The effect of critical pH on virus fate and transport in saturated porous medium

Several viral transport experiments were conducted in a model aquifer 1 m long, using bacteriophages MS2 and phiX174 at various pH (4.6 to 8.3) conditions, to increase our understanding of virus behavior in ground water. The results indicate the existence of a critical pH at which the virus behavior changes abruptly. This is supported by data from field and batch experiments. The critical pH is determined to be 0.5 unit below the highest isoelectric point of the virus and porous medium. When water pH is below the critical pH, the virus has an opposite charge to at least one component of the porous medium, and is almost completely and irreversibly removed from the water. This suggests that electrostatic attraction at a subcritical water pH condition is an important factor controlling virus attenuation in ground water. The concept of critical pH can assist in the design of geologic barriers for preventing viral contamination in ground water.     

Faulting in Deccan Traps in the vicinity of Koyna-Warna Seismic Zone

Studies of sustained activity in the Koyna — Warna Seismic Zone have yielded several models of faults in the basement of the Deccan Traps inferred from geophysical and seismic signatures. There is however, a dearth of unambiguous surface manifestations of such faults, apart from the surface ruptures from the epicentral zone of the December, 1967 earthquake. We report for the first time, an exposed NW-SE trending reverse fault in the Deccan Trap basalts from this region.     

Evaluation of brightness temperature from a forward model of ground-based microwave radiometer

Ground-based microwave radiometers are getting great attention in recent years due to their capability to profile the temperature and humidity at high temporal and vertical resolution in the lower troposphere. The process of retrieving these parameters from the measurements of radiometric brightness temperature (T _B ) includes the inversion algorithm, which uses the back ground information from a forward model. In the present study, an algorithm development and evaluation of this forward model for a ground-based microwave radiometer, being developed by Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (SAMEER) of India, is presented. Initially, the analysis of absorption coefficient and weighting function at different frequencies was made to select the channels. Further the range of variation of T _B for these selected channels for the year 2011, over the two stations Mumbai and Delhi is discussed. Finally the comparison between forward-model simulated T _B s and radiometer measured T _B s at Mahabaleshwar (73.66 ^°E and 17.93^°N) is done to evaluate the model. There is good agreement between model simulations and radiometer observations, which suggests that these forward model simulations can be used as background for inversion models for retrieving the temperature and humidity profiles.     

Undrained Triaxial Behavior of Cement Treated Marine Clay

Clays treated with lower cement contents often exhibit behaviour similar to stiff clays with planar failure surface under triaxial compression. In the present work the behaviour of a marine clay treated with 5 % cement, subjected to undrained triaxial compression tests is studied. The pre-consolidation pressure of the cemented clay due to the cementation bonding is observed to be very high. It is attempted to model the behaviour of cement treated clay using a bounding surface plasticity formulation as the plastic behaviour of the cemented clays within the yield surface has to be considered. The effect of cementation is included in the model as the pre-consolidation pressure obtained from consolidation tests. The tensile strength due to cementation bonds is included in the equation of the bounding surface. Simulations of the undrained triaxial compression tests on cemented clays are carried out and the results are validated with the experimental results.     

Validation of Indian National DEM from Cartosat-1 Data

CartoDEM is an Indian National DEM generated from Cartosat-1 stereo data. Cartosat-1, launched in May, 2005, is an along track (aft ?5°, Fore +26°) stereo with 2.5 m GSD, give base-height ratio of 0.63 with 27 km swath. The operational procedure of DEM generation comprises stereo strip triangulation of 500?×?27 km segment with 10 m posting along with 2.5 m resolution ortho image and free—access posting of 30 m has been made available (bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in). A multi approach evaluation of CartoDEM comprising (a) absolute accuracy with respect to ground control points for two sites namely Jagatsinghpur -flat and Dharamshala- hilly; second site i.e. Alwar-plain and hilly with high resolution aerial DEM, (b) relative difference between SRTM and ASTERDEM (c) absolute accuracy with ICESat GLAS for two sites namely Jagatsinghpur-plain and Netravathi river, Western Ghats-hilly (d) relative comparison of drainage delineation with respect to ASTERDEM is reported here. The absolute height accuracy in flat terrain was 4.7 m with horizontal accuracy of 7.3 m, while in hilly terrain it was 7 m height with a horizontal accuracy of 14 m. While comparison with ICESat GLAS data absolute height difference of plain and hilly was 5.2 m and 7.9 m respectively. When compared to SRTM over Indian landmass, 90 % of pixels reported were within ±8 m difference. The drainage delineation shows better accuracy and clear demarcation of catchment ridgeline and more reliable flow-path prediction in comparison with ASTER. The results qualify Indian DEM for using it operationally which is equivalent and better than the other publicly available DEMs like SRTM and ASTERDEM.     

Diurnal Variation of Meteorological Parameters in the Land Surface Interface

A pilot land surface processes experiment was conducted at Anand, Gujarat, situated in the western part of India, from April to July 1995. The diurnal variation of air and soil temperature with respect to solar radiation was studied in two selected periods, one in summer and the other during monsoon. It was observed that during summer, there was a considerable lag in the temperature maxima with respect to solar radiation, as compared to the monsoon period. Also, in summer, when there was an increase in wind speed from near zero values in the early morning hours, the soil surface as well as the air temperature minima were raised.