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Coal mining is one of the core industries that contribute to the economic development of a country but deteriorate the environment. Being the primary source of energy coal has become essential to meet the energy demand of a country. It is excavated by both opencast and underground mining methods and affects the environment, especially water resources, by discharging huge amounts of mine water. The mine water may be acidic or neutral depending upon the pyrite content in the coal as inorganic impurities. Acid mine drainage occurs in those mines in which sulphur content is found in the range of 1-5% in the form of Pyrite (FeS sub(2)). It degrades the water quality of the region in terms of lowering the pH of the surrounding water resources and increasing the level of total suspended solids, total dissolved solids and some heavy metals. In non acidic mines, water quality shows high hardness, TSS and bacterial contaminants. The leachate water from overburden dump are found enriched in metal concentration especially Fe, Cu, Mn and Ni except in one of the clayey dumps. High values of hardness of mine water reduces it's utility in domestic purposes. The article illustrates the quality of acidic and non acidic mine water and leachate characteristics of opencast coal mining OB dumps. Pollutants such as TSS, TDS, oil and grease and heavy metal are found in the coal mining waste effluents. Management of these liquid waste at the primary level and secondary level have also been suggested to control the pollution level at the source.

Climate change is a major threat to biodiversity as many species are facing the risk of extinction due to their inability to adapt to the changes in temperature, precipitation, and other environmental variables. The impact of climate change on the habitat distribution of Taxus wallichiana, a medicinally important endangered tree species, has not been studied specifically for the Indian Himalayan region (IHR). We assessed the vulnerability of the species to climate change using Ecological Niche Modeling (ENM) in conjunction with two latest global climate models (GCMs) viz., HadGEM3-GC31-LL and IPSL-CM6A-LR, under two future scenarios i.e. Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) - SSP126 and SSP585 from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, 2023. Based on current distribution of the species and bioclimatic conditions., the Maxent-derived projections indicated significant reduction in its suitable habitat in IHR. Under the moderate scenario i.e. SSP126, suitable habitats are expected to decrease to 6,313,494 ha (10.62% of the total geographical area of IHR) with HadGEM3-GC31-LL and to 4,161,437 ha (7.00%) with IPSL-CM6A-LR from the present distribution area of 8,132,637 ha (13.68%). Under high-emission SSP585 scenario, the predicted habitat area is expected to decline to 4,833,212 ha (8.13%) with HadGEM3-GC31-LL and to 3,204,306 ha (5.39%) with IPSL-CM6A-LR.Annual mean temperature, isothermality, and annual precipitation were important environmental variables impacting the species distribution and models’ predictive capacity. The model outputs clearly predict a gloomy picture under both the future climate scenarios for T. wallichiana emphasizing the need for a targeted conservation effort for the species. .

A bstract Using 983.0 fb − 1 and 427.9 fb − 1 data samples collected with the Belle and Belle II detectors at the KEKB and SuperKEKB asymmetric energy e + e − colliders, respectively, we present studies of the Cabibbo-favored decays and , and the singly Cabibbo-suppressed decay . The ratios of branching fractions of and relative to that of are measured for the first time, while the ratio is also determined and improved by an order of magnitude in precision. The measured branching fraction ratios are Additionally, the ratio is measured to be 0 . 068 ± 0 . 010 ± 0 . 004. Here, the first and second uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively. Multiplying the ratios by the branching fraction of the normalization mode, , we obtain the following absolute branching fractions where the third uncertainties are from .

A bstract Using the data samples of 102 million Υ(1 S ) and 158 million Υ(2 S ) events collected by the Belle detector, we search for a pentaquark state in the pJ/ψ final state from Υ(1 , 2 S ) inclusive decays. Here, the charge-conjugate is included. We observe clear pJ/ψ production in Υ(1 , 2 S ) decays and measure the branching fractions to be and . We also measure the cross section of inclusive pJ/ψ production in e + e − annihilation to be σ ( e + e − → pJ/ψ + anything ) = [108 ± 11( stat. ) ± 6( syst. )] fb at GeV using an 89 . 5 fb − 1 continuum data sample. There is no significant P c (4312) + , P c (4440) + or P c (4457) + signal found in the pJ/ψ final states in Υ(1 , 2 S ) inclusive decays. We determine the upper limits of to be at the 10 − 6 level.

A bstract We measure the cross section of e + e − → η c J/ψ at the Υ( nS )( n = 1–5) on-resonance and 10.52 GeV off-resonance energy points using the full data sample collected by the Belle detector with an integrated luminosity of 955 fb − 1 . We also search for double charmonium production in e + e − → η c J/ψ via initial state radiation near the η c J/ψ threshold. No evident signal of the double charmonium state is found, but evidence for the e + e − → η c J/ψ process is found with a statistical significance greater than 3 . 3 σ near the η c J/ψ threshold. The average cross section near the threshold is measured and upper limits of cross sections are set for other regions.

The present study deals with groundwater prospecting in hardrock terrain. Initially, the Wenner–Schlumberger array and the dipole–dipole array data have been acquired using Syscal Junior Switch-48. Furthermore, data acquired using both arrays have been merged using Prosys-II data handling software for the inversion of the cumulative data for possible mapping of water-bearing fracture rock masses with different structural distribution in a complex geological environment. The data have been analysed using RES2DINV software, based on the smoothness constrained least-square technique. Two numbers of 2D electrical resistivity tomography profiles (AA ′ and BB ′ ) have been selected over an official colony of the Turamdih uranium mine for groundwater prospecting, which is located at about 24 km west of Jaduguda, Jharkhand, India. High-resistivity features associated with a dyke-like structure have been delineated in both the profiles. Three low-resistivity features have been delineated as water saturated alluvium/aquifers in profile AA ′ . A low-resistivity feature associated with the water-saturated fracture zone has been identified in profile BB ′ , which is well correlated with the surficial location of an ephemeral channel at the bottom of the hill across the slope. It is observed that geoelectric sections generated by the inversion of cumulative data of both arrays provide superior results compared with the Wenner–Schlumberger and dipole–dipole arrays, separately.

A bstract We present a measurement of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa unitarity triangle angle ϕ 3 (also known as γ ) using a model-independent Dalitz plot analysis of B + → D ( K S 0 h + h − ) h + , where D is either a D 0 or D ¯ 0 meson and h is either a π or K . This is the first measurement that simultaneously uses Belle and Belle II data, combining samples corresponding to integrated luminosities of 711 fb − 1 and 128 fb − 1 , respectively. All data were accumulated from energy-asymmetric e + e − collisions at a centre-of-mass energy corresponding to the mass of the Υ(4 S ) resonance. We measure ϕ 3 = (78 . 4 ± 11 . 4 ± 0 . 5 ± 1 . 0)°, where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second is the experimental systematic uncertainty and the third is from the uncertainties on external measurements of the D -decay strong-phase parameters.

The Sukinda Valley of the Jajpur district of Odisha produces 98 % of India’s chromite ore. The region’s groundwater and Damsal Nala, the valley’s primary stream, have been contaminated by Cr(VI) due to surface runoff and leachates from overburden dumps. Samples of mine water, surface water, and groundwater were analyzed. The concentration of total Cr in the mine water ranged from 0.46 to 1.26 mg/L before treatment and between 0.03 and 0.45 mg/L after treatment. Effluent Cr(VI) ranged between 0.02 and 0.3 mg/L. Thus, discharge water at some mine sites still contain Cr(VI) at concentrations above the permissible effluent limits of 0.1 mg/L for inland surface water. Concentrations of Cr(VI) ranged from 0.02 to 0.23 mg/L in the Damsal Nala and nil to 0.13 mg/L in tube well water, sometimes exceeding the permissible limits, but were acceptable in dug wells. Pearson’s correlation analysis revealed that Cr(VI) positively correlated with sulfate (0.854) in surface water, hardness (0.379) and pH (0.361) in groundwater, and total Cr (0.970) in mine water.

In this work, a comprehensive field study was carried out to measure the background air quality status and identify the air pollution sources from opencast mines around a heritage site in India. Air quality modeling was conducted to envisage dust concentration due to existing and closed mines in the region. The air quality modeling exercise pre-dicted that particulate-matter levels of PM10 and PM2.5 might increase in the ranges of 3.2 to 23.1 and 2.1 to 8.9 µg/m3, respectively, due to mining activities when some of the closed mines will be operated in the region without controlled emission. The predicted total PM10 and PM2.5 at the selected receptor locations were in the ranges of 86.39 to 194.89 and 34.82 to 99.55 µg/m3, respectively. Adequate measures were suggested to control air pollution from mining activities, and an intelligent dry fog system was designed to suppress dust emission efficiently from mineral processing plants and opencast mines. The developed system has special features for facilitating eco-friendly mining.