THE GREENS OF MYSORE: AN APPRAISAL OF THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO ENVIRONMENT

Mysore is one of the better maintained million plus cities of India. Its green endowments including water bodies are well known. Formerly a city ruled by kings in British India, Mysore from the point of view of green and water body infrastructure has been well administered. But due to pressures of urbanization and its specificities environmental elements are deteriorating. These need constant monitoring and up-gradation; and have their social, economic and ecological facets. Vulnerability concomitant to urbanization has been frequently articulated. Demands for land, water and energy have increased. The need for waste management, sanitation, supply of potable water and wholesome regeneration of lakes with rain water inflows has increased and become complex and expensive amidst several intertwined compulsions and priorities. Administration is often seen to be deficient in providing the necessary personnel and monetary and physical resources. Parks and the famous Chamundi Hills are traditionally parts of the green of Mysore. Parks are planned and maintained by civic authorities like the Mysore City Corporation (MCC) and the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA). Newly developed areas are provided with earmarked amenity spaces yet to be developed and operationalized. Many private households and institutions have their own gardens or parks contributing handsomely to the city’s environmental health. Chamundi Hills, all across their slopes have a lot of trees, shrubs and bowers making Mysore salubrious. But all these green entities need to be improved and expert efforts have to be identified and enlisted

PLANNING STRATEGIES FOR MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT IN THE CITY OF HASSAN, KARNATAKA

The growth and demographic changes occurring in Indian cities are posing a serious challenge to urban local authorities. The increase in per capita income and the concomitant industrial and service activities have resulted in a proportionate increase in consumption and consequently, in the quantum and complexity of the composition of solid waste generated. Hassan city had a population of 155,006 as per the 2011 census. The City municipal Area is 37.57 sq. km, implying a population density of 8550 persons per sq. km in 2011. Hassan produces over 61.71 tonnes of solid waste per day and the Municipal Administration is rather inadequate in managing the disposal of this amount of solid waste generated. The urban planning approach is lacking in perspectives about several socio-economic aspects of solid waste systems; thereby the problems of inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the system remain inadequately addressed. Proper management of solid wastes is an integral part of any attempt at upgrading environmental quality. Keeping this in view, the authors describes the existing situation and identify the shortcomings in various aspects of Solid Waste Management and proposes feasible planning strategies which will make for a cleaner and more aesthetic city, reducing environmental pollution and protecting the quality of groundwater and land resources in the city of Hassan

Resources for green infrastructure development and maintenance: a study with particular reference to gated communities in the Bangalore metropolitan area

The objective of this study is to identify resources for the developmentand maintenance of green infrastructure in the privately developedgated communities. The study is primarily with a view to obtainingan environmental planning strategy and guidelines for creation andconservation of green infrastructure in the gated communities. Thispaper explores the resources for green infrastructure developmentand maintenance in selected gated communities in the BangaloreMetropolitan Area

INSAT-2A and 2B development mechanisms

The Indian National Satellite (INSAT) 2A and 2B have deployment mechanisms for deploying the solar array, two C/S band antenna reflectors and a coilable lattice boom with sail. The mechanisms have worked flawlessly on both satellites. The configuration details, precautions taken during the design phase, the test philosophy, and some of the critical analysis activities are discussed

Al2O3-based nanofluids: a review

Ultrahigh performance cooling is one of the important needs of many industries. However, low thermal conductivity is a primary limitation in developing energy-efficient heat transfer fluids that are required for cooling purposes. Nanofluids are engineered by suspending nanoparticles with average sizes below 100 nm in heat transfer fluids such as water, oil, diesel, ethylene glycol, etc. Innovative heat transfer fluids are produced by suspending metallic or nonmetallic nanometer-sized solid particles. Experiments have shown that nanofluids have substantial higher thermal conductivities compared to the base fluids. These suspended nanoparticles can change the transport and thermal properties of the base fluid. As can be seen from the literature, extensive research has been carried out in alumina-water and CuO-water systems besides few reports in Cu-water-, TiO2-, zirconia-, diamond-, SiC-, Fe3O4-, Ag-, Au-, and CNT-based systems. The aim of this review is to summarize recent developments in research on the stability of nanofluids, enhancement of thermal conductivities, viscosity, and heat transfer characteristics of alumina (Al2O3)-based nanofluids. The Al2O3 nanoparticles varied in the range of 13 to 302 nm to prepare nanofluids, and the observed enhancement in the thermal conductivity is 2% to 36%

High activity Rhenium-186 HEDP with autologous peripheral blood stem cell rescue: a phase I study in progressive hormone refractory prostate cancer metastatic to bone

We tested the feasibility and toxicity of high activities Rhenium-186 hydroxyethylidene diphosphonate, with peripheral blood stem cell rescue in patients with progressive hormone refractory prostate cancer metastatic to bone. Twenty-five patients received between 2500 and 5000 MBq of Rhenium-186 hydroxyethylidene diphosphonate followed 14 days later by the return of peripheral blood peripheral blood stem cells. Activity limiting toxicity was defined as grade III haematological toxicity, lasting at least 7 days, or grade IV haematological toxicity of any duration or any serious unexpected toxicity. Activity limiting toxicity occurred in two of six who received activities of 5000 MBq and maximum tolerated activity was defined at this activity level. Prostate specific antigen reductions of 50% or more lasting at least 4 weeks were seen in five of the 25 patients (20%) all of whom received more than 3500 MBq of Rhenium-186 hydroxyethylidene diphosphonate. The actuarial survival at 1 year is 54%. Administered activities of 5000 MBq of Rhenium-186 hydroxyethylidene diphosphonate are feasible using autologous peripheral blood peripheral blood stem cell rescue in patients with progressive hormone refractory prostate cancer metastatic to bone. The main toxicity is thrombocytopaenia, which is short lasting. A statistically significant activity/prostate specific antigen response was seen. We have now commenced a Phase II trial to further evaluate response rates

Randomized Phase II trial assessing estramustine and vinblastine combination chemotherapy vs estramustine alone in patients with progressive hormone-escaped metastatic prostate cancer

Abstract Based on the results of combined data from three North American Phase II studies, a randomised Phase II study in the same patient population was performed, using combination chemotherapy with estramustine phosphate (EMP) and vinblastine (VBL) in hormone refractory prostate cancer patients. In all, 92 patients were randomised into a Phase II study of oral EMP (10 mg kg day continuously) or oral EMP in combination with intravenous VBL (4 mg m(2) week for 6 weeks, followed by 2 weeks rest). The end points were toxicity and PSA response in both groups, with the option to continue the trial as a Phase III study with time to progression and survival as end points, if sufficient responses were observed. Toxicity was unexpectedly high in both treatment arms and led to treatment withdrawal or refusal in 49% of all patients, predominantly already during the first treatment cycle. The mean treatment duration was 10 and 14 weeks, median time to PSA progression was 27.2 and 30.8 weeks, median survival time was 44 and 50.9 weeks, and PSA response rate was only 24.6 and 28.9% in the EMP/VBL and EMP arms, respectively. There was no correlation between PSA response and survival. While the PSA response in the patients tested was less than half that recorded in the North American studies, the toxicity of EMP monotherapy or in combination with VBL was much higher than expected. Further research on more effective and less toxic treatment strategies for hormone refractory prostate cancer is mandatory

Suggesting Accurate Method and Class Names

Descriptive names are a vital part of readable, and hence maintain-able, code. Recent progress on automatically suggesting names for local variables tantalizes with the prospect of replicating that success with method and class names. However, suggesting names for meth-ods and classes is much more difficult. This is because good method and class names need to be functionally descriptive, but suggesting such names requires that the model goes beyond local context. We introduce a neural probabilistic language model for source code that is specifically designed for the method naming problem. Our model learns which names are semantically similar by assigning them to locations, called embeddings, in a high-dimensional contin-uous space, in such a way that names with similar embeddings tend to be used in similar contexts. These embeddings seem to contain semantic information about tokens, even though they are learned only from statistical co-occurrences of tokens. Furthermore, we introduce a variant of our model that is, to our knowledge, the first that can propose neologisms, names that have not appeared in the training corpus. We obtain state of the art results on the method, class, and even the simpler variable naming tasks. More broadly, the continuous embeddings that are learned by our model have the potential for wide application within software engineering