Agro-morphological Diversity of High Altitude Bean Landraces in the Kailash Sacred Landscape of Nepal

Many varieties of bean are widely grown across diverse agro-ecological zones in Nepal. And opportunities exist for improving the crops and enhancing their resilience to various biotic and abiotic stressors. In this context, an experiment was conducted from June to October 2016 in Khar VDC of Darchula district to study the phenotypic traits of nine landraces of bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.). The bean landraces were planted using randomized complete block design in three sites (Dhamidera, Dallekh and Sundamunda villages), with three replications in each site for their comparative analysis. The study considered the following phenotypic traits: days to emergence, days to 50% flowering, days to 90% pod maturity, number of nodes, pod length, pod width, number of pods, number of seeds per pod and weight and grain yield for 100 seeds. Kruskal-Wallis test showed significant differences in the landraces both within and among locations. KA-17-08-FB and KA-17-04-FB were late  flowering (63 and 65 days respectively) compared to other landraces whereas KA-17-07-FB flowered earliest (within 42 days). In all three sites, three landraces namely KA-17-07-FB, KA-17-04-FB and KA-17-06-FB were found to be relatively more resistant to pest and diseases than other landraces. Eight out of nine landraces in Dhamidera and Dallekh villages and seven out of nine in Sundamunda village produced seeds greater than 1.0 t/ha. Among the nine varieties KA-17-02-FB was the highest yielding variety, with an average yield of 3.8 t/ha. This study is useful for identifying suitable landraces for future promotion based on their maturity, grain yield, diseases resistance and other qualitative and quantitative characteristics

Heterosis in Bitter Gourd (Momordica charantia L.)

The present investigation was conducted to determine heterosis in 6 lines and 4 tester crosses of bitter gourd, where the six lines used were MC-84 (L1), S-17 (L2), JMC-21 (L3), NDBT-15(L4), VRBT-94 (L5) and Gy-1 (L6) and the four testers were VRBT-6-9 (T1), JMC-22 (T2), VRBT-89 (T3) and MC-56 (T4). Most of the crosses failed to manifest significant heterosis for many of the horticultural traits but traits, like vine length and fruit length showed positive significant heterosis, while, days to first appearance of female flower manifested negative significant heterosis in several crosses. Two crosses, namely, MC-84 x VRBT-6-9 and MC-84 x JMC-22 were identified to have potential in terms of yield, whereas two more crosses viz., S-17 x VRBT-6-9 and S-17 x JMC-22 were found superior in terms of powdery mildew resistance

Energy Assessment of Different Weed Management Practices for Rice-Wheat Cropping System in India

Rosana G. Moreira, Editor-in-Chief; Texas A&M UniversityThis is a paper from International Commission of Agricultural Engineering (CIGR, Commission Internationale du Genie Rural) E-Journal Volume 8 (2006): Energy Assessment of Different Weed Management Practices for Rice-Wheat Cropping System in India. Manuscript EE 05 008. Vol.VIII. February, 2006

Genetic Variability in Bitter Gourd (Momordica charantia L.)

The variance analysis for 17 plant characters showed significant differences. Maximum vine length was recorded in IC-85635A. Significantly higher number of primary branches per vine and internodal length were observed in IC-85639. Maximum number of nodes was observed in JMC-4. Significantly minimum number of days for first appearance of male flower and maximum fruit length, fruit width, yield per vine, yield per plot, yield/ha were recorded in MC-84. Highest number of fruits per vine was recorded in GY-I and minimum powdery mildew infestation was observed in JMC-22

Glucocorticoid with cyclophosphamide for paraquat-induced lung fibrosis.

Paraquat is an effective and widely used herbicide but is also a lethal poison. In many developing countries paraquat is widely available and inexpensive, making poisoning prevention difficult. However most of the people who become poisoned from paraquat have taken it as a means of suicide.Standard treatment for paraquat poisoning both prevents further absorption and reduces the load of paraquat in the blood through haemoperfusion or haemodialysis. The effectiveness of standard treatments is extremely limited.The immune system plays an important role in exacerbating paraquat-induced lung fibrosis. Immunosuppressive treatment using glucocorticoid and cyclophosphamide in combination is being developed and studied. To assess the effects of glucocorticoid with cyclophosphamide on mortality in patients with paraquat-induced lung fibrosis. The most recent search was run on the 15th April 2014. We searched the Cochrane Injuries Group's Specialised Register, The Cochrane Library, Ovid MEDLINE(R), Ovid MEDLINE(R) In-Process & Other Non-Indexed Citations, Ovid MEDLINE(R) Daily and Ovid OLDMEDLINE(R), Embase Classic+Embase (Ovid), ISI WOS (SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, CPCI-S & CPSI-SSH), trials registries, Chinese databases (, , ) and reference lists. RCTs were included in this review. All patients were to receive standard care, plus the intervention or control. The intervention was glucocorticoid with cyclophosphamide in combination versus a control of a placebo, standard care alone or any other therapy in addition to standard care. The mortality risk ratio (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) was calculated for each study on an intention-to-treat basis. Data for all-cause mortality at final follow-up were summarised in a meta-analysis using a fixed-effect model. This systematic review includes three trials with a combined total of 164 participants who had moderate to severe paraquat poisoning. Patients who received glucocorticoid with cyclophosphamide in addition to standard care had a lower risk of death at final follow-up than those receiving standard care only (RR 0.72; 95% CI 0.59 to 0.89). Based on the findings of three small RCTs of moderate to severely poisoned patients, glucocorticoid with cyclophosphamide in addition to standard care may be a beneficial treatment for patients with paraquat-induced lung fibrosis. To enable further study of the effects of glucocorticoid with cyclophosphamide for patients with moderate to severe paraquat poisoning, hospitals may provide this treatment as part of an RCT with allocation concealment

Post-flight Analysis and Design Improvement in Command Guidance System for a Short-range Surface-to-air Missile System

A short-range missile with command-to line-of-sight and three-beam guidance has been considered in this paper. The earlier command guidance system (CGS) design shows unacceptablyhigh-low-frequency weave-mode oscillations, leading to high latax and body rate oscillations, even for benign, low-speed non-manoeuvring target engagements. For successful targetengagements with the three-beam guidance, missile is to be handed over from wide-to-medium receiver beam, and finally, from medium-to-the most accurate narrow receiver beam, depending on the angular error wrt line-of-sight as early as possible. Due to large amplitude oscillation in the earlier CGS design, the handing over of the missile to narrow receiver beam, and in many cases, to the medium receiver beam, itself could not take place, leading to failure of guidance. In this paper, the cause for this undesirable high magnitude weave-mode oscillation has been analysed in detail. After establishing this, saturation aspects of the earlier CGS design; a simple implementable CGS re-design was carried out to reduce this saturation aspect drastically for preserving almost full-phase advance effects of the linear new analogue compensators designed to give the required stability margins of guidance loop

Synthesis and Physicochemical Characterization of Banana Starch Tartrate and its Application as Disintegrant in Telmisartan Tablets

The present investigation was aimed to isolate banana starch (BS), synthesis of banana starch tartrate (BST), characterization, and application as a novel disintegrant in telmisartan tablets. Starch tartrate was synthesized by the esterification process by the treatment of tartaric acid on the backbone of the BS. Synthesized BST was found to be fine, slightly free-flowing and crystalline powder. The synthesized BST was subjected to Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and micrometric evaluation. Flow properties of BS and BST were determined as an angle of repose, bulk density, tapped density, Carr’s index, Hausner’s ratio, etc. BST exhibited good swelling properties and showed no gelling at 100°C but it was transformed into a clear solution. Fourier transform infrared spectra (FTIR) did not show the presence of any significant interaction between BST and Telmisartan(T). The direct compression technique was employed in formulating telmisartan tablets using BST sodium starch glycolate and crospovidone as a disintegrant.  Tablets were comparatively evaluated for weight variation, thickness, hardness, friability, and disintegration. The tablets formulated using BS and BST passed prescribed evaluation tests for weight variation, friability, hardness, and thickness. The tablets formulated using BST as disintegrant gave optimum disintegration compared to those tablets containing sodium starch glycolate and crospovidone sodium super disintegrants. Evaluations indicated that synthesized BST shows qualitatively and quantitatively good disintegration characteristics in comparison to super disintegrants in telmisartan tablet formulation. These results suggest that the synthesized BST could be used as a novel semi-synthetic disintegrant in dispersible tablet formulations. Keywords: Banana Starch, Banana Starch tartrate, Telmisartan, Superdisintegran

Milk Production and Nutrient Efficiency of Lactation Goats on Diet Containing Linseed Cake, Mustard Cake and Guar Korma with Urea in Concentrates

Protein supplements, those conventionally used in goat feeding includes oil meals of ground nut, soybean meal, linseed and til etc., which are very costly and their availability is limited for ruminant feeding as these are most used in pig and poultry rations. However, mustard (Brassica juncea) oil meal is available in plenty at cheaper prices but their utilization in goat feeding is limited due to its bitterness (Pailan and Singhal, 2007), which arises upon degradation of glucosinolate contents of mustard (Tripathi and Mishra, 2007). Ruminant animals have unique capability of bioconversion of nonprotein nitrogen substances into microbial protein, which can also substitute organic protein supplement. Guar korma is another high protein feed resource available at cheaper prices, which can also be used in animal feeding in limited quantities. The use of mustard cake in replacement of linseed cake upto 75% in concentrates of lactating Jamunapari goats have been demonstrated earlier. However, information of guar korma use in goat feeding is in scanty. The level and quality of dietary protein and fat have influence on milk production and quality (Tripathi, 2014) Therefore, present experiment aimed to utilized mustard oil meal, urea and guar korma in replacement of conventional linseed oil cake as protein supplement in concentrate mixture of lactating goats feeding and assess the nutrient utilization efficiency for milk production