The Geography and Area Studies Interface from the Second World War to the Cold War

Disciplinary geography's history represents an important source for contemporary debates over the status of geographical knowledge across the social sciences. This article argues for a reorientation of geography's history by examining its interface with the development of area studies in the United States. It investigates the epistemological and institutional transformations that occurred in the decades before and after the Second World War as the regional concept transmuted into area studies. The article finds that although geography's regional concept shaped the spatial constructions of area studies, the latter's imaginative geographies fixed the regional concept along geopolitical visions of the nation‐state and Cold War regional blocs that continue to occlude social scientific attempts to redraw the borders of the world.     

Tectonochemistry and p-t Conditions of Ramgarh and Almora Gneisses from Askot Klippe,Kumaun Lesser Himalaya

The chemical and petrological correlation of metamorphic nappes and klippes overlying the Proterozoic sedimentary units in the Kumaun Himalaya is still debated. The Ramgarh and Almora gneisses, not previously distinguished in the Askot Klippe, show distinct field, petrological and chemical signatures markedly similar to the tectonostratigraphic disposition of the Almora Nappe. A negative Eu anomaly in the Ramgarh granitic gneisses indicates lesser plagioclase fractionation while the Eu anomaly in the Almora pelitic gneisses is likely to have been controlled by feldspar crystallization in restites. During the anatexis at 776°C temperature and 6.6 kbar pressure, the melt moved slightly away to its crystallization sites. The Rb/Sr ratio ?0.54 and Nb ?10 ppm is consistent with the granodioritic composition. The negative Sr anomaly in the underlying Ramgarh granitic gneisses indicates a distinct mantle derived source/plagioclase fractionation with a notable correspondence to other late orogenic granites, particularly the basement Ulleri gneisses from the Nepal Himalaya. Ramgarh gneisses plot in the late-and post-COLG field. The Askot ensemble is likely to be the tectonometamorphically reworked basement, viz. the Ramgarh Group along with its metapelitic cover o f the Almora Group, together comprising southward thrust remnants of the leading edge of the Indian Plate that collided with Tibet during the Tertiary Himalayan orogeny.     

Intra-day variability of three Seyfert galaxies measured with XMM-Newton

We present and analyze the variability of three Seyfert galaxies on intra-day timescales. We have analyzed in a uniform manner the 38 longest( 30 ks) observations made for NGC 4051, MCG-06–30–15 and NGC 4151 by XMM-Newton between 2000 and 2015. The nuclei were quite active during essentially all of these observations and the overall X-ray fluxes(0.3–10 keV) varied by an order of magnitude. Most of the observations do appear to show characteristic timescales, estimated through their auto-correlation functions, ranging between ~2.9 ks and ~45.3 ks. The hard(2–10 keV) and soft(0.3–2.0 keV) bands are very well correlated but consideration of their hardness ratios shows that the sources typically soften during flares. We also provide new estimates of the central black hole masses for these three AGNs that support the hypothesis that Narrow Line Seyfert 1 galaxies have relatively small central black holes.     

Effect of Random Inclusion of Polypropylene Fibers on Strength Characteristics of Cohesive Soil

This paper presents the effect of random inclusion of polypropylene fibers on strength characteristics of soil. Locally available cohesive soil (CL) is used as medium and polypropylene fibers with three aspect ratios (l/d = 75, 100 and 125) are used as reinforcement. Soil is compacted with standard Proctor’s maximum density with low percentage of reinforcement (0–1% by weight of oven-dried soil). Direct shear tests, unconfined compression tests and CBR tests were conducted on un-reinforced as well as reinforced soil to investigate the strength characteristics of fiber-reinforced soil. The test results reveal that the inclusion of randomly distributed polypropylene fibers in soil increases peak and residual shear strength, unconfined compressive strength and CBR value of soil. It is noticed that the optimum fiber content for achieving maximum strength is 0.4–0.8% of the weight of oven-dried soil for fiber aspect ratio of 100.     

Species Mapping Using Citizen Science Approach Through IBIN Portal: Use Case in Foothills of Himalaya

In this era of rapid global change, biodiversity monitoring and improving species repository to meet requirements toward conservation is costly affairs and needs a practical solution to identify and locate species with habitats. The integrated approach of citizen science and information technologies has proven to be effective solution for geographical and taxonomical data collection with public engagement, covering local to national scale. As a first step, a mobile app is designed and developed for the IBIN (Indian Bioresource Information Network), a digitized collection of the biological resources of India that serves as a common platform to access spatial and non-spatial information on biorecources can host their data through this single and intuitive platform with full privileges and authenticity. IBIN mobile app can be seen as an efficient and rapid solution to record data on species, utilizing GPS and camera features of mobile devices. Present paper deals with the citizen science approaches, its contribution in biodiversity field, outlines the design and development of IBIN mobile app and its first case study carried out at foothills of Himalaya.     

Simultaneous observation of whistlers and emissions during a geomagnetically quiet period at low latitude

A unique night-time natural electromagnetic disturbances in the VLF/ELF range received during a magnetically quite period at a low latitude Indian ground station, Jammu (geomag. lat. 19°26′ N, L=1.17) has been reported. During the routine observation of VLF waves at Jammu, whistlers and different types of VLF/ELF emissions such as whistlers of varying dispersion confined to a small band limited frequency range, hisslers, pulsing hiss, discrete chorus emissions of rising and falling tones with multiple bands, oscillating tone discrete emission, whistler-triggered hook and discrete chorus risers emissions, etc. have been observed simultaneously during the quiet period on a single night. Such type of unique simultaneous observations has never been reported from any of the low latitude ground stations and this is the first observation of its kind. The results are discussed in the light of recorded features of whistlers and emissions. Generation and propagation mechanism are discussed briefly. Plasma parameters are further derived from the dispersion analysis of nighttime whistlers and emissions recorded simultaneously during magnetically quiet periods.     

Settlement of compacted ash fills

The coal ash is a by-product of coal-fired thermal power station. It is extensively used as a geo-material for landfill. The compacted ash is used as a structural fill if it is properly characterized for load-bearing capacity and settlement. The main objective of the present work is to characterize ash material and to evaluate its settlement characteristics. The ash is normally compacted by vibration at or near optimum moisture for its performance as structural fill. The overt characteristics of ashes are viewed similar to cohesionless soils. However, the mass behavior may have differences due to the subtle influence of chemical and physical processes involved in its formation. The empirical and analytical methods predicting settlement of footing under static loading require direct or indirect measurement of density and stress state in the deposit. In the present work, experimental investigations for settlement prediction were carried out on compacted coal ash produced at Ropar thermal power station in India, which was conveniently classified as ASTM class F ash. The settlement was experimentally obtained for the rigid plates having least dimension more than 0.3 m on ashes compacted at varying degree of compaction. The predicted settlement based on the observed data of coal ash using conventional techniques for soils was found to be conservative. A relationship between settlement and foundation size is proposed at varying compaction to obtain the settlement of compacted ash. At a higher degree of compaction, the settlement of a foundation may not exceed the allowable settlements in the working stress range.     

Qualitative stability assessment of cut slopes along the National Highway-05 around Jhakri area,Himachal Pradesh,India

Several deformation phases in tectonically active Himalayas have rendered the rock masses very complex in terms of structure, lithology and degree of metamorphism. Again, anthropogenic activities such as roads, tunnels and other civil engineering constructions have led to a state of disequilibrium which in many cases, results in failure of rock masses. National Highway-05 around Jhakri area in India is a major connecting route to the China border in the hilly terrains of the state Himachal Pradesh. It cuts through the Himalayan rocks and has a hazardous history of landslides destroying human lives and interrupting communication very frequently. As a contribution towards the mitigation process, a study has been carried out along the highway to analyse kinematic stability and qualitative estimation of rock mass condition through rock mass classification systems. The kinematic analysis shows that the rock slopes are prone to planar and wedge failure. Rock mass rating for most of the locations lies between 7 and 34, representing a poor rock mass quality (Class IV), whereas slope mass rating is more disperse and ranges from 11 to 52 for most of the slopes (Class III, IV and V).     

Hook-shaped type-3 superposed fold in granulite,Badarama complex,Rengali province,India

International Journal of Earth Sciences -     

Is tidal forcing critical to trigger large Sumatra earthquakes?

Complexity in the earthquake mechanism is manifested in different forms such as fractal distribution, clustering of seismicity, etc., and characterized as critical phenomenon. Occurrences of earthquakes generally represent the state of metastable equilibrium. The Andaman–Sumatra subduction zone is one of the most seismically active corridors (possibly in metastable state) in the world. Recently, the region faced three major earthquakes of magnitude more than 8.5 (M ~ 9.1 on December 26, 2004; M ~ 8.6 on March 28, 2005; M ~ 8.6 on April 11, 2012). Researchers have suggested multiple causes of earthquake generation in this region including the one with possible correlation of tidal stresses with earthquake occurrences. The latter issue, however, has been hotly debated in view of the fact that a small stress generated due to tidal forcing cannot cause such a bigger magnitude earthquake. We study here the impact of tidal forcing on critically generated earthquake phenomena. We examined the statistical behavior of recurrence time interval of earthquakes using the available data for period of about 40 years from 1973 to 2013. We constrain the simple empirical toy model using the concept of catastrophe theory to evaluate the impact of small tidal forcing on the critical state of earthquakes occurrences. In addition to the major role of Helmholtz free energy during the plate motion, our analysis suggests that the stability and critical behavior of the earthquake in Sumatra region could be associated with tidal forcing, however, only for triggering of some of the “Catastrophic–Chaotic” earthquake phenomenon.