Impact of Seed-born Colletotrichum lindemuthianum on French Bean Seed Quality

French bean seed samples were collected from different parts of Tamil Nadu including both tropical and temperate region including four cultivars viz.,Arkakomal,Premier,Rajmash DPU 88-4 and Watex.The variety Watex was found to maximum per cent seed infection of C.lindemuthianum with more discolorations.Among the various techniques adopted for detection,agar plate method was found to be best and yielded maximum per cent seed infection.Direct correlation was obtained between seed discoloration and per cent seed infection.The pathogen was found to be present mostly in seed coat and cotyledon and rarely in embryonic axis.The artificial inoculation of 45-day-old plants resulted in maximum disease incidence,resultant seed infection and minimum seed yield /plant and 100 grain weight

Distribution of microor ganisms in the Par thenium weed infested soil of Tamil Nadu

ABSTRACT Survey conducted to assess the distribution of soil microorganisms in the Parthenium infested soils of Tamil Nadu revealed that the Parthenium infested soil harboured 13 microorganisms that include

Effect of states and mixtures in HMM model and Connected word Recognition of Profoundly deaf and hard of hearing speech

Abstract — It is a challenge for many years that how to fix the no. of states and no. of mixtures when HMM models are used for speech recognition. In this paper we have analysed that for hearing impaired speech that is partially intelligible to people who are speaking to them frequently and it is not understandable by the unfamiliar listeners. They suffer in many aspects like education and in public places to converse with the normal speakers. Since speech is unique most of the time normal speech itself could not be understand by others. If we develop the speech recognizer for their speech it will convert their unintelligible speech into intelligible speech. Speaker dependent connected digit recognition for this task using HTK tool kit is done and the average recognition accuracy obtained is 93%. Totally 10 speakers out of which 3 are hard of hearing and 7 are profoundly deaf are considered for this experiment. Then for isolated words, no. of mixtures are varied from 3 to 10 for each set of states such as 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and recognition accuracy is verified for each case. When we varied beyond that there is no any significant change in recognition accuracy and so it is concluded that we can have mixture and state value as 10 for small vocabulary and the recognition performance for all types of feature is comparable to that of normal speech recognition. But irrespective of the state higher recognition is achieved at 8 or 9 or 10 mixer value for different type of feature and it can be concluded that, if we have the mixer value as 8, 9 or 10 we can get reasonable results. Keyword- Mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC), Perceptual linear prediction coefficients(PLP)

Identification of methicillin resistant and biofilm producing S. aureus, S. intermedius and Coagulase-Negative Staphylococci isolated from clinical bovine mastitis by multiplex-PCR

Objective: S. aureus (SA) and coagulase negative staphylococci (CNS) are frequent causes of bovine mastitis, while S. intermedius Group (SIG) is infrequently described. Methicillinresistant staphylococci (MRS) carrying mecA gene are an emerging health problem in humans. Biofilm formation by SA at the site of infection could explain the therapy resistance in bovine mastitis. icaA gene has been related to the ability of SA to produce biofilm. In this study, the presence of SA, SIG and CNS in cows with clinical mastitis and their methicillinresistance and biofilm-production was evaluated by multiplex- PCR. Methods: The DNA of 326 Staphylococcus spp. strains cultured from milk of cows with clinical mastitis was tested by multiplex-PCR to detect the Staphylococcus spp.16S rDNA (252bp), the nuc gene of SIG (125bp) and SA (420bp), the mecA gene (532bp) and the icaA gene (188bp). Antimicrobial susceptibility testing for methicillin and qualitative biofilm evaluation was performed on isolated SA by conventional antibiotic disc diffusion test (ADDT) and Congo red agar method (CRAM) respectively. Results: Out of 326 Staphylococcus spp., 163 (50%) SA, 19 (5.8%) SIG and 144 (44.2%) CNS were identified. mecA was present in 19 SA strains (11.7 %), in 19 (13.2%) CNS, and was absent in SIG strains. icaA was detected in all SA strains and in 30 (20.8%) CNS, but not in SIG strains. In CRAM, 129 (79.1%) SA produced black colony (high biofilm producer) and 34 (20.9%) produced bordeaux colonies (weak biofilm producers). No red colonies (no biofilm production) were grown. All the mec A positive strains were resistant to methicillin, while other strains were susceptible by ADDT. Conclusion: Multiplex-PCR is a fast and reliable method for the detection of the methicillin-resistant and biofilm producing staphylococci and for the species identification. Although SA is a frequent cause of bovine mastitis, SIG also has to be considered. MRS are present in bovine clinical mastitis and constitute a therapeutic problem in veterinary medicine, but cattle may also be a reservoir for the mecA gene. All SA were icaA positive, demonstrating the high ability of clinical strains to produce biofilm. Furthermore, for the first time the presence of icaA has been demonstrated also in CNS isolated from cows. In conclusion, the gene-related antibiotic resistance and the biofilm production in staphylococci have to be considered an emerging health problem not only in human medicine but also in veterinary science