Estimation of Demand Elasticity for Food Commodities in India

The food demand in India has been examined in the context of a structural shift in the dietary pattern of its population. The results have reinforced the hypothesis of a significant diversification in the dietary pattern of households in recent years and has found stark differences in the consumption pattern across different income quartiles. The food demand behaviour has been explained using a set of demand elasticities corresponding to major food commodities. The demand elasticities have been estimated using multi-stage budgeting with QUAIDS model and another alternative model, FCDS. The study has revealed that the estimated income elasticities vary across income classes and are lowest for cereals group and highest for horticultural and livestock products. The analysis of price and income effects based on the estimated demand system has suggested that with increase in food price inflation, the demand for staple food (rice, wheat and sugar) may not be affected adversely but, that of high-value food commodities is likely to be affected negatively. Therefore, the study has cautioned that if inflation in food prices remains unabated for an extended period, there is the possibility of reversal of the trend of diversification and that of consumers returning to cereal-dominated diet, thus accentuating under-nourishment.Food demand, Demand elasticity, QUAIDS model, FCDS model, Household food demand, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q11, Q18,

Secure spontaneous emergency access to personal health record

We propose a system which enables access to the user's Personal Health Record (PHR) in the event of emergency. The access typically occurs in an ad-hoc and spontaneous manner and the user is usually unconscious, hence rendering the unavailability of the user's password to access the PHR. The proposed system includes a smart card carried by the user at all time and it is personalized with a pseudo secret, an URL to the PHR Server, a secret key shared with the PHR Server and a number of redemption tokens generated using a hash chain. In each emergency session, a one-time use redemption token is issued by the smart card, allowing the emergency doctor to retrieve the user's PHR upon successful authentication of his credentials and validation of the redemption token. The server returns the PHR encrypted with a one-time session key which can only be decrypted by the emergency doctor. The devised interaction protocol to facilitate emergency access to the user's PHR is secure and efficient

Scrap Reduction By Using Total Quality Management Tools

A case study was carried out in one of the leading Indian industries manufacturing pre-stressed concrete steel strands (PC wire). It has major applications in bridges and construction industry. During study, lot of scrap was observed. Reasons for scrap was found out by using total quality management tools (TQM). Such as brainstorming, cause & effect diagram and pareto analysis. Main reasons were left over rings, non-conformity, chheda and weld/wire breakage. In the present study, scraps due to left over rings were reduced gradually by taking suitable action.

GENERALIZED CAUCHY-RIEMANN SCREEN PSEUDO-SLANT LIGHTLIKE SUBMANIFOLDS OF INDEFINITE SASAKIAN MANIFOLDS

This paper deals with the study of generalized Cauchy-Riemann (in short, GCR) screen pseudo-slant lightlike submanifolds of indefinite Sasakian manifolds giving a characterization theorem with some non-trivial examples of such submanifolds. Integrability conditions of distributions D1, D2, D′1 and D′2 on GCR screen pseudo-slant lightlike submanifolds of indefinite Sasakian manifolds have been obtained. Furthermore, we obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for foliations determined by the above distributions to be totally geodesic

Automated Detection of Retinal Hemorrhage based on Supervised Classifiers

Supervised machine learning algorithm based retinal hemorrhage detection and classification is presented. For developing an automated diabetic retinopathy screening system, efficient detection of retinal hemorrhage is important. Splat, which is a high level entity in image segmentation is used to mark out hemorrhage in the pre-processed fundus image. Here, color images of retina are portioned into different segments (splats) covereing the whole image. With the help of splat level and GLCM features extracted from the splats, three classifiers are trained and tested using the relevant features. The ground-truth is established with the help of a retinal expert and using dataset and clinical images the validation was done. The output obtained using the three classifiers had more than 96 % sensitivity and accuracy

Assessment of parasitic load in goat through the examination of faecal matter

Parasitic infection do not show heavy rate of mortality, however there occurrence being chronic, most of the time leads to serious production losses, this led to study about severity of parasitic load and type of parasitic infection in goats. Parasitic infection most of the time leads to serious production losses. Gastrointestinal nematodes are ubiquitous parasites of grazing ruminants and cause decreases in survival, live weight gain, wool and milk production and reproduction performance. Parasitic problems are a serious problem in goat. Total 60 goat faecal samples were analyzed. These results would serve as a baseline for future studies. The majority of the faecal samples (70%) of both zone I and zone II had heavy parasitic load (>3000 epg) followed by 60 per cent samples of zone III. This indicates that majority of the goats of the study area had severe parasitic infection. Chi-square analysis revealed non-significant relation between parasitic load and categories of zones. Majority of samples (48.33%) were infected with the combination of Strongyles, Strongyloides and Coccidiosis. It can be concluded that faecal egg count level was severe in majority of the samples examined

Estimation of heterosis for yield and quality components in chilli (Capsicum annuum L.)

Ten genotypes including five lines (Kashi Anmol, Pant C-1, Japani Longi, Kashi Sinduri and Pusa Jwala) and five testers (R-Line, VR-339, AKC-89/38, DC-16 and Punjab Lal) of chilli were crossed to derive 25 F1 hybrids. The 35 genotypes (10 parents and 25 F1 hybrids) were evaluated for yield and quality (capsaicin and oleoresin) traits. Highly significant correlation was observed between fruit yield per plant and average fruit weight (g). The direct and indirect effect on yield revealed that the maximum direct effect was exhibited by average fruit weight followed by number of fruits per plant via yield per plant. The crosses Pusa Jwala × VR-339, Pusa Jwala × DC-16 and Pant C-1 × VR-339 exhibited higher level of heterobeltiosis for most of the traits. The higher specific combing ability (SCA) for yield was obtained in crosses Kashi Sinduri × Punjab Lal followed by Pant C-1 × VR-339 and Pusa Jwala × VR-339. Among the hybrids, Pusa Jwala × VR-339 had higher yield as well as capsaicin content, moreover, Kashi Sinduri × AKC-89/38 exhibited highest oleoresin content. These best hybrids (Pusa Jwala × VR-339, Kashi Sinduri × Punjab Lal and Pant C-1 × VR-339) might be utilized for further chilli improvement programme.Key words: Chilli, heterosis, correlation, combining ability, capsaicin, oleoresin

Ergonomic Risk Assessment using Postural Analysis Tools in a Bus Body Building Unit

Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSD) which are related with repetitive and demandingworking conditions continue to represent one of the biggest problems throughout the world.Assessment of exposure levels to MSD risk factors can be an appropriate base for planning and implementing interventional ergonomics programs in theworkplace. The presents study is focused on posture analysis of the workers working in a automotive coach manufacturing company (bus body building) company. The study wasconducted on 38 workers engaged in various process of manufacturing. The different activities of the workers were recorded by Video and still photography, and these images were used for analysis. Posture analysis toolsRULA, REBA and QEC were used. The results of RULA showed that about 31.57% of the workers were under high risk level and needed a necessary action immediately. About 28.95% of the workers were under medium risk levels andabout 28.95% of the workers were at lower risk levels. The results of REBA showed that about26.32% of the workers wereunder very high risk levels and required immediate change. About 23.68% of the workers were at high risk levels and a change is necessary soon, and 42.10% of the workers were at medium risk levels. According to the QEC method of assessment, it was found that 10.53% of the workers needed no corrective measures. About 31.58% of the workers needed further investigation and 34.21% of the workers were at high risk and required immediate change. It can be  concluded that  there are ergonomic deficiencies in the planning and work methods.  A significant proportion of the workers are working inhigh risk postures. Thus the workers are under moderate to high risk of Work-related Musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). The study recommended a proper implementation of ergonomics interventions program with awareness and training among workers to reduce the risksof WMSD. Keywords: Posture analysis, WMSD, bus body building

First report of Echthrogaleus denticulatus (Smith 1874) on the pelagic thresher shark (Alopias pelagicus Nakamura 1935) from Indian EEZ of Andaman Sea

The present study reports the occurrence of the pandarid parasite, Echthrogaleus denticulatus as an ectoparasite on the pelagic thresher shark (Alopias pelagicus) from the Indian EEZ of Andaman Sea. A total of 36 parasite specimens were found aggregated near the cloacal aperture of eight pelagic thresher sharks caught as bycatch by multifilament tuna longliner MFV Blue Marlin during July 2015 and February 2016 voyages in Andaman and Nicobar waters. This is the first report of ectoparasite from the Indian EEZ of the Andaman Sea