Biodiversity of Woody Species in Kamla Nehru Institute of Physical & Social Sciences, Sultanpur U.P. India

A study was conducted to explore the woody species diversity of Kamla Nehru Institute of Physical & Social Sciences (KNIPSS) main campus spreading over approx. 45 acre of land area. Data was derived from extensive field survey. Identification of the woody species was done using local floras and various external resources. A total of 43 woody species belonging to 24 families is represented in study area. The 39 species were represented as angiosperm and 04 species as represented as gymnosperm respectably. Result showed that 17 families consists of only 1 species each, 2 families have 2 species each respectively. Of the total species, available in campus 30 are native and 13 are exotic.  The Apocynaceae, Caesalpiniaceae and Moraceae were the dominant families of the woody species on the KNIPSS main campus

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Not AvailableThis article presents a methodology for the valuation of agroforestry with respect to fuelwood supply for cooking and its opportunity cost. The share of fuelwood consumption declined gradually from 78 to 67% and 30 to 14% for cooking in rural and urban India, during 1993–94 to 2011–12, respectively. However, the total consumption of fuelwood increased significantly from 106 to 130 million tonnes (Mt) in the corresponding period due to population growth. Fuelwood and chips are in the process of substitution with Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) gradually and many LPG-adopter households continued to use fuelwood as well. The results verified that the maximum quantity of fuelwood for cooking was obtained from agroforestry systems (64%), followed by forests (24%), and from common property resources (12%) during 2011–12. The annual total calorific energy generated from agroforestry through fuelwood, was estimated at 1297.4 PJ, valued at US$4053 million. Around 103 Mt of dry dung cake needs to be burnt to generate the same amount of energy. It is estimated that by replacing dung cake by fuelwood derived from agroforestry systems, could save US$ 1116.6 million annually, sparing the dung cake for use as farmyard manure. In another scenario, if entire energy derived from fuelwood obtained from the agroforestry system is to be replaced by LPG, it would require over 196.4 million additional domestic LPG connections that would incur an expenditure of about US$ 36,487.5 million at the country level for the year 2011–12.Not Availabl

Aerogel materials for insulation in buildings

Aerogel materials have recently received much attention since they give many exciting applications in a wide range of areas. This chapter highlights the processing of these materials, the resulting physicochemical properties and their applications. Thus, fundamental understandings in the techniques for processing of aerogel materials including conventional drying, supercritical drying, freeze-drying, ambient-pressure drying with regards to material density and void size distribution, thermal conductivity, optical and acoustic properties are provided. In addition, a number of chemical post-treatments for surface engineering of aerogel materials are included. Finally, potentially new applications of using these materials as thermal insulation for building, optical sensor, space dust collector and catalysis are discussed. © 2010 Woodhead Publishing Limited All rights reserved