| 1. |
- Kumar, Manoj, et al.
(author)
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Arsenic distribution and mobilization : A case study of three districts of uttar pradesh and bihar (india)
- 2015
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In: Safe and Sustainable Use of Arsenic-Contaminated Aquifers in the Gangetic Plain. - Cham : Springer Publishing Company. - 9783319161242 - 9783319161235 ; , s. 111-123
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Tectonic evolution of Himalayas is related to high erosional potential and substantial sediment transport. Fluvial deposition of clastic material in the Middle Gangetic plain (MGP) is mainly governed by crustal deformation and climatic condition of Himalayas (Singh M, Singh IB, Müller G, Geomorphology 86:144-175, 2007). Seven large Asian rivers-Ganga, Indus, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Huang He or Yellow River, Salween and Mekong-are fed by Himalayan glaciers which are supplying ~30 % of the global sediments to the ocean (Milliman JD, Meade RH, J Geol 9:1-19, 1983; Singh VB, Ramanathan AL, Pottakkal JG, Kumar M, J Asian Earth Sci 79:224-234, 2014, 2005). High flux of sediment transported from different terrain of Himalayas is product of geologically young rock formation (Singh VB, Ramanathan AL, Pottakkal JG, Kumar M, J Asian Earth Sci 79:224-234, 2014). It provides an opportunity to study the fluvial system and post-depositional changes in sediment water interaction depending on the degree of mobility of element under the altered environmental conditions. Arsenic (As) contamination of groundwater is a global problem. Understanding of As mobilization from sediments to As-contaminated aquifers is important for water quality management in areas of MGP of India.
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| 2. |
- Mukesh Kumar, Awasthi, et al.
(author)
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A critical review of organic manure biorefinery models toward sustainable circular bioeconomy: Technological challenges, advancements, innovations, and future perspectives
- 2019
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In: Renewable & sustainable energy reviews. - : Elsevier BV. - 1364-0321 .- 1879-0690. ; , s. 115-131
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Total livestock emissions account for up to 14.5% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Counteractive measures, such as circular economy concepts and negative emission technologies are necessary to limit global warming below 1.5 °C. Possible treatment options for organic manure include anaerobic digestion, combustion, gasification, hydrothermal liquefaction and composting. The choice of treatment varies depending on the economics, the requirement of a specific product, and sociocultural factors. Commercialization of these treatments needs a blend of appropriate technology, feasible economics, policy support and agreeable socio-cultural conditions. Key findings of this study include the following: 1. Increasing scientific awareness about manure management and treatment; 2. Building a sustainable cooperative model to commercialize technologies; 3. Creating a market for manure recycling products; 4. The role of policy in supporting technologies and consumers; and 5. The codigestion of substrates for better efficacy. Current trends show minimal actions in place as opposed to the high-rate of acceleration that is necessary.
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| 3. |
- Forouzanfar, Mohammad H, et al.
(author)
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Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks in 188 countries, 1990-2013 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013.
- 2015
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In: The Lancet. - 0140-6736 .- 1474-547X. ; 386:10010, s. 2287-2323
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- BACKGROUND: The Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factor study 2013 (GBD 2013) is the first of a series of annual updates of the GBD. Risk factor quantification, particularly of modifiable risk factors, can help to identify emerging threats to population health and opportunities for prevention. The GBD 2013 provides a timely opportunity to update the comparative risk assessment with new data for exposure, relative risks, and evidence on the appropriate counterfactual risk distribution.METHODS: Attributable deaths, years of life lost, years lived with disability, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) have been estimated for 79 risks or clusters of risks using the GBD 2010 methods. Risk-outcome pairs meeting explicit evidence criteria were assessed for 188 countries for the period 1990-2013 by age and sex using three inputs: risk exposure, relative risks, and the theoretical minimum risk exposure level (TMREL). Risks are organised into a hierarchy with blocks of behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks at the first level of the hierarchy. The next level in the hierarchy includes nine clusters of related risks and two individual risks, with more detail provided at levels 3 and 4 of the hierarchy. Compared with GBD 2010, six new risk factors have been added: handwashing practices, occupational exposure to trichloroethylene, childhood wasting, childhood stunting, unsafe sex, and low glomerular filtration rate. For most risks, data for exposure were synthesised with a Bayesian meta-regression method, DisMod-MR 2.0, or spatial-temporal Gaussian process regression. Relative risks were based on meta-regressions of published cohort and intervention studies. Attributable burden for clusters of risks and all risks combined took into account evidence on the mediation of some risks such as high body-mass index (BMI) through other risks such as high systolic blood pressure and high cholesterol.FINDINGS: All risks combined account for 57·2% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 55·8-58·5) of deaths and 41·6% (40·1-43·0) of DALYs. Risks quantified account for 87·9% (86·5-89·3) of cardiovascular disease DALYs, ranging to a low of 0% for neonatal disorders and neglected tropical diseases and malaria. In terms of global DALYs in 2013, six risks or clusters of risks each caused more than 5% of DALYs: dietary risks accounting for 11·3 million deaths and 241·4 million DALYs, high systolic blood pressure for 10·4 million deaths and 208·1 million DALYs, child and maternal malnutrition for 1·7 million deaths and 176·9 million DALYs, tobacco smoke for 6·1 million deaths and 143·5 million DALYs, air pollution for 5·5 million deaths and 141·5 million DALYs, and high BMI for 4·4 million deaths and 134·0 million DALYs. Risk factor patterns vary across regions and countries and with time. In sub-Saharan Africa, the leading risk factors are child and maternal malnutrition, unsafe sex, and unsafe water, sanitation, and handwashing. In women, in nearly all countries in the Americas, north Africa, and the Middle East, and in many other high-income countries, high BMI is the leading risk factor, with high systolic blood pressure as the leading risk in most of Central and Eastern Europe and south and east Asia. For men, high systolic blood pressure or tobacco use are the leading risks in nearly all high-income countries, in north Africa and the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. For men and women, unsafe sex is the leading risk in a corridor from Kenya to South Africa.INTERPRETATION: Behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks can explain half of global mortality and more than one-third of global DALYs providing many opportunities for prevention. Of the larger risks, the attributable burden of high BMI has increased in the past 23 years. In view of the prominence of behavioural risk factors, behavioural and social science research on interventions for these risks should be strengthened. Many prevention and primary care policy options are available now to act on key risks.FUNDING: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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| 4. |
- Naghavi, Mohsen, et al.
(author)
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Global, regional, and national age-sex specific all-cause and cause-specific mortality for 240 causes of death, 1990-2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013
- 2015
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In: The Lancet. - 1474-547X .- 0140-6736. ; 385:9963, s. 117-171
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Background Up-to-date evidence on levels and trends for age-sex-specifi c all-cause and cause-specifi c mortality is essential for the formation of global, regional, and national health policies. In the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 (GBD 2013) we estimated yearly deaths for 188 countries between 1990, and 2013. We used the results to assess whether there is epidemiological convergence across countries. Methods We estimated age-sex-specifi c all-cause mortality using the GBD 2010 methods with some refinements to improve accuracy applied to an updated database of vital registration, survey, and census data. We generally estimated cause of death as in the GBD 2010. Key improvements included the addition of more recent vital registration data for 72 countries, an updated verbal autopsy literature review, two new and detailed data systems for China, and more detail for Mexico, UK, Turkey, and Russia. We improved statistical models for garbage code redistribution. We used six different modelling strategies across the 240 causes; cause of death ensemble modelling (CODEm) was the dominant strategy for causes with sufficient information. Trends for Alzheimer's disease and other dementias were informed by meta-regression of prevalence studies. For pathogen-specifi c causes of diarrhoea and lower respiratory infections we used a counterfactual approach. We computed two measures of convergence (inequality) across countries: the average relative difference across all pairs of countries (Gini coefficient) and the average absolute difference across countries. To summarise broad findings, we used multiple decrement life-tables to decompose probabilities of death from birth to exact age 15 years, from exact age 15 years to exact age 50 years, and from exact age 50 years to exact age 75 years, and life expectancy at birth into major causes. For all quantities reported, we computed 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs). We constrained cause-specific fractions within each age-sex-country-year group to sum to all-cause mortality based on draws from the uncertainty distributions. Findings Global life expectancy for both sexes increased from 65.3 years (UI 65.0-65.6) in 1990, to 71.5 years (UI 71.0-71.9) in 2013, while the number of deaths increased from 47.5 million (UI 46.8-48.2) to 54.9 million (UI 53.6-56.3) over the same interval. Global progress masked variation by age and sex: for children, average absolute diff erences between countries decreased but relative diff erences increased. For women aged 25-39 years and older than 75 years and for men aged 20-49 years and 65 years and older, both absolute and relative diff erences increased. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the prominent role of reductions in age-standardised death rates for cardiovascular diseases and cancers in high-income regions, and reductions in child deaths from diarrhoea, lower respiratory infections, and neonatal causes in low-income regions. HIV/AIDS reduced life expectancy in southern sub-Saharan Africa. For most communicable causes of death both numbers of deaths and age-standardised death rates fell whereas for most non-communicable causes, demographic shifts have increased numbers of deaths but decreased age-standardised death rates. Global deaths from injury increased by 10.7%, from 4.3 million deaths in 1990 to 4.8 million in 2013; but age-standardised rates declined over the same period by 21%. For some causes of more than 100 000 deaths per year in 2013, age-standardised death rates increased between 1990 and 2013, including HIV/AIDS, pancreatic cancer, atrial fibrillation and flutter, drug use disorders, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, and sickle-cell anaemias. Diarrhoeal diseases, lower respiratory infections, neonatal causes, and malaria are still in the top five causes of death in children younger than 5 years. The most important pathogens are rotavirus for diarrhoea and pneumococcus for lower respiratory infections. Country-specific probabilities of death over three phases of life were substantially varied between and within regions. Interpretation For most countries, the general pattern of reductions in age-sex specifi c mortality has been associated with a progressive shift towards a larger share of the remaining deaths caused by non-communicable disease and injuries. Assessing epidemiological convergence across countries depends on whether an absolute or relative measure of inequality is used. Nevertheless, age-standardised death rates for seven substantial causes are increasing, suggesting the potential for reversals in some countries. Important gaps exist in the empirical data for cause of death estimates for some countries; for example, no national data for India are available for the past decade.
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| 5. |
- Duan, Y., et al.
(author)
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Dynamics of fungal diversity and interactions with environmental elements in response to wheat straw biochar amended poultry manure composting
- 2019
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In: Bioresource Technology. - : Elsevier Ltd. - 0960-8524 .- 1873-2976. ; , s. 410-417
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The fungal dynamics and its correlation with physicochemical and gaseous emission were investigated using metagenomics and Heat map illustrator (HEMI). Five different concentrations of wheat straw biochar (WSB) were applied to poultry manure (PM) and composted for 50 days; those without the WSB treatment were used as a control. The results revealed the dominant phyla to be Chytridiomycota, Mucoromycota, Ascomycota and Basidiomycota, while Batrachochytrium, Rhizophagus, Mucor, and Puccinia were the superior genera. In particular, the diversity of Chytridiomycota and Ascomycota was more abundant among all of the treatments. Overall, the diversity of the fungal species was correspondent, but relative abundance varied significantly among all of the composts. Principle Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) and Non-Metric Multi- Dimensional Scaling (NMDS) indicated that different concentrations of WSB applied treatments have significantly distinct fungal communities. In addition, correlation analyses of fungal interactions with environmental elements via HEMI also indicate a clear difference among the treatments. Ultimately, the relative abundance of fungal composition significantly influenced the PM compost treated by the WSB.
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| 6. |
- Gautam, Mukesh Kumar, et al.
(author)
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Trends of major, minor and rare earth elements in decomposing litter in a cool temperate ecosystem, South Korea
- 2019
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In: Chemosphere. - : Elsevier BV. - 0045-6535 .- 1879-1298. ; 222, s. 214-226
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The decomposition dynamics of 34 different elements in four different litter types (foliar and woody litter) from Pinus densiflora (Korean red pine) and Castanea crenata (Korean chestnut) was investigated in a cool temperate ecosystem using the litterbag method. Two contrasting trends were observed in the dynamics of elements with accumulated mass loss of litter and carbon. Leaf litter of Korean chestnut, which was richer in elements, showed a general decrease in concentrations of elements with accumulated mass loss of litter and carbon on a dry mass basis during decomposition in the field. Other litter types, with initially lower concentrations of elements, exhibited an increase in concentration on a dry mass basis during field incubation. Highest relative increase in the concentration was noticed for the minor elements, and for the woody litters. Concentrations of major and minor elements increased by factors ranging from 1.07 for antimony (Sb) to 853.7 for vanadium (V). Rare earth elements (REE) concentrations increased by factors ranging from 1.04 for scandium (Sc) to 83.5 for thorium (Th). Our results suggest that litter type plays an important role for nutrient dynamics. Results from principal component analysis for major, minor, and rare earth elements showed grouping of elements and high correlation among them (P < 0.05), which suggests a common source. At both sites, element concentrations were high in the soil, especially for REE. This suggests that increase in element concentrations during field incubation probably was due to transfer of elements from soil to the overlying decomposing litter.
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| 7. |
- Kaur, Kuljeet, et al.
(author)
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A Novel Resource Reservation Scheme for Mobile PHEVs in V2G Environment using Game Theoretical Approach
- 2015
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In: IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology. - Piscataway, NJ : IEEE Press. - 0018-9545 .- 1939-9359. ; 64:12, s. 5653-5666
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- With the widespread penetration of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), the overall demand on micro-grids (MGs) may increase manifold in the near future. Unregulated power demands from PHEVs may increase the demand-supply gap at MG. Thus, in order to keep MGs stabilize, and cater the ever growing energy demands, there is a requirement of an intelligent solution to regulate, and manage PHEVs in vehicle-togrid (V2G) environment. Keeping in view the above issues, this paper proposes a novel scheme which aims to regulate PHEVs? charging, and discharging activities based on MGs? day-ahead load curves. These load curves are obtained by utilizing the existing load forecasting techniques such as-fuzzy logic (FL), and artificial neural networks (ANN). Efficient utilization of PHEVs according to these curves may play a vital role in flattening MG?s load profile. Thus, the proposed scheme works by reserving resources such as-time slots, and charging points for PHEVs during peak shaving, and valley filling. Different algorithms pertaining to resource reservation for PHEVs have also been designed. These algorithms employ the concepts of game theory, and 0/1 knapsack problem for supporting peak shaving, and valley filling respectively. Moreover, PHEVs are also utilized when there are transitions from valley filling to peak shaving areas in the load curves, and vice-versa. PHEVs involved in this process have both charging, and discharging capabilities, and are referred as dual-mode PHEVs. The proposed scheme has been tested with respect to various parameters, and its performance was found satisfactory. © 2015 IEEE
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| 8. |
- Kumar, Mukesh, et al.
(author)
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The impact of additional scalar bosons at the LHC
- 2017
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In: HIGH ENERGY PARTICLE PHYSICS WORKSHOP 2016. - : IOP PUBLISHING LTD.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this study we consider an effective model by introducing two hypothetical real scalars, H and chi - a dark matter candidate, where the masses of these scalars are 2m(h) < m(H) < 2m(t) and m(chi) approximate to m(h)/2 with m(h) and m(t) being the Standard Model Higgs boson and top quark masses, respectively. A distortion in the transverse momentum distributions of h in the intermediate region of the spectrum through the processes pp -> H -> h(chi chi) could be observed in this model. An additional scalar, S, has been postulated to explain large H -> h(chi chi) branching ratios, assuming m(h) less than or similar to m(s) less than or similar to mH - m(h) and m(s) > 2m(chi). Furthermore, a scenario of a two Higgs doublet model (2HDM) is introduced and a detailed proposal at the present energies of the Large Hadron Collider to study the extra CP-even (h, H), CP-odd (A) and charged (H-+/-) scalars has been pursued. With possible phenomenological implications, production and decay modes for these scalars are discussed. Based on the mass spectrum of H, A and H-+/-, the production of multi-leptons and Z+jets+missing-energy events are predicted. A specific, Type-II 2HDM model is discussed in detail.
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| 9. |
- Persson, Clas, et al.
(author)
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Electronic Structure and Optical Properties from First-Principles Modeling
- 2015
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In: Copper Zinc Tin Sulfide-Based Thin-Film Solar Cells. - Chichester, UK : John Wiley & Sons. - 9781118437865 - 9781118437872 ; , s. 75-105
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This chapter explores the electronic and optical properties of the kesterite and stannite phases of Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) and Cu2ZnSnSe4 (CZTSe) by means of first-principles modeling. It analyzes the optical properties of CZT(S,Se), in terms of the dielectric function and the optical absorption coefficient. The chapter demonstrates the application of density functional theory (DFT) in conjunction with the Kohn-Sham (KS) equation, utilizing the generalized gradient approximation (GGA), the screened hybrid functional, and the single-electron excitation GW approach, as implemented in the Wien2k and VASP software packages. In the theoretical research on CZT(S,Se) several methods and implementations have been utilized, and it is not surprising to find somewhat deviating results for calculations using similar computational approaches. The chapter briefly discusses these methods. It also describes the crystal and electronic structures of kesterite and stannite phases of CZTS and CZTSe.
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| 10. |
- Scragg, Jonathan, 1983-, et al.
(author)
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Cu–Zn disorder and band gap fluctuations in Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 : Theoretical and experimental investigations
- 2016
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In: Physica status solidi. B, Basic research. - : Wiley. - 0370-1972 .- 1521-3951. ; 253:2, s. 247-254
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 (CZTS(e)) solar cells suffer from low-open-circuit voltages that have been blamed on the existence of band gap fluctuations, with different possible origins. In this paper, we show from both theoretical and experimental standpoints that disorder of Cu and Zn atoms is in all probability the primary cause of these fluctuations. First, quantification of Cu–Zn disorder in CZTS thin films is presented. The results indicate that disorder is prevalent in the majority of practical samples used for solar cells. Then, ab initio calculations for different arrangements and densities of disorder-induced [CuZn + ZnCu] defect pairs are presented and it is shown that spatial variations in band gap of the order of 200 meV can easily be caused by Cu–Zn disorder, which would cause large voltage losses in solar cells. Experiments using Raman spectroscopy and room temperature photoluminescence combined with in situ heat-treatments show that a shift in the energy of the dominant band-to-band recombination pathway correlates perfectly to the order-disorder transition, which clearly implicates Cu–Zn disorder as the cause of band gap fluctuations in CZTS. Our results suggest that elimination or passivation of Cu–Zn disorder could be very important for future improvements in the efficiency of CZTS(e)-based solar cells.
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