Integration of Instrumentation and Computer Modelling to Understand and therefore Better Design and Represent the Rock bolt Support Behaviour

A safe and efficient ground control system is one of the most vital components of an underground mine’s operations. Current rockbolt ground reinforcement design methods do not consider the actual in-situ behaviour of the rockbolt. Instrumented rock bolts can be used to understand the actual rockbolt response under different loading conditions. Work done in this thesis aims to integrate the actual in-situ response of rockbolt with improved numerical modelling procedures for designing better ground support

Indian Seed System Development: Policy and Institutional Options

Developments in the Indian seed industry and their impact on access and use of commercial seed by farmers have been examined. Various types of seed systems such as hybrids, self-pollinated crops, vegetatively propagated crops, crops with high seed volume, etc have been analysed. It has been shown that the commercial seed markets for hybrids are well developed, but these need improving flow of information to farmers and effective regulation of unscrupulous traders, etc. There are significant changes in terms of seed regulations, management of GM crops and protection of intellectual property. Since all these regulations are mutually enforcing, there is a need for developing institutional capacity for their enforcement, as well as flexibility to learn from the experience for future adaptation. There is a lot of scope for strengthening the seed system of ‘orphan crops’, where there is no participation of the private sector, and the public seed system is facing several resource and institutional constraints. In particular, there is a need for technological backstopping, developing partnerships with private and civil society organisations, and developing capacity at the local level. The results of farm surveys have shown that increasing proportion of farmers use commercial seed for quality considerations. The study has argued that there is a problem with variety selection, particularly of proprietary hybrids, due to lack of information, which has resulted into poor crop performance on several occasions.Crop Production/Industries,

Delivering Seeds of 'Orphan' Crops: The Case Studies of Potato and Groundnut in India

This paper examines the performance of the Indian seed system in the context of high volume, low value seed, using the case studies of potato and groundnut. In theory, public sector should be able to address seed needs of farmers growing these crops. However, the ability of the public sector is constrained by a number of institutional and technical factors, and farmers largely depend upon traditional sources of seed. The traditional sources meet more than two-thirds of the total seed demand , and the rest is met by the formal seed system, mainly public seed agencies. Most of the farmers buy fresh seed for quality reasons, and only 12-15 percent farmers purchase seed to change variety. In potato, technological innovation provided options to enhance multiplication rate and improve quality of seed, and therefore attracted the private sector in the production and delivery of seed to farmers. Availability of source seed from public plant breeding programs further encouraged the private sector's participation. However, it is very unlikely that the crops under study will attract private investment in plant breeding because of inadequate incentives even under the new IPR regime. Therefore, public research system should continue to shoulder the responsibility of plant breeding, and develop partnership with the private sector to strengthen decentralized seed activities. Coordination among public seed corporations of different states may help augment seed supply in the deficit regions, and offer greater choice to farmers. Efforts to develop supply chain, especially for premium market, will eventually attract private sector in the product, as well as seed market.Seed system, Seed sources, Seed saving, Seed quality, Supply chain, India, Crop Production/Industries, O3, Q13, Q16,

A study of spatial and temporal distribution of land utilization pattern in Mopka village using RS & GIS

Remote Sensing and GIS is a very good modality for retrospection and the strategy for better exploitation of sustainable land use system. The present study was conducted in the Bilaspur district for analyzing the spatial distribution of Land Use Change. During last decades the increasing population of Bilaspur city, affect the land use pattern of Mopka Village. The anthropogenic activities were affecting the agricultural land along with barren land. For the development of civic amenities the land of the above village was used. The main objective of the present study is to analyses the land use/land cover distribution in Mopka village, Bilaspur district in between last 12 years and to identify the main forces behind the changes. The objectives of present studies are, to create a land use land cover maps of Mopka village using satellite imagery. To analysis the temporal changes of village area in between the year 2000 and 2012, the primary, secondary and satellite data were used. The results of the present study show that the decadeial changes due to population growth and increasing demand of infrastructure were destroying the natural resources, natural habitat and soil structure of area.Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. & Tech. 5 (1): 1-9, June, 201

Synthesis and Characterization of Colloidal Gold Nanoparticles Suspension using Liquid Soaps

In this communication, we represent a versatile and effective technique to synthesize stable aqueous dispersions of gold nanoparticles using chemicals presents in the liquid soaps. Auric tetra chloride (HAuCl4) was used as precursors for synthesis of the gold nanoparticles. The reduction of the gold precursor was carried out using citric acid, Glycerin and other reducing agents present in the liquid soap. Sodium sulphate, sodium chloride present in the liquid soap acts as stabilizing agents. The sources of these precursors in this case were liquid soaps like Pril Perfect (lime), Dettol (Hand Wash), Palmolive, Nomarks (Face Wash), Lakme fruit Burst (Face Wash), Clean & Clear (Face Wash), and Himalaya Neem (Face Wash). By using different process like thermal reduction, microwave, solvothermal and photo catalytic reduction process the above reaction was accomplished. UV-visible spectroscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) was used to ascertain the formation of gold nanoparticles. The color of the gold nanoparticles suspension varies from red to blue depending upon the shape and size of the particles Keywords: Green technology, microwave irradiation, photo catalytic, Autoclave, solvothermal, spectroscopy and microscopy

Controlling the size distribution of nanoparticles through the use of physical boundaries during laser ablation in liquids

A simple, yet effective method of controlling the size and size distributions of nanoparticles produced as a result of laser ablation of target material is presented. The method employs the presence of physical boundaries on either sides of the ablation site. In order to demonstrate the potential of the method, experiments have been conducted with copper and titanium as the target materials that are placed in two different liquid media (water and isopropyl alcohol). The ablation of the target material immersed in the liquid medium has been carried out using an Nd:YAG laser. Significant differences in the size and size distributions are observed in the cases of nanoparticles produced with and without confining boundaries. It is seen that for any given liquid medium and the target material, the mean size of the nanoparticles obtained with the boundary-fitted target surface is consistently higher than that achieved in the case of open (flat) targets. The observed trend has been attributed to the plausible role(s) of the confining boundaries in prolonging the thermalisation time of the plasma plume. In order to ascertain that the observed differences in sizes of the nanoparticles produced with and without the presence of the physical barriers are predominantly because of the prolonged thermalisation of the plasma plume and not due to the possible formation of oxide layer, select experiments with gold as the target material in water have also been performed. The experiments also show that, irrespective of the liquid medium, the increase in the mean size of the copper-based nanoparticles due to the presence of physical boundaries is relatively higher than that observed in the case of titanium target material under similar experimental conditions.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures, a part of this work has been published in Photonics Prague 2017, (Proc. SPIE 10603, Photonics, Devices, and Systems VII, 1060304) titled "A novel method for fabrication of size-controlled metallic nanoparticles

Green synthesis of acetohydroxamic acid by thermophilic amidase of Bacillus smithii IIIMB2907

373-377Acetohydroxamic acid is a pharmaceutically active metal chelating agent which has various applications in the field of medicine. Current study focuses on the enzymatic synthesis of acetohydroxamic acid catalysed by thermophilic amidase from Bacillus smithii IIIMB2907. Bacterial cells were grown in 7 L fermenter for amidase production and effect of pH, temperature and substrate concentration for the biotransformation of acetamide to acetohydroxamic acid was studied. Batch reaction was also successfully optimized at bench scale with the recovery of ≈ 81% acetohydroxamic acid (purified)

Assessment of groundwater quality status by using water quality index (WQI) and geographic information system (GIS) approaches: a case study of the Bokaro district, India

Abstract One hundred two groundwater samples were collected from the Bokaro district of Jharkhand state, India, during the pre-and post-monsoon seasons of the year 2014–2015. In the present study, groundwater samples were analysed for pH, TDS, TH, Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+, K+, Cl−, SO4 2−, HCO3 −, F− and NO3 − to evaluate the suitability of the groundwater for drinking purposes through geographic information system (GIS)-based water quality index (WQI) model. For quality assessment, values of analysed parameters of the groundwater samples were compared with the Bureau of Indian standards (BIS) and World Health Organization (WHO) water quality standards. The analytical results indicate slightly acidic to slightly alkaline nature of the groundwater in the study area. Concentrations of Ca2+, Mg2+, HCO3 −, F−, NO3 −, TDS and TH exceeded the desirable as well as permissible limits of drinking water quality standards recommended by the BIS (Indian Standard Drinking Water Specification, 2012) and WHO (Guidelines for drinking water quality: training pack, WHO, Geneva, 2004) in the study area during the pre- and post-monsoon seasons, respectively. However, Na+, K+, Cl− and SO4 2− concentrations were within the permissible limits during both seasons. The hydrochemical analysis of the studied groundwater samples documented with ternary and Durov diagram revealed that most of the groundwater samples belong to HCO3 − type of anions facies and no dominant type of cation facies. The GIS-based WQI maps for the study area indicate that the poor quality of water was found the maximum in the pre-monsoon season as compared to the post-monsoon season in the study area, respectively. The high values of WQI in the several groundwater samples of the Bokaro district indicate that water is not suitable for direct consumptions and it required sustainable treatment before its utilization for drinking uses

Green synthesis of acetohydroxamic acid by thermophilic amidase of Bacillus smithii IIIMB2907

Acetohydroxamic acid is a pharmaceutically active metal chelating agent which has various applications in the field of medicine. Current study focuses on the enzymatic synthesis of acetohydroxamic acid catalysed by thermophilic amidase from Bacillus smithii IIIMB2907. Bacterial cells were grown in 7 L fermenter for amidase production and effect of pH, temperature and substrate concentration for the biotransformation of acetamide to acetohydroxamic acid was studied. Batch reaction was also successfully optimized at bench scale with the recovery of ≈ 81% acetohydroxamic acid (purified)

Identification of suitable locations for artificial groundwater recharge in a mining area of India by using remote sensing and GIS techniques

Mining is one of the major activities causing water pollution and threating the quality and quantity of surface and groundwater resources in many parts of the world. Mining and related activities also damage the aquifer and decrease the water availability in the area. Groundwater may be considered as one of the most precious and basic needs for human existence and the survival of people providing the luxuries and comforts in addition to fulfilling the basic necessities of life. In India, more than 90% of the rural and nearly 30% of the urban populations depend on groundwater for drinking and domestic requirements. Historically, the overexploitation of groundwater resources is a major issue in Indian country. In fact in the last decades annual water demand has increased for agricultural and industrial activities. The hydrogeological system characterization and the artificial recharging of aquifers might help to solve the problem of the groundwater level decreasing. For this purpose, six important hydrogeological factors such as slope, infiltration, drainage, depth to groundwater, land use and geology have been considered to define the most suitable locations for artificial groundwater recharge in mining area. Different thematic maps were prepared from existing maps and data sets, remote-sensing images, and field investigations for identification of suitable locations for artificial recharge. Thematic layers for these parameters were organized as raster data, classified, weighted and integrated in a GIS environment using of Boolean and Fuzzy logic. The main objective of the present study is identifying artificial recharge site in West Bokaro coalfield of Jharkhand state using remote sensing and GIS applications, in order to make a proper planning and sustainable management of groundwater resources