Mass of the black hole in the Seyfert 1.5 galaxy H 0507+164 from reverberation mapping

We present the results of our optical monitoring campaign of the X-ray source H 0507+164, a low luminosity Seyfert 1.5 galaxy at a redshift z = 0.018. Spectroscopic observations were carried out during 22 nights in 2007, from the 21 of November to the 26 of December. Photometric observations in the R-band for 13 nights were also obtained during the same period. The continuum and broad line fluxes of the galaxy were found to vary during our monitoring period. The R-band differential light curve with respect to a companion star also shows a similar variability. Using cross correlation analysis, we estimated a time delay of 3.01 days (in the rest frame), of the response of the broad H-beta line fluxes to the variations in the optical continuum at 5100 angstroms. Using this time delay and the width of the H-beta line, we estimated the radius for the Broad Line Region (BLR) of 2.53 x 10^{-3} parsec, and a black hole mass of 9.62 x 10^{6} solar mass.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRA

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,

Influence of Electron Transport Layer (TiO2) Thickness and Its Doping Density on the Performance of CH3NH3PbI3-Based Planar Perovskite Solar Cells

Simulation studies are vital to understanding solar cell performance and in optimal device design for high-efficiency solar cells. Cell performance is sensitive to many factors, including device architecture, energy band alignment at the interfaces, materials used for photogeneration, charge extraction, doping density and thickness of various layers. The role of electron transport layer (ETL) thickness and its doping density on device performance is explored in this work. As the ETL thickness is increased from 10 nm to 200 nm, both fill factor (FF) and efficiency remain high up to 40 nm, at 0.85 and 28.04%, respectively, and beyond 40 nm, they decrease gradually due to a sharp increase in series resistance, reaching zero at 200 nm. However, J(sc) and V-oc remained unchanged up to an ETL thickness of about 150 nm and 160 nm, respectively. These results were confirmed by contour plots of the simulated V-oc, J(sc), FF and efficiency results. We observed that when ETL approached 200 nm, J(sc) and V-oc decreased to zero and 0.88 V, respectively. This can be attributed to very high series resistance and recombination in the cell. Donor concentration variation in the ETL from 10(17)/cm(3) to 10(20)/cm(3) has much less impact on J(sc), and V-oc remains unchanged. However, fill factor and efficiency improved, which might be due to an increase in conductivity in the ETL. Our result shows that for an optimized device, with an AM 1.5 spectrum, a cell efficiency of 29.64% was achieved with V-oc, J(sc) and fill factor of 1.241 V, 28.70 mA/cm(2) and 0.83, respectively

Compact steep-spectrum sources from the S4 sample

We present the results of 5-GHz observations with the VLA A-array of a sample of candidate Compact Steep Spectrum sources (CSSs) selected from the S4 survey. We also estimate the symmetry parameters of high-luminosity CSSs selected from different samples of radio sources, and compare these with the larger sources of similar luminosity to understand their evolution and the consistency of the CSSs with the unified scheme for radio galaxies and quasars. The majority of CSSs are likely to be young sources advancing outwards through a dense asymmetric environment. The radio properties of CSSs are found to be consistent with the unified scheme, in which the axes of the quasars are observed close to the line of sight, while radio galaxies are observed close to the plane of the sky.Comment: accepted for publication in mnras; 8 pages, figure 1 with 21 images, and two additional figures; 2 table

Long-Term Optical Flux and Colour Variability in Quasars

We have used optical V and R band observations from the Massive Compact Halo Object (MACHO) project on a sample of 59 quasars behind the Magellanic clouds to study their long term optical flux and colour variations. These quasars, lying in the redshift range of 0.2 < z < 2.8 and having apparent V band magnitudes between 16.6 and 20.1 mag, have observations ranging from 49 to 1353 epochs spanning over 7.5 yr with frequency of sampling between 2 to 10 days. All the quasars show variability during the observing period. The normalised excess variance (Fvar) in V and R bands are in the range 0.2% < FVvar < 1.6% and 0.1% < FRvar < 1.5% respectively. In a large fraction of the sources, Fvar is larger in the V band compared to the R band. From the z-transformed discrete cross-correlation function analysis, we find that there is no lag between the V and R band variations. Adopting the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach, and properly taking into account the correlation between the errors in colours and magnitudes, it is found that the majority of sources show a bluer when brighter trend, while a minor fraction of quasars show the opposite behaviour. This is similar to the results obtained from another two independent algorithms, namely the weighted linear least squares fit (FITEXY) and the bivariate correlated errors and intrinsic scatter regression (BCES). However, the ordinary least squares (OLS) fit, normally used in the colour variability studies of quasars, indicates that all the quasars studied here show a bluer when brighter trend. It is therefore very clear that the OLS algorithm cannot be used for the study of colour variability in quasars

Synergistic effects of squalene and polyunsaturated fatty acid concentrate on lipid peroxidation and antioxidant status in isoprenaline-induced myocardial infarction in rats

We have studied the synergistic effects of squalene and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA concentrate) on isoprenaline-induced infarction in rats with respect to changes in the levels of plasma diagnostic marker enzymes and myocardial antioxidant defense system. Intraperitoneal injection of isoprenaline caused a significant elevation in the levels of diagnostic marker enzymes; alanineaminotranferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and creatine phosphokinase (CPK) in plasma of experimental rats. There was a significant rise in the level of lipidperoxidation with concomitant decline in the level of reduced glutathione (GSH) and in the activities of glutathione-dependent antioxidant enzymes; glutathione peroxidase (GPX) and glutathione-Stransferase (GST), and antiperoxidative enzymes; superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) in heart tissue. Combined supplementation of squalene and PUFA concentrate significantly prevented the isoprenaline-induced elevations in the levels of diagnostic marker enzymes in plasma of experimental groups of rats. A tendency to counteract the isoprenaline induced lipid peroxidation was also noticed. Their combined administration maintained the level of GSH and the activities of glutathione-dependent antioxidant enzymes and antiperoxidative enzymes at near normalcy. The results of the present study indicated that the combined administration of squalene and PUFA concentrate exerted significantly better cardio-protection against isoprenaline-intoxication as compared to that of per secondsupplementation

Standardization of optimum melatonin concentration for drought tolerance at germination and early development stage in rice (CO-54)

Drought stress poses a serious threat to production and nutritional security. In recent years, foliar application of plant growth regulators (PGRs) and nutrients are increasingly employed to overcome physiological constraints resulting in enhanced crop production. Melatonin is a new biomolecule recently found to ameliorate the effect of biotic and abiotic stresses in crop plants. Hence, the present experiment was conducted to assess the optimum concentration of melatonin to mitigate the adverse effect of drought stress on germination and growth components in rice variety CO-54. In this experiment, PEG-mediated drought stress (-0.5 MPa) was imposed with different concentrations of melatonin (at doses of 50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 µM) seed treatments. Together, these results indicated that 200 µM melatonin-treated seeds showed a greater germination percentage (60%), root length (12.23cm), shoot length (8.23cm), fresh and dry weight (0.126g and 0.095g), high vigor index (1910.22), promptness index (64.83), and germination stress index (100) respectively. The result of this experiment provides a shred of strong evidence suggesting that seed treatment of 200 µM melatonin could be considered an effective technique for mitigating the detrimental effects of drought by promoting seed germination and thereby increasing the growth components of seedlings in rice. The study demonstrates that melatonin can shield rice seedlings from the effects of drought stress

Mass of the black hole in the Seyfert 1.5 galaxy H 0507+164 from reverberation mapping

We present the results of our optical monitoring campaign of the X-ray source H 0507+164, a low-luminosity Seyfert 1.5 galaxy at a redshift z= 0.018. Spectroscopic observations were carried out during 22 nights in 2007, from 2007 November 21 to 2007 December 26. Photometric observations in the R band for 13 nights were also obtained during the same period. The continuum and broad-line fluxes of the galaxy were found to vary during our monitoring period. The R-band differential light curve with respect to a companion star also shows a similar variability. Using cross-correlation analysis, we estimated a time-delay of τcen= 3.01+0.42− 1.84 d (in the rest frame) of the response of the broad Hβ line fluxes to the variations in the optical continuum at 5100 Å. Using this time-delay and the width of the Hβ line, we estimated the radius for the broad-line region of 2.53+0.35− 1.55× 10−3 pc and a black hole mass of 9.62+0.33− 3.73× 106 M