Need Assessment for Sex Education amongst the University Students –A Pilot Study

Background: The morbidity associated with sexual ignorance, poor decision making and inadequate sexuality education is rising in India day by day. The possibility of sex related public health problems like sexual abuse, teenage pregnancies, abortions, unmarried motherhood, STD/HIV infections etc. are always remains high in university students. In this background to assess the student’s knowledge & perceived need for sex education this study was conducted. Objective Of Study: To assess the need of sex education in students To explore the views of students on content, source & preferred grade levels of education for sex education. Methods: It was a crosssectional study conducted among students of Panjab University, Chandigarh. Sample size was 86 (Boys=45, Girls=41). A pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect information from the respondents. The results were calculated in percentage. Results: 95% of students were in favors of mainstreaming of sex education. 76.74% students choose the teacher as the best source to provide sex education. Students preferred grade levels to start sex education was matriculation with curriculum containing the information on sexual body changes during growth, contraceptives and sexually transmitted diseases. Conclusions: Majority of students has received sex information from informal sources and they are not satisfied with their knowledge on sex education. Majority of them supports the implementation of sex education in educational institutes. The government needs to make sex education mandatory as well as plan the educational material in a way that incites not libidinous behavior but instills mature decision making skills in the student

Enhancing the Productivity of Grassland and Wasteland through Management in Hills

Total area available for grazing in the country is about 40% of the land area. Pasture lands constitute the main grazing resources of the country, available over an area of 12 million ha (3.94% of the geographical area). An idea of the meager fodder availability can be had from the fact that about 50% of the cattle population, depending largely upon free rangeland grazing in forests, pastures, village commons and the like, end up getting only about 1.5 kg of dry fodder/ day/ ACU (Adult Cattle Unit) as against the healthy fodder requirement norm of 3% body weight. The grasslands and pastures not only form the major source of forage for the livestock but also provide habitat to a large variety of wild animals and birds and are home to a myriad species of plants, many of which are ‘threatened’. Any further degradation of these habitats is likely to put many more species under threat. Hills and mountains are distributed all over the country covering 29 states. Constraints which are responsible for the low production of fodder in hill states can be broadly grouped in agro ecosystem constraints, management constraints and social and policy constraints. The major strategies to raise the fodder production could be sustainable management of fodder producing ecosystems, improvement in fodder productivity, expansion of area under fodder sources, improvement in cattle, system management: and policies. The fodder cultivation and management in this region has been always neglected, though livestock rearing is an important occupation of farmers in the area (Bisht et al., 2009). Therefore in the present study several management techniques for the improvement and enhancing the fodder productivity natural grassland and wasteland have been studied

Effect of starvation on biochemical constituents of Metapenaeus dobsoni.

Aquatic organisms, including fishes and crustaceans, even in the best of their environments live under extremely dynamic physical and chemical conditions, many of which have no analogue in the terrestrial environment. Although individual fishes or populations may adapt to such conditions, it does not imply that they do not expend energy to cope physiologically with the condition

Piloting Service Oriented Architecture—A Case Study in the Oil Industry

The Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm introduced a few years back has already become the driving force behind enterprise systems. It is also a force behind most cutting edge technologies today. Although much is written about SOA, empirical studies on its implementation are next to none. This exploratory case study examines a pilot implementation at an oil-drilling equipment manufacturing company to understand the process and issues involved in SOA adoption. The study depicts the implementation methodology and the roadmap adopted by this organization to help connect its disparate systems using enterprise SOA. This paper can help researcher better understand SOA implementation and help them further explore the managerial issues involved in implementing this new technology

Scientometrics of cereal crops research in India as reflected through Indian Science Abstracts and CAB Abstracts during 1965-2010

The paper analyses publication output of India on cereal crops as reflected by its coverage in Indian Science Abstracts (ISA) and CAB Abstracts during 1965-2010.The analysis indicates that highest number of papers (43.80%) was published on rice, followed by wheat (24.28%). Agricultural universities and institutions under aegis of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) were most productive. Most of the papers were published in Indian journals with low impact factor. The highest number of papers was published in Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences, followed by Indian Journal of Agronomy, Madras Agricultural Journaland Journal of Maharashtra Agricultural University. Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi,Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatoreand Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhianacontributed about 7% of papers each. The major research was focused on ‘genetic and plant breeding’ (28.2%) followed by ‘agronomic aspects’ (27.9%) and pest, diseases and pest control (19.7%). The authorship pattern reveals that co-authored papers accounted for 90% of total output. Citation analysis of the study using Google scholar reveals that 57% of the papers remained uncited and 36.8% papersreceived citations ranging from 1 to 10.Highest number of citations were received by papers published in Indian Journal of Agronomy(1446), followed by Indian Journal of Agricultural Science (1211), Euphytica (1109) and Theoretical and Applied Genetics (1000

A community-based knowledge, attitude and practices study of Accredited Social Health Activist functionaries in active case detection of Leprosy in Sitapur district of Uttar Pradesh

Background: Leprosy was eliminated at the global level in the year 2000. But regional disparities still exist. Some countries have not attained the elimination status and still reporting a good number of cases. The major burden of new cases was from India, Brazil and Indonesia. Early case detection and treatment is the key to achieve elimination. ASHA workers are involved in this campaign to make it successful. The objective of this study was to assess the knowledge of ASHA functionaries regarding leprosy disease and to analyze the field practices of ASHA functionaries during LCDC activity.Methods: The present study was a community based observational study which was conducted at field practice area of RHTC, Hind Institute of Medical Sciences from 6 November to 19 November 2017. All ASHA functionaries were interviewed using preformed semi-structured questionnaire. Data were stored in Microsoft excel XP and analyzed.Results: None (0%) of ASHA functionaries correctly knew the exact cause of leprosy. Only 10.2% knew mode of transmission, 89.8% knew sign and symptoms, 28.6% knew complications, 12.2% knew prevention of complications, only 10.2% knew exact meaning of MDT. Only 63.3% ASHAs had prior information about orientation training. Out of these only 26.5% completed the practical exercises. Local community remained uninformed about LCDC activity as IEC activities were very poor in all of the centers.Conclusions: In India ASHA workers are the main health functionaries for LCDC activity and in this study, we found that quality of orientation training was substandard as compared to GOI guidelines. So, every effort should be given to make orientation training successful

Visual Field Mapping by Tangent Screen and Humphrey Perimetry: A Comparative Study

Background and Objectives: (a) To compare manual tangent screen perimetry and automated Humphrey perimetry for visual field testing, and (b) to analyze whether manual tangent screen perimetry still has a role or it should be replaced by computerized automated Humphrey perimetry in physiology labs and clinical diagnostic settings.Methods: Study was done on 45 patients between 18 and 65 years of age that included 30 eyes of patients suffering from glaucoma/ other eye diseases giving rise to visual field defects, 5 eyes of patients suffering from neurological diseases and 10 eyes of normal subjects.All patients underwent perimetry examination by tangent screen at 1 meter distance (and 2 meter distance, if required) and automated Humphrey perimetry by Humphrey visual field analyzer (HFA) using 30-2 ‘white on white’ full threshold strategy. Tangent screen consists of black screen 2 meter square or 1 meter square. Accordingly, patient is seated at a distance of 2 meter or 1 meter respectively. A patient with organically constricted visual fields will show an increase in the size of the visual field when moved to a farther distance while a patient with functional visual field loss will often report the same absolute size of the field (tubular or gun-barrel field) to be consistent with their first field. This is clear evidence of functional visual field impairment.Results: Out of 45 patients, 29 were male and 16 were female. The age cases in the study ranged from 40-79 years with mean age of 60.70 years. Tangent screen perimetry was able to detect about 5 patients with early field defects and 15 patients with moderate/ advanced field defects. On the other hand, Humphrey automated perimetry was able to detect 10 patients with early field defects and 18 patients with moderate/ advanced field defects. While only 13.33% technicians preferred tangent screen perimetry, around three-fourths of the technicians found Humphrey automated perimetry more preferable. 91.11% technicians found HVF to be technically easier because the automated perimeter eliminates observer bias, is easier to perform and also overcomes the tedium of manual perimetry. Moreover, automated perimetry also uses quantified parameters while manual perimetry does not. On evaluating sensitivity and specificity of manual tangent screen perimeter using the Humphrey automated perimeter as the standard, the tests showed that the tangent screen perimeter had 75.75% sensitivity and 88.88% specificity. Since the mean time taken was more in automated perimetry: 474.5 sec, 474 sec and 459.9 sec versus 340.5 sec, 339.1 sec, and 339.1 sec in glaucoma, neurological and normal patients respectively; more patients-66% preferred tangent screen perimetry.Interpretation and Conclusions: Our results suggest that visual field testing with automated perimetry is superior to visual field testing with tangent screen perimetry. The automated perimeter picked up visual field defects in a larger number of eyes than the tangent screen perimeter. Visual field defects were more extensive on automated perimetry compared to tangent screen perimetry.The advantage of the HVF analyzer also lies in its ability to make use of quantified parameters like mean deviation and corrected pattern standard deviation to detect subtle worsening of visual field defect, with statistical level of confidence

Forage Production in Peach Based Hortipastoral System in Indian Himalaya

The North West Himalayan region (NWHR) exhibits a great diversity in geology, physiography, climate, socio-ecology and land use pattern and supports vast livestock population. The annual average rainfall varies from 80 mm in Ladakh to over 2000 mm in some parts of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Livestock rearing is an integral part of hill agriculture. The huge animal population (190 lakh) and poor fodder availability (30 to 40 % of the requirement) has widen the gap between demand and supply of forage crops in the region. The area under permanent pasture and grasslands in NWHR is said to be of 15.8 lakh ha and a major portion of it is located in Himachal Pradesh (HP). Considerable area is under grazing lands and but on the whole their productivity (quantity and quality-wise) is rather poor and is continuously deteriorating. The availability of green grasses during winter season is practically nil due to severe winter and burning of forest (Bisht and Yadav, 2014). Thus, livestock is facing acute nutritional stress due to shortage of nutritional fodder and high cost of concentrates. The commonly preferred horticultural based agro-forestry systems are agri-horticulture, silvi-horticulture and silvipastoral in the NWHR. Various studies showed that peach (Prunus persica L.) which belong to family Rosaceae can be intercropped with crops and grasses in Himalayan region. Turmeric performed better than ginger in the peach garden (Arora and Mohan, 1986). The perennial vegetation have been the primary source to rejuvenate productivity of land through recycling of nutrients and make soil physico-chemical properties favorable for plant growth. Farming system approach integrating all the components viz., soil-plant-fodder-animal management is necessary for the economic well being of the inhabitants. Hence, it is suggested to develop hortipastoral systems/models by introducing pasture and foliage component under fruit trees so as to provide nutritious green forage and foliage (Pathak and Roy, 1994) to animals for getting higher production from unit of land in rainfed areas. Hortipastoral system, where in the inter spaces between fruit trees species are utilized for cultivation of grasses and grass legume mixtures. Winter grasses i.e., Perennial rye, Tall fescue, Grassland manava and Hima are grown in Sikkim, J&K, HP, Nilgiri hills and Kumaon and Garhwal hills of Uttaranchal. Under irrigated conditions it can also be grown successfully in subtropical region as winter forage. These grasses are extremely resistant to cold and frost, a good crop can be raised between 1800 to 2500 m altitudes, but in mid hills its cultivation is feasible under irrigated condition. Hortipastoral is a fodder production system to meet the acute shortage of fodder, to improve the soil and to increase the farmer’s income. This will combine horticultural trees, grasses and use of wasteland for fodder production. Therefore, the production techniques for ensuring green fodder supply during winter months, and total fodder supply for the larger period of the year by adoption of hortipastoral system with improved grass species needs to be exploited