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In the present paper, a methodology has been developed for the mapping of snow cover in Beas basin, Indian Himalaya using AWiFS (IRS-P6) satellite data. The complexities in the mapping of snow cover in the study area are snow under vegetation, contaminated snow and patchy snow.To overcome these problems, field measurements using spectroradiometer were carried out and reflectance/snow indices trend were studied. By evaluation and validation of different topographic correction models, it was observed that, the normalized difference snow index (NDSI) values remain constant with the variations in slope and aspect and thus NDSI can take care of topography effects. Different snow cover mapping methods using snow indices are compared to find the suitable mapping technique. The proposed methodology for snow cover mapping uses the NDSI (estimated using planetary reflectance), NIR band reflectance and forest/vegetation cover information. The satellite estimated snow or non-snow pixel information using proposed methodology was validated with the snow cover information collected at three observatory locations and it was found that the algorithm classify all the sample points correctly, once that pixel is cloud free. The snow cover distribution was estimated using one year (2004-05) cloud free satellite data and good correlation was observed between increase/decrease areal extent of seasonal snow cover and ground observed fresh snowfall and standing snow data.

Pellets of ceramic, Na 1-x K x NbO 3 (x = 0, 0⋅ ⋅2 and 0⋅ ⋅5), were prepared by conventional solid-state reaction method. Prepared samples were characterized using XRD and SEM. The frequency and temperature variation of dielectric constant, loss tangent and dielectric conductivity of prepared samples were measured in the frequency range from 10 KHz-1 MHz, and in the temperature range from 50-250°C for x = 0⋅ ⋅2 and 0⋅ ⋅5, and between 50 and 480°C for x = 0 compositions. It was observed that the dielectric constant and loss tangent decrease, and conductivity increases with increasing frequency. Near the transition temperature the material shows anomalous behaviour for the observed properties, and the peaks of dielectric constant and loss tangent were observed shifting towards lower temperature with increasing frequency.

An expression is obtained for the lattice thermal conductivity of an anharmonic crystal by the method of double-time Green's functions using the energy-flux operator propounded by Hardy. The study uses cubic and quartic anharmonic terms in the crystal Hamiltonian.It is found that the nondiagonal part of the energy-flux operator gives a finite contribution to the transport of energy, though its contribution is small compared to that from the diagonal part.