Strategy of Growth for Substantial Reduction of Poverty and Reversal of Trend towards Increasing Regional Divide

While Development as Freedom is considered to be one of the objectives of our national economic endeavors, and poverty reduction and fairly balanced regional development are high on the economic agenda, it is well known that our planning and economic policies have failed to produce inclusive growth to enable substantial parts of country to get the benefits of developments. The Approach Paper to 11th Five Year Plan declares its objective to be faster and more inclusive growth, but the Planning Commission or the Central Government do not put forward any significant change in the plan principles or strategies. In this paper we are suggesting a set of new innovative policies as additions to the policies already being implemented.poverty, Regional Divide, 11th Five Year Plan, innovative policies

High pressure pyrolyzed non-precious metal oxygen reduction catalysts for alkaline polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

Non-precious metal catalysts, such as metal-coordinated to nitrogen doped-carbon, have shown reasonable oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performances in alkaline fuel cells. In this report, we present the development of a highly active, stable and low-cost non-precious metal ORR catalyst by direct synthesis under autogenic-pressure conditions. Transmission electron microscopy studies show highly porous Fe-N-C and Co-N-C structures, which were further confirmed by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area measurements. The surface areas of the Fe-N-C and Co-N-C catalysts were found to be 377.5 and 369.3 m2 g-1, respectively. XPS results show the possible existence of N-C and M-Nx structures, which are generally proposed to be the active sites in non-precious metal catalysts. The Fe-N-C electrocatalyst exhibits an ORR half-wave potential 20 mV higher than the reference Pt/C catalyst. The cycling durability test for Fe-N-C over 5000 cycles shows that the half-wave potential lost only 4 mV, whereas the half-wave potential of the Pt/C catalyst lost about 50 mV. The Fe-N-C catalyst exhibited an improved activity and stability compared to the reference Pt/C catalyst and it possesses a direct 4-electron transfer pathway for the ORR process. Further, the Fe-N-C catalyst produces extremely low HO2- content, as confirmed by the rotating ring-disk electrode measurements. In the alkaline fuel single cell tests, maximum power densities of 75 and 80 mW cm-2 were observed for the Fe-N-C and Pt/C cathodes, respectively. Durability studies (100 h) showed that decay of the fuel cell current was more prominent for the Pt/C cathode catalyst compared to the Fe-N-C cathode catalyst. Therefore, the Fe-N-C catalyst appears to be a promising new class of non-precious metal catalysts prepared by an autogenic synthetic method. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2015.

Fekete-Szegö Inequality for Universally Prestarlike Functions

MSC 2010: 30C45The universally prestarlike functions of order α ≤ 1 in the slit domain Λ = C [1;∞) have been recently introduced by S. Ruscheweyh. This notion generalizes the corresponding one for functions in the unit disk Δ (and other circular domains in C). In this paper, we obtain the coefficient inequalities and the Fekete-Szegö inequality for such functions

Construction industry and women: a review of the barriers

The UK construction industry has a particularly low participation rate for women. Currently there are over 11 million women employed in the UK, accounting for almost 50% of the work force. However, despite increases in the number of women employed in the construction over the past decade, they still constitute only 9% of the work force. This means that the construction industry will continue to be male dominated. It is found that women are confronted by a significant number of barriers, beginning with difficulties in joining the field of construction through to capturing the most senior position in the organisation’s hierarchy. In this context, this paper presents a review of the literature on the current status of women in the construction; in particular, it discusses the barriers which prevent women’s entry and retention in the construction industry

Economic evaluation of the treatment of grade II haemorrhoids : a comparison of stapled haemorrhoidopexy and rubber band ligation.

The definitive version is available at www3.interscience.wiley.comPeer reviewedPostprin

A study of cavitation induced surface erosion in abrasive waterjet cutting systems

Current jet cutting systems experience severe nozzle erosion and associated maintenance and downtime costs. An experimental investigation was conducted to qualitatively and quantitatively analyse the generation of cavitation in a high pressure water jet cutting system, and to characterise cavitation induced accelerated surface erosion by slurries. The analysis of surface morphology indicates that the shearing induced by cavitation played a major role in the erosion process. The results promise a feasible solution to reduce nozzle wear, and to enhance material removal in the jet cutting process

Microelectromechnical Systems Inertial Measurement Unit Error Modelling and Error Analysis for Low-cost Strapdown Inertial Navigation System

This paper presents error modelling and error analysis of microelectromechnical systems (MEMS) inertial measurement unit (IMU) for a low-cost strapdown inertial navigation system (INS). The INS consists of IMU and navigation processor. The IMU provides acceleration and angular rate of the vehicle in all the three axes. In this paper, errors that affect the MEMS IMU, which is of low cost and less volume, are stochastically modelled and analysed using Allan variance. Wavelet decomposition has been introduced to remove the high frequency noise that affects the sensors to obtain the original values of angular rates and accelerations with less noise. This increases the accuracy of the strapdown INS. The results show the effect of errors in the output of sensors, easy interpretation of random errors by Allan variance, the increase in the accuracy when wavelet decomposition is used for denoising inertial sensor raw data.Defence Science Journal, 2009, 59(6), pp.650-658, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.59.157

Adaptive filtering of radar images for autofocus applications

Autofocus techniques are being designed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to automatically choose the filter parameters (i.e., the focus) for the digital synthetic aperture radar correlator; currently, processing relies upon interaction with a human operator who uses his subjective assessment of the quality of the processed SAR data. Algorithms were devised applying image cross-correlation to aid in the choice of filter parameters, but this method also has its drawbacks in that the cross-correlation result may not be readily interpretable. Enhanced performance of the cross-correlation techniques of JPL was hypothesized given that the images to be cross-correlated were first filtered to improve the signal-to-noise ratio for the pair of scenes. The results of experiments are described and images are shown

Effect of alkaline treatment on the sulfate content and quality of semi-refined carrageenan prepared from seaweed Kappaphycus alvarezii Doty (Doty) farmed in Indian waters

Seaweed Kappaphycus alvarezii previously known as Eucheuma cottonii is one of the best sources of kappa carrageenan and is cultivated in Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries including India. In the present study, semi-refined carrageenan (SRC) was prepared from K. alvarezii with different concentrations of KOH (6, 12, 18 and 24%) at 80 ± 2°C for 2 h; its sulfate contents were 13.73±0.74, 13.66±0.27, 13.84±0.66 and 14.76±0.18%, respectively, and it was 14.10±0.34% for untreated clean weed (control). The sulfate removal with increasing concentration of KOH used for processing SRC is not statistically significant (p < 0.05). The KCl gel strength of untreated clean weed and 6, 12, 18 and 24% KOH treated weed was 97±10.27, 650±12.11, 637±10.25, 552±18.71 and 526±26.55 g cm-2, respectively. Contents of 3,6-anhydrogalactose were 28.30±0.52, 33.41±0.50, 32.97±0.42, 31.15±0.60 and 31.61±0.17%. FTIR spectroscopy showed that molecules in all four SRC samples are quite similar. Spectral band was at 1257 cm-1 which referred to ester sulfate of 930 cm-1 for 3,6 anhydrogalactose and 848 cm-1 assigned to galactose-4-sulfate. From the present investigation, it was observed that sulfate removal and quality improvement with increasing concentration of KOH for cooking seaweed is not statistically significant; therefore, seaweed can be subjected to lower concentration of KOH treatment (6 to 12%) to produce semi-refined carrageenan on commercial scale.Keywords:  Seaweed, Kappaphycus alvarezii, KOH treatment, semi-refined carrageenan (SRC), sulfate content, FTIR spectra, gel strength.Abbreviation: SRC, semi-refined carrageenan; 3,6-AG, 3,6-anhydrogalacotse; FTIR, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy

Stupendous Nanomaterials: Carbon Nanotubes Synthesis, Characterization, and Applications

Carbon nanotubes are promising to revolutionize several fields in material science and are suggested to open the way into nanotechnology. These circular rod-shaped carbon nanostructures have novel characteristics that lead them to being potentially beneficial in many applications in nanoscience and nanotechnology. Their precise surface place, stiffness, power, and resilience have brought about lots of exhilaration in various areas. Nanotubes are categorized as single-walled nanotubes, double-walled nanotubes, and multi-walled nanotube. Various techniques have been evolved to produce nanotubes in bulk, including of arc discharge, laser ablation, chemical vapor deposition, electrolysis, and ball milling. Since their first observation nearly 20 years ago by Iijima, carbon nanotubes have been the focus of considerable research. Numerous researchers have reported remarkable physical and chemical properties for this new form of advanced carbon nanomaterials. Carbon nanotubes offer tremendous opportunities for the development of new material systems. This paper provides a concise report on recent advances in carbon nanotubes and their potential applications