The Economic Empowerment of Women: The Case of Working Women’s Forum, India

Dr.Jaya Arunachalam, recipient of Padmasri founded Working Women’s Forum in 1978 with an objective of social and economic up-liftment of poorest of poor women in Tamilnadu, India. Now WWF has more than 700,000 women members. This case study deals with how technology has helped these micro entrepreneurs to accomplish their business more effectively and efficiently and how it has introduced drastic changes to their lifestyle

Extremely halophilic pleomorphic archaeal virus HRPV9 extends the diversity of pleolipoviruses with integrases

Certain pleomorphic archaeal viruses are highly infectious even at saturated salt. These viruses belong to the genus Betapleolipovirus of the recently described archaeal virus family Pleolipoviridae. Pleolipoviruses comprise single-stranded or double-stranded, circular or linear DNA genomes that share countless homologues among various archaeal genetic elements. Here we describe a new extremely halophilic betapleolipovirus, Halorubrum pleomorphic virus 9 (HRPV9), which has an integrase gene. We also identified new genes encoding minor pleolipoviral structural proteins. The studies on HRPV9 enhance our knowledge on pleolipoviruses, especially their reciprocal relatedness and relation to certain archaeal plasmids, proviruses and membrane vesicles. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS on behalf of Institut Pasteur.Peer reviewe

Effect of season, sex and reproduction on zinc concentration in the soft tissues of Meretrix casta (Chemnitz) (Mollusca: Bivalvia) collected from Vellar Estuary, Porto Novo, India

The investigation was undertaken to determine the impact of ecological and biological factors on the bio-accumulation of zinc in Meretrix casta collected from Vellar Estuary. The concentration of zinc in water, sediment, whole animal tissues and different soft body parts, such as adductor muscle, foot, mantle, gill, gonad and digestive diverticula of both male and female, were analysed separately. A high concentration of zinc was discernible during the monsoon, whereas it was low during summer. The metal concentration in the sediment was higher than in the water and body tissues. Among the body tissues, gill tissues showed high values followed by the mantle, digestive diverticula, gonad, foot and adductor muscle. A statistical analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between zinc concentration in body tissues and ambient medium. A significant negative relationship was encountered between salinity and zinc concentration in animal body tissues

Areca nut use in rural Tamil Nadu: A growing threat

Background: Areca nut is the fourth main psychoactive substance in the world. In India, tobacco is added to the quid, and the commercially manufactured nonperishable forms of betel quid (pan masala or gutkha) are on the rise in the market. Objective : To find out the prevalence of areca nut among the rural residents of Sriperambudur Taluk. Settings and Design: A community-based survey using pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire. Materials and Methods :0 The survey was conducted in 2 villages and their colonies, which were randomly selected out of 168 villages. Data was collected from 500 residents of the study population. The survey was conducted for a period of 2 months. Statistical Analysis: SPSS version 10.0. Results :The study participants were more likely to initiate areca nut use by 22 years of age. As many as 19.8% (n = 99) of the study participants chewed areca nut products, out of whom 11.2% (n = 56) indulged in chewing habit alone (areca nut products). Areca nut use was higher among male study subjects compared to females. The commercial forms of areca nut products (gutkha) were the most prevalent ones [47.5% (n = 47) of those who used areca nut] observed in the community. Compared to female participants, male participants were more likely to perceive areca nut use as the most harmful habit draining the community health and wealth. Conclusion :There seems to be an increase in the prevalence of areca nut use. The community also perceives it to be a harmful habit. Therefore, effective interventions should be targeted towards the high-risk subpopulation of the community to decrease the prevalence of areca nut use in rural Tamil Nadu

A PROBABILISTIC REBROADCAST FOR REDUCING ROUTING OVERHEAD IN A REAL TIME MANET ENVIRONMENT

Abstract: Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANETs) consist of a collection of mobile nodes which can move freely. These nodes can be dynamically self-organized into arbitrary topology networks without a fixed infrastructure. MANETs are highly dynamic network because nodes may join and leave the network at any time. It has limited network capacity. Quality of Service routing in such networks is usually limited by the network breakage due to either energy depletion or node mobility of the mobile nodes. Mobi lity of nodes may cause frequent link breakages which lead to frequent path failures and route discoveries. The overhead of a route discovery cannot be neglected. In this paper we discussed a probabilistic rebroadcast for reducing routing overhead in a real -time MANET environment

Complete sets of elastic, dielectric, and piezoelectric properties of flux-grown [011]-poled Pb (Mg13 Nb23) O3 - (28-32) % PbTi O3 single crystals

10.1063/1.2907702Applied Physics Letters9214-APPL

Flux growth of high-homogeneity PMN-PT single crystals and their property characterization

10.1016/j.jcrysgro.2005.05.011Journal of Crystal Growth2823-4330-342JCRG

Temperature-Dependent Phase Transition in Orthorhombic [011]c Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3) O3-0.35PbTiO3 Single Crystal

Relaxor [011]c PMN-0.35PT single crystal phase transition characteristics are investigated through various methods including variable temperature dielectric properties, X-ray diffraction, bipolar ferroelectric hysteresis loops (P-E) and electric-field-induced strain (S-E) hysteresis loops measurements. The results reveal that two phase transitions exist within the range from room temperature to 250 °C: orthorhombic (O)-tetragonal (T)-cubic (C). The O-to-T and T-to-C phase transition temperatures have been identified as 84 °C and 152 °C, respectively. Diffuseness degree of the T-to-C phase transition for the unpoled single crystal has been calculated to be 1.56, implying an intermediate state between normal and relaxor ferroelectrics. Temperature-dependent remanent polarization (Pr), coercive field (Ec), saturation polarization (Ps), hysteresis loop squareness (Rsq), and longitudinal piezoelectric constant (d* 33) are also explored to learn the details of the phase transitions. Variable temperature unipolar Suni-E hysteresis loops avail additional evidence for the microstructure change in the as-measured single crystal

Dielectric and piezoelectric properties of [0 0 1] and [0 1 1]-poled relaxor ferroelectric PZN-PT and PMN-PT single crystals

10.1016/j.sna.2006.03.036Sensors and Actuators, A: Physical1331110-116SAAP