Housing for the Elderly: The Changing Scenario in India

Like many other countries in the world, a rise in life expectancy means that India is now facing a sharp increase in the older population; a situation that is exacerbated by other social and economic changes such as urbanisation and the erosion of the extended family that leads to greater numbers of older people living alone. Here Radhika Vaidya , an architect and town planner based in Pune, and Anjali Raje , an executive director of the International Longevity Centre – India (ILC-I), combine their expert knowledge to profile the situation in India and to showcase some new housing solutions.     

Perception of emotional expression in musical performance.

Expression in musical performance is largely communicated by the manner in which a piece is played; interpretive aspects that supplement the written score. In piano performance, timing and amplitude are the principal parameters the performer can vary. We examined the way in which such variation serves to communicate emotion by manipulating timing and amplitude in performances of classical piano pieces. Over three experiments, listeners rated the emotional expressivity of performances and their manipulated versions. In Experiments 1 and 2, timing and amplitude information were covaried; judgments were monotonically decreasing with performance variability, demonstrating that the rank ordering of acoustical manipulations was captured by participants' responses. Further, participants' judgments formed an S-shaped (sigmoidal) function in which greater sensitivity was seen for musical manipulations in the middle of the range than at the extremes. In Experiment 3, timing and amplitude were manipulated independently; timing variation was found to provide more expressive information than did amplitude. Across all three experiments, listeners demonstrated sensitivity to the expressive cues we manipulated, with sensitivity increasing as a function of musical experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of aging and IQ on item and associative memory.

The effects of aging and IQ on performance were examined in 4 memory tasks: item recognition, associative recognition, cued recall, and free recall. For item and associative recognition, accuracy and the response time (RT) distributions for correct and error responses were explained by Ratcliff's (1978) diffusion model at the level of individual participants. The values of the components of processing identified by the model for the recognition tasks, as well as accuracy for cued and free recall, were compared across levels of IQ (ranging from 85 to 140) and age (college age, 60–74 years old, and 75–90 years old). IQ had large effects on drift rate in recognition and recall performance, except for the oldest participants with some measures near floor. Drift rates in the recognition tasks, accuracy in recall, and IQ all correlated strongly. However, there was a small decline in drift rates for item recognition and a large decline for associative recognition and cued recall accuracy (70%). In contrast, there were large effects of age on boundary separation and nondecision time (which correlated across tasks) but small effects of IQ. The implications of these results for single- and dual-process models of item recognition are discussed, and it is concluded that models that deal with both RTs and accuracy are subject to many more constraints than are models that deal with only one of these measures. Overall, the results of the study show a complicated but interpretable pattern of interactions that present important targets for modeling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determination of antioxidative potential of lichen Usnea ghattensis in vitro

The study was aimed at evaluating the antioxidant activities of extract of Usnea ghattensis. The antioxidant activity, reducing power, superoxide anion radical scavenging and free radical scavenging activities were studied. The antioxidant activity increased with the increasing amount of extracts (2-20 mg/ml) added to the linoleic acid emulsion. Lipid peroxidation upto 73.3% was inhibited by the extract of 20 mg/ml and 39.2% by α-tocopherol at the same concentration. These effects were statistically significant (r²=0.876,P<0.01) when compared with control. However, the extract had no significant effect on superoxide anion scavenging by the PMS/NADH-NBT method. Like antioxidant activity, the reducing power and free radical scavenging activity of extract depends on concentration and increasing with increased amount of sample. The reducing power and DPPH radical-scavenging activity of U. ghattensis extract were found greater than the BHA and BHT. The results obtained in the present study indicate that U. ghattensis is a potential source of natural antioxidant.     

Studies on electrically conductive composites of ethylene propylene diene monomer rubber and steel fibers

Electrically conductive composites comprised of ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) rubber and steel fibers were prepared by an open mill mixing method. Fibers of two distinctly different lengths (5 mm and several meters) were used and the influence of these fibers on electrical conductivity, mechanical, thermal, and physical properties of the composites was investigated. Composites with different compositions were prepared by varying the loading levels of fibers from 20–100 phr (parts per hundred parts of rubber). Homogeneity of the composites was determined using scanning electron microscopy. Further analysis included the measurement of resistance, hardness, tensile strength, tear strength, rebound resilience, etc. The results of the analysis revealed that the addition of steel fibers rendered conductivity to the otherwise insulating EPDM rubber even at small loading levels, however, the length appears to have negligible effect on conductivity. In case of short fibers, the resistance of composites was observed to decrease from > 40 MΩ (Initial value of EPDM rubber) to 25 KΩ at a loading level of 20 phr with a further significant decrease of the order of 10³, that is around 18 Ω at 100 phr. Composites with long fibers exhibited resistance in the range of 15 kΩ–70 Ω at loading levels between 30 and 100 phr. The conductivity of the sample is observed to be altered negligibly on ageing. Mechanical properties such as hardness, tensile, and tear strength were observed to be enhanced in case of composites except resilience which decreased by 29 % in comparison to EPDM rubber. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011     

A comparison of wet-extracted coconut oils prepared under hot and cold conditions

Virgin coconut oil was prepared by four wet extraction methods which included hot extraction by boiling coconut milk, and three cold extraction methods by centrifugation, fermentation, and chilling followed by thawing of coconut milk. The chemical characteristics related to both saponifiable and unsaponifiable fractions of oils were evaluated. Quality parameters such as peroxide value, iodine value, saponification value, acid value, and moisture content of the four oils remain within the acceptable range for edible purposes. Hot conditions incorporate a richer phenolic profile, a higher α-tocopherol content, and a higher β-carotene content in coconut oil. Epimerization and hydrolysis of the phenolic compounds occur depending on the extraction conditions. The longest shelf-life of the coconut oil prepared under hot conditions may be due to the relatively lower contents of moisture, free acids, peroxides, and higher contents of phenolic compounds, α-tocopherol, and β-carotene in hot-extracted coconut oil. Contrary to popular belief, hot and wet extraction conditions may produce higher quality coconut oil compared to cold extraction conditions.     

Formulation and Development of Self-Nanoemulsifying Granules of Olmesartan Medoxomil for Bioavailability Enhancement

The present investigation was aimed to formulate self-nanoemulsifying granules (SNEGs) of poorly water soluble drug, Olmesartan Medoxomil (OLM) to improve its solubility and oral bioavailability. Acconon sorb 20, Tween 80, and Carbitol were selected as oil, surfactant and cosurfactant, respectively for the development of liquid self-nanoemulsifying system (L-SNEDDS), which subsequently adsorbed on a carrier (Aerosil 200) to develop SNEGs. The results of in vitro and in vivo study of OLM-SNEGs revealed remarkable improvement compared to pure OLM. The present study proposed SNEGs as one of the suitable approach for developing nanosized solid oral dosage forms of OLM.     

Synthesis of tellurium containing syndiotactic polymethyl methacrylate using diphenyl ditelluride as a novel initiator

The synthesis of syndiotactic polymethyl methacrylate containing tellurium by using diphenyl ditelluride in the dioxan at (60 ± 0.1)°C for 2 h has been carried out. The presence of tellurium in the polymer has been confirmed qualitatively as well as by induced coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP‐MS). The electron spin resonance spectrum shows the presence of T?Ph, and value of gyromagnetic constant g has been calculated as 2.2203. The T_g of the polymer, measured by DSC, is 105°C. The syndiotactic nature has been confirmed by FTIR and NMR spectroscopy and DSC. The system follows ideal kinetics with activation energy 66 kJ mol^?1. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 102: 1017–1022, 2006     

Magnetohydrodynamic stratified flow past a sphere

This paper considers the uniform, steady, horizontal flow of a vertically stratified, electrically conducting, non-diffusive fluid over a non-conducting sphere in the presence of a uniform magnetic field. The force exerted on the sphere is investigated on the basis of the method of matched asymptotic expansions, for small values of a stratification parameter α, $\text{R}{}_{\mathrm{e}}\text{? ¦α¦}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>1</mtext><mtext>3</mtext>}}$, $\text{F}{}_{\mathrm{r}}{}^2\text{? ¦α¦}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>?</mtext><mtext>1</mtext><mtext>3</mtext>}}$ and for $\text{M}{}^2\text{= 0(α}{}^{\mathrm{<mtext>2</mtext><mtext>3</mtext>}}$. Up to the first order of calculations the drag is computed for a few typical values of magnetic interaction parameter when, (a) The applied magnetic field lies in the vertical plane and inclined with the ambient flow direction. (b) The applied magnetic field lies in the horizontal plane and perpendicular to the flow direction. Further it is shown that the sphere has no tendency to rotate nor it experiences a lift force upto the order of calculations which we have made. The drag experienced by the sphere is found to be increased due to the combined effects of stratification and magnetic field.     

Studies on the radical polymerization of N-vinyl 2-pyrrolidone initiated by diphenyl ditelluride

N-vinyl pyrrolidone (NVP) was polymerized in dioxan at 60 ± 0.1°C for 1 h using diphenyl ditelluride as radical initiator. The system follows ideal kinetics i.e. R _p α [DPDT]^0.5[NVP]. The activation energy and dissociation constant is computed as 46 kJ mol⁻¹ and 1.1 × 10⁻¹¹ s⁻¹, respectively. The polymer was characterized with the help of FTIR, ¹H-NMR, ¹³C-NMR, ESR spectroscopy. The FT-IR spectrum showed bands at 1660–1680 cm⁻¹ due to combination of >C = O and C–N stretching. The gyromagnetic constant ‘g’ has been computed as 2.2203. The main product of this reaction were poly(N-vinylpyrrolidone)s with phenyl tellanyl ends. The presence of tellurium in polymer is confirmed by ICP analysis. The DSC shows the T _g of poly(N-vinylpyrrolidone) is 168°C due to rigid pyrrolidane group. The TGA showed that polymer was stable up to 380°C.The GPC studies showed that the weight average molecular weight decreases with increase of [DPDT].