Facilities and services of the career information centres of public libraries in Karnataka: A study

The paper focuses on the various information services being offered by the competitive examination and career information centres of the public libraries in Karnataka. Altogether, there are 27 competitive examination and career information centres attached to the city central libraries in Karnataka which are catering to the information needs of youths who appear for competitive examinations and also seek job opportunities. The study has also covered aspects pertaining to the library infrastructure facilities being extended to the users of the centres. The responses pertaining to the facilities and services have been elucidated from the chief librarians of the public libraries through the questionnaire method

Effect of Hedging-Integrated Rule Curves on the Performance of the Pong Reservoir (India) During Scenario-Neutral Climate Change Perturbations

This study has evaluated the effects of improved, hedging-integrated reservoir rule curves on the current and climate-change-perturbed future performances of the Pong reservoir, India. The Pong reservoir was formed by impounding the snow- and glacial-dominated Beas River in Himachal Pradesh. Simulated historic and climate-change runoff series by the HYSIM rainfall-runoff model formed the basis of the analysis. The climate perturbations used delta changes in temperature (from 0° to +2 °C) and rainfall (from −10 to +10 % of annual rainfall). Reservoir simulations were then carried out, forced with the simulated runoff scenarios, guided by rule curves derived by a coupled sequent peak algorithm and genetic algorithms optimiser. Reservoir performance was summarised in terms of reliability, resilience, vulnerability and sustainability. The results show that the historic vulnerability reduced from 61 % (no hedging) to 20 % (with hedging), i.e., better than the 25 % vulnerability often assumed tolerable for most water consumers. Climate change perturbations in the rainfall produced the expected outcomes for the runoff, with higher rainfall resulting in more runoff inflow and vice-versa. Reduced runoff caused the vulnerability to worsen to 66 % without hedging; this was improved to 26 % with hedging. The fact that improved operational practices involving hedging can effectively eliminate the impacts of water shortage caused by climate change is a significant outcome of this study

The first structural study on a cyclic tricoordinate phosphorochloridite and a pentacoordinate phosphorane based on 1,2,3,5-protected myo-inositol-a new conformation of 1,3,2-dioxaphosphorinane ring

Treatment of the phosphoramidite {myo-C6H6-2-[OC(O)Ph]-1,3,5-(O3CH)-4,6-(O2P-NH-i-Pr)} with o-chloranil affords the first example of inositol-based pentacoordinate phosphorane {myo-C6H6-2-[OC(O)Ph]-1,3,5-(O3CH)-4,6-(O2P-NH-i-Pr)(1,2-O2C6Cl4)} (9) (X-ray structure) with a trigonal bipyramidal geometry at phosphorus. The six-membered 1,3,2-dioxaphosphorinane ring with the inositol residue has an unusual boat conformation in 9 which is quite different from that found in unrestrained rings investigated before, but is similar to that of its PIII chloro precursor {myo-C6H6-2-[OC(O)Ph]-1,3,5-(O3CH)-4,6-(O2PCl)} (X-ray structure). Also, a convenient and chromatography-free procedure for the protected myo-inositol derivative {myo-C6H6-2-[OC(O)Ph]-1,3,5-(O3CH)-4,6-(OH)2} is reported

Laws relating runs, long runs, and steps in gambler's ruin, with persistence in two strata

Define a certain gambler's ruin process \mathbf{X}_{j}, \mbox{ \ }j\ge 0, such that the increments $\varepsilon_{j}:=\mathbf{X}_{j}-\mathbf{X}_{j-1}$ take values $\pm1$ and satisfy $P(\varepsilon_{j+1}=1|\varepsilon_{j}=1, |\mathbf{X}_{j}|=k)=P(\varepsilon_{j+1}=-1|\varepsilon_{j}=-1,|\mathbf{X}_{j}|=k)=a_k$, all $j\ge 1$, where $a_k=a$ if $0\le k\le f-1$, and $a_k=b$ if $f\le k<N$. Here $0<a, b <1$ denote persistence parameters and $f ,N\in \mathbb{N}$ with $f<N$. The process starts at $\mathbf{X}_0=m\in (-N,N)$ and terminates when $|\mathbf{X}_j|=N$. Denote by ${\cal R}'_N$, ${\cal U}'_N$, and ${\cal L}'_N$, respectively, the numbers of runs, long runs, and steps in the meander portion of the gambler's ruin process. Define $X_N:=\left ({\cal L}'_N-\frac{1-a-b}{(1-a)(1-b)}{\cal R}'_N-\frac{1}{(1-a)(1-b)}{\cal U}'_N\right )/N$ and let $f\sim\eta N$ for some $0<\eta <1$. We show $\lim_{N\to\infty} E\{e^{itX_N}\}=\hat{\varphi}(t)$ exists in an explicit form. We obtain a companion theorem for the last visit portion of the gambler's ruin.Comment: Presented at 8th International Conference on Lattice Path Combinatorics, Cal Poly Pomona, Aug., 2015. The 2nd version has been streamlined, with references added, including reference to a companion document with details of calculations via Mathematica. The 3rd version has 2 new figures and improved presentatio

Efficient Two-Dimensional Direction-of-Arrival Estimation for a Mixture of Circular and Noncircular Sources

In this paper, the two-dimensional (2-D) direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation problem for a mixture of circular and noncircular sources is considered. In particular, we focus on a 2-D array structure consisting of two parallel uniform linear arrays and build a general array model with mixed circular and noncircular sources. The received array data and its conjugate counterparts are combined together to form a new data vector, based on which a series of 2-D DOA estimators is derived. Compared with existing methods, the proposed one has three main advantages. First, it can give a more accurate estimation in situations, where the number of sources is within the traditional limit of high-resolution methods. Second, it can still work effectively when the number of mixed signals is larger than that of the array elements. Finally, the paired 2-D DOAs of the proposed method can be obtained automatically without the complicated 2-D spectrum peak search and, therefore, has a much lower computational complexity

Identification of Phytochemical Constituents of Aegle marmelos Responsible for Antimicrobial Activity against Selected Pathogenic Organisms

Antimicrobial activity and phytochemical constituents of an ethanolic extract of Aegle marmelos were investigated. The phytochemical screening of the crude extract revealed the presence of Alkaloids, Cardiac glycosides, Terpenoids, Saponins, Tannis, Flavonoids, and Steroids. The crude ethanolic extract was tested for antimicrobial activity against gram positive organisms of Bacillus subtilis (NCIM: 3471), Staphylococcus aureus (NCIM: 2079), gram negative Escherichia coli (NCIM: 2065) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (NCIM: 2200) at different concentrations levels of 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 mg/ml. At the 2.5 mg/ml concentration, gram negative Escherichia coli exhibits a zone of inhibition about 25.7mm; Pseudomonas aeruginosa 19.9mm; gram positive Staphylococcus aureus 29.0 mm; and Bacillus subtilis, a maximum zone of inhibition about 28.1 mm as compared to the control drug penicillin. Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Bacillus subtilis exhibit a maximum zone of inhibition, hence they were considered as susceptible to the plant extracts but Staphylococcus aureus doesn’t exhibit such a zone of inhibition and is therefore considered as resistant

Generalized symmetric nonextensive thermostatistics and q-modified structures

We formulate a convenient generalization of the q-expectation value, based on the analogy of the symmetric quantum groups and q-calculus, and show that the q->q^{-1} symmetric nonextensive entropy preserves all of the mathematical structure of thermodynamics just as in the case of non-symmetric Tsallis statistics. Basic properties and analogies with quantum groups are discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure. To appear in Mod. Phys. Lett.

Pressure-induced amorphization and polyamorphism in one-dimensional single crystal TiO2 nanomaterials

The structural phase transitions of single crystal TiO2-B nanoribbons were investigated in-situ at high-pressure using the synchrotron X-ray diffraction and the Raman scattering. Our results have shown a pressure-induced amorphization (PIA) occurred in TiO2-B nanoribbons upon compression, resulting in a high density amorphous (HDA) form related to the baddeleyite structure. Upon decompression, the HDA form transforms to a low density amorphous (LDA) form while the samples still maintain their pristine nanoribbon shape. HRTEM imaging reveals that the LDA phase has an {\alpha}-PbO2 structure with short range order. We propose a homogeneous nucleation mechanism to explain the pressure-induced amorphous phase transitions in the TiO2-B nanoribbons. Our study demonstrates for the first time that PIA and polyamorphism occurred in the one-dimensional (1D) TiO2 nanomaterials and provides a new method for preparing 1D amorphous nanomaterials from crystalline nanomaterials.Comment: 4 figure

Multiple molecular forms of human lactoferrin. Identification of a class of lactoferrins that possess ribonuclease activity and lack iron-binding capacity

Lactoferrin (Lf), the major iron-binding component of milk, also a major constituent of the specific granules of neutrophils involved in antimicrobial activity and a glycoprotein thought to play a role in regulatory functions in the hematopoietic system as well as other physiologic activities, is shown to occur in three isoforms. One, Lf-alpha, binds iron; the other two, Lf-beta and Lf-gamma, express potent RNase activity, but do not bind iron. The three isoforms are very similar or identical in Mr, pI, partial proteolytic peptide patterns, NH2-terminal amino acid sequence, and reactivity with mAbs and polyclonal antisera against the RNase and Lf, respectively. The finding of structurally similar but enzymatically distinct forms of Lf may be related to the diverse functions of the molecule