Characteristics of Bay of Bengal monsoon depressions in the 21st Century

We show that 21st century increase in radiative forcing does not significantly impact the frequency of South Asian summer monsoon depressions (MDs) or their trajectories in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 general circulation models (GCMs). A significant relationship exists between the climatological occurrences of MDs and the strength of the background upper (lower) tropospheric meridional (zonal) winds and tropospheric moisture in the core genesis region of MDs. Likewise, there is a strong relationship between the strength of the meridional tropospheric temperature gradient in the GCMs and the trajectories of MDs over land. While monsoon dynamics progressively weakens in the future, atmospheric moisture exhibits a strong increase, limiting the impact of changes in dynamics on the frequency of MDs. Moreover, the weakening of meridional tropospheric temperature gradient in the future is substantially weaker than its inherent underestimation in the GCMs. Our results also indicate that future increases in the extreme wet events are dominated by nondepression day occurrences, which may render the monsoon extremes less predictable in the future

SILICON CARBIDE MICRO-DEVICES FOR COMBUSTION GAS SENSING UNDER HARSH CONDITIONS

A sensor based on the wide bandgap semiconductor, silicon carbide (SiC), has been developed for the detection of combustion products in power plant environments. The sensor is a catalytic gate field effect device that can detect hydrogen containing species in chemically reactive, high temperature environments. For these capacitive sensors we have determined that the optimum sensor operating point in terms of sensor lifetime and response time is at midgap. Detailed measurements of the oxide leakage current as a function of temperature were performed to investigate the high temperature reliability of the devices. In addition, robust metallization and electrical contacting techniques have been developed for device operation at elevated temperatures. To characterize the time response of the sensor responses in the millisecond range, a conceptually new apparatus has been built. Using laser induced fluorescence imaging techniques we have shown that the gas underneath the sensor can be completely exchanged with a time constant under 1 millisecond. Ultrahigh vacuum studies of the surface chemistry of the platinum gate have shown that sensor deactivation by adsorbed sulfur is a possible problem. Investigations on the chemical removal of sulfur by catalytic oxidation or reduction are continuing

Fiber Optical Micro-detectors for Oxygen Sensing in Power Plants

Spectroscopy of Mo{sub 6}Cl{sub 12} immobilized in a sol-gel matrix and heated to 200 C has been performed. Oxygen quenching of the luminescence was observed. Aging Mo{sub 6}Cl{sub 12} to temperatures above 250 C converts the canary yellow Mo{sub 6}Cl{sub 12} to a non-luminescent gray solid. Preliminary experiments point to oxidation of the clusters as the likely cause of thermally induced changes in the physical and optical properties of the clusters

Knowledge, attitudes and practices related to dietary salt intake among adults in North India.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices related to salt consumption among adults in rural and urban North India. DESIGN: Data for the study were obtained from a community-based cross-sectional survey using an interviewer-administered questionnaire and 24 h urine samples. SETTING: Data collection was conducted during March-October 2012 in rural Haryana and urban Delhi in North India. PARTICIPANTS: Adults (n 1635) aged ≥20 years (701 in rural Haryana; 934 in urban Delhi). RESULTS: Twenty-four per cent of rural and 40·5 % of urban participants knew that a high-salt diet causes high blood pressure. Nearly one-fifth of both rural and urban participants knew that there should be a maximum daily limit for consumption of salt. In rural and urban areas, 46·6 and 45·1 %, respectively, perceived it important to reduce the salt content of their diet; however, only 3·7 and 10·2 %, respectively, reported taking some actions. Participants reported they were consuming 'too little salt', 'just the right amount of salt' or 'too much salt', but their corresponding mean (95 % CI) actual salt consumption (g/d; as measured by 24 h urinary Na excretion) was higher, especially among rural participants (rural: 9·2 (8·13, 10·22), 8·5 (8·19, 8·77) or 8·4 (7·72, 8·99); urban: 5·6 (4·67, 6·57), 5·7 (5·32, 6·01) or 4·6 (4·10, 5·14), respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Knowledge about the deleterious health impact of excess salt consumption is low in this population. Tailored public education for salt reduction is warranted with a particular focus on rural residents

Prevalence and incidence of hypertension: Results from a representative cohort of over 16,000 adults in three cities of south Asia

Background: Despite high projected burden, hypertension incidence data are lacking in South Asian population. We measured hypertension prevalence and incidence in the Center for cArdio-metabolic Risk Reduction in South Asia (CARRS) adult cohort.Methods: The CARRS Study recruited representative samples of Chennai, Delhi, and Karachi in 2010/11, and socio-demographic and risk factor data were obtained using a standard common protocol. Blood pressure (BP) was measured in the sitting position using electronic sphygmomanometer both at baseline and two year follow-up. Hypertension and control were defined by JNC 7 criteria.Results: In total, 16,287 participants were recruited (response rate=94.3%) and two year follow-up was completed in 12,504 (follow-up rate=79.2%). Hypertension was present in 30.1% men (95% CI: 28.7-31.5) and 26.8% women (25.7-27.9) at baseline. BP was controlled in 1 in 7 subjects with hypertension. At two years, among non-hypertensive adults, average systolic BP increased 2.6mm Hg (95% CI: 2.1-3.1), diastolic BP 0.7mm Hg (95% CI: 0.4-1.0), and 1 in 6 developed hypertension (82.6 per 1000 person years, 95% CI: 80.8-84.4). Risk for developing hypertension was associated with age, low socio-economic status, current alcohol use, overweight, pre-hypertension, and dysglycemia. Risk of incident hypertension was highest (RR=2.95, 95% CI: 2.53-3.45) in individuals with pre-hypertension compared to normal BP. Collectively, 4 modifiable risk factors (pre-hypertension, overweight, dysglycemia, and alcohol use) accounted for 78% of the population attributable risk of incident hypertension.Conclusion: High prevalence and poor control of hypertension, along with high incidence, in South Asian adult population call for urgent preventive measures

Curcumin suppresses the production of interleukin-6 in Prevotella intermedia lipopolysaccharide-activated RAW 264.7 cells

In First Person Shooter (FPS) games the Round Trip Time (RTT), i.e., the sum of the network delay from client to server and the network delay from server to client, impacts the gamer's performance considerably. Game client software usually has a built-in process to measure this RTT (also referred to as ping time), and therefore gamers do not want to connect to servers with a long ping time. This paper develops a methodology to evaluate the ping time in a scenario where gamers access a common gaming server over an access network, consisting of a link per user that connects this user to a shared aggregation node that in turn is connected to the gaming server via a bottleneck link. First, a model for the traffic the users and the server generate, is proposed based on experimental results of previous papers. It turns out that the characteristics of the (downstream) traffic from server to clients differ substantially from the characteristics of the client-to-server (upstream) traffic. Then, two queuing models are developed (one for the upstream and one for the downstream direction) and combined such that a quantile of the RTT can be calculated given all traffic and network parameters (packet sizes, packet inter-arrival times, link rate, network load, ). This methodology is subsequently used to assess the (quantile of the) RTT in a typical Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) access scenario. In particular, given the capacity dedicated to gaming traffic on the bottleneck link (between the aggregation node and gaming server), the number of gamers (or equivalently the gaming load the bottleneck link can support) is determined under the restriction that the quantile of the RTT should not exceed a predefined bound. It turns out that this tolerable load is surprisingly low in most circumstances. Finally, it is remarked that this conclusion depends to some extent on the details of the downstream traffic characteristics and that measurements reported in literature do not give conclusive evidence on the exact value of all parameters, such that, although the qualitative conclusion still remains valid, additional experiments could refine the detailed quantitative results

Scenario of Accelerating Universe from the Phenomenological \Lambda- Models

Dark matter, the major component of the matter content of the Universe, played a significant role at early stages during structure formation. But at present the Universe is dark energy dominated as well as accelerating. Here, the presence of dark energy has been established by including a time-dependent $\Lambda$ term in the Einstein's field equations. This model is compatible with the idea of an accelerating Universe so far as the value of the deceleration parameter is concerned. Possibility of a change in sign of the deceleration parameter is also discussed. The impact of considering the speed of light as variable in the field equations has also been investigated by using a well known time-dependent $\Lambda$ model.Comment: Latex, 9 pages, Major change

Asthma hospitalisation trends from 2010 to 2015: variation among rural and metropolitan Australians

Abstract Background Asthma remains a leading cause of illness, where primary care can assist to reduce hospitalisations through prevention, controlling acute episodes, and overall management of asthma. In Victoria, Asthma hospitalisations were as high as 3.1 hospitalisations per 1000 population in 1993–94. The primary aims of this study are to: determine if changes in asthma hospitalisations have occurred between 2010 and 2015; determine the key factors that impact asthma hospitalisation over time; and verify whether rural and urban asthma hospitalisations are disparate. A secondary aim of the study is to compare 2010–2015 results with asthma data prior to 2010. Methods Hospital separation data from 1 July 2010 to 30 June 2015 were obtained through the Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset and other agencies. Data included sex, age, Local Government Area, private or public patient, length of stay, and type of discharge. Asthma and predictor variables were analysed according to hospital separation rates after adjusting for smoking and sex. Hierarchical multiple regression examined the association between asthma and predictor variables. Results During the study period, 49,529 asthma hospital separations occurred, of which 77.5% were in metropolitan hospitals, 55.4% hospital separations were aged 0–14 years, and 21.7% were privately funded. State-wide hospital separations were 1.85 per 1000 population and were consistently higher in metropolitan compared to rural areas (1.93 vs 1.64 per 1000 population). When data among metropolitan adults aged 15 and over were analysed, an increase in the proportion of smokers in the population was reflected by an increase in the number of hospital separations (Adj OR 1.035). Further, among rural and metropolitan children aged 0–14 the only predictor of asthma hospital separations was sex, where metropolitan male children had higher odds of separation than metropolitan females of the same age (Adj OR 4.297). There was no statistically meaningful difference for separation rates between males and females in rural areas. Conclusions We demonstrated a higher overall hospital separation rate in metropolitan Victoria. For children in metropolitan areas, males were hospitalised at higher rates than females, while the inverse was demonstrated for children residing in rural areas. Therefore, optimising asthma management requires consideration of the patient’s age, gender and residential context. Primary health care may play a leading role in increasing health literacy for patients in order to improve self-management and health-seeking behaviour