Folklore Elements in Kalittokai

Kalittokai is a classical Tamil poetic work. In this text the basic beliefs about life have been discussed. These beliefs are strong among the people. Beliefs on nature, birds, trees, astronomy and rain are very common among the people. Belief in blinking the eyes, belief over God, belief related to dreams, lizards horoscope, belief in fasting, belief in crescent prayer, and belief in fanaticism are very common among people. These are followed in their day to day life. Humans from birth to death are tied up in a knot called belief. This article is about the folklore elements in Kalittokai

Point Process Algorithm: A New Bayesian Approach for Planet Signal Extraction with the Terrestrial Planet Finder

The capability of the Terrestrial Planet Finder Interferometer (TPF-I) for planetary signal extraction, including both detection and spectral characterization, can be optimized by taking proper account of instrumental characteristics and astrophysical prior information. We have developed the Point Process Algorithm (PPA), a Bayesian technique for extracting planetary signals using the sine-chopped outputs of a dual nulling interferometer. It is so-called because it represents the system being observed as a set of points in a suitably-defined state space, thus providing a natural way of incorporating our prior knowledge of the compact nature of the targets of interest. It can also incorporate the spatial covariance of the exozodi as prior information which could help mitigate against false detections. Data at multiple wavelengths are used simultaneously, taking into account possible spectral variations of the planetary signals. Input parameters include the RMS measurement noise and the a priori probability of the presence of a planet. The output can be represented as an image of the intensity distribution on the sky, optimized for the detection of point sources. Previous approaches by others to the problem of planet detection for TPF-I have relied on the potentially non-robust identification of peaks in a "dirty" image, usually a correlation map. Tests with synthetic data suggest that the PPA provides greater sensitivity to faint sources than does the standard approach (correlation map + CLEAN), and will be a useful tool for optimizing the design of TPF-I.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures. AJ in press (scheduled for Nov 2006

Constraints in Production and Marketing of Arecanut in Salem District of Tamil Nadu, India

Arecanut is an important cash crop in our country. The study was carried out to ascertain the constraints faced by arecanut farmers in Salem district of Tamil Nadu with a sample size of 120, by employing proportionate random sampling technique. Majority of the respondents expressed lack of specific grading of nuts in marketing as a constraint. More than three-fourths of the respondents suggested that there should be a mechanism to regulate import of nuts from other countries and to create market potential for nuts in the local markets

Effect of Visual Skill Fitness Training Programme on Selected Psychomotor Variables of Male Volleyball Players

To achieve this purpose, 30 Volleyball players were selected randomly as subjects for this present study. The subjects selected (N=30), were assigned randomly into two groups namely experimental group-1and control group, consisting of 15 each. Thus they were named experimental group-1 as Visual Skills Fitness Training Group (VSFTG), and Control Group (CG). Their age was fixed in the range of 19 – 24 years. VSFTG underwent visual skill fitness training programme for two days a week for about twelve weeks. Subjects in the control group were not engaged in any activity. Before and after the training period data will be taken to all the subjects. The collected data were processed with Paired t-test was used. The obtained result was tested at 0.05 level of significance. The results of the study show that experimental group shows better improvement on selected psychomotor variables when compared to control group

RFDMRP: River Formation Dynamics based Multi-hop Routing Protocol for Data Collection in Wireless Sensor Networks

AbstractIn Wireless sensor networks, sensor nodes sense the data from environment according to its functionality and forwards to its base station. This process is called Data collection and it is done either direct or multi-hop routing. In direct routing, every sensor node directly transfers its sensed data to base station which influences the energy consumption from sensor node due to the far distance between the sensor node and base station. In multi-hop routing, the sensed data is relayed through multiple nodes to the base station, it uses less energy. This paper introduces a new mechanism for data collection and routing based on River Formation Dynamics. The proposed algorithm is termed as RFDMRP: River Formation Dynamics based Multi-hop Routing Protocol. This algorithm is explained and implemented using MATLAB. The performance results are compared with LEACH and MODLEACH. The comparison reveals that the proposed algorithm performs better than LEACH and MODLEACH

Dichotomy in the Dynamical Status of Massive Cores in Orion

To study the evolution of high mass cores, we have searched for evidence of collapse motions in a large sample of starless cores in the Orion molecular cloud. We used the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory telescope to obtain spectra of the optically thin (\H13CO+) and optically thick (\HCO+) high density tracer molecules in 27 cores with masses $>$ 1 \Ms. The red- and blue-asymmetries seen in the line profiles of the optically thick line with respect to the optically thin line indicate that 2/3 of these cores are not static. We detect evidence for infall (inward motions) in 9 cores and outward motions for 10 cores, suggesting a dichotomy in the kinematic state of the non-static cores in this sample. Our results provide an important observational constraint on the fraction of collapsing (inward motions) versus non-collapsing (re-expanding) cores for comparison with model simulations.Comment: 9 pages, 2 Figures. To appear in ApJ(Letters

The Local Radio-IR Relation in M51

We observed M51 at three frequencies, 1.4 GHz (20 cm), 4.9 GHz (6 cm), and 8.4 GHz (3.6 cm), with the Very Large Array and the Effelsberg 100 m telescope to obtain the highest quality radio continuum images of a nearby spiral galaxy. These radio data were combined with deconvolved Spitzer IRAC 8 μm and MIPS 24 μm images to search for and investigate local changes in the radio-IR correlation. Utilizing wavelet decomposition, we compare the distribution of the radio and IR emission on spatial scales between 200 pc and 30 kpc. We show that the radio-IR correlation is not uniform across the galactic disk. It presents a complex behavior with local extrema corresponding to various galactic structures, such as complexes of H II regions, spiral arms, and interarm filaments, indicating that the contribution of the thermal and non-thermal radio emission is a strong function of environment. In particular, the relation of the 24 μm and 20 cm emission presents a linear relation within the spiral arms and globally over the galaxy, while it deviates from linearity in the interarm and outer regions as well in the inner region, with two different behaviors: it is sublinear in the interarm and outer region and overlinear in the central 3.5 kpc. Our analysis suggests that the changes in the radio/IR correlation reflect variations of interstellar medium properties between spiral arms and interarm region. The good correlation in the spiral arms implies that 24 μm and 20 cm are tracing recent star formation, while a change in the dust opacity, "Cirrus" contribution to the IR emission and/or the relation between the magnetic field strength and the gas density can explain the different relations found in the interarm, outer, and inner regions

HiRes deconvolution of Spitzer infrared images

Spitzer provides unprecedented sensitivity in the infrared (IR), but the spatial resolution is limited by a relatively small aperture (0.85 m) of the primary mirror. In order to maximize the scientific return it is desirable to use processing techniques which make the optimal use of the spatial information in the observations. We have developed a deconvolution technique for Spitzer images. The algorithm, "HiRes" and its implementation has been discussed by Backus et al. in 2005. Here we present examples of Spitzer IR images from the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) and MIPS, reprocessed using this technique. Examples of HiRes processing include a variety of objects from point sources to complex extended regions. The examples include comparison of Spitzer deconvolved images with high-resolution Keck and Hubble Space Telescope images. HiRes deconvolution improves the visualization of spatial morphology by enhancing resolution (to sub-arcsecond levels in the IRAC bands) and removing the contaminating sidelobes from bright sources. The results thereby represent a significant improvement over previously-published Spitzer images. The benefits of HiRes include (a) sub-arcsec resolution (~0".6-0".8 for IRAC channels); (b) the ability to detect sources below the diffraction-limited confusion level; (c) the ability to separate blended sources, and thereby provide guidance to point-source extraction procedures; (d) an improved ability to show the spatial morphology of resolved sources. We suggest that it is a useful technique to identify features which are interesting enough for follow-up deeper analysis