1,821 research outputs found
Structure, Determinants and Efficiency of Groundwater Markets in Western Uttar Pradesh
Irrigation is a vital ingredient in the modern agriculture, groundwater development through modern water extraction mechanisms (WEMs) have therefore, been receiving greater emphasis in recent past. However, the ownership of private WEMs is confined mostly to the large farmers. The small and marginal farmers and even large farmers with fragmented holdings are buyers of irrigation water from the neighbouring WEM-owners. This has led to spontaneous emergence of groundwater markets. Although the water markets benefit both buyers and sellers in one or the other way, they have created certain implications in the utilization of this resource. The present study has examined the structure, determinants and efficiency of groundwater markets and has suggested policy options for the realization of equitable benefits from this resource in Western Uttar Pradesh. It is observed that a large proportion (82 %) of the farm holdings enter into one or the other form of water market activities. The number of buyers decreases as the farm-size increases, while the number of sellers increased with the increase in the size of farm. The buying of groundwater is favoured by the farmers with small size and fragmented holdings, low education attainment and less probability of joint-ownership of a WEM. The possibility has been shown of increasing the productivity in major crops like sugarcane and wheat by reducing the excessive water-use on self-users farms, which in turn would increase the availability of water on the buyersâ farms. The study has identified various policy options which would lead to minimizing the inequitable distribution of benefits and improving the efficiency of water-use under the prevailing groundwater markets system.Agricultural and Food Policy,
Migratory Sheep and Goat Production System: The Mainstay of Tribal Hill Economy in Himachal Pradesh
The migratory and socio-economic aspects of sheep and goat flock-owners have been studied to examine yield, cost, income and employment in migratory sheep and goat production system in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh for the year 2001-02. A direct relation has been revealed between flock-size and resource endowments. Human labour has been found as the major cost component in the maintenance of this production system. Although, the contribution of sheep-rearing has been found higher to gross income, rearing of goats generates markedly higher income than of sheep on per animal basis. The flock business and family labour income in this system have been observed impressive and net income has been rated meagre for small flock-owners and nominal for large ones. This system has provided enough employment opportunities to family as well as hired labour. The existing breeds have been found good in terms of quality and quantity of meat, disease resistance and reproduction. The disease management technologies have been reported satisfactory, but medical facilities are not available at higher altitudes. The fodder availability at foothills and in plains during the winter season has been perceived as a major constraint, while the other constraints have been lack of marketing and processing infrastructure, low prices of output, high morbidity rate and wild animal attack. To enhance the profitability and sustainability of this system in the long-run, the study has suggested that the flock-owners need to be educated about the importance of timely vaccination and feeding of concentrate, roughages and feed supplements to the animals, specially during the winter season.Agricultural and Food Policy,
Impact of COVID-19 on health services utilization in Province-2 of Nepal: A qualitative study among community members and stakeholders
Background
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges and threats to the health care system, particularly affecting the effective delivery of essential health services in resource-poor countries such as Nepal. This study aimed to explore community perceptions of COVID-19 and their experiences towards health services utilization during the pandemic in Province-2 of Nepal.
Methods
The semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted among purposively selected participants (n=41) from a mix of rural and urban settings in all districts (n =8) of the Province 2 of Nepal. Virtual interviews were conducted between July and August 2020 in local languages. The data were analyzed using thematic network analysis in NVivo 12 Pro.
Results
The findings of this research are categorized into four global themes: i) Community and stakeholdersâ perceptions towards COVID-19; ii) Impact of COVID-19 and lockdown on health services delivery; iii) Community perceptions and experiences of health services during COVID-19; and iv) COVID-19: testing, isolation, and quarantine services. Most participants shared their experience of being worried and anxious about COVID-19 and reported a lack of awareness, misinformation, and stigma as major factors contributing to the spread of COVID-19. Maternity services, immunization, and supply of essential medicine were found to be the most affected areas of health care delivery during the lockdown. Participants reported that the interruptions in health services were mostly due to the closure of health services at local health care facilities, limited affordability, and involvement of private health sectors during the pandemic, fears of COVID-19 transmission among health care workers and within health centers, and disruption of transportation services. In addition, the participants expressed frustrations on poor testing, isolation, and quarantine services related to COVID-19, and poor accountability from the government at all levels towards health services continuation/management during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Conclusions
This study found that essential health services were severely affected during the COVID-19 pandemic in all districts of Province-2. It is critical to expand and continue the service coverage, and its quality (even more during pandemics), as well as increase public-private sector engagement to ensure the essential health services are available for the population
Magnetic Ordering and Superconductivity in the REIrGe (RE = Y, La-Tm, Lu) System
We find that the compounds for RE = Y, La-Dy, crystallize in the tetragonal
Ibam (UCoSi type) structure whereas the compounds for RE = Er-Lu,
crystallize in a new orthorhombic structure with a space group Pmmn. Samples of
HoIrGe were always found to be multiphase. The compounds for RE = Y
to Dy which adopt the Ibam type structure show a metallic resistivity whereas
the compounds with RE = Er, Tm and Lu show an anomalous behavior in the
resistivity with a semiconducting increase in as we go down in
temperature from 300K. Interestingly we had earlier found a positive
temperature coefficient of resistivity for the Yb sample in the same
temperature range. We will compare this behavior with similar observations in
the compounds RERuGe and REBiPt. LaIrGe and
YIrGe show bulk superconductivity below 1.8K and 2.5K respectively.
Our results confirm that CeIrGe shows a Kondo lattice behavior and
undergoes antiferromagnetic ordering below 8.5K. Most of the other compounds
containing magnetic rare-earth elements undergo a single antiferromagnetic
transition at low temperatures (T12K) while GdIrGe,
DyIrGe and NdIrGe show multiple transitions. The
T's for most of the compounds roughly scale with the de Gennes factor.
which suggests that the chief mechanism of interaction leading to the magnetic
ordering of the magnetic moments may be the RKKY interaction.Comment: 25 pages, 16 figure
Effects of C, Cu and Be substitutions in superconducting MgB2
Density functional calculations are used to investigate the effects of
partial substitutional alloying of the B site in MgB2 with C and Be alone and
combined with alloying of the Mg site with Cu. The effect of such substitutions
on the electronic structure, electron phonon coupling and superconductivity are
discussed. We find that Be substitution for B is unfavorable for
superconductivity as it leads to a softer lattice and weaker electron-phonon
couplings. Replacement of Mg by Cu leads to an increase in the stiffness and
doping level at the same time, while the carrier concentration can be
controlled by partial replacement of B by C. We estimate that with full
replacement of Mg by Cu and fractional substitution of B by C, Tc values of 50K
may be attainable.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Permeability of Microporous Carbon Preforms
The permeability of microporous amorphous carbon preforms with varying pore size and pore distributions has been experimentally examined. The porous structures have been characterized by mercury porosimetry and by quantitative metallography of pressure-infiltration-cast metal matrix composites based on the carbon preforms. The permeability shows a linear correlation with the fraction porosity and the square of the pore diameter
Simultaneous Diagonal and Off Diagonal Order in the Bose--Hubbard Hamiltonian
The Bose-Hubbard model exhibits a rich phase diagram consisting both of
insulating regimes where diagonal long range (solid) order dominates as well as
conducting regimes where off diagonal long range order (superfluidity) is
present. In this paper we describe the results of Quantum Monte Carlo
calculations of the phase diagram, both for the hard and soft core cases, with
a particular focus on the possibility of simultaneous superfluid and solid
order. We also discuss the appearance of phase separation in the model. The
simulations are compared with analytic calculations of the phase diagram and
spin wave dispersion.Comment: 28 pages plus 24 figures, uuencoded Revtex+postscript file
Crossover from two- to three-dimensional critical behavior for nearly antiferromagnetic itinerant electrons
The crossover from two- to three-dimensional critical behavior of nearly
antiferromagnetic itinerant electrons is studied in a regime where the
inter-plane single-particle motion of electrons is quantum-mechanically
incoherent because of thermal fluctuations. This is a relevant regime for very
anisotropic materials like the cuprates. The problem is studied within the
Two-Particle Self-Consistent approach (TPSC), that has been previously shown to
give a quantitative description of Monte Carlo data for the Hubbard model. It
is shown that TPSC belongs to the limit of the universality class. However, contrary to the usual approaches,
cutoffs appear naturally in the microscopic TPSC theory so that parameter-free
calculations can be done for Hubbard models with arbitrary band structure. A
general discussion of universality in the renormalized-classical crossover from
to is also given.Comment: Revtex, 23 pages + 6 postcript figures (with epsfile
Study of planktonic diversity of river Ganga from Devprayag to Roorkee, Uttarakhand (India)
Analysis of water samples for planktonic diversity has been carried out for five sampling stations of river Ganga stretched over a distance of 125 kms from Devprayag to Roorkee. The investigation was carried out for a period of one year at five different sampling sites i.e. Sampling station A (Devprayag), Sampling station B (Rishikesh), Sampling station C (Haridwar) Sampling station D ( Pul Jatwara) and Sampling station E (Roorkee). In the present study of river Ganga, Among the zooplankton, Protozoa, Rotifera, Cladocera, Copepod, Ostracods constitute the main component and in phytoplankton Diatoms were dominated and class Blue green algae, green algae was found least during study period. Majority of zooplankton shows maximum occurrence and abundance during the high salinity period
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