A case study of the disappearance of Arius tenuispinis (marine catfish) in the vicinity of Visakhapatnam due to mechanised fishing

Visakhapatnam is on the eastern sea board of India (17 degree 40' N and 83 degree 15' E) having a continental shelf of 45 km width which is provided with a polychaete rich, silty clay sea floor to a distance of 15 km and beyond, from the shore. Repeated trawling by a large number of trawlers over an area of 900 sq.km (30 x 30) resulted in the hardening of the substratum to the extent of making it uninhabitable to the polychaetes and polychaete feeding fish. The shoaling and strictly demersal marine catfish, Arius tenuispinis, which is a prolific polychaete feeder on the fishing grounds off Visakhapatnam, has been on the decline since 1979. The catch rate of fish dropped from 9.7 kg/boat per day in 1979 to 2.6 kg by 1985-86. In the bottomset gillnets, the catch per net dwindled from 4.4 kg in 1973 to 0.04 kg by 1985-86. The species has virtually disappeared from the fishing grounds off Visakhapatnam and further north, as a results of the cumulative effect of overfishing with trawlnets and bottomset gillnets. It is further aggravated by the hardening of the sea floor on these grounds due to repeated trawling over a narrow zone

PRELIMINARY PHYTOCHEMICAL, PHARMACOGNOSTIC AND PHYSICOCHEMICAL EVALUATION OF ERANTHEMUM NIGRUM LEAF

Objective: To analyze the pharmacognostic characteristics and physiochemical parameters of the leaves of Eranthemum nigrum (E. nigrum). Methods: Microscopic characters and powder analysis had been carried out with the help of a microscope. The physiochemical properties such as loss on drying, total ash value, acid insoluble ash value, water soluble ash value, extractive values and fluorescence of E. nigrum had been performed. Results: Macroscopically, the leaves are simple, elliptical in shape, dull with smooth margins and acute apex. Microscopically, the leaf showed the presence of epidermal cells with uniseriate multicellular covering trichomes and diacytic stomata, followed by 4-6 layered collenchymatous cells and 10-14 numbered conjoint, collateral closed vascular bundles are some of the diagnostic characteristics observed from an anatomical study. Powder microscopy of leaf revealed the presence of uniseriate multicellular covering trichomes, lignified xylem vessels, epidermis with diacytic stomata and parenchyma cells. The investigations also included leaf surface data i.e., quantitative leaf microscopy and fluorescence analysis. Physiochemical parameters such as loss on drying, extractive values and ash values were also determined. Preliminary phytochemical screening showed the presence of steroids, alkaloids, tannins, saponins, carbohydrates, glycosides, amino acids and proteins. Conclusion: The morphological, microscopical and physicochemical parameter results provided in this paper may be utilized as a basis for the preparation of a monograph on E. nigrum leaves

Splenic artery aneurysm: a case report with review of literature

Splenic Artery Aneurysm (SAA) is very rare in occurrence and they occur in approximately 1% of the population and are usually an incidental finding,but the necropsy studies have given rates as high as 10%. For its rarity in occurrence  here we present a case of splenic artery aneurysm in a 40 year old alcoholic presenting with upper and lower gastrointestinal bleeding. He was diagnosed as splenic artery aneurysm on CT scan and confirmed by laparotomy and pathological examination

LDA BASED FACE RECOGNITION USING DCT AND HYBRID DWT

In this paper we present a hybrid approach for efficient human face recognition. The proposed method is based on linear discriminant analysis of image in DCT domain with a combination of details of DWT. And the similarity measure Minkowshi is used here. This approach reduces the storage requirement and computation time while preserving the data. The approach LDA -DCT-hybrid DWT is evaluated on Matlab using ORL face database. Compared to previous methods the proposed method improves feature extraction and retrieval rate

Isolation and characterization of lytic bacteriophages of Salmonella Typhimurium and their therapeutic application

Salmonella Typhimurium is an important bacterial pathogen of gastroenteritis revealing multidrug resistance and has zoonotic implication. In an approach towards alternatives to antibiotics, lytic bacteriophages were isolated against Salmonella Typhimurium from sewage effluent using double agar overlay method. The isolated bacteir ohages, viz. fST1, fST2, fST3, fST4 and fST5 were characterized microbiologically and revealed host range 85–92% individually and 100% collectively within the genus. Biophysical characterization revealed that the phages were stable at 16°, 37°, 42°C and pH 4, 7 and 9 for 3h, supporting their therapeutic application. Electron microscopic examination of the fST1 showed icosahedral head (52.5nm), contractile tail (220–250nm) belonging to the family Myoviridae and order Caudovirales. Further, molecular characterization of fST1 revealed 38kb nucleic acid and digested by restriction endonucleases i.e., EcoRI, Bam HI and Hae III. The therapeutic application of the isolated phage cocktail was ascertained in Swiss albino mice models by infecting the control and treatment groups with 3×108 cfu/ml of the organism intramuscularly and orally. Following challenge the treatment group administered with 3×109 pfu/ml of phage mixture showed significant decrease in number of colony forming units of bacteria in vivo

The minimum mean monopoly energy of a graph

The motivation for the study of the graph energy comes from chemistry, where the research on the so-called total pi - electron energy can be traced back until the 1930s. This graph invariant is very closely connected to a chemical quantity known as the total pi - electron energy of conjugated hydro carbon molecules. In recent times analogous energies are being considered, based on Eigen values of a variety of other graph matrices. In 1978, I.Gutman [1] defined energy mathematically for all graphs. Energy of graphs has many mathematical properties which are being investigated. The ordinary energy of an undirected simple finite graph G is defined as the sum of the absolute values of the Eigen values of its associated matrix. i.e. if mu(1), mu(2), ..., mu(n) are the Eigen values of adjacency matrix A(G), then energy of graph is Sigma(G) = Sigma(n)(i=1) vertical bar mu(i)vertical bar Laura Buggy, Amalia Culiuc, Katelyn Mccall and Duyguyen [9] introduced the more general M-energy or Mean Energy of G is then defined as E-M (G) = Sigma(n)(i=1)vertical bar mu(i) - (mu) over bar vertical bar, where (mu) over bar vertical bar is the average of mu(1), mu(2), ..., mu(n). A subset M subset of V (G), in a graph G (V, E), is called a monopoly set of G if every vertex v is an element of (V - M) has at least d(v)/2 neighbors in M. The minimum cardinality of a monopoly set among all monopoly sets in G is called the monopoly size of G, denoted by mo(G) Ahmed Mohammed Naji and N.D.Soner [7] introduced minimum monopoly energy E-MM [G] of a graph G. In this paper we are introducing the minimum mean monopoly energy, denoted by E-MM(M) (G), of a graph G and computed minimum monopoly energies of some standard graphs. Upper and lower bounds for E-MM(M) (G)are also established.Publisher's Versio

Modelling Emergency Evacuation of Classroom with Different Age Profiles

Evacuation characteristics of pedestrians can be captured under two different conditions - one in immediate and another in non-immediate. The safe and quick evacuation of pedestrians from a building in any situation depends on pedestrian and building characteristics. Understanding the behaviour of pedestrians in emergency situations such as earthquake or fire accident helps in designing buildings for safe evacuation. In view of the limited research on this problem in the Indian subcontinent, this study aims to capture the pedestrian flow characteristics in emergency situations by conducting several experiments in a classroom environment. As a part of the experimental study, the students were instructed to behave as if they were in an emergency evacuation situation. Data was collected on pedestrians with different age profiles such as high school, under graduate and post graduate students considering various scenarios that includes different door widths. Several factors such as number of pedestrians, width of the door, average age of the pedestrians, Body Mass Index, proportion of females, number of students and classroom capacity are considered and their influence on evacuation characteristics was analysed. Based on the observations, an evacuation model has been developed using least square error method. Results show that the variables such as door width and number of students are crucial in representing evacuation time of the classroom. It was found that the relationship between total evacuation time (TET) and door width is represented by power function. This is contrast to the findings of existing literature which shows that the relationship between flow and door width is linear. Our results are best supported by the fact that the TET is exponentially varying with door width till a particular value and remains constant for further increase in door width which is realistic in nature. It is anticipated that the results of the study would provide guidelines to various agencies on managing evacuations. This can also lead to suggestions on optimization of layouts while designing various building access facilities in an academic environment

O prostornoj razdiobi normiranog diferencijalnog vegetacijskog indeksa nad Indijom i njegova veza s oborinom, temperaturom zraka, dostatnošću vlažnosti tla i ENSO pojavom

The changes in spatial distribution of Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) are stud¬ied for different seasons in India for the period 1982 to 2000. The inter-annual variability of All India NDVI (AINDVI) has been studied and related to rainfall, air temperature, soil moisture adequacy, Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and Nino 3 Sea Surface Temperature (Nino 3 SST) to understand the influence of these variables on vegetal cover. The results show that the NDVI is high during the south-west (June to September) monsoon and retreat (October and November) seasons where in major crop seasons Kharif and Rabi take place over India. The trend of AINDVI is increasing and displayed higher values during La Niña and lower in El Niño episodes. The correlation between rainfall and NDVI of All India is not significant on monthly basis (+0.13) but it is more prominent when the cumulative annual amounts of rainfall are involved (+0.61). NDVI responded very well to the variations of soil moisture adequacy (SAD) which enumerates the strongest correlation (+0.73) of crop performance with NDVI. This significant strong correlation inferred that SAD can be taken as the indicator for the NDVI variations rather rainfall. The linear regression analysis of AINDVI and the ENSO indices revealed the strong impact of sea surface temperatures than SOI on vegetation pattern over India.Promjene prostorne raspodjele normiranog diferencijalnog vegetacijskog indeksa (NDVI) dobivenog na temelju mjerenja radiometrom vrlo visoke rezolucije (AVHRR) proučavane su za različite sezone na području Indije tijekom razdoblja od 1982. do 2000. godine. Promatrana je međugodišnja promjenjivost NDVI-a izračunatog za cijelo područje Indije (AINDVI) te njegova povezanost s oborinom, temperaturom zraka, dostatnošću vlažnosti tla, indeksom Južne oscilacije (SOI) te Niño 3 površinskom temperaturom mora (Niño 3 SST) kako bi se utvrdila povezanost tih varijabli i vegetacijskog pokrova. Rezultati pokazuju da NDVI poprima visoke vrijednosti tijekom sezone jugozapadnih monsuna (od lipnja do rujna) te tijekom prijelazne sezone povlačenja monsuna (listopad i studeni) što se uglavnom podudara sa žetvenim sezonama Kharif i Rabi. NDVI ima pozitivan trend te poprima više vrijednosti tijekom La Niña, a niže vrijednosti tijekom El Niño događaja. Iako korelacija između mjesečnih vrijednosti oborine i NDVI-a za cijelo područje Indije nije signifikantna (+0,13), ona je značajno veća ukoliko se promatraju kumulativne godišnje vrijednosti oborine (+0,61). Varijabilnost NDVI-a je u skladu s promjenama dostatnosti vlažnosti tla (SAD) što rezultira značajnim koeficijentom korelacije između indeksa NDVI i prinosa usjeva (+0,73). Ova signifikantna i jaka povezanost ukazuje da se SAD može koristiti kao uspješniji pokazatelj promjenjivosti NDVI-a nego sama oborina. Linearna regresija između AINDVI i ENSO indeksa pokazala je da su površinske temperature mora (Niño 3 SST) bolje korelirane s vegetacijskim pokrovom Indije nego indeks SOI

Qualities of best medical teacher: a student perceptive study

Background: Medical education is changing day by day and there is a continuing need to assess the role of the teacher in medical education. A good Medical teacher is the one who pave the way in the making of our future clinicians. In the Present study we tried to evaluate qualities of best medical teacher in preclinicals, paraclinicals and clinical teachers including all medical, surgical and their allied subjects from first year to final year MBBS Students by student perceptive study at one medical College of Andhra Pradesh, India.Methods: The study population includes first to final M.B.B.S Students from one medical institute -A Questionnaire comprising of 12 statements relating to the qualities of teacher was prepared. The study population include first to final M.B.B.S Students from one medical institute.Results: Giving a total of 321 students who are pursuing MBBS from first year to final year 63% participants were females and 37% were male. All the participants are aged in between 17-23 years. In these studies top five qualities of best medical teacher perceived by students is good Quality of subject (72.4%), student friendly nature (71.7%), creating interest in subject (58%), more explanatory / more informative teaching (42.8%), best personality including knowledge, personal and professional skills (41.2%).Conclusions: A good teacher is someone who is approachable, engaging and inspiring, and who has a sound knowledge of subject of what they are trying to teach. They also have the ability to communicate well with students