A Study about the Impact of Nutrition Education and Awareness of Food Safety among Women SHG Members

Foods prepared in unorganized sector is unique in India as these measures food processing units are diverse in size and location, in the absence of quality control measures, poor quality packaging material, improper transportation, use of contaminated water, high turn-over of food handlers, lack of personnel hygiene and non judicious use of colorants and preservatives, these unit pose considerable food safety hazards. These days the women Self Help Groups (SHG) are implementing a large number of village cottage industries especially food processing industries. These industries are considered as unorganized sector .These informal sector need food safety education. Hence the present study has been designed with the aim to create awareness amongst women who are involved in food processing trade in unorganized sector with regard to various parameters like adopting food safety and hygienic method, food safety laws for food production.Food Safety; Nutrition Education; Women Self Help Groups; India

Employment, Income and Labour Supply Decision of Rural Households : An Economic Analysis of MGNREGS in Tamil Nadu

In India, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGMGNREGS) is one of the major rural development programmes. It provides guaranteed employment to the rural households for 100 days in a year. This paper has attempted to find out the employment status, income and labour supply decision of the participants and non-participants of MGNREGS in Tamil Nadu. It has also studied the household nutritional security of these households. The study has revealed that the number of migrants in the family, number of livestock units owned, and number of person-days employed in agriculture, nonagriculture and MGNREGS are significantly influenced by the household income of the participants and non-participants of MGNREGS. The analysis of household food-security has shown that the expenditure for all commodities, viz. leisure, cereals, pulses, oils, fruits & vegetables, milk, chicken and fish are positive and significant in the case of MGNREGS participants, whereas the expenditure variable is significant only for two commodities, viz. cereals and oils in case of MGNREGS non-participants. It shows that the MGNREGS participants consume more high-value commodities like milk, chicken and fish, as compared to MGNREGS non-participants. The labour supply decision of sample respondents has shown that the elasticity of labour supply with respect to wage rate is more than one in both participants and non-participants of MGNREGS, indicating that an one per cent increase in wage rate increases labour supply by 1.92 per cent and 2.36 per cent, respectively. In addition, as the number of dependents increases, the household increases labour supply to derive additional income to meet the increased household expenditures. An interesting and encouraging observation is that the scheme has reduced the migration of people from rural to urban areas.MGNREGS, employment, income, labour supply, Agricultural and Food Policy, J21, J22, H23, I31,

Design, development and performance study of six-gap glass MRPC detectors

The Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPCs) are gas ionization detectors with multiple gas sub-gaps made of resistive electrodes. The high voltage (HV) is applied on the outer surfaces of outermost resistive plates only, while the interior plates are left electrically floating. The presence of multiple narrow sub--gaps with high electric field results in faster signals on the outer electrodes, thus improving the detector's time resolution. Due to their excellent performance and relatively low cost, the MRPC detector has found potential application in Time-of-Flight (TOF) systems. Here we present the design, fabrication, optimization of the operating parameters such as the HV, the gas mixture composition, and, performance of six--gap glass MRPC detectors of area 27cm $\times$ 27 cm, which are developed in order to find application as trigger detectors, in TOF measurement etc. The design has been optimized with unique spacers and blockers to ensure a proper gas flow through the narrow sub-gaps, which are 250 $\mu$m wide. The gas mixture consisting of R134A, Isobutane and SF$_{6}$, and the fraction of each constituting gases has been optimized after studying the MRPC performance for a set of different concentrations. The counting efficiency of the MRPC is about 95% at $17.9$ kV. At the same operating voltage, the time resolution, after correcting for the walk effect, is found to be about $219$ ps.Comment: Revised version with 15 pages, 14 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in the European Physical Journal

Development of Railqual:A Service Quality Scale for Measuring Indian Railway Passenger

The main objective of this study is to present a framework developed for assisting Railways to monitor and control the quality of services provided to passengers. The study evaluated the passenger Rail Service quality of Indian Railways by developing RAILQUAL instrument on the basis of SERVQUAL and Rail Transport quality. Three new transport dimensions (comfort, security and convenience) are added to the original five SERVQUAL dimensions (i.e. assurance, empathy, reliability, responsiveness and tangibles). The instrument is tested for reliability and validity. Empirical study was conducted at Secunderabad Railway station of South Central Railway, India, using a purposive sample of 100 respondents. Valid responses from the questionnaire are statistically analyzed by using factor analysis. This study identified the attributes to evaluate the quality of Railway Passenger Services and develops a comprehensive instrument “RAILQUAL”, which can be used by the Railways for collecting feedback from passengers. This study would help the Railways to monitor, control and improve the service. It can also be used as a tool for comparing the performance of various Railway Zones and Divisions across the country.Keywords: Railqual; Service Quality; Indian Railway

An unusual bilateral variation of musculocutaneous nerve.

Musculocutaneous nerve arises from the lateral cord (C5,6,7) of brachial plexus. Communications between the branches of brachial plexus are not so common. During routine dissection, we observed bilateral variation in 60-year-old female cadaver. In the present case, median nerve represented as a musculocutaneous nerve which supplied biceps brachii and brachialis, further continued into forearm as lateral cutaneous nerve of forearm on the right arm. This branch did not pass through coracobrachialis muscle but the coracobrachialis was innervated by a branch from lateral cord of brachial plexus. We also observed an abnormal communicating branch between the musculocutaneous and median nerve on left side of the arm. These kinds of variations are important for surgeons while performing surgeries of axilla and upperlimb