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Spinach grown in cadmium (Cd)-contaminated soils accumulates Cd compounds in toxic concentration contaminating the food chain leading to the chronic toxic effects on human and animal health. A study was conducted in a Cd-contaminated soil to examine the ameliorative effect of lime and organic manure on the mobility of Cd and its uptake in spinach. Application of lime or organic manure or both decreased the Cd concentration in soil and shoots and increased chlorophyll content of leaves. As compared to the control treatment, combined application of lime and organic manure decreased the level of Cd in soil by 54.7%, in spinach shoot by 61.3%, and the transfer factor of Cd by 35.0% and increased in leaf chlorophyll content by 29.4%. Combined application of lime and organic manure emerged as a viable option in reducing the mobility of Cd in contaminated soil for growing spinach.

As a global health problem sickle cell anemia affects many world populations. It is an autosomal recessive disease, commonly found in tropical countries. It is the most common single genetic mutation in human and abundantly present in large part of the world. The present study was done in the Department of Biochemistry, Chhattisgarh Institute of Medical Sciences, Bilaspur. The work comprised of two different groups consisting 50 sickle cell patients with hyperhemolytic crisis, including 50 age and sex matched control subject. In the present study namely, Homosysteine, IL-6, TNF-a, and CRP as an inflammatory markers measured in normal and sickle cell disease patients. We found significantly increased mean level of all three parameters (IL-6 Group I V/s Group II p

Cadmium (Cd) contamination of the soil and its concentrations in spinach and cabbage were studied in a pot culture experiment. Eight levels of Cd (0–100 mg kg−1 soil) were applied singly. Application of Cd of up to 10 and 15 mg kg−1 resulted in safe Cd concentrations (1.56 and 1.38 mg kg−1) in the shoots of spinach and cabbage, respectively, at the consumable stage. The total chlorophyll content gradually decreased with the addition of Cd, and the maximum decreases were 31.7 and 32% in spinach and cabbage, respectively, at 60 days of crop growth in the treatment Cd100 over the control. The greatest diethylene triamine penta-acetic acid (DTPA)–extractable Cd contents in the postharvest soil of spinach and cabbage were 22.09 and 24.22 mg kg−1, respectively, in the treatment Cd100. The DTPA Cd was significantly negatively correlated with leaf area and total chlorophyll content while positively correlated with root and shoot Cd concentrations of spinach and cabbage.

A two-step composting process for the generation of humus-rich manure from paddy straw amended with poultry droppings was investigated in this study. The composting technique consists of two distinct steps. The first step is decomposition of lignocellulosic constituent of paddy straw by white rot fungi Poly-porus versicolor (Pv), Phanerochaete chrysosporium (Pc) and Pleurotus sajor caju (Psc) for five weeks. The second step is the intensive humus synthetic stage of another five weeks. Fresh poultry droppings and decomposing paddy straw at 1:1 ratio (W/W) was incorporated in the second step instead of incorporating at the beginning like in the traditional composting. Analytical results showed maximum degradation of lignin and cellulose was in Pc inoculated composts (13.9%) followed by those of Psc (11.3%), Pv (8.9%) inoculation and uninoculated control (Uc-5.4%) at the end of first step in two-step composting. Similar pattern of decomposition of lignin and cellulose but in lower magnitude was also observed...

Cadmium and cadmium compounds are water soluble, mobile in most soils, bio-available, and tend to bio-accumulate. A pot culture experiment was conducted on contaminated soil to study the influence of lime and organic matter on the mobility of cadmium in spinach and its rhizosphere soil. Application of lime (50% and 100% lime requirement) and organic matter (0.5 and 1% by weight of soil) to soil decreased the availability of Cd to the soil and plant throughout the crop growth. The highest diethylene triamine penta-acetic acid (DTPA) extractable Cd was 10.84 mg kg−1 in the treatment OM0 L0 (No application of organic matter and lime) at 20 days after sowing of spinach. Likewise, the highest Cd concentration in spinach roots and shoots were 19.80 and 17.0 mg kg−1 in the treatment OM0 L0 at 20 days after sowing. The Cd concentration in spinach roots and shoots were decreased by 63.23 and 71.88%, respectively, in the treatment OM1 L100 (application of FYM at 1.0% by weight of soil and lime at 100% lime requirem...

Farmers in arsenic (As) contaminated areas of West Bengal, India grow rice during dry months (January to April) and use underground water for irrigation with As concentration above WHO defined critical (0.01 mg l−1) limit. In each season they add 50–150 mg As per m2 soil area. Thus growing rice under deficit irrigation in these areas will reduce As load in soil–root–shoot–leaf–grain continuum of rice ecosystem. Suitable deficit irrigation system has to be screened so that As load will decrease with insignificant reduction in grain yield. With this objective, rice grown under four irrigation regimes (i) continuous ponding (CP), (ii) intermittent ponding (IP), (iii) saturation (SAT) and (iv) aerobic (AER) was tested to assess the arsenic load in soil and various parts of rice on 45 and 80 days after transplanting (DAT). Conditions described in treatments ii, iii and iv were imposed during 15–45 DAT. Highest value (18.18 and 18.74 mg kg−1) of soil arsenic was attained under CP followed by IP, SAT and AER. Root arsenic content under AER at 45 and 80 DAT was at the lowest level (6.14 and 20.54 mg kg−1) and this was 31 and 7.0% lower as compared to CP. As content in leaf and grain attained the lowest values under IP. Grain yield insignificantly differed under IP (4.33 Mg ha−1) over CP (4.69 Mg ha−1). Compared to soil As, As added through irrigation showed stronger relationship with As status of various plant parts. Imposition of IP only during vegetative stage was found to be optimum in terms of reduction of As content in straw and grain respectively by 23 and 33% over farmers irrigation practice with insignificant decrease in grain yield.

Sweet syndrome is a cutaneous lesion characterized by tender, red inflammatory nodules or papules. We describe a pediatric case of Sweet syndrome presenting 10 days after treatment with azathioprine. As azathioprine is widely used in children with inflammatory bowel disease, clinicians should be aware of this unusual adverse reaction.

The electronic and magnetic properties of Fe atomic wire and atomic plane have been theoretically investigated from full potential linearized augmented plane wave (FPLAPW) method within a frame work of density functional theory (DFT). This work is based on the comparative study of number of Fe nanochains with infinite length and infinitely spread Fe nanosheet. A most commonly adopted GGA approximation is used for electron exchange correlation. In our calculation, the property of Fe-chain is predicted to be magnetic metal with the presence of deep valley (in Spin-up DOS) and a peak (in Spin-down DOS) at Fermi level ([Formula: see text]) shows the antisymmetric DOS. The presence of antisymmetric DOS is a signature of exchange splitting between the degenerated d-states. The splitting between t[Formula: see text] states is very prominent in Fe-chain which enhances the magnetic moment. The magnetic moment decreases with the increase in number of Fe-chains.

We present the study of half metallacity of Co2MnAl as half-Heusler alloy in L21 structure which consists of four inter-penetrating fcc sub-lattices. Density functional theory based electronic structure calculations will be performed by using the full-potential linear augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW). We will use the general gradient approximation method (GGA) and local density approximation method called LDA+U. Density of states and band structure results will be presented in this paper.

Calculation of Strain Energy of Cantilevered Thick Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes with Varying Forces at the Free End P. K. Patra1 ∗, L. J. Singh2, and S. Kumar3 1Centre for Science Education, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong 793022, India 2Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong 793022, India 3Department of Physics, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong 793022, India

A model calculation of photofield emission is discussed in which initial state wave function has been deduced by using projection operator method of group theory. A spatial dependent vector potential is used to evaluate the matrix element for calculating the photofield emission current density.

Clustering is the unsupervised classification of patterns which has been addressed in many contexts and by researchers in many disciplines. Fuzzy clustering is recommended than crisp clustering when the boundaries among the clusters are vague and uncertain. Popular clustering algorithms are K-means, K-medoids, Hierarchical Clustering, fuzzy-c-means and their variations. But they are sensitive to number of potential clusters and initial centroids. Fuzzy rule based Classifier is supervised and is not sensitive to number of potential clusters. By taking the advantages of supervised classification, this paper intended to design an unsupervised clustering algorithm using supervised fuzzy rule based classifier. Fuzzy rule with certainty grade plays vital role in optimizing the rule base which is exploited in this paper. The proposed classifier and clustering algorithm have been implemented in Matlab R2010a and tested with various benchmarked multidimensional datasets. Performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with other popular baseline algorithms.

Atmospheric methane (CH4) increased from ~900 ppb (parts per billion, or nanomoles per mole of dry air) in 1900 to ~1800 ppb during the 2000s at a rate unprecedented in any observational records. However, the causes of the CH4 increase are poorly understood. Here we use initial emissions from bottom-up inventories for anthropogenic sources, emissions from wetlands and rice paddies simulated by a terrestrial biogeochemical model, and an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM)-based chemistry-transport model (i.e. ACTM) to simulate atmospheric CH4 concentrations for 1910 to 2010. The ACTM simulations are compared with the CH4 concentration records reconstructed from Antarctic and Arctic ice cores and firn air samples, and from direct measurements since the 1980s at multiple sites around the globe. The differences between ACTM simulations and observed CH4 concentrations are minimized to optimize the global total emissions using a mass balance calculation. During 1910–2010, the global total CH4 emission increased from ~290 Tg yr−1 to ~580 Tg yr−1. Compared to optimized emission the bottom-up emission dataset underestimates the rate of change of global total CH4 emissions by ~30% during the high growth period of 1940–1990, while it overestimates by ~380% during a~low growth period of 1990–2010. Further, using the CH4 stable carbon isotopic data (δ13C), we attribute the emission increase during 1940–1990 primarily to enhancement of biomass burning. The total lifetime of CH4 shortened from 9.4 yr during 1910–1919 to 9 yr during 2000–2009 by the combined effect of increasing abundance of atomic chlorine radicals (Cl) and increases in average air temperature. We show that changes of CH4 loss rate due to increased tropospheric air temperature and CH4 loss due to Cl in the stratosphere are important sources of uncertainty to more accurately estimate global CH4 budget from δ13C observations.

We have shown in this report the application of projection operator method of group theory in deriving the wavefunctions for the surface state in Cu(110) which had been used in calculating photocurrent. This approach gives a qualitative characterization of surface states simply on the basis of existing bulk-band structure calculations.

We have applied the Mathieu potential model to photoemission calculations from metals. The case of a strong potential is considered to describe the wavefunctions which is used for the evaluation of photocurrent from tungsten, molybdenum, copper and silicon.

Quantitative and qualitative analyses of chlorine-containing elastomer blends, like neoprene rubber/chlorosulfonated polyethylene and neoprene rubber/nitrile–polyvinyl chloride, with carbon black and other fillers, are complex and confusing because the blends contain the same carbonchlorine moiety. Various interfering phenomena by fillers, co-curing by the common ingredients, and uncertainty in functional group analysis make the determination of the ratio of component elastomers in chlorine-containing elastomer blends very difficult or sometimes almost impossible by Fourier transform infrared and thermogravimetric analysis techniques. However, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and supportive differential thermogravimetry (DTG) are very useful techniques to assess such complex materials. Enough flexibility associated with specific heat (from DSC) and response zone (from DTG) can avoid the interfering effects. The DSC–DTG technique thus can be an effective tool to determine the ratio of component polymers in chlorine-containing elastomer blends. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 83: 937–948, 2002

The Mathieu potential is used to define the crystal potential from which the initial state wavefunction for the surface state is derived. The wavefunction is used for photoemission calculations in the case of free electron metals like Al and Be.

Blend prepared by melt mixing of thermoplastic material-elastomer have gained considerable attention in recent years. Heat shrinkability of the polymer which depends on elastic memory can be introduced into the system in the form of an elastomeric phase. The present study deals with the measurement of heat shrinkability of the blend of grafted polyethylene with CSM. Interchain crosslinking between grafted polyethylene and elastomer improves the shrinkability. Crystallinity of the polymer blends also affected by interchain crosslinking, thus affecting the shrinkability. Probable interactions of the rubber and plastic phase are confirmed by IR spectroscopy. Extraction of the elastomeric phase is restricted due to interchain crosslinking as confirmed by SEM study.

Blends of polyurethane (vibrathane- 5008 Uniroyal Co., USA) and hypalon (CSM-350 Du Pont, USA) prepared by three different blending techniques, have been studied, over the entire composition range. The processability of the polyurethane rubber was improved as a result of blending with CSM. The IR spectral analysis suggested that on heat treatment, without curatives, interchain crosslinking reaction occured between the two elastomeric phases. Experimental data revealed that, preheating of the preblends, before addition of curatives, enhanced the thermal properties of the blends. The degradation process were delayed along with the retardation in weight loss. The extractability of the single phase by solvent was also restricted on preheating, due to interchain crosslinking reaction.

Influence of cure systems on the extent of shrinkage of polyolefm bromobutyl blends have been studied as a function of cure time and the polyolefin/elastomer ratio. During measurement of shrinkage, one of the parameters is kept constant while the other is varied. With the increase in cure time the shrinkability of the blends increases when elastomer content is fixed. Similarly, at constant cure time the shrinkability of the blend increases with high elastomer content. Blends elongated under high temperature (H-T) have higher shrinkage than those elongated under room temperature (R-T). DCP is more effective than sulfur for a particular set of blends so far as the shrinkability of the blend system is concerned. The morphological pattern of DCP cured relaxed samples and sulfur cured relaxed samples is corroborated by the SEM studies where the pattern appears to be more globular in nature for the former. The crystallinity of the blend depends on the curing agent, and the dose and type of polyolefin used.

Effects of cure systems on shrinkability of polyolefin and EPDM blends have been studied as a function of cure time and amount of elastomers added. During measurement one of the parameters is kept constant while the other varies. The shrinkability of the blends increases with the increase in cure time when elastomer content is fixed. Similarly, at constant cure time higher loading of elastomer increases the shrinkability of the blends. Samples stretched under high temperature show higher shrinkability than those stretched under room temperature. Dicumylperoxide (DCP) is a more effective curing agent for making a particular set of blends more shrinkable than the sulfur. The changing morphological pattern with DCP-cured shrunk samples from those of sulfur cured samples is corroborated by the SEM studies where the elastomer phase appears to be globular in nature. The crystallinity of the blend depends on the dose and type of the elastomer used in polyolefin. The curing efficiency of the elastomerphase depends on the polyolefin used as blend partner. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 68: 597–603, 1998

Shrinkability and flame retaredancy of polyolefine blends with chlorosulphonated polyethylene is investigated. Correations between shrinkability and blend microstructure are suggested.

We present a comprehensive estimate of nitrous oxide ( N2O) emissions using observations and models from 1995 to 2008. High-frequency records of tropospheric N2O are available from measurements at Cape Grim, Tasmania; Cape Matatula, American Samoa; Ragged Point, Barbados; Mace Head, Ireland; and at Trinidad Head, California using the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE) instrumentation and calibrations. The Global Monitoring Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Earth System Research Laboratory (NOAA/ESRL) has also discrete air samples collected in flasks and in situ measurements from remote sites across the globe and analyzed them for a suite of species including N2O. In addition to these major networks, we include in situ and aircraft measurements from the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) and flask measurements from the Tohoku University and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) networks. All measurements show increasing atmospheric mole fractions of N2O, with a varying growth rate of 0.1–0.7 % yr-1, resulting in a 7.4% increase in the background atmospheric mole fraction between 1979 and 2011. Using existing emission inventories as well as bottom-up process modeling results, we first create globally-gridded a priori N2O emissions over the 37 yr since 1975. We then use the three-dimensional chemical transport model, Model for Ozone and Related Chemical Tracers version 4 (MOZART v4), and a Bayesian inverse method to estimate global as well as regional annual emissions for five source sectors from 13 regions in the world. This is the first time that all of these measurements from multiple networks have been combined to determine emissions. Our inversion indicates that global and regional N2O emissions have an increasing trend between 1995 and 2008. Despite large uncertainties, a significant increase is seen from the Asian agricultural sector in the recent years, most likely due to an increase in the use of nitrogenous fertilizers, as has been suggested by previous studies, and also in Asian natural soil.

Air-sea CO2 fluxes over the Pacific Ocean are known to be characterized by coherent large-scale structures that reflect not only ocean subduction and upwelling patterns, but also the combined effects of wind-driven gas exchange and biology. On the largest scales, a large net CO2 influx into the extra-tropics is associated with a robust seasonal cycle, and a large net CO2 efflux from the tropics is associated with substantial inter-annual variability. In this work, we have synthesized estimates of the net air-sea CO2 flux from a variety of products drawing upon a variety of approaches in three sub-basins of the Pacific Ocean, i.e., the North Pacific extra-tropics (18° N–66° N), the tropical Pacific (18° S–18° N), and the South Pacific extra-tropics (44.5° S–18° S). These approaches include those based on the measurements of CO2 partial pressure in surface seawater (pCO2sw), inversions of ocean interior CO2 data, forward ocean biogeochemistry models embedded in the ocean general circulation models (OBGCMs), a model with assimilation of pCO2sw data, and inversions of atmospheric CO2 measurements. Long-term means, inter-annual variations and mean seasonal variations of the regionally-integrated fluxes were compared in each of the sub-basins over the last two decades, spanning the period from 1990 through 2009. A simple average of the long-term mean fluxes obtained with surface water pCO2 diagnostics and those obtained with ocean interior CO2 inversions are –0.47 ± 0.13 Pg C yr–1 in the North Pacific extra-tropics, +0.44 ± 0.14 Pg C yr–1 in the tropical Pacific, and –0.37 ± 0.08 Pg C yr–1 in the South Pacific extra-tropics, where positive fluxes are into the atmosphere. This suggests that approximately half of the CO2 taken up over the North and South Pacific extra-tropics is released back to the atmosphere from the tropical Pacific. These estimates of the regional fluxes are also supported by the estimates from OBGCMs after adding the riverine CO2 flux, i.e., –0.49 ± 0.02 Pg C yr–1 in the North Pacific extra-tropics, +0.41 ± 0.05 Pg C yr–1 in the tropical Pacific, and –0.39 ± 0.11 Pg C yr–1 in the South Pacific extra-tropics. The estimates from the atmospheric CO2 inversions show large variations amongst different inversion systems, but their median fluxes are consistent with the estimates from climatological pCO2sw data and pCO2sw diagnostics. In the South Pacific extra-tropics, where CO2 variations in the surface and ocean interior are severely under-sampled, the difference in the air-sea CO2 flux estimates between the diagnostic models and ocean interior CO2 inversions is larger (0.18 Pg C yr–1). The range of estimates from forward OBGCMs is also large (−0.19 to −0.72 Pg C yr–1). Regarding inter-annual variability of air-sea CO2 fluxes, positive and negative anomalies are evident in the tropical Pacific during the cold and warm events of the El Niño Southern Oscillation in the estimates from pCO2sw diagnostic models and from OBGCMs. They are consistent in phase with the Southern Oscillation Index, but the peak-to-peak amplitudes tend to be higher in OBGCMs (0.40 ± 0.09 Pg C yr–1) than in the diagnostic models (0.27 ± 0.07 Pg C yr–1).

Ground elevated reinforced concrete (RC) silo is a very important structure in material handling plant and food grain processing plants so as to supply it throughout the year. The configuration of the structure is normally vertical, right circular and cylindrical. When such a structure is analyzed under wind load, the distribution of internal forces does not follow the typical pattern expected from the beam bending theory due to nonaxisymmetric variation of wind pressure along the circular periphery considering the silo as a thin walled tubular structure. The silo wall deforms considerably in its cross section due to ovalisation instability. Various past investigations indicate that circular silo having ratio of height of wall to diameter exceeding one (H/D>1) is susceptible to such deformation to greater extent. In case of long cylindrical steel silo ring stiffeners are provided at intermediate levels of the cylindrical wall in order to reduce this ovalisation effect due to wind load. But, in case of reinforced concrete silo, ring stiffeners are not normally provided to avoid construction hazards during slip forming. After a brief review of the previous investigations in connection with the same, it has been observed that wind pressure distribution in cylindrical silo wall had been taken into consideration for the purpose of pre-buckling and post-buckling analysis of mainly steel silo. Little investigation has been found regarding the deformation pattern of wall of cylindrical wall, in particular which is made up of reinforced cement concrete. Author(s) are deeply motivated to find a direction in this context through review of work pertinent to the field and an attempt has been made to simulate the wind load exactly as prescribed by the Indian code of Practice on the cylindrical wall of a typical silo using a highly sophisticated platform of finite element software and studied deformation of the cylindrical wall pertinent to the ovalisation phenomena. This particular study /investigation also reveals important data and throw light on assessing area of hoop reinforcement and their curtailments along the height of the cylindrical wall for the typical configuration only for the structural engineers so as to make design safe and economic.

We have investigated the semiconducting and piezoelectric properties of bulk MNiSn (M=Ti, Zr, Hf) type a half-Heusler compound with cubic F-43m symmetry by means of density functional theory (DFT). For electron exchange correlation a generalized gradient approximation (GGA) was used. Special attention was paid to establish a most favourble ground state configuration on magnetic as well as non-magnetic ordering. With fully optimized structure the electronic and ferroelectric calculation was performed. The formation of band gap was discussed on the basis of d-d orbital hybridization. Further we have calculated the spontaneous polarization by means of structural deformation.

Experiments show that a CNT can withstand large bending curvature reversibly. As the deflection is severe for large varying forces, the elementary elastic theory cannot be applied. Again, the classical (or local) continuum elastic theory is questionable at very small length scale (less than 100 nm) because the material microstructure, such as lattice spacing between individual atoms, become important. For studying mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) of small length, the classical theory can be modified by using nonlocal continuum models proposed by Eringen. In the present work, static analysis of CNT is presented using a nonlinear relation between the bending curvature and the beam deflection and the nonlocal continuum mechanics models. It is shown that there is an upper bound on the load on a cantilevered CNT.

Spontaneous pneumomediastinum is an uncommon pediatric emergency which usually occurs secondary to bronchial asthma in children. We report a case of spontaneous pneumomediastinum in a 7 year child following Swine Flu (H1N1) infection.

Rare earth molybdate crystals such as those based on lanthanum, neodymium and some mixed molybdates, grown by the gel method, were analysed for major and trace impurity elemental concentrations using energy-dispersive x-ray fluorescence spectrometry in order to understand the characteristics of the material in terms of structural perfection and composition. The method used permits the simultaneous determination of rare earth elements such as La and Nd and also Mo and impurities such as Fe and Zn. Based on the observed concentrations of major elements, it is shown that the formulae so far assumed for some of these composites may be incorrect and may need a major refinement. Monoenergetic x-rays of 22.1 and 59.6 keV were employed for fluorescence excitation and optimum detection efficiency was obtained for a large number of elements. Pulverized samples mixed with cellulose powder and specimens prepared in the form of pellets were used. The fundamental parameter method was used for the quantitative estimation of elemental concentration.

A transport model intercomparison experiment (TransCom-CH4) has been designed to investigate the roles of surface emissions, transport and chemical loss in simulating the global methane distribution. Model simulations were conducted using twelve models and four model variants and results were archived for the period of 1990–2007. The transport and removal of six CH4 tracers with different emission scenarios were simulated, with net global emissions of 513 ± 9 and 514 ± 14 Tg CH4 yr−1 for the 1990s and 2000s, respectively. Additionally, sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) was simulated to check the interhemispheric transport, radon (222Rn) to check the subgrid scale transport, and methyl chloroform (CH3CCl3) to check the chemical removal by the tropospheric hydroxyl radical (OH). The results are compared to monthly or annual mean time series of CH4, SF6 and CH3CCl3 measurements from 8 selected background sites, and to satellite observations of CH4 in the upper troposphere and stratosphere. Most models adequately capture the vertical gradients in the stratosphere, the average long-term trends, seasonal cycles, interannual variations and interhemispheric gradients at the surface sites for SF6, CH3CCl3 and CH4. The vertical gradients of all tracers between the surface and the upper troposphere are consistent within the models, revealing vertical transport differences between models. We find that the interhemispheric exchange rate (1.39 ± 0.18 yr) derived from SF6 is faster by about 11 % in the 2000s compared to the 1990s. Up to 60 % of the interannual variations in the forward CH4 simulations can be explained by accounting for the interannual variations in emissions from biomass burning and wetlands. We also show that the decadal average growth rate likely reached equilibrium in the early 2000s due to the flattening of anthropogenic emission growth since the late 1990s. The modeled CH4 budget is shown to depend strongly on the troposphere-stratosphere exchange rate and thus to the model's vertical grid structure and circulation in the lower stratosphere. The 15-model median CH4 and CH3CCl3 atmospheric lifetimes are estimated to be 9.99 ± 0.08 and 4.61 ± 0.13 yr, respectively, with little interannual variability due to transport and temperature as noted by the ± 1 σ.

Numerical simulation and validation of three-dimensional structure of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is necessary for quantification of transport model uncertainty and its role on surface flux estimation by inverse modeling. Simulations of atmospheric CO2 were performed using four transport models and two sets of surface fluxes compared with an aircraft measurement dataset of Comprehensive Observation Network for Trace gases by AIrLiner (CONTRAIL), covering various latitudes, longitudes, and heights. Under this transport model intercomparison project, spatiotemporal variations of CO2 concentration for 2006–2007 were analyzed with a three-dimensional perspective. Results show that the models reasonably simulated vertical profiles and seasonal variations not only over northern latitude areas but also over the tropics and southern latitudes. From CONTRAIL measurements and model simulations, intrusion of northern CO2 in to the Southern Hemisphere, through the upper troposphere, was confirmed. Furthermore, models well simulated the vertical propagation of seasonal variation in the northern free-troposphere. However, significant model–observation discrepancies were found in Asian regions, which are attributable to uncertainty of the surface CO2 flux data. The models consistently underestimated the north-tropics mean gradient of CO2 both in the free-troposphere and marine boundary layer during boreal summer. This result suggests that the north-tropics contrast of annual mean net non-fossil CO2 flux should be greater than 2.7 Pg C yr−1 for 2007.

Quantifying the fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2) between the atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems in all their diversity, across the continents, is important and urgent for implementing effective mitigating policies. Whereas much is known for Europe and North America for instance, in comparison, South Asia, with 1.6 billion inhabitants and considerable CO2 fluxes, remained terra incognita in this respect. We use regional measurements of atmospheric CO2 aboard a Lufthansa passenger aircraft between Frankfurt (Germany) and Chennai (India) at cruise altitude, in addition to the existing network sites for 2008, to estimate monthly fluxes for 64-regions using Bayesian inversion and transport model simulations. The applicability of the model's transport parameterization is confirmed using SF6, CH4 and N2O simulations for the CARIBIC datasets. The annual carbon flux obtained by including the aircraft data is twice as large as the fluxes simulated by a terrestrial ecosystem model that was applied to prescribe the fluxes used in the inversions. It is shown that South Asia sequestered carbon at a rate of 0.37±0.20 Pg C yr−1 (1Pg C = 1015 g of carbon in CO2) for the years 2007 and 2008. The seasonality and the strength of the calculated monthly fluxes are successfully validated using independent measurements of vertical CO2 profiles over Delhi and spatial variations at cruising altitude over Asia aboard Japan Airlines passenger aircraft.

We consider the modification of the minimal SU(5) Lagrangian due to higher-dimensional operators, arising from quantum gravity effects or from spontaneous compactification of extra dimensions in Kaluza-Klein type theories. Due to these operators the SU (3)c, SU (2)L and U (1)Y couplings do not meet at all at the unification scale, MU, and the magnitudes of the mismatch are directly related to the couplings of the higher-dimensional operators. In particular, we consider five- and six-dimensional operators and show that a large range of values of couplings of these operators are compatible with the latest values of sin 2 θW and as derived from LEP, and also with the experimental constraints on MU coming from proton lifetime.

A study of trace element abnormalities in serum of uremic patients has been carried out by Proton-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) in the case of non-dialysed, hemodialysed and post-transplantation. Forty two patients and eight healthy controls selected for this study were grouped on the basis of their Serum Creatinine (SC) levels. Serum samples of these subjects were converted into solution by acid digestion and the solutions were micropippetted and dried on a thin mylar sheet to be mounted on a sample holder of the PIXE chamber. Proton beam from Van de Graaff accelerator (Trombay, India) of 2.5 Mev energy was employed for exciting the characteristic X-rays of the elements present in the samples and their X-rays were detected by a Si(Li) detector. The results obtained showed significant abnormalities in the concentration levels of Ni, Cu, Br, SrandPb amongst various groups. Ni was found to be significantly higher in all the groups compared to controls. Concentration of Cu was also found to be high in the sera of patients on hemodialysis as compared to controls and non-dialysed uremics. Cu levels returned to normal after transplantation. Br was lower in patients undergoing hemodialysis which returned to normal after transplantation. Sr was found to be higher in all groups of renal failure as compared to controls. Patients on hemodialysis accumulated significant quantities of Pb which was found to decrease after transplantation. No significant abnormalities were observed in the case of the elements Zn, Se and Rb.

Experiments on force‐deflection of bending of cantilevered thick multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with varying forces, P, set up mainly to determine their effective Young’s modulus, show that the nanotubes exhibit wavelike distortion or ripple on their inner arc and the strain energy deviates from the usual quadratic behavior for large deflection. Using a nonlinear relation between the bending moment and the bending curvature we have derived expressions for total deflection and strain energy with P and found that there is an upper bound on the load (Pmax) on a cantilevered thick MWCNT. We have calculated the value of Pmax and also the corresponding length of the cantilevered end portion of the tube where the rippling is observed.

In-situ observations of atmospheric CO2 and CH4 at Hateruma Island, Japan show large synoptic scale variations during a 6-month period from November to April, when the sampled air is predominantly of continental origin due to the Asian winter monsoon. Synoptic scale variations are extracted from the daily averaged values for the years between 1996 and 2007, along with the annual standard deviations (σCO2 and σCH4 for CO2 and CH4, respectively) for the relevant 6-month period. The temporal change in σCO2 shows a systematically increasing trend over the 12-year period, with elevated excursions in 1998 and 2003; there is no clear trend in σCH4. We also find that the σCO2/σCH4 ratio increases gradually from 1996 to 2002 and rapidly thereafter 2002 without any extreme deviations that characterized σCO2. The σCO2/σCH4 ratio correlates closely with the recent rapid increase in fossil carbon emission from China, as indicated in the CDIAC data. This methodology can be applied for tracking overall changes in regional emissions by measuring multiple chemical tracers.

Chang and Mohapatra have observed that the implementation of the seesaw mechanism explaining small neutrino masses in left-right-symmetric or SO(10) models requires the parity- ({ital P}-) and SU(2){sub {ital R}}-breaking scales to be widely separated ({ital M}{sub {ital P}}{much gt}{ital M}{sub {ital R}}). In this paper we show how the mechanism operates naturally even though the two scales are identical. The gauge group immediately preceding the standard model emerges to be its minimal extension based upon SU(3){sub {ital C}}{times}SU(2){sub {ital L}}{times}U(1){sub {ital R}}{times}U(1){sub {ital B}{minus}{ital L}} with a second neutral {ital Z}{sub {ital R}}-boson mass {ital M}{sub {ital R}}{sup 0}{congruent}300--10{sup 5} GeV. An embedding in the partial unification scheme leads to observable rare kaon decays. In the two symmetry-breaking chains investigated in SO(10) with parity broken either at the unification scale ({ital M}{sub {ital P}}={ital M}{sub {ital U}}), or at an intermediate scale ({ital M}{sub {ital P}}{approx gt}10{sup 11} GeV), proton decay is predicted with lifetime near the observable limit; but, in the former case, rare kaon decays are also predicted near the observable limit when an intermediate gauge group SU(2){sub {ital L}}{times}U(1){sub {ital R}}{times}SU(4){sub {ital C}} survives down to the scale {ital M}{sub {ital C}}{congruent}10{sup 5} GeV provided sin{supmore » 2}{theta}{sub {ital W}}{congruent}0.24. The criterion for naturalness turns out to be wide separation between {ital P}- and U(1){sub {ital B}{minus}{ital L}}-breaking scales.« less

Nosocomial pneumonia (NP) is the second most common hospital acquired infection. Understanding the pattern of occurrence, risk factors and etiological agents of NP in a PICU, is essential for developing effective infection control measures. This prospective observational study was conducted in a PICU of a tertiary care teaching hospital, to determine the incidence, etiology and risk factors for NP.Patients admitted to the PICU, over a period of 1 year who had endotracheal (ET) intubation, were enrolled consecutively into the study. Demographic details were recorded at the time of inclusion. Diagnosis of NP was based on CDC criteria (1988). Semiquantiative assay of endotracheal aspirate (ETA) with a colony count of10(5) cfu/mL was taken as evidence of infection. Colonisation was defined as isolation of organism with10(5) cfu/mL. Age, nutritional status, number and duration of intubations, duration of mechanical ventilation, sedation, nasogastric feeding were the risk factors studied for development of NP. Intubation attempts of more than one were defined as reintubation. Risk factors found significant on univariate analysis, were subjected to multiple regression analysis to determine the most important predictors of NP.The study group comprised of 72 children with a median age of 3.7 years and boys: girls ratio of 1.9:1. Twenty two of 72 (30.5%) developed NP; the predominant isolates from ETA were Acinetobacter anitratus(12), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (5), Klebsiella sp(3) and Staphylococcus aureus and E.coli(1) each. Additionally 18(39%) had evidence of ET colonization, with Acinetobacter sp being the commonest 9(50%). Re-intubation, prolonged duration of intubation and mechanical ventilation were the significant risk factors on univariate analysis for development of NP. On multiple regression analysis, reintubation was the only independent risk factor for NP(OR 0.72, 95%CI 0.55-0.94). Overall mortality was 21%(15/72);7(47%)of these deaths were secondary to NP.NP developed in nearly one third of the intubated patients; Gram negative organisms were the predominant etiological agents and associated with high mortality. Re-intubation, prolonged duration of intubation and mechanical ventilation were the significant risk factors on univariate analysis for development of NP. On multiple regression analysis, reintubation was the only independent risk factor for NP.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Altered serum adenosine deaminase (ADA) levels have been recorded in various diseases involving lymphocytes and/or lymphoreticular system including leprosy. The study was planned to evaluate alterations in serum ADA levels, if any, in reactional and non-reactional leprosy. METHODS: Eighty patients of leprosy, comprising 60 patients of non-reactional leprosy and 20 patients of reactional leprosy were studied along with 20 normal healthy controls. Five milliliters of venous blood was collected and ADA levels were estimated by the method of Giusti (1974). RESULTS: There were 54 males and 26 females. The age of the patients ranged from 5 years to 62 years. The duration of leprosy ranged from 15 days to 3 years. The mean serum ADA level in normal controls was 10.31 ± 0.58 u/L. The serum ADA levels were raised in leprosy patients, significantly so in multibacillary patients. The serum ADA levels were higher in patients of leprosy with reaction. CONCLUSIONS: The study showed significantly high serum ADA levels in multibacillary leprosy and this was further increased in patients of leprosy with reaction. This may be because of increased lymphoreticular activity during the reactional phases.