FIR Filter Implementation by Efficient Sharing of Horizontal and Vertical Common Sub-expressions

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Agrarian distress and livelihood strategies : a study in Pulpalli Panchayat, Wayanad District, Kerala

This paper examines the household livelihood strategies under agrarian distress in Pulpalli Panchayat of Kerala. It also looks at the relationship between household assets and livelihood strategies. The negotiations of institutions by the marginalized and depressed sections of the society were analysed in detail. Major causes of agrarian distress in the study area are the ecological degradation and fall in crops income. Land continues to be the most important asset determining livelihood outcomes. The livelihood strategies have been investigated in relation to land, education, housing pattern, investments & credit facilities, and participation in organizational activities. The livelihood strategies adopted by farmers in the wake of agrarian crisis includes diversification of agriculture, share cropping, organic farming, self-help group activities, cattle rearing, migration and exchange of labour. Livelihood strategies varied across socio-economic groups as farmers owning better landholdings diversified cropping patterns while poor households participated in the activities of SHGs. Casual agricultural labourers and marginal farmers moved to other places in search of jobs. Mitigation of agrarian distress requires public provision of education, health and other social safety measures. Key words: Livelihood risk, Coping Strategies, Livelihood, Livelihood Assets, Institutions, Wayanad, Kerala JEL Classification: Q, Q 0

Size-dependent changes in the electronic structure of metal clusters as investigated by scanning tunneling spectroscopy

Pd, Ag, Cd and Au clusters of varying sizes have been investigated by scanning tunneling spectroscopy under ultra-high vacuum. The conductance of the clusters decreases markedly when the cluster diameter is ≤1 nm. A plot of the density of states at the Fermi level against the cluster volume varies nearly linearly up to a cluster volume of 4 nm3 (diameter ~2 nm). Below a cluster diameter of 1 nm, an energy gap occurs, the value of which increases with the decrease in cluster size, reaching values up to 70 meV at small sizes. Clearly, the very small clusters tend to become non-metallic

Participatory management for conservation of seahorses in the Gulf of Mannar, South-east coast of India

The Inception Workshop of the research project “Participatory management for conservation of seahorses in the Gulf of Mannar, south-east coast of India” was organized on 27 December 2014 at the Mandapam Regional Centre of the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (ICAR), Mandapam Camp, Tamil Nadu. The workshop was aimed to mark the beginning of the project activities in the Gulf of Mannar and also to bring to one place all the concerned stakeholders who are directly or indirectly associated with sustainable management of seahorse fishery and conservation, and to inform them about the project, its objectives and the expectations. The workshop was also aimed to discuss and get feedback on the methodology and approach for implementation of the project activities such as field surveys and interviews with the stakeholders. The workshop also focused to gather valuable inputs from various stakeholders, which are vital for the on-going project

Congruences modulo prime powers of Hecke eigenvalues in level 11

We continue the study of strong, weak, and $dc$-weak eigenforms introduced by Chen, Kiming, and Wiese. We completely determine all systems of Hecke eigenvalues of level $1$ modulo $128$, showing there are finitely many. This extends results of Hatada and can be considered as evidence for the more general conjecture formulated by the author together with Kiming and Wiese on finiteness of systems of Hecke eigenvalues modulo prime powers at any fixed level. We also discuss the finiteness of systems of Hecke eigenvalues of level $1$ modulo $9$, reducing the question to the finiteness of a single eigenvalue. Furthermore, we answer the question of comparing weak and $dc$-weak eigenforms and provide the first known examples of non-weak $dc$-weak eigenforms.Comment: 28 pages; Minor revisio

Phenomemology of a Realistic Accelerating Universe Using Tracker Fields

We present a realistic scenario of tracking of scalar fields with varying equation of state. The astrophysical constraints on the evolution of scalar fields in the physical universe are discussed. The nucleosynthesis and the galaxy formation constraints have been used to put limits on $\Omega_\phi$ and estimate $\epsilon$ during cosmic evolution. Interpolation techniques have been applied to estimate $\epsilon\simeq0.772$ at the present epoch. The epoch of transition from matter to quintessence dominated era and consequent onset of acceleration in cosmic expansion is calculated and taking the lower limit $\Omega_n^0 = 0.2$ as estimated from $SN_e I_a$ data, it is shown that the supernova observations beyond redshift $z=1$ would reveal deceleration in cosmic expansion.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, late

Frequency of polymorphic variants in corticotropin releasing hormone receptor 1, glucocorticoid induced 1 and Fc fragment of IgE receptor II genes in healthy and asthmatic Tamilian population

Background: Asthma is a chronic airway inflammatory disease characterized by increased hyper-responsiveness and recurrent episodes of reversible obstructions. Asthma pharmacogenomic studies report significant association of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes corticotropin releasing hormone receptor 1 (CRHR1), Fc fragment of IgE receptor II (FCER2) and glucocorticoid induced 1 (GLCCI1) with inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) response. The present study was aimed to establish the allelic and genotypic frequencies of polymorphisms rs242941, rs28364072 & rs37972 in CRHR1, FCER2 and GLCCI1 genes, respectively in Tamilian healthy population and asthma patients and to compare with established frequencies of global populations.Methods: The study groups consisted of healthy volunteers and persistent asthma patients who were drug naïve or without ICS treatment in the last ≥2 months, attending JIPMER hospital (n=111 and 78, respectively). SNP genotyping was done using PCR-RFLP (polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism) and real time-PCR methods.Results: Allelic and genotypic frequencies for all the studied variants found to be in hardy-weinberg equilibrium with minor allele frequencies (MAF) of rs 242941, rs 28364072 and rs 37972 at 0.51, 0.33 and 0.38, respectively, in healthy population. No significant difference in gene frequencies was obtained between healthy control and asthma patient groups. Significant difference in allele frequencies was observed between Tamilian healthy and specific global populations. West African frequency was found to be significantly different for all 3 SNPs (p<0.0001).Conclusions: MAF of rs 242941, rs 28364072 and rs 37972 were 0.51, 0.33 and 0.38, respectively in Tamilian population which were significantly different from various global populations. The frequency distribution found helps to further with ICS response association studies in larger cohorts of asthma patients

Feasibility of free breathing Lung MRI for Radiotherapy using non-Cartesian k-space acquisition schemes

Objective: To test a free-breathing MRI protocol for anatomical and functional assessment during lung cancer radiotherapy by assessing two non-Cartesian acquisition schemes based on T1 weighted 3D gradient recall echo sequence: (i) stack-of stars (StarVIBE) and (ii) spiral (SpiralVIBE) trajectories. Methods: MR images on five healthy volunteers were acquired on a wide bore 3T scanner (MAGNETOM Skyra, Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany). Anatomical image quality was assessed on: (1) free breathing (StarVIBE), (2) the standard clinical sequence (volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination, VIBE) acquired in a 20 second (s) compliant breath-hold and (3) 20 s non-compliant breath-hold. For functional assessment, StarVIBE and the current standard breath-hold time-resolved angiography with stochastic trajectories (TWIST) sequence were run as multiphase acquisitions to replicate dynamic contrast enhancement (DCE) in one healthy volunteer. The potential application of the SpiralVIBE sequence for lung parenchymal imaging was assessed on one healthy volunteer. Ten patients with lung cancer were subsequently imaged with the StarVIBE and SpiralVIBE sequences for anatomical and structural assessment. For functional assessment, free-breathing StarVIBE DCE protocol was compared with breath-hold TWIST sequences on four prior lung cancer patients with similar tumour locations. Image quality was evaluated independently and blinded to sequence information by an experienced thoracic radiologist. Results: For anatomical assessment, the compliant breath-hold VIBE sequence was better than free-breathing StarVIBE. However, in the presence of a non-compliant breath-hold, StarVIBE was superior. For functional assessment, StarVIBE outperformed the standard sequence and was shown to provide robust DCE data in the presence of motion. The ultrashort echo of the SpiralVIBE sequence enabled visualisation of lung parenchyma. Conclusion: The two non-Cartesian acquisition sequences, StarVIBE and SpiralVIBE, provide a free-breathing imaging protocol of the lung with sufficient image quality to permit anatomical, structural and functional assessment during radiotherapy. Advances in knowledge: Novel application of non-Cartesian MRI sequences for lung cancer imaging for radiotherapy. Illustration of SpiralVIBE UTE sequence as a promising sequence for lung structural imaging during lung radiotherapy