Projected climate change impacts on vegetation distribution over Kashmir Himalayas

Despite high vulnerability, the impact of climate change on Himalayan ecosystem has not been properly investigated, primarily due to the inadequacy of observed data and the complex topography. In this study, we mapped the current vegetation distribution in Kashmir Himalayas from NOAA AVHRR and projected it under A1B SRES, RCP-4.5 and RCP-8.5 climate scenarios using the vegetation dynamics model-IBIS at a spatial resolution of 0.5A degrees. The distribution of vegetation under the changing climate was simulated for the 21st century. Climate change projections from the PRECIS experiment using the HADRM3 model, for the Kashmir region, were validated using the observed climate data from two observatories. Both the observed as well as the projected climate data showed statistically significant trends. IBIS was validated for Kashmir Himalayas by comparing the simulated vegetation distribution with the observed distribution. The baseline simulated scenario of vegetation (1960-1990), showed 87.15 % agreement with the observed vegetation distribution, thereby increasing the credibility of the projected vegetation distribution under the changing climate over the region. According to the model projections, grasslands and tropical deciduous forests in the region would be severely affected while as savannah, shrubland, temperate evergreen broadleaf forest, boreal evergreen forest and mixed forest types would colonize the area currently under the cold desert/rock/ice land cover types. The model predicted that a substantial area of land, presently under the permanent snow and ice cover, would disappear by the end of the century which might severely impact stream flows, agriculture productivity and biodiversity in the region.

Factors affecting distribution of fish within a tidally drained mangrove forest in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India

Mangrove forests in meso-tidal areas are completely drained during low tides, forming only temporary habitats for fish. We hypothesised that in such temporary habitats, where stranding risks are high, distance from tidal creeks that provided access to inundated areas during receding tides would be the primary determinant of fish distribution. Factors such as depth, root density and shade were hypothesised to have secondary effects. We tested these hypotheses in a tidally drained mangrove patch in the Andaman Islands, India. Using stake nets, we measured fish abundance and species richness relative to distance from creeks, root density/m(2), shade, water depth and size (total length) of fish. We also predicted that larger fish (including potential predators) would be closer to creeks, as they faced a greater chance of mortality if stranded. Thus we conducted tethering trials to examine if predation would be greater close to the creeks. Generalised linear mixed effects models showed that fish abundance was negatively influenced by increasing creek distance interacting with fish size and positively influenced by depth. Quantile regression analysis showed that species richness was limited by increasing creek distance. Proportion of predation was greatest close to the creeks (0-25 m) and declined with increasing distance. Abundance was also low very close to the creeks, suggesting that close to the creeks predation pressure may be an important determinant of fish abundance. The overall pattern however indicates that access to permanently inundated areas, may be an important determinant of fish distribution in tidally drained mangrove forests.

Asymptotic Bounds on the Power-Delay Tradeoff for Fading Point-to-Point Links From Geometric Bounds on the Stationary Distribution of the Queue Length

The optimal power-delay tradeoff is studied for a time-slotted independently and identically distributed fading point-to-point link, with perfect channel state information at both transmitter and receiver, and with random packet arrivals to the transmitter queue. It is assumed that the transmitter can control the number of packets served by controlling the transmit power in the slot. The optimal tradeoff between average power and average delay is analyzed for stationary and monotone transmitter policies. For such policies, an asymptotic lower bound on the minimum average delay of the packets is obtained, when average transmitter power approaches the minimum average power required for transmitter queue stability. The asymptotic lower bound on the minimum average delay is obtained from geometric upper bounds on the stationary distribution of the queue length. This approach, which uses geometric upper bounds, also leads to an intuitive explanation of the asymptotic behavior of average delay. The asymptotic lower bounds, along with previously known asymptotic upper bounds, are used to identify three new cases where the order of the asymptotic behavior differs from that obtained from a previously considered approximate model, in which the transmit power is a strictly convex function of real valued service batch size for every fade state.

Spectral intensity distribution of trapped

To calculate static response properties of a many-body system, local density approximation (LDA) can be safely applied. But, to obtain dynamical response functions, the applicability of LDA is limited bacause dynamics of the system needs to be considered as well. To examine this in the context of cold atoms, we consider a system of non-interacting spin4 fermions confined by a harmonic trapping potential. We have calculated a very important response function, the spectral intensity distribution function (SIDF), both exactly and using LDA at zero temperature and compared with each other for different dimensions, trap frequencies and momenta. The behaviour of the SIDF at a particular momentum can be explained by noting the behaviour of the density of states (DoS) of the free system (without trap) in that particular dimension. The agreement between exact and LDA SIDFs becomes better with increase in dimensions and number of particles.

Strategy for Obtaining Bimodal Bubble Size Distribution in Water Blown Polyurethane Foams

Polyurethane foams with multimodal cell distribution exhibit superior mechanical and thermal properties. A technique for generating bimodal bubble size distribution exists in the literature, but it uses supercritical conditions. In the present work, an alternative based on milder operating conditions is proposed. It is a modification of reaction injection molding (RIM), using reactants already seeded with bubbles. The number density of the seeds determines if two nucleating events can occur. A bimodal bubble size distribution is obtained when this happens A mathematical model is used to test this hypothesis by simulating water blown free rise polyurethane foams. The effects of initial concentration of bubbles, temperature of the reactants, and the weight fraction of water are studied. The study reveals that for certain concentrations of initial number of bubbles, when initial temperature and weight fraction of water are high, it is possible to obtain a second nucleation event, leading to bimodal bubble size distribution.

Tailor-Made Distribution of Nanoparticles in Blend Structure toward Outstanding Electromagnetic Interference Shielding

Engineering blend structure with tailor-made distribution of nanoparticles is the prime requisite to obtain materials with extraordinary properties. Herein, a unique strategy of distributing nanoparticles in different phases of a blend structure has resulted in >99% blocking of incoming electromagnetic (EM) radiation. This is accomplished by designing a ternary polymer blend structure using polycarbonate (PC), poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF), and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) to simultaneously improve the structural, electrical, and electromagnetic interference shielding (EMI). The blend structure was made conducting by preferentially localizing the multi-wall nanotubes (MWNTs) in the PVDF phase. By taking advantage of pp stacking MWNTs was noncovalently modified with an imidazolium based ionic liquid (IL). Interestingly, the enhanced dispersion of IL-MWNTs in PVDF improved the electrical conductivity of the blends significantly. While one key requisite to attenuate EM radiation (i.e., electrical conductivity) was achieved using MWNTs, the magnetic properties of the blend structure was tuned by introducing barium ferrite (BaFe) nanoparticles, which can interact with the incoming EM radiation. By suitably modifying the surface of BaFe nanoparticles, we can tailor their localization under the macroscopic processing condition. The precise localization of BaFe nanoparticles in the PC phase, due to nucleophilic substitution reaction, and the MWNTs in the PVDF phase not only improved the conductivity but also facilitated in absorption of the incoming microwave radiation due to synergetic effect from MWNT and BaFe. The shielding effectiveness (SE) was measured in X and K-u band, and an enhanced SE of -37 dB was noted at 18 GHz frequency. PMMA, which acted as an interfacial modifier in PC/PVDF blends further, resulting in a significant enhancement in the mechanical properties besides retaining high SE. This study opens a new avenue in designing mechanically strong microwave absorbers with a suitable combination of materials.

Sparse Representation based Anomaly Detection using HOMV in H.264 Compressed Videos

In this paper, we have proposed an anomaly detection algorithm based on Histogram of Oriented Motion Vectors (HOMV) 1] in sparse representation framework. Usual behavior is learned at each location by sparsely representing the HOMVs over learnt normal feature bases obtained using an online dictionary learning algorithm. In the end, anomaly is detected based on the likelihood of the occurrence of sparse coefficients at that location. The proposed approach is found to be robust compared to existing methods as demonstrated in the experiments on UCSD Ped1 and UCSD Ped2 datasets.

Anomaly detection in compressed H.264/AVC video

Real time anomaly detection is the need of the hour for any security applications. In this article, we have proposed a real time anomaly detection for H.264 compressed video streams utilizing pre-encoded motion vectors (MVs). The proposed work is principally motivated by the observation that MVs have distinct characteristics during anomaly than usual. Our observation shows that H.264 MV magnitude and orientation contain relevant information which can be used to model the usual behavior (UB) effectively. This is subsequently extended to detect abnormality/anomaly based on the probability of occurrence of a behavior. The performance of the proposed algorithm was evaluated and bench-marked on UMN and Ped anomaly detection video datasets, with a detection rate of 70 frames per sec resulting in 90x and 250x speedup, along with on-par detection accuracy compared to the state-of-the-art algorithms.

Quark and gluon distribution functions in a viscous quark-gluon plasma medium and dilepton production via q(q)over-bar annihilation

Viscous modifications to the thermal distributions of quark-antiquarks and gluons have been studied in a quasiparticle description of the quark-gluon-plasma medium created in relativistic heavy-ion collision experiments. The model is described in terms of quasipartons that encode the hot QCD medium effects in their respective effective fugacities. Both shear and bulk viscosities have been taken in to account in the analysis, and the modifications to thermal distributions have been obtained by modifying the energy-momentum tensor in view of the nontrivial dispersion relations for the gluons and quarks. The interactions encoded in the equation of state induce significant modifications to the thermal distributions. As an implication, the dilepton production rate in the q (q) over bar annihilation process has been investigated. The equation of state is found to have a significant impact on the dilepton production rate along with the viscosities.

The Holy Grail of Polymer Therapeutics for Cancer Therapy: An Overview on the Pharmacokinetics and Bio Distribution

In recent years, multifaceted clinical benefits of polymeric therapeutics have been reported. Over the past decades, cancer has been one of the leading causes of mortality in the world. Many clinically approved chemotherapeutics encounter potential challenges against deadly cancer. Moreover, safety and efficacy of anticancer agents have been limited by undesirable pharmacokinetics and biodistribution. To address these limitations, various polymer drug conjugates are being studied and developed to improve the antitumor efficacy. Among other therapeutics, polymer therapeutics are well established platforms that circumvent anticancer therapeutics from enzymatic metabolism via direct conjugation to therapeutic molecules. Interestingly, polymer therapeutics meets an unmet need of small molecules. Further clinical study showed that polymer-drug conjugation can achieve desired pharmacokinetics and biodistribution properties of several anticancer drugs. The present retrospective review mainly enlightens the most recent preclinical and clinical studies include safety, stability, pharmacokinetic behavior and distribution of polymer therapeutics.

Meridional gradients in aerosol vertical distribution over Indian Mainland: Observations and model simulations

Multi-year observations from the network of ground-based observatories (ARFINET), established under the project `Aerosol Radiative Forcing over India' (ARFI) of Indian Space Research Organization and space-borne lidar `Cloud Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization' (CALIOP) along with simulations from the chemical transport model `Goddard Chemistry Aerosol Radiation and Transport' (GOCART), are used to characterize the vertical distribution of atmospheric aerosols over the Indian landmass and its spatial structure. While the vertical distribution of aerosol extinction showed higher values close to the surface followed by a gradual decrease at increasing altitudes, a strong meridional increase is observed in the vertical spread of aerosols across the Indian region in all seasons. It emerges that the strong thermal convections cause deepening of the atmospheric boundary layer, which although reduces the aerosol concentration at lower altitudes, enhances the concentration at higher elevations by pumping up more aerosols from below and also helping the lofted particles to reach higher levels in the atmosphere. Aerosol depolarization ratios derived from CALIPSO as well as the GOCART simulations indicate the dominance of mineral dust aerosols during spring and summer and anthropogenic aerosols in winter. During summer monsoon, though heavy rainfall associated with the Indian monsoon removes large amounts of aerosols, the prevailing southwesterly winds advect more marine aerosols over to landmass (from the adjoining oceans) leading to increase in aerosol loading at lower altitudes than in spring. During spring and summer months, aerosol loading is found to be significant, even at altitudes as high as 4 km, and this is proposed to have significant impacts on the regional climate systems such as Indian monsoon. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A dilation-driven vortex flow in sheared granular materials explains a rheometric anomaly

Granular flows occur widely in nature and industry, yet a continuum description that captures their important features is yet not at hand. Recent experiments on granular materials sheared in a cylindrical Couette device revealed a puzzling anomaly, wherein all components of the stress rise nearly exponentially with depth. Here we show, using particle dynamics simulations and imaging experiments, that the stress anomaly arises from a remarkable vortex flow. For the entire range of fill heights explored, we observe a single toroidal vortex that spans the entire Couette cell and whose sense is opposite to the uppermost Taylor vortex in a fluid. We show that the vortex is driven by a combination of shear-induced dilation, a phenomenon that has no analogue in fluids, and gravity flow. Dilatancy is an important feature of granular mechanics, but not adequately incorporated in existing models.

On variant distribution and coarsening behavior of the a phase in a metastable beta titanium alloy

The stereology, variant distribution and coarsening behavior of semicoherent alpha(hcp) precipitates in a beta(bcc) matrix of a Ti5553 alloy has been analyzed, and a dominant 3-variant cluster has been observed in which the variants are related to each other by an axis-angle pair <<11(2)over bar> 0 >/60 degrees. Shape and spatial distribution independent elastic self and interaction energies for all pairwise and triplet combinations of a have been calculated and it is found that the 3-cluster combination that is experimentally observed most frequently has the lowest energy for the semicoherent state. The coarsening behavior of the delta distribution follows LSW kinetics after an initial transient, and has been modeled by phase field methods. (C) 2016 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.