Metamorphism of the Oddanchatram anorthosite, Tamil Nadu, South India

The Oddanchatram anorthosite is located in the Madurai District of Tamil Nadu, near the town of Palni. It is emplaced into a granulite facies terrain commonly presumed to have undergone its last regional metamorphism in the late Archean about 2600 m.y. The surrounding country rock consists of basic granulites, charnockites and metasedimentary rocks including quartzites, pelites and calc-silicates. The anorthosite is clearly intrusive into the country rock and contains many large inclusions of previously deformed basic granulite and quartzite within 100 meters of its contact. Both this intrusion and the nearby Kaduvar anorthosite show evidence of having been affected by later metamorphism and deformation

Chemistry of the older supracrustals of Archaean age around Sargur

In the Archaeans of the Karnataka craton two stratigraphically distinct volcano-sedimentary sequences occur, namely the older supracrustals of the Sargur type and the younger Dharwar greenstones. The dividing line between these is the 3 by old component of the Peninsular gneiss. The trace and rare earth element chemistry of the Sargur metasediments show, in general, marked similarity to the Archaean sediments. The significant departures are in the nickel and chromium abundances. The REE data of the Sargur pelites of the Terakanambi region represented by Silli-gt-bio-feldspar schists and paragneisses show LREE enrichment and flat to depleted HREE pattern. Banded iron formations have very low REE abundance. They show slightly enriched LREE and flat to depleted HREE pattern. REE abundance in the Mn-horizons is comparable to that of the Archaean sediments. Mn-horizons show enriched LREE and flat HREE with anamolous Eu. REE patterns of these bands is well evolved and has similarities with PAAS

Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope observations of an M2.8 flare: insights into the initiation of a flare-coronal mass ejection event

We present the first observations of a solar flare with the GMRT. An M2.8 flare observed at 1060 MHz with the GMRT on Nov 17 2001 was associated with a prominence eruption observed at 17 GHz by the Nobeyama radioheliograph and the initiation of a fast partial halo CME observed with the LASCO C2 coronograph. Towards the start of the eruption, we find evidence for reconnection above the prominence. Subsequently, we find evidence for rapid growth of a vertical current sheet below the erupting arcade, which is accompanied by the flare and prominence eruption.Comment: Accepted for publication in Solar Physic

Functional outcome of surgical management of distal humeral fracture with precontoured anatomical locking plate

Background: Intra-articular distal humeral fractures are among the common fractures seen in adults. The cause of injury most commonly being road traffic accidents. These fractures require fixation methods which are technically difficult to achieve a good functional outcome and to minimize complications. This study was useful to analyse the above factors, to come to conclusion.Methods: This was a prospective study of 20 cases of supracondylar fracture humerus with intercondylar extension treated surgically and assessed for functional outcome, which were admitted to our hospital between 2015 to 2017. Precontoured distal humerus anatomical locking plates were used for fracture fixation with various standard approaches to elbow. Various clinical and functional outcome were analysed at the end using mayo elbow performance score.Results: Out of 23 patients, 20 patients were available for final follow up and outcome analysis. There were 15 males and 5 females with an average age of 34.4 year (21-50 years). Average time between admission and surgery was 4 days. Clinical and radiological consolidation of fracture was observed in all cases at an average of 12 weeks (9-14 week). The results obtained using mayo elbow performance score were graded as excellent 10 (50%) patients, fair in 6 (30%), poor in 4 (20%). One case had superficial wound infection and managed with IV and oral antibiotics. One patient had transient ulnar nerve palsy managed conservatively and recovered.Conclusions: Open reduction and internal fixation with anatomical precontoured locking plate is the treatment of choice in comminuted intercondylar distal humerus fractures. specially in young active adults. It provides stable fixation and thereby facilitating early postoperative rehabilitation. However, the outcome mainly depends on restoring the anatomic nature of articular surface along with minimal soft tissue destruction.

A study of density modulation index in the inner heliospheric solar wind during solar cycle 23

The ratio of the rms electron density fluctuations to the background density in the solar wind (density modulation index, $\epsilon_{N} \equiv \Delta{N}/N$) is of vital importance in understanding several problems in heliospheric physics related to solar wind turbulence. In this paper, we have investigated the behavior of $\epsilon_{N}$ in the inner-heliosphere from 0.26 to 0.82 AU. The density fluctuations $\Delta{N}$ have been deduced using extensive ground-based observations of interplanetary scintillation (IPS) at 327 MHz, which probe spatial scales of a few hundred km. The background densities ($N$) have been derived using near-Earth observations from the Advanced Composition Explorer ($\it{ACE}$). Our analysis reveals that $0.001 \lesssim \epsilon_{N} \lesssim 0.02$ and does not vary appreciably with heliocentric distance. We also find that $\epsilon_{N}$ declines by 8% from 1998 to 2008. We discuss the impact of these findings on problems ranging from our understanding of Forbush decreases to the behavior of the solar wind dynamic pressure over the recent peculiar solar minimum at the end of cycle 23..Comment: 13 Pages, 8 Figures, Accepted for publication in Ap

Nonlinear Control Concepts for a UA

A reconfigurable flight control method is developed to be implemented on an Unmanned Aircraft (UA), a thirty percent scale model of the Cessna 150. This paper presents the details of the UA platform, system identification, reconfigurable controller design, development, and implementation on the UA to analyze the performance metrics. A Crossbow Inertial Measurement Unit provides the roll, pitch, and yaw accelerations and rates along with the roll and pitch. The 100-400 mini-air data boom from SpaceAge Control provides the airspeed, altitude, angle of attack, and the side slip angles. System identification is accomplished by commanding preprogrammed inputs to the control surfaces and correlating the corresponding variations at the outputs. A Single Network Adaptive Critic, which is a neural network-based optimal controller, is developed as part of a nonlinear flight control system. An online learning neural network is augmented to form an outer loop to reconfigure and supplement the optimal controller to guarantee a practical stability for the airplane. This paper also presents some simulations from the hardware-in-the-loop testing and concludes with an analysis of the flight performance metrics for the controller under investigation

Immune upregulation of novel antibacterial proteins from silkmoths (Lepidoptera) that resemble lysozymes but lack muramidase activity

Study on immune proteins in domesticated and wild silkmoths Bombyx mori and Antheraea mylitta, respectively, led to identification of a new class of antimicrobial proteins. We designated them as lysozyme-like proteins (LLPs) owing to their partial similarity with lysozymes. However, lack of characteristic catalytic amino acid residues essential for muramidase activity in LLPs puts them functionally apart from classical lysozymes. Two LLPs, one from B. mori (BLLP1) and the other from A. mylitta (ALLP1) expressed in a recombinant system, exhibited a broad-spectrum antibacterial action. Further investigation of the antibacterial mechanism revealed that BLLP1 is bacteriostatic rather than bactericidal against Escherichia coli and Micrococcus luteus. Substantial increase in hemolymph bacterial load was observed in B. mori upon RNA interference mediated in vivo knockdown of BLLP1. We demonstrate that the antibacterial mechanism of this protein depends on peptidoglycan binding unlike peptidoglycan hydrolysis or membrane permeabilization as observed with lysozymes and most other antimicrobial peptides. To our knowledge, this is the first report on functional analysis of novel, non-catalytic lysozyme-like family of antibacterial proteins that are quite apart functionally from classical lysozymes. The present analysis holds promise for functional annotation of similar proteins from other organisms

Impact of oral iron therapy on quality of life in patients with heart failure

Background: To assess the effect of oral iron supplementation on quality of life (QOL) in anemic patients with heart failure (HF) and to compare QOL with HF patients without iron treatment.Methods: Sixty anemic patients (Hb 8-11g/dl) with HF (NYHA-class II and III) with LVEF<40% were divided in to 2 groups of 30 each. Group I- received ferrous sulfate 100mg bid x 90 days + standard treatment for HF. Group II- anemic patients received standard treatment for HF only. Primary end point- QOL was measured by MLWHF questionnaire. Secondary end points are Borg scale for dyspnoea and fatigue and exercise tolerance/ capacity in the form of 6 min. walk distance, haematological parameters, efficacy and safety assessment.Results:  There was significant improvement in QOL in iron treated patients as compared to group II (control). Exercise tolerance /capacity, Borg scale for fatigue and dyspnoea showed improvement in patients received iron for 90 days. Haematological parameters were improved gradually with less incidence of fatigue and pallor. Orally administered ferrous sulfate was well tolerated with mild side effects.Conclusions: Oral iron supplementation in anemic patients with heart failure improves quality of life/ physical functioning in these patients