432 research outputs found
C–REACTIVE PROTEIN AS A PREDICTOR OF INTIMAL MEDIA THICKNESS IN A HEALTHY COMMUNITY DWELLING POPULATION OF A BROAD AGE RANGE
No full textTemperature Dependence of Chemical and Biphysical Rate Processes: Phenomenological Approach to Deviation from Arrhenius Law
No full textINITIAL PRODUCTION OF DEFECTS IN ALKALI-HALIDES - F AND H CENTER PRODUCTION BY NON-RADIATIVE DECAY OF SELF-TRAPPED EXCITON
No full textRadiation damage in KCl can be produced by the decay of a self-trapped exciton into an F centre and an H centre. The authors present calculations of the energies of the states involved for various stages in the evolution of the damage. These lead to important conclusions about the very rapid damage process, and support strongly Itoh and Saidoh's suggestion (1973) that damage proceeds through an excited hole state. The results also help in understanding the prompt decay of F and H pairs at low temperatures, the thermal annihilation of F and H centres, the effects of optical excitation of the self-trapped exciton, and some of the trends within the alkali halides. The calculations use a self-consistent semi-empirical molecular-orbital method. A large cluster of ions is used (either 42 or 57 ions) plus long-range Madelung terms. The ion positions were obtained from separate lattice-relaxation calculations with the HADES code. The choice of CNDO parameters and the adequacy of the method were checked by a number of separate predictions
Managing Leadership Development from a Gender Equity perspective: A case study approach in a typical materials company
No full textDiversity, Equity, and Inclusion are one of the latest topics getting attention among companies and universities. This reflects societal representation for gender ratios and many organizations have set goals on gender equality in creating a sustainable and innovative workplace. However, the statistics show that there is sluggish growth for women in managerial positions. This is creating a problem for promoting equity at leadership levels in every organization. Equity and equality are not the same as the former is closer to justice creating the same opportunities for all people with different abilities. Even though organizations can able to promote gender equality and achieve it with a better ratio, there is a struggle to increase women's representation at different leadership levels. The global scenario also shows that the representation of women on board and C-suite (Chief executive level like CEO, CFO, etc) is very low demanding gender equity at leadership levels. Thereby, a case study is performed in Celanese, a materials company that has better gender equality across the organization.This research is executed as an embedded single case study in both the global and Dutch context to understand this scenario and their gender representation at the management level. This is, in particular, to relate gender equality ratio progress and effectiveness for development programs to promote more women leaders supporting equitable workplace. The embedded case study is performed through ethnography research in terms of observations, qualitative interviews, and focused group discussions inside the organization. This approach helps to understand the existing scenario for women's representation and leadership development opportunities in a typical materials company. This is extended for industrial benchmarks at the global level as a comparison of gender equality ratios against their competitors. The leadership interviews with both genders focusing on women leaders are done and the outputs showed the driving factors, challenges, and future requirements to create equity-focused leadership. Further analysis is done to extract the key elements impacting gender equity for leadership development programs.Whereas, focused group discussions are aimed at involving employees at different levels and employees who are closely involved in leadership programs. So, focused group discussion is done with the Young professional group that comprises employees at different levels and Human Resources team who drives leadership programs. These discussions acted as data triangulation for qualitative interviews and provided more insights into leadership development programs from different perspectives. As a result, the existing gaps and challenges for the leadership development of women employees in an organization are studied. Facts derived from the organizational level and qualitative results provided enough reasons for ineffective development programs in supporting equity at leadership levels. This is evident that leadership levels demanded more women employees and necessary driving factors to motivate them. This also emphasized how HR policies and role model representation can contribute better in driving more female employees into leadership levels.However, the missing factor is equitable actions in leadership development programs to create an inclusive environment. Thereby, a leadership development cycle is developed to strengthen various processes making the leadership program as equity-focused and motivating female employees for leadership positions. However, the recommendations are derived using the embedded single case study and explained briefly about a roadmap showing the next future phases for equity at leadership levels and their decision-making impact on innovation. Finally, a leadership development framework is developed showing the possible methods and processes for driving more female employees from the organizational level to the leadership level. This leadership framework shows how women leaders need effective equity-focused development programs using equitable actions considering both social and professional barriers. Using this framework, the practical implications are summarized for promoting women leaders at leadership levels through equity-focused leadership development programs.Management of Technology (MoT
K-core of co-author network (k = 10).
No full text<p>The size of the node denotes the number of papers and the thickness of interconnecting lines (edges) denotes the number of co-authored papers between the authors. Authors having 10 or more co-author links during the study period have been visualized.</p
Studies on effects of indigenous plant extracts on malarial vector, Anopheles subpictus Grassi (Diptera:Culicidae)
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Mosquitoes transmit serious human diseases, causing millions of deaths every year. Use of synthetic insecticides to control vector mosquitoes has caused physiological resistance and adverse environmental effects in addition to high operational cost. Insecticides of botanical origin may serve as suitable alternative biocontrol techniques in the future. The present investigations were made to evaluate the repellent, ovicidal and oviposition-deterrent potential of leaf hexane and chloroform extracts of
Aegle marmelos, Andrographis lineata, Andrographis paniculata, Cocculus hirsutus, Eclipta prostrata and Tagetes erecta against Anopheles subpictus Grassi (Diptera:Culicidae). The hexane extract of A. lineata was more effective in exhibiting the repellent action against the mosquito as compared with A. marmelos extract. Complete protections for 150 min were found in hexane extract of A. lineata at 500 ppm against An. subpictus bites. Meanpercent hatchability of the ovicidal activity was observed 24 h after treatment. The percent hatchability was inversely proportional to the concentration of extract and directly proportional to the eggs. No hatchability was observed with hexane and chloroform extracts of A. lineata, A. paniculata and hexane extract of T. erecta were exerted at 1,000 ppm. The percentage of effective oviposition repellency of 93.07, 93.95, 98.03, 90.43, 92.63, 81.53, 94.81, 97.50, 97.26, 92.22, 82.85 and 72.77 at 500 ppm and the lowest repellency of 62.03, 53.64, 73.47, 59.05, 57.95, 48.17, 62.22, 72.99, 75.48, 67.77, 40.57 and 52.11 at 31.25 ppm in hexane and chloroform extracts of A. marmelos, A. lineata, A. paniculata, C. hirsutus, E. prostrata and T. erecta, respectively. The oviposition activity index (OAI) values revealed that the solvent plant extracts havedeterrent effect, and they caused a remarkable negative response resulting in oviposition of very few eggs. These results clearly reveal that the hexane extract of A. lineata, served as a potential repellent, ovicidal and oviposition- deterrent against An. subpictus.</em
Monsoonal Landscapes: Territorial adaptation through co-habitation in critical geographies
No full textEmergence of humans as the dominant species of the planet have come along with extreme manipulation of the earth’s systems to sustain this dominance. The Anthropocene has lasted a little over 200 years has perhaps seen the most shift from completely natural systems to requiring an additional man-made system to aid exponential growth of our species. Among earth’s systems, climate is one of the most complex factors determining energy balance of living organisms and determines energy gains and losses from organisms.India encompasses a wide range of complex territories with rich biodiversity living alongside some of the world’s highest population densities. Historically the Indians have lived and adapted to these resource abundant terrains through traditional ecological practices that aligned with the ecological systems and governed the socio-cultural practices. The current globalised world has been built upon with technological, infrastructural, sociological political and capitalistic growth has wretched devastating effects on the environment that supports us. India being a colonised country and exploited for its resources for centuries still holds traces of it in the infrastructural and production systems, in this case in the Periyar-Vaigai river basins. The region characterised by complex terrain, excessive manipulation of landforms and alteration of its resource cycles especially in water cycles by storing water in multiple dams experiences excess water flows during monsoons, causing flooding on its western slopes and proves to be the only hope for drought prone region on its eastern side. Governing such complexities lies with arbitrary administrative borders dividing the control between different states and various different departments controls the flow and management of resource which often falls short of preventing catastrophes or just management of resources.Extreme weather events in the recent past has exasperated the effects in these fragile habitats, thus the project aims to firstly mitigate the risks associated with failing monsoon, further restore the balance of the ecological system in the region. By building back resilience through co-habitation of social-ecological systems, aligned to nature using human knowledge the design aims to place value on nature rather than exploit it. The project envisions the transition from a local adaptation towards building up the system on the regional scale. It deals with primary production, anthropogenic control with respect to grey infrastructure, values and the role of ecosystems in maintain this balance. By synchronising these various systems the projects attempts at bringing back a dynamic equilibrium to this region, through methods like literature reviews, synthetic cartography and research by design.Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Transitional Territorie
Arterial stiffness and Vitamin D levels: the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging
No full textThe importance of vitamin D for bone health has long been acknowledged.
Recent evidence suggests that vitamin D can also play a role in reducing the risk
of several other diseases, including cardiovascular disease.Objective:The aim of
this study is to test the hypothesis that 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OH D) is an
independent cross-sectional correlate of central arterial stiffness in a
normative aging study population.Design and Settings:We conducted a
cross-sectional analysis.Subjects:We studied 1228 healthy volunteers (50% males;
age, 70 ± 12 yr) of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging.Main Outcome
Measures:We measured carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV) and 25-OH D
levels.Results:We found a significant inverse association between PWV and 25-OH D
levels (adjusted r(2) = 0.27; β = -0.43; P = 0.001). After adjusting for age,
gender, ethnicity, season of blood draw, estimated glomerular filtration rate,
physical activity level, cardiovascular risk factors score (smoking, visceral
obesity, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, and diabetes), calcium/vitamin D
supplementation, serum calcium, and PTH levels, the association between PWV and
25-OH D levels was only slightly reduced and remained statistically significant
(adjusted r(2) = 0.34; β = -0.34; P = 0.04).Conclusions:Vitamin D levels are
inversely associated with increased arterial stiffness in a normative aging
population, irrespective of traditional risk factor burden. Further research is
needed to understand the mechanism of this association and to test the hypothesis
that vitamin D supplementation can reduce arterial stiffness
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