PARTICIPATORY FOREST MANAGEMENT IN ANDHRA PRADESH : A Review

This paper traces the recent emergence of the new participatory forest management regime in AP Joint Forest Management (JFM) and Community Forest Management (CFM). This paper is based on the existing literature on forest policies, the historical context (pre-colonial, colonial and post independent India), and impact studies. The paper considers the contemporary developments in India in shaping the forest policies in AP. At the same time it considers the significant role played by donors and civil society. The process and quality of implementation, and the impact of the programme on local communities and resources are also examined. AP ranks fifth in India in terms of geographical area (275,068 sq km), and third in terms of forestland (63,813 sq km or 6.38 mha (Million Hectares), which constitutes 23% of APs total land area. Some 65% of APs forest area is spread over 8 predominantly tribal districts in the northern part of the state. These tribal populations are particularly dependent on the forest for their livelihoods for forest product collection and cultivation on forestland. Historically the relationship between these tribals and the government agencies, particularly the Forest Department (FD), has been very poor, with numerous uprisings, including the Naxalite movement. Many of these lands are disputed due to inadequacies in the legal processes by which largely tribal lands were declared state forests. Legally podu has de jure status prior to 1980 Act. Post 1980 podu cultivation is illegal and considered as encroachment. De facto podu is considered as encroachment (prior to 1980) as there is no proper settlement, conceptually typical podu practice is seen only in a few pockets in the state, especially in Vishakhapatnam. In 1956, on the formation of AP from Telangana and parts of the Madras Presidency, the pre-existing forest management regimes from the two distinct areas were harmonised by the Law Commission, leading to the AP Forest Act, 1967. Initially the states FD continued with a policy of commercialisation and revenue generation. However, with a growing crisis of forest degradation participatory approaches were introduced. The Government Order (GO) for JFM in AP was issued in 1992, although implementation didnt start until 1994. JFM has built on the roles played by both local forest *Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad, India. +Overseas Development Group, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. users and the FD staff. Funding to the FD to promote JFM has come from both the World Bank (WB) and from centrally funded schemes, such as the Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS). Formation of Vana Samrakshana Samithies (VSS) began slowly after the GO, although by 2004 the official number stands at 7,245 VSS, managing 1,886,764 ha, (or over 29% of state forest land) and involving 611,095 families. The largest numbers of VSS are concentrated in the tribal areas of Adilabad, Visakhapatnam, and Khammam. The pattern of implementation and the outcomes is extremely complex, partly because of the wide variety of local conditions, ethnic and caste composition and local livelihood uses of forestland. The limited devolution of power which has occurred through VSS formation have however certainly been popular in many areas, because they have given local people endorsement to protect their local forest resources, upon which they depend for their livelihoods. Some employment opportunities have also been provided and some shares of revenues from forest product marketing are promised. Evidence suggests that the VSS have been successful in many areas in terms of regenerating degraded forests between 1993 and 1999. However there have been many criticisms of the JFM programme so far, most fundamentally focussing on the issues of power and land tenure. Because the FD has held almost complete discretionary power over the scheme and its implementation, the JFM process has inevitably reflected their objectives. Whilst many foresters have espoused very progressive ideas and concepts, in practice the implementation of the scheme has often furthered forest management strategy according to silvicultural norms, rather than local livelihood-oriented practices. In the context of a fundamental power asymmetry between the FD and the VSS., there has been little empowerment of local communities to take their own decisions with respect to forest management. This is most obviously seen in forest management plans. Whilst local people would like to see livelihood oriented forest management regime (ie. regular product flows, shorter term rotations, multiple product mixes) the FD has tended to prioritise its conventional forest management practices, often involving long rotation timber stands. The micro-plans commonly fit within wider divisional working plans. Livelihoods security could be increased if the forest resource were under a management plan, which actually prioritised local needs and opportunities. Institutional sustainability is a major problem in AP with many VSS becoming defunct due to conflict, lack of interest, or lack of funds. Where participation has been based on substantial funding flows, when the funds stop the motivation to participate reduces drastically. The institutional linkage between the VSS and the panchayat raj institutions has not been developed, which could ensure not only long-term sustainability, but also empowerment and legal independence of the local institutions. Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) have been largely excluded from the implementation of JFM, despite the fact they have played a major role in formulating the PFM policies at the state level.Forest Management, Andhra Pradesh

Measurement of thermal and electrical conductivities of graphene nanofluids

This paper was presented at the 3rd Micro and Nano Flows Conference (MNF2011), which was held at the Makedonia Palace Hotel, Thessaloniki in Greece. The conference was organised by Brunel University and supported by the Italian Union of Thermofluiddynamics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University of Thessaly, IPEM, the Process Intensification Network, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Heat Transfer Society, HEXAG - the Heat Exchange Action Group, and the Energy Institute.The current work experimentally investigates the thermal and electrical conductivities of nanofluids containing graphene sheets that have very high thermal conductivity. Here, the graphene is prepared from natural graphite by oxidation-reduction process through a single step method. The graphene nanofluid thus obtained exhibited greater stability even after six months of preparation without addition of any surfactants. The detailed characterization process involving TEM, UV absorption and DLS measurements revealed the well dispersed nature of nanofluid with sheets appropriately interconnected and entangled. The DLS measurement indicates a trimodal size distribution of graphene sheet ranging from 5nm to 1500nm. It was also found that the absorption peak of the sample was 269 nm. This reveals the complete reduction of graphene oxide to graphene and the value is in good agreement with the literature. The thermal conductivity is measured using the traditional Transient Hot Wire (THW) method and enhancements are substantial even at lower concentrations while such behaviour is not predicted by the classical Maxwell theory. The thermal conductivity of graphene nanofluids are measured for different concentrations of 0.01 - 0.2 volume % at different temperatures. It is observed that the thermal conductivity increases with increase in concentration of grapheme, which is as expected. The maximum enhancement obtained is 27% at 0.2% concentration. The enhancement also shows a strong temperature dependence which is unlike that of its carbon predecessors like CNT and graphene oxide nanofluids. Electrical conductivity is measured using a 4 cell conductivity meter with inbuilt automatic temperature compensation. Electrical conductivity enhancement is found to be linear with increase in graphene volume fraction

Protective Effect of Prosopis cineraria Against N-Nitrosodiethylamine Induced Liver Tumor by Modulating Membrane Bound Enzymes and Glycoproteins

Purpose: The objective of the present study was to evaluate the protective effect of methanol extract of Prosopis cineraria (MPC) against N-nitrosodiethylamine (DEN, 200mg/kg) induced Phenobarbital promoted experimental liver tumors in male Wistar rats. Methods: The rats were divided into four groups, each group consisting of six animals. Group 1 served as control animals. Liver tumor was induced in group 2, 3, and 4 and Group 3 animals received MPC 200mg/kg and Group 4 animals received MPC 400mg/kg. Results: Administration of DEN has brought down the levels of membrane bound enzymes like Na+/ K+ ATPase, Mg2+ ATPase and Ca2+ATPase which were later found to be increased by the administration of Prosopis cineraria (200 and 400mg/kg) in dose dependent manner. The MPC extract also suppressed the levels of glycoproteins like Hexose, Hexosamine and Sialic acid when compared to liver tumor bearing animals. Conclusions: Our study suggests that MPC may extend its protective role by modulating the levels of membrane bound enzymes and suppressing glycoprotein levels

Ionic liquids and organic ionic plastic crystals utilizing small phosphonium cations

The development of new liquid and solid state electrolytes is paramount for the advancement of electrochemical devices such as lithium batteries and solar cells. Ionic liquids have shown great promise in both these applications. Here we demonstrate the use of phosphonium cations with small alkyl chain substituents, in combination with a range of different anions, to produce a variety of new halide free ionic liquids that are fluid, conductive and with sufficient thermal stability for a range of electrochemical applications. Walden plot analysis of the new phosphonium ionic liquids shows that these can be classed as &quot;good&quot; ionic liquids, with low degrees of ion pairing and/or aggregation, and the lithium deposition and stripping from one of these ionic liquids has been demonstrated. Furthermore, for the first time phosphonium cations have been used to form a range of organic ionic plastic crystals. These materials can show significant ionic conductivity in the solid state and thus are of great interest as potential solid-state electrolyte materials. <br /

A Low-Power Capacitive Transimpedance D/A Converter

This thesis proposes a new low-power and low-area DAC for single-slope ADCs used in CMOS image sensors. With increase in resolution requirements for ADCs, conventional DAC architectures suffered the limitation of either large area or high power consumption with higher resolution scaling. Thus, the proposed capacitive transimpedance amplifier DAC (CTIA DAC) could solve this by offering the resolution requirement required without taking a hit on the area or power budget. The thesis has been structured in the following manner: The first chapter introduces image sensors in general and talks about progression through different image sensors and pixel architectures that have been used through the years. It also explains the operation of a CMOS image sensor from a paper published from Sony on high-speed image sensors. The second chapter presents the importance and role of DACs in CMOS image sensors and briefly explains a few commonly used DAC architectures in image sensors. It explains the advantages and disadvantages of present architectures and leads the discussion towards the development of the proposed DAC. The third chapter gives an overview of the CTIA DAC and explains the working of the different circuit blocks that are used to implement the proposed DAC. Chapter Four explains the design approach for the blocks explained in Chapter Three. It presents the critical design choices that were made for overall performance of the DAC. Results of individual blocks and the DAC as a whole are presented and compared against other recently published DAC papers. The final chapter summarizes some key results of the design and talks about the scope for future work and improvement

Architectural Strategies for Implementing and Automating Service Function Chaining (SFC) in Multi-Cloud Environments

Service Function Chaining (SFC) represents a paradigm shift in the deployment, management, and automation of network services, enabling a dynamic approach to connecting virtual network functions (VNFs) in a prescribed sequence. Businesses adopting multi-cloud environments to leverage different cloud providers face significant challenges in implementing and automating SFC across these distributed infrastructures. These include managing the complexities of orchestrating SFC across heterogeneous cloud platforms, ensuring consistent performance, optimizing resource allocation, and maintaining security. This paper explores architectural strategies for implementing and automating SFC in multi-cloud environments, focusing on optimizing deployment, orchestration, and scalability. It examines the components and frameworks required to achieve seamless SFC automation, such as Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Software-Defined Networking (SDN), and cloud-native technologies like Kubernetes. The paper also discusses the importance of policy-driven orchestration, dynamic scaling, and integration of AI/ML techniques for performance optimization. This research also proposes the use of cross-layer coordination and programmable data planes to enhance SFC deployment in multi-cloud environments. The goal of the paper is to demonstrate how to create a robust and adaptive SFC architecture that efficiently operates in multi-cloud setups for enhancing service delivery, reducing operational costs, and improving network agility

Formulation Development and Evaluation of Eugenol Base Dental Gel for Periodontitis

The purpose of the study was to develop and evaluate a dental gel using eugenol as its primary component for the treatment of periodontitis. It is chosen for the treatment of periodontitis because it has a broad spectrum of antibacterial activity against a variety of periodontal infections. In order to formulate eugenol gel, PBC Carbomer 940 is used as a gelling agent, eugenol is used as a medicinal agent, Propanediol is used as a co-solvent, methyl paraben is used as preservative, and the necessary amount of distilled water is used as the vehicle. The eugenol was evaluated for acid value, ester value, specific gravity and refractive index and it shown satisfactory results. The prepared gel was evaluated for antimicrobial activity, pH, spreadability, extrudability, drug content etc. The eugenol dental gel formulations was tested against, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Eschericha coli and compared with other formulations. Antimicrobial activity demonstrated that the formulation EDG3 is a suitable dosage form for the treatment of periodontitis

The Ideational Meaning of Diagrams in the Malaysian and Singaporean Mathematics Textbooks

A mathematical text is multimodal with different modes of communication, namely verbal language, algebraic notation, visual forms and gestures. This paper aims to compare and discuss the ideational meaning of visual forms in worked examples from Malaysian and Singaporean Grade Seven Mathematics textbooks on Lines and Angles. There are two structures in ideational meaning, namely narrative (with action) and conceptual (without action). Action diagrams represent ongoing mathematical activity whereas, without action diagrams represent mathematical objects. Document analysis and coding were carried on 57 geometrical diagrams found in the textbooks used in a 20-year period. The properties to identify a narratively and a conceptually structured diagram were based on grammar to ‘read’ geometrical diagrams. The Malaysian textbook used from the year 1997 to 2002 consisted of some narrative diagrams and the Singaporean textbooks consistently gave importance to conceptual diagrams. Further, there are differences in the classification, identifying and spatial relations between geometric elements among the series of textbooks and country. The geometrical diagrams in the Singaporean textbooks had given much importance to attributive letters compared with the Malaysian textbooks that had given much importance to letters to identify objects. Besides, the Singaporean textbooks had represented relations with ‘shapes’ whereas, the Malaysian textbooks had represented relations with ‘points’. The findings provide valuable information for educators in general to ‘read’ the ideational meaning of geometric diagrams and to construct better visual representations, especially in school textbooks

Prevalence of Disability in Children and Adolescents in India, 2011

Background: Child disability is an emerging global health priority. There is lack of statebased analysis of all types of disabilities in children and adolescents in India. Objective: To measure the prevalence of disability and describe the types of disability by gender, advancing age, states and geographical regions in Indian population aged 19 years and below. Methods: Disability data restricted to age 19 years and below of the 2011 Census of India was analyzed. Disability rates per 100,000 children and adolescent population and age-adjusted disability rates were calculated. Results: Disability rate of 1640 per 100,000 was observed in those aged 19 years and below in India in 2011. Nine Indian states and Union Territories had disability rates above the national average. Of the total disability, hearing, seeing and movement related disabilities were 20, 18 and 13% respectively. Disability rates increased with the advancement of age; highest disability rate of 1926 per 100,000 in those aged 10 to 19 years. Males had higher disability rates compared to females (1754 vs. 1516 per 100,000). The disability rates were higher in urban than in rural areas (1805 vs. 1582 per 100,000). Conclusion: There was 1.6% of those aged 19 years and below in India with either physical or mental disability. Further studies on the underlying causes and prevention strategies are essential to reduce the burden of disability in the population aged 19 years and below

Voluntary disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions, corporate governance and earnings management: Australian evidence

This study examines the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on greenhouse gas emission disclosure and the extent to which the disclosure of greenhouse gas emission information is associated with earnings management and the liquidity of firms’ shares. The sample for this study is drawn from Australian publicly listed firms that voluntarily disclosed their greenhouse gas emission information through voluntary disclosure channels such as the Carbon Disclosure Project, annual reports, standalone sustainability reports, and corporate websites between 2006 and 2009. This study adopts the Carbon Disclosure Project 2010 scoring methodology to measure the quality of greenhouse gas emission disclosure. A content analysis was used to score the quality of voluntary disclosures in annual financial and sustainability reports, and the information provided on company websites. In this thesis, two competing views: the stakeholder value maximisation view and the shareholder expense view are examined in relation to the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on greenhouse gas emission disclosures and the extent to which the disclosure of greenhouse gas emission information is associated with earnings management. The stakeholder value maximisation view predicts that firms engage in socially responsible initiatives such as greenhouse emission reduction strategies and targets associated with climate change to fulfil the legitimate interests of stakeholders. On the other hand, the shareholder expense view suggests that firms engage in socially responsible initiatives such as greenhouse gas emission reduction initiatives at the expense of shareholders. This research contributes several new findings to the literature. Firstly, with regards to the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms and voluntary disclosure, this thesis has found that effective corporate governance mechanisms such as greater board independence, the absence of Chief Executive Officer duality, the presence of board gender diversity, decrease in directors’ share ownership, increase in institutional ownership and smaller size of the audit committee drive voluntary greenhouse gas emission disclosure. These results suggest that firms with effective corporate governance mechanisms focus on the legitimate interests of a broader group of stakeholders with regards to climate change, particularly greenhouse gas emission mitigation targets. This is consistent with the stakeholder value maximisation view of firms which is based on stakeholder theory and legitimacy theory as opposed to the shareholder expense hypothesis which is based on agency theory. These results are robust to control for self-selection using the Heckman two-stage sample selection procedure. Our results are also robust to the exclusion of financial sector firms which arguably could be affected by the Global Financial Crisis. Secondly, this research finds a weak negative relationship between voluntary disclosure of greenhouse gas emission disclosure and earnings management. This study has found only weak support for the stakeholder value maximisation view, suggesting that stakeholder-focused firms are less likely to engage in earnings management. In addition, Australian firms are trying to maintain a balance between the quality of greenhouse gas emission disclosure and the quality of financial reporting. As a result, they have difficulty satisfying multiple objectives simultaneously. These results are robust for endogeneity controls using the two-stage least squares method. Thirdly, this study has found that the voluntary disclosure of greenhouse gas emission information by firms has an impact on the liquidity of that firm’s shares. This suggests that firms that disclose more greenhouse gas emission information voluntarily experience improved liquidity of their shares. These results support the view of Balakrishnan et al. (2013) that managers’ decisions to disclose more voluntary information could directly affect the liquidity of their firms’ shares. Managers may shape the liquidity of their firms’ shares by providing more greenhouse gas emission information voluntarily through the Carbon Disclosure Project and their corporate reporting channels. Finally, larger and more visible firms tend to provide more information regarding climate change related due to social pressures. Firms with higher growth opportunities tend to provide less greenhouse gas emission information. Firm leverage and age are positively associated with the quality of greenhouse gas emission disclosure; indicating that longer-established firms with more leverage may disclose more the quality of greenhouse gas emissions in order to maintain their reputation among the stakeholders