Building materials — The Indian scenario

Professor Deb's analysis is timely and emphasizes the need for the Indian construction industry to react in a global manner to the importation of materials, the use of scarce natural building resources in the continent and the need to be aware of the environmental damage, production of traditional materials, such as clay, can have on fertile river plains.     

Validation of the CPI Socialization scale in India.

The California Psychological Inventory (CPI) seeks to assess culturally universal dimensions of personality, i.e, "folk concepts." Validation must therefore include cross-cultural validation. The CPI Socialization (So) scale was translated into Hindi and Punjabi and given to 203 delinquents and 48 college students in India. Behavioral ratings were assigned, 4 to nondelinquents, 3 to casual and 1st offenders, 2 to habitual offenders, and 1 to hardened and habitual offenders. The ratings correlated +.70 with So in the full sample (N = 251), and +.73 within the subsample of 203 delinquents. A coefficient of +.73 had also been observed for 10,296 males tested in the USA. Findings are interpreted as supporting the theoretical presuppositions and practical utility of the measure. (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Analysis of groundwater quality using fuzzy synthetic evaluation

This paper reports the application of fuzzy set theory for decision-making in the assessment of physico-chemical quality of groundwater for drinking purposes. Methodology based on fuzzy set theory used to express the quality of water in the imprecise environment of monitored data and prescribed limits given in a non-probabilistic sense. Fuzzy synthetic evaluation model gives the certainty levels for the acceptability of the water based on the prescribed limit of various regulatory bodies quality class and perception of the experts from the field of drinking water quality. Application of fuzzy rule based optimization model is illustrated with 42 groundwater samples collected from the 15 villages of Ateli block of southern Haryana, India. These samples were analysed for 16 different physico-chemical water quality parameters. Ten parameters were used for the quality assessment using this approach. The analysis showed that four samples were in "desirable" category with certainty level of 35-58%, 23 samples were in "acceptable" category whose certainty level ranged from 37 to 75% and remaining 15 samples were in "not acceptable" category for drinking purposes with certainty levels from 44 to 100%. This concludes that about 64% water sources were either in "desirable" or "acceptable" category for drinking purposes.     

Simplified Kernel Method for Flow to Large Diameter Wells

A computationally simple kernel method is proposed for obtaining drawdowns due to unsteady pumping of large diameter wells. The kernels can be worked out even on a hand-held calculator. The new method can also be used to obtain residual drawdowns. The new method yields results as good as those obtained using earlier methods.     

Competitiveness and an Emerging Sector: The Russian Software Industry and its Global Linkages

This paper analyzes the Russian software industry in the context of trade in information technology services. We assess Russia's underlying sources of competitive edge in software, such as its scientific establishments, education system, diaspora and low costs, and identify the institutional impediments to growth. A survey reveals that foreign outsourcing contracts, a high value-added niche and high education levels characterize Russia's small, privately held software firms. A comparison with the Indian software industry underscores the structural differences in outsourcing relationships developed by the two countries and emphasizes that national advantages are complex amalgamations of many factors and need to be overtly marketed. Beyond the resources that give comparative and competitive advantage to a transitioning economy, a critical role is played by powerful industry organizations and by non-market state institutions that can level the economic field and inject credibility into market structures.     

印度电力市场化改革情况及最新进展

从印度电力工业发展的最新情况出发,对印度电力市场化改革路线、目标、改革历程以及最新进展进行全面介绍,并描述目前印度电力工业结构,包括政府主管部门以及发、输、配、售各环节的资产所属情况。总结印度电力市场化改革的特点。鉴于印度各邦的政治独立性,对其各邦的电力市场化改革进展情况也进行了介绍。     

Instrumental neutron activation analysis of beachrock samples of South East Coast of Tamilnadu, India

Element profiles of some beach rock samples collected from South East Coast of Tamilnadu, India have been determined using single comparator method of INAA. The geo-chemical behavior of the elements in the region is discussed. The irradiations were done at thermal neutron flux of ~ 1011 cm-2·s-1 at 20kW power using Kalpakkam Mini Reactor (KAMINI), IGCAR, Kalpakkam, Tamilnadu, India. Around 19 elements have been determined from 15 samples by high-resolution gamma spectrometry. The accuracy and precision were evaluated by assaying the irradiated Standard Reference Material (SRM 1646a Estuarine sediment) and were found to be in good agreement with certified values.     

Development of Refined BOD and DO Models for Highly Polluted Kali River in India

Most commonly used river water quality models for biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and dissolved oxygen (DO) simulations are mainly based on advection, decay, settling, and loading functions. Using these concepts, refined river water quality models for BOD and DO simulations are developed in the present work considering a large number of physically based parameters and input variables. The refined models developed can be transformed to some of the commonly used river water quality models, if physically based parameters and input variables are omitted or removed. To test the applicability of the refined models developed and commonly used models, a total of 732 water quality and flow data sets are collected during March 1999–February 2000 from 22 sampling stations of the River Kali in India. River Kali is a highly polluted river in India and receives continuous inflow of untreated point source pollution from municipal and industrial wastes and nonpoint source pollution from agricultural areas. Newton–Raphson technique is used to optimize the model parameters during calibration and the performance of different models are evaluated using error estimation, viz. standard error and mean multiplicative error, and correlation statistics (r2). The results indicate that the BOD–DO models proposed by Camp in 1963 provide better results in comparison to other commonly used models. Moreover, the refined models developed for BOD and DO simulations minimize error estimates and improve correlation between observed and computed BOD and DO values of River Kali.     

Air quality monitoring in Chennai, India, in the summer of 2005

During the summer of 2005, concentrations of surface ozone (O(3)), oxides of nitrogen (NO(x)), respirrable suspended particulate matter (RSPM) and total suspended particulate matter (TSPM), relative humidity (RH), wind speed (WS) and wind direction (WD) were collected over successive periods of about 24 h at five sites. UV photometric ozone analyzer was used to measure the concentration of surface O(3). The study deals with the characteristics of hourly and daily mean surface O(3) under different climatic conditions, such as temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and wind direction and other pollutant concentrations. The maximum hourly O(3) concentration reached 53 ppb on 17th May. The ground-level O(3) concentration in Chennai varied between 2 and 53 ppb. The concentration of NO(x) and O(3) were below the prescribed limits. The TSPM values were exceeded the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) at Koyambedu, Mandaveli, Taramani and Vallalar Nagar study area.     

Constructivist Management of Knowledge,Communication and Enterprise Innovation: Lessons from Indian Experience

Prime movers of enterprise innovation are inside the organisation. The enterprise NIIT, studied in this paper, tells us how elicitation and recognition of knowledge and its contents set an enterprise on the move. Recognised knowledge is actionable. Each act of recognition is an addition to knowledge content, and such additions took place in NIIT through acts of communications and self-searching. These contents form a large collage that cannot be strewn into a single novelistic episode. Perspectives and context, motives and suggestions render to each member of the enterprise different disjoint appearances of knowledge. There are thus many knowledge systems and multiple narrations, each with small episode-like finality. Enterprise innovation is achieved not through any grand episodic integration of all knowledge contents, but by constructively eliciting further new contents of knowledge, and encouraging acts of communications and discourses on this new knowledge. Constructive management of knowledge and communication towards enterprise innovation has thus been defined. Through such constructive management, NIIT enabled itself innovationally and empowered its members in eliciting knowledge and acting communicatively. A critical feature of knowledge work is that it requires multidisciplinary expertise and mutual learning in order to achieve a complex synthesis of highly specialised state-of-the-art technologies and knowledge domains. A convivial work culture and a culture of communicative acts enable sharing of the non-informatised yet recognised contents of knowledge.