Ericulture as a Remedy of Rural Poverty in Assam: A Micro Level Study in Barpeta District

Ericulture i.e., rearing of eri cocoon and spinning as well as weaving of endi clothes has been an integral part of the rural economic activities especially of the rural women in Assam. Though both male and female folk of all sections of rural population have been engaged in different sericulture activities, tribal women have been predominant in the rearing and weaving of eri raw silk and endi textiles, who in addition to their daily household activities use their leisure time and with the help of their traditionally inherited knowledge produce useful but comparatively cheaper endi clothes. The activities not only help to increase their household income but also help many of them to come out of the acute poverty. Moreover, these women become economically and thus socially more empowered. An attempt is made in this paper to throw some light on the role of ericulture and endi-entrepreneurship in the generation of income, employment and removal of poverty in Assam.Ericulture, Poverty eradication, Rural entrepreneurship

An Improved Aluminium Conductor

The engineering requirements of a conductor material are that it should be (i) plentiful and not too expensive, (ii) an adequate conductor of electrical (iii) mechani-cally strong to withstand stresses an strains, (iv) duct-ile and strong enough to be satisfactorily with a copper conductor cable in performance, reliability, durability and cost. Aluminium meets most of these requirements and is extensively available in India

Founding Properties of Non-ferrous Liquid Metals

The Paper evaluates the important physical prope-rties such as viscosity, surface tension and density and volume contraction on solidification of some non-ferrous liquid metals and alloys, interms of the liquid state structure

An Improved Aluminium Conductor

WHILST aluminium can compete with copper as a conductor of electricity on its own merits, it unfortunately suffers from inferiority complex as it is commonly regarded as a substitute of copper forced upon the elect-rical industry due to the shortage of indigenously prod-uced copper. Even in countries where import of copper is not a problem, transmission of electricity by aluminium conductor is proving economical and its use is advocated not as a substitute but as a serious competitor of copper on its own merits. The engineering requirements of a cond-uctor material are that it should be (i) plentiful and not too expensive, (ii) an adequate conductor of electricity, (iii) mechanically strong to withstand stresses and trains, (iv) ductile and strong enough to be rolled and drawn into wires and (v) should compare satisfactorily with a copper conductor cable in performance, reliability, durability and cost

Structure of Liquid Aluminium-Copper Alloys

EARLIER work' done in these laboratories has established the existence of copper-rich clusters in the liquid aluminium copper alloys. It was decided to investigate the behaviour of these clusters at various temperatures in aluminium-copper alloys because of the great commer-cial and scientific interest, in age-hardening alloys. Such an understanding would be of help in forming it physical picture of the early stages of the precipita- tion processes. The existence of the clusters is thermo-dynamically possible as it lowers the free energy of the system by increasing the entropy of mixing, The aluminium-rich or copper-rich clusters in liquid aluminium-copper alloys arise because of the negative heat of solution. The density of the copperrich clusters is greater than that of the parent liquid and the difference in the den-sity could be magnified several times by centrifuging the molten alloy, thus causing the heavier copper-rich clus-ters to move away from the radius of rotation. Conditions are thus created which divide the liquid into aluminium-rich and copperrich portions

Electrical conductivity of some aluminium alloys

AS INDIGENOUS resources of copper are not sufficient to meet the mounting engineering demands for the transmiss- ion of electricity, it is being increasingly replaced by aluminium as electrical conductivity of aluminium is second only to that of copper amongst engineering cond-uctor materials. Whereas copper conductors employ copper of highest purity to obtain maximum conductivity, alum-inium conductors cannot be made from super-pure alumin- ium inspite of its superior electrical conductivity as it is soft and of inferior strength

Phytoestrogens modulate breast cancer resistance protein expression and function at the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier

PURPOSE: Breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP/ABCG2) is a drug efflux transporter expressed at the blood cerebrospinal fluid barrier (BCSFB), and influences distribution of drugs into the central nervous systems (CNS). Current inhibitors have failed clinically due to neurotoxicity. Novel approaches are needed to identify new modulators to enhance CNS delivery. This study examines 18 compounds (mainly phytoestrogens) as modulators of the expression/function of BCRP in an in vitro rat choroid plexus BCSFB model. METHODS: Modulators were initially subject to cytotoxicity (MTT) assessment to determine optimal non-toxic concentrations. Reverse-transcriptase PCR and confocal microscopy were used to identify the presence of BCRP in Z310 cells. Thereafter modulation of the intracellular accumulation of the fluorescent BCRP probe substrate Hoechst 33342 (H33342), changes in protein expression of BCRP (western blotting) and the functional activity of BCRP (membrane insert model) were assessed under modulator exposure. RESULTS: A 24 hour cytotoxicity assay (0.001 µM-1000 µM) demonstrated the majority of modulators possessed a cellular viability IC50 > 148 µM. Intracellular accumulation of H33342 was significantly increased in the presence of the known BCRP inhibitor Ko143 and, following a 24 hour pre-incubation, all modulators demonstrated statistically significant increases in H33342 accumulation (P < 0.001), when compared to control and Ko143. After a 24 hour pre-incubation with modulators alone, a 0.16-2.5-fold change in BCRP expression was observed for test compounds. The functional consequences of this were confirmed in a permeable insert model of the BCSFB which demonstrated that 17-β-estradiol, naringin and silymarin (down-regulators) and baicalin (up-regulator) can modulate BCRP-mediated transport function at the BCSFB. CONCLUSION: We have successfully confirmed the gene and protein expression of BCRP in Z310 cells and demonstrated the potential for phytoestrogen modulators to influence the functionality of BCRP at the BCSFB and thereby potentially allowing manipulation of CNS drug disposition

Indigenous Lakadong turmeric of Meghalaya and its future prospects

Turmeric (Curcuma longa) has long been used in traditional Indian medicine. India accounts for 80% of total global turmeric production. Lakadong turmeric gets its name from the tiny village of Lakadong, which is located in the foothills of the Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya, India. It is known for having a high curcumin content of more than 7%, as opposed to 2 - 4% in regular varieties. The tribes of this region brought Lakadong turmeric from the forest and domesticated it for medicinal purposes centuries ago. Growth in local coal industries and a gradual decline in the market have had a significant impact on and reduced Lakadong turmeric production. To resurrect the industry, the Meghalaya government has embarked on a mission to increase production of Lakadong turmeric to 50,000 metric tons (MT) per year by 2023, up from 20,000 MT currently. However, most farmers in this region have abandoned Lakadong turmeric cultivation due to low returns. To ensure farmers’ livelihoods, policymakers and the government must address future production challenges and create a viable market for such commodities. This review paper discusses the traditional history of Lakadong cultivation and its current status, challenges, and prospects. The paper also discusses the agronomic, phytochemical, and medicinal properties of turmeric

Curvelet Denoising with Improved Thresholds for Application on Ultrasound Images

In medical image processing, image denoising has become a very essential exercise all through the diagnose. Negotiation between the preservation of useful diagnostic information and noise suppression must be treasured in medical images. In case of ultrasonic images a special type of acoustic noise, technically known as speckle noise, is the major factor of image quality degradation. Many denoising techniques have been proposed for effective suppression of speckle noise. Removing noise from the original image or signal is still a challenging problem for researchers. In this paper, a Curvelet transform based denoising with improved thresholds is proposed for ultrasound images

Periodic Noise Removal in Strain and Natural Images Using 2-D Fast Fourier Transform

This paper presents a 2-D FFT removal algorithm for reducing the periodic noise in natural and strain images. For the periodic pattern of the artifacts, we apply the 2-D FFT on the strain and natural images to extract and remove the peaks which are corresponding to periodic noise in the frequency domain. Further the mean filter applied to get more effective results. The performance of the proposed method is tested on both natural and strain images. The results of proposed method is compared with the mean filter based periodic noise removal and found that the proposed method significantly improved for the noise removal