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Tourism is an important business of contemporary society and is emerging as a major economic activity globally. Technological expansion and economic divergence has created tourism friendly environment in the present age of globalization. India has a great geographical, historical and cultural heritage that drives tourism in the country. Varkala cliff is popular tourist destination in Kerala where inhabitants earn a means of living by involving them in medical, pilgrim, beaches and backwater tourism. The number of tourist inflow to Varkala has increased tremendously over the period of time. This paper aims at investigating impact of tourism on local community and alternative strategies of livelihood for local community in Varkala. The aims and objectives of the research are achieved through the use of mixed a method (Qualitative and Quantitative). Semi-structured questionnaires were prepared for 100 households and detailed face to face interview were conducted with the chief informers. The correlation, regression analysis and ANOVA test was calculated to check the statistical significance between tourism and income level of local community. The major findings of the paper show that tourism is the major source of livelihood for the local communities in Varkala. While the tourism activities in the study area provides an meaningful source of livelihood but it is imperative to find the alternative strategies of producing income, due to instability and seasonality of the tourism industry. The investigation suggests managers of the study area to formulate plans, policies and strategies that will improvise the tourism industry and involving local community members in the decision making process and management of tourism activities in the study area.

Background The increasing tutorial size poses every teacher with the problem of student attention and participation; hence, newer strategies are needed to engage adult learners into cooperative learning. This study aims to assess the knowledge gained and retained and perceptions of students using an interactive syndicate learning style tutorial vis-a-vis conventional tutorials. Methods A quasi-experimental crossover study was conducted wherein students of phase 1 MBBS physiology tutorials were divided into two batches (interactive tutorials involving learning Fishbowl with Fish Battle and Round Robin Brainstorming and conventional didactic tutorials), with 65 students in each over 3 days. In the interactive tutorial group, students were seated in 2 concentric circles, the inner circle engaged in Fish Battle (a seminar followed by rebuttal), whereas the remaining students belonged to the Round Robin Brainstorming (outer circle) group, wherein brainstorming using index cards was carried out and a mind map was prepared, followed by a summary. Both batches underwent the pre- and post-MCQ test followed by the crossover study the subsequent week. For testing retention, an Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ) test was conducted after 3 weeks. In the end, 5 physiology tutorial modules were completed. Results There was a statistical improvement in the post-test scores (9.7%) gain in the Interactive Tutorial (IT) group as compared with the Conventional Tutorial (CT) group. Of the students, 56% retained the topics after undergoing IT compared with CT. Around (90%) students felt improved conceptual thinking, and 92% felt it encompassed active learning. Conclusion Interactive tutorials involving such learning styles facilitate active self-determined learning, develop mutual interdependence, equal representation, and group dynamics as adult learners, and transform them into lifelong critical thinkers.

Partially and fully biodegradable natural fibre – reinforced composites have been prepared using a novel patented woven-nonwoven technology. Natural fibres included jute and sisal, whereas the matrices were of synthetic polymers derived from petroleum (polypropylene (PP)) or natural (polylactic acid (PLA)) resources. The physical, mechanical and flammability properties of these partially and fully biodegradable composites have been studied and compared with those of similarly produced glass-fibre reinforced PP and PLA composites with a view to enabling their use in automotive applications. Mechanical test results showed that the tensile and flexural moduli of the PLA composites were higher than respective PP composites. In comparison, sisal composites have higher tensile and flexural moduli than jute composites. The fire performance of the composites studied by cone calorimetry showed that while natural fibre reinforcement had no effect on time-to-ignition, peak heat release was significantly reduced. PLA composites had lower burning propensity compared to respective PP composites.

Climate vulnerability is the propensity to be adversely affected by climatic variability and natural hazards. People of low-lying islands face accelerating physical and non-physical stresses due to their greater exposure, higher sensitivity, and lower adaptive capacity towards climate change. Being home to over 0.2 million people, Sagar Island, the largest Island of Sundarban, is highly susceptible to coastal erosion, cyclonic storm surges, flooding, and embankment breaching, causing loss of land, property, and livelihood that eventually lead to displacements and induced migration. Over the past two decades, residents of this fragile sinking island of this world's largest mangrove forest have seen their homes engulfed, farmlands salinized and livelihood depleted by the rising sea. This study investigates the association between socio-economic vulnerabilities through the contextual indicators of land loss, productivity loss, loss of livelihood, and induced migration through regression modeling to find out linkages and scopes of risk reduction. The result reflects a significant positive correlation between land loss and loss of livelihood (p 0.0494*) that negatively correlates with the occurrence of in-migration (z −0.826), while the correlation between productivity loss and loss of livelihood is 0.6318. Mouzas like Dhablat, Shibpur, Beguakhali show outlier characteristics due to severe rates of erosion and embankment failure. The secondary data from the India Meteorological Department, National Centre for Ocean Information Services, have been used to identify considerable changes from cumulative erosion and accretion employing statistical and GIS techniques. This bottom-up assessment can contribute to disaster management and policy implications by identifying the particular intercession at the mouza level that increases the resilience of these vulnerable communities to climate change.

Polysaccharide-based dressings have increasingly become viable alternatives to somewhat incompatible and often problematic cotton or viscose gauzes traditionally used for wound dressings. Abundant availability of alginates and their relative ease of reversible solubility in particular have been instrumental in their development into fibres and lately their application as vehicles for delivering drugs. This paper reports on the spinning efficiency of various alginate types (i.e. differing mannuronic/guluronic acid ratios) in a laboratory-based extrusion system and explores the effect of proportional inclusion of a second polysaccharide compound, an arabinoxylan named branan ferulate, on tensile properties of the resulting fibres. It was shown that in the chemical assessment of the fibres, that arabinose content, one of the branan ferulate component monosaccharides, could be used as a means of estimating the branan ferulate content of the fibre. Utilising such an analytical approach has enabled the branan ferulate contents of the fibres to be assessed. Accordingly there need be little anxiety over branan ferulate losses during the production of branan ferulate/alginate fibres by the wet spinning production method.

Visil (manufactured by Kemira Fibres Oy, Finland) is a hybrid of organic-inorganic components to give a cellulosic fibre containing polysilicic acid produced by a modified viscose process. Viscose on its own will burn, but non-flammable polysilicic acid which is present in Visil, when heated causes the cellulose to char and the silica formed to provide a flame and heat barrier. Thus the fibre is only partly combustible and reduced volatiles from the cellulose emit only minor amounts of smoke along with some carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. When blended with other fibres which have low flammabilities themselves, non-additive levels of flame retardance may be observed compared with those expected from averaging of individual component properties. Initial results of a larger research programme show that blends of Visil and modacrylic in yarn form show either higher or lower-than-expected Limiting Oxygen Index (LOI) values depending upon the yarn structure. These effects are corroborated by char length studies following vertical strip testing which show that either synergistic or more additive effects are possible depending on yarn physical structure.

A recently disclosed development1–3 comprising a composite of flame retardant cellulose fibres and an intumescent has shown unusually high flame and heat resistance with a char structure that can withstand air exposure temperatures up to 1200°C. Char structures of selected flame retardant cellulose fibres when alone and blended with inert E-glass and aromatic char-forming novoloid fibres in the presence of an ammonium polyphoshate-based intumescent have been studied using scanning electron microscopy. Evidence suggests that a ‘char-bonded’ structure is formed in which flame retardant cellulose fibrous chars have interacted with intumescent char during its formation. Similar interactions are not seen with E-glass and novoloid fibre residues. The char-bonded structure is considered to have reduced air permeability and so has considerably enhanced surface oxidative resistance at high temperatures. An outline mechanism is proposed and is based on known pyrolysis mechanisms for the flame retarded cellulose fibre and intumescent components.

The acidolysis rate constants of dimethyl mercury in dilute HCl and HBr have been measured in the pressure range 1–1000 atm. The results obey the van't Hoff law, the logarithm of the rate constant varying linearly with pressure. The acidolysis rate constants of dimethyl mercury at higher pressures are 2–5 times greater than those at atmospheric pressure. The volumes of activation lie in the range − 22 to − 37 cm 3 mole −1 and suggest that the activated complex is much more polar than the reactants.