N E Quest Volume 2 Issue 3 October 2008

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

N. E. Quest; Volume 2, Issue 3, October 2008.

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

Newsletter Of NORTH EAST INDIA RESEARCH FORUM

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/northeast_india_research/ www.neindiaresearch.org

N. E. Quest; Volume 2, Issue 3, October 2008.

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

On the other corner of the Moon! Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is all set to lunch India’s first Lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 which is likely to lift off in the early hours of Oct 22, 2008 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, about 63 miles (125km) from the city of Chennai. The 1.38 tonne spacecraft, built at ISRO's satellite centre, Bangalore will be carried into lunar orbit by a specially designed 320-tonne Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLVC11), with six strap-on propellants weighing 12 tonnes each. The spacecraft will take approximately eight days to travel about 240,000 miles before reaching its final orbit 60 miles above the surface of the Moon. In close to four decades of its existence, this is one of the most ambitious project of ISRO. The Indian Space Research Organisation was founded in 1969, and launched its first satellite in 1975. Since then, it has developed a number of launch vehicles as well as sophisticated satellites for Earth observation, telecommunications, weather forecasting and mapping natural resources. At least 16 Indian satellites currently orbit the earth, supporting telecommunications, TV broadcasting, earth observation, weather forecasting, remote education and healthcare. Six countries, including the United States, are directly involved in the project Chandrayaan-1 costing about 3.86 bn rupees ($80.8 mn). Chandrayaan-1 will carry 11 instruments, five from India and six from abroad. It aims to map a three-

N. E. Quest; Volume 2, Issue 3, October 2008.

Chandrayaan-1 dimensional atlas of the moon through high-resolution remote sensing, the chemical and mineral composition on the lunar soil and also provide clues to the moon’s origin. The nation is waiting with baited breath the launch of the moon mission that was planned almost six years ago. No one was sure, when it was announced, that the nation would be able to accomplish the scientific milestone so soon. The rocket PSLVC11 is ready; the satellite Chandrayaan 1 is ready as well, and the country is waiting for the launch of what will be the first Indian step towards the moon and beyond. In the opposite corner of the country, the economic as well as scientific progress in the North-Eastern region is very slow. We are starving with funds and adequate scientific expertise. Most of the scientific outputs of excellence are emerging from the other parts, particularly from eastern and southern part of India. All the regions of India are not progressing uniformly in producing scientific output. The major reason for the slow growth of scientific knowledge in the North-East may be the brain-drain. Talented people from this part have moved to the other corner of the country as well as abroad. A very few people took decision to 3

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

come back after having high-grade training and experience to work for the scientific developments in this region. A frequent discussion appearing in the NE-India Research Forum is “HOW TO DEVELOP OUR REGION”. Many suggestions come from various corners of the Globe for steps to be taken for improvement of the situation. But making comments and suggestions, sitting at some corner far away, is much easier than working within this region to solve the crisis. Everybody is reluctant to stay back just because of the so-called existing problems. Hardly anybody wants to put effort for the improvement of the environment, work culture! Every one of us wants somebody to improve the situation so that we can come to work peacefully! Why somebody? Why not everybody? I think, blaming the system and the situation is not going to solve the problem. Until and unless people with strong scientific background work together, possibility of improvement of the situation is very remote. If we look the same problem in global context, the whole country is facing the same serious problem! Most of Indian talents are settling abroad and working for a country which never contributed to his/her life! In that sense, we should be proud of those people from this region working in different places of our

country to build a “STRONG INDIA”. At this moment I must take the name of Dr. J. N. Goswami from PRL Ahmedabad who is closely associated with India’s Chandrayaan mission. There may be few more to name in this connection. We are proud of those outstanding personalities and want to serve our country in the same manner. I appeal - let us make a “come-back” and join our hands together to strengthen our region as well as the country in terms of knowledge, economy and scientific manpower. IF CHANDRAYAAN IS POSSIBLE; ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE! If we work hard with strong mind, the goal is not far from reach.

Dr. Prodeep Phukan Department of Chemistry Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, India

96th Indian Science Congress will be held at North Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Shillong, Meghalaya from January 3rd to January 7th 2009. Theme of the science congress is Science Education and attraction of talent for excellence in research. For more information visit www.isc2009nehu.com/default.aspx

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1. THE FORUM

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2. SCIENCE NEWS

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3. NORTH EAST INDIANS MADE US PROUD

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4. MEMBERS IN NEWS , AWARDS /FELLOWSHIP

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5. THE OTHER SIDE OF MEMBERS

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6. SHORT BIOGRAPHY- (H. J. Bhaba and S. N. Bose)

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7. INSTRUMENT OF THE ISSUE – RADAR-an overview

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Mr. Mahen Konwar 8. ARTICLES SECTION a) Fungal Endophytes of Medicinal Plants and their Natural Products Dr. D. K. Jha (Guest Article)

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b) Environmental Aspects of Seismic survey in the Brahmaputra river bed Dr. B. P. Duarah (Guest Article)

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c) X-ray radial distribution function analysis towards the structure of non-crystalline materials Mr. Binoy Saikia

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d) Organic Photovoltaics: Technology for the next Millennium Mr. Basanta Rajbongshi

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e) System Biology: A paradigm shift in bioscience research Mr. Pankaj Borah

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f) Global wind circulation…total chaos Mr. Bidyut Bikas Goswami

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9. THESIS ABSTRACT a) Study of water quality parameters in rural areas of Karnataka Dr.( Ms) Oinam Jayalakshmi Devi

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b) Synthesis and biophysical studies of pna and chimeric pna-dna antisense oligomers with five atom linkage Dr. Khirud Gogoi

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10. MEMBER’S FACE

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11. OPPORTUNITIES /ADVERTISEMENTS

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(Collected by Dr. Mukut Gohain and Dr. Arindam Adhikari) 12. THROUGH THE LENSE OF THE MEMBERS

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(From Dr. Prodeep Phukan, Mr. Mahen Konwar and Dr. Arindam Adhikari) -------

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

North East India Research Forum was

1. Geographical constrain = 0% 2. Bad leadership = 40% 3. Lack of work culture = 36% 4. Corruption = 18% 5. Apathy from Central Govt. = 4%

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created on 13 November 2004. 1. How we are growing. Every forum has to pass through difficult phases at the time of birth. NE India Research Forum is also no exception. At the very beginning, it was a march hardly with few members (from chemistry only) and today the forum comprised of a force of more than 255 elite members. Now we are in a position such that people voluntarily come and join the group irrespective of disciplines.

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1. Nanoscience & nanotechnology = 22% 2. Biotechnology = 11% 3. Nanobiotechnology = 38% 4. Chemical Engineering = 0% 5. Medicine = 11% 6. Others = 16% 7. None = 0%

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No of Members

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150 100

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Graph of no of members w.r.t. months 2. Discussions held in the forum

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Necessity of directory of all the members of the forum. Possibility of organising conference in the N. E. India. Taking initiation on setting up of South East Asian Scientific Institute. On selection of Best paper award. Let us introspect.

3. Poll conducted and results •

North East India is lacking behind the rest of the country due to-

N. E. Quest; Volume 2, Issue 3, October 2008.

Kindly let us know your view regarding the following topic. What activities of this group you like most? 1. Research articles = 33% 2.Information about vacancy/positions available = 10% 3. Way to have a contact with all members = 29% 4. Scientific discussions = 14% 5. Others = 2%

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Which area of science is going to dominate by creating a great impact on society in next decade?

• Selection of name for Newsletter There were total 36 proposals submitted by members of the forum for the Newsletter. The name proposed by Mr. Abhishek Choudhury, N.E. QUEST received the maximum number of votes and hence it is accepted as the name of the Newsletter. •

How often should we publish our newsletter '' N. E. Quest’’? 1. Every 3 months = 61% 2. Every 6 months = 38% 3. Once a year = 0%

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum •

4. Editors of Previous NE-Quest Issues 1. Vol 1 Issue 1 April, 2007 Editor: Dr. Arindam Adhikari 2. Vol 1 Issue 2 July 2007 Editor: Dr. Tankeswar Nath 3. Vol 1 Issue 3 October 2007 Editor: Dr. Ashim Jyoti Thakur 4. Vol 1 Issue 4 January 2008 Editor: Mr. Pranjal Saikia 5. Vol 2 Issue 1 April 2008 Editor: Dr. Sasanka Deka 6. Vol 2 Issue 2 July 2008 Editor: Dr. Rashmi Rekha Devi 7. Vol 2 Issue 3 October 2008 ( This issue) Editor: Dr. Prodeep Phukan 5.

A domain in the name neindiaresearch.org is booked.

of

7. New activity •

www.

6. Future activities Proper planning and consequent implementation always play an important role in every aspect. Some of the topics / activities / suggestions which were being discussed, time to time in the forum will get top priorities in our future activities. Those are mentioned here, •

Preparing complete online database of N.E. researchers with details.

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Organising conference in the N.E. regionproposed by Dr. Utpal Bora.

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Research members.

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Motivate student education.

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Help master’s students in doing projects in different organisation-proposed by Dr. Khirud Gogoi.

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Supporting schools in rural areas by different ways.

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Best paper awards.

collaboration to

among opt

for

Compilation of book on ‘Education system of different countries’. Initiative for this project is taken by Dr. Mantu Bhuyan, NEIST, Jorhat, Assam

forum science

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Guidelines for the members are being formulated by the moderators of the NE India Research Forum. These guidelines are placed in the forum for discussion.

To run the forum smoothly, to make it more organised and to speed up activities, formation of a committee/team is essential. The combined discussion of the moderators and senior members make the forum feel the importance of Advisors, co-ordinator, volunteer, webmasters etc. Of course it needs more discussion and will be approved by poll. 8. Guidelines for the forum:

The moderators formulated some guidelines for the forum which are as follow. These guidelines were kept open for discussion in the forum. With time and need the guidelines will be changed. 1. Anybody in the forum can start a meaningful and constructive discussion after discussion with moderators. 2. Comments from the individual members do not necessarily reflect the view of the forum. 3. No single moderator can take a crucial decision. All decision would be taken by the moderators unanimously or together with the group as majority. 4. One should not write any massage to the forum addressing some particular members. It should always start with Dear all / Dear esteemed members etc. 5. If one has to write a mail to a particular member she/he should write personal mail. 6. Everyone has the freedom to speak but that doesn’t mean that one should attack

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

personally. Of course we do have differences. There can be debate or discussion, but it should always be a healthy one. One’s personal comment should be written in such a way that it reflects his/her view only. It should not touch other's sentiments/emotions. 7. Whenever we are in a forum, society, home, members should be sensitive / caring enough to their comments so that it does not hurt sentiment of any second members. 8. Members should not post greetings messages (Bihu wish, New Year wish etc) to the forum. 9. Members should post authentic news only. The source of the news should be authentic. No controversial news or comment should be posted to the forum. 10. Our main aim is to discuss science to generate science consciousness, scientific temperament, sensitivity, awareness and research for the benefit of the mankind in general and North East India in particular. 11. In severe cases, moderators can take a hard decision unanimously or majority wise ( may be through poll). (This point needs to be accepted by all the members). While sending request or while fulfilling request for articles please follow the following points. •

The forum has been formed to help each other. When a member requests articles/literature to forum, members of the forum are always happy to help the person by supplying the articles. But at this stage we have to keep in mind that the article should be sent to the person who requested it, not to the whole forum

N. E. Quest; Volume 2, Issue 3, October 2008.

as it creates lots of unnecessary mails in the message box of the forum. Moreover if it continues, it become a irritation also for many members. •

It is also the duty of the person who requests article to acknowledge the person who helped him/her. This can be done by writing ' Request fulfilled by......' in the subject area while composing the mail and write a thanking message in the main message board. Once this is done, then if some other members want to send the article will know about the status of the request. This will also help members in keeping mailbox clean.

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Before asking for article, he/she should always check his/her institute/university libraries (online resources). If it is not available or accessible then only the member should request to the forum.

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Moreover sending articles (copyright protected articles) to the open forum violates copyright act. So please send the article to the person who requests not to everybody through this open forum. -------0-------

The Corrosion Resistant Iron Pillar of Delhi, The pillar—over seven metres high and weighing more than six tonnes—was erected by Kumara Gupta of Gupta dynasty that ruled northern India in AD 320-540. www.iitk.ac.in/infocell/Archive/dirnov1/ir on_pillar.html Corrosion costs annually $1.8 trillion on a worldwide scale, is over 3% of the world's GDP. www.corrosion.org/

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Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has decided to award The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2008 with one half to Harald zur Hausen for his discovery of "human papilloma viruses causing

Harald zur Hausen

Françoise Barré-Sinoussi born 1947 in France, French citizen, PhD in virology, Institut Pasteur, Garches, France, Professor and Director, Regulation of Retroviral Infections Unit, Virology Department, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France.

Françoise Barré-Sinoussi

cervical cancer" and the other half jointly to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for their discovery of "human immunodeficiency virus" Harald zur Hausen born 1936 in Germany, German citizen, MD at University of Düsseldorf, Germany, Professor emeritus and former Chairman and Scientific Director, German Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg, Germany. According to the Nobel Assembly, zur Hausen's discovery "has led to characterization of the natural history of HPV infection, an understanding of mechanisms of HPV-induced carcinogenesis and the development of prophylactic vaccines against HPV acquisition."

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Luc Montagnier

Luc Montagnier born 1932 in France, French citizen, PhD in virology, University of Paris, Paris, France. Professor emeritus and Director, World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, Paris, France. Their discovery of HIV "was one prerequisite for the current understanding of the biology of the disease and its antiretroviral treatment." Nobel Prize in Physics The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2008 with one half to Yoichiro Nambu of USA "for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics" and the other half jointly to Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa, of Japan "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

Yoichiro Nambu

Makoto Kobayashi

predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature". Yoichiro Nambu, US citizen. Born 1921 in Tokyo, Japan. D.Sc. 1952 at University of Tokyo, Japan. Harry Pratt Judson Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago,USA. http://physics.uchicago.edu/research/areas/p article_t.html#Nambu The theory helped to give rise to the Standard Model of elementary particle physics, which unifies the smallest building blocks of all matter and three of nature’s four forces in one single theory. Makoto Kobayashi, born 1944 in Nagoya, Japan. Ph. D. 1972 at Nagoya University, Japan. Professor Emeritus at High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, Tsukuba,Japan. www.kek.jp/intrae/press/2007/EPSprize2_e.html Toshihide Maskawa, born 1940. Ph.D. 1967 at Nagoya University, Japan. Professor Emeritus at Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP), Kyoto University, Japan.

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Toshihide Maskawa

In the early 1970s, Kobayashi and Maskawa formulated a model that explained certain symmetry violations that had recently surprised observers in particle physics experiments. Their model suggested that the collection of subatomic particles known at the time were insufficient to explain the observed behaviours, and predicted the existence of as yet undiscovered elementary particles. It did not, however, specify precisely what form these particles should take. Kobayashi and Maskawa hypothesized the existence of a third family of quarks, which are some of the building blocks from which all matter and antimatter is formed. They then had to wait almost three decades for the experimental results that would verify their hypothesis. The existence of all three families was finally confirmed when the last member was observed in the mid 1990s. Nobel Prize in Chemistry The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2008 jointly to Osamu Shimomura, Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, MA, USA and Boston University Medical School, MA, USA; Martin Chalfie, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA and Roger Y. Tsien, University of California, San Diego, La

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

Osamu Shimomura

Martin Chalfie

Jolla, USA “for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP”. The remarkable brightly glowing green fluorescent protein, GFP, was first observed in the beautiful jellyfish, Aequorea victoria, in 1962. Since then, this protein has become one of the most important tools used in contemporary bioscience. With the aid of GFP, researchers have developed ways to watch processes that were previously invisible, such as the development of nerve cells in the brain or how cancer cells spread. Osamu Shimomura first isolated GFP from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria, which drifts with the currents off the west coast of North America. He discovered that this protein glowed bright green under ultraviolet light. Osamu Shimomura, born 1928 in Kyoto, Japan. Ph.D. in organic chemistry 1960 from Nagoya University, Japan. Professor emeritus at Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, USA and Boston University Medical School, USA. www.conncoll.edu/ccacad/zimmer/GFPww/shimomura.html Martin Chalfie demonstrated the value of GFP as a luminous genetic tag for various biological phenomena. In one of his first experiments, he coloured six individual cells in the transparent roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans with the aid of GFP. N. E. Quest; Volume 2, Issue 3, October 2008.

Roger Y. Tsien

Martin Chalfie, born 1947, grew up in Chicago, USA. Ph. D. in neurobiology 1977 from Harvard University. William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, NY, USA, since 1982. www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/faculty/chalfi e/Chalfie_home/ Roger Y. Tsien contributed to our general understanding of how GFP fluoresces. He also extended the colour palette beyond green allowing researchers to give various proteins and cells different colours. This enables scientists to follow several different biological processes at the same time. Roger Y. Tsien, born 1952 in New York, USA, Ph.D. in physiology 1977 from Cambridge University, UK. Professor at University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, USA, since 1989. www.tsienlab.ucsd.edu

Adult Drosophila expressing GFP under control of the engrailed promoter. Source: http://genetik.fu-berlin.de

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DNA fingerprinting could reveal your surname Scientists at Leicester University, where DNA fingerprinting was invented in 1984, said they had demonstrated that men with the same surname were highly likely to be genetically linked. The finding could help genealogy researchers as well detectives investigating crimes using traces of DNA found in blood, hair, saliva or semen. The technique is based on analysing DNA from the Y chromosome that imparts maleness and which, like surnames, is passed down from father to son. A study of 2,500 men found that on average there was a 24 percent chance of two men with the same surname sharing a common ancestor but this increased to nearly 50 percent when the surname was rare. (Source: www. yahoo.com science news) Ultrathin films form 'warm' superconductor US researchers have developed ultrathin films that when sandwiched together form a superconductor, an advance that could lead to a new class of fast, power-saving electronics. The films can be used at relatively high temperatures for superconductors, making them easier to handle and produce, they say. "What we have done is we have put together two materials, neither of which is a superconductor, and we found their interface - where they touch - is superconducting," says physicist Dr Ivan Bozovic of the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory.

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"This superconducting layer is extremely thin. It is thinner than 1 nanometere, which is 1 billionth of a metre," says Bozovic, whose findings appear in the journal Nature. "It opens vistas for further progress, including using these techniques to significantly enhance superconducting properties in other known or new superconductors." (Source: www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008) Chandrayaan 1 India is set to launch Chandrayaan I, its first unmanned lunar mission on October 22nd 2008 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, which will orbit the lunar polar orbit and examine the composition of Moon surface. The 1,380 kg spacecraft, built at ISRO's satellite centre, will be carried into lunar orbit by a specially designed 320tonne Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C11), with six strap-on propellants weighing 12 tonnes each. Chandrayaan 1 has 11 payloads, including five from India, 3 from European space agency, 1 from Bulgarian academy of science and 2 from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), US. The spacecraft will orbit around the moon at an altitude of 100 km to map the topography and the mineralogical resources of the lunar soil. Chandrayaan-1 will also carry a moon impact probe payload for demonstrating the technology needed towards landing on the moon's surface in subsequent missions. (http://www.isro.org/chandrayaan/htmls/ho me.htm)

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Turmeric can prevent diabetes-induced blindness Indian scientists have found yet another reason why turmeric should be part of our daily diet. Lab experiments in the past have shown that curcumin - the yellowish component of the Indian curry spice turmeric - is able to fight skin, breast and other tumour cells. It is also known to lower the chances of getting Alzheimer's disease and haemorrhagic stroke. Now a team at the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF) in Chennai reports that curcumin also blocks a key biological pathway needed for development of diabetic retinopathy, an eye complication among diabetics that leads to blindness if untreated. "This is the first scientifically documented evidence of the molecular action of curcumin against diabetic retinopathy," the researchers claim in a report published in a recent issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science. Headed by Viswanathan Mohan, a renowned diabetologist, MDRF is

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exclusively devoted to research on diabetes and its vascular complication. IANS http://indiaedunews.net/Science/Turmeric_c an_prevent_diabetesinduced_blindness_6289/ Solar Cell Sets World Efficiency Record At 40.8 Percent Scientists (Mark Wanlass, John Geisz) at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have set a world record in solar cell efficiency with a photovoltaic device that converts 40.8 percent of the light that hits it into electricity. This is the highest confirmed efficiency of any photovoltaic device to date. The inverted metamorphic triple-junction solar cell was designed, fabricated and independently measured at NREL. The 40.8 percent efficiency was measured under concentrated light of 326 suns. One sun is about the amount of light that typically hits Earth on a sunny day. The new cell is a

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natural candidate for the space satellite market and for terrestrial concentrated photovoltaic arrays, which use lenses or mirrors to focus sunlight onto the solar cells. The new design uses compositions of gallium indium phosphide and gallium indium arsenide to split the solar spectrum into three equal parts that are absorbed by each of the cell's three junctions for higher potential efficiencies. This is accomplished by growing the solar cell on a gallium arsenide wafer, flipping it over, then removing the wafer. The resulting device is extremely thin and light and represents a new class of solar cells with advantages in performance, design, operation and cost. ScienceDaily (Sep. 30, 2008) Stretchable Silicon Camera: Next Step To Artificial Retina Digital cameras have transformed the world of photography. Now new technology inspired by the human eye could push the photographic image farther forward by producing improved images with a wider field of view. By combining stretchable optoelectronics and biologically inspired design, scientists have created a remarkable imaging device, with a layout based on the human eye.

in a stretchable, interconnected mesh. The work opens new possibilities for advanced camera design. It also foreshadows artificial retinas for bionic eyes. The camera's design is based on that of the human eye, which has a simple, singleelement lens and a hemispherical detector. The camera integrates such a detector with a hemispherical cap and imaging lens, to yield a system with the overall size, shape and layout of the human eye. To make the camera, the researchers begin by molding a thin rubber membrane in the shape of a hemisphere. The rubber membrane is then stretched with a specialized mechanical stage to form a flat drumhead. Next, a prefabricated focal plane array and associated electronics – created by conventional planar processing – are transferred from a silicon wafer to the tensioned, drumhead membrane. When the tension is released, the membrane returns to its original shape. This process compresses the focal plane array, causing specially designed electrical interconnects to delaminate from the rubber surface and form arcs, pinned on the ends by detector pixels. These deformations accommodate strains associated with the planar to hemispherical transformation, without stressing the silicon. The array package is then transfer printed to a matching hemispherical glass substrate. Attaching a lens and connecting the camera to external electronics completes the assembly. The camera has the size and shape of a human eye. Nature,Aug. 7, 2008, ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2008)

Researchers at the University of Illinois and Northwestern University have developed a high-performance, hemispherical "eye" camera using an array of single-crystalline silicon detectors and electronics, configured

N. E. Quest; Volume 2, Issue 3, October 2008.

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Plants In Forest Emit Aspirin Chemical To Deal With Stress; Discovery May Help Agriculture Plants in a forest respond to stress by producing significant amounts of a chemical form of aspirin. The finding, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), opens up new avenues of research into the behavior of plants and their impacts on air quality, and it also has the potential to give farmers an early warning signal about crops that are failing. "Unlike humans, who are advised to take aspirin as a fever suppressant, plants have the ability to produce their own mix of aspirin-like chemicals, triggering the formation of proteins that boost their biochemical defenses and reduce injury," says NCAR scientist Thomas Karl, who led the study. Their measurements show that significant amounts of the chemical can be detected in the atmosphere as plants respond to drought, unseasonable temperatures, or other stresses. For years, scientists have known that plants in a laboratory may produce methyl salicylate, which is a chemical form of acetylsalicylic acid, or aspirin. But researchers had never before detected methyl salicylate in an ecosystem or verified that plants emit the chemical in significant quantities into the atmosphere. Karl and his colleagues speculate that the methyl salicylate has two functions. One of these is to stimulate plants to begin a process known as systemic acquired resistance, which is analogous to an immune response in an animal. This helps a plant to both resist and recover from disease. The methyl salicylate also may be a mechanism whereby a stressed plant communicates to neighbouring plants, warning them of the threat. Researchers in laboratories have demonstrated that a plant may build up its defenses if it is linked in some way to another plant that is emitting

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the chemical. "These findings show tangible proof that plant-to-plant communication occurs on the ecosystem level," says NCAR scientist Alex Guenther, a co-author of the study. "It appears that plants have the ability to communicate through the atmosphere." ScienceDaily (Sep. 25, 2008) -----Super strong adhesive is created University of Dayton Professor Liming Dai and colleagues claims of incenting an adhesive that's 10 times stronger than the force used by geckos to stick to surfaces and walk up walls. They constructed adhesive from two slightly different layers of multi-walled carbon nanotubes. The lower layer is composed of vertically aligned nanotubes, while the upper segment that contacts the surface it is sticking to is composed of curly nanotubes. The gecko's ability to stick is produced by myriad pillars located at the micro-nano scale on the underside of its foot, the researchers said. Because there are so many pillars so close together, they're held tightly to the surface the gecko is walking on by a molecular force called the Van der Waals force that causes uncharged molecules to attract each other. The complex research appears in the journal Science. October 16, 2008 (http://news.webindia123.com/ ) ------------0-----------In Science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurred. -by Sir William Osler (1849-1919) Canadian physician.

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‘Imbalanced’ Indian diet leading to diabetes, hypertension

Scientists to get share in IPRs: Union S & T minister

A study which has been reported in the coming edition of British Journal of Nutrition says that the nutritional imbalance in it is one of the reasons for the increasing cases of diabetes and hypertension in India. Hypertension is usually an accompanying condition in diabetes and is often present in Type 2 diabetes as part of the metabolic syndrome of insulin resistance.

New Delhi, Oct 16 : Scientists conducting

The study, which reviews the influence of dietary nutrients on insulin resistance — also called the metabolic syndrome — in Asian Indians and South Asians, says that there are severe imbalances in the average Indian diet. Data pertaining to nutrient intake, insulin resistance and cardiovascular risk factors in Asian Indians and South Asians has been reviewed and dietary imbalances have been reported in the following areas: low intake of MUFA, n3 PUFA and fibre, and high intake of fats, saturated fats, carbohydrates and transfatty acids (mostly related to the widespread use of vanaspati, a hydrogenated oil). Data suggests that these nutrient imbalances are associated with insulin resistance and a changed lipid profile. There is a great imbalance in Indian diet. What should be consumed in good amount is consumed less and what should be consumed less is in excess,” said Dr Anoop Misra, HoD, Department of Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases, Fortis Hospital, New Delhi, who conducted the study in collaboration with Centre for Diabetes, Obesity, and Cholesterol Disorders (CDOC), Diabetes Foundation and Department of Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences. (Source: Indian Express)

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research using public funds may soon get a share in the intellectual property rights (IPRs) for their discoveries and inventions. In a move to encourage research in statefunded laboratories, Government is planning to enact a legislation on the lines of the Bayh-Dole Act in the US which spurred applied research in American universities. In India the IPRs on discoveries and inventions resulting out of research using state funds rest with the government. The government plans to introduce the Public Funded Research and Development (Protection, Utilisation and Regulation of Intellectual Property) Bill in the Parliament session beginning Friday aims in a bid to give scientists a share in the IPRs. (Source: Indian Express) Guwahati youth achieves milestone Nishant Sarawagi, a BE in mechanical engineering along with fellow students of RV College of Engineering, Bangalore, had tested a vehicle named Garuda RVCE Supermileage car, which under test conditions gave a mileage of 180 km to the litre. In a press conference in Guwahati, the young student said that the team behind Garuda now intends to enter into two prestigious contests – SAE Supermileage USA and Shell-EcoMarathon UK, both tough tests to evaluate energy-efficient vehicles. (Source: Assam Tribune)

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1. Prof. Gautam Barua, at present serving as director, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati. A computer scientist, he did his B.Tech and M.Tech.(Computer Science stream) from Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He did his Ph.D. from Dept of Computer Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. (Thesis

Prof. Gautam Barua

University and Ph. D. degree in Southampton University in Structural Engineering. After his post-doctoral research in the University of Waterloo, Canada, he moved to the USA where he worked in Nuclear Power Plant Industry and then Aerospace industry. Currently, he works on Space Shuttle Program for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, US.

Dr. Umesh Tahbildar

Title: Demand Based Concurrency Control). He was a visiting faculty in the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, in the year 1981. He joined IIT Kanpur as faculty in the year 1982 and served there till 1995. In the year 1995 he moved to IIT, Guwahati as faculty. In the year 2003 (March) he took charge as director of IIT-Guwahati. His area of interest is ‘Operating systems and Networks’. He is an IT consultant to many organisations. He is actively involved with many educational institutions of North East. 2. Dr. Umesh Tahbildar was born in Guwahati, Assam. After his schooling in Guwahati, he did his B.Tech. degree in Civil Engineering at IIT, Kharagpur. He went to England under Govt of Assam scholarship where he completed MS in Manchester

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Prof. Adhikarimayum Sharma

3. Prof. Adhikarimayum S. Sharma

Prof. Adhikarimayum Surjalal Sharma grew up in Imphal. He is at present research professor at the University of Maryland in USA He attended Johnstone Higher Secondary School then he completed his studies at University of Delhi, Delhi and Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, and has worked at many institutes and universities around the world. His main interests are Space Plasma Physics and Nonlinear Dynamics. Current efforts include magnetospheric physics, comets and stellar variability. Previously he has contributed to the theories of laboratory plasma devices at Cornell University, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, and Institute for Plasma Research, Gandhinagar, India.

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•

Dr. Sanjib Gogoi has joined as Postdoc Fellow with Prof. Cong-Gui Zhao in the Department of Chemistry, University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas, US. He did his PhD from National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India.

•

Dr. Prodeep Phukan, reader, Gauhati University, Assam, has received Dr. J. N. Baruah Memorial award for the year 2008 for his contribution to catalysis and Asymmetric synthesis.

•

Manoj Sharma will be joining Department of Radiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angles as post-doctoral researcher. He did his PhD degree on “Quantitation of in-vivo and high resolution NMR spectroscopy data” at Department of Mathematics and Statistics, IIT Kanpur.

•

Dr. Utpal Bora has joined Chemistry Department, Dibrugarh University (September 08). He was previously working in Biocon, Bangalore. He did his PhD from RRL, Jorhat and then went for post doctoral study in Gifu University, Japan as JSPS fellow. ------------0-------------

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it. ~Albert Einstein

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• Book published by Mr. Mahananda Chutia and Ms. Nabanita Bhattacharyya on Mashroom

Mr. Mahananda Chutia and Ms. Nabanita Bhattacharyya has authored a book in Assamese named Kathfula Ki Kiya aru Kenekoi (Mushroom What Why and How). Publisher of the book is Sahitya Ratna Prakashan Panbazar, Guwahati, Assam. Kathfula Ki Kiya aru Kenekoi is a complete book on mushroom in Assamese covering all its related topics. The book may/will help the local mushroom growers, students and local people for general concept on mushroom or in commercial cultivation and mushroom hunters for identification of the poisonous mushroom. Major chapters are – what are mushroom, its morphology and structures, identification tips of poisonous mushrooms and its poisoning, nutrition and medicinal value of edible mushroom, cultivation technology of different edible mushroom species, post harvest techniques etc. Coloured photographs of about 54 species of locally available poisonous mushroom are also given. Ms. Nabanita 18

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

Bhattacharyya has been working as a lecturer in the Dept. of Botany, Nowgong college, Assam. Her research area is Plant Physiology and Biochemistry. Mr. Mahananda Chutia is Senior Research Fellow (CSIR) at the Dept. of Biotechnology, Gauhati University, Guwahati, India. Nabanita and Mahananda can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected] respectively. A hearty congratulation to both the authors. •

1. Homi Jehangir Bhabha

Painting by Dr. Joshodeep Boruwa.

Still Life: Oil on Canvas(1993)

Landscape: Oil on Canvas (1994)

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Homi Jehangir Bhabha is mostly known as the chief architect of India's nuclear programme. However, his contribution to India's development goes far beyond the sphere of atomic energy. He had established two great research institutions namely the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), and the Atomic Energy Establishment at Trombay (now BARC).The great Indian physicist born in Mumbai on 30 October 1909 in a wealthy Parsi family. He was educated in Mumbai and Cambridge, England, receiving his Ph.D. in 1932, and became professor of theoretical physics at Bangalore and then Bombay. He was also president of the Indian National Science Congress in 1951. He derived a correct expression for the probability of scattering positrons by electrons, a process now known as Bhabha scattering which is named in his honour. He introduced (with Heitler) the Cascade Theory in the same time as Carlson and Oppenheimer. He derived a correct expression for the probability of scattering positrons by electrons, a process now known as Bhabha scattering. His classic paper, jointly with W. Heitler, published in 1937 described how primary cosmic rays from space interact with the upper atmosphere (Continued to Page no- 40)

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RADAR: An Overview Mahen Konwar The acronym RADAR stands for Radio Detection And Ranging. The term radio means electromagnetic radiation at wavelengths ranging from about 20 km (i.e., a frequency of 15,000 Hertz) to a fraction of a millimeter. As mentioned in the classic book by Doviak and Zrnić (1993), the term RADAR was suggested by S. M. Taylor and F. R. Furth of the United States of America Navy. Defined in Webster’s Collegiate dictionary it is a device or system consisting of usually of a synchronized radio transmitter and receiver that emits radio waves and processes their reflections for display and is used especially for detecting and locating objects (as aircraft) or surface features (as of a planet). In this modern era radar has wide applications in some important fields e.g. for defense purpose, civil aviation, weather forecasting / now casting and also in tracking a satellite. Hence importance of radar is well appreciated and newer developments of radar technology are taking place. In this

short article, we will try to give an overview on radar and will emphasis mainly on the radar application to meteorology. Historical Background Experimental demonstration of electromagnetic wave was performed by Heinrich Hertz in 1886; he experimentally tested the theories of Maxwell and demonstrated the similarity between radio and light waves. RADAR works in accordance with the Doppler principle, its concept for the first time documented by Nikola Tesla in June 1900 is as follows: “When we raise the voice and hear an echo in reply, we know that the sound of the voice must have reached a distant wall, or boundary, and must have been reflected from the same. Exactly as the sound, so an electrical wave is reflected …. We may determine the relative position or course of a moving object such as a vessel at sea, the distance traveled by the same, or its speed….” [Doviak and Zrnić, 1993]. The first “practical” application of radio waves for RADAR was invented by Christian Huelsmeyer in 1904 for ship detection (Range = 3km). E. V. Appleton of Kings College, London and MAF Barnet of Cambridge University in December 1924,

Simplest Schematic Diagram of RADAR N. E. Quest; Volume 2, Issue 3, October 2008.

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observed echoes from the ionosphere (a layer of the upper atmosphere beyond 100 km) using an fm transmitter. This particular layer later on named as Appleton Layer. It must be mentioned that rapid developments in Radar technology started during the World War II and its applications initially were aimed mainly for detecting hostile enemy aircraft and for directing anti aircraft weapons. However, after the war it was realized that Meteorology is also a very important part of aviation and its application in studying atmospheric phenomenon also began thereafter. The first application of RADAR to meteorology was by Sir Robert Watson-Watt; he used radio signals generated by lightning strikes to detect/locate thunderstorms. He also pioneered in the development of rotating directional antennas and also put forward the idea for the use of oscilloscopes as a 2D display. Physical Basis of RADAR Radar transmits electromagnetic energy into the atmosphere with high frequency at equally spaced interval of time. Some of the transmitted energy is absorbed by the targets present in the atmosphere and reradiated or scattered back to the receiver. The scattering processes may be of different origin, may be due to (i) Bragg Scattering, (ii) Rayleigh Scattering, (iii) Fresnel Scattering and Fresnel reflection, and (iv) Thomson (Incoherent) Scatter. Bragg Scattering: To receive signal due to Bragg scattering, the atmospheric turbulence must be equal or nearly equal to the half of the transmitted wavelength. The physical interpretation is that the path difference of the equally spaced scatters must be equal to some integral multiple of wavelength. The backscattering by turbulent scatters is given by the following expression

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σ ≈ 2.07(Δn) 2 L20 / 3 λ−1 / 3 Where (∆n)2 is the mean square refractive index fluctuations, L0 is outer scale size of the turbulence and λ is the wavelength of EM wave. Rayleigh Scattering: Rayleigh scattering is said to occur if the backscattering cross section σ of a spherical water drop of diameter D is small compared to λ (i.e. D ≤ λ/16), and is approximated by the following equation 2

σ ≈ ( π5 / λ4 ) K m D 6

Where Km= (m2-)/(m2+2) and m=n-jnκ is the complex refractive index of water. The refractive index is n and κ is the attenuation index. Fresnel (Partial) Reflection and Scattering: Fresnel (partial) reflection occurs when there is a sharp vertical gradient in refractive index that is horizontally coherent over a scale greater that a Fresnel zone. While a general case of partial reflection is in which closely spaced layers randomly are distributed in height is called Fresnel reflection. Thomson (Incoherent) Scatter: Thomson scatter is often referred to as incoherent scatter. It arises due to backscattered radar signal from electron density fluctuations due to random thermal motions of the ions and electrons. The main contributor to this radar backscattered signal is the ion acoustic and electron plasma waves in the ionosphere. Few Radar Sites dedicated for Atmospheric Research in India Apart from the Doppler Weather Radar (DWR) at various locations of India Meteorological Department (IMD), there are Wind Profilers (such Radar provides wind speeds at different heights) solely dedicated to atmospheric research in India. List given

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below are of few Radar sites in different research laboratories, • National MST Radar Facility, Gadanki

•

–

53 MHz profiler (MST Radar)

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1.3 GHz profiler (Boundary Layer Radar)

Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune –

~ 404 MHz profiler (Troposphere radar) [located at IMD, Pune]

–

Micro Rain Radar (MRR)

•

ARIES, Nainital (proposed ST Radar)

•

Micro Rain Radar (MRR) at various centers of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)

Detail system description of various Radar systems are out of scope of this article; however we would like to provide some detail on Mesosphere, Stratosphere and Troposphere Radar (MST) Radar located at Gadanki, India. Indian MST Radar, Gadanki: The state of art facility, MST Radar at National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL), Gadanki (13.50, 79.20) was established in the year 1992 ( Fig 1). There are very few similar stations around the globe such as Jicamarca (120S, 76.90 W), Shigaraki (34.90N, 136.10E), Aberystwyth (52.40N, 4.10W), SOUSY (520N, 100E), Poker Flat (650N, 147.50W). The MST radar technique was first demonstrated by Woodman and Guillen [1974] using available VHF radar at Jicamarca [Kamala et al., 2003]. The MST radar was primarily designed to study wind and turbulences in the atmosphere, but its application was extended to study precipitation and meteorite characteristics also. For the first

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time the applicability of VHF radar to precipitation studies was demonstrated by Fukao et al. [1985]. They reported dual echoes observed during precipitation period; one resulting from clear air (Bragg scattering) and the other from rain drops (Rayleigh scattering). The MST radar at NARL operates at a frequency 53 MHz which corresponds to a wavelength of 5.66 m. It has a peak transmission power of 2.5 MW. Antenna arrays consist of 1024 crossed yagi antennas occupies an area of 130 X 130 m2. It generates radiation pattern with 30 halfpower beam width. The beam can be tilted from zenith to east, west, north and south directions through a maximum angle of 200. Corresponding to the pulse width of 1 and 2 μ sec the range resolution are 150 and 300 meters for the radar. More detail of Indian MST radar can be found at Kishore et al., 2005. Space borne Radars: In Wings of Fire, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam has rightly said “Probably, the Creator created engineers to make scientists achieve more!” With the increasing awareness of global climate change, importance of rainfall activities around the world has gained much attention over the last decades. There was a need to install and operate Radar in space and monitor precipitation activities of the globe. To achieve this goal satellite based active sensors are now in operation in space. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Missions (TRMM) satellite [ result of joint venture of NASA and NASDA] and Cloudsat [ launched by NASA] are launced aiming at the global precipitation studies. The TRMM contains a Precipitation Radar besides many other passive sensors. The TRMM precipita-

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Figure 1: Picture of Indian MST Radar at National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, Gadanki, India.

Figure 2: Picture shows a cyclonic system as observed by the TRMM-PR satellite over the Atlantic Ocean on 15 September 2004 [ image source TRMM website].

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-tion radar (PR) is the first spaceborne rain radar and the only instrument on TRMM that can directly observe vertical distributions of rain. As a typical example, Fig.2 shows the picture of development of cyclonic system over the Atlantic ocean on 15 th Sep., 2004. It can provide rain profile from 20 km at 250m resolution with 80 range bins. The frequency of TRMM PR is 13.8 GHz. The PR can achieve quantitative rainfall estimation over land as well as ocean. The Cloud Profiling Radar (CPR) in Cloudsat satellite is a 94-GHz nadirlooking radar which measures the power backscattered by clouds as a function of distance from the radar. The CPR provides information of vertical distribution of cloud/hydrometeors with a range resolution of 500 m. Another radar system known as Doppler Weather Radar (DWR) has gained much popularity for its efficiency for continuous operation and coverage of large spatial area. The polarimetric DWR is capable of identifying different phases of water in a precipitating system. In near future India may have polarimetirc DWR which will enhance the understanding of microphysics of precipitating systems over this tropical region which in fact plays a major role in driving the general circulation of the earth. Acknowledgement: The author is grateful to his PhD guide and friends for the helps and sharing knowledge. References: ASU MAT 591: Opportunities In Industry ! History of Radar, John Schneider – Lockheed Martin, (sourceinternet). Cloudsat website: http://www.cloudsat.cira.colostate.edu/

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Doviak, R. J. and D. S. Zrnić, Doppler radar and weather observations, 562pp, Academic press, 1993. Fukao, S., K. Wakasugi, T. Sato, S. Morimoto, T. Tsuda, I. Hirota, I. Kimura, and S. Kato, Direct measurement of air and precipitation particle motion by very high frequency Doppler radar, Nature, 316, 712-714, 1985. Kamala S., D. N. Rao, S.C. Chakravarty, J. Datta and B. S. N. Prasad, Vertical structure of mesospheric echoes from the Indian MST radar, Jour. Atmos. and SolTerr Phys. 65, 71-83, 2003. Kishore, K.K., A.R. Jain and D.N. Rao, VHF/UHF radar observations of tropical mesoscale convective systems over southern India, Annal. Geophysicae, 23, 1673-1683, 2005. TRMM : www.trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov Wind Profiler and Radio Acoustic Sounding Systems (7-11 March 2005), Lecture notes, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune & Department of Science and Technology. Author’s Information Mr. Mahen Konwar, at present working as Scientist at IITM (Indian Institute of Tropical Meterology) Pune. He has submitted his Ph.D. thesis recently (Jadavpur University, Kolkata & worked as a research scholar under research program sponsored by Indian Space Research Organization at Kohima Science College, Nagaland.). Mr. Mahen Konwar received his M. Sc. degree in Physics from Gauhati University. His research field is the study of convective precipitating system, rain drop size distribution and retrieval of rainfall intensity by soft computation techniques. He can be reached at [email protected] ------0------

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Guest Article Fungal Endophytes of Medicinal Plants and their Natural Products Dr. D. K. Jha Microorganisms are found in diverse habitats and can survive in different inhospitable environments. The most recent estimates suggest that only approx. 10 % of the total microbial diversity is currently known. Moreover, among the ones already described, only a small fraction has been studied for their metabolic profile. Over the years, a great deal of scientific attention has been given to medicinal plants due to the roleplayed by them as source of human drugs in the world of pharmacopoeias. It is now known that these plants serve as a reservoir for an untold number of microbes known as endophytes. The term endophytes include all organisms that grow inside plant tissues without causing disease symptoms. Bacon and White defined endophytes as “microbes that colonize living, internal tissues of plants without causing any immediate, overt negative effects”. This particular definition implies a symbiotic or mutualistic relationship between the host plant and the endophytic microbes. Some others, however, suggest that the relationship can range from mutualistic to bordering on pathogenic. Both fungi and bacteria are the most common microbes existing as endophytes. It seems that other microbial forms, e.g., mycoplasmas and archaebacteria, most certainly exist in plants as endophytes, but no evidence for them has yet been presented. The most frequently encountered endophytes are fungi. Endophytes have been found in every plants studied so far and are to be

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observed in virtually all plants that exist on earth. One out of several to hundreds of endophytes that can colonize a single plant show host specificity. Actually, endophytes are important component of microbial diversity. In recent years, special attention has been paid to endophytes because of their ability to produce good number of new and interesting bioactive metabolites, which are of pharmaceutical, industrial and agricultural importance. Considering the present health problems involving multi drugs resistance in clinically important bacteria, parasitic protozoan, fungi and newly immerging diseases, new and effective agents to deal with these problems is urgently required. The ability of endophytes to produce new and functional metabolites identifies them as a potent candidate that can solve this problem. This brief review discusses the endophytes as an important source of bioactive molecules. Relationship between plant and endophytes The types of biological associations that endophytic microbes might have developed with higher plants range from borderline pathogenic to commensal and to symbiotic. Therefore, it is believed that plants either provide nutrition to the endophytes or produce compounds critical for the completion of their life cycle, essential for growth, or selfdefense. Although the role of endophytes on host plants is less studied but it is believed that endophytic fungi interact mutualistically with their hosts mainly by increasing host resistance to herbivores. The toxic effects on vertebrate and invertebrate herbivores and microbial pathogens have been assigned to the ability of endophytes to produce alkaloids such as pyrrolizidine,

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ergot alkaloids and peramine. Endophytes have also been shown to increase competitive abilities of hosts, by increasing germination, resistance to drought, water stress and seed predators. It has been proposed that endophytes of woody plants provide a defensive role for the host plant because they produce a wide array of mycotoxins and enzymes that can inhibit growth of microbes and invertebrate herbivores. In addition to the protective functions, endophytes also affect the growth and survival of the plant, although the means of these effects have not yet been determined. Fungal endophytes and medicinal plants The most frequently isolated endophytes are the fungi. Endophytic fungi are an important, yet relatively unstudied group of microbial plant symbionts. They live asymptomatically and sometime systemically, within plant tissues. As compared to the bacterial endophytes, the research of endophytic fungi has a long history and their diversity among plants has been found to be considerably large. Endophytic fungi were first reported from grasses and in trees (Picea canadiensis). Since then, fungal endophytes have been found in the leaves, bark, and xylem of almost all plant species examined so far. In recent years fungal endophytes have been investigated and reported from wide varieties of medicinal plants. Studies on fungal endophytes of medicinal plants gain tremendous importance after the discovery of taxol producing endophytic fungus Taxomyces andreanae from Taxus breviflolia. At present, fungal endophytes has been thoroughly investigated from medicinal plants because of the facts that these plants harbors some distinct and rare microbes that mimic the chemistry of their respective host plants and make the same bioactive natural product or derivatives that are more bioactive than

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those of their respective host. It is also believed that bioactivity of a medicinal plants might be due to associated endophytes that live on the plant tissues. There has been much speculation regarding the functional metabolites of an endophytes and the host plant and it is believed that transfer of such metabolites might be due to genetic exchange between the hosts and the endophytes living in close association with it, as exemplified by the discovery of an endophytic fungus isolated from bark of Taxus brevifolia that have been reported to produces taxol. The assumption was further justified after genetic level study of Pestalotiopsis microspora an another taxol producing fungus, explaining how genes for taxol might have acquired by this fungus. Values of plants as a source of medicines have been established since antiquity. A large variety of drugs have already been provided by the plant kingdom to mankind to alleviate their sufferings from diseases. About 34% of all pharmaceutical preparations are reported to be obtained from higher plant alone. In spite of considerable progress made in synthetic drugs, plant constituent are still considered to be major sources of valuable medicaments and many of the plant products still occupy an honorable and formidable place in world of pharmacopoeias. The flora of India comprises about 3000 medicinal plants. Almost 75% of the plant drugs mentioned in the various pharmacopoeias grow in this subcontinent. Many of the reputed plant drugs of potential pharmaceutical value and trade grow in wild condition in this region. There are added advantages in studying fungal endophytes of medicinal plants. These endophytes may produce the same bioactive molecules as the host plant. The extraction of bioactive substances from plants is difficult and complicated as compared to that of the microbes. This would also help in the conservation of many threatened, rare

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and endangered medicinal plants because they need not be harvested for the extraction of metabolites as the same could be produced by fermentation of the microbes. The microbes could be manipulated by genetic engineering in order to enhance the productivity of functional metabolites. It is believed that the healing property of the plant, as discovered by indigenous people might have been facilitated by compounds produced by one or more plantassociated endophytes as well as the plant products themselves. The recent exploitation of medicinal plants for various therapeutic values has cause extinction of many plants and has endangered many others. One of the major problems facing the future of endophyte biology and natural product discovery is the rapid diminishment of plant diversity, which holds the greatest possible resources of acquiring novel microorganism and their products. It is believed that these plant species may harbor quite distinct and potential fungal endophytes and disappearance of any of these plant species will also lead to the disappearance of associated endophytes. Natural products from fungal endophytes of medicinal plants Yew plants (Taxus spp.) worldwide are an important medicinal plant because its leaves and bark are prime source of taxol, a potent anticancer drug. Taxol compounds are unusual in their anticancer property as it can bind to microtubulin in the cells and thus inhibit mitosis. Therefore, it is used to treat variety of cancers. Later, it was discovered that fungal endophytes associated with yew plants around the world have the ability to produce taxol in vitro. The first such report was made from Taxomyces andreanae, an endophytic fungus isolated from bark of Pacific yew (Taxus brevifolia). Thereafter several endophytic fungi

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isolated from different Taxus spp. have been reported to produce taxol. Another interesting anticancer compound obtained from an endophytic fungus was torreyanic acid, a selectively cytotoxic quinone dimer (anticancer agent), produced by P. microspora strain isolated from an endangered tree Torreya taxifolia. Endophytic Xylaria, Phoma, Hypoxylon, and Chalara produce a relatively large group of substances known as the cytochalasins. Many of these compounds possess antitumor and antibiotic activities, but because of their cellular toxicity they have not been developed into pharmaceuticals. Campothecin produced by Entrophospora infrequens isolated from the inner bark of Nothapodytes foetida, is another anticancer drug. Campothecin and its anologues are naturally occurring group of quinoline alkaloids occupying an important position among the plant based anticancer drugs. Various plant species such as Camptotheca acuminata, Ophiorrhiza mungo, Ervatomia hyneana and Nothapodytes foetida are known sources of this phytochemical. Overexploitation of these plants rendered them as endangered species all over the globe, especially in China. The recent discovery of this compound in fungal endophytes has not only conserved the gene pool of those plants but has also made microbial sources available. These discoveries exemplified that plants used for anticancer agent may harbor specific fungal endophytes that might also produce anticancer metabolites. There have been several reports on medicinal plants used for anticancer therapy by different indigenous communities. Studies on fungal endophytes of these plants may also lead to the discovery of other important anticancer metabolites. The Fungal endophytes from medicinal plants have been reported to produce some new and important antibiotics that inhibit or kill a wide variety of harmful 27

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disease-causing agents. An important example of such antibiotics is the Crytocandin which contains a number of peculiar hydroxylated amino acids and a novel amino acid, 3-hydroxy-4-hydroxy methyl proline. This compound was isolated from a fungus, Cryptosporiopsis quercina, as endophytes on a medicinal plant, Tripterigeum wilfordii. Another important bioactive molecule produced by medicinal plants associated endophytes (Colletotrichum gloeosporioides) is colletotric acid that displayed antimicrobial activity against bacteria as well as against the fungus. There have been several reports about the ability of fungal endophytes of medicinal plants to produce metabolites that act against wide variety of gram positive and gram-negative bacteria as well as pathogenic fungi. Although details structures of these active metabolites have not been worked in most of the cases the preliminary screenings have suggested the great potential of these metabolites as antimicrobial agents. Recent evidences as exemplified by various researches show that the fungal endophytes associated with medicinal plants are important sources of unusual secondary metabolites of pharmaceutical importance. Considering the vast potential of medicinal plants in our country, a thorough study of such endophytes is urgently required because it is believed that such studies may lead to the discovery of important endophytic strains that might produce new and interesting bioactive metabolites useful for the mankind. One of the major problems facing the future of endophyte biology and natural product discovery is the rapid erosion of plant diversity that is the possible resource of acquiring novel microorganisms and their products. Over exploitation of medicinal plants has threatened many important plants. Therefore, study of fungal endophytes associated with these medicinal plants is

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the need of the hour because once such plant gets lost or becomes extinct so is the entire suite of associated endophytes. Author’s Information

Dr. D. K. Jha is presently working as a Reader in the Department of Botany, Gauhati University, Assam. His research interest includes Microbial Diversity, Plant-Microbe interaction and Bioprospecting of microbes. ------Ancient Indian Scientist Acharya Kanad (600 Founder of Atomic Theory

BCE)

As the founder of "Vaisheshik Darshan"one of six principal philosophies of India - Acharya Kanad was a genius in philosophy. He is believed to have been born in Prabhas Kshetra near Dwarika in Gujarat. He was the pioneer expounder of realism, law of causation and the atomic theory. He has classified all the objects of creation into nine elements, namely: earth, water, light, wind, ether, time, space, mind and soul. He says, "Every object of creation is made of atoms which in turn connect with each other to form molecules." His statement ushered in the Atomic Theory for the first time ever in the world, nearly 2500 years before John Dalton. Kanad has also described the dimension and motion of atoms and their chemical reactions with each other. The eminent historian, T.N. Colebrook, has said, "Compared to the scientists of Europe, Kanad and other Indian scientists were the global masters of this field."(Source: wordpress.com/tag/acharya-kanad )

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Guest Article Environmental Aspects of Seismic survey in the Brahmaputra river bed Dr. B. P. Duarah The Brahmaputra River is the life-line of Assam. It has its own physiography and ecosystem. The Brahmaputra is shaping the cultural ethos of the people living in its valley since time immemorial and we, the people of Assam, have our emotional attachment to it. Recently, Oil India Limited (OIL) is planning a massive work to explore the riverbed of the Brahmaputra, between Majuli to Sadiya stretching for about 175 km, for hydrocarbon using seismic survey technology. For the growth of economy of our nation it is imperative to explore and exploit petroleum in a much-expanded way. This, if the results are positive, seems to save large amount of foreign exchange for India. However, industrialization, over-exploitation, and the zeal for faster growth - as evidenced from the world over - result large-scale environmental degradation, posing threat to our own survival, not to say about other biological species. Many NGOs, individuals and groups are opposing the OIL’s seismic survey, at the present state of knowledge, showing their concern on the environment and ecosystem. Brahmaputra is a highly dynamic river with remarkable channel-bar aggradation and degradation, bedform migration, bank erosion, and change of position as well as dimension of the branched channels. The river has been worst affected by two major earthquakes in the past – one in 1897, mainly in the lower part of the Brahmaputra valley and the second in 1950 in the upper part of the valley, both with magnitudes more than

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8.5 in Richter scale. The 1950 earthquake have brought lot of morphological changes in the Brahmaputra and its surroundings in the north eastern part of India and also result manifold increase in sediment load in the river brought down from the hills. These substantially raised the bed level of the Brahmaputra. Since then the sediment load in the Brahmaputra remains high, though its volume has substantially been reduced as compared to the year 1950. The increasing high intensity flood, large-scale bank and bar erosion, erosion of the large river islands like Majuli are becoming common features for the people of Assam, witnessing the change of the river after the 1950 earthquake. This infers that the stabilized graded condition has not been attained by the Brahmaputra even after 57 years of occurrence of the great earthquake. Till today, no much research work has been carried out on the Brahmaputra in Assam. The flood control and antierosion measures of the Brahmaputra Board, Government of India and the Department of Water Resources, Government of Assam are not able to show satisfactory results in the Brahmaputra river system and we are still far behind in carrying out properly designed research or experimental work to understand the hydrological system of the Brahmaputra river. The channel dynamics, how the bars in the braided Brahmaputra grow, migrate and destroy, how the depth in the channels varies (bathymetric change) have no satisfactory answers from the scientific community. The planned seismic survey work of OIL involves two methods of seismic wave generation, (1) by using explosive (2.5 kg seismic gelatin with 80% ammonium nitrate), and (2) by using airgun. The explosives generate high frequency (more than 50 Hz) seismic wave which propagate with fast dissipation of energy,

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thus leaving trails of destruction near the source area. The waves will breakdown the internal fabric of the deposited sediments of the river banks and sand bars by meters long radius, the extent is not known due to lack of experimental data in the Brahmaputra. As the proposed survey work is designed for 50 meter interval shots, their impact in the river bed may be alarming with irreversible damage. Experimental records show use of explosives in the sea/river water killed lot of fish population and are primarily due to high frequency seismic waves. The flooding of dead fishes in the Brahmaputra as an aftermath of 1950 earthquake was probably due to high frequency seismic waves passing through the river water. Under similar condition, use of explosives in the river sand bars may transmit the high frequency seismic waves to the surrounding waterbody from the shot points with enough potential to harm the aquatic faunas in large scale. The saturated river sediments are already in fluidized state in its upper part, and agitating water through explosion disperse these sediments, which ultimately might leads to change of bathymetric profile in the river. The solid explosives with high impact energy will certainly break down the internal fabric of the sediments and soils. The already poorly compacted bank materials might get loosened off, which seems to help accelerated bank erosion bringing threats to many areas along the river. The same might be true for the channel bars. As bars and banks have important role in deflecting the channel courses of the braided river it might bring large part of the river banks within the river bed. Thus, the proposed seismic survey may bring morphological changes in the river, increase the sediment load and block the river in its downstream, at least

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partially, submerging new areas in the upstream. Airgun experiments show that resulting seismic waves are almost non-destructive compared to the highly destructive waves generated by explosives. Airgun generated seismic waves of frequency 47 Hz can pass through the solid crust for long distances without attenuation and low destructive action. This kind of airgun explosion can be regarded as a green and environmentally safe seismic source. Field experiment in Shangguanhu Reservoir of Zunhua City, China with 505 gunshots have reported no killing of any fish which is a multipurpose dam project including pisciculture (Qiu Xuelin, Institute of Geophysics, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing; Personal communication). However, the gloomy scenario in the Brahmaputra seismic survey project is that no well defined know-how of the technology is available with OIL. The Rapid Environmental Impact Assessment (REIA ) report states that they are going to use airgun in the frequency range of 10-200 Hz producing seismic waves, partly very similar to the frequency generated by explosives, thus, exposing the aquatic fauna to the risk of death, blindness and hearing problem. Also this might bring substantial damage to the river bed and bank. Another weakness in the OIL’s planned work is the lack of bathymetric survey data of the Brahmaputra. This is a primary requirement, as to what depth of water they will take the airgun down at a particular location depends on it. This will decide whether it will be able to generate substantial seismic wave or not to satisfy their purpose. OIL’s contentions of using explosives in case of shallow water of 3.5 meter or less is dangerous as most of the river bed during winter have lean flow. Most likely, this will destroy the river bed and

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also transmit high frequency seismic waves to the river water. As already discussed there are serious gap in the scientific database and experimental results in the issue, in the minimum level an experimental pilot project to examine these issues is necessary to begin with and Oil India Limited, being a party to it, should support serious research on the Brahmaputra first, before going to explore and subsequently tape its subsurface resources. A pilot seismic survey project may be carried out in a small area in the Brahmaputra simulating a situation similar to the actual exploration work and the consequences may be analyzed thoroughly. This ensures the methodology that may be adopted finally for the entire work. One issue of great concern in the OIL’s survey is that of high level of airgun noise (250 dB) introduced into the riverine environment, and the effects this may have on cetacean mammal - the dolphins. These concerns range from impairment of cetaceans’ ability to communicate acoustically, due to overall increases in background noise levels, to the possibility of physiological damage to sensory and other body organs induced by the proximity of high energy sound sources. Although the output of air gun arrays is usually ‘‘tuned’’ to produce a concentration of lowfrequency energy, the impulsive nature of the bubble collapse inevitably results in a broadband sound characteristic (10200Hz in OIL’s planned survey). So, there must be a distance from a source of loud noise at which the desire to investigate is balanced by auditory distress, for which research work needs to be done to determine ‘‘safe’’ distances at which high source level sounds are tolerable to the cetacean. It was estimated by Goold and Fish (1998)

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for dolphins using 2120 cubic inch airgun array in a shelf sea environment as 1 km. No such records of river environment have been found so far. Careful handling of the issue is necessary with proper understanding of the river system of the Brahmaputra and use of appropriate technology. The Brahmaputra erosion and breaching of embankment at Matmara caused extensive damage in Dhemaji district in flood waves of 2008 appears to be triggered by the erosion protection measure adopted in Dibrugarh, which deflect the river course towards Matmara gradually in decade’s long period of time after its construction. Bank protection measures adopted at Palasbari is deflecting the thalweg channels of the Brahmaputra, which cause severe erosion in the downstream at GumiNagarberra area. Similar is the case in Majuli and many other parts of the Brahmaputra and in many of the tributaries, and all these undesired disturbances are due to poor understanding of the Brahmaputra river system by the involved engineers. The consequence of any change that will take recourse may not be visible immediately, but become visible in long course of time with irreversible damage. What was the crime the people of the flood-ravaged Matmara, or Puthimari did for which their right for livelihood have been snatched by the miserably failed works of the river protection group with Government gears? Similar way, going ahead with the seismic survey, undermining the long term changes that may arise, may be an act of treason to the entire community of the Brahmaputra valley. It is also funny to see that Oil India Ltd. constitutes an expert committee to monitor their work which is not represented by any expert on the

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Brahmaputra river system. If the river system is disturbed, automatically all its ancillary systems will be disturbed, only the river dolphins as projected. Human life apparently priced much lower than the dolphin by the vested interest of a handful of so called Nature Lovers enjoying a life-style, the poor village people can never reach.

Important Information Map showing seismic zone of India

Finally, it will not be unjust to wait for years or even decades to develop new environment friendly technology for oil exploration. Undoubtedly, the petroleum, which has been in the reservoirs for millions of years, will not dry up even if we wait for another thousand years. Author’s information Major Earthquakes in the Northeastern Region in Recent Past

Dr. Bhagawat Pran Duarah is a Reader in the Department of Geological Sciences. Presently he has been working in the fields of sedimentology, sedimentary petrology, fluvial geomorphology, fluvial dynamics of the Brahmaputra, channel migration and river bank erosion, paleoseismicity and seismotectonics in the north-eastern part of India. ---------------0----------------

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Place Year Magnitude Cachar Mar 21, 1869 7.8 Shillong plateau June 12, 1897 8.7 Sibsagar Aug 31, 1906 7.0 Myanmar Dec 12, 1908 7.5 Srimangal Jul 8, 1918 7.6 SW Assam Sep 9, 1923 7.1 Dhubri Jul 2, 1930 7.1 Assam Jan 27, 1931 7.6 Nagaland 1932 7.0 N-E Assam Oct 23, 1943 7.2 Arunachal Jul 7, 1947 7.5 Upper Assam Jul 29, 1949 7.6 Upper Assam Aug 15, 1950 8.7 Patkai Range, 1950 7.0 Arunachal Manipur-Burma 1954 7.4 border Darjeeling 1959 7.5 Indo-Myanmar Aug 6, 1988 7.5 border (Source: www.gbpihed.gov.in ) www.earthquakeinfo.org/index.html

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X-ray radial distribution function analysis towards the structure of non-crystalline materials Mr. Binoy Kumar Saikia Attempting to determine and describe the atomic arrangements in an amorphous material is a daunting prospect. A considerable advance has been made in the anomalous X-ray scattering approach to determining these arrangements in materials containing two atomic species. Up until the advent of X-ray synchrotron radiation, the Xray radial distribution function (RDF) method was the most widely used approach for structure analysis of amorphous materials. The Radial distribution function (RDF) analysis method is a powerful tool for the study of glasses, liquids, alloys and non-crystalline materials, as well as crystalline or partly crystalline materials. The RDF method, which involves the direct model free Fourier transformation of X-ray or neutron powder diffraction data, gives the probability of finding any two atoms at a given inter-atomic distance. Recently, this method has found many applications in the study of local structure in both crystalline and non-crystalline materials, yielding crucial information about atomic-scale structures of nanosized materials. Indeed, the atomic structures of nanoparticles and nano-structured materials are not always accessible by conventional crystallographic methods, because of the absence of long-range order. This is today known as the “nanostructure problem”, as traditional crystallography breaks down on the nanoscale. We need here the tools such as RDF to elucidate the structures of nano-structured materials.

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X-rays are electromagnetic radiation of wavelength about 1 Å (10-10 m), which is about the same size as an atom. X-ray diffraction is one of the most important characterization tools used in solid state chemistry and materials science. Radial distribution function can be measured experimentally using X-ray diffraction intensity. The regular arrangement of the atoms in a crystal gives the characteristic X-ray diffraction pattern with bright, sharp spots. The radial distribution function has an infinite number of sharp peaks whose separations and heights are characteristic of the lattice structure. This technique mainly deals with those substances in which the degree of regularity of the atomic positions is very small. It is to be noted firstly that regular crystalline arrangement is not required for the production of diffraction effects. It was observed that liquid, resins, unoriented polymers and so on provide only one or more broad x-ray diffraction peaks. A new structural feature appears in glasses, resins and un-oriented solid polymers where each atom possesses permanent neighbours at definite distances and different directions. There is no sharp dividing line between crystalline and so called amorphous materials. In general, crystalline materials are those characterized by a three dimensional periodicity over appreciable distance. Conversely, materials possessing only one or two dimensional or lesser degree of order are referred as non-crystalline or amorphous. The theoretical background for radial distribution analysis was first laid by the great crystallographer Debye which shows that the X-ray intensity information permits the determination of the magnitudes of inter atomic vectors, but not their directions. The intensity in electron units scattered by noncrystalline array of atoms at angle θ is given by,

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I = ∑∑ fmfn m

n

SinSrmn Srmn

The distance of atoms about any reference atom may be regarded as a continuous function and yield the radial distribution function of a non-crystalline material as, 2

2

4πr ρ (r ) = 4πr ρ 0 +

2r

π

α

∫ Si(S )SinrSdS 0

Here, ρ(r) is the number of atoms per unit volume at a distance ‘r’ from the reference atom and 4πr2ρ(r)dr is the number of atoms contained in a spherical shell of radius r and thickness dr. ρ0 be the average density of atoms in the sample and S=4πSinθ/λ. To construct an RDF model is very simple. Choose an atom in the system and draw around it a series of concentric spheres, set at a small fixed distance (Δr) apart (see figure below). At regular intervals a snapshot of the system is taken and the number of atoms found in each shell is counted and stored. At the end of the simulation, the average number of atoms in each shell is calculated. This is then divided by the volume of each shell and the average density of atoms in the system. The result is the RDF.

In the experimental requirements during dealing with the structural analysis of materials, the separation of the coherent

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x-ray scattering of wavelength λ from other types of scatterings consisting of the observed intensity such as incoherent scatter and scatter due to the general radiation, air, possessing materials used in supporting the specimen. Thus, the radial distribution function, g (r) gives the probability of finding a particle in the distance r from another particle. A typical radial distribution function simulated by us for a coal sample is depicted below (not in scale),

The peaks in the RDF tell you where the atoms spend the most time. If the function goes to zero at some point then you know that any two atoms are never at that distance from one another. A typical RDF is zero up until a certain distance and then has a large peak. This is because the potential diverges to infinity at small interatomic distances; hence any two atoms can not be within a certain distance of each other. Thus, peaks in the RDF occur at the common distances between pairs of atoms and the peak areas are determined by the number of such pairs at each distance, the coordination numbers. The RDF is readily interpreted for amorphous material containing only one atomic species, like amorphous Se. For many samples containing more than one atomic species, however, the RDF cannot be interpreted unambiguously, as different pairs of atomic species can have almost the same inter-atomic distance and contribute to the same peak. As this function describes fluctuations in density around a given atom, you can think of it as the average number of atoms found at a given distance in all 34

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directions. This proves to be a particularly effective way of describing the average structure of disordered molecular systems or in systems like liquids, where there is continual movement of the atoms and a single snapshot of the system shows only the instantaneous disorder. It is extremely useful to be able to deal with the average structure. Thermodynamic properties can also be studied by calculating the radial distribution function. For more complex molecules one usually calculates a number of site-site distributions. An advantage of the site-site model is that they can be directly related to information obtained from X-ray scattering experiments. The O-O, O-H, and H-H radial distribution functions have been particularly useful for refining various potential models for simulating liquid water. The RDF is also useful in other ways. For example, it is something that can be deduced experimentally from x-ray or neutron diffraction studies, thus providing a direct comparison between experiment and simulation. It can also be used in conjunction with the inter-atomic pair potential function to calculate the internal energy of the system, usually quite accurately. The radial distribution functional analysis is independent of any assumptions about the structure of the materials under study. Reference: 1. Rajani K Boruah, Binoy K Saikia, Bimala P Baruah, Nibaron C Dey; J. of App. Crystallography, 41(2008)27 2. Binoy K Saikia, R K Boruah, P K Gogoi; Bull of Mater Sc.30(2007)421. 3. P. H. Klug, L. E. Alexander, 1974, Xray Diffraction Procedures, John Wiley & Sons, New York 4. D. L. Wertz & M. Bisell, Fuel, 74(1995)1431 5. F. R. L. Schoening, Fuel, 62(1983)1315

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Author’s information:

Binoy Kumar Saikia had completed his Master in Science in Inorganic Chemistry from Cotton College under Gauhati University, India in 2000 and then he moved to the North-East Institute of Science & Technology, Jorhat785006, India for his research works in the field of powder X-ray diffraction. He has published a number of research papers in reputed journals in the field of X-ray crystallography. Presently he is associated with the Department of Chemical Sciences, Tezpur University, India and continuing his research in Xray single crystallography. Binoy can be reached at [email protected]. --------------0--------------

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding of a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. -Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) English physicist, mathematician. (Quotes on beauty of Science)

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Organic Photovoltaics: Technology for the next Millennium

crystalline silicone (40% of total cost, Fig. 1), cell processing (25% cost)

Mr. Basanta Kumar Rajbongshi

Introduction Photovoltaics, or PV for short, is a technology that converts light directly into electricity. Device structures that convert solar energy into electricity are called solar cells or photovoltaic cells. Such devices based on organic materials responsible for the photovoltaic effect are called organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells. Currently the world consumes an average of 13 terawatts (TW) of power per year. By the year 2050 as the population increases and the standard of living in the developing countries increases, this amount is likely to increase to 30 TW. For this great demand, human society cannot rely on the nonrenewable energy sources (oil, coal, uranium) because these are gradually getting declined. It is also estimated that about 20.1012 kg of carbon dioxide are put into the atmosphere every year mainly by burning fossil fuels and if the 30 TW of power is generated from fossil fuels the concentration of carbon dioxide gas in atmosphere will more than double, causing substantial global warming along with many undesirable consequences. Sun deposits 120,000 TW of energy per year on earth, so clearly there is enough power available if some efficient means of harvesting solar energy of this renewable source can be developed. Currently more than 95 percent solar cells in use are made of crystalline silicon (c-Si). Although the conventional inorganic solar cells can harvest up to as much as 24% of the incoming solar energy, these are too expensive because of high price of N. E. Quest; Volume 2, Issue 3, October 2008.

Figure 1. Silicon photovoltaic cell cost distribution. requires high energy intensive processes (400-1400°C and high vacuum conditions) with numerous lithographic steps. Construction of a solar module (an integrated solar cell consisting of many small solar cells) demands 35% of the total cost (Fig. 1). The last and not the least is that inorganic solar cells are not eco-friendly. Contrary to the inorganic solar cells, organic solar cells are very cheap. The materials for these solar cells can be synthesized from cheap and readily available raw materials. The optoelectronic properties of the organic materials can be tuned by proper design of the chemical structures. Cell processing is easy because of low melting and low evaporation temperatures compared to inorganic counterparts. Organic materials have very high absorption coefficient, as a result a thin film (< 100 nm thickness) of these molecules is sufficient to absorb most of the photons falling on it. Above all most of the organic materials used in OPVs are biodegradable and so ecofriendly. These basic advantages of organic solar cells motivated the photovoltaic technologists to work with organic photovoltaics. Organic photovoltaic materials Materials used in OPVs are conjugated compounds having semiconducting properties. Conducting polymers such as 36

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polythiophene, poly (3-hexylthiophene), polyacetylene, poly (p-phenylene vinylene), polyaniline and molecular semiconductors such as pentacene, phthalocyanines, perylene derivatives, fullerenes are some of the most commonly used organic semiconductors used in OPVs. Unlike inorganic semiconductors, molecules of organic semiconductors are held by weak intermolecular interactions and so the electronic wave function is strongly localized to individual molecules. The weak intermolecular interactions bring about a narrow electronic bandwidth in these molecular solids. The narrow band width electronic structure of organic semiconductors has the profound effect on the mechanism of function of OPVs and their efficiencies. Energy conversion process in OPVs The entire solar cell operation from absorption of light to generation of power can be divided into the five steps as shown in Fig. 2. Each absorbed photon causes an electron to be excited from the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) to lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) and thereby leads to creation of an exciton (tightly bound electron-hole pair, with binding energy 0.1-0.4 eV). The exciton formed is electrically neutral and moves by diffusion, hopping mechanism from one molecule to another. The average distance moved by an exciton is given by its diffusion length which is typically of the order of 10 nm. These excitons can either recombine, radiatively or nonradiatively, or can dissociate to give free electron-hole pair. The interfacial regions of the junction solar cells are the ideal sites for dissociation. Of the dissociated electron - hole pairs, electrons are transported via an electron transport layer (ETL, n type of p-n junction) by hoping to the cathode and the holes are transported via a hole

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transport layer (HTL, p type of the p-n junction) to the anode.

Figure 2. Block diagram of the operation of a typical organic solar cell. The electrode metals are so chosen that they form an ohmic contact with the active layer to ensure efficient collection of the charges. The cathode work function is chosen closer to the LUMO level and anode to the HOMO level. While selecting the electrodes, one of them is generally chosen to be a transparent surface so that incident light can reach the active layer. In addition, it should also be taken care that the built in electric field supports the free charge transport such that the charge carriers are transported to the correct electrode. The electric current that a photovoltaic cell delivers corresponds to the number of created charges that are collected at the electrodes. This number depends on the fraction of photons absorbed to form excitons (ηabs), the fraction of electronhole pairs that are dissociated from these excitons (ηdiss), and finally the fraction of separated charges that is given by -

ηtot = η abs × η diss × ηo ...............(1) Here ηo is the number of photons incident on the device.The fraction of absorbed photons is a function of the absorption spectrum and coefficient of the material, absorbing layer thickness, and the internal multiple reflections at metal electrode or the organic-organic interface. The fraction of dissociated

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electron-hole pairs on the other hand is determined by whether they diffuse into a region where charge separation occurs and on the charge separation probability there. Device architectures and efficiency of power conversion All solar cells are basically of p-n junction type. A typical organic solar cell consists of an active layer sandwiched between the anode (p- type) and the cathode (n- type) as shown in Fig. 3. Active layer is the material that absorbs light and it can be single layer, bilayer, bulk heterojunction layer or some other

Figure 3. Schematic layout of an organic solar cell depicting the photoactive organic layer sandwiched between the two electrodes with one electrode being transparent to allow incident light to fall upon the active layer. Active layer is the organic layer which can be a single layer, bilayer, , bulk heterojunction layer or some other structures based on the type of solar cells being fabricated structures based on the type of solar cells being fabricated. One of the electrodes is typically transparent (normally indium tin oxide, ITO) to allow light to fall upon the active layer. Junction field (internal electric field) helps in dissociation of the excitons into free electron-hole pairs which are then transported to their

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respective electrodes by hopping mechanism. The power conversion efficiency of a typical organic solar cell can be explained by a simple current densityvoltage characteristics in dark and under illumination as shown in Fig. 4. In the dark, there is almost no current flowing, until the contacts start to inject heavily at forward bias. Under illumination, the current flows in the opposite direction than the injected currents. At (a) the maximum generated photocurrent flows under short-circuit conditions (JSC, short circuit current density); at (b) the photogenerated current is balanced to zero (VOC, open circuit voltage) (flat band condition or open circuit condition). Between (a) and (b), in the fourth quadrant, the device generates power. At a certain point, the product between current and voltage is largest (IM & VM, M stands for maximum) and that is the point of maximum power generation from the solar cell. To determine the efficiency of a solar cell, this power needs to be compared with the incident light intensity. The fill factor (FF) is calculated to denote the part of the product of VOC and ISC that can be used for power generation. FE =

VM × I M VOC × I SC

................( 2 )

With this the power conversion efficiency (η PCE ) can be written as

η PCE =

VOC × J SC × FE ....................( 3 ) Pin

The parameters Voc, Jsc, and FF are functions of wavelength and intensity of incident light, Pin. The power conversion

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Figure 4. Current Density - Voltage (J-V) curves of an organic solar cell. Open circuit voltage (VOC) and the short-circuit current density (JSC) are shown in the figure. The largest power output(PM) is determined by the point where the product of voltage and current is maximized in the fourth quadrant. efficiency η PCE limits as a function of semiconductor band gap for a given illumination spectrum. Theoretically it is found that for both the terrestrial and space solar spectrum a semiconductor band gap between 1.3 and 1.5 eV allows maximum power conversion efficiencies around 30%. Organic materials have very high absorption coefficients compared to inorganic counterparts, but power conversion efficiencies are still in its infancy. The principal reasons behind poor efficiency of OPVs are narrow range of absorption and charge carrier recombinations. Researchers at the Princeton University developed highly efficient tandem organic solar cell by a combination of copper phthalocyanine and carbon 60 with power conversion efficiency 6%. Nobel laureate Professor Alan Heeger at the University of California, Santa Barbara developed plastic tandem solar cells with efficiency 6.5% which is the highest efficiency achieved till date against 20-40% efficiency of

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crystalline silicon solar cells. These plastic solar cells are flexible, lightweight and thereby can be used in portable electronic devices (Fig. 5) apart from using in solar panels. In principle for a higher efficient organic solar cell we will need a material that absorbs a wide range of the solar spectrum and the device with optimized charge carrier recombinations. References : 1. www.nae.edu/NAE/bridgecom.nsf/web links/MKEZ6LULZ6?OpenDocument 2. (a) P. Benett, ”Earth: The Incredible Recycling Machine”, Wayland (Publishers) Ltd, East Sussex (1993); (b) J. M. Kroon, R. B. M. Koehorst, M. Van Diik, G. M. Sanders and E. J. R. Sudhoelter ”Self assembling properties of non-ionic tetraphenyl – porphyrins and discotic phthalocyanines carrying oligo(ethylene oxide) alkyl or alkoxy units.” J. Mater. Chem. 7 (1997) 615. 39

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3. M.A. Green. Solar Cells - Operating Principles, Tech-nology and System Applications. University of New South Wales, Kensington, (1992). 4.www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full /306/5704/2034a 5.www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007 /07/070712143246.htm. Author’s information:

Continued from page no.19 to produce particles observed at the ground level. Bhabha and Heitler explained the cosmic ray shower formation by the cascade production of gamma rays and positive and negative electron pairs. 'In 1938 Bhabha was the first to conclude that observations of the properties of such particles would lead to the straightforward experimental verification of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity'. It was Bhabha who suggested the name 'meson' now used for a class of elementary particles. 2. Satyendra Nath Bose

Mr. Basanta Kumar Rajbongshi from Nalbari, Assam did his B.Sc from B. Borooah College with major in chemistry in the year 2002. Then he did his MSc in 2005 from Gauhati University with specialization in Organic Chemistry. At present he is doing his PhD in Chemistry in IIT Kanpur (joined July 2005) in the field of organic photovoltaics. --------0-------

A portable electronic device being run with plastic solar cell. Credit: Alan Heeger

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Satyendra Nath Bose (January 1, 1894 – February 4, 1974), was an Indian physicist, specializing in mathematical physics. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, providing the foundation for two important theories. Albert Einstein’s generalization of Bose’s work led to the system of statistical quantum mechanics, now known as BoseEinstein statistics which describes particles of integral spin, which may multiply occupy the same quantum state. Such particles are now known as “bosons” after the name of S. N. Bose. Einstein applied Bose’s method to give the theory of the ideal quantum gas, and predicted the phenomenon of Bose-Einstein condensation. (Continued to page no. 62) 40

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System Biology: A paradigm shift in bioscience research Mr. Pankaj Barah The 20th century witnessed remarkable advances in knowledge about the properties of matter (physics, chemistry and engineering) and the digitalization of information (computer science). As a result, we can now fly in the sky, talk on our cell phones, and surf the internet. However, any of us still get diabetes, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases because contemporary medicine has yet to develop an effective set of strategies for predicting and preventing their occurrence. This is true because of the precise etiologies of these complex diseases, and the reasons why some people have increased susceptibility to them, are not particularly well understood. But there is hope! Invention of novel or more sophisticated technologies motivated by such need to solve a real-world biological problem

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has been becoming a major endeavor to start up inter-disciplinary areas like Bioinformatics and Systems Biology. Particularly from year 2000 onwards, the term Systems Biology is used widely in the biological science and in a variety of contexts. In the past, unlike the physicist, biologists have been little concerned about whether their findings might achieve the status of a law. The 21st century began with the complete sequencing of the Human Genome, an achievement that provides the foundation for revolutionary leaps in biology, (the science of living systems). Biologists can now “read” the source code of any species whose DNA they can isolate. Delineation of a species’ genes is the starting point for systems biology. The genes, and the proteins they encode, constitute a “parts list” for any said species. Once

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the parts are in hand, a focused, yet global, investigation of how their molecular interactions produce the distinctive properties of the species becomes more tractable and more exciting. Whether it be with yeast, fruit fly or mouse, large-scale experiments that could only be imagined a few decades ago can now be performed routinely because now we know the genomic sequence. Reductionist biology vs. integrative biology: In recent days, the definition of life has been given as a complex dynamical system for information storage and processing. The flow of information is both vertical and horizontal. While the genetic information is transmitted from generation to generation and cell to cell, this is also expressed horizontally within a cell in the ontogenesis of an individual organism. ‘Complex’ is perhaps the most common adjective used to describe biological phenomena. In every cell, complex networks of interactions occur between thousands of metabolites, proteins and DNA. Every interaction is itself a complex dance between exquisitely shaped proteins, designed to interface with each other if the conditions are right. And every protein looks like tangled strands of spaghetti festooned with atomic appendages. Traditional Biologist often pays little attention to the large scale complexity of the nature and natural phenomenon. Their approach is a reductionist approach. Reductionism and holism form one of the fundamental dichotomies in science in general and biology in particular. The holistic approach is integrative because it focuses on the interaction or integration of parts in a functioning organism. Integrative biology may use typically reductionist methods, but in a philosophically holistic framework. The difference between reductionist and

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integrative biology is not simply a philosophical distinction; the integrative approach to biology differs dramatically from reductionist biology in both its goals and its methods. While the goal of reductionist biology is to understand life in terms of simple deterministic principles analogous to Newtonian physics or chemistry, the goal of integrative biology is to understand the structure, function, and history of organisms and their environments. These are not mutually exclusive goals. Much of the progress made by reductionist biology can be applied to reach the more inclusive goal of integrative biology. Because organisms and their environments form complex integrated systems, the most robust biology will be an integrative biology. What is systems biology? One can broadly define a ‘system’ as a group of independent but interconnected elements that function together to comprise a unified whole. For the stability and functional robustness of a system, each of the components has to work in a coherent manner. In the Biological world, the systems have different hierarchical levels like ecosystems level, organ level, tissue level, cell level, gene or protein level or even inter-atomic level. The interactions within a single hierarchy itself are tremendously complex. When we consider the overall functional robustness of a system, comprise of multiple hierarchical levels, one can imagine the amount of complexity could be present in those systems. The boundaries of the system may not be clearly defined or definable, especially if multi-cellular organisms are being investigated. Instead, one may start with an observable phenotype. For example, yeast filamentation, and, using systems biology approach to identify subsets of modules within a system that specifically relate to the emergence of

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that phenotype. Systems biologists usually identify a model organism such as yeast, or a model cell population such as macrophages that are well-suited for the biological process under investigation. With a model system in place, systems biology research proceeds using both discovery-based and hypothesis-based approaches. Once a system’s elements and interactions have been discovered and delineated to a first approximation, specific and testable hypotheses are required for determining which elements and interactions are functionally relevant to the observable phenotypes of the system under the varying conditions being investigated. To this end, many systems biologists assume that experimentally observed or inferred interactions among elements might profitably be conceptualized as networks, with the individual elements (e.g., genes, proteins, metabolites) portrayed as nodes, and the interactions or interconnections (e.g., DNA-protein binding, protein-protein binding) as links or edges. In this way, the structure of the system can be conceptualized. Network diagrams provide a visual representation for how different types of interconnections might be organized. The true test of a good system model is successful prediction of the system’s behavior under targeted alterations (genetic or environmental perturbations) of experimental conditions. But the very properties that make biological systems interesting and worthwhile to study their emergent properties, robustness, stability, modularity and adaptability to change, also make their behavior hard to predict at the molecular level. Here is a summary of the methodologies used in systems biology: * Selection of the model systems * Generation or collection of global datasets and analyses * Integration across multiple data types

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* Statistical and computational modeling * Experimental perturbations and time scale dynamics * Iterative hypothesis testing and model building cycles Tools used in systems biology: To obtain, integrate and analyze complex data from multiple experimental sources using interdisciplinary tools, Systems Biology relies on some typical technology platforms like: * Transcriptomics: whole cell or tissue gene expression measurements by DNA microarrays or serial analysis of gene expression * Proteomics: complete identification of proteins and protein expression patterns of a cell or tissue through twodimensional gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry or multi-dimensional protein identification techniques (advanced HPLC systems coupled with mass spectrometry). Sub disciplines include phosphoproteomics, glycoproteomics and other methods to detect chemically modified proteins. * Metabolomics: identification and measurement of all small-molecules metabolites within a cell or tissue * Glycomics: identification of the entirety of all carbohydrates in a cell or tissue. In addition to the identification and quantification of the above given molecules further techniques analyze the dynamics and interactions within a cell. This includes: * Interactomics which is used mostly in the context of protein-protein interaction but in theory encompasses interactions between all molecules within a cell * Fluxomics, which deals with the dynamic changes of molecules within a cell over time

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* Biomics: systems analysis of the biome. The systems biology approach often involves the development of mechanistic models, such as the reconstruction of dynamic systems from the quantitative properties of their elementary building blocks. For instance, a cellular network can be modelled mathematically using methods coming from chemical kinetics and control theory. Due to the large number of parameters, variables and constraints in cellular networks, numerical and computational techniques are often used. Other aspects of computer science and informatics are also used in systems biology. These include new forms of computational model, such as the use of process calculi to model biological processes, the integration of information from the literature, using techniques of information extraction and text mining, the development of online databases and repositories for sharing data and models, approaches to database integration and software interoperability via loose coupling of software, websites and databases and the development of syntactically and semantically sound ways of representing biological models, such as the Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML). Systems biology research needs an interactive inter-disciplinary scientific culture: For progress to occur, experts in engineering, physics, mathematics, and computer science must join biochemists, cell biologists, and physiologists in the effort to figure out how to obtain the required data and develop the sophisticated computational approaches that will be needed to make viable predictions. For scientists who have been trained primarily in one of these disciplines, doing systems biology research involves stepping outside one's comfort zone to learn new concepts and

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methodologies. Now a day’s people are migrating to this new area from different disciplines. Due to the conservative mindset of Indian educational or scientific research system, only a few institutes are getting involved in this kind of cutting edge research initiatives. To name few of them : Indian Institute of Science (IISc)- Bangalore, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB)-Hyderabad, National Centre for Biological Sciences (TIFR) – Bangalore, Bose Institute-Kolkata, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB)- N. Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) - N. Delhi, Hyderabad Central university (HCU)Hyderabad etc. Challenges in Systems biology: Systems biology research is still in its infancy. Maturation of the field will proceed as the many challenges that it faces are addressed and successfully solved. The most pressing challenges fall roughly into the following four categories: Experimental -- biology is still “datapoor", designing experiments and collecting reliable data Technological -- pertains to the development of new instrumentation for making rapid, highly parallel, inexpensive and accurate measurements of informational molecules and their sequence, structure, modifications or processing, localization and interactions with other components large and small. Computational -- pertains to the development and refinement of network theory and effective engineering of simulation tools, so that descriptive networks can be replaced by more accurate dynamic models of the system’s molecular interactions. Sociological -- pertains to effective communication across disciplines, the dynamics of research teams, difficulties obtaining funding

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Conclusion: The reductionist approach has failed to make significant progress in the study of biological complexity. This is primarily because system dynamics often cannot be reduced to a linear causal model. It is time to move beyond reductionism to expand the understanding of how parts fit together to form functioning, evolving organisms. George Church, a computational geneticist at Harvard University, says that with a complete computer model, "you can run through changes that might take hundreds of years in the lab and lab had to invest huge amount of money. But in computational biology, all you need is a PC and some gray matter." Important references: •

•

• •

•

Ideker T, Galitski T, Hood L. A new approach to decoding life: systems biology. Annu Rev Genomics Hum Genet. 2001;2:343-72. Hood L, Heath JR, Phelps ME, Lin B. Systems biology and new technologies enable predictive and preventative medicine. Science. 2004 Oct 22;306(5696):640-3. Galitski, T. Molecular networks in model systems. Annu Rev Genomics Hum Genet. 2004;5:177-87. Barabási AL, Oltvai ZN. Network biology: understanding the cell's functional organization. Nat Rev Genet. 2004 Feb;5(2):101-13. World Wide Web

Information about the author: Pankaj Barah has obtained his under graduation in Biology from Gauhati University in 2003, and moved to University of Madras for pursuing Post Graduation (M.Sc) in Bioinformatics. He has done his last semester internship collaboratively in Computational

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Biology Laboratory at National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS-TIFR)

and Molecular Biophysics Unit at Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore. Just after his post graduation he worked as program analyst in one of the leading Bioinformatics software farm in Bangalore for five months. Then he shifted to Bioinformatics Centre, University of Pune as a Junior Research Fellow, where he worked for one year in structural biophysics. Right now he is a Research Scholar in Mathematical Modelling & Computational Biology Group, Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology, Hyderabad. His area of work is molecular systems biology, basically to understand the structural complexity and functional robustness present in the biological systems with special reference some complex diseases. ----------------0----------------

"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love." -Albert Einstein

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Global Wind Circulation … total chaos Mr. Bidyut Bikash Goswami Atmospheric Science is one of the most under developed branches of Science at present. May be we are not as close to Atmospheric Science as we are to Atmosphere. The reason may be whatever, but there are still a lot of mysteries not yet explained in our atmosphere. A school student will readily say what the structure of an atom or nucleus or even a proton. A common man today is seen talking about Hadron Collider (CERN). But very amongst us knows about what the fundamental pattern of wind flow around the globe or about the equator to pole temperature gradient. Perhaps the one topic, concerning to our atmosphere, we know is the global warming. But do we know that the same causes which are responsible for the global warming can cause global cooling too!! In this write up efforts will be given to highlight some of the basics about the air dancing up there. How does it look like?

Figure 2 It is probably known to all that our atmosphere is like a coating on the earth’s surface. But how thick that layer is? It is not more than the thickness of a single color coat on a tennis ball … 100 kilometers actually. And the most important thing is that, it is the lowest 15-20 kilometers of the atmosphere that is causing what we call our weather, i.e. phenomena like hurricanes, tornadoes etc.!!! And also 75% of the total weight of the atmosphere lies in this lowest layer. The properties of the atmosphere change with height. Therefore 100 kms of our atmosphere is not treated as a single layer, rather divided into layers depending on these properties. The troposphere is characterized by turbulent mixing and overturning. This turbulence results from uneven heating of the surface and the atmosphere. The stratosphere is characterized by a strong temperature inversion. This is a stable layer with little mixing. As a result, pollutants and other particles may reside in this layer for many years.

Figure 1

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above is considered to be demarcation line between atmosphere and space.

the the

The upper part of the mesosphere contains part of the ionosphere, an electrified region. Occasionally in the Polar Regions, clouds in the mesosphere can be seen. These are seen in the summer when there is sufficient lifting. The existence of these clouds proves that even at this altitude, there is still a trace amount of moisture. The thermosphere is often considered as the "hot layer" because it contains the warmest temperatures in the atmosphere. The air is so thin that a molecule will travel 1 km (even 10 km at the top) before striking another. At this height, many lighter molecules have attained enough velocity to escape earth's gravity into outer space. The region where air molecules escape is known as the exosphere.

Figure 4 Figure 3 NOTE: Thermosphere and Exosphere are not considered to be part of our atmosphere. Rather it is considered as space. The Kármán line in the figure N. E. Quest; Volume 2, Issue 3, October 2008.

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Chemical composition of our atmosphere:

Radius of earth ~6400km Thickness of atmosphere ~100km Share of CO2 in atmosphere ~ 0.035 % AMOUNT OF IMPACT OF GREENHOUSE EFFECT ON US!!!

Figure 5 Is it really 100 km thick??? The amount of air we look through varies from the vertical (the Zenith) at point "A" to the horizontal at point "B". The distance d from point "A" to point "B" is one side of a right triangle. The other two sides are of length RE and RE+100km. From the Pythagorean Theorem we know: The square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. So,

(RE + 100)2 = (RE)2 + (d)2 Solving for d: (d)2 = (RE+100)2 - (RE)2 Figure 6

d = square root ((RE+100)2 - (RE) 2)

Substituting RE = mean radius of the Earth = 6371 km we get, d = 1133 km That's 11.33 times more atmosphere than just looking "up"!

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The same geometry is applicable to the sun too. That is the sun rays need to travel through a thicker atmospheric layer to reach the poles of the earth than the equatorial region. Consequently more rays get reflected in case of radiation going to poles. And the result is obvious – pole is cold and the equator is hot. By the way, it should always be .

Figure 7 As it is evident from the above figure the earth’s atmosphere gets differentially heated by the sun. And this temperature gradient causes the air to move from high temperature region to low temperature region. Based on this concept in 1686 Edmund Halley (Popularly known for the discovery of Halley’s Comet) proposed a ONE-cell model for the global wind flow pattern. In this model wind flows from pole (low temperature) to equator (high temperature) just over the surface and to conserve mass the flow gets reversed in the upper atmosphere. But this model could not explain all the observations (at that time sailors were the only observers) available. This model

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kept in mind that the atmosphere gets heated up not directly by the incoming (high energy) solar radiations, but by the outgoing long-wave (low energy) radiations emitted by the earth. But again, it is the solar radiation which is energizing the earth to radiate. The tilt of the earth’s axis also plays a big role here.

Figure 8 neglects effect of rotation. With rotation, winds would cause earth to spin down; the upper level winds would accelerate to unphysical speeds near the pole. In 1735, George Hadley modified this ONE-cell model by incorporating the rotation of the earth into it and considering absolute velocity conservation (but actually it is angular momentum that is conserved) with care. It was remarkable that he recognised the right role of the earth’s rotation at that time. It took nearly one century before Coriolis correctly formulated the deflecting effect of the earth’s rotation.

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.

• Thermal convection leads to formation of convection cell in each hemisphere. • Energy transported from equator toward poles. Figure 9

Figure 10

George Hadley’s picture not available

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Figure 11 Key features of three cell model … • Hadley cell (thermally direct cell) - driven by meridional gradient in heating - air rises near equator and descends near 30 degrees - explains deserts; trade winds; ITCZ • Ferrel Cell (indirect thermal cell) - driven by wave fluxes of momentum - air rises near 60 degrees and descends near 30 degrees - explains surface westerlies from 30-60 • Weak winds found near – Equator (doldrums) – 30 degrees (horse latitudes) • Boundary between cold polar air and mid-latitude warmer air is the polar front Figure 12

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Thus now Hadley could explain the observed easterly Trade winds. From the consideration of absolute velocity Hadley concluded that there has to a westerly wind somewhere. But he could not explain the existence of the westerly winds in a proper way. It was William Ferrell, in 1856, who explained the existence of a middle cell, which later on named after him as Ferrell cell. Ferrell revolutionized the whole concept and proposed the THREE-cell model. He said it is not the directly the differential heating of the earth but the eddies (turbulence in the atmosphere) which drive the middle cell. This is why the middle cell is called as Indirect cell also. This is the simplest structure of the global atmospheric circulation. But in reality this is not so simple as after all the atmospheric responses are nonlinear in nature. And also this is strictly only the Global Circulation Model. A lot of smaller scale (both in horizontally and vertically) circulation patterns are there in our atmosphere which affect the atmospheric circulation. In fact the existence of the Ferrell cell itself is due to the turbulences present in the atmosphere. This is all only the half of the whole story, as oceans circulates 40% of the total energy. To conclude it may be said that the real world is a total chaos consisting of variations of numerous frequencies. But all these chaos have their own rule. References: 1) http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/eni d/8c8390278ce3a365c8fbc0ab806a 549f,0/ENC_Master/CLIMATE_E NCYCLOPAEDIA_9v.html 2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth% 27s_atmosphere 3) http://www.ametsoc.org/amsedu/we s/glossary.html

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4) The Global Circulation of the Atmosphere ; Tapio Schneider, Adam H. Sobel, Princeton University Press, 2007 (ISBN 0691121818, 9780691121819) 5) The Nature & Theory of the General Circulation of the Atmosphere; Edward N. Lorenz, World Meteorological Organization, 1967 6) All the sites given as hyperlinks to the figures. 7) http://nsidc.org/arcticmet/images/fa ctors/coriolis.gif 8) http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~cfjps/1400 /FIG06_011.jpg Author’s information

Mr. Bidyut Bikas Goswami, from Tezpur ( DOB 20th November-1982) Assam did his M. Sc.(Physics) from Gauhati University, Guwahati in the year 2005. He is now in Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, as a Research Student. His areas of research interest are Thunderstorm dynamics and Extreme Rainfall events in the Northeast India. ----------------0---------------"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

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PhD thesis abstract of Dr. Oinam Jayalakshmi Devi Title of Thesis: Study of Water Quality Parameters in Rural Areas of Karnataka. In Karnataka, groundwater is the main water source for domestic and agricultural uses. An understanding of the chemical evolution of groundwater provides insight into the interaction of water with environment and contributes to better resource management. Water quality in rural areas is still very poor. The present research work reports on the results of water quality in the rural areas of Karnataka. Two hundred and thirteen water samples from borewells, open wells and tap waters from 15 districts were collected. The Physico-Chemical parameters, trace metals (Cadmium, Chromium, Manganese, Zinc, Copper, Iron and Lead) and total Coliforms were determined by employing Standard Methods (APHA, 1976; Trivedi & Goel, 1986). The major ion concentration data has been processed using the HYCY- basic Computer program developed by Balasubramanian et al., (1991). The results were compared with WHO, ICMR and BIS standards. The analytical results of the present study area show that a large number of sample’s Physico-Chemical and Heavy metals properties were well within the permissible limits. A few samples from Hassan district show higher concentration of Chloride, Fluoride, Nitrate, TDS, EC, Calcium, Magnesium and pH, which are higher

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than the permissible limits. Heavy metals are generally low for the present study water samples. Large numbers of trace metals are well within permissible limits and some others are below the detectable levels. Some of the samples have objectionable bacterial Coliforms. One of the samples from Chamarajnagar District was found to contain very high bacterial Coliforms (more than 100/100 ml), which is not suitable for drinking purpose. The hydrogeochemical facies of groundwater with reference to Hardness, Salinity, Sodium hazard, etc. are studied to assess the nature and utilization of water for domestic and agricultural purpose. Geochemical graphic analysis method (Piper Trilinear Diagram) has been widely used for ground water studies. According to Sodium Adsorption Ratio Classification, 90 percent of water samples are in excellent type. Most of the samples have corrosivity ratio less than 1 epm. But 10% percent of samples from Mysore district and Hassan district are found to be in fair type. 95% of the samples in the study areas are found under C1S1, C1S2 C2S1, C3S1, C3S2 and C3S3 (USSL classification). The results can also be used for evaluating the groundwater quality for domestic, irrigation and agricultural purposes. Descriptive statistics, Cluster and Correlation analysis were used to obtain an understanding of Hydrochemical process of waters in present study areas. All the major ions considered show high correlation among themselves. TDS and EC are positively and significantly correlated with all the major ions. It is important from the study, to confirm that

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a large numbers of samples are suitable for safe drinking and irrigation purposes. Author’s information

Dr. Oinam Jayalakshmi Devi, after completion of her graduation in chemistry from Manipur University(1998), joined Jiwaji University, Gwalior for her master’s degree(2002) in Environmental chemistry. Then she joined Mysore University for PhD in environmental science and completed in the year 2007(March). At present she is working as a DSTYoung Scientist (Young Scientist contest conducted by Department of Science and Technology, Government of India at Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, 19th January, 2008) )in School of Environmental Science, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She is involved in project entitles “Arsenic and Fluoride distribution and Migration in ground water of Imphal, Thoubal and Bishnupur districts in Manipur- an Approach for ground water resource management” under Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, New Delhi.

She has successfully completed several projects, e.g. “Study of Ground Water Contamination through Municipal Landfills Sites in the NCT Delhi” sponsored by Ministry of Water resource (MoEW) from December 2006 to March 2007 in School of Environmental Science, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has already submitted one project thesis on “Studies on Estimation and Removal of Mercury from Solid Waste” to Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Biochemical and Environmental Engineering Center (BEEC), Hyderabad. She also has submitted one dissertation entitled “Water Quality Monitoring & Analyzed Industrial Physico-Chemical Parameters, Bacteriological parameter & Toxic metal present in water’’ to Pollution Control Research Institute (BHEL, Hardwar). Email: [email protected] -----------0----------

The main human lesson drawn from investigation of natural phenomena ever more remote from ordinary experience is the recognition of the inseparability of objective knowledge from our ability to put questions to nature by means of experiments suited to give unambiguous answers. -by Niels Bohr

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Ph.D. Thesis abstract of Dr. Khirud Gogoi Title of Thesis: “Synthesis and biophysical studies of pna and chimeric pna-dna antisense oligomers with five atom linkages” The thesis is divided into 5 chapters as follows: Chapter 1: Introduction: Modified Nucleic Acids for selective RNA recognition Novel oligonucleotide analogues that can form stable duplexes or triplexes with nucleic acids are important synthetic targets, because of their use as therapeutic agents. Various types of modified oligonucleotides have been developed over the last two decades as potential diagnostic probes and therapeutics for the antisense and antigene approach. The more recent developments such as splice correcting and exon skipping strategies require highly robust nucleic acid analogues that are stable under physiological conditions as single strands as well as in the form of duplexes with complementary RNA sequences. The naturally occurring deoxyribose(DNA) and ribose (RNA) sugarphosphate backbones are endowed with considerable differences in their binding Chapter 2: Section I: Thioacetamido Nucleic Acids (TANA):

Synthesis

and

biophysical

studies Among the sugar-amide backbones, there are many examples in the literature suggesting that a five-atom amide linker leading to a seven atom repeating backbone may be more useful because of

affinities towards themselves. This occurs because of the different sugar conformations prevalent in DNA and RNA and the subtle structural changes accruing from these in hydrogen bonding, base-stacking interactions and hydration of major/minor grooves. The 4-atom phosphodiester linkages and pentose-sugar give immense opportunities for chemical modifications that lead to several backbone modified nucleic acid structures. Changes in the sugar phosphate backbone invariably bring about changes in the complementation properties of the nucleic acids. This chapter is focused on such modifications that impart RNAselective binding properties to the modified nucleic acid mimics and the rationale behind the said selectivity. It is found that the six-atom sugar-phosphate backbone could be replaced by either one-atom extended or one-atom edited repeating units, leading to the folded or extended geometries to maintain the internucleoside distancecomplementarity. Other important contributions come from electronegativity of the substituent groups, hydration in the major/minor groove, base stacking etc. -----

the reduced conformational flexibility of the amide relative to the six-atom phosphodiester backbone. This postulate has also been supported by X-Ray studies. Some of the analogues with extended seven-atom backbone crosspair with RNA with high affinity compared to DNA. In this chapter we present the synthesis of 7-atom extended sugar-amide backbone thioacetamido nucleic acids (TANA) and the thermal 55

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stability studies with complementary DNA and RNA sequences. The strategy of the design, synthesis of the monomer blocks, oligomer synthesis and their complementary RNA recognition using UV-Tm measurements is discussed. The pyrimidine TANA oligomers were found

1O

2

O

1

B

O P5 O O 6

O B

O S 7

O

B

3N

O

5

5 6

2

4

NH H/OH

H/OH O

1

B

2 3 4

3 4O

O

to impart an unprecedented selectivity for binding RNA over DNA for duplex and triplex formation. The homo TANA oligomers were found to form more stable complexes with RNA than the chimeric TANA-PNA oligomers.

6

NH

B B N

O H/OH

O DNA/RNA

O

NH H/OH

TANA

NH aeg PNA

Figure 1: Chemical Structure of DNA/ RNA, Thioacetamido Nucleic Acid (TANA) and Peptide nucleic Acid (PNA)

Among the sugar-amide backbones, there are many examples in the literature suggesting that a five-atom amide linker leading to a seven atom repeating backbone may be more useful because of the reduced conformational flexibility of the amide relative to the six-atom phosphodiester backbone. This postulate has also been supported by X-Ray studies. Some of the analogues with extended seven-atom backbone crosspair with RNA with high affinity compared to DNA. In this chapter we present the synthesis of 7-atom extended sugar-amide backbone thioacetamido

nucleic acids (TANA) and the thermal stability studies with complementary DNA and RNA sequences. The strategy of the design, synthesis of the monomer blocks, oligomer synthesis and their complementary RNA recognition using UV-Tm measurements is discussed. The pyrimidine TANA oligomers were found to impart an unprecedented selectivity for binding RNA over DNA for duplex and triplex formation. The homo TANA oligomers were found to form more stable complexes with RNA than the chimeric TANA-PNA oligomers.

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Section B: Synthesis and RNA binding selectivity of oligonucleotides modified with fiveatom TANA backbone structures O O

O

O P2

1

HN

O

2

HN

O DNA

O

B

O

4S

O

2

O

3 4

N

O

N

O

NHBz

N

O

O

1

1O

3O

O

O

B

H N

5

O

H N

O

3

O

4S

5

O

N

O tst TANA dimer

H N

O

N

O cst TANA dimer

Figure 2. Structure of DNA and TANA backbone structures

The homooligomeric pyrimidine TANA ONs were found to bind to complementary RNA sequences significantly better than their DNA counterparts and the binding efficiency was found to be as good as PNA itself. To study the compatibility of the TANA backbone in a regular phosphodiester backbone, we have synthesized and incorporated the thymidine and thymidine-cytidine dimer blocks (tst and cst) connected with a five-atom amidelinker N3’-CO-CH2-S-CH2 (TANA) into oligomers. The assessment of the compatibility of the TANA dimer blocks in sugar-phosphate backbone was

studied by UV-Tm measurements of the resulting mixed-backbone ON complexes with DNA and RNA. The data shows that the tst and cst dimer blocks are compatible in the DNA backbone to selectively stabilize the ON: RNA complexes. The RNA selectivity of binding seems to be arising from the extended backbone linker that is probably inherently folded to be competent to bind to RNA over DNA as was found with the reported five-atom linked ON analogues.

Chapter 3: Conformational studies of TANA dimers and monomers by NMR spectroscopy The conformation of the pentafuranose ring in a nucleoside moiety can be fully described in terms of the phase angle of

pseudorotation (P) and the puckering amplitude (ф). In solution, the sugar ring exists in equilibrium of the two rapidly interconverting conformers N↔S. The mol fraction of N and S conformer as well as their geometry,

------

57

expressed by their phase angle of pseudorotation PN and PS and puckering amplitude фN and фS, can be calculated from the vicinal proton-proton (3JHH) coupling constants J1’2’, J1’2”, J2’3’ and J3’4’. These coupling constants were used as an input for the pseudorotation analysis of the sugar using the program PSEUROT. The assignment of the non-

exchangeable proton resonances was achieved by using TOCSY, COSY and NOESY experiments. The coupling constants were determined from 1D spectrum and/or by homonuclear decoupling experiments.

Chapter 4: Chimeric (α-amino acid + nucleoside-β- amino acid)n peptide oligomers for selective RNA recognition In this chapter, we describe homothymidine DNA analogues having a conformationally constrained amino acid (proline and N-methyl glycine), positively charged amino acid (LLysine) and neutral amino acid (Lmethionine) as the backbone. Four octameric sequences were synthesized using rink amide resin and Fmoc peptide synthesis strategy. UV melting

experiments indicate that the modified oligomers hybridized to DNA and RNA with melting temperatures (Tm) higher than those of the complexes formed by oligo-T DNA fragment of the same length. Complexes formed by all the modified oligomers with the RNA target had higher stability than similar complexes formed with the DNA target.

Chapter 5: A versatile method for the preparation of conjugates of peptides with DNA/PNA/analogue by employing chemo-selective click reaction in water

lysine or arginine or other peptides having specific cell receptors.

The application of PNA and analogous uncharged DNA mimics as antisense agents is stymied by the fact that PNAs show very low cell-penetration for any observable antisense effect. Several strategies are being developed for the delivery of modified ONs. into cells. For uncharged ON mimics such as PNAs, the best option seems to be the covalent conjugation of PNA oligomers with cell penetrating peptides (CPP).The CPPs are mostly positively charged peptides containing

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------

-------

The highly selective orthogonal Cu (I) catalyzed Huisgen 1, 3 dipolar cycloadddition reaction, recognized as ‘click chemistry’ is highly predictable, very fast and resistant to side reactions, can be carried out in aqueous medium and can be employed post- synthetically on purified units decorated with a variety of functional groups without employing any group protecting strategies. In this chapter the successful application to generate the cell-penetrating peptide conjugates with DNA/PNA ONs and thioacetamido nucleic acid is described.

Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

COOEt TBDMSO

O

B

RO

COOEt

S

O

B

S

O

B

O A

B

HN O

CH3COHN

CH3COHN

B=

H N

O

NHBz

N

O N

T

C(Me)Bz

O B

T

RO 8 R=TBDMS, B= T 9 R= H, B= T 10 R= TBDMS, B=C(Me)Bz

NHBz

N

O

N

S

6, B= T 7, B= C(Me)Bz

3, B= T 4, B= C(Me)Bz 5, B= CBz

1, B= T 2, B= C(Me)Bz

O

TBDMSO

N CBz

Figure 3. Structures of TANA monomers and dimers used for NMR conformational analysis

O

T

O

O O O- P O

O

R

N O

O H/OH

DNA/RNA

O

R

N

T

O

HN

HN

H/OH

O

T

O

O

HN COOH

COOH

Proline

Sarcosine

=

NH2

T

S

HN Chimeric α-amino acid + nucleosidic β-amino acid ONs

H2N

COOH Lysine

H2 N

COOH

Methionine

Figure 4. Structure of DNA/RNA, chimeric α- amino acid + nucleoside-β-amino acid ONs and structure of α-amino acids

Peptide _ N +N

O

Peptide

O

Cu(I),

+

N

t-Butanol:water

N

N N

O

O N H

Oligonucleotide

N H

Oligonucleotide

Figure 5. Synthesis of Peptide-oligonucleotide conjugates by Click-Chemistry

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Publications: 1. Khirud Gogoi, Anita D. Gunjal and Vaijayanti A. Kumar: Sugar-thioacetamide backbone in oligodeoxyribonucleosides for specific recognition of nucleic acids. Chem. Commun., 2006, 2373-2375. Highlighted in RSC Chemical Biology, 2006, 6. 2. Khirud Gogoi, Anita D. Gunjal, Usha D. Phalgune and Vaijayanti A. Kumar: Synthesis and RNA binding selectivity of oligonucleotides modified with five-atom thioacetamido nucleic acid backbone structures. Org. Lett., 2007, 9, 2697-2700. Highlighted by M. Egli at Faculty of 1000 Biology. 3. Khirud Gogoi, Meenakshi V. Mane, Sunita S. Kunte and Vaijayanti A. Kumar: A versatile method for the preparation of conjugates of peptides with DNA/ PNA/ analogue by employing chemoselective click reaction in water. Nucleic Acids Research, 2007, 35(21): e 139 DOI:10.1093/nar/gkm935. 4. Khirud Gogoi* and Vaijayanti A. Kumar*: Chimeric (α-amino acid + nucleoside-β-amino acid)n peptide oligomers show sequence specific DNA/RNA recognition Chem. Commun., 2007, DOI: 10.1039/ B716835G. -----------0---------Authours information Dr. Khirud Gogoi, at present working as a working as a post doctoral researcher at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of

California, San Diego, School of Medicine La Jolla,USA. He did his Ph.D. from NCL, Pune. ------0-------

Facts about Nobel Prize According to the Statutes of the Nobel Foundation, information about the nominations is not to be disclosed, publicly or privately, for a period of fifty years. The restriction not only concerns the nominees and nominators, but also investigations and opinions in the awarding of a prize. Nomination information older than fifty years is public. No person can nominate herself/ himself. For example Qualified Nominators for Physics and Chemistry are1. Swedish and foreign members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; 2. Members of the Nobel Committee for Physics/Chemistry; 3. Nobel Laureates in Physics/ Chemistry; 4. Permanent and assistant professors in the sciences of Physics/Chemistry at the universities and institutes of technology of Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway, and Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm; 5. Holders of corresponding chairs in at least six universities or university colleges selected by the Academy of Sciences with a view to ensuring the appropriate distribution over the different countries and their seats of learning; and 6. Other scientists from whom the Academy may see fit to invite proposals. Source : www.nobelprize.org

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1. Dr. Shanta Laishram

Dr. Shanta Laishram was born on 1st February, 1980 at Khangabok, Thoubal District, Manipur. He did his schooling from Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Thoubal District, Manipur and did his B.Sc from DM College of Science, Imphal Manipur. In 2000, he joined Tata Institue of Fundamental Research( TIFR), Mumbai for his PhD. He got a Master by Thesis Degree from TIFR. He got Ph.D. Mathematics (Number Theory) in July, 2007 from School of Mathematics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India. The title of his dissertation is Refinements, Extensions and Generalisations of a Theorem of Sylvester on the prime factors of a product of consecutive integers and Professor T. N. Shorey is his advisor. He has been a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Waterloo, Canada since August, 2007. Presently he is an Academic Visitor at Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics, Bonn, Germany from August-October, 2008. His research interests are on Diophantine Equations, Transcendental Number Theory and Diophantine Approximation, Prime Numbers and Cryptography, particularly, the number theoretical aspects of Cryptography.

He has published several papers in international refereed journals. He has given lectures at many places in India and abroad on his work and he has attended and lectured at many national and international conferences. He likes teaching and mentoring students. He taught Undergraduate courses at University of Waterloo during Fall 2007 and Winter 2008 Semesters. He also gave few lecture courses at TIFR and some other colleges in India. He conducted a problem session for IMO Training Camp at HBCSE, Mumbai. He was a Rajiv Gandhi Science Talent Research Fellow-1999 of JNCASR, Bangalore, India. During his PhD Program at TIFR, he was a Kanwal Rekhi Career Scholarship holder. 2. Dr. Manoj Sharma

Manoj Sharma of Baghmara Bazar, Barpeta, Assam has completed his schooling from Baghmara Higher Secondary school. Then he did his higher secondary from Cotton College. He did his B.Sc. from Bajali College and M.Sc. from Gauhati University. He has just completed his PhD degree on “QUANTITATION OF IN-VIVO AND HIGH RESOLUTION NMR SPECTROSCOPY DATA” under the supervision of Professor RKS Rathore at Department of Mathematics and 61

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Statistics, IIT Kanpur. He did his research on quantitaion issues in MR Spectroscopy. He has implemented various mathematical modules (algorithms) for processing Spectroscopy data (1D & 2D), developed new methods for quantitations of in-vivo MRS and High resolution NMR data in the frequency domain, developed a new algorithm for baseline correction of MR Spectroscopy data and implemented various pre-processing, visualization algorithms for 2D MRS data. Soon, he will be joining the Department of Radiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angles as post-doctoral researcher.

Chaudhuri during summers of 2002 and 2003 as a JNCASR summer research fellow. One of these summer research projects titled as "Environmentally benign synthesis of some metal acetylacetonates and atom economic synthesis of quaternary ammonium tribromides" was chosen as one of the ten best projects by JNCASR, Bangalore. His commendable academic achievements include CSIR-JRF, GATE and Rajiv Gandhi Science Talent Research Scholar Fellowship awarded by JNCASR, Bangalore in the year 2002. In addition to this he was awarded Merit Scholarship by Oil India Limited, Duliajan in 1998. -----------0-------------

3. Mr. Nayanmoni Gogoi

Continued from Page no. 40 Brief Biography Bose was born on January 1, 1894 in Calcutta. Bose attended Hindu School and Presidency College, Calcutta. From 1916 to 1921 he was a lecturer in the physics department of University of Calcutta. In 1921, he joined the dept. of Physics of the then Dhaka University as a lecturer. Bose's ideas were afterwards well received in the world of physics. His work ranged from X-ray crystallography to unified field theories. He also published an equation of state for real gases. Several Nobel Prizes were awarded for research related to the concepts of the BOSON, Bose-Einstein statistics and BoseEinstein condensate. One of the biggest and expensive events of science of this decade, Large Hadron Collider experiment in Switzerland finds origin in Bose-Einstein theories. (Source: http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20080910 /982/tsc-bose-the-indian-behind-thebig-bang.html www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/ www.wikipedia.com)

Mr. Nayanmoni Gogoi hails from Duliajan, a small town in Assam and obtained his BSc. degree in Chemistry from Govt. Science College (Jorhat, Assam) in 2002. Currently he is working as a CSIR senior research fellow, at Dept. of Chemistry, IIT Bombay, under the supervision of Prof. Ramaswamy Murugavel. Nayanmoni's primary research interest is molecule based magnets and he is focusing on the synthesis, structural and magnetochemical characterization of high nuclearity iron complexes having frustrated spin orientation. Earlier he attended masters program in Chemistry at IIT Guwahati and worked under the supervision of Prof. Mihir K.

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French Scholarships for Indian Students 2009

French Scholarships for Indian Students 2009: Twenty-five full scholarships of around 20-25,000 Euros are being offered for two years for Indian students planning to join MS course. France is offering scholarships to meritorious students of engineering from India for post-graduate studies for two years from the academic year starting September 2009. For this ALTEN; a leading European research and development consulting and advanced engineering group; a network of 75 renowned French engineering institutes, and the French Embassy have come together to fully finance such students. ALTEN and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs are offering 25 full scholarships of around 20-25,000 Euros for two years for Indian students who wish to enrol in an MS programme. Core engineering fields The programmes will in all core engineering fields through that works in collaboration with the higher education office of the French Embassy in India. Last date The application form for the corporate scholarship is available online at the website www.nplusi.com and the last date to apply is November 15, 2008. No prior knowledge of French is required at the time of application and there is no bond that students need to sign with the Company. No qualifying tests Students do need to take qualifying tests such as GRE/GMAT etc. Selection will be done on the basis of academic merit, coherence of the statement of purpose, quality of recommendation letters and a personal interview. Students who make the admission applications need to be present at New Delhi for a personal interview in the month of January 2009. For more details students can contact [email protected]. Last year, 10 outstanding engineering students from India were awarded the scholarship. Non-profit network The n+I is a non-profit making network which brings together over 70 premier post-graduate engineering institutions from France. It aims at developing academic ties between our two countries in the domain of scientific and technical education and spreading awareness about higher education in France in engineering. http://www.nplusi.com/public/france-site/en/scholarships_from_companies.3-35-7.html

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Cambridge International scholarships (CISS)

Cambridge University, UK, will offer, via the Cambridge Trusts, at least 40 Cambridge International Scholarships to Overseas Students who embark on a research course in 2009-10. The awards will be made on a competitive basis to those applicants considered by their departments to be the most outstanding. Value of the award Each award will underwrite the full cost of fees and maintenance for the duration of the course. Duration of the award The award has a maximum duration of three years and is available to all students who will be registered for a three year research programme, leading to the PhD (including CPGS), that starts in the academic year 2009-10. Eligibility To be eligible to receive a Cambridge International Scholarship students must: 1. be liable to pay the Overseas University Composition Fee. 2. be engaged in a three year research programme leading to the PhD (i.e. will be registered as PhD, “Probationary PhD†or “CPGS†) starting in the academic year 2009-10. 3. be engaged in full-time study. 4. have a high upper-second-class undergraduate honours degree from a UK Higher Education Institution, or an equivalent from an Overseas Institution. NB. All students applying for a course of one year duration or less (including LLM, MSt, MBA, MED, Part III Mathematics, MPhil) in the academic year 2009-10 are not eligible for a CISS award for 2009-10. The application process Every eligible applicant for a three year research course leading to the PhD in 2009-10 will be considered to have applied for a Cambridge International Scholarship provided their completed Graduate Admission and Scholarship Application Form is received by the Board of Graduate Studies before 15th December 2008. Applicants are expected to also seek funding from other sources. Departments will rank their outstanding applicants for consideration in the competition. Several hundred partially funded awards will also be made by the Cambridge Trusts using the departmental CISS ranking list. The attention of applicants is drawn to the 15th December 2008 deadline. Completing the Graduate Admission and Scholarship Application Form Further Scholarship Information

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University of Canterbury International Doctoral Scholarship This scholarship, tenable for study towards a degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, was established in 2006 to provide support for international students with high academic achievement. Up to five awards are offered each year to the top International students applying for the University of Canterbury Doctoral Scholarships. Eligibility: International student (New Zealand citizens and permanent residents are not eligible to apply). Meet the academic requirements for enrolment in a PhD Undertaking or planning to undertake full time study Value

$25,000 pa; thesis tuition fees at NZ domestic rate; economy return airfare

Tenure

Up to 3 years

Closing Date

15 October

Regulations

University of Canterbury International Doctoral Scholarship full regulations (PDF, 16KB)

Apply

Apply on UC Doctoral application form

Website of UC: http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/Scholarships/ucschols/uc_intl_doc.shtml

The EMBL International PhD Programme The EMBL International PhD Programme, originally established in 1983, represents the flagship of EMBL’s commitment to first class training and education. Internationality, dedicated mentoring and early independence in research characterise our programme. Considered to be one of the most competitive PhD training schemes to enter, we are committed to providing EMBL PhD students with the best starting platform for a successful career in science. PhD work at EMBL is challenging, intense and intellectually demanding. We welcome applications from highly qualified students of all nationalities. Applicants must hold, or anticipate receiving before enrolment, a university degree that would formally qualify them to enter a PhD or equivalent programme in their home country. All applications are evaluated solely on the basis of qualification and scientific potential. Application deadline: 16 December 2008 Interviews will be held at EMBL Heidelberg from 2 to 6 March 2009, the EMBL Outstations will interview in the week prior. All applicants will be informed about the results of the selection in late January 2009. http://www.embl.org/training/phdprogramme/index.html

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University of Sydney : Scholarships for international students. University of Sydney World Scholars From 2009, up to 20 new full tuition fee PhD scholarships will be available per annum for international students. Scholarships will cover the full cost of tuition fees for three years. A travel contribution of up to $2000 will also be provided to scholarship holders towards a return international air fare. The World Scholars program is for commencing international students undertaking a PhD in any discipline. The application process is highly competitive with scholarships awarded on the basis of research potential and academic merit. Scholarship holders should demonstrate, in their application, an outstanding academic track record and capacity to engage in innovative and world class research. Each year the University will invite applications from selected participating countries. For the inaugural application round in 2008/09, these include: Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, European Union, Kenya & South Africa Some countries, including China, have special scholarship schemes already in place at present. How to apply Applications will open in July 2008 for commencement in Semester 1, 2009. Prospective applicants must have a firm offer of admission from the University of Sydney before lodging a World Scholars application. In addition, PhD candidates are expected to have made contact with their potential academic supervisor prior to submitting their application for a higher degree by research. Candidates who are interested in applying for the University of Sydney World Scholars are encouraged to identify a potential supervisor as soon as possible. Download the Application Guidelines for the World Scholars program. Download the Application Form for the World Scholars program. http://www.usyd.edu.au/fstudent/international/postgrad/costs/scholarships#world

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September 2008 Researcher Positions - Post-Doctoral Positions - Technician Positions Positions for 3 young researchers, 3 post-doctoral fellows and 2 technicians in the Nanocomposite and Responsive Materials and Nanochemistry Divisions of National Nanotechnology Laboratory. Immediate openings to pursue new and exciting research in the field of nanocomposite materials mainly targeting towards aeronautical applications. The candidates for the post doctoral and researchers positions need to have a Ph.D. degree (or equivalent) in any of the following fields: Material Science, Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, or related field. The candidates for the positions of the technicians should meet the following criteria: University or College or Technical School degree in a science or engineering related discipline. Attention to detail, and methodical approach to work. Organization skills. Experience in a similar role in a science laboratory would be ideal. Successful candidates will work as part of established research teams in the following areas: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Chemical synthesis and characterization of nanoparticles Photopolymerization and polymer synthesis Chemical functionalization of nanoparticles and incorporation into polymer matrices Nanocomposite materials preparation and characterization Spectroscopic, mechanical, and thermal characterization of nanocomposite materials Electromagnetic properties of nanocomposite materials

The employment package is 23,000-47,000 Euro per year depending on the skills of the candidate. Interested candidates should send through email their C.V., the names of two reference persons that can be contacted for recommendation, and a cover letter, to: Dr Athanassia Athanassiou Email: [email protected] Tel: +39 0832 295716

Dr Davide Cozzoli Email: [email protected]

October 2008 PhD Position – Development of highly durable functional coatings based on nanocomposite materials The National Nanotechnology Laboratory of CNR-INFM invites application for one motivate PhD student to work on the implementation of engineered nanostructured surfaces. The proposed research concerns the development of highly abrasion resistant super-hydrophobic surfaces on both methacrylate and glass substrates. The position is offered in collaboration with TEUCO GUZZINI group ( www.teuco.it ). The applicant will work within a multidisciplinary research team devoted to develop industrially compatible solutions. His/her R&D activity will focus on: - chemistry of functionalized nano-oxides, design of hard low-surface energy nanostructured coatings, surfaces characterization (surface energy measurements, AFM, SEM, FT-IR ) He/she will be also involved in the scaling-up of the coatings deposition process. A successful candidate is expected to be degree qualified in Chemistry or Materials Science. Preferred: knowledge of sol-gel process. For further details, including how to apply, please send CV and contact: Ing. Michele Manca - [email protected]

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Newsletter of North East India Research Forum

NATIONAL CHEMICAL LABORATORY (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) Dr. Homi Bhabha Road, Pune – 411008, INDIA. National Chemical Laboratory, Pune , India (NCL), one of the largest publicly funded research laboratories belonging to the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) (www.csir.res.in), is looking for dynamic, highly motivated scientists in diverse disciplines of research. NCL currently has about 250 Ph.D scientists, 200 technical staff, 400 students pursuing Ph.D degree and 350 project staff. NCL’s core research interests are in organic chemistry, advanced and functional materials, polymer science, chemical engineering science, reaction and process engineering, plant biochemistry, biochemical sciences, heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis, theory and computational science. NCL is equipped with world-class facilities to conduct high quality research spanning the spectrum, from fundamental to applied industrial research. NCL is looking for scientists in all age groups from entry level to leadership positions. Scientists at NCL have an opportunity to perform research at the frontiers of science, seek rewarding collaborations with industry and leading academic institutions, both, within India and abroad. Scientists at NCL are also encouraged to work at the intersection of disciplines, such as: bioactive organic molecules, bio-transformations; chemical biology; Clean fuels Electroactive materials; Electron microscopy; green chemical processes health care; materials derived from renewable resources; membrane science metabolic pathway engineering; microbial and fermentation processes molecular and hybrid materials; molecular modelling; NMR Spectroscopy novel separation processes; plant biotechnology; renewable energy systems scientific computing across length and time scales; study of complex fluids supramolecular chemistry; Surface science; synthetic biology Candidates with Ph.D degree in science or engineering and minimum two years of postdoctoral experience will be considered. Rank will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. Successful candidate must show demonstrated evidence of research leadership in any of above areas and must have strong interpersonal and communications skills. Interested applicants should upload three pdf files, i.e., curriculum vitae, a descriptive research proposal and names of three referees through our online system at www.nclindia.org/apply.

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By Mr. Mahen Konwar

By Dr. Prodeep Phukan Tubingen

By Dr. Arindam Adhikari Autumn 2008, Stockholm

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Details about the Northeast India Research Forum Date of creation of the forum : 13th November 2004 Area: Science and Technology Total number of members till date: 255 Moderators: 1. Arindam Adhikari, Ph.D. Institute of Surface Chemistry, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden Email: [email protected] 3. Utpal Borah, Ph.D. Dibrugarh University, Assam, India Email: [email protected]

2. Ashim J. Thakur, Ph.D. Chemical Science Dept, Tezpur University, Tezpur, Assam Email: [email protected] 4. Khirud Gogoi, Ph.D.

University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, USA; Email:[email protected]

Editorial Team of NE Quest 1. Dhanapati Deka, Ph.D. Tezpur University, Assam Email: [email protected]

2. Tankeswar Nath, Ph.D. Jubilant Organosys Ltd. Gajraula, UP, India Email: [email protected]

3. Manab Sharma, Ph.D. Austrelia, Email: [email protected]

4. Rashmi Rekha Devi, Ph.D Defence Material & Stores Research & Dev. Establishment, DRDO, Kanpur. Email: [email protected]

5. Joshodeep Boruwa, Ph.D. Université Louis Pasteur (ULP), France: Email : [email protected]

6. Pankaj Bharali, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, India. Email: [email protected]

7. Pranjal Saikia Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, IICT, Hyderabad, India Email: [email protected]

8. Sasanka Deka, Ph.D. National Nanotechnology Laboratory, Lecce, Italy Email: [email protected]

9. Shanta Laishram, Ph. D. Dept of Pure Mathematics, University of Waterloo, Canada Email: [email protected]

10. Áshim Thakur, Ph.D. 11. Utpal Borah, Ph.D. 12. Arindam Adhikari, Ph.D.

Logo designed by: Manab Sharma, Ph.D. Email: [email protected]

Cover page designed by: Anirban, Pune

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/northeast_india_research/ http://www.neindiaresearch.org/

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