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When a dead body is recovered from the water, the forensic scientist has to ascertain not only the exact cause of death (anti-mortem or post-mortem drowning) but also the accurate place of drowning. The diatom test is conducted to ascertain the presence or absence of diatoms in the tissue/bone marrow recovered from the drowned victims during post-mortem. The result proves to be very promising and widely used as a marker to solve the cases of suspected drowning. Therefore, in the present study, an attempt has been made to study the diatom profile of Bhakra Canal near Narwana, Haryana, India. The diatoms were identified by using both light and scanning electron microscope. A total of 13 genera and 24 species of diatoms were observed and Navicula, Nitzschia and Synedra were found to be commonly occurring diatom species, Cymbella, Cocconeis, and Aulacoseira were identified as seasonally occurring diatoms, while Rhoicosphenia, and Achnanthes were site-specific diatoms. In this way the presence of site-specific diatoms helps in pinpointing the putative site of drowning, which goes a long way in helping the forensic scientists to answers the questions related to drowning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports the effect of ion implantation on structural and optical properties of cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin films. Thin films of CdTe were electrodeposited on indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass substrates using three electrode system and then implanted with 40 keV nitrogen (N+) ions at Ion Beam Centre, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra, India. The ion fluencies opted were 1×1016 and 5×1016 ions/cm² employing beam current of 0.9 μA. The pristine and thin films after ion implantation were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV-visible spectrophotometer for structural and optical properties respectively. The surface studies of pristine CdTe thin films were obtained by using Scanning electron microscope (SEM) revealed uniform growth of grains over the whole surface of films. XRD characterization of pristine and films after implantation revealed the polycrystalline nature of CdTe films and observed that implantation considerably influences the parameters such as grain size. The variation of absorption plot with wavelength is shown and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]