On the Weakening of Chromospheric Magnetic Field in Active Regions

Simultaneous measurement of line-of-sight (LOS) magnetic and velocity fields at the photosphere and chromosphere are presented. Fe I line at $\lambda6569$ and $H_{\alpha}$ at $\lambda6563$ are used respectively for deriving the physical parameters at photospheric and chromospheric heights. The LOS magnetic field obtained through the center-of-gravity method show a linear relation between photospheric and chromospheric field for field strengths less than 700 G. But in strong field regions, the LOS magnetic field values derived from $H_{\alpha}$ are much weaker than what one gets from the linear relationship and also from those expected from the extrapolation of the photospheric magnetic field. We discuss in detail the properties of magnetic field observed in $H_{\alpha}$ from the point of view of observed velocity gradients. The bisector analysis of $H_{\alpha}$ Stokes $I$ profiles show larger velocity gradients in those places where strong photospheric magnetic fields are observed. These observations may support the view that the stronger fields diverge faster with height compared to weaker fields.Comment: accepted for publication in Ap

Smear correction of highly-variable, frame-transfer-CCD images with application to polarimetry

Image smear, produced by the shutter-less operation of frame transfer CCD detectors, can be detrimental for many imaging applications. Existing algorithms used to numerically remove smear, do not contemplate cases where intensity levels change considerably between consecutive frame exposures. In this report we reformulate the smearing model to include specific variations of the sensor illumination. The corresponding desmearing expression and its noise properties are also presented and demonstrated in the context of fast imaging polarimetry.Comment: Article accepted for publication in Applied Optics on 08 Jun 201

Comparative Analysis of Equity and Debt Funds

In India mutual fund industry is growing at a rapid speed after liberalization of policy of the government. As the mutual funds industry is offering a wide array of schemes with different structures and objectives, the risk and returns vary. There is a wide scope to evaluate the performance of mutual funds in various dimensions like risk-return, risk adjusted return and return from alternative investments. Mutual Fund is one of the most preferred investment alternatives for the small investors as it offers an opportunity to invest in a diversified and professionally managed portfolio at a relatively low cost. In recent times, the emerging trend in the mutual fund industry is the aggressive expansion of the foreign owned mutual fund companies and the decline of the companies floated by nationalized banks and small private sector player

Corporate Disclosure and its Usefulness: An Empirical Study

Corporate Disclosure is the communication and reporting of accounting and non-accounting information to various direct and indirect users for the purpose of their analysis and decision making. The annual report has long been used by an enterprise as primary vehicle of communication, not only with its investors but also with other stakeholders who, for variety of reasons, have a legitimate interest in the affairs and operations of the enterprise. Users while making decisions look to annual reports to provide information which will help them to assess performance, to evaluate management quality, to estimate future prospects and to assess financial strength. In recent times, some concern has been expressed about the general quality of annual reports which varies significantly among enterprises. This study was under taken to ascertain whether the present corporate disclosure practices through annual reports fulfill investors needs while forming sound economic decisions

A Study on Performance of Health Insurance Schemes in India

Health insurance is an insurance coverage purchased in advance by an individual or a group after paying a fee called =premium‘. It is a complimentary financing mechanism for enhancing access to quality health. Health insurance is one of the products offered by the general insurance companies as well as by life insurance companies in India. Health indicators of a nation are assessed through parameters like infant mortality, maternal mortality rate, life expectancy, birth and death rate. India recorded notable achievement in all the parameters since independence. The Eleventh Plan observed that the cost of health care services in the country was higher in the private sector in comparison with the public sector. A study group appointed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare suggested to explore a risk pooling system with a view to reduce the burden of the poor

Awareness Of Social Media Privacy & Security: A Study Among Engineering Students In Spsr Nellore Dist., A.P.

This paper presents the results of a study conducted on the engineering student’s awareness of social media privacy and security issues. For this purpose, the survey method was adopted and a questionnaire was administered among the engineering students. The results revealed that majority of the respondents (60.8 percent) are reading the privacy policies on social media Majority of the respondents (76.31 percent) are avoiding friend requests from unknown persons. The study recommends that the users of social media should not assume that all privacy policies are identical; they vary from one platform to another; also, they do not provide sufficient information about how they disperse the personal information

An Experimental Study of Natural Convection in Porous Media Heated from below

The present experimental study is carried out using a rectangular cavity packed with porous medium such as iron balls or glass balls of different diameters and hence different porosity. The lower plate is maintained at a uniform temperature Th, which is higher than the temperature Tc of upper plate. The experiment is performed for both closed and open systems in vertical as well as horizontal orientation of the test box. When ( Th - Tc ) is increased beyond a certain value, convective motion takes place in the fluid. The results of the experiment indicate that a porous medium can transport more energy than a saturated fluid alone if the porous matrix is highly permeable and thermal conductivity of solid particles is greater than that of fluid. This experiment also shows that convective effect is more in open system i.e., free boundary at the top. It is also observed that the time taken to reach the thermal steady state is less in the horizontal orientation as compared to the vertical orientation. In this study, the relationship between Rayleigh and Nusselt numbers has been investigated in addition to the expected temperature profile. It is found that the magnitude of temperature for iron balls is about 10% more as compared to glass balls and about 18% higher for vertical orientation as compared to horizontal orientation

Smart Payments Reconciliation by Automatically Detecting and Resolving Anomalies

Online payments can fail for a variety of reasons such as insufficient funds, invalid state of the payment instrument, chargebacks, or one of the involved financial systems being unavailable. Anomalies in payment transactions can result in a loss of money either to a customer or business. Current online payment systems cannot handle such anomalies efficiently and at scale. This disclosure describes techniques to perform smart payments reconciliation by automatically detecting and resolving payment anomalies in online payment transactions. The techniques perform automated early detection of anomalies using artificial intelligence and initiate remedial actions. The described techniques can help improve the accuracy and therefore the reliability of online payment systems by reducing errors in accounting records. The described techniques can help improve the customer experience for online shoppers by making sure that customers are correctly charged or issued an appropriate refund based on purchased or returned items

Effect of variable porosity on composite heat transfer in a boundary layer flow

The effects of variable porosity and variable thermal conductivity of the medium and also the emission, absorption and scattering of radiation are studied in this paper. The comparative study has been made for three different situations, namely a) variable porosity b) constant porosity and c) absence of porous medium.In carrying out the solution, the momentum and energy equations are coupled and they are solved simultaneously by Runge-Kutta Gill method in conjunction with Newton-Raphson iterative scheme. The results of the analyses show that, in the cases of variable porosity and absence of porous medium the velocity profiles possess very small curvature at the wall, whereas, in the case of constant porosity situation the velocity profile is almost zero upto a certain distance and then increases. Nevertheless, it reaches unity asymptotically in all the three cases. The temperature profile becomes linear as the value of b (ratio of thermal conductivity of solid to fluid –λs/λf) increases. Another important result of the analysis is that the rise in temperature in variable porosity medium is about 25% more in comparison with absence of porous medium. Further, the results show that the total heat flux in the variable porosity medium is about 79% more as compared to constant porosity medium. And the variable conductivity enhances the total heat flux by about 33% as compared to constant conductivity of the medium