Temperature discrimination, behavioral thermoregulation and related measures in the rat Final report

Hyperthermia, dietary, and desalivation effects on thermoregulation in rat

Impact of environment variables on pelagic fish landings: Special emphasis on Indian oil sardine off Tiruchendur coast, Gulf of Mannar

Results of the present study reported the correlation of various environmental variables such as dissolved oxygen (DO), chlorophyll ‘a’, primary productivity (PP), salinity, sea surface temperature (SST) and meteorological parameters such as air temperature (AT), air pressure (AP), relative humidity (RH), wind pattern, sunshine hours (SSH) and rainfall (RF) during January, 2008 to December, 2010 with that of the sardine fish landing along the Tiruchendur coast in Gulf of Mannar. The landings of the pelagic fishes like sardine, anchovy and Indian mackerel were high during south-west monsoon months extending from July to September in Tiruchendur coast. Sardines, which contribute 18.24% of the total fish catch, were recorded throughout the study period with a minimum occurrence during January and maximum in August. Large sized fishes were caught during October. It was found that, moderate temperature, high chlorophyll ‘a’ concentration and phytoplankton abundance are primary factors that enhance sardine fishery. Weather changes, influences fisheries through the modification of habitat characteristics, affecting the organisms to the extent that the physical, chemical and biological conditions that influence their productivity, development, nourishment and reproduction distribution are altered. Subtle changes in key environmental variables can drastically modify the abundance, distribution, and availability of fish populations

Tunable Double Negative Band Structure from Non-Magnetic Coated Rods

A system of periodic poly-disperse coated nano-rods is considered. Both the coated nano-rods and host material are non-magnetic. The exterior nano-coating has a frequency dependent dielectric constant and the rod has a high dielectric constant. A negative effective magnetic permeability is generated near the Mie resonances of the rods while the coating generates a negative permittivity through a field resonance controlled by the plasma frequency of the coating and the geometry of the crystal. The explicit band structure for the system is calculated in the sub-wavelength limit. Tunable pass bands exhibiting negative group velocity are generated and correspond to simultaneously negative effective dielectric permittivity and magnetic permeability. These can be explicitly controlled by adjusting the distance between rods, the coating thickness, and rod diameters

Immunomodulatory potential of marine secondary metabolites against bacterial diseases of shrimp

Shrimp disease management using bioactive marine secondary metabolites (MSMs) was developed as a package of practice for the sustainable shrimp farming. Therefore, the effect of MSMs on the host defense factors of shrimp was evaluated in the present study. Findings indicated that Ulva diet significantly increase the defense factors such as haemogram, agglutination index, phagocytic rate, bacterial clearance and serum bactericidal activity of treated shrimps over the control group. Based on the gut bacterial load, Ulva diet was considered as proactive drug whereas Dendrilla diet was determined as a curative agent

Pathogenicity, antibiogram and biochemical characteristics of Luminescent Vibrio harveyi, associated with 'Black Shell Disease' of Penaeus monodon

Bacterial isolation was made from shrimps Penaeus monodon showing characteristic external symptoms of 'black shell disease' from shrimp farms located in southeast coast of India. The isolates were screened on TeBS agar plates and 0/129 for the selective isolation of Vibrio sp. Based on the morphological, biochemical and physiological characteristics, the isolate (RJM5) was characterized as luminescent Vibrio harveyi." Antibiogram of V. Imrueyi indicated that it was highly sensitive to chloramphenicol. ciprofloxacin, nalidixic acid and streptomycin. The pathogenicity studies confirmed that the isolate (V.harveyi) was moderately virulent

Advanced Multilevel Node Separator Algorithms

A node separator of a graph is a subset S of the nodes such that removing S and its incident edges divides the graph into two disconnected components of about equal size. In this work, we introduce novel algorithms to find small node separators in large graphs. With focus on solution quality, we introduce novel flow-based local search algorithms which are integrated in a multilevel framework. In addition, we transfer techniques successfully used in the graph partitioning field. This includes the usage of edge ratings tailored to our problem to guide the graph coarsening algorithm as well as highly localized local search and iterated multilevel cycles to improve solution quality even further. Experiments indicate that flow-based local search algorithms on its own in a multilevel framework are already highly competitive in terms of separator quality. Adding additional local search algorithms further improves solution quality. Our strongest configuration almost always outperforms competing systems while on average computing 10% and 62% smaller separators than Metis and Scotch, respectively

Marine Secondary Metabolites (MSM) from Macro Algae Enhance Bacterial Clearance in Hemolymph of Penaeus monodon

Marine secondary metabolites (MSM) from macro algae were incorporated into four experimental feeds for juvenile shrimp (Penaeus monodon) as follows: 1.0% Hypnea musciformis extract (diet 1); 0.1% H. musciformis extract (diet 2); 1.0% H. musciformis extract with 500 mg Ulva fasciata extract and 50 mg of the antibiotic levamisole (diet 3); 1.0% H. musciformis with 500 mg U. fasciata per kg body weight (diet 4). Diet 3 enhanced bacterial clearance to 99.69% in the hemolymph of shrimp challenged with Vibrio alginolyticus and Vibrio fischeri,significantlyhigherthanclearanceratesinall other treatments and the unmedicated control. Results suggest that feed containing MSM is a good alternative to application of antibiotics in controlling bacterial diseases in shrim

Large-scale exploitation of sacred chank Xancus pyrum using modified trawl net along Rameswaram Coast, Tamil Nadu

The sacred chank, Xancus pynim is a gregarious, large gastropod and its habitat forms distinct chank bed. Homell as early as 1922 described the chank beds in depths of 10 to 20 metres in the Gulf of Mannar and are considered as the most important ones in the country although there are other chank beds along the Gulf of Kutch and the southwest coast of India

Large scale exploitation of sea horse (Hippocampus kuda) along the Palk Bay coast of Tamil Nadu

The specific fishing of sea horse Hippocampus kuda commenced in June 1992 and continues actively along the Palk Bay coast of Tamil Nadu. The diving is carried out by chank and holothurian skin divers

Developmental changes in the rock boring sea urchin, Echinometra mathaei (de Blainville) larvae exposed to macro algal extracts of Hypnea musciformis and Ulva fasciata

The influence of methanol extracts of Hypnea mu.sr~forn~(Rish odophyceae) and Ulva ,fasciata (Chlorophyceae) on the development and behavioral changes in the rock boring sea urchin larvae Erhinonletra mathaei was evaluated. H. mu.sc~formiesx tract at 0.095 and 0.0095 rnglrnl suppressed the,development of the sea urchin larvae and retained them in the prism stage itself. In the short-term exposure, larvae up to 5-& day were only affected. The extracts of U. fasciata did not influence the larval developmental stages at lower concentrations