Urban Local Body Elections in Port Blair: Social Engineering among city Voters

Port Blair  city, the capital of Union Terrirtory  of Andaman & Nicobar Islands is a set of multi-lingual, multi – ethnic and multi- culture center. Time and again it has been extended its boundary, number of population and its  political character that we ever seen any city in India. To study the electoral behavior of its voters is really interesting and significant .Since its inception in 1958,  every five years of interval, the election to small city has been conducting without interruption is well establish fact . The last  Municipal Council’s elections was held on 20.09.2015  to elect 24 wards councilors along with three tier Panchayat institutions. The voters of the city have witnessed  many changes in  elections  2010 and 2015. In many respect, the 2015 elections  of Port Blair city  has significantly different from its previous 2010 elections. The study area of the paper is to high light the changing behavour of voters , who are divided in the line of language, regional identity, but not like caste and community.

Phonon Localization and Entropy-Driven Point Defects Lead to Ultralow Thermal Conductivity and Enhanced Thermoelectric Performance in (SnTe)1–2x(SnSe)x(SnS)x\mathrm{(SnTe)_{1–2x}(SnSe)_{x}(SnS)_{x}}

Understanding of phase stability, chemical bonding, and phonon transport are essential to realize ultralow thermal conductivity in crystalline solids for designing high-performance thermoelectric (TE) materials. Pristine SnTe, a homologue of PbTe, exhibits poor TE performance primarily because of high lattice thermal conductivity, κlat. Herein, the amorphous limit of $κ_{lat}$ is achieved via engineering configurational and vibrational entropies in pseudoternary $\mathrm{(SnTe)_{1–2x}(SnSe)_{x}(SnS)_{x}}$. Density functional theory calculations and synchrotron X-ray pair distribution function analysis reveal that S atoms are locally off-centered in global cubic SnTe, resulting in a low-energy localized optical phonon which strongly couples with heat-carrying acoustic phonons. Additionally, substitution of Se and S in SnTe increases the configurational entropy and point defects, resulting in an ultralow $κ_{lat}$ of 0.52 W/mK. Finally, improvement of the Seebeck coefficient is achieved via the synergistic effect of resonant doping (In) and valence band convergence (Ag), which lead to a high TE figure of merit, zT, of ∼1.3 at 854 K

Origin of the Order–Disorder Transition and the Associated Anomalous Change of Thermopower in AgBiS₂ Nanocrystals: A Combined Experimental and Theoretical Study

Bulk AgBiS₂ crystallizes in a trigonal crystal structure (space group, <i>P</i>3̅<i>m</i>1) at room temperature, which transforms to a cation disordered rock salt structure (space group, <i>Fm</i>3̅<i>m</i>) at ∼473 K. Surprisingly, at room temperature, a solution-grown nanocrystal of AgBiS₂ crystallizes in a metastable Ag/Bi ordered cubic structure, which transforms to a thermodynamically stable disorded cubic structure at 610 K. Moreover, the order–disorder transition in nanocrystalline AgBiS₂ is associated with an unusual change in thermopower. Here, we shed light on the origin of a order–disorder phase transition and the associated anomalous change of thermopower in AgBiS₂ nanocrystals by using a combined experimental, density functional theory based first-principles calculation and <i>ab initio</i> molecular dynamics simulations. Positron-annilation spectroscopy indicates the presence of higher numbers of Ag vacancies in the nanocrystal compared to that of the bulk cubic counterpart at room temperature. Furthermore, temperature-dependent two-detector coincidence Doppler broadening spectroscopy and Doppler broadening of the annihilation radiation (<i>S</i> parameter) indicate that the Ag vacancy concentration increases abruptly during the order–disorder transition in nanocrystalline AgBiS₂. At high temperature, a Ag atom shuttles between the vacancy and interstitial sites to form a locally disordered cation sublattice in the nanocrystal, which is facilitated by the formation of more Ag vacancies during the phase transition. This process increases the entropy of the system at higher vacancy concentration, which, in turn, results in the unusual rise in thermopower

Nanoscale Stabilization of Nonequilibrium Rock Salt BiAgSeS: Colloidal Synthesis and Temperature Driven Unusual Phase Transition

Stabilization of nonequilibrium phases of inorganic solids is an art in synthetic chemistry. Herein, we demonstrate the entrapping of nonequilibrium rock salt phase of BiAgSeS in the nanocrystalline form at room temperature via kinetic colloidal synthesis. High symmetry rock salt nanocrystals undergo an unusual irreversible phase transition to a lower symmetry thermodynamic trigonal structure upon thermal treatment. To get fundamental insights into such unusual finding, we have performed temperature dependent synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction, positron annihilation spectroscopy, and density functional theory based structural energy and phonon modes investigations. Kinetically trapped strained rock salt BiAgSeS nanocrystals irreversibly transform to thermodynamically stable trigonal structure upon heating via Ag–Bi exchange, which is alleviated by a significant increase in the Ag vacancy

Pressure induced structural, electronic topological, and semiconductor to metal transition in AgBiSe₂

We report the effect of strong spin orbit coupling inducing electronic topological and semiconductor to metal transitions on the thermoelectric material AgBiSe2 at high pressures. The synchrotron X-ray diffraction and the Raman scattering measurement provide evidence for a pressure induced structural transition from hexagonal (&#945;-AgBiSe2) to rhombohedral (&#946;-AgBiSe2) at a relatively very low pressure of around 0.7 GPa. The sudden drop in the electrical resistivity and clear anomalous changes in the Raman line width of the A1g and Eg(1) modes around 2.8 GPa was observed suggesting a pressure induced electronic topological transition. On further increasing the pressure, anomalous pressuredependence of phonon (A1g and Eg(1)) frequencies and line widths along with the observed temperature dependent electrical resistivity show a pressure induced semiconductor to metal transition above 7.0 GPa in &#946;-AgBiSe2. First principles theoretical calculations reveal that the metallic character of &#946;-AgBiSe2 is induced mainly due to redistributions of the density of states (p orbitals of Bi and Se) near to the Fermi level. Based on its pressure induced multiple electronic transitions, we propose that AgBiSe2 is a potential candidate for the good thermoelectric performance and pressure switches at high pressure

Chlorogenic Acid Inhibits Bcr-Abl Tyrosine Kinase and Triggers p38 mitogen-activated Protein Kinase–Dependent Apoptosis in Chronic Myelogenous Leukemic Cells

We report that chlorogenic acid (Chl) induces apoptosis of several Bcr-Abl– positive chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) cell lines and primary cells from CML patients in vitro and destroys Bcr-Abl–positive K562 cells in vivo. In contrast, this compound has no effect on the growth and viability of Bcr-Abl–negative lymphocytic and myeloid cell lines and primary CML cells. Sodium chlorogenate (NaChl) exhibits 2-fold higher efficiency in killing K562 cells compared with Chl.NaChl also induces growth inhibition of squamous cell carcinoma (HSC-2) andsalivary gland tumor cells (HSG), although at 50-fold higher concentration. NaChl inhibits autophosphorylation of p210Bcr-Abl fusion protein rapidly.We demonstrate that p38 phosphorylation is increased in Bcr-Abl–positive cells after treatment with NaChl and closely paralleled the inhibition of Bcr-Abl phosphorylation. NaChl did not increase phosphorylation of p38 in Bcr-Abl–negative cells including HSC-2 and HSG that are responsive to this compound, indicating that p38 activation by NaChl is dependent on Bcr-Abl kinase inhibition. Inhibition of p38 activity by SB203580 significantly reduced NaChl-induced apoptosis of K562 cells, whereas activation of p38 by anisomycin augmented the apoptosis. These findings indicate that inhibition of Bcr- Abl kinase leading to activation of p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase may play an important role in the anti- CML activity of Chl

Gastric Gangrene Due to Necrotizing Gastritis

Gangrene of the stomach is a rare, often fatal disease which may be due to vascular, chemical, mechanical or infectious etiologies. We report a case of gastric gangrene due to necrotizing gastritis in a 50 year old female

An association study of severity of intellectual disability with peripheral biomarkers of disabled children in a rehabilitation home, Kolkata, India

International audienceThe current investigation has identified the biomarkers associated withseverity of disability and correlation among plethora of systemic,cellular and molecular parameters of intellectual disability (ID) in arehabilitation home. The background of study lies with the recentclinical evidences which identified complications in ID. Variousindicators from blood and peripheral system serve as potentialsurrogates for disability related changes in brain functions. IDsubjects (Male, age 10 ± 5 yrs, N = 45) were classified as mild,moderate and severe according to the severity of disability usingstandard psychometric analysis. Clinical parameters including stressbiomarkers, neurotransmitters, RBC morphology, expressions ofinflammatory proteins and neurotrophic factor were estimated from PBMC,RBC and serum. The lipid peroxidation of PBMC and RBC membranes, levelsof serum glutamate, serotonin, homocysteine, ROS, lactate and LDH-Aexpression increased significantly with severity of ID whereas changesin RBC membrane ?-actin, serum BDNF, TNF-? and IL-6 was found non-significant. Structural abnormalities of RBC were more in severelydisabled children compared to mildly affected ones. The oxidative stressremained a crucial factor with severity of disability. This is confirmednot only by RBC alterations but also with other cellular dysregulations.The present article extends unique insights of how severity ofdisability is correlated with various clinical, cellular and molecularmarkers of blood. This unique study primarily focuses on the strongpredictors of severity of disability and their associations via brain-blood axis