• Title/Summary/Keyword: Indian subcontinent

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The Indian Ocean Scenario in the 14th Century Latin Crusade Tract: Possibilities of a World Historical Approach

  • Chakravarti, Ranabir
    • Asian review of World Histories
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    • v.3 no.1
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    • pp.37-58
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    • 2015
  • The paper examines, in the light of current historiography, the recent trends in the application and applicability of the World Historical studies on the Indian Ocean scenario. Calling for the combination of the breadth of the World Historical studies with the analysis of a historical scenario in its specific spatio-temporal context-instead of a synchronic approach-the present study takes a close look at commerce and politics in the western Indian Ocean in the light of an early 14th century Latin Crusade tract, How to Defeat the Saracens by William of Adam (Guillelmus Ade, Tractatus quomodo Sarraceni sunt expugnandi), a Dominican friar. The text offers remarkable insights into the interlocking of the Indian Ocean and the South Asian subcontinent with the Mamluk Sultanate, the Ilkhanid realm and the Crusades. The paper argues for what is now termed as braided and connected histories.

Prevalence of Oral Pre-malignant Lesions and its Risk Factors in an Indian Subcontinent Low Income Migrant Group in Qatar

  • Kavarodi, Abdul Majeed;Thomas, Mary;Kannampilly, Johnny
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.15 no.10
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    • pp.4325-4329
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    • 2014
  • Background: The expatriate population in Qatar largely comprises workers from the Indian subcontinent which has a very high rate of oral malignancy. Social and cultural habits and as well premalignant risk factors in this population remain prevalent even after migration. Materials and Methods: This cross sectional study assessed the prevalence of risk factors and occurrence of oral precancerous lesions in a low income group expatriate community from the Indian subcontinent residing in Qatar. Results: Among the 3,946 participants screened for oral premalignant lesions 24.3% (958) were smokers and 4.3 % (169) were pan chewers while 6.3% (248) were users of both smoked and smokeless forms of tobacco. Significantly higher proportion of industrial laborers (49.9%) followed by drivers (24.1%) were found to be smokers (p=0.001). The prevalence of white lesions was higher in smokers versus non-smokers 3.5% versus 2.3% (p=0.111), however this difference was statistically non-significant. Red and white lesions were highly significant (i.e. 1.2 % and 10.9% respectively) in the subjects with pan chewing and smoking habits (p=0.001). A significant proportion (8.9%) of the subjects with pan chewing habit showed evidence of oral precancerous lesions (p=0.001). Conclusions: Even though smoking and pan chewing were two significant risk factors detected in this population, their prevalence and occurrence of premalignant lesions are low as compared to the studies conducted in their home countries.

Sensitivity of Indian Summer Monsoon Precipitation to Parameterization Schemes

  • Singh, G.P.
    • The Korean Journal of Quaternary Research
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    • v.24 no.1
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    • pp.1-10
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    • 2010
  • The Indian summer monsoon behaved an abnormal way in 2002 and as a result there was a large deficiency in precipitation (especially in July) over a large part of the Indian subcontinent. For the study of deficient monsoon of 2002, a recent version of the NCAR regional climate model (RegCM3) has been used to examine the important features of summer monsoon circulations and precipitation during 2002. The main characteristics of wind fields at lower level (850 hPa) and upper level (200 hPa) and precipitation simulated with the RegCM3 over the Indian subcontinent are studied using different cumulus parameterization schemes namely, mass flux schemes, a simplified Kuo-type scheme and Emanuel (EMU) scheme. The monsoon circulation features simulated by RegCM3 are compared with the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis and simulated precipitation is validated against observation from the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC). Validation of the wind fields at lower and upper levels show that the use of Arakawa and Schubert (AS) closure in Grell convection scheme, a Kuo type and Emanuel schemes produces results close to the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis. Similarly, precipitation simulated with RegCM3 over different homogeneous zones of India with the AS closure in Grell is more close to the corresponding observed monthly and seasonal values. RegcM3 simulation also captured the spatial distribution of deficient rainfall in 2002.

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Simulation of anomalous Indian Summer Monsoon of 2002 with a Regional Climate Model

  • Singh, G.P.;Oh, Jai-Ho
    • The Korean Journal of Quaternary Research
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    • v.22 no.1
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    • pp.13-22
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    • 2008
  • The Indian summer monsoon behaved in an abnormal way in 2002 and as a result there was a large deficiency in precipitation (especially in July) over a large part of the Indian subcontinent. For the study of deficient monsoon of 2002, a recent version of the NCAR regional climate model (RegCM3) has been used to examine the important features of summer monsoon circulations and precipitation during 2002. The main characteristics of wind fields at lower level (850 hPa) and upper level (200 hPa) and precipitation simulated with the RegCM3 over the Indian subcontinent are studied using different cumulus parameterization schemes namely, mass flux schemes, a simplified Kuo-type scheme and Emanuel (EMU) scheme. The monsoon circulation features simulated by RegCM3 are compared with the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis and simulated precipitation is validated against observation from the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC). Validation of the wind fields at lower and upper levels shows that the use of Arakawa and Schubert (AS) closure in Grell convection scheme, a Kuo type and Emanuel schemes produces results close to the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis. Similarly, precipitation simulated with RegCM3 over different homogeneous zones of India with the AS closure in Grell is more close to the corresponding observed monthly and seasonal values. RegcM3 simulation also captured the spatial distribution of deficient rainfall in 2002.

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Inhibition of Oxidative Stress and Enhancement of Cellular Activity by Mushroom Lectins in Arsenic Induced Carcinogenesis

  • Rana, Tanmoy;Bera, Asit Kumar;Das, Subhashree;Bhattacharya, Debasis;Pan, Diganta;Das, Subrata Kumar
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.17 no.9
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    • pp.4185-4197
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    • 2016
  • Chronic arsenicosis is a major environmental health hazard throughout the world, including India. Animals and human beings are affected due to drinking of arsenic contaminated ground water, due to natural mineral deposits, arsenical pesticides or improperly disposed arsenical chemicals. Arsenic causes cancer with production of free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS) that are neutralized by an elaborate antioxidant defense system consisting of enzymes and numerous non-enzymatic antioxidants. Dietary antioxidant supplements are useful to counteract the carcinogenesis effects of arsenic. Oyster mushroom lectins can be regarded as ingredients of popular foods with biopharmaceutical properties. A variety of compounds have been isolated from mushrooms, which include polysaccharides and polysaccharopeptides with immune-enhancing effects. Lectins are beneficial in reducing arsenic toxicity due to anticarcinogenetic roles and may have therapeutic application in people suffering from chronic exposure to arsenic from natural sources, a global problem that is especially relevant to millions of people on the Indian subcontinent.

Causal Relationship Between Indian Ports' Originated Container Traffic and Total Transshipments of Port of Colombo: A Granger Causality Analysis

  • Bandara, Sooriya;Ryoo, Dong-Keun;Ahn, Ki-Myung
    • Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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    • v.42 no.5
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    • pp.357-364
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    • 2018
  • Colombo noticeably became the most economical gateway to the Indian subcontinent, in terms of cost as well as time. The Colombo Port Expansion Project (CPEP) started commencement with the purpose of accommodating mega ships, under the long-term strategies of making Colombo the hub of South Asia. In this context, the purpose of this study is to investigate the causal relationship between Indian ports' originated container traffic, and total transshipments of the port of Colombo, and also to identify the nature of the causality between the two variables, evaluating Granger causality test results. It finds unidirectional causality from total transshipments of Colombo to Indian ports' originated transshipments in the port of Colombo. It suggested that ongoing port expansion projects, opening up for new markets and attracting new shipping lines in the port of Colombo, have generated significant impact on Indian ports' container traffic, via the port of Colombo. Findings would be valuable for future forecasting of container traffic in Colombo port and the policy-making process in the port as well.

Building a text collection for Urdu information retrieval

  • Rasheed, Imran;Banka, Haider;Khan, Hamaid M.
    • ETRI Journal
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    • v.43 no.5
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    • pp.856-868
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    • 2021
  • Urdu is a widely spoken language in the Indian subcontinent with over 300 million speakers worldwide. However, linguistic advancements in Urdu are rare compared to those in other European and Asian languages. Therefore, by following Text Retrieval Conference standards, we attempted to construct an extensive text collection of 85 304 documents from diverse categories covering over 52 topics with relevance judgment sets at 100 pool depth. We also present several applications to demonstrate the effectiveness of our collection. Although this collection is primarily intended for text retrieval, it can also be used for named entity recognition, text summarization, and other linguistic applications with suitable modifications. Ours is the most extensive existing collection for the Urdu language, and it will be freely available for future research and academic education.

Biodiversity and Conservation of Indian Sheep Genetic Resources - An Overview -

  • Bhatia, S.;Arora, R.
    • Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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    • v.18 no.10
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    • pp.1387-1402
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    • 2005
  • Indian subcontinent is a rich source of diverse ovine germplasm, and only very few countries have such a large number of breeds with wide genetic diversity. This vast ovine biodiversity in India is being eroded rapidly and more than 50% of sheep breeds are currently under threat. It is noteworthy that the characterization of Indian sheep breeds was last done in the first half of the century since then no recent estimates are available and surveys in majority of the regions/breeds are far from complete. Starting in 1985 National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources (NBAGR), Karnal, India, therefore, initiated activities aimed at determining the status and compiling information on indigenous farm animals including sheep. This report represents attempts made to date on the basis of field/literature surveys and additional activities on molecular characterization to ascertain their status including distribution, population changes, breed diversities and risk status. The need, mode and mechanisms of conservation are also described. Involvement of several agencies for evaluation, improvement, conservation programmes and recommendations made for effective characterization and conservation of sheep biodiversity are highlighted. This publication would promote action particularly at national level to improve the information base on domestic Indian breeds of sheep and provide input into national domestic sheep diversity conservation policy decisions.

Strong wind climatic zones in South Africa

  • Kruger, A.C.;Goliger, A.M.;Retief, J.V.;Sekele, S.
    • Wind and Structures
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.37-55
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    • 2010
  • In this paper South Africa is divided into strong wind climate zones, which indicate the main sources of annual maximum wind gusts. By the analysis of wind gust data of 94 weather stations, which had continuous climate time series of 10 years or longer, six sources, or strong-wind producing mechanisms, could be identified and zoned accordingly. The two primary causes of strong wind gusts are thunderstorm activity and extratropical low pressure systems, which are associated with the passage of cold fronts over the southern African subcontinent. Over the eastern and central interior of South Africa annual maximum wind gusts are usually caused by thunderstorm gust fronts during summer, while in the western and southern interior extratropical cyclones play the most dominant role. Along the coast and adjacent interior annual extreme gusts are usually caused by extratropical cyclones. Four secondary sources of strong winds are the ridging of the quasi-stationary Atlantic and Indian Ocean high pressure systems over the subcontinent, surface troughs to the west in the interior with strong ridging from the east, convergence from the interior towards isolated low pressure systems or deep coastal low pressure systems, and deep surface troughs on the West Coast.

The Interpreggtation of the Indian Stupa as Origin of Korean Pagoda (탑의 원조 인도 스투파의 형태 해석 - 인도 전역의 현장 답사를 바탕으로 -)

  • Lee, Hee-Bong
    • Journal of architectural history
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    • v.18 no.6
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    • pp.103-126
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    • 2009
  • This study aims to discover historical trends and change of form of all stupas in India with observation of field study that is as direct as possible, by classifying, analyzing, and synthesizing the stupas. Study of Indian stupa in Korea has a number of shortcomings since only introductory partial approach has been made in order to seek the origin of Korean pagoda. This study also aims to correct errors of stupa terminology in Chinese character committed by misinterpretation of Hindi language which was established by precedent Japanese scholars several decades ago. Piled-up stupas were totally destroyed by pagans, therefore their remains tell us only of structure, material, sizeand disposition. However remains of carved stone at torana and drum give us clues as to the original form of stupa and worshipping activity, as well as change to a more luxurious form. Many rock cave stupas of India show us both simple forms matching the ascetic age of early Buddhism and luxurious changes in Mahayanan era introducing us to statues of Buddha. Indians recovered the spheric form of 'anda,' a Hindi term meaning cosmic egg, from the hemispheric form of the piled-up stupa. Therefore we might discard the erratic term of 'bokbal', which means an upset vessel. Railings and parasols became main factors of stupa design. Carved railings around stupa became a sign of divinity. Serious worshipping activity made drums long or high and created multi-embossed stripes. Bases of circular drums of some cave stupas changed their shapes to rectangular or octagonal. Single parasols became multiparasols of affluent flowerlike curved stems on carved stupa. Multistoried, elongated and high parasols of Gandhara stupas are closely related to such factors as diverse changes of form in Indian subcontinent. Four-sided torana gate and ayaka column of the circular form of original stupas suggest the rectangular form of subsequent East Asian pagoda, and higher and wider base of Indian stupas became the origin of East Asian rectangular pagoda.

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