Development-Conservation Dilemma in the NilgiriMountains of South India

The Nilgiri Mountains of south India is considered unique by anthropologists, geologists, climatologists, botanists as well as tourists. It has remained a subject of constant study and research over the last two centuries. Man-nature balance had continued undisturbed in the Nilgiris for thousands of years until the early 19th century when it became a British colony attracting, in due course, various developmental activities. Subsequently, the Nilgiris and its popular hill stations emerged as favourite places for the British population in India for rest and recuperation, game and for raising commercial plantations. In the process, the traditional indigenous crops were replaced by “English“ vegetables and the natural forests gave way to commercial plantations of coffee, tea and other exotic species of trees.     

Development and Extension of Seawater Desalination by Reverse Osmosis

Seawater desalination has been people‘s fond dream since ancient times,the dream is now becoming a reality.This paper presents a brief development history of reverse osmosis.Much attention was paid to innovative development in mebranes,modules.equipments and applied technology,including asymmetric and composite membranes,spiral-wound element and hollow fiber module,energy recovery equipments and different technological processes.The extension of reverse osmosis,such as desalination,pre-concentration,integrated processes and nanofiltration,is also briefly mentioned.     

Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope observations of an M2.8 flare: Insights into the initiation of a flare–coronal mass ejection event

We present the first observations of a solar flare with the GMRT. An M2.8 flare observed at 1060 MHz with the GMRT on 17 November 2001 was associated with a prominence eruption observed at 17 GHz by the Nobeyama radioheliograph and the initiation of a fast partial halo CME observed with the LASCO C2 coronagraph. Towards the start of the eruption, we find evidence for reconnection above the prominence. Subsequently, we find evidence for rapid growth of a vertical current sheet below the erupting arcade, which is accompanied by the flare and prominence eruption.     

Hard X-ray spectrum of Mkn 421 during the active phase

Spectral measurement of Mkn 421 were made in the hard X-ray energy band of 20–200 keV using a high sensitivity, large area scintillation counter telescope on November 21, 2000 and these coincided with the onset of an active X-ray phase as seen in the ASM counting rates on board RXTE. The observed spectrum can not be fitted to a single power law similar to the PDS data of BeppoSAX. The data can be fitted both by a two component power-law function or a combination of an exponential function with a power law component at the high energies above 80 keV. We identify these components with those arising from the synchrotron self compton and the high energy power-law tail arising from the upgrading of the thermal photons due to multiple Compton scattering a la Cyg X-1. A comparison with the earlier data clearly suggests a spectral variability in the hard X-ray spectrum of the source. We propose a continuously flaring geometry for the source as the underlying mechanism for energy release.     

Planetary cratering 1. The question of multiple impactor populations: Lunar evidence

Abstract— This paper addresses several current issues related to use of craters in interpreting planetary surface histories. The primary goal is to test the widely adopted hypothesis of multiple populations of impactors at different times or places in the Solar System. New data presented here revise a “lunar highland” crater diameter distribution that has been widely used as evidence of an early distinct population of impactors. This curve, which has a depression of the size distribution at mid-sizes, does not, in fact, represent the lunar highlands generally. I show that it is associated with regions of intercrater plains. The more extensive the obliteration by intercrater plains, the deeper the depression. Modeling indicates that the depression of the curve is caused by the obliteration process itself. The oldest, most cratered regions of lunar highlands do not show the depression. These findings call into question earlier interpretations of multiple populations of impactors in the Solar System and of a distinctive primordial population. The present work is consistent, instead, with (1) a relatively uniform size distribution of interplanetary impactors, of mixed origins, back to 4 Ga ago and throughout the sampled Solar System; (2) fragmentation as the process that produced that size distribution; (3) saturation equilibrium on the most heavily cratered surfaces; and (4) differences in structure in the size distribution caused not by distinct impactor populations but by episodes of endogenic obliteration. If accepted, these results would modify some studies of solar system evolution, including assertions of two to five distinct populations of impactors, assumptions of lack of saturation equilibrium, and identifications of specific heliocentric or planetocentric sources for impactors within outer planet satellite systems.     

Time-dependent scattering and transmission function in an anisotropic two-layered atmosphere

In this paper we consider the time-dependent diffuse reflection and transmission problems for a homogeneous anisotropically-scattering atmosphere of finite optical depth and solve it by the principle of invariance. Also we consider the time-dependent diffuse reflection and transmission of parallel rays by a slab consisting of two anisotropic homogeneous layers, whose scattering and transmission properties are known. It is shown how to express the time-dependent reflected and transmitted intensities in terms of their components. In a manner similar to that given by Tsujita (1968), we assumed that the upward-directed intensities of radiation at the boundary of the two layers are expressed by the sum of products of some auxiliary functions depending on only one argument. Then, after some analytical manipulations, three groups of systems of simultaneous integral equations governing the auxiliary functions are obtained.     

Evolution of short period meteoroid streams

The dynamical evolution of meteoroid streams associated with cornets Encke, Halley, Machholz 1986 VIII and asteroid Phaethon is discussed. It is shown that the planetary perturbations can greatly increase the streams thickness and each stream may produce several couples of meteor showers active in different seasons of the year. The theoretical and observed data are in a satisfactory accordance.