Institutional efficacy in resource management: temporally congruent embeddedness for forest systems of western India

Our understanding of the role of institutions and property-rights regimes in natural resource management has matured through the work of new institutional economists and common-property theorists. Even so, this literature has yet to establish clear connections between successful resource management, and a given property regime’s spatio-temporal fit. Examining people-forest interaction within a state-managed forest regime in India’s Western Ghats, this paper argues that regime efficacy in satisfying user needs, hinges on appropriately reflecting particular sociospatial contexts and incorporating temporal flexibility into its normative structure. To these ends, this study analyzes institutional structure regulating forest use and management, and examines data collected through extensive fieldwork, in-depth interviews and informal conversations with local villagers and foresters. The results suggest that user responses to access conditions, and their rationales for engaging in particular extraction practices, vary based on caste/class-based perceptions of regime legitimacy, distributional equity, and historical proprietorship rights. Furthermore, the analysis questions the viability of locally managed regimes under such heterogeneous social settings. Rather, this research recognizes the state’s vital role in mediating resource access. It suggests that regime efficacy can be fostered through state-civil society partnerships, widely distributed stakeholder-ship and firmly embedded regimes that adapt to changing sociospatial contexts through modifications to conditions of use and access. Based on the analysis, this paper explores an initial set of sociospatial and temporal parameters that promote institutional efficacy in management, and thus lays the groundwork for future studies in institutional and political ecology.     

Reliability analysis of soil liquefaction based on standard penetration test

A review of probabilistic and deterministic liquefaction evaluation procedures reveals that there is a need for a comprehensive approach that accounts for different sources of uncertainty in liquefaction evaluations. For the same set of input parameters, different models provide different factors of safety and/or probabilities of liquefaction. To account for the different uncertainties, including both the model and measurement uncertainties, reliability analysis is necessary. This paper presents a review and comparative study of such reliability approaches that can be used to obtain the probability of liquefaction and the corresponding factor of safety. Using a simplified deterministic Seed method, this reliability analysis has been performed. The probability of liquefaction along with the corresponding factor of safety have been determined based on a first order second moment (FOSM) method, an advanced FOSM (Hasofer–Lind) reliability method, a point estimation method (PEM) and a Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) method. A combined method that uses both FOSM and PEM is presented and found to be simple and reliable for liquefaction analysis. Based on the FOSM reliability approach, the minimum safety factor value to be adopted for soil liquefaction analysis (depending on the variability of soil resistance, shear stress parameters and acceptable risk) has been studied and a new design safety factor based on a reliability approach is proposed.     

Absorbing boundary conditions in a fourth-order accurate SH-wave staggered grid finite difference algorithm

This article presents the implementation of two well known absorbing boundary conditions in a fourth-order accurate staggered grid SH-wave finite difference (FD) algorithm with variable grid size, in a very simplified manner. Based on simulated results, it was confirmed that the Clayton and Engquist absorbing boundary condition causes edge-reflections in case of larger angle of incidence of body waves on the model edges. The results of various numerical experiments revealed that the Israeli and Orszag sponge boundary condition is efficient enough to avoid edge-reflections for any angle of incidence of the body. We recommend the use of both the Clayton and Engquist and Israeli and Orszag absorbing boundary conditions simultaneously to avoid any edge-reflections.     

Confirmation of three candidate Galactic supernova remnants from GMRT observations

We report 327-MHz observations of three large (>15 arcmin) candidate supernova remnants (SNRs) at high Galactic latitudes using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT). These objects were proposed by Duncan et al. as candidate SNRs in the Parkes 2.4-GHz survey. We detect extended 327-MHz emission in all three fields. G356.2+4.5 has a well-resolved shell of emission. This field also contains a 32-mJy pulsar situated at a distance of 1.4 kpc as derived from the dispersion measure of the pulsar. The field of G358.0+3.8 is highly confused and, although we confirm the presence of a partial ring, it has a lower signal-to-noise ratio detection. G004.8+6.2 (formerly G4.5+6.2) is located approximately 40 arcmin away from Kepler's SNR. Apart from GMRT observations of this field, this SNR lies in the field of view of a Very Large Array (VLA) D-array observation at 325 MHz and we detect a 17×18 arcmin SNR, possibly of shell morphology. All these fields show clear, well-resolved shells in the National Radio Astronomy Observatory/ VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) maps, which are also presented.     

GPS measurements of postseismic deformation due to October 8, 2005 Kashmir earthquake

Relaxation of the coseismic stresses following an earthquake causes postseismic crustal deformation, which can last for days to years. Continuous monitoring of postseismic deformation facilitates the understanding of the mechanism of deformation and postseismic relaxation and viscous rheology. After the October 8, 2005 Kashmir earthquake, global positioning system data for 8 months, starting from October, 2005 have been analyzed from three continuous sites located at Gulmarg, Amritsar, and Jaipur. The average velocity during the observation period at Gulmarg (8.6 cm/year) is significantly higher than the Indian plate velocity exhibiting postseismic crustal deformation. The velocity at Amritsar (5.9 cm/year) and Jaipur (5.1 cm/year) is comparable to the Indian plate velocity. At Gulmarg, the logarithmic function fits well to the north–south component of postseismic transients (~in the coseismic slip direction). The nature of decay in these transients suggests that the deformation is mainly due to an afterslip, and the second possible contribution may be from the viscous relaxation process. This paper presents the characteristics of postseismic transients and possible contributions from various postseismic mechanisms subsequent to the Kashmir earthquake.     

Strange Quark Matter in Cosmic Ray Flux and Exotic Events

There have been several reports of exotic nuclear fragments, with highly unusual charge to mass ratio, in cosmic ray experiments. Although there exist experimental uncertainties which make them, at best, only candidate `exotic' events, it is important to understand what they could be, if they are eventually confirmed. Among other possible explanations, some authors have interpreted them to be lumps of strange quark matter (strangelets).A major problem with such an interpretation is that to reach the earth's surface, they must possess an unusually high penetrability through the terrestrial atmosphere. We show that a recently proposed mechanism for the propagation of strangelets through the earth's atmosphere, together with a proper account of charge capture and ionisation loss, would solve this problem. We also argue that this could lead to viable strategies for definitive detection of strange quark matter in cosmic ray flux using aground based large area array of passive detectors. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Detection of Changes in Glacier Mass Balance Using Satellite and Meteorological Data in Tirungkhad Basin Located in Western Himalaya

Himalayan glaciers and their mass balance are poorly sampled through direct mass balance measurements. Thus, based on Landsat datasets of ETM⁺ (2000), ETM⁺ (2006) and TM (2011), mass balance studies of 32 glaciers was carried out using accumulation area ratio (AAR) method in the Tirungkhad river basin, a tributary of Satluj River, located in western Himalayan region. The overall specific mass balance was negative varying from ?27 cm (2000) to ?41 cm (2011). Out of 32 glaciers, 27 glaciers (81.2 %) showed negative mean mass balance and 5 glaciers (18.7 %) showed positive mean mass balance. Mean of specific mass balance for the year 2000, 2006 and 2011 was found to be ?48 cm, ?55 cm and ?0.61 cm respectively, in case of glaciers with negative mass balance while in case of glaciers with positive mass balance, it was 0.67 cm (2000), 0.56 cm (2006) and 0.47 cm (2011). The investigations suggested a loss of ?0.034 km³ of glacial ice for 2000, 0.036 km³ for 2006 and 0.038 km³ for 2011 respectively. The negative mass balance of the glaciers since 2000 correlates well with the increasing trend of annual mean temperature and decreasing trend of precipitation (snow water equivalent (SWE) and rainfall). Based on Mann Kendall test the temperature and SWE trends were significant at 95 % confidence level, however, the rainfall trend was insignificant.     

Interacting holographic dark energy with variable deceleration parameter and accreting black holes in Bianchi type-V universe

Dust-ion-acoustic (DIA) waves in an unmagnetized dusty plasma system consisting of inertial ions, negatively charged immobile dust, and superthermal (kappa distributed) electrons with two distinct temperatures are investigated both numerically and analytically by deriving Korteweg–de Vries (K-dV), modified K-dV (mK-dV), and Gardner equations along with its double layers (DLs) solutions using the reductive perturbation technique. The basic features of the DIA Gardner solitons (GSs) as well as DLs are studied, and an analytical comparison among K-dV, mK-dV, and GSs are also observed. The parametric regimes for the existence of both the positive as well as negative SWs and negative DLs are obtained. It is observed that superthermal electrons with two distinct temperatures significantly affect on the basic properties of the DIA solitary waves and DLs; and depending on the parameter μ _c (the critical value of relative electron number density μ _e1), the DIA K-dV and Gardner solitons exhibit both compressive and rarefactive structures, whereas the mK-dV solitons support only compressive structures and DLs support only the rarefactive structures. The present investigation can be very effective for understanding and studying various astrophysical plasma environments (viz. Saturn magnetosphere, pulsar magnetosphere, etc.).     

Holographic dark energy model with variable deceleration parameter,cosmic coincidence and the future singularity of the Kantowski-Sachs universe

The present work deals with a spatially homogeneous and anisotropic Kantowski-Sachs space time filled with two minimally interacting fluids; dark matter and a hypothetical anisotropic fluid as the holographic dark energy components. To obtain an exact solution of the Einstein’s field equations, we used the assumption of linearly varying deceleration parameter. We have investigated geometric and kinematic properties of the model and the role of the anisotropic holographic dark energy in the evolution of the Kantowski-Sachs universe. Under the suitable condition, it is observed that the anisotropy parameter of the universe and the skewness parameter of the holographic dark energy approaches to zero for large cosmic time and the universe can achieve flatness for some particular moments throughout its entire lifetime. Results show that the coincidence parameter $( \Re= \frac{\rho_{\varLambda}}{\rho_{M}} )$ increases with increasing time and a big rip type future singularity will occur for this model. We have also applied the statefinder diagnostics method to study the behavior of different stages of the universe and to differentiate the proposed dark energy model from the ΛCDM model. Since in this model, the universe has a finite life time and passes through a significant time when the dark energy and the matter energy densities are roughly comparable, so considering $\frac{1}{ \Re_{0}} <\Re < \Re_{0}$ , where ?₀ is any fixed ratio, we have calculated the fraction of total life time of the universe when the universe passes through the coincidental stage for this future singularity. The results are found to be consistent with recent cosmological observations.