On a bumper catch of catfish Tachysurus thalassinus landed at Mirkarwada, Ratnagiri

A bumper catch of catfish Tachysurus thalassinus was landed at Mirkarwada, Ratnagiri on 20-3-1993

Turtle landing

A Olive Ridely turtle, Olivacea Lepiodochelys wascaughtinagillnetatMirkarwad, Ratnagiri coast on 24 December. The carapace length was 34 inch, width 27 inch and weight was 25k

Analysis of Quality of Two Different Varieties of Peaches with Respect to Organic and Conventional Cultivation Techniques

The demand for organic produce is based on a general belief that organically grown produce is more nutritious than conventionally cultivated produce. To date, there have been several studies both supporting and contradicting these assumptions and at this point there is no clear consensus. However, there has been one accepted and appreciated aspect of the organic cultivation, which is, that it renders the soil more suitable for long-term cultivation and improves the ecological aspect of producing produce. For this reason, in the long term organic farming may be both economically and ecologically more desirable. The focus of this project as a whole is to study conventional and organic methods for peach cultivation to better understand them and to determine the most economically and ecologically desirable method of peach cultivation in Utah. This specific experiment involved evaluating physicochemical properties of peaches grown under 6 different organic treatments (peaches grown in a certified organic orchard using six different organic treatments) and cultivated using 5 different conventional treatments (peaches grown in a conventional orchard). Peaches were harvested on four different harvest dates to determine the effect of time of cultivation on peach fruit quality. Several different quality attributes of peaches were evaluated. Peaches cultivated under six different organic treatments were statistically compared to determine the difference in their quality attributes. Similarly, peaches cultivated under five different conventional treatments were compared statistically to determine the difference in their quality attributes. Effect of organic treatment on peach quality was not statistically compared with the effect of conventional treatment on peach quality as both treatments were used in separate orchards. No significant differences were observed in quality attributes of either variety of peaches subjected to 6 different organic treatments, nor were any differences observed amongst peaches subjected to 5 different conventional treatments. Moreover, it was observed that peaches harvested on early dates (typically 1 and 2) had more desirable quality attributes. It is interesting that the treatments affected peach growth and development, and future work will involve a correlation with sensory, and volatile analysis

Emerging light and hand jigging fishery for cephalopods along Ratnagiri coast, Maharashtra

Cephalopods have emerged as one of the prime foreign exchange earners in India. Trawl nets operating up to 100 m depth account for nearly 85% of the cephalopod landings and use of high opening bottom trawl nets resulted in rapid increase in production. Other gears that exploit cephalopods as bycatch are boat seines, purse seines and dol nets. Jigging, a specialised fishing method developed for cephalopods in Japan, has slowly emerged in India too. Cephalopod jigging by hand has been reported along various places such as Vizhinjam, Kanyakumari, Palk Bay coast, Tuticorin, Karnataka, Devipattinam and Keelakarai in the Gulf of Mannar. The present report of squid jigging off Ratnagiri appears to be the first report from the state of Maharashtr

Molecular analysis reveals that lack of chasmothecia formation in Erysiphe necator in Maharashtra, India is due to presence of only MAT1-2 mating type idiomorph

The heterothallic, ubiquitous fungus Erysiphe necator causes powdery mildew disease of grapevines and in many countries it is reported to reproduce both asexually and sexually. Sexual reproduction results in the formation of chasmothecia (cleistothecia) on infected surfaces when the colonies of two opposite mating types meet on the infected plant parts and the temperatures are favorable for their development. Chasmothecia are reported from north India, but not from peninsular India, even though powdery mildew is reportedly present in these regions at least since the beginning of the last century. Through systematic survey of ten vineyards in Maharashtra and adjoining Karnataka in peninsular India, we confirmed the absence of chasmothecia under natural conditions. Analysis of temperature data from two locations in Maharashtra showed that the Tmax and Tmin were favourable for chasmothecia initiation (10 °C to 30 °C) and maturation (15 °C to 30 °C) for a sufficient period of time.Multiplex PCR of 120 E. necator field isolates collected from peninsular India showed presence of a single band of 232 bp corresponding to MAT1-2 mating type idiomorph or MAT- phenotype. None of the samples gave band of 408 bp corresponding to MAT1-1 mating type idiomorph. Further, two bands of 408 bp and 232 bp were detected in only one powdery mildew sample collected from Kashmir, in north India while the other nineteen samples gave a single band of 232 bp.  Thus, molecular analysis established that E. necator is not sexually reproducing in Maharashtra due to presence of only one mating type idiomorph. The study also brings out that MAT1-1 mating type idiomorph is not as common in nature as MAT1-2 and explains why in many other countries, too, chasmothecia were first observed as late as half to one century after start of grape cultivation.  &nbsp

Occurrence of Octopus dollfusi Robson 1928 in Maharashtra waters

Octopus fishery is gaining momentum in India especially along the north-west coast. The major centres in Mumbai where octopi are landed by trawlers are New Ferry Wharf, Sassoon docks and Versova. Cephalopods comprise about 10.5% of trawl landings of Maharashtra with octopus contributing 7.1% (CMFRI, 2006)

Status and probability of occurrence of grey mold on preharvest and postharvest grapes in Maharashtra, India

'Research Note

पिंजऱ्याची बांधणी : तत्त्व आणि आराखडा

The culture of finfishes in cages has been practiced for years in countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Hongkong. Cage was first used as a holding facility for fish. True cage culture was said to have started in 1243 in China. Use of modern cage materials like synthetic nets, woods and metals started in early 1960’s. The size and shape of the cages are very important for the growth and production of the fishes/ shell fishes living inside it. The design will vary depending on the selected site. The constructed cage must withstand the force of wind and wave while holding the stock safely. The cage must be safe, secure and easy to manage. Circular cage bags make the most efficient use of materials, and thus have the lowest costs per unit volume. Shape is likely to influence effective stocking densities and swimming behaviour, which in turn can influence production. Fish cages can be constructed from a variety of materials. All materials used for the cage should be durable, nontoxic, and rustproof

How to Influence People with Partial Incentives

We study the power of fractional allocations of resources to maximize influence in a network. This work extends in a natural way the well-studied model by Kempe, Kleinberg, and Tardos (2003), where a designer selects a (small) seed set of nodes in a social network to influence directly, this influence cascades when other nodes reach certain thresholds of neighbor influence, and the goal is to maximize the final number of influenced nodes. Despite extensive study from both practical and theoretical viewpoints, this model limits the designer to a binary choice for each node, with no way to apply intermediate levels of influence. This model captures some settings precisely, e.g. exposure to an idea or pathogen, but it fails to capture very relevant concerns in others, for example, a manufacturer promoting a new product by distributing five "20% off" coupons instead of giving away one free product. While fractional versions of problems tend to be easier to solve than integral versions, for influence maximization, we show that the two versions have essentially the same computational complexity. On the other hand, the two versions can have vastly different solutions: the added flexibility of fractional allocation can lead to significantly improved influence. Our main theoretical contribution is to show how to adapt the major positive results from the integral case to the fractional case. Specifically, Mossel and Roch (2006) used the submodularity of influence to obtain their integral results; we introduce a new notion of continuous submodularity, and use this to obtain matching fractional results. We conclude that we can achieve the same greedy $(1-1/e-\epsilon)$-approximation for the fractional case as the integral case. In practice, we find that the fractional model performs substantially better than the integral model, according to simulations on real-world social network data