Hisslers observed during daytime in a low latitude ground station

The observation of hisslers during daytime at low latitude station Jammu, India, is reported. The hissler elements are quasi-periodic falling tones observed during the period of hiss activity and appear in minutelong sequences with average spacing between individual elements of the order of 0.15 s. Hissler elements exhibit almost no dispersion and no complex internal structure in slope and intensity, and successive hissler elements do not overlap in time. It seems that the reported hisslers might have propagated in prolongitudinal mode.     

Lagerstroemia L. from the middle Miocene Siwalik deposits,northern India: Implication for Cenozoic range shifts of the genus and the family Lythraceae

Journal of Earth System Science - Fossil leaves of Lagerstroemia (Lythraceae) are described from the Siwalik deposits (middle Miocene) of Kathgodam, Uttarakhand, India. The fossil records of the...     

Heat islands over Mumbai as revealed by autorecorded thermograph data

This study examined hourly temperature data of two locations of Mumbai metropolitan city. One data point (Coloba, Mumbai) is in centre of the city and the other one (Santacruz, Mumbai) is at the airport. The study finds that there were many occasions when night-time hourly temperatures over the city centre were considerably higher than that of the airport, even though temperature at the time of sunset at both the places was nearly same. In this study, the occasions, when hourly night-time temperature over city was more than that of the airport by objectively defined threshold value (3.0 ^°C in this study) for most of the hours in the night, were termed as heat island events. Analysis of the study reveals that these events are mostly confined to November–February months. The study also found that frequency of such events has doubled in recent two decades in comparison to the earlier two decades.     

Metal contamination of agricultural soils in the copper mining areas of Singhbhum shear zone in India

The study was intended to investigate the heavy metal contamination in the agricultural soils of the copper mining areas in Singhbhum shear zone, India. The total concentrations of the metals were determined by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometer (ICPMS). Pollution levels were assessed by calculating enrichment factor (EF), geo-accumulation index (\(I_\mathrm{geo}\)), contamination factors (CF), pollution load index (PLI), Nemerow index and ecological risk index (\(R_{I}\)). The metal concentrations in the soil samples exceeded the average shale values for almost all the metals. Principal component analysis resulted in extraction of three factors explaining 82.6% of the data variability and indicated anthropogenic contribution of Cu, Ni, Co, Cr, Mn and Pb. The EF and \(I_\mathrm{geo}\) values indicated very high contamination with respect to Cu followed by As and Zn in the agricultural soils. The values of PLI, \(R_{I}\) and Nemerow index, which considered the overall effect of all the studied metals on the soils, revealed that 50% of the locations were highly polluted with respect to metals. The pollution levels varied with the proximity to the copper mining and processing units. Consequently, the results advocate the necessity of periodic monitoring of the agricultural soils of the area and development of proper management strategies to reduce the metal pollution.     

Decolorization of Congo red mediated by marine <Emphasis Type="Italic">Alcaligenes</Emphasis> species isolated from Indian West coast sediments

Alcaligenes species capable of degrading highly recalcitrant, carcinogenic, water-soluble dye—Congo red—were isolated from Indian West coastal sediments. Individual strains showed decolorization rates ranging from 76.49 to 98.76% within 24–48 h. Decolorization was most efficient at anoxic conditions catalyzed by intracellular azoreductase enzyme with an activity of 0.032 µmol min^?1 mg^?1 of protein. Degradation was confirmed by HPLC and FTIR analysis. LC/MS analysis of degraded metabolites established the cleavage of the azo bond-producing biphenyl diamine and 1,2′-diaminonapthalene-4-sulfonic acid. These results signify the effectiveness and ease to engineer processes such as feed batch/immobilized cell systems using these strains as biocatalysts to address the problem of global coastal water pollution caused by increased disposal of azo dye-containing industrial effluents.     

Evaluation of hydrogeochemical processes and groundwater quality in the Jhansi district of Bundelkhand region, India

A base line study involving analysis of groundwater samples from the Jhansi district were carried out to determine the major and trace element chemistry and to assess the hydrogeochemical processes and water quality for domestic and irrigation uses. Study results show that groundwater is mildly acidic to alkaline in nature and HCO₃ ^?, Cl^?, Ca²⁺, Na⁺ and Mg²⁺ are the major contributing ions for the dissolved loads. The data plotted on the Gibbs and Piper diagrams reveal that the groundwater chemistry is mainly controlled by rock weathering with secondary contribution from anthropogenic sources. In a majority of the groundwater samples, alkaline earth metals exceed alkalies and weak acid dominate over strong acids. Ca–Mg–HCO₃ is the dominant hydrogeochemical facies in the majority of the groundwater samples. The computed saturation indices demonstrate that groundwater is oversaturated with respect to dolomite and calcite. Kaolinite is the possible mineral that is in equilibrium with the water, implying that the groundwater chemistry favors kaolinite formation. A comparison of groundwater quality parameters in relation to specified limits for drinking water shows that the concentrations of TDS, F^?, NO₃ ^?, total hardness and Fe are exceeding the desirable limits in many water samples. Quality assessment for irrigation uses reveal that the groundwater is of good to suitable category. Higher salinity and residual sodium carbonate values at some sites restrict the suitability of groundwater and need an adequate drainage and water management plan for the area.     

Bioprospection of marine actinomycetes: recent advances, challenges and future perspectives

In exploring new sources for economically important products, marine environment draws particular attention because of its remarkable diversity and extreme conditions; it is known to produce metabolic products of great value. It represents untapped source for the discovery of novel secondary metabolites with varying potential such as antibiotic, anti-tumor, antifouling and cytotoxic properties. Marine actinomycetes distributed throughout the marine environment from shallow to deep sea sediments have proved to be a finest source for this discovery. Secondary metabolites derived from marine actinomycetes have proved their worth in industries based on the research on their properties and wide range applications. Spotlight of the review is range of marine based actinomycetes products and significant research in this field. This shows the capability of marine actinomycetes as bioactive metabolite producers. Additionally, the present review addresses some effective and novel approaches of procuring marine microbial compounds utilizing the latest screening strategies of drug discovery from which traditional resources such as marine actinobacteria has decreased due to declining yields. The aim is in the context of promoting fruitful and profitable results in the near future. The recent surfacing of new technologies for bioprospection of marine actinomycetes are very promising, resulting in high quality value added products, and will be de? ning a new era for bioactive compounds with medical and biotechnological applications.     

Downward continuation and tilt derivative of magnetic data for delineation of concealed coal fire in East Basuria Colliery,Jharia coal field,India

The present study deals with the characterization of subsurface coal fires of East Basuria colliery in Jharia coal field, India using tilt derivative and downward continuation of magnetic data. Magnetic data processing methods such as diurnal correction, noise removal, reduction to pole, tilt derivative and downward continuation have been used to process the data and for the interpretation of results on the basis of magnetic properties of overlying materials which change with the temperature variation above or below the Curie temperature. Most of the magnetic anomalies are associated with coal fire and non-coal fire regions which are correlated with tilt-derivative anomaly and corresponding downward-continued anomaly at different depths. The subsequent surface and subsurface characteristics are explained with good agreement. Approximate source depth of principal anomaly inferred from tilt derivatives method are corroborated with multi-seam occurrences, mine working levels and surface manifestation which are also correlated well with 3D model of downward continued anomaly distribution.     

THE OPTIMUM GATE LENGTH FOR THE TIME-VARYING DECONVOLUTION OPERATOR1

The time-varying deconvolution operator designed by dividing time-varying sequence has been extended to include an optimal division of the input data. A numerical example illustrates that the error energy is less in the case of optimally divided input in comparison with arbitrary division.