Exploratory Analysis of Highly Heterogeneous Document Collections

We present an effective multifaceted system for exploratory analysis of highly heterogeneous document collections. Our system is based on intelligently tagging individual documents in a purely automated fashion and exploiting these tags in a powerful faceted browsing framework. Tagging strategies employed include both unsupervised and supervised approaches based on machine learning and natural language processing. As one of our key tagging strategies, we introduce the KERA algorithm (Keyword Extraction for Reports and Articles). KERA extracts topic-representative terms from individual documents in a purely unsupervised fashion and is revealed to be significantly more effective than state-of-the-art methods. Finally, we evaluate our system in its ability to help users locate documents pertaining to military critical technologies buried deep in a large heterogeneous sea of information.Comment: 9 pages; KDD 2013: 19th ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Minin

Mainstreaming the adaptations and reducing the vulnerability of the poor due to climate change

Many rural poor people in developing countries depend on agriculture and are highly influenced by climatic change. Hence, sustainable livelihood approaches are used at both policy and project level to initiate new poverty reduction activities and modify existing activities to improve livelihood incomes. Practices relevant to climate change adaptation around the world are wideranging and include development of technology, management, infrastructure, livestock, groundwater, and knowledge. Both structural interventions (such as building flood embankments, dikes, or seawalls or enhancing the natural setting or landscape) and nonstructural interventions (policies, knowledge development, awareness, methods and operating practices, including participatory mechanisms) have helped to reduce the impact of climate change. Further, market-based instruments such as credits and crop insurance were also developed to help poor households in many developing countries to cope with the uncertainties. The uptake of such adaptation practices is lagging, however, but informal institutions are playing a key role as they rely on enforcement methods and are not supported by the government. Mainstreaming adaptation and enhancing adaptive capacity could be increased by encouraging partnerships between informal processes and formal interventions to facilitate adaptation by the poor. The cost of adaptation is also significantly higher in developing countries. Nonetheless, more attention is needed in addressing future climate scenarios through agricultural research and development, irrigation development, infrastructure, and improved irrigation efficiency

Thermal and photochemical reactions of chromium (IV)-diperoxo complexes with organic substrates- evidence for hydroxylation of proline and phenol

The diperoxo complexes of chromium in an unusual oxidation number viz. 4, react with organic substrates such as proline and phenol to give bydroxyproline and o-benzoquinone as products respectively. The organic products were identified by electronic spectra as well as by their characteristic R1 values in thin layer chromatography using n-propanol-water(1:1v/v) mixure and chloroform as solvents for proline and phenol reaction products respectively. the studies reveal that the hydroperoxide radicals formed during the decomposition of Cr(IV)-diperoxo complexes give rise to the hydroxylation processes observed. The hydroxylation reactions are facilitated by light and yields of hydroxyproline upto 9% (from proline) have been obtained . The study presents one of the first examples of the use of Cr(IV) systems for biologically relevant processes such as hydroxylation

タミルナドゥ州の異なる農業気候地域のための気候変動に関連する複合脆弱性指標の開発

インドの農業は気象、特に降水量の変動に大きく影響を受ける。インド亜大陸の降水量の８０％は６月から９月の３ヶ月間に起こり、南西モンスーンとなる。旱魃がある地域で問題となる一方、洪水も別の地域で人間生活と農業にとって被害を及ぼし、平均的に氾濫しやすい土地の約３分の１は農地である。洪水となる過剰な雨量、不作をもたらす旱魃、財産に損害を与えるサイクロン等、気候の負の影響へは迅速な対応が求められる。その時々に気候の影響に対する社会の対処能力が試される。歴史的に社会の対処能力は地域的に試されてきており、社会は気候の変動にレジリアンスを持つ様に適応してきた。脆弱性とはその地域にすむ人口の経済システムの状態であり、また社会経済的な特徴でもある。本稿では、脆弱性の社会経済的な観点から、地域の発展段階およびさらに発展する能力を計る指標に焦点を当てた。Anand and Sen (1994)によって人間開発指標(Human Development Index: HDI)を計算するために開発された脆弱性指標の方法を基本とし、人口の脆弱性、気候の脆弱性、農業の脆弱性、就業の脆弱性を含めた。タミルナドゥ州の異なる農業気候地域で1980-2001 年までの３期間の指標を７地域で比較した結果、高降水量地域が一番脆弱性が高いことが明らかになった。脆弱性指標は、脆弱性をモニターし、脆弱性を低下させるための対策を開発し、優先順位を考え、またそれらの対策の効果を検討する際に潜在的に有効な方法であろう。和文のものは、英文の内容を要約したもの

Quantifying Economic Impact of Climate Change on Rice in Semiarid Tropics of India: using Ricardian Approach for the State of Andhra Pradesh

This paper analyzes the economic impact of climate change on agriculture for the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. The objective of this study is to quantify the impact of climate change on net revenue from rice crop in the 20 districts of the state. The Ricardian approach has been used to analyze the effects of climate variables on the net income from Rice. Panel datasets on climatic, agronomic and socio-economic variables were used for this analysis. The results showed that there exists significant nonlinear impact of temperature and rainfall on yield over the years on the net income from rice. On an average in rice; 10C rise in temperature will reduce the net income by109 INR (2.42US$) per hectare in these districts and the impact of precipitation are not substantial. Among districts taken into account, Anantpur face the maximum brunt of the impact of climate change. As expected, rainfall had positive marginal impacts, however it is very negligible. The socio-economic variable i.e. amount of irrigated area, literacy rate of rural population also shows significant positive effects on the income

q-Newton binomial: from Euler to Gauss

A counter-intuitive result of Gauss (formulae (1.6), (1.7) below) is made less mysterious by virtue of being generalized through the introduction of an additional parameter

Mapping of household vulnerability and identification of adaptation strategies in dryland systems of South Asia, Research Report No. 67

Low amount and high variability of rainfall in South Asian dryland production system have affected the livelihood of small and marginal households. Therefore, a marginal change in the climate could challenge the livelihood resilience of millions of farmers and affect the healthy ecosystem function in South Asia. The CGIAR Consortium Research Program on Dryland Systems (DS) focuses on DS across the world in order to tackle these problems. The overall emphasis of the research involves understanding the problem, identifying and demonstrating technologies and searching for mechanisms to promote the adoption of promising technologies. In South Asia, the program selected six districts in Andhra Pradesh (Anantapur and Kurnool), Karnataka (Bijapur) and Western Rajasthan (Jaisalmer, Barmer, and Jodhpur) as action sites..

Micro-fabrication of Carbon Structures by Pattern Miniaturization in Resorcinol-Formaldehyde Gel

A simple and novel method to fabricate and miniaturize surface and sub-surface micro-structures and micro-patterns in glassy carbon is proposed and demonstrated. An aqueous resorcinol-formaldehyde (RF) sol is employed for micro-molding of the master-pattern to be replicated, followed by controlled drying and pyrolysis of the gel to reproduce an isotropically shrunk replica in carbon. The miniaturized version of the master-pattern thus replicated in carbon is about one order of magnitude smaller than original master by repeating three times the above cycle of molding and drying. The micro-fabrication method proposed will greatly enhance the toolbox for a facile fabrication of a variety of Carbon-MEMS and C-microfluidic devices.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Quantification of Risk Associated with Technology Adoption in Dryland Systems of South Asia : A Household Level Analysis in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan States of India; Research Report No. 66

Climate change increasingly becomes a challenge for smallholder farmers. Strategies that will help farmers to cope with vulnerability are important. These strategies comprise a variety of interventions ranging from technical, institutional to policy. This study is an in-depth analysis of household level climate change shocks, farmers’ perception of vulnerability, adaptation strategies they followed and risk in technology adoption. A baseline survey was conducted in the dryland system action sites in three states of India: Andhra Pradesh (Kurnool and Anantapur districts); Karnataka (Bijapur district) and Rajasthan (Jaisalmer, Barmer and Jodhpur districts) in 2012-13 for 2011-12 production season. A total of 1019 farmers were surveyed..