Geochemical Signature of Arsenic-Contaminated Groundwater in Barak Valley (Assam) and Surrounding Areas, Northeastern India

AbstractHigh arsenic (As) concentrations (12-97μg/l) have been detected in the groundwater of the Barak Valley region (Assam), northeastern India. The main source of As is traced to the litho-facies of the Tipam formation

Adding Robustness in Dynamic Preemptive Scheduling

In this paper we introduce a robust earliest deadline scheduling algorithm for deal ing with hard aperiodic tasks under overloads in a dynamic realtime environment The algorithm synergistically combines many features including dynamic guarantees graceful degradation in overloads deadline tolerance resource reclaiming and dy namic reguarantees A necessary and sucient schedulability test is presented and an ecient On guarantee algorithm is proposed The new algorithm is evaluated via simulation and compared to several baseline algorithms The experimental results show excellent performance of the new algorithm in normal and overload conditions Static realtime systems are designed for worst case situations Assuming that all the assumptions made in the design and analysis are correct we can say that the level of guarantee for these systems is absolute and all tasks will make their deadlines Unfortunately static systems are not always possible becaus

Effects of cognitive-behavioral programs for criminal offenders

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is among the more promising rehabilitative treatments for criminal offenders. Reviews of the comparative effectiveness of different treatment approaches have generally ranked it in the top tier with regard to effects on recidivism (e.g., Andrews et al., 1990; Lipsey & Wilson, 1998). It has a well-developed theoretical basis that explicitly targets “criminal thinking” as a contributing factor to deviant behavior (Beck, 1999; Walters, 1990; Yochelson & Samenow, 1976). And, it can be adapted to a range of juvenile and adult offenders, delivered in institutional or community settings by mental health specialists or paraprofessionals, and administered as part of a multifaceted program or as a stand-alone intervention. Meta-analysis has consistently indicated that CBT, on average, has significant positive effects on recidivism. However, there is also significant variation across studies in the size of those treatment effects. Identification of the moderator variables that describe the study characteristics associated with larger and smaller effects can further develop our understanding of the effectiveness of CBT with offenders. Of particular importance is the role such moderator analysis can play in ascertaining which variants of CBT are most effective. The objective of this systematic review is to examine the relationships of selected moderator variables to the effects of CBT on the recidivism of general offender populations

Hydrothermal deposition of CdS on vertically aligned ZnO nanorods for photoelectrochemical solar cell application

CdS/ZnO nanorods composite nanofilms were successfully synthesized via hydrothermal method on indium doped tin oxide glass substrates. Sequentially deposited CdS formed cauliflower like nanostructures on vertically aligned ZnO nanorods. The morphological, compositional, structural and optical properties of the films were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray analysis, X-ray diffraction and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy. Photoelectrochemical conversion efficiencies were evaluated by photocurrent measurements in a mixture of Na2S and Na2SO3 akaline aqueous solution. The amount of deposit, as well as the diameter and crystallinity of the CdS cauliflower were found to increase with growth time. CdS/ZnO nanorods composite exhibited greater photocurrent response than ZnO nanorod arrays. Besides, the composite film with 90 min of growth duration displayed the highest photocurrent density which is nearly four times greater than plain ZnO nanorods under the illumination of halogen light. The result exhibited remarkable photoconversion efficiency (η) of 1.92 %

A speedup technique for dynamic graphs using partitioning strategy and multithreaded approach

There are many pre-processing-based speedup techniques for shortest path problems that are available in the literature. These techniques have an increased demand because of large datasets in such applications such as roadmaps, web search engines and mobile data sets. Pre-processing for the Time-Dependent Shortest Path Problem is still a demanding process that involves graph or network partitioning strategy. Efficient pre-processing of graphs or networks reduces the shortest path computation time while parallelizing the pre-processing phase improves the speedup of the system. In this paper, a speedup technique called Recursive Spectral Bisection (RSB) combined with the Elliptic Convolution of the shortest path method is proposed for dynamic Time-Dependent networks. The same method has been parallelized, and the results are tested on three types of graphs. It is observed that the Time-Dependent RSB combined with the Elliptic Convolution of the shortest path method has no update time, and the Query Performance Loss (QPL) is reduced in planar and road networks compared to random networks. In road networks, the proposed method achieves an average speedup in a QPL of 140. The use of the Parallel speedup technique results in an average speedup in a QPL of more than 1 in the planar and road networks