The role of Botanic Gardens in the Conservation of Wild and Native Flora

The present study highlights the role of botanic gardens in the conservation of wild and native floristic elements. It is observed that, there is a total of 33 species of plants belonging to 26 families and 28 genera. Out of 33 species, 19-species are conserved asex-situ and 14-species by in-situ methods

The Glory Program: Global Science from a Unique Spacecraft Integration

The Glory program is an Earth and Solar science mission designed to broaden science community knowledge of the environment. The causes and effects of global warming have become a concern in recent years and Glory aims to contribute to the knowledge base of the science community. Glory is designed for two functions: one is solar viewing to monitor the total solar irradiance and the other is observing the Earth s atmosphere for aerosol composition. The former is done with an active cavity radiometer, while the latter is accomplished with an aerosol polarimeter sensor to discern atmospheric particles. The Glory program is managed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) with Orbital Sciences in Dulles, VA as the prime contractor for the spacecraft bus, mission operations, and ground system. This paper will describe some of the more unique features of the Glory program including the integration and testing of the satellite and instruments as well as the science data processing. The spacecraft integration and test approach requires extensive analysis and additional planning to ensure existing components are successfully functioning with the new Glory components. The science mission data analysis requires development of mission unique processing systems and algorithms. Science data analysis and distribution will utilize our national assets at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). The Satellite was originally designed and built for the Vegetation Canopy Lidar (VCL) mission, which was terminated in the middle of integration and testing due to payload development issues. The bus was then placed in secure storage in 2001 and removed from an environmentally controlled container in late 2003 to be refurbished to meet the Glory program requirements. Functional testing of all the components was done as a system at the start of the program, very different from a traditional program. The plan for Glory is to minimize any changes to the spacecraft in order to meet the Glory requirements. This means that the instrument designs must adhere to the existing interfaces and capabilities as much as possible. Given Glory's unique history and the potential science return, the program is one of significant value to both the science community and the world. The findings Glory promises will improve our understanding of the drivers for global climate change for a minimal investment. The program hopes to show that reuse of existing government assets can result in a lower cost, and fully successful mission

Influence of Solvent Composition on the Performance of Spray-Dried Co-Amorphous Formulations

Ball-milling is usually used to prepare co-amorphous drug–amino acid (AA) mixtures. In this study, co-amorphous drug–AA mixtures were produced using spray-drying, a scalable industrially preferred preparation method. The influence of the solvent type and solvent composition was investigated. Mixtures of indomethacin (IND) and each of the three AAs arginine, histidine, and lysine were ball-milled and spray-dried at a 1:1 molar ratio, respectively. Spray-drying was performed at different solvent ratios in (a) ethanol and water mixtures and (b) acetone and water mixtures. Different ratios of these solvents were chosen to study the effect of solvent mixtures on co-amorphous formulation. Residual crystallinity, thermal properties, salt/partial salt formation, and powder dissolution profiles of the IND–AA mixtures were investigated and compared to pure crystalline and amorphous IND. It was found that using spray-drying as a preparation method, all IND–AA mixtures could be successfully converted into the respective co-amorphous forms, irrespective of the type of solvent used, but depending on the solvent mixture ratios. Both ball-milled and spray-dried co-amorphous samples showed an enhanced dissolution rate and maintained supersaturation compared to the crystalline and amorphous IND itself. The spray-dried samples resulting in co-amorphous samples were stable for at least seven months of storage

ISIS2: Pixel Sensor with Local Charge Storage for ILC Vertex Detector

ISIS (In-situ Storage Imaging Sensor) is a novel CMOS sensor with multiple charge storage capability developed for the ILC vertex detector by the Linear Collider Flavour Identification (LCFI) collaboration. This paper reports test results for ISIS2, the second generation of ISIS sensors implemented in a 0.18 micron CMOS process. The local charge storage and charge transfer were unambiguously demonstrated.Comment: 11 pages, 16 figures, to be included in the Proceedings of International Linear Collider Workshop 201

Levels of research evidence in health policy assessment in Malawi

Purpose – The paper examines levels of health research evidence in health policies in Malawi. Design/Methodology/Approach – The study selected a typology of health policies in Malawi from 2002 to 2017. The study adopted the SPIRIT conceptual framework and assessed the levels of research evidence in health policy, systems and services research using the revised SAGE policy assessment tool. Documentary analysis was used to assess levels of health research evidence in health policies in Malawi. Findings – In 29 (96.7%) of the health policies, policy formulators including healthcare directors and managers used generic search engines such as Google or Google Scholar to look for heath research evidence. In 28 (93.3%) of the health policies they searched for grey literature and other government documents. In only 6 (20%) of the heath policy documents, they used academic literature in a form of journal articles and randomised controlled trials. No systematic reviews or policy briefs were consulted. Overall, in 23 (76.7%) of the health policy documents research evidence played a minimal role and had very little influence on the policy documents. Research limitations/implications – The empirical evidence in the health policy documents are limited due to insufficient research citation, low retrievability of health research evidence in the policy documents and biased selectivity of what constitutes health research evidence. Practical implications – The paper indicates that unfiltered information (data from policy evaluations and registries) constitutes majority of the research evidence in health policies both in health policy, systems and services research. The paper seeks to advocate for the use of filtered information (peer reviewed, clinical trials and data from systematic reviews) in formulating health policies. Originality/value – There is dearth of literature on the levels of health research evidence in health policy-making both in health policy, systems and services research. This study seeks to bridge the gap with empirical evidence from a developing country perspective