Abstract

This paper presents a parametric study on behavior of a shallow foundation resting on pond ash deposit with and without reinforcement. The behavior of foundation resting on the reinforced ash deposit is examined and studied by considering the parameters like effective depth of reinforcement; width of reinforcement; number of reinforcing layers. The parametric study has been performed using three dimensional finite element software, PLAXIS 3D. With the provision of reinforcement, the displacement is reduced as compared to unreinforced case. Also, with the increase in number of reinforcement layers, the bearing capacity of reinforced pond ash foundation is increased. Based on the results obtained, it is concluded that effective placement of reinforcement is observed at a depth of 2.67 B below the foundation for a width of 2B. Also, with the increase in number of layers, the bearing capacity is increased and the optimum provision of number of reinforcing layers is found to be two. Hence, it can be concluded that the performance of shallow foundation is better when pond ash underlying the shallow foundation is reinforced with geosynthetics material.

Abstract

The Western Ghats forms an important watershed for the entire peninsular India, being the source of 37 west flowing rivers and three major east flowing rivers and their numerous tributaries. However, deforestation due to large scale land cover changes has affected the water sustenance in the region evident from the quantity and duration of water availability during post monsoon period. Land use Land cover changes accelerated by unplanned anthropogenic activities have been the prime mover of global warming and consequent changes in the climate. This necessitates appropriate resource management with an understanding of drivers. Geo-visualization of landscape transitions considering the influential agents will aid in formulating strategies to mitigate global warming. Uttara Kannada district in the Central Western Ghats has the distinction of having highest forest cover in the country and this region is now experiencing rapid forest cover changes. Factors inducing changes in the land cover are normalized through fuzzyfication, considered for Multi criteria Evaluation using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) under high protection and low protection scenarios. Likely land use transitions by 2022 across zones based on transitions during 2004–2007, 2007–2010, 2010–2013 was done through cellular automata and Markov chain process (MC). The analyses highlight the loss of forest cover by 66.55–56.76% by 2022 in the coastal zone with escalating population density. Similar situation of 65.98–55.62% decline in Sahyadri region is noticed with execution of dams, hydroelectric projects and monoculture plantations. Lower transitions as compared with the second scenario highlights regulatory framework’s role in protection. However, forests in plain region show loss of 27.38–11.09% in both scenarios due to population pressure and market induced land cover changes. This necessitates policy interventions by the federal government to mitigateforest loss towards sustainable development.

Abstract

ndia and nearby countries in Asia witness major earthquake in recent days and in past. Although after witnessing many earthquakes in past, for aesthetic purpose big window openings in wall and even whole brick wall replaced by glass can be seen in metro cities and suburban areas in cities of India. Opening and aspect ratio in wall plays great role in strength and stiffness of wall and overall behavior of building. Without understanding effect of openings and aspect ratio on strength, stiffness and behavior of wall it can be dangerous to use such practices in construction of building. In this research study, effect of opening and aspect ratio on overall behavior of building has been studied. This numerical study has been done by considering a RC framed brick infill wall using Applied Element method. Applied element method is capable of showing crack initiation, crack propagation till total collapse of building. This research study will focus on importance of placement of opening and consideration of aspect ratio for RC infilled brick masonry building.

Abstract

Methods capable of assessing the vulnerability of houses for future earthquakes are of fundamental importance for the safety and development of an area. As the detailed assessment is limited to number of houses and cost, one of the appraising methods currently used for seismic vulnerability assessment is rapid visual screening (RVS). This methodology has led to determination of risk of an area subjected to an earthquake event. Many codes have limited rapid visual screening to housing typologies like reinforced concrete and Brick masonry structures. This paper delivers an approach on how to perform RVS for five varieties of buildings in Himachal Pradesh state. The RVS scores have been calculated for 9099 buildings and normal distribution curves are plotted for each typology of building to understand the distribution of buildings in Himachal Pradesh. Finally, a new modified format for performing rapid …

Abstract

Post transcriptionally modified nucleotides play an important structural role in RNA by providing additional chemical diversity to the architecture of the constituent nucleotides. To understand the contribution of these modified nucleotides in tertiary interactions that help in RNA folding, we present a systematic investigation of higher order hydrogen bonded structures involving modified nucleotides using bioinformatics based crystal structural database analysis and quantum chemical calculations. Our analysis reveals that 29% of the modified bases that participate in hydrogen-bonding interactions form higher order motifs, which points towards their importance as RNA building blocks. Although greater geometric variations in such motifs are observed in tRNA, they occur most commonly in rRNA, where they may play a role in RNA folding. Characterization of the optimum geometries and binding strengths of the modified …

Abstract

Reverse Watson-Crick G:C basepairs (G:C W:W Trans) occur frequently in different functional RNAs. This is one of the few basepairs whose gas-phase-optimized isolated geometry is inconsistent with the corresponding experimental geometry. Several earlier studies indicate that through post-transcriptional modification, direct protonation, or coordination with Mg2+, accumulation of positive charge near N7 of guanine can stabilize the experimental geometry. Interestingly, recent studies reveal significant variation in the position of putatively bound Mg2+. This, in conjunction with recently raised doubts regarding some of the Mg2+ assignments near the imino nitrogen of guanine, is suggestive of the existence of multiple Mg2+ binding modes for this basepair. Our detailed investigation of Mg2+-bound G:C W:W Trans pairs occurring in high-resolution RNA crystal structures shows that they are found in 14 different …

Abstract

An understanding of the determinants of the thermal stability of thermostable proteins is expected to enable design of enzymes that can be employed in industrial biocatalytic processes carried out at high temperatures. A major factor that has been proposed to stabilize thermostable proteins is the high occurrence of salt bridges. The current study employs free energy calculations to elucidate the thermodynamics of the formation of salt bridge interactions and the temperature dependence, using acetate and methylguanidium ions as model systems. Three different orientations of the methylguanidinium approaching the carboxylate group have been considered for obtaining the free energy profiles. The association of the two ions becomes more favorable with an increase in temperature. The desolvation penalty corresponding to the association of the ion pair is the lowest at high temperatures. The occurrence of …

Abstract

Predictability of river water temperature is a big argument for many environmental applications, hydrology and ecology research. River water temperature mainly depends on several parameters of water bodies such as streamflow, Dissolved Oxygen (DO), oxidation reduction potential, pollutant temperature, thermal effluent discharges, ground water interactions and its surrounding atmosphere. Commonly, the river water temperature always has been correlated with air temperature as a substitute due to the ease of applicability for rivers with some limitations over detailed meteorological and thermal data. In addition to air temperature the most influencing component of water body is streamflow which is having strong response towards the water temperature. An evaluation of integrated river water temperature and streamflow fluctuations is proposed to evidence biological activity, chemical specimen, oxygen solubility, self-purification capacity of a river system and variation of flows due to hydro-climatic changes. Prediction of river water temperature at various locations over a river basin is vital for the water quality management. The present study aims to estimate the river water temperature (RWT) under air temperature changes and local to regional anthropogenic activities of streamflow over Krishna river basin, India. A standardized multi-linear regression model is developed for predicting river water temperature over various discharge locations of the Krishna river basin. The performance of the model was tested mainly for 8 stations using historical daily data of river temperature, air temperature and river discharges from 1991 to 2005. The attainment of a model is carried out for these stations with air temperature, stream flows are predictors whereas water temperature as predictability component through training, testing. In this study the correlation coefficients between air minimum, maximum and average temperature with river water temperature are determined for selecting the possible air temperature variable to be considered in the analysis. The correlation coefficients are obtained with air minimum temperature (r = 0.541-0.772), air maximum temperature (r= 0.267-0.613) and air average temperature (r = 0.463-0.715) for all stations and it is observed that air minimum has the highest correlation coefficient value and it could be suitable for modeling. The performance of the multi-linear regression model for training and testing was obtained in terms of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE = 0.934 to 4.556), Correlation of determination (R = 0.984 and 0.986).

Abstract

This document describes a web security model to analyse cross origin requests and block them using CORP, a browser security policy proposed for mitigating Cross Origin Request Attacks (CORA) such as CSRF, Clickjacking, Web application timing, etc. CORP is configured by website administrators and sent as an HTTP response header to the browser. A browser which is CORP-enabled will interpret the policy and enforce it on all cross-origin HTTP requests originating from other tabs of the browser, thus preventing malicious crossorigin requests. In this document we use Alloy, a finite state model finder, to formalize a web security model to analyse malicious cross-origin attacks and verify that CORP can be used to mitigate such attacks.

Abstract

On March 27, 2015, Github witnessed a massive DDoS attack, the largest in Github's history till date. In this incident, browsers and users were used as vectors to launch the attack. In this paper, we analyse such browser-based DDoS attacks and simulate them in a lab environment. Existing browser security policies like Same Origin Policy (SOP), Content Security Policy (CSP) do not mitigate these attacks by design. In this paper we observe that CORP (Cross Origin Request Policy), a browser security policy, can be used to mitigate these attacks. CORP enables a server to control cross-origin interactions initiated by a browser. The browser intercepts the cross-origin requests and blocks unwanted requests by the server. This takes the load off the server to mitigate the attack.