Spatio-temporal landscape modelling for natural hazard vulnerability analysis in select watersheds of Central Western Ghats

Natural hazards such as landslides are triggered by numerous factors such as ground movements, rock falls, slope failure, debris flows, slope instability, etc. Changes in slope stability happen due to human intervention, anthropogenic activities, change in soil structure, loss or absence of vegetation (changes in land cover), etc. Loss of vegetation happens when the forest is fragmented due to anthropogenic activities. Hence land cover mapping with forest fragmentation can provide vital information for visualising the regions that require immediate attention from slope stability aspects. The main objective of this paper is to understand the rate of change in forest landscape from 1973 to 2004 through multi-sensor remote sensing data analysis. The forest fragmentation index presented here is based on temporal land use information and forest fragmentation model, in which the forest pixels are classified as patch, transitional, edge, perforated, and interior, that give a measure of forest continuity. The analysis carried out for five prominent watersheds of Uttara Kannada district– Aganashini, Bedthi, Kali, Sharavathi and Venkatpura revealed that interior forest is continuously decreasing while patch, transitional, edge and perforated forest show increasing trend. The effect of forest fragmentation on landslide occurrence was visualised by overlaying the landslide occurrence points on classified image and forest fragmentation map. The increasing patch and transitional forest on hill slopes are the areas prone to landslides, evident from the field verification, indicating that deforestation is a major triggering factor for landslides. This emphasises the need for immediate conservation measures for sustainable management of the landscape. Quantifying and describing land use - land cover change and fragmentation is crucial for assessing the effect of land management policies and environmental protection decisions.

Characterization of the dynamics of glass-forming liquids from the properties of the potential energy landscape

We develop a framework for understanding the difference between strong and fragile behavior in the dynamics of glass-forming liquids from the properties of the potential energy landscape. Our approach is based on a master equation description of the activated jump dynamics among the local minima of the potential energy (the so-called inherent structures) that characterize the potential energy landscape of the system. We study the dynamics of a small atomic cluster using this description as well as molecular dynamics simulations and demonstrate the usefulness of our approach for this system. Many of the remarkable features of the complex dynamics of glassy systems emerge from the activated dynamics in the potential energy landscape of the atomic cluster. The dynamics of the system exhibits typical characteristics of a strong supercooled liquid when the system is allowed to explore the full configuration space. This behavior arises because the dynamics is dominated by a few lowest-lying minima of the potential energy and the potential energy barriers between these minima. When the system is constrained to explore only a limited region of the potential energy landscape that excludes the basins of attraction of a few lowest-lying minima, the dynamics is found to exhibit the characteristics of a fragile liquid.

Some Aspects of the Kobayashi and Carath,odory Metrics on Pseudoconvex Domains

The purpose of this article is to consider two themes, both of which emanate from and involve the Kobayashi and the Carath,odory metric. First, we study the biholomorphic invariant introduced by B. Fridman on strongly pseudoconvex domains, on weakly pseudoconvex domains of finite type in C (2), and on convex finite type domains in C (n) using the scaling method. Applications include an alternate proof of the Wong-Rosay theorem, a characterization of analytic polyhedra with noncompact automorphism group when the orbit accumulates at a singular boundary point, and a description of the Kobayashi balls on weakly pseudoconvex domains of finite type in C (2) and convex finite type domains in C (n) in terms of Euclidean parameters. Second, a version of Vitushkin's theorem about the uniform extendability of a compact subgroup of automorphisms of a real analytic strongly pseudoconvex domain is proved for C (1)-isometries of the Kobayashi and Carath,odory metrics on a smoothly bounded strongly pseudoconvex domain.

Unusual co-crystal of isonicotinamide: the structural landscape in crystal engineering

The idea of a structural landscape is based on the fact that a large number of crystal structures can be associated with a particular organic molecule. Taken together, all these structures constitute the landscape. The landscape includes polymorphs, pseudopolymorphs and solvates. Under certain circumstances, it may also include multicomponent crystals (or co-crystals) that contain the reference molecule as one of the components. Under still other circumstances, the landscape may include the crystal structures of molecules that are closely related to the reference molecule. The idea of a landscape is to facilitate the understanding of the process of crystallization. It includes all minima that can, in principle, be accessed by the molecule in question as it traverses the path from solution to the crystal. Isonicotinamide is a molecule that is known to form many co-crystals. We report here a 2 : 1 co-crystal of this amide with 3,5-dinitrobenzoic acid, wherein an unusual N-H center dot center dot center dot N hydrogen-bonded pattern is observed. This crystal structure offers some hints about the recognition processes between molecules that might be implicated during crystallization. Also included is a review of other recent results that illustrate the concept of the structural landscape.

On isometries of the Kobayashi and Caratheodory metrics

This article considers C-1-smooth isometries of the Kobayashi and Caratheodory metrics on domains in C-n and the extent to which they behave like holomorphic mappings. First we provide an example which suggests that B-n cannot be mapped isometrically onto a product domain. In addition, we prove several results on continuous extension of C-0-isometries f : D-1 -> D-2 to the closures under purely local assumptions on the boundaries. As an application, we show that there is no C-0-isometry between a strongly pseudoconvex domain in C-2 and certain classes of weakly pseudoconvex finite type domains in C-2.

Structural landscape of benzoic acid: using experimental crystal structures of fluorobenzoic acids as a probe

Experimental crystal structures of mono and polyfluorinated benzoic acids correspond to high energy computed crystal structures of benzoic acid itself, thereby permitting access to its structural landscape.

When good neighbors don't need fences: temporal landscape partitioning among baboon social groups

Intraspecific competition is a key factor shaping space-use strategies and movement decisions in many species, yet how and when neighbors utilize shared areas while exhibiting active avoidance of one another is largely unknown. Here, we investigated temporal landscape partitioning in a population of wild baboons (Papio cynocephalus). We used global positioning system (GPS) collars to synchronously record the hourly locations of five baboon social groups for similar to 900 days, and we used behavioral, demographic, and life history data to measure factors affecting use of overlap areas. Annual home ranges of neighboring groups overlapped substantially, as predicted (baboons are considered non-territorial), but home ranges overlapped less when space use was assessed over shorter time scales. Moreover, neighboring groups were in close spatial proximity to one another on fewer days than predicted by a null model, suggesting an avoidance-based spacing pattern. At all time scales examined (monthly, biweekly, and weekly), time spent in overlap areas was greater during time periods when groups fed on evenly dispersed, low-quality foods. The percent of fertile females in social groups was negatively correlated with time spent in overlap areas only during weekly time intervals. This suggests that broad temporal changes in ecological resources are a major predictor of how intensively overlap areas are used, and groups modify these ecologically driven spacing patterns at short time scales based on female reproductive status. Together, these findings offer insight into the economics of territoriality by highlighting the dynamics of spacing patterns at differing time scales.

A landscape-level assessment of Asian elephant habitat, its population and elephant-human conflict in the Anamalai hill ranges of southern Western Ghats, India

Spatial information at the landscape scale is extremely important for conservation planning, especially in the case of long-ranging vertebrates. The biodiversity-rich Anamalai hill ranges in the Western Ghats of southern India hold a viable population for the long-term conservation of the Asian elephant. Through rapid but extensive field surveys we mapped elephant habitat, corridors, vegetation and land-use patterns, estimated the elephant population density and structure, and assessed elephant-human conflict across this landscape. GIS and remote sensing analyses indicate that elephants are distributed among three blocks over a total area of about 4600 km(2). Approximately 92% remains contiguous because of four corridors; however, under 4000 km2 of this area may be effectively used by elephants. Nine landscape elements were identified, including five natural vegetation types, of which tropical moist deciduous forest is dominant. Population density assessed through the dung count method using line transects covering 275 km of walk across the effective elephant habitat of the landscape yielded a mean density of 1.1 (95% Cl = 0.99-1.2) elephant/km(2). Population structure from direct sighting of elephants showed that adult male elephants constitute just 2.9% and adult females 42.3% of the population with the rest being subadults (27.4%), juveniles (16%) and calves (11.4%). Sex ratios show an increasing skew toward females from juvenile (1:1.8) to sub-adult (1:2.4) and adult (1:14.7) indicating higher mortality of sub-adult and adult males that is most likely due to historical poaching for ivory. A rapid questionnaire survey and secondary data on elephant-human conflict from forest department records reveals that villages in and around the forest divisions on the eastern side of landscape experience higher levels of elephant-human conflict than those on the western side; this seems to relate to a greater degree of habitat fragmentation and percentage farmers cultivating annual crops in the east. We provide several recommendations that could help maintain population viability and reduce elephant-human conflict of the Anamalai elephant landscape. (C) 2013 Deutsche Gesellschaft far Saugetierkunde. Published by Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Infinitely divisible metrics and curvature inequalities for operators in the Cowen-Douglas class

The curvature (T)(w) of a contraction T in the Cowen-Douglas class B-1() is bounded above by the curvature (S*)(w) of the backward shift operator. However, in general, an operator satisfying the curvature inequality need not be contractive. In this paper, we characterize a slightly smaller class of contractions using a stronger form of the curvature inequality. Along the way, we find conditions on the metric of the holomorphic Hermitian vector bundle E-T corresponding to the operator T in the Cowen-Douglas class B-1() which ensures negative definiteness of the curvature function. We obtain a generalization for commuting tuples of operators in the class B-1() for a bounded domain in C-m.

Communication: Benzene dimer-The free energy landscape

Establishing the relative orientation of the two benzene molecules in the dimer has remained an enigmatic challenge. Consensus has narrowed the choice of structures to either a T-shape, that may be tilted, or a parallel displaced arrangement, but the relatively small energy differences makes identifying the global minimum difficult. Here we report an ab initio Car-Parrinello Molecular Dynamics based metadynamics computation of the free-energy landscape of the benzene dimer. Our calculations show that although competing structures may be isoenergetic, free energy always favors a tilted T-shape geometry at all temperatures where the bound benzene dimer exist. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.

Structural landscape of the 1: 1 benzoic acid : isonicotinamide cocrystal

The acid-pyridine heterosynthon may be used as a `` molecular'' module to probe the structural landscape of the benzoic acid : isonicotinamide 1 : 1 cocrystal, BA: INA. Experimental structures of 1 : 1 cocrystals of fluorobenzoic acids (FBA) with isonicotinamide (INA) contain this heterosynthon and correspond to high-energy structures of 1 : 1 BA : INA.

Performance metrics in a hybrid MPI-OpenMP based molecular dynamics simulation with short-range interactions

We discuss the computational bottlenecks in molecular dynamics (MD) and describe the challenges in parallelizing the computation-intensive tasks. We present a hybrid algorithm using MPI (Message Passing Interface) with OpenMP threads for parallelizing a generalized MD computation scheme for systems with short range interatomic interactions. The algorithm is discussed in the context of nano-indentation of Chromium films with carbon indenters using the Embedded Atom Method potential for Cr-Cr interaction and the Morse potential for Cr-C interactions. We study the performance of our algorithm for a range of MPI-thread combinations and find the performance to depend strongly on the computational task and load sharing in the multi-core processor. The algorithm scaled poorly with MPI and our hybrid schemes were observed to outperform the pure message passing scheme, despite utilizing the same number of processors or cores in the cluster. Speed-up achieved by our algorithm compared favorably with that achieved by standard MD packages. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Combinatorial Exploration of the Structural Landscape of Acid-Pyridine Cocrystals

The structural landscape of acid-pyridine cocrystals is explored by adopting a combinatorial matrix method with 4-substituted benzoic acids and 4-substituted pyridines. The choice of the system restricts the primary synthon to the robust acid-pyridine entity. This methodology accordingly provides hints toward the formation of secondary synthons. The pK(a) rule is validated in the landscape by taking all components of the matrix together and exploring it as a whole. Along with the global features, the exploration of landscapes reveals some local features. Apart from the identification of secondary synthons, it also sheds light on the propensity of hydration in cocrystals, synthon competition, and certain topological similarities. The method described here combines two approaches, namely, database analysis and high throughput crystallography, to extract more information with minimal extra experimental effort.

Socio-cultural protection of endemic trees in humanised landscape

Culturally protected forest patches or sacred groves have been the integral part of many traditional societies. This age old tradition is a classic instance of community driven nature conservation sheltering native biodiversity and supporting various ecosystem functions particularly hydrology. The current work in Central Western Ghats of Karnataka, India, highlights that even small sacred groves amidst humanised landscapes serve as tiny islands of biodiversity, especially of rare and endemic species. Temporal analysis of landuse dynamics reveals the changing pattern of the studied landscape. There is fast reduction of forest cover (15.14-11.02 %) in last 20 years to meet up the demand of agricultural land and plantation programs. A thorough survey and assessment of woody endemic species distribution in the 25 km(2) study area documented presence of 19 endemic species. The distribution of these species is highly skewed towards the culturally protected patches in comparison to other land use elements. It is found that, among the 19 woody endemic species, those with greater ecological amplitude are widely distributed in the studied landscape in groves as well as other land use forms whereas, natural population of the sensitive endemics are very much restricted in the sacred grove fragments. The recent degradation in the sacred grove system is perhaps, due to weakening of traditional belief systems and associated laxity in grove protection leading to biotic disturbances. Revitalisation of traditional practices related to conservation of sacred groves can go a long way in strengthening natural ecological systems of fragile humid tropical landscape.