Mapping of risk prone areas of kala-azar (Visceral leishmaniasis) in parts of Bihar state, India: an RS and GIS approach

Background & objectives: The kala-azar fever (Visceral leishmaniasis) is continuing unabated inIndia for over a century, now being largely confined to the eastern part of India mainly in Bihar stateand to some extent in its bordering states like West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. Two study sites namelyPatepur block in Vaishali district with high endemicity in northern part and Lohardagga block inLohardagga district with absolute non-endemicity in southern part of Bihar were selected for thestudy with the following objectives : (i) to study the macro-ecosystem in relation to distribution ofvector —Phlebotomus argentipes; (ii) to identify/map the risk prone areas or villages in a block forquick remedial measures; and (iii) to make use of satellite remote sensing and GIS to demonstratethe utility for rapid assessment of landuse/landcover and their relation with the incidence of kalaazarleading to the mapping of risk prone areas.Methods: Indian Remote Sensing (IRS)-1D LISS III satellite data for the periods of March andNovember 2000 were analysed in Silicon graphic image processing system using ERDAS software.False color composites (FCC) were generated and landuse/landcover was assessed using Maximumlikelihood supervised classification techniques based on ground truth training sets. During the studythe GIS functions are used to quantify the remotely sensed landscape proportions of 5 km2 buffersurrounding each known group of villages of high occurrence of sandflies in endemic and nonendemicstudy sites. Instead of traditional ground based survey methods to vector surveillance, thepresent study used a combination of remote sensing (RS) and geographical information system (GIS)approach to develop landscape predictors of sandfly abundance—an indicator of human vector contactand as a measure of risk prone areas.Results: Statistical analysis using the remotely sensed landscape variables showed that rural villagessurrounded by higher proportion of transitional swamps with soft stemmed edible plants and banana,sugarcane plantations had higher sandfly abundance and would, therefore, be at higher risk proneareas for man-vector contact.Interpretation & conclusion: The present study clearly brought out the usefulness of satellite remotesensing technology in generating the crucial information on spatial distribution of landuse/landcoverclasses with special emphasis on indicator landcover classes thereby helping in prioritising the areato identify risk prone areas of kala-azar through GIS application tools

Mapping of risk prone areas of kala-azar (Visceral leishmaniasis) in parts of Bihar state, India: An RS and GIS approach

Background & objectives: The kala-azar fever (Visceral leishmaniasis) is continuing unabated in India for over a century, now being largely confined to the eastern part of India mainly in Bihar state and to some extent in its bordering states like West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. Two study sites namely Patepur block in Vaishali district with high endemicity in northern part and Lohardagga block in Lohardagga district with absolute non-endemicity in southern part of Bihar were selected for the study with the following objectives : (i) to study the macro-ecosystem in relation to distribution of vector -Phlebotomus argentipes; (ii) to identify/map the risk prone areas or villages in a block for quick remedial measures; and (iii) to make use of satellite remote sensing and GIS to demonstrate the utility for rapid assessment of landuse/landcover and their relation with the incidence of kala-azar leading to the mapping of risk prone areas. Methods: Indian Remote Sensing (IRS)-1D LISS III satellite data for the periods of March and November 2000 were analysed in Silicon graphic image processing system using ERDAS software. False color composites (FCC) were generated and landuse/landcover was assessed using Maximum likelihood supervised classification techniques based on ground truth training sets. During the study the GIS functions are used to quantify the remotely sensed landscape proportions of 5 km 2 buffer surrounding each known group of villages of high occurrence of sandflies in endemic and non-endemic study sites. Instead of traditional ground based survey methods to vector surveillance, the present study used a combination of remote sensing (RS) and geographical information system (GIS) approach to develop landscape predictors of sandfly abundance-an indicator of human vector contact and as a measure of risk prone areas. Results: Statistical analysis using the remotely sensed landscape variables showed that rural villages surrounded by higher proportion of transitional swamps with soft stemmed edible plants and banana, sugarcane plantations had higher sandfly abundance and would, therefore, be at higher risk prone areas for man-vector contact. Interpretation & conclusion: The present study clearly brought out the usefulness of satellite remote sensing technology in generating the crucial information on spatial distribution of landuse/landcover classes with special emphasis on indicator landcover classes thereby helping in prioritising the area to identify risk prone areas of kala-azar through GIS application tools

The TIGRE gamma-ray telescope

TIGRE is an advanced telescope for gamma-ray astronomy with a few arcmin resolution. From 0.3 to 10 MeV it is a Compton telescope. Above 1 MeV, its multi-layers of double sided silicon strip detectors allow for Compton recoil electron tracking and the unique determination for incident photon direction. From 10 to 100 MeV the tracking feature is utilized for gamma-ray pair event reconstruction. Here we present TIGRE energy resolutions, background simulations and the development of the electronics readout system

Order in driven vortex lattices in superconducting Nb films with nanostructured pinning potentials

Driven vortex lattices have been studied in a material with strong pinning, such as Nb films. Samples in which natural random pinning coexists with artificial ordered arrays of defects (submicrometric Ni dots) have been fabricated with different geometries (square, triangular and rectangular). Three different dynamic regimes are found: for low vortex velocities, there is a plastic regime in which random defects frustrate the effect of the ordered array; then, for vortex velocities in the range 1-100 m/s, there is a sudden increase in the interaction between the vortex lattice and the ordered dot array, independent on the geometry. This effect is associated to the onset of quasi long range order in the vortex lattice leading to an increase in the overlap between the vortex lattice and the magnetic dots array. Finally, at larger velocities the ordered array-vortex lattice interaction is suppresed again, in agreement with the behavior found in numerical simulations.Comment: 8 text pages + 4 figure

Twenty Years of Galactic Observations in Searching for Bursts of Collapse Neutrinos with the Baksan Underground Scintillation Telescope

The results of twenty-year-long Galactic observations in neutrino radiation are summarized. Except for the recording of a neutrino signal from the supernova SN 1987A, no Galactic bursts of collapse neutrinos have been detected. An upper bound on the mean frequency of gravitational collapses in our Galaxy was obtained, $f_{collapse} (90$.Comment: latex, 7 pages, 2 eps figure

The influence of injection molding parameter on properties of thermally conductive plastic

Thermally conductive plastic is the composite between metal-plastic material that is becoming popular because if it special characteristic. Injection moulding was regarded as the best process for mass manufacturing of the plastic composite due to its low production cost. The objective of this research is to find the best combination of the injection parameter setting and to find the most significant factor that effect the strength and thermal conductivity of the composite. Several parameter such as the volume percentage of copper powder, nozzle temperature and injection pressure of injection moulding machine were investigated. The analysis was done using Design Expert Software by implementing design of experiment method. From the analysis, the significant effects were determined and mathematical models of only significant effect were established. In order to ensure the validity of the model, confirmation run was done and percentage errors were calculated. It was found that the best combination parameter setting to maximize the value of tensile strength is volume percentage of copper powder of 3.00%, the nozzle temperature of 195oC and the injection pressure of 65%, and the best combination parameter settings to maximize the value of thermal conductivity is volume percentage of copper powder of 7.00%, the nozzle temperature of 195oC and the injection pressure of 65% as recommended

Nonlinear analysis of EEG signals at different mental states

BACKGROUND: The EEG (Electroencephalogram) is a representative signal containing information about the condition of the brain. The shape of the wave may contain useful information about the state of the brain. However, the human observer can not directly monitor these subtle details. Besides, since bio-signals are highly subjective, the symptoms may appear at random in the time scale. Therefore, the EEG signal parameters, extracted and analyzed using computers, are highly useful in diagnostics. This work discusses the effect on the EEG signal due to music and reflexological stimulation. METHODS: In this work, nonlinear parameters like Correlation Dimension (CD), Largest Lyapunov Exponent (LLE), Hurst Exponent (H) and Approximate Entropy (ApEn) are evaluated from the EEG signals under different mental states. RESULTS: The results obtained show that EEG to become less complex relative to the normal state with a confidence level of more than 85% due to stimulation. CONCLUSIONS: It is found that the measures are significantly lower when the subjects are under sound or reflexologic stimulation as compared to the normal state. The dimension increases with the degree of the cognitive activity. This suggests that when the subjects are under sound or reflexologic stimuli, the number of parallel functional processes active in the brain is less and the brain goes to a more relaxed stat

BG/L Calculations of the QCD Critical Temperature and Equation of State

We summarize the latest results from performing Lattice QCD calculations with two different discretization schemes, asqtad and p4fat3, on the LLNL BG/L supercomputer, and present a plan for continued running to complete the calculation of the QCD transition temperature and equation of state