101,501 research outputs found
Management of wetlands of non-prominence from the perspective of benefit-degradation relation
No full textWetlands of non-prominence discussed here are some water bodies in the lower-gangetic floodplains of India. People surrounding these wetlands earn their livelihood and derive many direct and indirect benefits from them. To acquire benefits, often stakeholders subject them to environmental degradation. This study tries to identify the socio-economic activities in and around these wetlands to estimate the value of the benefits derived out of these activities, to measure the degradation of physical component of the wetlands, and to estimate the benefit-degradation relations for these wetlands. For the purpose of this study, ten wetlands in Bardhaman district in West Bengal, India were surveyed. The benefit and degradation were measured, and then the benefit-degradation relations have been estimated using regression models. From the benefit-degradation relations some alternatives for uses of wetlands have been worked out in an eco-friendly manner to find the conflicts that might emerge among the stakeholders.Length: pp.267-281WetlandsEnvironmental degradationAssessmentEcosystemsFisheriesHouseholds
Study on medieval scholar’s Ramachandra Kavirayar and Avvaiyar lifestyle through their occasional verse
No full textIt is worth noting that occasional verse (Thani Padalgal) plays an important role in medieval literature. The Sangam scholars compiled songs. But they did not disappear in the middle Ages, and the composers were largely absent. So, we have lost lot of them. Again, in the middle Ages, scholars composed many books separately and they are all unique. This is because they are meant to clarify their personal instincts and dislikes in their lives. The each occasional verse has a wide variety of themes and genres and they were composed by many scholars. Among them Ramachandra Kavirayar and Avvaiyar are notable personalities. In this article, we will discuss the life of Ramachandra Kavirayar and Avvaiyar through their occasional verse
A note to a paper by Ramachandra on transctndental numbers
No full textIn this paper, we apply a combinatorial lemma to a well-known result concerning the transcendency of at least one of the numbers , where the complex numbers satisfy linear independence conditions and show that for any and any transcendental number , we obtain that at most of the numbers are algebraic. Similar statements are given for values of the Weierstrass -function and some connections to related results in the literature are discussed
Letter, [Author unclear] to Paulina T. Merritt
No full textHandwritten letter to Paulina Merritt from an unknown author, October 1, 1876.
Construction payment delays and losses: perceptions of New Zealand
No full textPayment delays and losses are not a new phenomenon in the construction industry. Both of these combine to elevate the operational risks of construction businesses. In spite of new provisions in the Construction Contracts Act (CCA), New Zealand, construction businesses are still not immune to payment delays and losses. This study investigates the extent of the payment problem and possible solutions that could mitigate payment risks on construction projects. An online questionnaire survey was administered to contractors, subcontractors and consultants for their opinions on the issue. The study found that payment delays and losses are experienced by
contractors (10-40%) and subcontractors (10-80%) on the total projects undertaken by them since the CCA implementation. Retention sums are very often delayed while final and interim payments are delayed less than often. Contractors and subcontractors indicated that payment bonds, direct payments and the use of trust accounts were preferred solutions to the payment problems experienced by industry
Construction payment delays and losses: perceptions of New Zealand
No full textPayment delays and losses are not a new phenomenon in the construction industry. Both of these combine to elevate the operational risks of construction businesses. In spite of new provisions in the Construction Contracts Act (CCA), New Zealand, construction businesses are still not immune to payment delays and losses. This study investigates the extent of the payment problem and possible solutions that could mitigate payment risks on construction projects. An online questionnaire survey was administered to contractors, subcontractors and consultants for their opinions on the issue. The study found that payment delays and losses are experienced by
contractors (10-40%) and subcontractors (10-80%) on the total projects undertaken by them since the CCA implementation. Retention sums are very often delayed while final and interim payments are delayed less than often. Contractors and subcontractors indicated that payment bonds, direct payments and the use of trust accounts were preferred solutions to the payment problems experienced by industry
System Issues in Multi-agent Simulation of Large Crowds
No full textCrowd simulation is a complex and challenging domain. Crowds demonstrate many complex behaviours and are consequently difficult to model for realistic simulation systems. Analyzing crowd dynamics has been an active area of research and efforts have been made to develop models to explain crowd behaviour. In this paper we describe an agent based simulation of crowds, based on a continuous field force model. Our simulation can handle movement of crowds over complex terrains and we have been able to simulate scenarios like clogging of exits during emergency evacuation situations. The focus of this paper, however, is on the scalability issues for such a multi-agent based crowd simulation system. We believe that scalability is an important criterion for rescue simulation systems. To realistically model a disaster scenario for a large city, the system should ideally scale up to accommodate hundreds of thousands of agents. We discuss the attempts made so far to meet this challenge, and try to identify the architectural and system constraints that limit scalability. Thereafter we propose a novel technique which could be used to richly simulate huge crowds
Handwritten biographical information on Paulina T. McClung Merritt
No full textA handwritten biography of Paulina T. McClung Merritt by an unknown author, 1892.
Heterogeneous and tissue-specific regulation of effector T cell responses by IFN-gamma during Plasmodium berghei ANKA infection.
No full textIFN-γ and T cells are both required for the development of experimental cerebral malaria during Plasmodium berghei ANKA infection. Surprisingly, however, the role of IFN-γ in shaping the effector CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cell response during this infection has not been examined in detail. To address this, we have compared the effector T cell responses in wild-type and IFN-γ(-/-) mice during P. berghei ANKA infection. The expansion of splenic CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells during P. berghei ANKA infection was unaffected by the absence of IFN-γ, but the contraction phase of the T cell response was significantly attenuated. Splenic T cell activation and effector function were essentially normal in IFN-γ(-/-) mice; however, the migration to, and accumulation of, effector CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells in the lung, liver, and brain was altered in IFN-γ(-/-) mice. Interestingly, activation and accumulation of T cells in various nonlymphoid organs was differently affected by lack of IFN-γ, suggesting that IFN-γ influences T cell effector function to varying levels in different anatomical locations. Importantly, control of splenic T cell numbers during P. berghei ANKA infection depended on active IFN-γ-dependent environmental signals--leading to T cell apoptosis--rather than upon intrinsic alterations in T cell programming. To our knowledge, this is the first study to fully investigate the role of IFN-γ in modulating T cell function during P. berghei ANKA infection and reveals that IFN-γ is required for efficient contraction of the pool of activated T cells
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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