A study of obliquity of femoral shaft in Eastern Indian population.

In the erect posture, femur is not absolute vertical, being separated above from its fellow by a considerable interval, which corresponds to the breadth of the pelvis, and inclines gradually medially and downward, so as to approach its fellow, for the purpose of bringing the knee joints near the line of gravity of the body. In the present study obliquity of femoral shaft measured in 127 dry femora. Mean obliquity of femoral shaft for 62 left sided femora found 8.431 degrees with standard deviation of 2.361 degrees whereas for 65 right sided femora were found to be 7.708 degrees with standard deviation of 2.425 degrees. When total 127 femora considered, mean bicondylar angle of 8.061 +/- 2.412 degrees was obtained. Though statistically insignificant, mean bicondylar angle determined on left side was higher than that on the right side.

True palmar pattern in vitiligo--a case control study.

Characteristic epidermal ridges formed on the finger pad and on the palm by the end of the second trimester and remain unchanged thereafter and those are responsible for the highly specific finger prints of each individual. These ridges are nither influenced by later prenatal period nor they subject to any influence in the postnatal environmental factors because the formation of ridge patterns gets already completed by about the eighteenth week of gestation. Dermatoglyphics is a scientific study of such epidermal ridges. Dermatoglyphic study of both palms of clinically diagnosed vitiligo patients and control subjects were carried out and statisticaltly analysed in respect to sex and side of hands. The study revealed variable number of deviations of this patterns in Vitiligo patients when compared with that of control. Increased number of true palmar patterns in right hypothenar, right thenar and both inter digital areas 2 (ID-2) and decreased TPP in Rt. ID3, Rt. ID4 in vitiligo male patients and increased TPP in Rt. Hypothenar and Rt. ID1 and decreased TPP in Rt. ID2 and Lt. ID 3 in vitiligo female patients while compared with that of the control group. Some of the variations observed were stastically significant.

Precipitation chemistry and occurrence of acid rain over Dhanbad, coal city of India.

The present study investigated the chemical composition of wet atmospheric precipitation over Dhanbad, coal city of India. The precipitation samples were collected on event basis for three years (July 2003 to October 2005) at Central Mining Research Institute. The precipitation samples were analyzed for pH, conductivity, major anions (F, Cl, NO(3), SO(4)) and cations (Ca, Mg, Na, K, NH(4)). The pH value varied from 4.01 to 6.92 (avg. 5.37) indicating acidic to alkaline nature of rainwater. The pH of the rainwater was found well above the reference pH (5.6), showing alkalinity during the non-monsoon and early phase of monsoon, but during the late phase of monsoon, pH tendency was towards acidity (<5.6 pH) indicating the non-availability of proper neutralizer for acidic ions. The observed acidic events at this site were 91, (n = 162) accounting 56% for the entire monitoring months. The (NO(3) + Cl)/SO(4) ratio in majority of samples was found below 1.0, indicating that the acidity is greatly influenced by SO(4). The calculated ratio of (Ca + NH(4))/(NO(3) + SO(4)) ranges between 0.42-5.13 (average 1.14), however in most of the samples, the ratio is greater than unity (>1.0) indicating that Ca and NH(4) play an important role in neutralization of acidic ions in rainwater. Ca and SO(4) dominate the bulk ionic deposition and these two ions along with NH(4) accounts 63% of the annual ionic deposition.

Validation of two air quality models for Indian mining conditions.

All major mining activity particularly opencast mining contributes to the problem of suspended particulate matter (SPM) directly or indirectly. Therefore, assessment and prediction are required to prevent and minimize the deterioration of SPM due to various opencast mining operations. Determination of emission rate of SPM for these activities and validation of air quality models are the first and foremost concern. In view of the above, the study was taken up for determination of emission rate for SPM to calculate emission rate of various opencast mining activities and validation of commonly used two air quality models for Indian mining conditions. To achieve the objectives, eight coal and three iron ore mining sites were selected to generate site specific emission data by considering type of mining, method of working, geographical location, accessibility and above all resource availability. The study covers various mining activities and locations including drilling, overburden loading and unloading, coal/mineral loading and unloading, coal handling or screening plant, exposed overburden dump, stock yard, workshop, exposed pit surface, transport road and haul road. Validation of the study was carried out through Fugitive Dust Model (FDM) and Point, Area and Line sources model (PAL2) by assigning the measured emission rate for each mining activity, meteorological data and other details of the respective mine as an input to the models. Both the models were run separately for the same set of input data for each mine to get the predicted SPM concentration at three receptor locations for each mine. The receptor locations were selected such a way that at the same places the actual filed measurement were carried out for SPM concentration. Statistical analysis was carried out to assess the performance of the models based on a set measured and predicted SPM concentration data. The value of coefficient of correlation for PAL2 and FDM was calculated to be 0.990-0.994 and 0.966-0.997, respectively, which shows a fairly good agreement between measured and predicted values of SPM concentration. The average index of agreement values for PAL2 and FDM was found to be 0.665 and 0.752, respectively, which represents that the prediction by PAL2 and FDM models are accurate by 66.5 and 75.2%, respectively. These indicate that FDM model is more suited for Indian mining conditions.