475 research outputs found
Pixel-Based Long-Term (2001–2020) Estimations of Forest Fire Emissions over the Himalaya
Get PDFForest/wildfires have been one of the most notable severe catastrophes in recent decades across the globe, and their intensity is expected to rise with global warming. Forest fire contributes significantly to particulate and gaseous pollution in the atmosphere. This study has estimated the pixel-based emissions (CO, CO2, CH4, NOx, SO2, NH3, PM2.5, PM10, OC, and BC) from forest fires over the Himalaya (including India, Nepal, and Bhutan). The MODIS-based burned area (MCD64A1), Land Use Land Cover (LULC; MCD12A1), NDVI (MOD13A2), percentage tree cover (MOD44A6), gridded biomass, and species-wise emissions factors were used to estimate the monthly emissions from forest fires over the last two decades (2001–2020). A bottom-up approach was adopted to retrieve the emissions. A substantial inter-annual variation of forest burn area was found over the western, central (Nepal), and eastern Himalaya (including Bhutan). The eastern Himalaya exhibited the highest average annual CO2 emission, i.e., 20.37 Tg, followed by Nepal, 15.52 Tg, and the western Himalaya, 4.92 Tg. Spatially, the higher CO2 (0.01–0.02 Tg year−1/km2) and CO (0.007–0.002 Tg year−1/km2) emissions were detected along the south-eastern parts of the eastern Himalaya, southern regions of Nepal, and south-eastern parts of the western Himalaya. The trend of forest fire emissions in 2001–2010 was significantly positive, while in the next decade (2011–2020) a negative trend was recorded. The estimated pixel-based emission and Global Fire Emission Dataset (GFEDv4.1s) data demonstrated a promising association with a correlation coefficient (r) between 0.80 and 0.93. An inventory of forest fire emissions over long-term periods can be helpful for policymakers. In addition, it helps to set guidelines for air quality and atmospheric transport modelling and to better understand atmospheric pollution over the Himalayan and associated regions
Supplemental Material - Effectiveness of targeted intervention program under the national AIDS control program among Hijra and transgender population: Evidence from Integrated Biological and Behavioral Surveillance, 2014-15
No full textSupplemental Material for Effectiveness of targeted intervention program under the national AIDS control program among Hijra and transgender population: Evidence from IBBS, 2014-15 by Nishakar Thakur, Sanjay Rai, Shashi Kant, Arvind Pandey, Damodar Sahu, Puneet Misra, Partha Haldar, Shreya Jha, Pradeep Kumar, and Chinmoyee Das in International Journal of STD & AIDS</p
A short-term decline in anthropogenic emission of CO<sub>2</sub> in India due to COVID-19 confinement
No full textTo curb the spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19), confinement measures were undertaken, which altered the pattern of energy consumption and India’s anthropogenic CO2 emissions during the effective lockdowns periods (January to June 2020). Such changes are being analyzed using data of energy generated from coal and renewable sources and fossil-based daily CO2 emissions. Results revealed that coal-fired (fossil-based) energy generation fell by –13% in March, –29% in April, and –20% in May, and –16.6% in mid-June 2020 as compared with the same period in 2018–2019. Conversely, the renewable energy generation increased by 19% in March, 12% in April, 17% in May, and 7% in June 2020. The share of fossil-based energy fell by –6.55% in 2020 compared with mean levels, which was further offset by increases of renewable energy. India’s daily fossil-based CO2 emissions fell by –11.6% (–5 to –25.7%) by mid-June 2020 compared with mean levels of 2017–2019 with total change in fossil-based CO2 emission by –139 (–62 to –230) MtCO2, with the largest reduction in the industry (–41%), transport (–28.5%), and power (–21%) followed by the public (–5.4%), and aviation (–4%) sectors. If some levels of lockdown persist until December 2020, both energy consumption and CO2 emissions patterns would be below the 2019 level. The nationwide lockdown has led to a reduction in anthropogenic CO2 emissions and, subsequently, improved air quality and global environment and has also helped in reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations at the local level but not on the global level. With suitable government policies, switching to a cleaner mode of energy generation other than fossil fuels could be a viable option to minimize CO2 emissions under increasing demand for energy.</p
Improvement in air quality and its impact on land surface temperature in major urban areas across India during the first lockdown of the pandemic
No full textThe SARS CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic and the enforced lockdown have reduced the use of surface and air transportation. This study investigates the impact of the lockdown restrictions in India on atmospheric composition, using Sentinel–5Ps retrievals of tropospheric NO2 concentration and ground-station measurements of NO2 and PM2.5 between March–May in 2019 and 2020. Detailed analysis of the changes to atmospheric composition are carried out over six major urban areas (i.e. Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad) by comparing Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) and land surface temperature (LST) measurements in the lockdown year 2020 and pre-lockdown (2015–2019). Satellite-based data showed that NO2 concentration reduced by 18% (Kolkata), 29% (Hyderabad), 32-34% (Chennai, Mumbai, and Bangalore), and 43% (Delhi). Surface-based concentrations of NO2, PM2.5, and AOD also substantially dropped by 32–74%, 10–42%, and 8–34%, respectively over these major cities during the lockdown period and co-located with the intensity of anthropogenic activity. Only a smaller fraction of the reduction of pollutants was associated with meteorological variability. A substantial negative anomaly was found for LST both in the day (–0.16 °C to –1 °C) and night (–0.63 °C to –2.1 °C) across select all cities, which was also consistent with air temperature measurements. The decreases in LST could be associated with a reduction in pollutants, greenhouse gases and water vapor content. Improvement in air quality with lower urban temperatures due to lockdown may be a temporary effect, but it provides a crucial connection among human activities, air pollution, aerosols, radiative flux, and temperature. The lockdown for a shorter-period showed a significant improvement in environmental quality and provides a strong evidence base for larger scale policy implementation to improve air quality
Report of Another Mutation Proven Case of Carbonic Anhydrase II Deficiency
No full textCarbonic anhydrase (CA) II deficiency results in an uncommon type of autosomal recessive sclerosing bone dysplasia with renal tubular acidosis and intracerebral calcification. We report a classic case of CA II-associated osteopetrosis with a previously reported homozygous frameshift mutation. Child was evaluated for short stature and failure to thrive. He was diagnosed as osteopetrosis in view of the presence of hepatosplenomegaly and increased bone density though hematological parameters were normal. Further evaluation showed presence of associated distal renal tubular acidosis raising a possibility of CA II deficiency. Mutation analysis revealed a previously reported homozygous frameshift mutation c.143-146delCTGT (p.Ser48Phefs 9) in CA2. Child has normal growth after initiation of alkali therapy
Changing forest fire regime in relation to climatic conditions over Western and Eastern Himalaya, India
No full textThe forest fire regime has been altering due to changing climatic patterns and the increasing human footprint. The present study examined changes in the forest fire regime (e.g., spatio-temporal distribution, trend, peak fire time, and size of burn spots) and its connections with regional climatic conditions over Himalaya (India, Nepal, and Bhutan) in the last two decades. A moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS)–derived MCD64A1 burn area dataset was used to extract the fire information (i.e., burn area and date). For the climatic variables (i.e., maximum temperature, minimum temperature, precipitation, and Palmer Drought Severity Index), data from TerraClimate were used to quantify their trend and variability and their connections with changing forest fire regimes. Over the last two decades, the highest annual average burn area was 3156 (σ = 1958) km2 in Eastern Himalaya (including Bhutan). We observed an increasing trend in burn area (837.82km2 year−1) in the first decade (2001–2010) and a decreasing trend (–297.22km2 year−1) in the last decade (2011–2020), particularly over Eastern Himalaya (257.82km2 year−1). The peak fire has a wide variation over the Himalayas; mainly peak fire time is concentrated between March and May. In the last decade, the average peak fire time was delayed by 7 to 24 days from the first decade. The size (km2) of the fire spots varies from Western to Eastern Himalaya. The largest fire spot was found over Nepal (1.91km2), followed by Western Himalaya (1.50km2) and Eastern Himalaya (1.12km2). The burn area trend and changes in the size of fire spots exhibited a correspondence with decadal scale trend of climatic components (specifically, temperatures and precipitation). The annual burn area climatic variables showed a moderate to weak association (r = 0.6 to −0.47); the weak relation could be explained by other affecting factors.<br/
Monitoring land use/land cover change and high-altitude vegetation trends along with their climatic controls across the Central and Eastern Himalayas
No full textMonitoring the spatial pattern of vegetation growth trends is important in the Central and Eastern Himalayas as many ecosystems in the Himalayas are sensitive to climatic change. The human-induced land use/land cover (LULC) changes are the potential driving forces for changes in ecosystems. This study employed MODIS (MCD12Q1) product to quantify the spatial pattern of LULC from 2001 to 2019. The long-term vegetation datasets (NDVI3g) (1982-2015) were utilized to estimate vegetation trends and climatic variables (e.g., precipitation, soil moisture, temperature, solar radiation) trends. The Mann-Kendall (τ) test and Theil-Sen’s slope were deployed for computing trends over vegetation (e.g., forests, shrublands, savannas, croplands, and grassland). The results showed a prominent large-scale greening trend of croplands (77% of area) and forests including shrublands, savannas, and grassland (42% of area), mostly across the Central (Nepal) Himalayas. The browning trends of forests were also evident, especially over the Eastern Himalaya (Bhutan). The greening trends of vegetation were mainly associated with climatic factors like precipitation and soil moisture, and the corresponding correlation coefficients (r) were 0.69 and 0.28, respectively at p-value ̼ 0.001. Additionally, temperature control on vegetation was found at higher elevation zones of the Central and Eastern Himalayas (r = 0.93, p-value ̼ 0.001), whereas browning trends of vegetation occurred due to temperature-induced moisture stress along with the decreasing trends of solar radiation, and a profound impact was seen over Bhutan. Human-induced land-use change (e.g., shifting cultivation, deforestation) was also attributed to declining vegetation growth since an increase in built-up area was noticed that mainly replaced the croplands and barren land over the study regions. Therefore, the quantification of vegetation trends is important for understanding and managing agriculture and forests ecosystems located in the high-altitude zone, and attention from ecologists and policymakers is required to monitor and manage vegetation in the Himalayas
A simplified method to synthesize uwb compact bandpass filter with dual notch bands
No full textThis paper presents a simplified method to
synthesize a new and compact UWB bandpass filter with good
selectivity, wide bandwidth and two notched frequencies at
5.2GHz and 7.8GHz. UWB bandpass is created by cascading
highpass and lowpass filters. The proposed work uses network
synthesis techniques to design highpass and lowpass filters with
Chebyshev transfer function using insertion loss method. The
optimized low pass and high pass circuits are implemented with
the help of hairpin line and interdigital structure (IDS),
respectively. The open ended stub and spurline are loaded on
the outermost fingers of IDS to create notches at 5.2GHz and
7.8GHZ frequencies, respectively. The size of the filter is highly
miniaturized and compact in shape when compared with the
other existing structures. The insertion loss in the pass band of
the filter is smaller than 0.4dB and stop band is wide. Filter is
fabricated on FR4 with dielectric constant 4.4 and thickness of
1.6mm
Cultural Spectrum in Arvind Adiga’s Selection Days
Get PDFCultural Studies have played a pivotal role in understanding and evaluating the power dynamics of the social, political, economic and ethical world order by empirically engaging and focusing on the present-day culture, tracing its historical roots and explicating its attributes with reference to a particular literary text and its reception in a society. Arvind Adiga, the Man-Booker Prize winning Indo-Australian author, in Selection Day, has adroitly detailed how cricket as an individual entity impacts the cultural phenomena of a society by confronting its inherent myriad issues. The narrative delves deep into the lives of two siblings - Radha and Manju, witnesses the dramatic turnaround of events and tries to capture the themes of unfulfilled desires and preordained destinies. The novel also explores how the sport holds different meanings and significance for different characters, each of whom view the game in the light of their own ideology. The author foresees and sensitizes the theme of homosexuality, which is still a taboo and been unheard of, within the sports fraternity. Adiga’s critique of the parental felony, embodied in Mohan Kumar, and its repercussions is the most compelling theme at the heart of this work of fiction. Selection Day powerfully binds together the societal phenomena of class construction, unquenchable thirst for money, sexual orientations and ideologies with a single thread and studies how culture, in itself, is an ever-evolving phenomenon
Highlights of Library Automation related documents in the INSPEC
Get PDFThe paper has attempted to analyse the Library Automation related records in the INSPEC (1969 to July 2004). The growth of Library Automation related literature, country of input, scattering of literature in different publication types, core journals publishing Library Automation related publications, language-wise proportion of the literature, content analysis through keywords/descriptors, availability of URLs (Universal Resource Locator) for full text articles as alternative locations were the main focus of the study. After the year 1984, the literature grows approximately linearly with a growth rate of about 600 items per year. The USA is the predominant publishing country of Library Automation related literature. Journals are the most preferred publication media, followed by Conference/Proceedings-Papers, Book-Chapters, and Reports publications. Most productive journals are: Library Hi Tech, followed by Computers in Libraries, VINE, Information Technology and Libraries, and Program. English articles constitute 91.83% of the total literature. That means the non-English articles constitute only 8.17%. The keyword analysis indicates that the key areas of Library Automation were cataloguing; academic-libraries; information-retrieval; Internet; and information-services. The most occurred URL was http://www.dlib.org/ as alternative locations in the availability notes of Library Automation related records
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