PROCESS STANDARDIZATION AND EVALUATION OF GREEN PEAS (PISUM SATIVUM) USING SOLAR DEHYDRATION TECHNOLOGY

Fruits and vegetables play an important role in human nutrition, but due to their high perishable nature they cannot be stored for longer period. To store for long period, dehydration is one of the techniques developed which can persist for longer periods and are said to be rich sources of vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants. Emerging trends in food processing is one of the major aspects in recent times, where the present study is to utilize the importance of value addition to improve the nutritive value of food product and increase the efficiency of its processing. Hence solar dehydration technology was found to be an efficient process having less energy consumption and maximum retention of nutritive value. The objective of this study is to standardize the pretreatment for maximum chlorophyll retention of green peas and evaluation of the standardized product using solar dehydration technology. With this objective, the process procedure for green peas was standardized where 0.1% sodium bicarbonate and 0.1% magnesium oxide were used in water blanching for 4min. Solar dehydrated green peas were developed with 10 sunny hours (490c-510c) of drying time with a yield of 11.758% and moisture content 5.788%. The dried products were packed in two different packaging materials i.e., Aluminium and Polypropylene pouches. Shelf life studies were conducted at ambient and accelerated storage conditions in two different packaging materials for about 6 months. The results revealed that the solar dried green peas which were pretreated with 0.1% sodium bicarbonate and 0.1% magnesium oxide solution and packed in Aluminium pouch have retained most of the nutrients viz., Vitamin C, Chlorophyll content, and physico chemical properties. Sensory evaluation of dried green peas showed that color and flavor were superior in Aluminium pouch when compared with the product packed in polypropylene pouch. Microbial load was also within the limits, which indicated that the product can be shelf stable for a period of 6 months. The dehydrated green peas are rehydrated and used in pulav, upma, biryani

Teamwork delivers biotechnology products to Indian small-holder crop-livestock producers: Pearl millet hybrid “HHB 67 Improved” enters seed delivery pipeline

HHB 67, released in 1990 by CCS Haryana Agricultural University, is one such single-cross pearl millet hybrid. HHB 67 is highly popular because of its extra-early maturity (it needs less than 65 days from sowing to grain maturity) and is now grown on over 500 000 ha in Haryana and Rajasthan, India. Recent surveys have indicated that this hybrid is starting to succumb to downy mildew (DM; caused by the pseudo-fungus Sclerospora graminicola), showing up to 30% incidence in farmers' fields. By rapidly adopting hybrid "HHB 67 Improved", farmers in Haryana and Rajasthan can avoid grain production losses of Rs36 crores (US$8 million) which would be expected in the first year of a major DM outbreak on the original HHB 67

ICAR: endoscopic skull‐base surgery

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Canagliflozin and renal outcomes in type 2 diabetes and nephropathy

BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes mellitus is the leading cause of kidney failure worldwide, but few effective long-term treatments are available. In cardiovascular trials of inhibitors of sodium–glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2), exploratory results have suggested that such drugs may improve renal outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes. METHODS In this double-blind, randomized trial, we assigned patients with type 2 diabetes and albuminuric chronic kidney disease to receive canagliflozin, an oral SGLT2 inhibitor, at a dose of 100 mg daily or placebo. All the patients had an estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of 30 to <90 ml per minute per 1.73 m2 of body-surface area and albuminuria (ratio of albumin [mg] to creatinine [g], >300 to 5000) and were treated with renin–angiotensin system blockade. The primary outcome was a composite of end-stage kidney disease (dialysis, transplantation, or a sustained estimated GFR of <15 ml per minute per 1.73 m2), a doubling of the serum creatinine level, or death from renal or cardiovascular causes. Prespecified secondary outcomes were tested hierarchically. RESULTS The trial was stopped early after a planned interim analysis on the recommendation of the data and safety monitoring committee. At that time, 4401 patients had undergone randomization, with a median follow-up of 2.62 years. The relative risk of the primary outcome was 30% lower in the canagliflozin group than in the placebo group, with event rates of 43.2 and 61.2 per 1000 patient-years, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.70; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.59 to 0.82; P=0.00001). The relative risk of the renal-specific composite of end-stage kidney disease, a doubling of the creatinine level, or death from renal causes was lower by 34% (hazard ratio, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.53 to 0.81; P<0.001), and the relative risk of end-stage kidney disease was lower by 32% (hazard ratio, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.54 to 0.86; P=0.002). The canagliflozin group also had a lower risk of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke (hazard ratio, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.67 to 0.95; P=0.01) and hospitalization for heart failure (hazard ratio, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.47 to 0.80; P<0.001). There were no significant differences in rates of amputation or fracture. CONCLUSIONS In patients with type 2 diabetes and kidney disease, the risk of kidney failure and cardiovascular events was lower in the canagliflozin group than in the placebo group at a median follow-up of 2.62 years

Electrical conduction and thermal properties of Bi-doped Pr0.7Sr0.3MnO3 manganite

Electrical and thermal properties of Bi-doped Pr0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (PSMO) compounds are reported here. It is observed that Bi-doped PSMO compounds follow variable range conduction mechanism. Specific heat, thermal conductivity and thermo-power measurements show that larger Bi-ion, in place of smaller Pr ion, enhances their transition temperatures (T-MI, T-C, T-CP). Thermo-power measurements further strengthen our conclusion for the presence of magnetic polaron, generated due to hybridization of Bi3+-6s(2) and O2--2p orbital and polaronic conduction mechanism

Electrical, magnetic and thermal properties of Pr0.6-xBixSr0.4MnO3 manganites

In the present communication, we report the electrical, magnetic and thermal properties of Bi-doped Pr0.6Sr0.4MnO3 (PSMO) compounds. These measurements show that the transition temperature decreases with Bi-content. Analyses on the measured electrical resistivity and thermoelectric power data indicate that the small polaron hopping model is operative in the high temperature paramagnetic phase for all samples. The thermal conductivity, kappa(T) for samples studied in the present work is found to be low which is essentially due to Jahn-Teller (JL) distortion in the samples. It is observed that kappa(T) is seen to decrease with increase in doping concentration of Bi which is possibly due to the formation of JT polarons which act as scattering centers. From specific heat measurements, we observe reduction in values of entropy change with increase in bismuth content which suggests that the magnetic inhomogeneity increases with Bi substitution