Role of deities in symbolizing conflicts of dispersing human groups

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Ecology is for the people

The paper provides a theoretical frame work of evolution of ecological prudence in human populations. It emphasizes the urgent need to understand the conditions that favour or militate against the exercise of ecological prudence. Evidence is presented to show that the Indian society had evolved a rich tradition of social restraints on resource utilization. It is suggested that ecological prudence could come to prevail in India only through the involvement of the people at the grass-roots level

Particulate emissions from a wood-fired improved biomass stove

Worldwide, approximately three billion people cook their food using biomass fuels such as wood, charcoal, crop residues, and animal dung. The emissions produced by these smoky fires lead to four million premature deaths annually and large environmental consequences. While the negative effects of biomass burning have spurred much research into designing less polluting cookstoves, researchers need a knowledge-base to draw from when making design decisions. However, previous research has measured these emissions relatively far away from the source, not exploring how the design modifications affect the actual combustion. In this study, the emissions from an improved cookstove, the Berkeley-Darfur Stove, and single blocks of wood are examined in-situ using laser extinction. The pollutant production, measured by the opacity or soot volume fraction, was compared between the two systems to gain a deeper understanding of combustion in the stove while providing initial steps towards a non-intrusive sampling system for pollutant production in cookstove combustion chambers.Kathleen M. Lask, Paul R. Medwell, Cristian H. Birzer, Ashok J. Gadgilhttp://cfe.uwa.edu.au/news/acs2013http://www.anz-combustioninstitute.org

Multilayered feed forward Artificial Neural Network model to predict the average summer-monsoon rainfall in India

In the present research, possibility of predicting average summer-monsoon rainfall over India has been analyzed through Artificial Neural Network models. In formulating the Artificial Neural Network based predictive model, three layered networks have been constructed with sigmoid non-linearity. The models under study are different in the number of hidden neurons. After a thorough training and test procedure, neural net with three nodes in the hidden layer is found to be the best predictive model.Comment: 19 pages, 1 table, 3 figure

Field-testing UV disinfection of drinking water

A recently invented device, ``UV Waterworks,`` uses ultraviolet (UV) light to disinfect drinking water. Its novel features are: low cost, robust design, rapid disinfection, low electricity use, low maintenance, high flow rate and ability to work with unpressurized water sources. The device could service a community of 1,000 persons, at an annual total cost of less than 10 US cents per person. UV Waterworks has been successfully tested in the laboratory. Limited field trials of an early version of the device were conducted in India in 1994--95. Insights from these trials led to the present design. Extended field trials of UV Waterworks, initiated in South Africa in February 1997, will be coordinated by the South African Center for Essential Community Services (SACECS), with technical and organizational support from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory(LBNL) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (both US). The first of the eight planned sites of the year long trial is an AIDS hospice near Durban. Durban metro Water and LBNL lab-tested a UV Waterworks unit prior to installing it at the hospice in August, 1997. The authors describe the field test plans and preliminary results from Durban

Mapping ecologically sensitive, significant and salient areas of Western Ghats: proposed protocols and methodology

The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India (GOI) has been asked to identify ecologically sensitive areas (ESAs) along the Western Ghats, and to suggest how to manage them. The concept of ESAs has been extensively discussed in the literature. Several ESAs have been set up in India over the last 22 years under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, and a GOI committee under the chairmanship of Pranob Sen has proposed certain criteria for identification of ESAs. However, WGEEP noted that we still lack a global consensus either on the criteria to define ESAs or on a workable methodology to identify them. Furthermore, there are no clear guidelines on the management regime that should prevail in ESAs, and the Pranob Sen Committee has not addressed this issue at all. Hence, WGEEP decided to undertake an exercise of defining ESAs and developing a workable methodology to assign levels of ecological significance/sensitivity as a first step towards putting ESAs on the map of the Western Ghats. This article provides a report on the outcome of a series of discussions and consultations held by WGEEP to build a consensus on defining and mapping ESAs. It hopes to provoke discussion and feedback from a wider section of experts, with the aim of finalizing a generic methodology for mapping ESAs in other ecologically sign ificant, biodiversity-rich areas within and outside the country. We hope to shortly prepare a companion paper that will address the equally vital management issues

Locally affordable and scalable arsenic remediation for South Asia using ECAR

An estimated 60 million low income people in South Asia are affected by chronic exposure to naturally occurring arsenic in drinking water sources. Few household and community level technologies have proven to be sustainable and scalable. Electro-chemical Arsenic Remediation (ECAR) is a low cost, robust, highly effective and easily scalable technology that has been designed to fit within a scalable and sustainable business model. In this paper, we describe ECAR treatment results from arsenic-contaminated synthetic and real groundwater and field trials of 100L and 600L scale prototype systems operated at rural schools in West Bengal, India. We demonstrate robust and reliable arsenic removal, the low production of waste sludge and the potential for successful sludge stabilization in concrete. We estimate the operating costs and benefits of ECAR based on field results

Air Corrosivity in U.S. Outdoor-Air-Cooled Data Centers is Similar to That in Conventional Data Centers

There is a concern that environmental-contamination caused corrosion may negatively affect Information Technology (IT) equipment reliability. Nineteen data centers in the United States and two in India were evaluated using Corrosion Classification Coupons (CCC) to assess environmental air quality as it may relate IT equipment reliability. The data centers were of two basic types: closed and outside-air cooled. A closed data center provides cool air to the IT equipment using air conditioning in which only a small percent age of the recirculation air is make-up air continuously supplied from outside to meet human health requirements. An outside-air cooled data center uses outside air directly as the primary source for IT equipment cooling. Corrosion measuring coupons containing copper and silver metal strips were placed in both closed and outside-air cooled data centers. The coupons were placed at each data center (closed and outside-air cooled types) with the location categorized into three groups: (1) Outside - coupons sheltered, located near or at the supply air inlet, but located before any filtering, (2) Supply - starting just after initial air filtering continuing inside the plenums and ducts feeding the data center rooms, and (3) Inside located inside the data center rooms near the IT equipment. Each coupon was exposed for thirty days and then sent to a laboratory for a corrosion rate measurement analysis. The goal of this research was to investigate whether gaseous contamination is a concern for U.S. data center operators as it relates to the reliability of IT equipment. More specifically, should there be an increased concern if outside air for IT equipment cooling is used To begin to answer this question limited exploratory measurements of corrosion rates in operating data centers in various locations were undertaken. This study sought to answer the following questions: (1) What is the precision of the measurements (2) What are the approximate statistical distributions of copper and silver corrosion rates in the sampled data centers(3) To what extent are copper and silver corrosion measurements related (4) What is the relationship of corrosion rate measurements between outside-air cooled data centers compared to closed data centers (5) How do corrosivity measurements relate to IT equipment failure rates The data from our limited sample size suggests that most United States data center operators should not be concerned with environmental gaseous contamination causing high IT equipment failure rates even when using outside-air cooling. The research team recommends additional basic research on how environmental conditions, specifically gaseous contamination, affect electronic equipment reliability

Chapter 9 - Buildings

This chapter aims to update the knowledge on the building sector since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) from a mitigation perspective. Buildings and activities in buildings are responsible for a significant share of GHG emissions, but they are also the key to mitigation strategies. In 2010, the building sector accounted for approximately 117 Exajoules (EJ) or 32% of global final energy consumption and 19% of energy-related CO2 emissions; and 51% of global electricity consumption. Buildings contribute to a significant amount of F-gas emissions, with large differences in reported figures due to differing accounting conventions, ranging from around an eighth to a third of all such emissions. The chapter argues that beyond a large emission role, mitigation opportunities in this sector are also significant, often very cost-effective, and are in many times associated with significant co-benefits that can exceed the direct benefits by orders of magnitude. The sector has significant mitigation potentials at low or even negative costs. Nevertheless, without strong actions emissions are likely to grow considerably - and they may even double by mid-century - due to several drivers. The chapter points out that certain policies have proven to be very effective and several new ones are emerging. As a result, building energy use trends have been reversed to stagnation or even reduction in some jurisdictions in recent years, despite the increases in affluence and population. The chapter uses a novel conceptual framework, in line with the general analytical framework of the contribution of Working Group III (WGIII) to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), which focuses on identities as an organizing principle