Animal hygiene and sustainable livestock production: impact of ground water contamination with arsenic

There is a growing concern all over the world about contamination of ground water with Arsenic. One of the major repercussions of arsenic contamination is degradation of animal hygiene that ultimately affects sustainable livestock production. The reports suggest that concentration of Arsenic in ground water of twenty one countries is well above the guideline values. Use of such contaminated water for animal husbandry and livestock production compromises with the hygienic value of animal products. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop low cost treatment technologies for reducing the level of arsenic in ground water to maintain the hygiene and sustainability of livestock production. Most of the traditional treatment technologies are costly and less effective in reducing arsenic concentration to safer limits. Therefore, during present study, an attempt was made to design a low-cost algal adsorbent based filtration unit consisting of polyurethane columns with entrapped algal adsorbents. The column was made of adsorbents of algal origin like agar-agar, alginic acid, calcium alginate and Spirulina platensis biomass entrapped in polyurethane foam matrix. The performance of the column was assessed in terms of removal efficiency and the quantity of metal sequestered in unit time interval. The results from the study the show that algal biosorbents and S. platensis biomass combination has a capacity to adsorbed arsenic from aqueous solution. The simple design, easy fabrication and no energy requirement for the operation of the filtration unit developed under the present study is suitable to rural areas where arsenic contamination of ground water is adversely affecting the animal hygiene and sustained livestock production

Growth performance of Spirulina (Arthrospira) platensis in a low cost medium: An assessment

The unialgal culture of Spirulina platensis was sub-cultured in Zarrouk’s medium under photoautotrophic conditions. Initially, indoor batch cultivation was carried out for a week in four different types of cultivation media viz., Zarrouk’s, Modified Zarrouk’s, prescribed Nallayam Research Centre (NRC), and Modified NRC. In modified medium, urea and phosphoric acid of NRC medium were replaced with sodium nitrate and dipotassium hydrogen phosphate (anhydrous) and concentration of ferrous sulphate heptahydrate was reduced. The batch and airlift indoor culture experiments were carried out with an illumination of 3500±100 lux, photoperiod of 12:12 hour light and dark periods and temperature of 24±1°C. The specific growth rate value was 5.7 % higher in Zarrouk’s medium as compared to modified NRC medium. However, the cost of modified NRC medium was considerably lower than Zarrouk’s medium; therefore, modified NRC medium was selected for outdoor studies. The outdoor mass cultivation was done under natural conditions with the solar radiation reaching the surface of culture was between 2160 and 8450 lux and temperature ranged from 27 to 34°C. An assessment of the performance of growth in batch, airlift and FRP (Fiber Reinforced Polymer) tanks revealed that culture grown in airlift units showed best growth which was evident from higher specific growth rate and number of doublings per day. There was a 3.4-fold increase in cell density (in terms of turbidity at 750 nm) of the cultures in such units. The growth in outdoor FRP tanks was also comparable to the airlift cultures

Symmetric M-ary phase discrimination using quantum-optical probe states

We present a theoretical study of minimum error probability discrimination, using quantum- optical probe states, of M optical phase shifts situated symmetrically on the unit circle. We assume ideal lossless conditions and full freedom for implementing quantum measurements and for probe state selection, subject only to a constraint on the average energy, i.e., photon number. In particular, the probe state is allowed to have any number of signal and ancillary modes, and to be pure or mixed. Our results are based on a simple criterion that partitions the set of pure probe states into equivalence classes with the same error probability performance. Under an energy constraint, we find the explicit form of the state that minimizes the error probability. This state is an unentangled but nonclassical single-mode state. The error performance of the optimal state is compared with several standard states in quantum optics. We also show that discrimination with zero error is possible only beyond a threshold energy of (M - 1)/2. For the M = 2 case, we show that the optimum performance is readily demonstrable with current technology. While transmission loss and detector inefficiencies lead to a nonzero erasure probability, the error rate conditional on no erasure is shown to remain the same as the optimal lossless error rate.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

Survey Report on Sending Data Securely using IoT over Cloud

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects, computers, cars, houses, and other things embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity, allowing these objects to collect and exchange data. In the new technology market, IoT innovations is the next major step, but with the big difference that it brings about massive changes in business usability. A flare in the number of connected devices as well as placed locations is anticipated over the next few years and the functions that they will perform. Due to recent developments in networking and sensor technology, the Internet of Things (IoT) has grown rapidly. It seems very difficult to link that object together through the internet, but within a time frame, the internet of things will change our lives dramatically

Status of sea cucumber resources and impact of fishing ban on the livelihood of fishers in Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay

The sea cucumbers constitute an important part of non-fish income source for thousands of fishers along Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay of south east coast of India. The fishery which is more than thousand years old was introduced by the Chinese stationed at Ramanathapuram, for preparing a dried sea cucumber product Beche-de-mer. The sea cucumber fishery in Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay was artisanal in nature and consisted of fishermen who were good divers, the processors who acted as middlemen and the exporters. The sea cucumbers were chiefly collected by skin diving to a depth of 1.5 to 6.0 m in the shallow seas using nonmechanised country crafts. They were also caught as by-catch in trawlers locally known as Thallu madi (an indigenous modified trawler operating on wind power in shallow waters), besides the Chanku madi and Attai madi which were operated in deeper coastal waters

Sea cucumber conservation in Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar, India "An evaluation of the current conservation measures on sea cucumber stocks in Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar of India"

Sea cucumber fishery and trade were one of the top non-finfish income streams for the coastal people of Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar in the South East coast of India. As there was no regulation to control the fishery, there was a concern on decline in sea cucumber populations. In order to conserve the over-exploited stocks, the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Climate Change, Government of India banned the fishery and trade of sea cucumbers by including them under Wild Life Protection Act 1972 since 2001. The enforcement of a blanket ban of sea cucumber fishing over the last 14 years might have helped in reviving their populations; at the same time, the ban would possibly had a social and economic impact on scores of people, who were dependent on the sea cucumber fishery. To understand the situation, the Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem (BOBLME) project approved a short term project to Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (India). The project was intended to understand the sea cucumber stocks and implications of the ban on the livelihood of fishers in Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar. The purpose of the project was also to suggest management options for conservation and sustainable use of sea cucumber resources

Assembly of sol-gel-grown Li<SUB>x</SUB>CoO<SUB>2</SUB> nanocrystals through electromagnetic irradiation

We report the fabrication of assembled nanostructures from the pre-synthesized nanocrystals building blocks through optical means of exciton formation and dissociation. We demonstrate that Lix CoO2 nanocrystals assemble to an acicular architecture, upon prolonged exposure to ultraviolet-visible radiation emitted from a 125 W mercury vapor lamp, through intermediate excitation of excitons. The results obtained in the present study clearly show how nanocrystals of various materials with band gaps appropriate for excitations of excitons at given optical wavelengths can be assembled to unusual nanoarchitectures through illumination with incoherent light sources. The disappearance of exciton bands due to Li xCoO2 phase in the optical spectrum of the irradiated film comprising acicular structure is consistent with the proposed mechanism of exciton dissociation in the observed light-induced assembly process. The assembly process occurs through attractive Coulomb interactions between charged dots created upon exciton dissociation. Our work presents a new type of nanocrystal assembly process that is driven by light and exciton directed

Nonlinear Behaviour of Perforated Plate with Lining

Perforated plate with lining has a construction of plate with perforation and a lining plate welded together to form a single plate. This type of plate is used as an acoustic sonar dome. Perforated plate with lining (PPL) is prone to stress concentration and subsequently such structural system falls into the large strain category. Experimental investigation on PPL is carried out in the present study to determine the static deflection of the plate. Numerical method is also followed for geometric nonlinear analysis using finite element method as an iterative interactive procedure. The deflection obtained from the numerical method is 8 per cent less than that obtained from experimental method. From numerical analysis, von Mises stress and maximum principal stress is also estimated to understanda bout the failure mode characteristics of PPL.Defence Science Journal, 2012, 62(4), pp.248-251, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.62.92

Note on Occurrence of Jaydia queketti (Osteichthyes: Apogonidae) from the Bycatch of Tropical Trawl Fishery

Three specimens of apogonids species of total length 72.69, 106.28 and 110.67 mm were caught off Tuticorin at the depths of 90-100 m as a bycatch on 1st January 2013 from the commercial trawler operated from Tuticorin Fishing Harbour, Southeast coast of India. In this paper, on the occurrence of Jaydia queketti was figured and the comprehensive diagnostic features of the recorded specimens were elucidated. The species of this genus Jaydia is distributed continentally and often caught as a bycatch from shrimp or fish trawl. These species are widely distributed in New Guinea, larger islands in the Coral Sea, Australia, Arabian Sea of India and also from Africa to Japan. Nevertheless, the present observation shows the occurrence of J. queketti from the bycatch of trawl fishery operated along Gulf of Mannar, Southeast coast of India

Dynamics of socio-economic factors affecting climate vulnerability and technology adoption: Evidence from Jodhpur district of Rajasthan

Climate change and extreme weather fluctuations are the most threatening challenges to the farming communities especially in semi-arid tropics. The paper investigates socio-economic factors affecting vulnerability and adoption of innovations using micro-level survey data of 100 systematically selected farmers in the Jodhpur district of Rajasthan, India. The results reveal that higher income, irrigation and provision of seeds reduce climate vulnerability to a great extent. Several farm level strategies have been adopted by the farmers against climate induced stress, including change in cropping pattern, reduction in irrigation usage, use of drips and sprinklers and water conservation. In case of pearl millet cropping system, we found that adoption of wide row spacing is significantly influenced by the level of the farmer’s education, land size category, climate awareness and trainings programs. The study suggests that diversified crop sequence involving pearl millet-wheat-cluster bean-barley-onion, farmers’ adoption of suitable adaptation strategies and climate resilient technologies will improve with better awareness, education and farm governance with regard to climate change. Moreover, technologies especially indigenous ones suitable to the local contextual needs must be developed or fine-tuned and disseminated for reducing climate-induced vulnerability