Molecular detection and characterization of phytoplasma associated with China aster (Callistephus chinensis) phyllody in India

China aster (Callistephus chinensis L.) is one of the most popular annual flowering plant grown through-out the world. Phyllody disease of China aster is a phytoplasma associated disease that induces severe economic losses. Phytoplasmal disease in China aster was assessed for phytoplasma by direct polymerase chain reaction primed by using phytoplasma universal primer pairs PI/P7. A 1.8 Kb DNA fragments encoding the portion of phyto-plasma 16SrDNA amplified by PCR was cloned and sequenced. Sequencing of the PCR product and BLAST analy-sis indicated that China aster phyllody phytoplasma strain shared maximum sequence identity (99%) with strains of Peanut Witches’ broom (16SrII) phytoplasma group. Phylogenetic relationship of 16SrDNA sequence of China aster phyllody phytoplasma strain in the present study confirmed association of Peanut Witches’ broom (16SrII) group of phytoplasmas with China aster phyllody disease in India

Hybrid LSTM and Encoder-Decoder Architecture for Detection of Image Forgeries

With advanced image journaling tools, one can easily alter the semantic meaning of an image by exploiting certain manipulation techniques such as copy-clone, object splicing, and removal, which mislead the viewers. In contrast, the identification of these manipulations becomes a very challenging task as manipulated regions are not visually apparent. This paper proposes a high-confidence manipulation localization architecture which utilizes resampling features, Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) cells, and encoder-decoder network to segment out manipulated regions from non-manipulated ones. Resampling features are used to capture artifacts like JPEG quality loss, upsampling, downsampling, rotation, and shearing. The proposed network exploits larger receptive fields (spatial maps) and frequency domain correlation to analyze the discriminative characteristics between manipulated and non-manipulated regions by incorporating encoder and LSTM network. Finally, decoder network learns the mapping from low-resolution feature maps to pixel-wise predictions for image tamper localization. With predicted mask provided by final layer (softmax) of the proposed architecture, end-to-end training is performed to learn the network parameters through back-propagation using ground-truth masks. Furthermore, a large image splicing dataset is introduced to guide the training process. The proposed method is capable of localizing image manipulations at pixel level with high precision, which is demonstrated through rigorous experimentation on three diverse datasets

Partial root zone drying irrigation in papaya (Carica papaya L.) for enhanced water use efficiency under limited water situations

Field experiments were conducted during 2015-17 at ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Hessaraghatta, Bengaluru, to standardize the partial root zone drying irrigation in papaya with 12 treatments in RBD design. The results indicated that better soil moisture in the root zone could be maintained under drip irrigation by shifting laterals on either side at fortnightly intervals as compared to fixed laterals with thesame amount of water. Significantly more primary roots (16.5/plant) were observed when irrigation was scheduled on one side with single emitter meeting 60% of the evaporative demand. PRD irrigation through shifting of laterals recorded significantly higher transpiration rate especially at 50% of ER (8.05 m mol m-2 s-1) as compared to the control (3.95m mol m-2 s-1). Further, the same treatment recorded significantly lower fruit cavity index (0.26) with relatively higher fruit volume (1388 cm3). Irrigating papaya only on one side with single emitter resulted in significantly higher T.S.S (13.0%). Higher water productivity (23.7 kg/m3) could be obtained by scheduling the irrigation at 40% evaporation replenishment through shifting of laterals with saving of substantial water (1285m3/ha) resulting in higher water use efficiency (237.4 kg/ha.mm)

ALGORITHMS FOR CONSTRUCTING EDGE MAGIC TOTAL LABELING OF COMPLETE BIPARTITE GRAPHS

The study of graph labeling has focused on finding classes of graphs which admits a particular type of labeling. In this paper we consider a particular class of graphs which demonstrates Edge Magic Total Labeling. The class we considered here is a complete bipartite graph Km,n. There are various graph labeling techniques that generalize the idea of a magic square has been proposed earlier. The definition of a magic labeling on a graph with v vertices and e edges is a one to one map taking the vertices and edges onto the integers 1,2,3,………, v+e with the property that the sum of the label on an edge and the labels of its endpoints is constant independent of the choice of edge. We use m x n matrix to construct edge magic total labeling of Km,n

Standardization of Spacing and Soil Volume Wetting for Drip Irrigationin Papaya (Carica papaya L.)

Field experiments in two crops of papaya were conducted at ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research for four years during 2016-19 to standardise spacing with optimum soil volume wetting for drip irrigation. Narrowing the plant rows drastically reduced the plant height while leaf production affected significantly due to reduction in intra row spacing. The height at first fruiting was significantly lower with a spacing of 1.8 m x 1.5 m (56.4 cm) significantly differing from both 1.5 m x 1.5 m (60.9 cm) or 1.8 m x 1.8 m (66.8 cm). Significantly higher mean fruit yield (42.2 t/ha) was recorded with the spacing of 1.5 m x 1.5m as compared to either 1.8m x 1.5m (23.4 t/ha) or 1.8m x 1.8m (22.1 t/ha). Significantly higher water use efficiency (71.3 kg/ha.mm) was recorded in papaya by following closer spacing of 1.5 m x 1.5 m. Among the interactions, higher papaya yield (48.0 t/ha) was recorded with normal drip irrigation (80% soil volume wetting) under closer spacing (1.5 m. x 1.5 m). Further, higher water use efficiency (129 kg/ha. mm) could be obtained by scheduling the irrigation at 30% soil volume wetting especially by planting at 1.5 m. x 1.5 m. spacing suggesting its suitability for water scarcity areas

Seed anatomical studies on dormancy and germination in Chamaecrista absus

Present study was conducted to analyze the anatomical structure of seed to study the dormancy behaviour in Chamaecrista absus. Seed germination behaviour was also studied after breaking the seed dormancy by artificial seed treatments. The anotamical studies revealed that seed has apical hilar region and seed coat has four layers consisting of outer cuticle, sub cuticle, palisade layer and inner tegma leading to physical dormancy. Outer cuticle and sub cuticle layers are very hard to break naturally and hence seeds possess hard seed coat dormancy. This physically hard seed coat should be made soft to enhance germination. Studies to break dormancy were conducted involving treatments like hot water, hormones and in combinations of both. The results revealed that seeds dipped in boiling water made inner layers permeable for water absorption in hilar region and thus germination enhanced. In specific seeds treated with boiling water for 5 minutes recorded higher germination (82 %) over untreated control (26 %). . Other artificial treatments with hormones gibberellic acid (33 % ) and ethrel (34 % ) did not enhanced the germination significantly over control. C. absus has hard coat dormancy and can be overcame by treating seeds with boiling water treatment

Comparative study (II): On the longevity of pupa and adult moths in selected few bivoltine purelines of silkworm Bombyx mori (L) in all the seasons of the year.

A comparative study utilizing the six multivoltines, in three seasons of the year between pupal and adult moth stage of silkworm of reveals a positive significance. Pupal duration was calculated after chrysalis stage among six multivoltines clearly indicated that the duration of pupae in the pre race is lowest where as the Daizo race exhibited the longest pupal duration of 240 hours. Silkworm adult life span evaluated in three seasons in the two sexes (male moth and female moth) it is clear that race pre exhibited shortest adult life span of 84 hours in mated males and 114 hours in mated females during pre-monsoon period and Daizo race revealed prolonged adult life span 222 hours in unmated males and 242 hours in unmated females during post-monsoon period. In the present studies among the two sexes, the unmated (virgin) male and females moths exhibited the longest life span than those of mated male and female moths. The influence of three seasons on adult life span is very clear from the experiment. The effect of pre-monsoon is more conspicuous (revealing short lifespan) where as in post-monsoon season lifespan is longest both in the pupal and adult. The results obtained from the present studies clearly demonstrate that racial differences, seasonal impact and sex wise differences are important in the expression of adult longevity

Boosting Image Forgery Detection using Resampling Features and Copy-move analysis

Realistic image forgeries involve a combination of splicing, resampling, cloning, region removal and other methods. While resampling detection algorithms are effective in detecting splicing and resampling, copy-move detection algorithms excel in detecting cloning and region removal. In this paper, we combine these complementary approaches in a way that boosts the overall accuracy of image manipulation detection. We use the copy-move detection method as a pre-filtering step and pass those images that are classified as untampered to a deep learning based resampling detection framework. Experimental results on various datasets including the 2017 NIST Nimble Challenge Evaluation dataset comprising nearly 10,000 pristine and tampered images shows that there is a consistent increase of 8%-10% in detection rates, when copy-move algorithm is combined with different resampling detection algorithms

Comparative study between open versus laparoscopic inguinal hernioplasty

Background: Inguinal hernia repair is one of the commonly performed procedure and has undergone a paradigm shift from open to laparoscopic approach in the era of minimally invasive surgery but the superiority is still debatable. The aim was to compare open (Lichtenstein) versus laparoscopic transabdominal preperitoneal approach (TAPP) hernia repair techniques. Methods: A total of 60 patients were enrolled in the study and divided into two equal groups (open versus laparoscopic) were compared. Results: It was observed that laparoscopic repair (TAPP) has statistically significant superiority than open inguinal hernioplasty in terms of lesser post-operative pain (VAS score of 4.8±0.66, 3.67±0.66, 2.53±0.82 versus 6.7±0.92, 5.03±0.72, 3.83±0.65 at 24 hours, 48 hours and 72 hours post operatively, p value <0.001), shorter duration of hospital stay (3.1±0.71 days versus 5.83±0.75 days, p value <0.001) and early resumption to regular activities (10.57±2.28 days versus 12.2±1.52 days, p value 0.002). It also showed that incidence intra operative and post-operative complications was lesser in laparoscopic group but not statistically significant. Whereas duration of surgery was prolonged in laparoscopic group (104±27.49 min versus 61.5±17.08 min, p value <0.001). Conclusions: Laparoscopic inguinal hernioplasty (TAPP) is superior to open inguinal hernioplasty in terms of lesser intra operative and post-operative complications, lesser post-operative pain, shorter duration of hospital stay with early resumption to regular activities having better subjective and objective cosmetic results in short term follow-up. However, duration of surgery was prolonged on comparison with Lichtenstein open inguinal hernioplasty

Biological relationship of Bean common mosaic virus (BCMV) infecting cowpea with leguminous plant species

Bean common mosaic virus (BCMV) associated with cowpea mechanically inoculated to different legumi-nous plants. Out of nineteen including cowpea Var.C-152, the virus was easily transferred to ten different legumi-nous hosts. All other hosts assessed for the presence of BCMV were found to be uninfected. The number of days taken for symptom expression and symptoms were varied within plant species. Pole bean expressed mosaic symp-tom after long incubation period (15-18 days) whereas, shorter incubation period was observed in common bean and rice bean (7- 10 days). BCMV produced chlorosis, mosaic, leaf distortion, puckering, vein banding, vein clearing and vein netting on cowpea(C-152). A typical virus symptom, mosaic was observed in green gram, common bean, lime bean, rice bean and yard long bean, whereas, leaf rolling and leaf distortion was observed in black gram, pole bean and snap bean. The virus-host relationship was confirmed by back inoculation test to C. amaranticolor. Further symptomatic plants were subjected for Reverse Transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for molecular confirmation using BCMV coat protein (CP) specific primer pair. A PCR fragment size of 439bp was amplified for the symptomatic plants. The results generated indicated the ability of a plant to support virus expression and host speci-ficity of BMCV within the leguminous plant species