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Kolkata, renowned as the City of Joy, boasts a rich tapestry of cultural heritage spanning centuries. Despite the significance of its architectural marvels, accessing comprehensive visual documentation of Kolkata's heritage sites remains a challenge. In online searches, limited imagery often fails to provide a detailed understanding of these historical landmarks. To address this gap, this paper introduces MonuNet, a high-performance deep-learning network specifically designed for the classification of heritage images from Kolkata. The development of MonuNet addresses the critical need for efficient and accurate identification of Kolkata's architectural marvels, which are significant tangible cultural heritages. The dataset used to train MonuNet is organized by heritage sites, each category within the dataset represents distinct sites. It includes images from 13 prominent heritage sites in Kolkata. For each of these sites, there are 50 images, making it a structured collection where each category (heritage site) is equally represented. The proposed network utilizes a unique architecture incorporating a Dense channel attention module and a Parallel-spatial channel attention module to capture intricate architectural details and spatial relationships within the images. Experimental evaluations demonstrate the superior performance of MonuNet in classifying Kolkata heritage images with an accuracy of 89%, Precision of 87.77%, and Recall of 86.61%. The successful deployment of MonuNet holds significant implications for cultural preservation, tourism enhancement, and urban planning in Kolkata, aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for sustainable city development. By providing a robust tool for the automatic identification and classification of heritage images, MonuNet promises to enrich online repositories with detailed visual documentation, thereby enhancing accessibility to Kolkata's cultural heritage for researchers, tourists, and urban planners alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses Mikhail Bakhtin and Homi K. Bhabha’s notions of hybridity as an interpretive tool in a traditional market area situated to the north of the center of Calcutta called Barabazaar or the Great Bazaar. More specifically, I study the changing effects of colonialization and globalization on a small group of Marwari paper traders in an area at the southern end of Barabazaar called China Bazaar. Acknowledging the overlapping geographies, both indigenous and foreign, that were and are constantly negotiated in places such as Barabazaar, I define a concept of hybrid space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An index for reporting air quality is called the air quality index (AQI). It measures the impact of air pollution on a person's health over a short period of time. The purpose of the AQI is to educate the public on the negative health effects of local air pollution. The amount of air pollution in Indian cities has significantly increased. There are several ways to create a mathematical formula to determine the air quality index. Numerous studies have found a link between air pollution exposure and adverse health impacts in the population. Data mining techniques are one of the most interesting approaches to forecast AQI and analyze it. The aim of this paper is to find the most effective way for AQI prediction to assist in climate control. The most effective method can be improved upon to find the most optimal solution. Hence, the work in this paper involves intensive research and the addition of novel techniques such as SMOTE to make sure that the best possible solution to the air quality problem is obtained. Another important goal is to demonstrate and display the exact metrics involved in our work in such a way that it is educational and insightful and hence provides proper comparisons and assists future researchers. In the proposed work, three distinct methods—support vector regression (SVR), random forest regression (RFR), and CatBoost regression (CR)—have been utilized to determine the AQI of New Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, and Hyderabad. After comparing the results of imbalanced datasets, it was found that random forest regression provides the lowest root mean square error (RMSE) values in Bangalore (0.5674), Kolkata (0.1403), and Hyderabad (0.3826), as well as higher accuracy compared to SVR and CatBoost regression for Kolkata (90.9700%) and Hyderabad (78.3672%), while CatBoost regression provides the lowest RMSE value in New Delhi (0.2792) and the highest accuracy is obtained for New Delhi (79.8622%) and Bangalore (68.6860%). Regarding the dataset that was subjected to the synthetic minority oversampling technique (SMOTE) algorithm, it is noted that random forest regression provides the lowest RMSE values in Kolkata (0.0988) and Hyderabad (0.0628) and higher accuracies are obtained for Kolkata (93.7438%) and Hyderabad (97.6080%) in comparison to SVR and CatBoost regression, whereas CatBoost regression provides the highest accuracies for New Delhi (85.0847%) and Bangalore (90.3071%). This demonstrated definitely that datasets that had the SMOTE algorithm applied to them produced a higher accuracy. The novelty of this paper lies in the fact that the best regression models have been picked through thorough research by analyzing their accuracies. Moreover, unlike most related papers, dataset balancing is carried out through SMOTE. Moreover, all of the implementations have been documented via graphs and metrics, which clearly show the contrast in results and help show what actually caused the improvement in accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale private real estate projects in the past few decades in vast areas of increasingly varied scales have been created that were once sparsely inhabited agricultural land and wetlands in the remote locations of these urban areas. This paper examines the reasons for India's peripheralization of real estate megaprojects. Such projects are typically constructed on agricultural land, notably paddy fields and wetlands. Developers' site selections are mostly influenced by the low cost of land and future development potential. In contrast to the disarray of existing urban spaces, "bypass urbanism" creates restricted and unique city spaces that allow more contented or high-status lifestyles. They avoid large parts of the city area as part of their daily lives, reinforcing socio-economic isolation, peripheralization, and uneven urban development. With the help of two case studies, this paper explores how peripheralization has created a restricted and exclusive space that facilitates middle-class life while bypassing and neglecting existing urban areas. This massive bypass urbanism constitutes a new quality of urban growth with far-reaching and uncountable repercussions, resulting in the creation of islands and the reshuffling of the entire metropolitan region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seasonal production, weather abnormalities, and high perishability introduce a high degree of volatility to potato prices. Price volatility is said to be asymmetric when positive and negative shocks of the same magnitude affect it in a dissimilar way. GARCH is a symmetric model, and it cannot capture asymmetric price volatility. EGARCH, APARCH, and GJR-GARCH models are popularly used to capture asymmetric price volatility. In this paper, an attempt is made to model the price volatility of the weekly wholesale modal price of potatoes for the Agra, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai markets using the above-mentioned models. The News Impact Curves (NICs) are derived from the fitted models, which confirmed the presence of asymmetry in the price volatility. To this end, NICs are used to describe the degree of asymmetry in volatility present in different markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The great Kolkata Cyclone of 5 October 1864 is still felt in the hearts of people in Bengal after 158 years. Almost every year, the inhabitants of Bengal are frequently threatened by various types of cyclones. In the last three centuries, from 1737 to 2021, the people of Bengal have witnessed more than one hundred fifty cyclones, tornadoes, and typhoons. Cyclones that occurred in the Bay of Bengal in October of 1737, 1864, 1874, 1876, and 1942 were severe and caused great loss of life and property. But the Kolkata Cyclone on the 5 October 1864 was one of the deadliest cyclones of Bengal. It was also one of the most destructive cyclones in the world. The devastation of the cyclone was terrible. It appeared that the total loss of life by the cyclone in Bengal actually reported by competent authorities was not more than sixty thousand. The loss of life in the Bengal had been partially ascertained. This paper is a case study of a natural calamity that swept over the Bengal on 5 October 1864 with reference to broader questions relating to climate and human settlement. The most striking part of the description is the human casualties. Finally, it shows how the effects of this natural calamity devastated thousands of lives in then-Bengal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India's coastal cities have been playing a pivotal role in international relations through culture, commerce, and connectivity since the hoary past. In modern times, coastal cities such as Mumbai (formerly Bombay) on the Arabian Coast and Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) on the Bay of Bengal have been active actors in international affairs. While Mumbai has been the hub of international trade and commerce, Kolkata has been the junction of cultural bonhomie with Bangladesh and Southeast Asian countries, which gained more traction due to cross-border movements of technology, information, education, trade and finance, and artistic tools bolstered by the New Economic Policy beginning in the early 1990s. Indian states and metropolitan cities are enhancing their positions in international affairs with tangible gains. Mumbai is referred to as India's financial capital and the home to the headquarters of great global business houses and financial organisations. Similarly, Kolkata is known as the cultural capital of India (Sri Aurobindo, Tagore, Shanti Niketan, Bengali folk art and culture etc.) and a destination for foreign tourists, artists and curious researchers. This paper examines the growth and impact of city diplomacy in India through the prism of federalism in advancing local interests in international politics. It attempts to assess the role of Indian cities from a comparative perspective in the conduct of city diplomacy from economic and cultural aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically analyses complex arrangements of actors, infrastructure technologies and practices to argue that co-production of urban service delivery entails a mutual, but contested dependence of state and non-state actors. We present two empirical cases based on in-depth qualitative fieldwork highlighting the role of Councillors regulating formal hydraulics and the fragile, volatile relations of private water provisioning in Baruipur Municipality, a small, peripheral town in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area. Characterised by groundwater arsenic, iron risks and heterogeneous urban waterscape, our analysis shows that powerful socio-political intermediaries shape everyday provisioning and access, 're-politicisation' complicating notions of collaborative alliances, equitable benefits and sustainable, material improvements. While gaps in piped water provisioning in the global South cities do find nascent community-led, collective service delivery efforts, in a socio-political context where water is understood as a public right, a state provision, does the continued reliance on the state allow joint service delivery to manifest? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural anthropologists acknowledge the primacy of the spectator's gaze in assigning hierarchical space to performances within the public sphere. Equations of power and transactions between agents of performance and the consumer or between the language of the entitled spectator and subject performers determine the category assigned to a given performance: folk or elite, classic or popular, high or subaltern. The late eighteenth - early nineteenth century in Bengal was a period of political and social transition and of realignment along religious, spatial and intellectual lines. The birth and growth of the metropolitan urban centre (Calcutta), an increasing presence of European residents of both genders in Calcutta and Bengal and the shift of power and influence from Muslim military aristocracy to an European merchant company (The British East India Company), meant that traditional indigenous performances were often thrown open for commentary and judgment to an audience who were largely outsiders and to whom the nuances of language, caste, class, region, ritual signification were matters of academic interest only occasioning descriptive commentaries on the practices in an alien country. In the travelogues and memoirs of Maria Nugent or Fanny Parkes, for instance, rituals, customs or performances were viewed as exemplifying the picturesque 'otherness' of an alien race. This paper will focus on evidences within British colonial writings of the early nineteenth century describing what appeared to observers as performances, with which they attempt to conceptualize the native 'other' as a cultural trope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the physical phenomena that govern raindrop size distribution and cloud characteristics across the diverse climatic regions of the Indian subcontinent. The study focuses on four locations, Kolkata, Bhopal, Desalpar, and Kavaratti Island, during the monsoon period from 2014 to 2016. It employs various techniques, encompassing ground-based measurements from disdrometers, space-borne observations from MODIS, along with the Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model, MEERA-2, and ERA-5 reanalysis outputs. The study found that there is a predominance of larger raindrops in Kolkata and Kavaratti Island during the monsoon season. This is due to the high atmospheric instability in these regions, which is expressed through convective available potential energy (CAPE). Locations with noticeable diurnal CAPE variations also exert influence over rainfall rates and the occurrence of raindrop sizes at different times throughout the day. Airflow patterns combined with anthropogenic activities affect aerosol levels in India. Bhopal and Desalpar have high dust levels during monsoon due to airflow from desert regions. In urban centers with significant anthropogenic activity, such as Kolkata and Bhopal, sulfate aerosols dominate, while Desalpar and Kavaratti Islands are characterized by a greater prevalence of sea salt aerosols. The dominance of different aerosol types impacted the cloud features, and, as a result, the occurrence of mean raindrop sizes at the four locations. The investigation also found that regions characterized by the predominance of larger raindrops during the monsoon season exhibit a lower cloud-effective radius normalized by the liquid water path. The variability of the raindrop size distribution impacts the empirical relationships between radar reflectivity (Z) and rain rate (R) , as well as between mass-weighted mean drop diameter (D m) and R , over the four locations. The study emphasizes the importance of considering varying Z-R relationships for accurate estimation of rain rates from radar reflectivity measurements in different climatic regions. • Varied rain microstructure observed over the different geographical locations of the Indian subcontinent. • Drop size occurrence probability is controlled by the prevailing CAPE. • CER/LWP ratio is inversely related to mean drop size. • The aerosol types influence the cloud features and as a result the prevailing DSD in a region. • The aerosol environment is controlled by the airflow pattern, geographical location, and anthropogenic activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leonardo Fea, an Italian explorer and traveler, sampled a comprehensive collection of continental Mollusca during his travels throughout the former British Burma (currently Myanmar) in 1885-1887. Cesare Maria Tapparone-Canefri, an Italian malacologist, studied this sample and published a paper with a description of numerous terrestrial and freshwater molluscan taxa new to science. This collection was partly deposited in the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova (MSNG), Italy and the Indian Museum (ZSI: Zoological Survey of India) in Kolkata. Here, we provide a re-analysis of C.M. Tapparone-Canefri's Burmese Unionidae collection. Our study reveals that the type series of only four nominal taxa described by Tapparone-Canefri as new to science in 1889 are still available in the MSNG, i.e. Unio rectangularis, U. pulcher, U. protensus var. obtusatus, and U. marginalis var. subflabellata. The first taxon is a valid species belonging to the genus Yaukthwa, while U. pulcher and U. protensus var. obtusatus are considered here as junior synonyms of the widespread Lamellidens generosus, and the last nominal taxon corresponds to L. savadiensis. The MSNG collection also contains shell lots of Indochinella pugio pugio, I. pugio paradoxa, Indonaia andersoniana, Radiatula chaudhurii, R. mouhoti haungthayawensis, Lamellidens savadiensis, L. generosus, Yaukthwa nesemanni, and Y. zayleymanensis, most of which were listed in Tapparone-Canefri's work under incorrect names. We revise all the freshwater mussel taxa listed by Tapparone-Canefri based on the original descriptions, available DNA sequences, morphological data, and biogeographic evidence. A freshwater mussel from the Haungthayaw River that was identified by Tapparone-Canefri as Unio exolescens is described here as Trapezoideus mitanensis sp. nov., a fourth species in this small Contradentini genus with a restricted range. Finally, new taxonomic opinions are proposed here for Leoparreysia tavoyensis, Trapezidens dolichorhynchus, Lamellidens generosus, and Lamellidens savadiensis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An attempt has been made, in this paper, to understand the characteristics and trends of temperatures of Kolkata, India, by using the temperature extremes, as recommended by Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI), and other relevant indices. For the purpose, daily maximum, minimum, and mean temperatures (1969–2012) of Alipore and Dum Dum observatories have been used. Both parametric (linear regression test) and non-parametric (Mann–Kendall test) have been done to detect the change, and Sen's slope estimator has been used to establish the degree of change. To detect homogeneity of the dataset, four homogeneous tests have been applied. Long-term (1969–2012) trends of extreme temperature indices like TXa, TXn, TMa, TNx, TNa, and TNn of monthly, seasonal, and annual time steps significantly detect a positively increasing trend. The rate is found to be the maximum at Dum Dum. Long-term trends of TXa, TNx, TNa, TNn, and TMa indicate an average positive temperature change of 0.30 °C/decade to 0.62 °C/decade, and in extreme cases over 0.65 °C/decade. Results also point out that in the monsoon and the post-monsoon seasons most of the trends are noticeable. In most of the cases, rates of positive temperature trends have been lower in recent time period (series II, 1985–2012), compared to the past time period (series I, 1969–1995). Distribution of the relative temperature indices also points out presence of asymmetric distribution between warm nights and cold days, and cold nights. Around three times more positive increase of warm nights has been noticed at Dum Dum station during 1971–1980 and 2001–2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of research in addressing a problem is heavily reliant on established methodologies and techniques from previous research findings. Therefore, precision and specificity are crucial to avoid drawing inaccurate conclusions. In this paper, we provide a critical commentary on a recently published research paper titled "Cost-effective remedial to microfiber pollution from wash effluent in Kolkata and Ranaghat" published in Chemosphere (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.137548), which reports a study on microfiber pollution and its mitigation from drinking water and washing effluents in Kolkata and Ranaghat, India. Our comment focuses on the microfiber results reported by Mondal et al. (2023). Surprisingly, Mondal et al. (2023) reported microfibers in drinking water samples in higher concentration of microfibers (3000–5800 MFs/mL) compared to the washing effluents. This unusual variation in microfiber concentrations raises questions, especially considering the efficiency of conventional drinking water treatment plants in removing microfibers and exaggerated risk to public health. Based on our critical analysis of the methodology and data analysis reported by Mondal et al. (2023), we highlighted the significant errors and deficiencies present in the published article. These inaccuracies were due to inclusion of weight of suspended solids in the microfiber calculations. Our study highlighted the need of robust analytical methods for the quantification of microfibers in water sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I am interested in the involvement of medical experts in the miracle verification stage of the Catholic Church's canonization processes. These professionals work to offer a scientific explanation for a possibly miraculous physical cure. If modern medical knowledge cannot explain what happened, then theologians can determine the cure as a miracle. Through a historical review of the involvement of these professionals in canonical processes and the analysis of two recent investigations of miracles performed by Mother Paulina and Mother Theresa of Calcutta in Brazil, I approach the implications of the medical work in the possible recognition of the supernatural powers of a holy figure. Finally, I argue that the relations between (medical) science and religion in the phenomenon in question are not to be understood by a disjunctive opposition, but rather by the hierarchical logic of the encompassing of the contrary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the rain-induced propagation characteristics over a tropical location Kolkata, India, using the data collected over a 7 year period, i.e., 2004–2010. This location experiences substantial rainfall during the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) season which is preceded by premonsoon rainfall accompanied by strong convection. Accumulations, event duration, and fade duration statistics are presented. Long-term observations for three propagation effects, namely rain attenuation, scintillations, and depolarization, are analyzed in this paper. The seasonal patterns of these phenomena are examined to reveal the characteristic features of Kolkata. The interrelations among rain rate, rain attenuation, scintillations, and depolarization are also investigated. Propagation detriments for identical rain rates are more severe in premonsoon compared to monsoon period, mainly because of the different microphysical properties of precipitation. However, the percentage occurrences of various propagation effects are higher in monsoon than premonsoon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed the research output on Bamboo for a period of 29 years (1989-2018). The web of science database has been used to retrieve worldwide publication records on bamboo research. The records were analysed using the descriptive statistics. Based on the retrieved data, various aspect of literature on bamboo research analysed and interpreted. The performance of the most productivity countries, authors, journals, Institution wise, and Growth rate and doubling time have assessed. The articles were classified as Research, review and others and grouped under 22 subjects to identify the subject coverage of bamboo research. The study found a positive growth in research and review article while very sharp decrement was observed. The growth rate and doubling period were estimated 8.5 and 8.34 respectively. Most of the articles written on Agriculture, Material Science, building technology and chemistry. M. Das (Presidency University, Department Life Science, Kolkata) is the most prolific primary author while R. Kumar (National Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineer, Silchar, India) mostly occurred as secondary author. Local and National collaboration mostly observed in the paper. India is the most productive country of world followed by china and Tamilnadu is most productive state of India. Indian Institute of Technology, India is a premier institute in bamboo research activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the network slicing technology has emerged enabling network operators to provide dedicated virtual networks to customers, over a common network infrastructure. This paper addresses the service provider maximization revenue problem in network slicing, aiming at offering customized services for different users’ classes and heterogeneous requirements. In particular, the slicing of the network is performed here on the basis of the end users’ perspective, considered at different levels. The customers demand forecasting is pursuit for service classes through the application of the federated learning framework according to which the end users act as clients. Then, considering the forecast service demands, the virtual network functions placement strategy is performed by taking into account that different network zones are characterized by diverse provision costs and prices, and it is realized by resorting to the application of matching theory principles. Furthermore, with the aim at taking into consideration the customers perspectives to obtain a realistic users’ decisions process, the prospect theory principles are applied. Finally, the goodness of the proposed framework is investigated and validated by providing numerical results derived by extensive computer simulations and proposing performance comparisons with the Kolkata game and the potential game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Observation of ionospheric irregularities over common ionospheric volume by optical and radio measurements. • Ionospheric irregularities observed beyond northern crest of EIA during solar minimum. • Ionospheric irregularities observed at L-band during late evening and midnight hours during solar minimum. The present paper reports coordinated ionospheric irregularity measurements at optical as well as GPS wavelengths. Optical measurements were obtained from Tiny Ionospheric Photometer (TIP) sensors installed onboard the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC) satellites. GPS radio signals were obtained from a dual frequency GPS receiver operational at Calcutta (22.58°N, 88.38°E geographic; geomagnetic dip: 32.96°; 13.00°N, 161.63°E geomagnetic) under the SCIntillation Network Decision Aid (SCINDA) program. Calcutta is located near the northern crest of Equatorial Ionization Anomaly (EIA) in the Indian longitude sector. The observations were conducted during the unusually low and prolonged solar minima period of 2008–2010. During this period, four cases of post-sunset GPS scintillation were observed from Calcutta. Among those cases, simultaneous fluctuations in GPS Carrier-to-Noise ratios (C/N o) and measured radiances from TIP over a common ionospheric volume were observed only on February 2, 2008 and September 25, 2008. Fluctuations observed in measured radiances (maximum 0.95 Rayleigh) from TIP due to ionospheric irregularities were found to correspond well with C/N 0 fluctuations on the GPS links observed from Calcutta, such effects being noted even during late evening hours of 21:00–22:00 LT from locations around 40° magnetic dip. These measurements indicate the existence of electron density irregularities of scale sizes varying over several decades from 135.6 nm to 300–400 m well beyond the northern crest of the EIA in the Indian longitude sector during late evening hours even in the unusually low solar activity conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large proportions of pedestrian fatalities led researchers to make the improvements of pedestrian safety at intersections. Thus, this paper proposes a methodology to evaluate crosswalk safety at signalized intersections using Surrogate Safety Measures (SSM) under mixed traffic conditions. The required pedestrian, traffic, and geometric data were extracted based on the videographic survey conducted at signalized intersections in Mumbai (India). Post Encroachment Time (PET) for each pedestrian were segregated into three categories for estimating pedestrian-vehicle interactions and Cumulative Frequency Distribution (CDF) was plotted to calculate the threshold values for each interaction severity level. The Cumulative Logistic Regression (CLR) model was developed to predict the pedestrian mean PET values in the crosswalk at signalized intersections. The proposed model was validated with a new signalized intersection and the results were shown that the proposed PET ranges and model appropriate for Indian mixed traffic conditions. To assess the suitability of model framework, model transferability was carried out with data collected at signalized intersection in Kolkata (India). Finally, this study can be helpful to rank the severity level of pedestrian safety in the crosswalk and improve the existing facilities at signalized intersections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supercapacitors have been used for the first time as load to PV cell/modules for characterizing their behavior. In this paper, a novel and essentially simple design of a V–I plotter is attempted with a bank of super capacitors (SC) as the load to the PV modules of varying capacities. The distinct advantages of the SC's over the erstwhile capacitors have been comparatively experimented. Finally, an elaborate regression analysis (RA) of principal electrical parameters have yielded consistently high values exceeding 0.993 experimental evaluation of quality parameters like fill-factor (FF) and performance ratio (PR) have yielded a range of 70–79% while PR values frequently ranges from 90% to 99%. Suitability of poly-Si PV modules at the level of PV panel configurations have been ascertained through experimental estimate of series and parallel relative power loss (RPL) values. Typical values below 2% obtained for widely varying climatic level is also a quality indicator for the new metrology in question. Such a prototype I–V plotter is expected to be duly considered for commercial testing applications in PV industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supercapacitors have been used for the first time as load to PV cell/modules for characterizing their behavior. In this paper, a novel and essentially simple design of a V–I plotter is attempted with a bank of super capacitors (SC) as the load to the PV modules of varying capacities. The distinct advantages of the SC’s over the erstwhile capacitors have been comparatively experimented. Finally, an elaborate regression analysis (RA) of principal electrical parameters have yielded consistently high values exceeding 0.993 experimental evaluation of quality parameters like fill-factor (FF) and performance ratio (PR) have yielded a range of 70–79% while PR values frequently ranges from 90% to 99%. Suitability of poly-Si PV modules at the level of PV panel configurations have been ascertained through experimental estimate of series and parallel relative power loss (RPL) values. Typical values below 2% obtained for widely varying climatic level is also a quality indicator for the new metrology in question. Such a prototype I–V plotter is expected to be duly considered for commercial testing applications in PV industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, several influential scholars have rigorously worked on the impact of neoliberal globalization on the poor in the cities of the South. But they have yet to provide a comprehensive account of how and why some groups in the margins are seen to successfully negotiate with the new modes of governing populations and increase their visibility as a 'category,' while some groups fail to do so. This paper seeks to bridge this research gap by comparing a successful and a failed mobilization in Calcutta. In both cases, use of the footpath has been central. The paper shows how the success of the hawkers in claiming the footpath is tied to the marginalization of the claims of the pavement dwellers that has (a) homogenized the representation of the footpath as only used by pedestrians and hawkers and (b) led to the elision of the pavement dwellers as a governmental category. The paper argues that by arrogating to themselves an archival function-which is conventionally associated with the governmental state-sections of population like the hawkers can become successful in their negotiations with the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: PM10 and its chemical species mass concentrations were measured once in a week at residential (Kasba) and industrial (Cossipore) sites of an urban region of Kolkata for a period of 24 h during November 2003 to November 2004. At each monitoring site, 53 sets of daily average PM10 samples were collected during the study period. Approximately 55% of the monitoring days are weekdays, while 45% are weekends. The PM10 mass concentrations ranged from 68.2 to 280.6 μg m−3 at the residential site, and 62.4 to 401.2 μg m−3 at the industrial site. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon compounds (PAH), fluoranthene (Fl), pyrene (Py), benzo(a)anthracene (BaA), benzo(b)fluoranthene (BbF) and benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) have been analyzed using Gas Chromatoghaphy. Metals in PM10 deposited on quartz microfibre filter papers were measured using an Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometer. Chromium (Cr), zinc (Zn), lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), nickel (Ni), manganese (Mn) and iron (Fe) are the seven toxic trace metals quantified from the measured PM10 concentrations. Total carbon (TC), inorganic carbon (IC) and organic carbon (OC) were analyzed using a Carbon analyzer. Exposed quartz microfibre filter papers were also analyzed for water-soluble anions of fluoride (F−), chloride (Cl−), nitrate (NO3 −), phosphate (PO4 3−) and sulfate (SO4 2−) using ion chromatography. In this study, principal component analysis (PCA)/absolute principal component scores (APCS) model was applied to the mass concentrations of PM10 and its chemical species. Principal component analysis with varimax rotation identified five possible sources; solid waste dumping, vehicular emission, coal combustion, cooking and soil dust at residential site. The extracted possible sources at the industrial site were vehicular emissions, coal combustion, electroplating industry, tyre wear and secondary aerosol. A quantitative estimation by principal component analysis–multiple linear regression (PCA–MLR) model indicated that solid waste dumping contributed 36%, vehicular emissions 26%, coal combustion 13%, cooking 8% and soil dust 4% at the residential site. The PCA–MLR apportioned 37% to vehicular emissions, 29% to coal combustion, 18% to electroplating industry, 8% to tyre wear and 1% to secondary aerosol at the industrial site. Due to the limitation in source marker species analyzed, 13% at Kasba and 7% at Cossipore could not be apportioned to any possible sources by this technique. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Objective: Proper diagnosis of Low Back Pain (LBP) is quite challenging in especially the developing countries like India. Though some developed countries prepared guidelines for evaluation of LBP with tests to detect psychological overlay, implementation of the recommendations becomes quite difficult in regular clinical practice, and different specialties of medicine offer different modes of management. Aiming at offering an expert-level diagnosis for the patients having LBP, this paper uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to derive a clinically justified and highly sensitive LBP resolution technique.Materials and Methods: The paper considers exhaustive knowledge for different LBP disorders (classified based on different pain generators), which have been represented using lattice structures to ensure completeness, non-redundancy, and optimality in the design of knowledge base. Further the representational enhancement of the knowledge has been done through construction of a hierarchical network, called RuleNet, using the concept of partially-ordered set (poset) with respect to the subset equality (⊆) relation. With implicit incorporation of probability within the knowledge, the RuleNet is used to derive reliable resolution logic along with effective resolution of uncertainties during clinical decision making.Results: The proposed methodology has been validated with clinical records of seventy seven LBP patients accessed from the database of ESI Hospital Sealdah, India over a period of one year from 2018 to 2019. Achieving 83% sensitivity of the proposed technique, the pain experts at the hospital find the design clinically satisfactory. The inferred outcomes have also been found to be homogeneous with the actual or original diagnosis.Discussions: The proposed approach achieves the clinical and computational efficiency by limiting the shortcomings of the existing methodologies for AI-based LBP diagnosis. While computational efficiency (with respect to both time and space complexity) is ensured by inferring clinical decisions through optimal processing of the knowledge items using poset, the clinical acceptability has been ascertained reaching to the most-likely diagnostic outcomes through probabilistic resolution of clinical uncertainties.Conclusion: The derived resolution technique, when embedded in LBP medical expert systems, would provide a fast, reliable, and affordable healthcare solution for this ailment to a wider range of general population suffering from LBP. The proposed scheme would significantly reduce the controversies and confusion in LBP treatment, and cut down the cost of unnecessary or inappropriate treatment and referral. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Bartika Ghoshal is first author on 'Non-canonical argonaute loading of extracellular vesicle-derived exogenous single-stranded miRNA in recipient cells', published in JCS. Bartika is a PhD student in the lab of Dr Suvendra Nath Bhattacharyya at CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata, India, investigating extracellular vesicle or exosome biology and cell biology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

East Kolkata Wetland Area (EKWA), a Ramsar site, is suffering from long-term resource exploitation and land-use change. This paper presents a Fuzzy-based Risk Assessment Model (FRAM) using Remote Sensing and GIS tools to identify the areas with varying intensity of wetland conversion risk within EKWA. Model was developed through rule-based Fuzzy Inference System. ‘Wetlands conversion rate’, ‘Canal proximity’, ‘Road proximity’, ‘Population density’, ‘Population growth rate’, ‘Infrastructure status’, ‘Livelihood status’, and ‘Social status’ were the eight selected input indices for the model. The model was validated at two stages. For stage one, Fuzzy c-Means (FCM) classified satellite data for 2012 and 2014 were compared to detect the landuse change. In stage two, model relevance over thirteen study sites was studied through questionnaire-based field survey. It was found that FRAM has efficiently modelled and mapped the various levels of wetland risk zones of EKWA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Dipayan De is first author on ‘ Amyloid-β oligomers block lysosomal targeting of miRNPs to prevent miRNP recycling and target repression in glial cells’, published in JCS. Dipayan is a PhD student in the lab of Dr Suvendra N. Bhattacharyya at the CSIR Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata, India, investigating how cellular organelles regulate microRNA activity in mammalian cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A priori estimation of delays with error variance of atmospheric radio wave propagation is important for precise position estimation and integrity of the system like Global Positioning System (GPS). Tropospheric effects are less severe than the ionospheric counterpart, but behave in a complex manner, making it difficult to isolate them. In this present paper, a ground based radiometer has been utilized to study the characteristics of tropospheric delay and compared it with the MODIS satellite observations over Kolkata (22.57°N, 88.37°E). Results indicate a good agreement between radiometer and MODIS data except the monsoon months. A climatology of spatial and temporal variation of dry and wet tropospheric delay over the Indian subcontinent have also been estimated using MODIS data and NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data for 2008–2012. The spatial variations of dry delay over Indian region are observed to be in the range of 120–250 cm with limited seasonal variability. However, the wet delay varies from 20 cm in winter months to 45 cm during monsoon period in the coastal and central Indian region. Further analysis reveals that the contribution of wet delays in total delay is significant only along the Indo-Gangetic plain. This indicates that extra precaution is needed in handling tropospheric delay for this region due to fast varying nature of water vapor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An ISOL post-accelerator type of RIB facility is being developed at Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC), Kolkata, India. In this scheme, Rare Ion Beams (RIBs) will be produced using light ion beams ( p, α) from the K=130 cyclotron, the RIB of interest will be separated from the other reaction products and accelerated up to about 2 MeV /u using a number of linear accelerators. Recently, a few RIBs have been produced and accelerated using this facility. As an extention of this effort, another RIB facility - ANURIB will be developed in a new campus as a green-field project. ANURIB will have two driver accelerators - a superconducting electron LINAC to produce n-rich RIBs using photofission route and a 50 MeV proton cyclotron for producing p-rich RIBs. In this paper, the status of the RIB facility in the present campus and future plans with the ANURIB facility will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Bartika Ghoshal is first author on' Non-canonical argonaute loading of extracellular vesicle-derived exogenous single-stranded miRNA in recipient cells', published in JCS. Bartika is a PhD student in the lab of Dr Suvendra Nath Bhattacharyya at CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata, India, investigating extracellular vesicle or exosome biology and cell biology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Identification of the effect of valid factors on students' academic performance is of great importance to student counseling and policy making. Aims: This study was carried out to find the predictors of academic performance of 2nd year undergraduate medical students of a renowned Medical College of Kolkata. Materials and Methods: This cross sectional study was carried out in a tertiary care teaching hospital of Kolkata. The information on factors like attendance percentage, sex, place of residence, previous academic performance of the entire batch of 2nd year students was collected from the departments' academic records and through personal interview. The association of the above mentioned factors with students' academic performance was determined through statistical analysis using t-test and multiple linear regression modeling and the results were reported. Results: Academic performance is found to be weakly correlated with attendance. Better academic grade was observed for the group with high attendance percentage compared to the other with low attendance percentage (P < 0.01). Higher percentage of marks was observed to be scored by female students (P < 0.01), local students (P < 0.01) and high performers who were capable of successfully clearing their 1st year's coursework in their first attempt (P < 0.01). Conclusion: All the factors studied in this paper which includes attendance, sex, place of residence and previous academic performance serve as predictors in understanding students' performance. Among the above mentioned, the attendance of the students is an important factor that has to be monitored and regulated through corrective actions to improve the performance of the class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The objective of the paper is to study the role of partogram in the outcome of spontaneous labour in primigravidae at term with singleton pregnancy and vertex as the presenting part. Methods: This prospective observational study was carried out in the labour room of the department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of Medical College & Hospital, Kolkata, over a period of one year i.e. from June 2011 to May 2012 after obtaining approval from the institutional ethical committee. Analysis of the progress of labour was done in five hundred women with the help of modified WHO partograph. The study population was divided into three groups. Group I had a total observed duration of active stage six hours or less and their cervicograph remained on or to the left of the alert line. Group II had total observed duration of active phase between more than six hours and less than ten hours and their cervicograph remained between the alert and action line. Group III, who had the duration of observed active phase more than 10 hours, had their cervicograph crossing the action line. The different types of abnormal labor were studied. The maternal and fetal outcomes were assessed. Results: 80.8% of the women belonged to group I, 15.2% to group II and 4% to group III. Surgical interference increased as the labour curve moved to the right of the alert line. Use of partogram helped in overall reduction in the duration of labour. Timely intervention reduced the incidence of prolonged labour and its sequelae. 19.2% of the women showed abnormal labour. Severe complications were successfully averted. There were no cases of maternal death, puerperal sepsis, ruptured uterus or fresh still births. Overall neonatal mortality rate was also reduced. Conclusions: The use of modified WHO partograph significantly improves the outcome of labour in both maternal & neonatal perspective. The WHO partograph should be used in all maternity units with incorporated management guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The paper reports the results of an empirical study on profitability of rice cultivation in the East Calcutta Wetlands (ECW) region where untreated sewage from the city of Kolkata (earlier Calcutta), India, is used for the purpose of irrigation during the winter/summer crop. The results show that plots using wastewater containing organic nutrients earn lower profits than those using groundwater. We also find that the profitability of plots using wastewater is negatively affected by the presence of heavy metals such as Lead and Mercury that are carried through untreated sewage-water canals and deposited in the soil. Of the two opposing effects of wastewater irrigation, the negative effect of heavy metal toxicity outweighs the positive effects of organic nutrients. The results support regulation of the discharge of the heavy metals like Lead and Mercury into the wastewater from households and industries. This would lead to conservation of the Wetlands generating a number of ecological and environmental benefits to the society. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Aims: The objective of the paper was to study the spectrum of gynecological disorders in HIV positive woman, which are often not given much importance as the issue of antiretroviral therapy and management of opportunistic infections occupy the major share of their treatment strategy. Methods: It was an observational study which included 135 women. The study was conducted in the Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata from January 2010 to December 2012 after obtaining permission from the institutional ethics committee. All the HIV positive women who came to the gynecological outpatient department with gynecological complaints were included in the study. Results: The seropositive women suffered from the same range of gynecological problems as in non-infected women. The most common complaints at presentation were vaginal white discharge and pruritus vulvae. The most common postoperative complication was fever. Conclusions: The HIV/AIDS is taking the shape of a generalized epidemic and with the advances in the antiretroviral therapy, the life expectancy of the patients is increasing. With the improvement of survival more and more of HIV positive women would present with problems pertaining to any system of the body and the gynecological complaint is not an exception. Addressing these problems would lead to boosting up of the care and support of this subset of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The association between the monthly total ozone concentration and monthly maximum temperature over Kolkata (22.56°N, 88.30° E), India, has been explored in this paper. For this, the predictability of monthly maximum temperature based on the total ozone as predictor is investigated using Artificial Neural Network. The presence of persistence and similar cyclic patterns are revealed through autocorrelation and cross-correlation coefficients. Common cycles of length 12 and 6 have been identified through periodogram. Hence, a predictive model has been generated by Artificial Neural Network in the form of Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP) using scaled conjugate gradient learning with sigmoid non-linearity. After training and testing the network, an MLP with total ozone of month n as predictor and maximum temperature of month (n +1) as the target output is found as the best model. Performance of the model has been judged statistically. Finally, the MLP model has been compared with linear and non-linear regressions and the efficiency of MLP has been established over the regression models. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper covers different aspects related to X-ray fluorescence activities at Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, India. In its first part, experiments on basic physical problems are illustrated and in the second part, some applications related to X-ray fluorescence are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper presents the modeling and analysis of a greenhouse-integrated power system consisting of solar photovoltaic panels, electrolyzer bank and Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cell stacks. Electric power is generated in an array of solar photovoltaic modules. Excess energy after meeting the requirements of the greenhouse during peak sunshine hours, is supplied to an electrolyzer bank to generate hydrogen gas, which is consumed by the PEM fuel cell stack to support the power requirement during the energy deficit hours. The predicted performance of the integrated system is presented for different climatic conditions, for a given location (Kolkata) in the Indian subcontinent. The study reveals that 51 solar photovoltaic modules each of 75W p along with a 3.3kW electrolyzer and 2 PEM fuel cell stacks, each of 480W, can support the energy requirement of a 90m2 floriculture greenhouse with fan-pad ventilated system. The study shows that this integrated power system provides a viable option for powering stand-alone greenhouses in a self-sustained manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents research paper about rapid evaluation of water supply project in Kolkata, India. It states that the study used a methodology suited for local condition and significant data were collected to estimate the cost of supply, wherein the artificial neural network was used. Moreover, the study shows that consumers were eager to pay for the supply of drinking water.

Hydraulic performance assessment and benchmarking of water distribution networks (WDNs) impose a major challenge to water utilities worldwide. Presently, benchmarking strategies for WDNs are not fully developed, especially for analyzing intermittent systems commonly encountered in non-developed nations. To overcome these limitations, this paper proposes an index-based benchmarking strategy for WDNs, comparing their actual hydraulic performance and expected serviceability. A robust Hydraulic Performance Index (HPI) is developed as a global metric to account for the combined impact of multiple hydraulic outputs, concerning their benchmark values. The applicability of this index is verified on a numerical benchmark network, and its usefulness is demonstrated on a real-world intermittent WDN located in Kolkata (India) by coupling the HPI-based framework with hydraulic models using the EPANET-MATLAB programmer's toolkit. A scenario-based analysis is conducted using extended-period simulation to obtain the HPI for diverse service levels and leakage conditions of the WDN models. The HPI is designed to effectively capture the localized pressure reduction during peak flow, prioritize hydraulic outputs based on regional constraints, and penalize systems with unsustainably high hydraulic output. The developed strategy is also effective in performance benchmarking of WDNs of different nations with diverse serviceability and threshold parameters on a common platform. Finally, the practical efficacy and generalizability of the HPI-based results in the context of case-specific performance management of WDNs, along with limitations, recommendations and future perspectives are elucidated upon. [Display omitted] • A novel index-based performance benchmarking framework for WDN was developed. • A global metric, Hydraulic Performance Index (HPI) developed for WDN benchmarking. • A service level scale was formulated for performance assessment of Indian WDNs. • The HPI-coupled framework was verified on a benchmark network and a real-world WDN. • HPI aptly quantified the impact of service level and leakage on network performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two highway bridge approaches, about 10 and 12 m in height, near Kolkata (Calcutta), India constructed with mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) failed recently. These structures were founded on sensitive, soft and compressible, fine-grained soils of the intertidal flats and backswamps of the Ganges delta. One of these MSE walls, which failed in the final stages of its construction, was constructed after foundation soils were strengthened with prefabricated vertical drain installation and preloading. The second MSE wall that failed within a month of its opening for traffic was constructed on unimproved ground. Fortunately, immediate collateral damage from these incidents was small. Using pre and postconsolidation shear strengths the MSE walls were redesigned. Reconstruction involved prefabricated vertical drain installation at the second site and construction of stabilizing berms at both locations. The facilities are now operational and appear to be performing satisfactorily. Details of the failures, postfailure investigations, and monitoring, redesign, and reconstruction are presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medicine seems to collect evidence in ways entirely different from social anthropology. It aims to gather ‘best evidence’ through large randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and advanced methods of statistical analysis. The latest phase in this drive towards quantification is the global rise of evidence-based medicine (EBM). From the perspective of EBM, ethnographic evidence, with all its emphasis on ‘local’ knowledge, is at best anecdotal, at worst insignificant. Anthropological engagements with EBM have just begun, and much work – both empirically and conceptually – remains to be done. This paper takes up the challenge posed by EBM and develops three propositions for an ‘evidence-based medical anthropology’. The first proposition is that anthropologists have to study medical evidence-making differently than before. The second proposition is that EBM compels anthropologists to reconsider what they see as ‘evidence’. The third proposition reverses the analysis once more to suggest that anthropological evidence can discover fundamental blindspots in EBM. The examples presented here are drawn from research on treatments of depression by general physicians and psychiatrists in Kolkata (Calcutta, India). Résumé La recherche de preuves en anthropologie sociale et en médecine semble être radicalement différente. Le but de cette dernière est de réunir « les meilleures preuves » grâce à de grandes études randomisées et contrôlées et à des méthodes avancées d'analyse statistique. La dernière phase de cette recherche de quantification est la montée en régime de la médecine evidence-based, basée sur les preuves, dans le monde entier. Du point de vue de la médecine basée sur les preuves, la preuve ethnographique, mettant l'accent sur la connaissance « locale », est au mieux anecdotique, au pire insignifiante. Les anthropologues commencent tout juste à relever les défis posés par cette démarche et beaucoup de travail reste à faire au niveau à la fois empirique et conceptuel. L'auteur développe trois propositions pour une « anthropologie médicale basée sur les preuves ». La première proposition est que les anthropologues doivent changer d'approche dans leur étude de la recherche de preuves en médecine. La deuxième est que la médecine basée sur les preuves oblige les anthropologues à reconsidérer ce qu'ils voient comme des « preuves ». La troisième proposition inverse une fois de plus l'analyse pour suggérer que la preuve anthropologique peut révéler les angles morts fondamentaux de la médecine basée sur les preuves. Les exemples présentés ici sont issus de recherches sur le traitement de la dépression réalisées par des généralistes et des psychiatres à Kolkata (Calcutta), en Inde. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses ethnographic data from a sex workers' HIV project in India to consider the appropriateness of individual, social/group and structural theories of health behaviour when applied to HIV-prevention initiatives. Existing theories are critiqued for their modernist representation of behaviour as determined by individual rational decision-making processes or by external structural forces, with inadequate recognition being given to the roles that human agency, subjective meaning and local context play in everyday actions. Analysis of sex workers' accounts of their sexual practices suggests that existing theories of health behaviour can only partially account for sexual behaviour change retrospectively and that they have limited predictive value with respect to the outcomes of individual sexual encounters. Our data show that these outcomes were, in fact, highly context dependent, while possibilities for action were ultimately strongly constrained by structural forces. Findings suggest that interventions need to adopt an integrated, structurally-oriented approach for promoting safer sexual practices in sex work settings. Recognising that no one model of health behaviour is likely to be adequate in explaining or predicting behaviour change encourages responsiveness to local people's agency, recognises the different (health- and non-health-related) registers of risk with which people operate and encourages flexibility according to local contingencies and contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the traffic information considers a single item like travel time or delay. In the present work, enhanced traffic information displaying instantaneous travel time and its variation from the previous interval to the present, is considered. An initial investigation is made on the effectiveness of such traffic information on route choice behavior of trip makers by valuation of attributes of the traffic information. Taking a case study of two urban corridors in the Kolkata metro city, India, the valuation is done separately for private car and taxi trip makers. The stated preference (choice based) data collected from trip makers are analyzed using both multinomial logit (MNL) and mixed logit (ML) modeling techniques. Assuming sparsely used constrained triangular distribution of random parameters, two different types of ML model are developed: one with independent choice sets and the other one by accounting heterogeneity around the mean of random parameter(s). Both family income and trip purpose are found to decompose heterogeneity around the mean estimate(s). The values of travel time and their variation presented in the paper encourage further investigation on such type of traffic information for management of congestion on alternative urban corridors both spatially and temporally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary knowledge systems have given too much importance to visual symbols, the written word for instance, as the repository of knowledge. The primacy of the written word and the representational world built around it is, however, under debate—especially from recent insights derived from cognitive science that seeks to bring back action, intent and emotion within the core of cognitive science (Freeman and Nunez in J Consciousness Stud 6(11/12), ). It is being argued that other sensory experiences, apart from the visual, along with desires (or intent) and emotions—like pain, pleasure, sorrow or joy—constitute equally important building blocks that shape an individual’s cognition of the world around. This multi-sensory cognition colored by emotions inspire action and hence is valid knowledge. This is probably nowhere more apparent than in the world of the visually impaired. Deprived of visual sensory capability, they have to perforce depend on other senses. But the dominant discourse in wider society plays a major role in determining what they (the blind) can do. A society built around visual symbols and the written word underplays other elements of cognition and in the process undervalues them. This also gets reflected in the construction of social artifacts of various kinds, such as the educational certification system (The Braille system is an attempt to make the written world accessible to the blind through tactile signals—so that words are ‘felt’ and ‘read.’ But it is quite cumbersome. For instance, even a blind highly skilled at writing in Braille would not be able to match the writing speed of an ordinary visually endowed literate person. Effective and efficient computer-based voice–text–voice converters might solve this problem better.)-based primarily on skills over the written word. Linguistic ability becomes most valuable and at another level the written word gets salience over the spoken word. The blind hardly has a chance, therefore, except through concessions or piety. A practice built around the imagery of an empowered blind person, therefore, must depart from mainstream conceptualization—for power is derived from what one has rather than from what one lacks. It must begin by tapping and valorizing one’s own endowments. This paper is an attempt to identify such a departure based on the experience of Blind Opera—a theatre group of the blind working in Kolkata, India. It seeks to provide an exposition in written word of an experience that can only be partially captured within the confines of a text. It is an incomplete account, therefore, and may be taken as an attempt to reach out and seek an exchange of experiences and insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An attempt is made in this paper to report how a supervised methodology has been adopted for the task of Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) in Bengali with necessary modifications. At the initial stage, four commonly used supervised methods, Decision Tree (DT), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Naïve Bayes (NB), are developed at the baseline. These algorithms are applied individually on a data set of 13 most frequently used Bengali ambiguous words. On experimental basis, the baseline strategy is modified with two extensions: (a) inclusion of lemmatization process into the system and (b) bootstrapping of the operational process. As a result, the levels of accuracy of the baseline methods are slightly improved, which is a positive signal for the whole process of disambiguation as it opens scope for further modification of the existing method for better result. In this experiment, the data sets are prepared from the Bengali corpus, developed in the Technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) project of the Government of India and from the Bengali WordNet, which is developed at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. The paper reports the challenges and pitfalls of the work that have been closely observed during the experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread across the globe through the human transmission. The World Health Organization suggested social distancing to curb the community spread. After national social lockdown started in India, air quality improved drastically. This further hypothesized to influence the environment and human health, and this study is positively the first to weigh it using multiple indices. The calculated environmental indices are photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP), acidification potential (AP), and eutrophication potential (EP). The cancer risk, chronic health index (CHI), and acute health index (AHI) were considered to calculate the health risk. The spatial trend change in the air pollution reflecting on these indices are calculated for four Indian megacities Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Kolkata. Temporal variation was accounted for monthly (2019 vs 2020), one-week and two-weeks period during the social lockdown. The results showed a significant decrease in environmental and health risk during the lockdown due to a corresponding decrement in air pollution. The decrease in the particulate matter was found to play a vital role in altering the air pollution mediated risks of interest. Delhi showed a maximum difference in POCP and Acute HI by recording a dip of 70.79% and 43.53% respectively in 2020 during lockdown. The maximum reduction in health risk indices was 41%, 31%, 17%, 19% for Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Kolkata. Bangalore recorded the maximum decline in EP, Cancer risk, Chronic HI by 66.66%, 58.62%, and 58.76% in 2020 compared to 2019. A maximum fall in AP was seen in Kolkata by 57.23% in 2020 among all cities. The connection between these drop-in indices and the cause of air pollutants were well discussed. This present paper gives more in-depth insights into air pollution's effect on environmental and health parameters by connecting and converging various air pollution aspects into a single scale. This study also enlightens the importance of controlling air pollution to have a better environment and healthy life to attain sustainable development. Conceptual illustration of impact of COVID-19 enabled social lockdown on environmental and health risk indices in India. [Display omitted] • Detailed study on COVID-19 lockdown vs environmental and health indices in India. • Included three time periods & four megacities Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore & Kolkata. • Noticeable reduction in particulate matter and indices during lockdown. • Maximum health risk reduction in Delhi (41%) and Bangalore (31%). • Bangalore recorded maximum reduction in EP, Cancer risk, Chronic HI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although lockdown of the industrial and transport sector and stay at home advisories to counter the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that the air quality has improved during this time, very little is known about the role of ambient air pollutants and meteorology in facilitating its transmission. This paper presents the findings from a study that was conducted to evaluate whether air quality index (AQI), three primary pollutants (PM 2.5 , PM 10 and CO), Ground level ozone (O 3) and three meteorological variables (temperature, relative humidity, wind speed) have promoted the COVID-19 transmission in five megacities of India. The results show significant correlation of PM 2.5 , PM 10 , CO, O 3 concentrations, AQI and meteorological parameters with the confirmed cases and deaths during the lockdown period. Among the meteorological variables considered, temperature strongly correlated with the COVID-19 cases and deaths during the lockdown (r = 0.54 ; 0.25) and unlock period (r = 0.66 ; 0.25). Among the pollutants, ozone, and among the meteorological variables, temperature, explained the highest variability, up to 34% and 30% respectively, for COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths. AQI was not a significant parameter for explaining the variations in confirmed and death cases. WS and RH could explain 10–11% and 4–6% variations of COVID-19 cases. A GLM model could explain 74% and 35% variability for confirmed cases and deaths during the lockdown and 66% and 19% variability during the unlock period. The results suggest that meteorological parameters may have promoted the COVID-19 incidences, especially the confirmed cases. Our findings may encourage future studies to explore more about the role of ambient air pollutants and meteorology on transmission of COVID-19 and similar infectious diseases. [Display omitted] • During lockdown for COVID-19, air quality improved in five megacities of India. • PM 2.5 , PM 10 , CO concentration across the megacities reduced during the lockdown. • Delhi and Kolkata experienced rise in O 3 concentration during lockdown. • PM 2.5 , PM 10 , CO, O 3 , AQI and T correlated with COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths. • Temperature explained up to 30% variability for COVID-19 cases during the lockdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present here a somewhat personalized account of the emergence of econophysics as an attractive research topic in physical, as well as social, sciences. After a rather detailed storytelling about our endeavors from Kolkata, we give a brief description of the main research achievements in a simple and non-technical language. We also briefly present, in technical language, a piece of our recent research result. We conclude our paper with a brief perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

East Kolkata Wetland (EKW) is a Ramsar site located adjacent to the Kolkata megacity. EKW is one of the resourceful wetland ecosystems of the world which offers a bundle of direct and indirect ecosystem services to the Kolkata megacity region. The rapid expansion of built-up in the surrounding urban agglomeration of the EKW is putting immense pressure on the EKW and the rate of wetland loss has been highest in recent decades. To ensure that this distinct ecosystem is conserved, an efficient means of identifying wetland conversion risk is needed. This study aims to assess the risk of EKW conversion using two advanced data-driven Machine Learning (ML) models, viz, Random Forest (RF), and Support Vector Machine (SVM). The novelty of the paper is in the fact that ML models have been widely applied to groundwater potential, flood susceptibility, and landslide susceptibility, their applicability to wetland conversion risk assessment has not yet been explored. The advantage of RF and SVM is that both of the ML models can overcome the limitations of pre-assumption based conventional methods of wetland risk assessment. A total of eight factors are selected which can be categorized into ecological, bio-physical, demographic, and physical infrastructure groups. Both results indicate that around 60% area under medium to very high-risk zones. A comparison is also made between these two methods to identify the most precise prediction method for this study area. The results of the models are quantitatively validated applying the Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) method, where both of this method identifies SVM as a more precise predictive model for this study with 91.12% accuracy. The spatial pattern of encroachment and shrinkage of EKW triggered by urban expansion is successfully captured by RF and ME. Policy analysts and land-use planners can use the outcome derived from RF and SVM models and associated maps to identify the risk zones, assess the effectiveness of wetland conservation programs, design effective policies to stop further degradation of the wetlands, and adopt long-term sustainable planning for this precious ecosystem. Image 1 • Wetland conversion risk is assessed using two Machine Learning techniques. • EKW is degrading at a faster rate impacting its surrounding environments. • More than 60% wetland areaunder high conversion risk zone is a major concern. • Identification of conversion risk areas will help planners for better management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]