The resurgence of Malaria in India 1965–76

Summary and Tentative Conclusion The eradication campaign faltered, for historical reasons some of which are tentatively suggested above and which would be worthy of fuller study as an important part of recent medical history; it is one of those historical topics so intertwined with political and social history that an interdisciplinary approach would be fruitful — if the necessary documents could be made accessible, in India and perhaps in international organisations and subscribing government archives too.Once the campaign faltered malaria seems to have diffused from the four foci suggested, the Kutch saltmarsh area and the hill-forest tracts of Madhya, Orissa and Assam. The role of wet years in areas normally arid, semi-arid or only moderately humid seems crucial in the diffusion process, and if the gaps in the rainfall anomaly maps can be filled we shall try to provide a more rigorous analysis of this relationship. Some humid and perhumid areas of high agricultural development, and dense or very dense rural populations, and one or two areas of considerable industrial and urban development like Greater Calcutta and nearby towns, seem so far to be happily little affected by the diffusion of malaria, even though as late as 1948 some including much of West Bengal were hyperendemic areas. It remains to be established by detailed studies if these areas are better prepared in some way — natural immunity must have faded especially in the considerable proportion of young people who have been born since malaria eradication was almost within grasp; or are they so far comparatively fortunate through some chances of the diffusion pattern?Urban malaria, and one might say Anopheles stephensi malaria, is probably more widespread and more significant as an important public health problem than in former times. Once more the need for detailed local studies is clear.It is important to re-read the introductory paragraph of this paper. The fiftyfold increase from 100000 to 5 million cases represents a sharp resurgence but the 5 million cases of 1975 and 1976, and few scores of recorded deaths, still represent a remarkable achievement as compared with the 75 million cases and 800,000 deaths a year at the time of Independence. From over 5 million in 1976 to 10 million in the first nine months of 1977, however, is a quite disquieting increase. If complacence did indeed play a part in the crucial years of resurgence in the late 1960s, it is unlikely to continue today in medical circles. One can only hope that politicians will take the issue seriously. Studies of the economic, educational and demographic impact of the resurgence may help them to do so.     

Simulation of Electrical Conduction in Geomaterials by SPICE

Electrical responses of the subsurface can be used to identify geologic strata, locate anomalies, detect and delineate contamination, among many other applications. All these applications depend on the spatial variations of electrical properties in the subsurface and the resulting flow pattern of electric current. Due to the heterogeneity of the subsurface and complex boundary conditions, three-dimensional electric current flow problems are not easy to analyze, in particular when the response is frequency- and/or time-dependent. In this paper, a method of electric circuit analogy is proposed to simulate the electrical responses of geomaterials using the circuit simulator SPICE. The technique will allow simulation of more complex electrical conduction behavior of geomaterials without much extra effort. The excellent agreement between simulated results and analytical solutions developed for surface geophysical techniques establishes the viability of the method. Limitations of the approach and potential solutions to relax these limitations, and other potential applications of the technique in geosciences are also discussed.     

A three-dimensional finite element program for brittle bimodular rock-like materials

The present paper models the behaviour of bimodular materials (materials with different tensile and compressive moduli) by using a three-dimensional finite element method. Since there is no explicit and definite expression for the shear modulus G of bimodular materials, the analysis starts with a 3 × 3 elasticity matrix in the principal stress coordinate system, and then uses a transformation from principal to Cartesian coordinates to obtain the 6 × 6 elasticity matrix. A corresponding iterative technique is proposed, and multiloading sequences in non-proportionate loading—which need more iterations because of the non-linear elastic property—are also discussed. Numerical examples are presented which show good agreement with analytical results.     

Some economic characteristics of animal husbandry in Pakistan

In spite of the predominance of agriculture in the economy of Pakistan, animal raising is the most neglected industry in the country. The study points out some of the reasons for such neglect and lack of enthusiasm in organizing the cattle industry. Cost and return method has been used to relate the importance of crops over livestock in the farm economy.     

Artificial neural network application to estimate kinematic soil pile interaction response parameters

Six artificial neural network (ANN) models are developed to predict various response parameters of kinematic soil pile interaction. These responses include (1) kinematic response factors for free and fixed head piles in homogenous soil layer to derive foundation input motion (2) normalized bending moment at fixed head of pile in homogenous soil layer (3) normalized kinematic pile moment at the interface of two soil layers of sharply different soil stiffnesses. These ANN models represent simple solutions that can be implemented in a simple calculator capable of matrix operation and bypass the site response analysis and the complex wave diffraction analysis. The data required for ANN training is generated using beam on dynamic Winkler formulation (BDWF). Fifty percent of the data is used to train the ANN models while remaining 50% is used to test the ANN models. The trained ANN models show good agreement with BDWF results.     

KP Burgers shocks in a warm electronegative plasma with q-nonextensive distributed electrons

Nonlinear properties of ion-acoustic (IA) shock are studied by incorporating the effects of electron nonextensivity in a warm electronegative plasma, whose constituents are the inertial positive/negative ions and q-distributed electrons. For this purpose, the evolution equations are solved to obtain Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (KP) Burgers equation by using the reductive perturbation technique and its solution by the tanh method. Furthermore, the conditions for the existence of oscillatory and monotonic shocks are discussed. Numerically, it is found that IA shock propagation characteristics are significantly modified by the variation of plasma parameters, such as, the effects of electron nonextensivity, the positive and negative ion-to-electron temperature ratios (θ _i ,θ _n ), respectively. The former also affect the dispersion, dissipation and nonlinearity coefficients of the KPB equation involving the IA shocks. The present analyses could be useful for understanding the nonlinear shock wave excitations in space and laboratory plasmas, where two distinct groups of ions are present.     

Large amplitude acoustic solitons in a warm electronegative dusty plasma with q-nonextensive distributed electrons

Linear and nonlinear analysis are presented for an electronegative dusty plasma system. Linear analysis shows that the dispersive nature of the plasma system changes considerably due to the presence of nonthermal q-nonextensive distributed electrons. The presence of both compressive and rarefactive Sagdeev solitons is investigated and shown that the addition of even a small population of dust particles will significantly modify the large amplitude Sagdeev solitons. The coexistence of both compressive and rarefactive solitons for a certain set of parameters is also noticed in such system. The effect of variation of entropic index q, θ _i (ratio of positive ion temperature to electron temperature), θ _n (ratio of negative ion temperature to electron temperature) and dust particles concentration (R) is elaborated with the help of suitable parameters.