Mortality Burden and Socioeconomic Status in India

Background: The dimensions along which mortality is patterned in India remains unclear. We examined the specific contribution of social castes, household income, assets, and monthly per capita consumption to mortality differentials in India. Methods and Findings: Cross-sectional data on 217 363 individuals from 41 554 households from the 2004–2005 India Human Development Survey was analyzed using multiple logistic regressions. Mortality differentials across social castes were attenuated after adjusting for household economic factors such as income and assets. Individuals living in the lowest income and assets quintiles had an increased risk of mortality with odds ratio (OR) of 1.66 (95 % CI = 1.23–2.24) in the bottom income quintile and OR of 2.94 (95 % CI = 1.66–5.22) in the bottom asset quintile. Counter-intuitively, individuals living in households with lowest monthly consumption per capita had significantly lower probability of death (OR = 0.27, 95 % CI = 0.20–0.38). Conclusions: Mortality burden in India is largely patterned on economic dimensions as opposed to caste dimensions, though caste may play an important role in predicting economic opportunities

Packaging Problems-Present and Future of Service Rations

Developments of food packaging from the early days of rigid containers up to the modern method of using flexible materials are revealed. Factors involving the selection for packing different types of Service rations are discussed. Future areas of research and development activity are outlined briefly

Durability properties of fly ash and silica fume blended concrete for marine environment

1803-1812The improvement in durability and strength by replacing the conventional components with supplementary materials in concrete is one of the recently focused areas in concrete technology. From the previous till the recent times serious efforts have been taken to improve the structural adequacy and durability characteristics of concrete so as to efficiently replace the usual conventional concrete. In this present research work, the mechanical and durability properties of the concrete blended with fly ash (FC) and silica fume (SC) are studied in detail. The partial replacement of cement with silica fume and fly ash in the concrete improves the overall property of the concrete, gives a way for the reuse of the supplementary material to be efficiently brought back giving a cleaner environment. The fly ash is used with the replacement percentages of 10, 15 and 20 of the cement whereas for silica fume the replacement percentages are 8, 10 and 12, respectively. Also the study is extended to combination mixes to test the strength and durability and it has been found that the increase in the percentage of the silica fume increases the strength reduces the workability and permeability to a high extent and the inclusion of the fly ash paves a way for the increase in the durability property. The effect of the cementitious material with FC and SC on the concrete is compared with the nominal concrete and also the suitability in the usage of marine environment is validated in accordance with the International codes

Gauge-invariant magnetic perturbations in perfect-fluid cosmologies

We develop further our extension of the Ellis-Bruni covariant and gauge-invariant formalism to the general relativistic treatment of density perturbations in the presence of cosmological magnetic fields. We present detailed analysis of the kinematical and dynamical behaviour of perturbed magnetized FRW cosmologies containing fluid with non-zero pressure. We study the magnetohydrodynamical effects on the growth of density irregularities during the radiation era. Solutions are found for the evolution of density inhomogeneities on small and large scales in the presence of pressure, and some new physical effects are identified.Comment: Revised version (some minor changes - few equations added). 26 pages. No figures. To appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit

The impact of Bt cotton on poor households in rural India

The impact of genetically modified (GM) crops on the poor in developing countries is still the subject of controversy. While previous studies have examined direct productivity effects of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton and other GM crops, little is known about wider socioeconomic outcomes. We use a microeconomic modelling approach and comprehensive survey data from India to analyse welfare and distribution effects in a typical village economy. Bt cotton adoption increases returns to labour, especially for hired female workers. Likewise, aggregate household incomes rise, including for poor and vulnerable farmers. Hence, Bt cotton contributes to poverty reduction and rural development

Winning versus losing during gambling and its neural correlates

Humans often make decisions which maximize an internal utility function. For example, humans often maximize their expected reward when gambling and this is considered as a "rational" decision. However, humans tend to change their betting strategies depending on how they "feel". If someone has experienced a losing streak, they may "feel" that they are more likely to win on the next hand even though the odds of the game have not changed. That is, their decisions are driven by their emotional state. In this paper, we investigate how the human brain responds to wins and losses during gambling. Using a combination of local field potential recordings in human subjects performing a financial decision-making task, spectral analyses, and non-parametric cluster statistics, we investigated whether neural responses in different cognitive and limbic brain areas differ between wins and losses after decisions are made. In eleven subjects, the neural activity modulated significantly between win and loss trials in one brain region: the anterior insula ($p=0.01$). In particular, gamma activity (30-70 Hz) increased in the anterior insula when subjects just realized that they won. Modulation of metabolic activity in the anterior insula has been observed previously in functional magnetic resonance imaging studies during decision making and when emotions are elicited. However, our study is able to characterize temporal dynamics of electrical activity in this brain region at the millisecond resolution while decisions are made and after outcomes are revealed

Connections between Certain Subclasses of Analytic Univalent Functions Based on Operators

In this paper, by applying the Hohlov linear operator, connections between the class SD

Effect of lateral crushing on tensile property of bamboo, modal and tencel fibres

The effect of lateral crushing on the tensile properties of bamboo, modal and tencel fibres has been investigated. A fibre crushing apparatus has been used for the purpose of lateral crushing of fibres. The influence of transverse compression on the axial mechanical properties of these fibres has been analysed. The study reveals that modal fibre sustained a higher loss in tensile properties compared to bamboo and tencel. The general phenomenon obtained from the study is that the percentage loss of strength and breaking extension varies from one fibre to another based on the fibre type and morphology

Weighing neutrinos using high redshift galaxy luminosity functions

Laboratory experiments measuring neutrino oscillations, indicate small mass differences between different mass eigenstates of neutrinos. The absolute mass scale is however not determined, with at present the strongest upper limits coming from astronomical observations rather than terrestrial experiments. The presence of massive neutrinos suppresses the growth of perturbations below a characteristic mass scale, thereby leading to a decreased abundance of collapsed dark matter halos. Here we show that this effect can significantly alter the predicted luminosity function (LF) of high redshift galaxies. In particular we demonstrate that a stringent constraint on the neutrino mass can be obtained using the well measured galaxy LF and our semi-analytic structure formation models. Combining the constraints from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7 year (WMAP7) data with the LF data at z = 4, we get a limit on the sum of the masses of 3 degenerate neutrinos \Sigma m_\nu < 0.52 eV at the 95 % CL. The additional constraints using the prior on Hubble constant strengthens this limit to \Sigma m_\nu < 0.29 eV at the 95 % CL. This neutrino mass limit is a factor of order 4 improvement compared to the constraint based on the WMAP7 data alone, and as stringent as known limits based on other astronomical observations. As different astronomical measurements may suffer from different set of biases, the method presented here provides a complementary probe of \Sigma m_\nu . We suggest that repeating this exercise on well measured luminosity functions over different redshift ranges can provide independent and tighter constraints on \Sigma m_\nu .Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, submitted to PR