Study of mud banks of the Kerala coast a retrospect

The mud banks, an unique feature of the Kerala coast during the southwest monsoon where the surf ridden nearshore waters over restricted areas become highly adjacent due to certain physicochemical factors have been under investigation for more than a century. These areas play an important role in the socio-economics of the coastal fisher folk during the poverty stricken southwest monsoon period. Considering the importance of mud banks from the fishing point of view, the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute. Cochin has been monitoring the phenomenon and carried out a multidisciplinary exclusive study during 1971-72, on the various physicochemical aspects in respect of origin, maintenance, shifting, dissipation, ecology and fisheries of the mud banks, especially that of Alleppey area. The study brought to light a good amount of new information on this curious phenomenon. The present article is a review of the studies conducted by the CMFRl

A study on prevalence and co-morbidity of bipolar and anxiety disorders in chronic headache patients

Background: Co morbidity between headache and psychiatric disorders is more prevalent in chronic headache patients. The bipolar disorders and anxiety disorders are predominant in migraine and TTH respectively. This co morbidities have a poor reflection and impact on quality and outcome of chronic headache patients and results in worst prognosis and poor response to medical treatment.Methods: The chronic headache patients especially migraine and tension type of headache were analyzed with following materials such as the structured psychiatric clinical interview with ICD-10 mental and behavioural disorder, DSM-5 criteria. HAM-A, HAM-D, BDI-2, BPRS, young mania rating scale, Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) and panic disorder scale.Results: Various subsets of bipolar disorder and anxiety disorder were found as follows: 74% of migraineurs are associated with psychiatric disorders in which bipolar affective disorder 6%, depressive episode 48%, dysthymia 30%, GAD 10% and Panic disorder 6%. 52% of TTH are associated with psychiatric disorders as follows: major depressive episode 52%, GAD 30%, separation anxiety disorder 6%, PTSD 7%, OCD 3% and panic disorder 2%.Conclusions: From previous and future studies the headache can be identified according to subsets of headache with psychiatric disorders make easier to provide appropriate pharmacological and psychological treatment which may reduce the chronicity and intractability of headache

Modeling the formation of in vitro filopodia

Filopodia are bundles of actin filaments that extend out ahead of the leading edge of a crawling cell to probe its upcoming environment. {\it In vitro} experiments [D. Vignjevic {\it et al.}, J. Cell Biol. {\bf 160}, 951 (2003)] have determined the minimal ingredients required for the formation of filopodia from the dendritic-like morphology of the leading edge. We model these experiments using kinetic aggregation equations for the density of growing bundle tips. In mean field, we determine the bundle size distribution to be broad for bundle sizes smaller than a characteristic bundle size above which the distribution decays exponentially. Two-dimensional simulations incorporating both bundling and cross-linking measure a bundle size distribution that agrees qualitatively with mean field. The simulations also demonstrate a nonmonotonicity in the radial extent of the dendritic region as a function of capping protein concentration, as was observed in experiments, due to the interplay between percolation and the ratcheting of growing filaments off a spherical obstacle.Comment: 22 pages, 16 figure

Concentration of CO<SUB>2</SUB> over melting ice oscillates

We report that the concentration of CO2 over melting ice oscillates as long as water and ice coexist. A phenomenological model involving melting of CO2 containing ice leading to its release, readsorption of the vapor on ice, and dissolution in water is proposed. Thermokinetics of these processes lead to nonlinearity of the dynamics. This phenomenon is also observed over impure ice contaminated with salts or in the presence of nitrogen or air. Oscillations have been observed in several other solute or ice-water systems

Cost Function Statistical Analysis in Double Random Phase Encoding

We examine the Amplitude-Encoding (AE) case of the Double Random Phase Encoding (DRPE) technique. A cost function is the function we use to evaluate an attempted decryption with our original input image. For systems with a relatively small key-space we can evaluate the output of every key to get an overall idea of the spread of these keys in key-space. However for larger systems this is not practical. Based on a normalised root mean squared cost function we wish to identify expressions for the mean and variance of the output (decrypted) intensity for a sample set of keys in a large system (256x256 pixels)

Hypotheses on the mudbanks

The report gives a critical appraisal of the various hypotheses on the formation and the characteristic calmness of the mudbanks, in the light of the author's findings, with special reference to the Alleppey mudbank. A detailed account on various types of mudbanks along the southwest coast of India is also presented

Ecology of mudbanks - Hydrography

The variations in physical and chemical parameters of the Alleppey mudbank waters are discussed in this paper. The fluctuations in tem perature, salinity, oxygen and the comparatively high nutrient contents of the mudbank waters are highlighted

Diurnal variations in the distribution of zooplankton in relation to currents and other ecological parameters of the mud bank of Alleppey, Kerala

Diurnal variations in the distribution of zooplankton biomass of the mud bank at purakkad-Thottappally region south of Alleppey, Kerala h ave been investigated during May and August, 1975. Along with this, observations on currents, hydrography and phytoplankton productivity were also carried out and their effects upon the zooplankton of the mud bank region were studie