mathrm{\overline\nu_{e}}$ and measure its energy spectrum through the inverse beta decay (IBD) process. In this paper, we present the energy resolution model and energy non-linearity model of PSB and the cosmogenic muon-induced background, based on the sum of their energy depositions and number of hit bars. Reconstructed sum energy spectrum and number of hit bars distribution for $\mathrm{{}^{22}Na}$ radioactive source has been compared with Geant4 based Monte Carlo simulations. These experimentally measured results will be useful for discriminating the correlated and uncorrelated background events from the true IBD events in reactor ON and OFF conditions inside the reactor hall.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2208.0349

North-South Distribution of Solar Flares during Cycle 23

In this paper, we investigate the spatial distribution of solar flares in the northern and southern hemisphere of the Sun that occurred during the period 1996 to 2003. This period of investigation includes the ascending phase, the maximum and part of descending phase of solar cycle 23. It is revealed that the flare activity during this cycle is low compared to previous solar cycle, indicating the violation of Gnevyshev-Ohl rule. The distribution of flares with respect to heliographic latitudes shows a significant asymmetry between northern and southern hemisphere which is maximum during the minimum phase of the solar cycle. The present study indicates that the activity dominates the northern hemisphere in general during the rising phase of the cycle (1997-2000). The dominance of northern hemisphere is shifted towards the southern hemisphere after the solar maximum in 2000 and remained there in the successive years. Although the annual variations in the asymmetry time series during cycle 23 are quite different from cycle 22, they are comparable to cycle 21.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, 1 table; Accepted for the publication in the proceedings of international solar workshop held at ARIES, Nainital, India on "Transient Phenomena on the Sun and Interplanetary Medium" in a special issue of "Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy (JAA)

Self-similar and charged spheres in the diffusion approximation

We study spherical, charged and self--similar distributions of matter in the diffusion approximation. We propose a simple, dynamic but physically meaningful solution. For such a solution we obtain a model in which the distribution becomes static and changes to dust. The collapse is halted with damped mass oscillations about the absolute value of the total charge.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure