Export-Import Performance of Major Agricultural Commodities in India

Recent trends in the international trade scenario and related shifts in India’s foreign trade policy have had far-reaching consequences for India’s general agricultural sector and, in particular, for agricultural exports. The Indian product of agriculture has played an important part in the global product of agriculture. For many agricultural commodities, India used to be the key export spot. The present study established the growth and output of agricultural exports from India during the time (2000-2019). India is the top tenth exporter of agricultural products in the world. Top exports comprise sugar, beef, rice, and shrimp. Export of principal agricultural products including rice, wheat, sugar, cotton, fruits, and vegetables are ‘free’ whereas export of pulses (excluding chickpea) and edible vegetable oil in bulk (excluding coconut and rice bran oils) are ‘restricted’ to meet domestic demand. Indian agricultural exports have increased, but the proportion of agricultural exports to the country’s overall exports has decreased. The research also explores the evolving behavior of the allocation of each category of commodities to the overall agricultural export basket. It covers the major agricultural products/crops which, over different periods, contribute to the maximum share of total agricultural exports (2000-2019). Higher agricultural exports would mean better price realization for farmers, increased awareness regarding good agricultural practices, and consequently thrust for quality also

Conceptual Clustering in Information Retrieval

Clustering is used in information retrieval systems to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the retrieval process. Clustering is achieved by partitioning the documents in a collection into classes such that documents that are associated with each other are assigned to the same cluster. This association is generally determined by examining the index term representation of documents or by capturing user feedback on queries to the system. In cluster-oriented systems, the retrieval process can be enhanced by employing characterization of clusters. In this paper, we present the techniques to develop clusters and cluster characterizations by employing user viewpoint. The user viewpoint is elicited through a structured interview based on a knowledge acquisition technique, namely personal construct theory. It is demonstrated that the application of personal construct theory results in a cluster representation that can be used during query as well as to assign new documents to the approp..

Conceptual Query Formulation and Retrieval

In this paper, we advance a technique to develop a user profile for information retrieval through knowledge acquisition techniques. The profile bridges the discrepancy between user-expressed keywords and system-recognizable index terms. The approach presented in this paper is based on the application of personal construct theory to determine a user's vocabulary and his/her view of different documents in a training set. The elicited knowledge is used to develop a model for each phrase/concept given by the user by employing machine learning techniques. Our model correlates the concepts in a user's vocabulary to the index terms present in the documents in the training set. Computation of dependence between the user phrases also contributes in the development of the user profile and in creating a classification of documents. The resulting system is capable of automatically identifying the user concepts and query translation to index terms computed by the conventional indexing process. The ..

Potential Antioxidant Anthraquinones Isolated from Rheum emodi Showing Nematicidal Activity against Meloidogyne incognita

Antioxidant and nematicidal properties were evaluated for R. emodi extractives which are extracted by standardizing and adopting accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) method along with traditional Soxhlet extraction. The extracted material was separated using flash chromatography and the separation conditions and solvents were standardized for the extracted plant constituents. The purity was detected by using analytical reverse phase high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). LC-MS/MS detection in the direct infusion mode of the isolated, purified products afforded four anthraquinones, characterized by their infrared spectra (IR) and H-1 spectra as chrysophanol, physcion, emodin, and aloe-emodin. Five antraquinone glucoside derivatives and piceatannol-3-O-beta-d-glucopyranoside have also been detected from the extracted product. During in vitro evaluation the antioxidant potential of methanolic crude extract (CE1) was the highest, followed by ethyl acetate crude extract (CE2) and chloroform extract (CE3) in DPPH radical scavenging activity. The CE1 also demonstrated outstanding nematicidal activity as compared with other extracts, pure anthraquinones, and even positive control azadirachtin. The study conclusively demonstrated the antioxidant potential of R. emodi extracts and also its ability in extenuating the Meloidogyne incognita (root-knot nematode). The bioassay results can be extrapolated to actual field condition and clinical studies

Single-walled Carbon Nanotube-triethylammonium Ionic Liquid as a New Catalytic System for Michael Reaction

A new efficient catalytic method for aza/thia-Michael addition reactions of amines/thiols with higher product yields has been developed. Combining single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) with triethylammonium hydrogen phosphate (TEAP) ionic liquid (IL) can work as a catalyst. We utilized Raman spectroscopy to gain insight into the interactions between IL and SWCNT. The interactions between SWCNT with TEAP were confirmed by the increasing intensity ratios and spectral shift in wavelength of the Raman D and G bands of SWCNT. Further, the morphology of the resulting composite materials of TEAP and SWCNT was determined by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Higher product yield in reduced reaction time is the key advantage of using bucky gel as a catalyst for Michael reaction

Synthesis and characterization of a novel copolymer of glyoxal dihydrazone and glyoxal dihydrazone bis(dithiocarbamate) and application in heavy metal ion removal from water

We demonstrate synthesis of water insoluble, novel copolymer P-A1 from condensation of glyoxal dihydrazone and glyoxal dihydrazone bis(dithiocarbamate) monomers having high capacity to remove metal ions from aqueous solution. The presence of a high atomic percentage of nitrogen and sulfur atoms in P-A1 leads to strong ligating ability with metal ions. The monomers and the polymer have been characterized by FTIR, UV-Visible spectroscopy, CHNS elemental analysis, NMR, MALDI-MS, and TG/DTA. As a proof of concept, the P-A1 is tested for its ability to remove heavy metal ions Cu2+, Co2+, Fe2+, Ni2+, Mn2+, and CrO (7) (2-) from aqueous solutions. P-A1 efficiently removed metals ions from the metal solutions. The highest absorption ability has been observed toward the iron salts where 0.969 g metal salt is absorbed by 1 g polymer. This study has implication for inexpensive and efficient polymer for purification of water

Synthetic Strategies for Free & Stable N-Heterocyclic Carbenes and Their Precursors

Recently, chemical cross coupling reactions have emerged as a powerful tool in the hands of synthetic organic chemist to synthesize complicated organic scaffolds like drugs, natural products, optical devices and industrially important materials. Stable N-Heterocyclic Carbene (NHC) acts as an important catalyst system in various cross coupling reactions. This review describes various strategies used for the synthesis of free and stable NHCs. Historical developments made in the propagation of the idea of free and stable carbene have also keenly been illustrated in the introduction of this review

Triethylammonium acetate ionic liquid assisted one-pot synthesis of dihydropyrimidinones and evaluation of their antioxidant and antibacterial activities

A mild and efficient catalytic method has been developed to synthesize 3,4-dihydropyrimidinones in high yield by one-pot three component Biginelli condensation in the presence of triethylammonium acetate (TEAA) which acts as catalyst/reaction medium. Further, we have studied the antioxidant and antibacterial activities of these synthesized 3,4-dihydropyrimidinones. All the synthesized compounds reveal the significant antioxidant properties, these properties have been studied using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging and cupric reducing antioxidant capacity (CUPRAC) assays. In addition, to this, these compounds also show the good antibacterial activity against four human pathogenic bacteria