കേരളത്തിന്‍റെ സമുദ്രമത്സ്യോത്പാദനം (Marine fish production in Kerala)

Among the maritime states of India, Kerala occupies foremost position in the production of marine fish. The state contributed about 25% of the annual marine fish landings during the period 1992-96 which was more or less invariant in the last four decades. In the early fifties, the production was of the order of 1.74 lakh tonnes. It increased to 3.72 lakh tonnes in eighties and in nineties it reached 5.44 lakh tonnes. The marine fish production of the country as a whole also showed an increasing trend from 0.6 million tonnea in 1951 to 2.24 million tonnes in 1996. The increase in the production was attributed to the introduction of mechanised boats and improved gears. The rate of growth of fish production in Kerala was higher than that of other maritime states

Sampling design for estimation of marine fish landings- Winter School on Towards Ecosystem Based Management of Marine Fisheries – Building Mass Balance Trophic and Simulation Models

India has a coast line of about 8129 km. Fishing is largely in the hands of a number fishermen and fishing is done by small mechanized and indigenous craft. Landings take place almost all along in the coast line throughout the day and sometimes during night. There are about 2000 fishing villages scattered along the coast line from where fishermen go for fishing and return to a landing centre which may be distinct from the fishing village. There are about 1300 landing centres scattered along the coastline of the main land. Under these conditions collection of statistics by complete enumeration would involve a very large number of enumerators and a huge sum of money apart from the time involved in collection of data. In this context a feasible solution for obtaining marine fish landings is the adoption of a suitable sampling technique for the collection of fish landing data

Detection of extended spectrum β-lactamase among gram negative clinical isolates from a tertiary care hospital in South India

Background: The β lactamase enzymes produced by the organisms break down the structural beta-lactam ring of β lactam antibiotics. Many genera of gram negative bacteria possess a naturally occurring, chromosomally mediated β lactamase and also some are plasmid mediated β lactamases. The objective of the study was to detect extended spectrum β lactamases among gram negative clinical isolates.Methods: 200 clinical were subjected to routine disc diffusion technique and zone diameter of ≤27mm for Cefotaxime and ≤22mm for Ceftazidime or ≤25mm for Ceftriaxone were included in this study. The strains are subjected to double disc synergy test.Results: Of 200 samples, 174 yielded organisms belonging to enterobacteriaceae and 26 yielded growth of nonfermenters. Out of 174 members of enterobacteriaceae family, 122 were E. coli, 36 Klebsiella spp, 8 Proteus spp, 5 Enterobacter spp and 3 Citrobacter spp. Out of 26 nonfermenters, 18 were Pseudomonas spp and 8 were Acinetobacter.Conclusions: In the present study prevalence of ESBL was 23.3%, the high prevalence may be due to irrational use of third generation cephalosporins in both the hospital and community

Reconstruction of Bandlimited Functions from Unsigned Samples

We consider the recovery of real-valued bandlimited functions from the absolute values of their samples, possibly spaced nonuniformly. We show that such a reconstruction is always possible if the function is sampled at more than twice its Nyquist rate, and may not necessarily be possible if the samples are taken at less than twice the Nyquist rate. In the case of uniform samples, we also describe an FFT-based algorithm to perform the reconstruction. We prove that it converges exponentially rapidly in the number of samples used and examine its numerical behavior on some test cases

Emerging Pattern of Exploitation of the Marine Fishery Resources of the Inshore Waters of India with Particular Reference to Low Energy Fishing

Marine fish production has registered an average annual growth rate of 9.8%. The unusual abundance of pelagic resources like oil sardine and mackerel in 1989 and a consistently increasing trend in the yield of carangids have been also responsible for this increased production. Introduction of trawling in early seventies gave a sudden upward push in the production and it got stabilized

An assessment of ring seine fishery in Kerala through surplus production model

Outboard ring seine is one of the major gears operated in Kerala which contributes about 37% of the total landings in the State. Oil sardine (Sardinella longiceps) and Indian mackerel (Rastrelliger kanagurta) are the two species that account for about 84% of the ring seine catch. The ring seine fishery began in the State by mid eighties and grown into a major fishery over the years. An assessment of the ring seine fishery in the state through nonequilibrium surplus production model was made in this study by using time series data on catch and effort of ring seine in Kerala during 1986-2004. An index of relative biomass at and an index of net production rate mt were computed, apart from fishing mortality rates Ft, maximum sustainable yield (MSY), effort corresponding to MSY and biomass corresponding to MSY. Results revealed that the ring seine fishery in Kerala is close to the state of equilibrium. Behaviour of mt and Ft were almost similar showing characteristics of fully developed fishery and the pattern of their difference mt-Ft indicated that the status of ring seine fishery in Kerala is close to the optimal level at present

The Persuasive Nature of Web Personalization on Online Users’ Product Perception: A Mental Accounting Perspective

E-commerce firms strive to enhance engagement by providing augmented experiences to online users. This research focuses on one such shopping experience enhancement technique—Web personalization. In this study, we examine how personalization affects online users’ perceptions and how different personalization levels differentially impact those perceptions. Drawing on mental accounting theory, we argue that personalization, by providing convenience in online buying, increases transaction utility and, thus, influence online users’ product perceptions. We conducted a laboratory experiment in a public university in Southern India where users took buying decisions at four different personalization levels: zero, low, medium, and high. The findings from this study suggest that product prices affect users’ perceived product quality, which, in turn, affects their perceived product values and, subsequently, their final purchase decision. Web personalization plays a moderating role in all cause-effect relations above. This study contributes to the existing literature on the Web personalization strategy and online user behavior. We find empirical evidence to show that personalization plays a moderating role in the relationship between user perception and intention to purchase

Audit of caesarian deliveries in a tertiary care center, in rural Bangalore, India

Background: The Robson’s Ten-Group Classification System allows critical analysis of caesarean deliveries according to characteristics of pregnancy. The objective was to analyze caesarean section rates in a rural tertiary care teaching hospital in Bangalore, using Robson’s ten groups classification.Methods: This study was done in MVJ Medical College and Research Hospital, a rural tertiary care teaching hospital. All patients who underwent caesarean delivery, between November 2017 and October 2018, were included in the study. Women were classified in 10 groups according to Robson’s classification. For each group, authors calculated its relative contribution to the overall caesarean rate.Results: The overall caesarean section rate was 46.7%. The main contributors to this high caesarean rate were primiparous women in spontaneous labour (group 1) and women with previous caesarean section (group 5).  52.1% of CS were conducted on women who were unbooked or booked at a peripheral health facility and referred to present institution due to complications in labor. Strategies to lower CS rates would include encouraging women with previous CS, to undergo trial of labor to reduce CS rates for group 5C. Sensitization of staff in peripheral medical facilities for early referral of high-risk pregnancies to a tertiary care center for better control of medical complications like hypertensive disorders of diabetes mellitus. Other strategies include offering external cephalic version to eligible women with breech presentation and consider offering vaginal breech delivery to suitable women in groups 6 and 7.Conclusions: The Robson’s classification is easy to use. It is time to implement obstetric audit to lower the overall CS rates

Fish Trend at major mechnised centres

During the last two decades the marine fish landings in India by the mechanised sedtor have been steadily increasing. Presently, ttiey form about 60% of the total landings