Performance of cashew types under Bhubaneswar condition

An experiment was conducted at the Cashew Research Station of Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India during 1994 to 2011 to identify the cashew types for commercial cultivation under Odisha condition. Evaluation of the 13 cashew types over fourteen years revealed significant variations for nut yield among the types. The result indicated a wide range of variation for different parameters under study. The maximum average number of nuts panicle-1 was recorded in H 303 (4.19). Highest weight (g) of nut as well as apple was observed in H 367 (9.7 and 92.7). All the cashew types under study exhibited shelling percentage more than 28 but maximum kernel recovery was observed in H 255 (31.7). BPP 30/1 and M44/3 were the early flowering types that recorded panicle initiation during 4th week of November, whereas NRCC Sel.-1 and H 255 were late flowering types that flowered during first week of January. The flowering period ended first in M 15/4 (1st week February) while it was during 3rd week of March in H 255 and BPP 3/28. Maximum flowering duration was observed in BPP 30/1 (96 days) and minimum in NRCC Sel.-2 (59 days). The cumulative nut yield (kg plant-1) at 14th harvest was observed in H 303 (106.8) followed by NRCC Sel.-2 (100.0), H 68 (93.1) and lowest in M 15/4 (37.5)

Comparative Study on Thresholding

Criterion based thresholding algorithms are simple and effective for two-level thresholding. However, if a multilevel thresholding is needed, the computational complexity will exponentially increase and the performance may become unreliable. In this approach, a novel and more effective method is used for multilevel thresholding by taking hierarchical cluster organization into account. Developing a dendogram of gray levels in the histogram of an image, based on the similarity measure which involves the inter-class variance of the clusters to be merged and the intra-class variance of the new merged cluster . The bottom-up generation of clusters employing a dendogram by the proposed method yields good separation of the clusters and obtains a robust estimate of the threshold. Such cluster organization will yield a clear separation between object and background even for the case of nearly unimodal or multimodal histogram. Since the hierarchical clustering method performs an iterative merging operation, it is extended to multilevel thresholding problem by eliminating grouping of clusters when the pixel values are obtained from the expected numbers of clusters. This paper gives a comparison on Otsu’s & Kwon’s criterion with hierarchical based multi-level thresholding

Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality and life expectancy, 1950–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

BACKGROUND: Assessments of age-specific mortality and life expectancy have been done by the UN Population Division, Department of Economics and Social Affairs (UNPOP), the United States Census Bureau, WHO, and as part of previous iterations of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD). Previous iterations of the GBD used population estimates from UNPOP, which were not derived in a way that was internally consistent with the estimates of the numbers of deaths in the GBD. The present iteration of the GBD, GBD 2017, improves on previous assessments and provides timely estimates of the mortality experience of populations globally. METHODS: The GBD uses all available data to produce estimates of mortality rates between 1950 and 2017 for 23 age groups, both sexes, and 918 locations, including 195 countries and territories and subnational locations for 16 countries. Data used include vital registration systems, sample registration systems, household surveys (complete birth histories, summary birth histories, sibling histories), censuses (summary birth histories, household deaths), and Demographic Surveillance Sites. In total, this analysis used 8259 data sources. Estimates of the probability of death between birth and the age of 5 years and between ages 15 and 60 years are generated and then input into a model life table system to produce complete life tables for all locations and years. Fatal discontinuities and mortality due to HIV/AIDS are analysed separately and then incorporated into the estimation. We analyse the relationship between age-specific mortality and development status using the Socio-demographic Index, a composite measure based on fertility under the age of 25 years, education, and income. There are four main methodological improvements in GBD 2017 compared with GBD 2016: 622 additional data sources have been incorporated; new estimates of population, generated by the GBD study, are used; statistical methods used in different components of the analysis have been further standardised and improved; and the analysis has been extended backwards in time by two decades to start in 1950. FINDINGS: Globally, 18·7% (95% uncertainty interval 18·4–19·0) of deaths were registered in 1950 and that proportion has been steadily increasing since, with 58·8% (58·2–59·3) of all deaths being registered in 2015. At the global level, between 1950 and 2017, life expectancy increased from 48·1 years (46·5–49·6) to 70·5 years (70·1–70·8) for men and from 52·9 years (51·7–54·0) to 75·6 years (75·3–75·9) for women. Despite this overall progress, there remains substantial variation in life expectancy at birth in 2017, which ranges from 49·1 years (46·5–51·7) for men in the Central African Republic to 87·6 years (86·9–88·1) among women in Singapore. The greatest progress across age groups was for children younger than 5 years; under-5 mortality dropped from 216·0 deaths (196·3–238·1) per 1000 livebirths in 1950 to 38·9 deaths (35·6–42·83) per 1000 livebirths in 2017, with huge reductions across countries. Nevertheless, there were still 5·4 million (5·2–5·6) deaths among children younger than 5 years in the world in 2017. Progress has been less pronounced and more variable for adults, especially for adult males, who had stagnant or increasing mortality rates in several countries. The gap between male and female life expectancy between 1950 and 2017, while relatively stable at the global level, shows distinctive patterns across super-regions and has consistently been the largest in central Europe, eastern Europe, and central Asia, and smallest in south Asia. Performance was also variable across countries and time in observed mortality rates compared with those expected on the basis of development. INTERPRETATION: This analysis of age-sex-specific mortality shows that there are remarkably complex patterns in population mortality across countries. The findings of this study highlight global successes, such as the large decline in under-5 mortality, which reflects significant local, national, and global commitment and investment over several decades. However, they also bring attention to mortality patterns that are a cause for concern, particularly among adult men and, to a lesser extent, women, whose mortality rates have stagnated in many countries over the time period of this study, and in some cases are increasing

Phytoplankton community structure along offshore transects of some Indian estuaries of east coast: An experience with a summer cruise

960-973This paper is based on the analyses of samples collected during a summer cruise onboard CRV ‘Sagar Paschimi’ (Cruise no.09/11) from 1st to 8th of April 2011. Species composition, abundance and distribution of phytoplankton, and water quality parameters (transparency, water temperature, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen, nutrients viz. NO2, PO4 and chlorophyll-a) were examined in this study. A total of 123 phytoplankton species were identified. Of total, 86 species of diatoms from 44 genera, 22 species of dinoflagellates from 10 genera, 5 species of green algae from 5 genera, 4 species of cyanobacteria from 4 genera, 2 species of cocolithophores from 2 genera and 1 species of silicoflagellate were identified. Phytoplankton communities were found to vary from transect to transect. Highest and lowest values for species diversity index are associated with Godavari and Gosthani transects respectively. The highest phytoplankton abundance was found at transect Krishna (26680 cells/l) and the lowest at Godavari (9480 cells/l). Thalassiothrix longissima was quantified as the dominant species among diatoms and Dinophysis caudata among dinoflagellates. Abundance of bloom forming species Asterionellopsis glacialis was observed at transects Godavari & Mahanadi. Diversity and evenness indices of phytoplankton were found highest at Godavari transect. There exhibited a linear relationship between chlorophyll-a and phytoplankton abundance at all the transects with deviations at Gosthani and Godavari