Web based Generation of Polycross Designs (webPD)

Careful choice of parental lines and efficient mating designs form the backbone to a successful plant breeding programme. Objectives of the study, nature of genotypes, pollination type, space, cost, heterogeneity present in the field, wind direction, etc. are some of the deciding factors of a mating design. For wind pollinated species, a group of selected genotypes are to be arranged in isolated blocks/rows and columns such that each genotype gets an equal chance of pollinating, or being pollinated by, any of the others. Different types of designs for polycross trials are conducted for different situations like octa neighbour balanced polycross designs, designs for directional wind system, neighbour restricted polycross designs, etc. For ready referencing and potential use of these designs, online software for generation of these designs is highly desirable. In this paper, the development of a web solution for generation of different classes of polycross designs based on client–server architecture has been discussed. The software webPD is easily accessible at any time from any arbitrary platform throughout the globe through the use of internet. This software provides freely available solution for the researchers, breeders and students working in this area

Statistical designs for fitting response surfaces incorporating neighbour effects

Not AvailableResponse Surface Methodology (RSM) approximates the relationship between one or more response variables and a set of experimental variables or factors. In RSM, it is generally assumed that the observations are independent and there is no effect of neighbouring units. But under the situation when the units are placed linearly with no gaps there is high possibility of overlapping or neighbour effects from the adjacent units. So including these effects into the model is of great importance in deciding the precision of the experiment. Further, availability of resources and size of the experiment is important factor in conducting an experiment. As the size increases, cost involved in conducting the experiment increases, thereby decreasing the precision of the experiment. In this study, response surface designs incorporating neighbour effects have been considered. Method of constructing First Order Rotatable Designs with Differential Neighbour Effects (FORDDNE) has been developed in smaller number of runs.Not Availabl

Designs for fitting Poisson regression model

Experiments related to herbicides or insecticides usually have the objective to find the effective concentration of the chemicals to control weeds or insects and to understand the relationship between the response and explanatory variables. The response is the number or proportion of organisms died and thus, is count data. The present study deals with the problem of developing experimental designs under Poisson regression model, which is a nonlinear model with count data as response. The focus here is to determine the unknown parameters of the model efficiently. The statistical designs generated are saturated and their performance is found better than traditionally used equally spaced designs. A simulation study is presented to demonstrate the application of the generated designs in actual experiment

Package ‘PolycrossDesigns’

A polycross is the pollination by natural hybridization of a group of genotypes, generally selected, grown in isolation from other compatible genotypes in such a way to promote random open pollination. A particular practical application of the polycross method occurs in the production of a synthetic variety resulting from cross-pollinated plants. Laying out these experiments in appropriate designs, known as polycross designs, would not only save experimental resources but also gather more information from the experiment. Different experimental situations may arise in polycross nurseries which may be requiring different polycross designs (Varghese et. al. (2015) . `` Experimental designs for open pollination in polycross trials''). This package contains a function named PD() which generates nine types of polycross designs suitable for various experimental situations

D-Optimal Designs for Exponential and Poisson Regression Models

This paper deals with optimality aspects of block designs balanced for interference effects from neighboring units on both sides under a general non additive model along with random block effects. Here, a class of complete, circular block designs strongly balanced for interference effects has been shown to be universally optimal for the estimation of direct effects and interference effects (left and right) of treatments under a non additive mixed effects model

Cost Effective Two Level Factorial Run Orders for Agricultural Experimentation

Sustainable agriculture systems over the long term satisfies human food, enhances environmental quality, sustain the economic viability of farm operations and thus enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole. Agricultural experimentations over the years are the backbone of sustainable developments and the importance of agricultural experiments are still increasing day by day as the observable phenomena is affected by a combination of several factors. Here factorial experiments plays a crucial role. In the present article, the concept of factorial run order where randomization of the experiment is difficult due to the presence of costly factors in the experiment has been discussed. These factorial run orders can be effective in reducing the cost of the experiments when the experiments involved costly factors

Neighbour Balanced Block Designs (NBBDesigns)

n Neighbour-balanced designs ensure that no treatment is disadvantaged unfairly by its surroundings. The treatment allocation in these designs is such that every treatment appears equally often as a neighbour with every other treatment. Neighbour Balanced Designs are employed when there is a possibility of neighbour effects from treatments used in adjacent experimental units. In the literature, a vast number of such designs have been developed. This package generates some efficient neighbour balanced block designs which are balanced and partially variance balanced for estimating the contrast pertaining to direct and neighbour effects, as well as provides a function for analysing the data obtained from such trials (Azais, J.M., Bailey, R.A. and Monod, H. (1993). ``A catalogue of efficient neighbour designs with border plots''. Biometrics, 49, 1252-1261 ; Tomar, J. S., Jaggi, Seema and Varghese, Cini (2005). ``On totally balanced block designs for competition effects''). This package contains functions named nbbd1(),nbbd2(),nbbd3(),pnbbd1() and pnbbd2() which generates neighbour balanced block designs within a specified range of number of treatment (v). It contains another function named anlys()for performing the analysis of data generated from such trials

Clinical and investigative profile of scrub typhus patients at a tertiary care center in Southern West Bengal, India

Background: Scrub typhus, caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi, is an acute febrile illness with symptoms such as fever, chills, and organ failure. The similar clinical presentation in other common diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, and typhoid fever creates difficulty and delay in the clinical diagnosis of scrub typhus. This delay may increase the risk of scrub typhus complications. In India, it is a public health issue with a paucity of data. Aims and Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the clinical characteristics, outcomes, and prognostic factors of patients with scrub typhus. Materials and Methods: This institutional-based observational, cross-sectional study was conducted among consecutively selected 154 adult patients suffering from scrub typhus at a Medical College Hospital situated in the southern part of West Bengal, India. All data were collected according to a pre-designed proforma. At the end of the study, results were analyzed statistically. Results: Younger, females, and homemakers are more susceptible to scrub typhus, mostly in the post-monsoon season from July to November. The incidence of scrub typhus complications is high in the southern part of West Bengal. The case fatality rate of scrub typhus is 6.5%. Male sex, pre-hospitalization duration of illness more than 7 days, presence of diabetes mellitus, serum creatinine (Scr) more than 1.5 mg/dL, serum bilirubin more than 3 mg/dL, systolic blood pressure below 90 mmHg, altered sensorium, and acute respiratory distress syndrome were associated with poor prognosis. Conclusion: A high degree of clinical suspicion is required for the early diagnosis of scrub typhus and the factors associated with poor prognosis must be considered to reduce morbidity and mortality

Mating plans for breeding trials using generalized row-column designs

Generalized Row-Column (GRC) designs are used where there is more than one unit in each row-column intersection. Mating plan is a systematic procedure of producing the progenies. Diallel and triallel crosses are some examples of mating plans. In literature there are many mating plans which are developed using block/row-column designs. The objective of the present study is to obtain mating plans using GRC designs. The research work has been done at ICAR-IASRI during 2019-20. Here, methods of obtaining partial diallel crosses (PDC) and partial triallel crosses (PTC) plans using different classes of GRC designs have been described. The plans obtained using these designs will yield smaller degree of fractionation thereby reducing resources

संकर उल्पादन के लिए आंशिक त्रि-पथ क्रॉस योजनायें (Partial Three-way Cross Plans for Hybrid Production)

संकर उल्पादन के लिए आंशिक त्रि-पथ क्रॉस योजनायें (PartialThree-way Cross Plans for Hybrid Production) The selection of appropriate parental lines and crossing plans are the most important keys for success in the area of hybrid production.Three-way cross breeding has been a major tool for the development of present day commercial hybrids.Three-way crosses are intermediate between two-way and four-way cross hybrids with respect to uniformity, yield, stability and the relative simplicity of selecting and testing. Three-way cross hybrids are more stable and they exhibit individual as well as population buffering mechanism because of the broad genetic base. As the number of lines increases number of crosses also increases and hence in such situation taking a sample from all possible three-way crosses, known as partial three-way cross, is always economical. Here, a method of constructing Partial Three-way Cross designs has been developed. The method is based on BIB designs. The efficiency factor pertaining to general combining ability effects of half parents as well as full parents in comparison to a Complete Three-way Cross plan, assuming constant error variance over both the cases, has been computed and is found to be very good. The method is illustrated through an example