Traditional Rural Wetlands in Haryana State of India Are Currently Confronting Multicornered Threats Leading to Extinction Sooner Than Later

The most serious threat to traditional rural ponds in Haryana is associated with transformed societal behavioural patterns, ethics, values and life style, amongst several others. The siltation of ponds with adjoining areas, soil coming in with rain water is a very serious cause of stratification of rural ponds. Also contracting of village community land for sun drying of cow dung cakes inspires villagers to overload periphery of each pond with cow dung turning the premises into grave-yard of dung. This dung is the major source of polluting pond water into blackish water with high load of organic matter. Moreover, it leads to over excessive eutrophication. Building of major highways and connectivity roads have resulted into compartmentalization and degradation of village ponds. Inhabitation of peripheral village ponds boundaries by lower section of society for dwelling purposes is more threat to wetlands. The indifferent inclination of villagers towards silted ponds drenched in bad odour and blackish sludge is the story of 80% of the cases. The total blockage of run-off rainy water towards the natural age old rural ponds due to obstruction by way of human inhabitation has resulted into desertification of shallow water sheet in 90% of the cases. The oblivion of harvesting dried silt in summer for brick making has spelled doom for the ponds turning them into flat ground through successive decades and so on. The water quality in all ponds was overshooting the decaying stage due to the continuous mixing of cow dung drenched rainy water. Over excessive USAge of ponds for bathing of cattle, dumping of cow dung and rotten vegetables waste has turned ponds into live sinks of dirt, garbage and rural dairy wastes. Majority of village ponds are now out of existence or in deep black sludge laden or converted into Fish-Farming wetlands. The present studies have indicated that Winter migratory birds like Greylag Goose Anser anser, Bar-headed Goose Anser indicus, Mallard Anas platyrhynchos, Gadwall Anas strepera, Northern Shoveller Anas clypeata, Northern Pintail Anas acuta, Garganey Anas querquedula, Common Teal Anas crecca, Common Pochard Aythya ferina, Tufted Pochard Aythya fuligula, Common Coot Fulica atra, Little Ringed Plover Charadrius dubius, Kentish Plover Charadrius alexandrines, Spotted Redshank Tringa erythropus, Common Redshank Tringa tetanus, Marsh Sandpiper Tringa stagnatilis, Wood Sandpiper Tringa glareola and Pied Avocet Recurivirostra avosetta arrive in the extremely dilapidated rural ponds in Haryana from far off places including Russia, Siberia, China, and Caspian region, east Asia each winter season without any break. As such the extinction of ponds in Haryana directly threatens global avian biodiversity

Description of Avian Bio-Diversity of Damdamma Jheel in Gurgaon District in Haryana, India

Damdamma Jheel is a wetland of impressive potentials of harboring rich avian bio-diversity in the accompaniment of enhanced habitat reconstruction and improvement. It is located in the National Capital Region, nearby Sohana town in Gurgaon district in Haryana merely 45 Kms from Dhaula Kuan in New Delhi. At present, compared to Sultanpur National Park, it is confronting neglect. Considering its positive features of terrain, water sheet, it has the qualities of being a rich habitat for birds of all hues including the winter migratory birds. The present studies focus attention on its avian biodiversity as well as its own degraded form and structure. In all, 128 species of birds belonging to 15 orders and 41 families could be enlisted. Order Passeriformes is the predominant one having 54 species, followed by Charadriiformes (14 Species) and Ciconiiformes (12 Species). The prominent winter migratory birds observed from Damdamma Jheel include Asian Openbill Stork Anastomus oscitans, Eurasian Spoonbill Platalea leucorodia, Northern Shoveller Anas clypeata, Northern Pintail Anas acuta, Common Teal Anas crecca, Common Pochard Aythya ferina, Gadwall Anas strepera, Spot-billed Duck Anas poecilorhyncha, Spotted Redshank Tringa erythropus, Common Redshank Tringa tetanus, Common Greenshank Tringa nebularia, Kentish Plover Charadrius alexandrinus, White-tailed Lapwing Vanellus leucurus, Marsh Sandpiper Tringa stagnatilis, Wood Sandpiper Tringa glareola, Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos, White Wagtail Motacilla alba and Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava. The lake is suffering from water scarcity considering its capacity and potential to have more water. The periphery towards east is plagued by the growth of peats. The very fact that in October 2012, a large group of Openbill Stork (Nearly 70-80) has already arrived at Damdamma Lake since September-2012 indicates that it is the largest HARBOUR of Open-bill Stork in Haryana. Also, Eurasian Spoonbills were seen in a group 10-12, again the largest in Haryana. It is argued in this paper, that Damdamma is the pride lake of Haryana and prime harbor for uncommon winter migratory birds like Open-bill Stork and Eurasian Spoonbill must be the prime place for habitat reconstruction by Ministry of Environment and Forest, Govt. of India in conjunction with Govt. of Haryana with the active contributions by WWF (India) to add to the might vastness of this lake an element of grace and glory so as to conserve the winter migratory birds during their sojourn in India. In addition, it will be one nodal point to include Sultanpur National Park, Badkhal Lake, Bhindawas and Keoladeo National Park as an eco-tourism rectangle with provision for night halt

New analysis method of the halo phenomenon in finite many-fermion systems. First applications to medium-mass atomic nuclei

A new analysis method to investigate halos in finite many-fermion systems is designed, as existing characterization methods are proven to be incomplete/inaccurate. A decomposition of the internal wave-function of the {$N$-body} system in terms of overlap functions allows a model-independent analysis of medium-range and asymptotic properties of the internal one-body density. The existence of a spatially decorrelated region in the density profile is related to the existence of three typical energy scales in the excitation spectrum of the {$(N-1)$-body} system. A series of model-independent measures, taking the internal density as the only input, are introduced. The new measures allow a quantification of the potential halo in terms of the average number of fermions participating to it and of its impact on the system extension. Those new "halo factors" are validated through simulations and applied to results obtained through energy density functional calculations of medium-mass nuclei. Performing spherical Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov calculations with state-of-the-art Skyrme plus pairing functionals, a collective halo is predicted in drip-line Cr isotopes, whereas no such effect is seen in Sn isotopes.Comment: 27 Pages, 29 Figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. C back-to-back with second part (arXiv:0711.1275

Origin of Ferroelectricity in Orthorhombic LuFeO3_3

We demonstrate that small but finite ferroelectric polarization ($\sim$0.01 $\mu$C/cm$^2$) emerges in orthorhombic LuFeO$_3$ ($Pnma$) at $T_N$ ($\sim$600 K) because of commensurate (k = 0) and collinear magnetic structure. The synchrotron x-ray and neutron diffraction data suggest that the polarization could originate from enhanced bond covalency together with subtle contribution from lattice. The theoretical calculations indicate enhancement of bond covalency as well as the possibility of structural transition to the polar $Pna2_1$ phase below $T_N$. The $Pna2_1$ phase, in fact, is found to be energetically favorable below $T_N$ in orthorhombic LuFeO$_3$ ($albeit$ with very small energy difference) than in isostructural and nonferroelectric LaFeO$_3$ or NdFeO$_3$. Application of electric field induces finite piezostriction in LuFeO$_3$ via electrostriction resulting in clear domain contrast images in piezoresponse force microscopy.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure

Guiding and Trapping Cracks With Compliant Inclusions for Enhancing Toughness of Brittle Composite Materials

The problem of toughening heterogeneous materials with a stiff matrix and compliant inclusions is investigated through numerical simulations and experiments. Specifically, the problem of optimizing a combination of effective toughness and effective elastic modulus in the context of a square array of compliant inclusions in a stiff matrix is explored. Crack propagation in the heterogeneous material is simulated using a variational phase-field approach. It is found that the crack can meander between or get attracted to and trapped in the inclusions. Composite specimens with a stiff matrix and compliant circular inclusions were 3D printed, and their fracture toughness was measured using a specially designed loading fixture. The experimental results show agreement with the numerical predictions by demonstrating the attraction and trapping of cracks in the inclusions. This study demonstrates the potential for significant enhancement of toughness through elastic compliance contrast between the matrix and the inclusion without notably compromising the effective elastic modulus of the composite material

An energy-efficient cluster head selection in wireless sensor network using grey wolf optimization algorithm

Clustering is considered as one of the most prominent solutions to preserve theenergy in the wireless sensor networks. However, for optimal clustering, anenergy efficient cluster head selection is quite important. Improper selectionofcluster heads(CHs) consumes high energy compared to other sensor nodesdue to the transmission of data packets between the cluster members and thesink node. Thereby, it reduces the network lifetime and performance of thenetwork. In order to overcome the issues, we propose a novelcluster headselection approach usinggrey wolf optimization algorithm(GWO) namelyGWO-CH which considers the residual energy, intra-cluster and sink distance.In addition to that, we formulated an objective function and weight parametersfor anefficient cluster head selection and cluster formation. The proposedalgorithm is tested in different wireless sensor network scenarios by varyingthe number of sensor nodes and cluster heads. The observed results conveythat the proposed algorithm outperforms in terms of achieving better networkperformance compare to other algorithms

Discussing Implications of Fast Depleting Rural Ponds on the Globally Threatened Wetland Winter Migratory Bird in Haryana: a Case Study of Nigdu Village Pond in Karnal District

The Nigdu-Sarovar is located in Nilokheri block in Karnal district in Haryana (2950N, 7655E). The duration of observations span over seven years (September, 2005 to March, 2012). The recording of wetland winter visitor birds during 2005-08 in winter season included atleast 58 species of birds belonging to 10 orders and 18 families. It is important to mention that 29 species of wetland birds were winter migratory, 17 residents, 9 local migratory and three species of wetland birds like Lesser-whistling Duck Dendrocygna javanica, Pheasant-tailed Jacana Hydrophasianus chirurgus and Blue-cheeked Bee-eater Merops persicus were summer migratory. The special features of 2005-06 winter was the huge populations of birds like Northern Shoveller Anas clypeata, Northern Pintail Anas acuta, Common Teal Anas crecca, Spot-billed Duck Anas poecilorhynchus, Common Pochard Aythya ferina, Bar-headed Goose Anser indicus, Greylag Goose Anser anser, Gadwall Anas strepera, Great Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo, Mallard Anas platyrhynchos and Common Redshank Tringa totanus etc.In successive years, the scenario was more or less a substantial one depicting stability with respect to diversity of birds, number of birds upto the year of 2008. The popular birds included Painted Stork Mycteria leucocephala, Openbill Stork Anastomus oscitans, White-necked Stork Ciconia episcopus, Black-necked Stork Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus, Eurasian Spoonbill Platalea leucorodia, Spotted Greenshank Tringa guttifer and Kentish Plover Charadrius alexandrines. The sharp decline in winter migratory birds at Nigdu-Sarovar started in the year of 2008 when the pond was leased out for FISH-FARMING as per the policies of Govt. of Haryana. Fish Farming based deepening of the pond by excavation of bottom resulting in total decimation of rooted, floating, submerged and ejecting plants along with its subsidiary fauna, Zooplanktons, phytoplankton etc. The age old structural regime of the pond was obliterated to turn it in a scientifically managed fish pond. The year of 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 (March, 2012) showed the total absence of migratory birds like Mallards, several Geese, Dabbling Ducks, Pochards and Teals etc. As of today (2012), the sarovar is a clean sheet of water with bird repelling devices installed in places

Magnetic field dependence of vortex activation energy: a comparison between MgB2, NbSe2 and Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10 superconductors

The dissipative mechanism at low current density is compared in three different classes of superconductors. This is achieved by measurement of resistance as a function of temperature and magnetic field in clean polycrystalline samples of NbSe2, MgB2 and Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10 superconductors. Thermally activated flux flow behavior is clearly identified in bulk MgB2. While the activation energy at low fields for MgB2 is comparable to Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10, its field dependence follows a parabolic behavior unlike a power law dependence seen in Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10. We analyze our results based on the Kramer's scaling for grain boundary pinning in MgB2and NbSe2

3-(4-Meth­oxy­phen­yl)-1-phenyl-1H-pyrazole-4-carbaldehyde

Four independent mol­ecules comprise the asymmetric unit of the title compound, C17H14N2O2. The central pyrazoline ring is flanked by an N-bound benzene ring and a C-bound meth­oxy-substituted benzene ring. The greatest difference between the independent mol­ecules is found in the relative orientations of the benzene rings with the range of dihedral angles being 23.59 (6)–42.55 (6)°. In the crystal, extensive C—H⋯O inter­actions link mol­ecules into layers parallel to (02) and these are linked by C—H⋯π contacts