DEVELOPING A PERFORMANCE IMPORTANCE MATRIX FOR A PUBLIC SECTOR BUS TRANSPORT COMPANY: A CASE STUDY

This paper presents a study of comparison of the importance attached by the service providers’ and the customers’ with respect to eighteen service characteristics towards the public transportation services provided by a bus company. The survey was conducted in three bus depots in one division of a state road transport undertaking (SRTU) in south India. The importance the SRTU and the customers attach to these characteristics indicates significant differences. This reveals the existence of a gap between customers’ expectations and the service provided by the company. Finally the customer retention and customer development criteria have been. identified.Performance importance matrix, Customer expectations, Public bus transport, Radar chart.

Correlation and path analysis studies in Gladiolus (Gladiolus hybrids Hort.)

Correlation and path analysis were carried out in 12 varieties of gladiolus for different yield attributing traits at the Horticultural Research Station, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Yercaud. The results indicated that the Rachis length was positive and significantly correlated with mother corm weight (g), plant height at 60th days after planting (DAP) (cm), number of leaves per plant at 60th (DAP), length of spike (cm), weight of daughter corm (g) and vase life (days). But, it is negative and significantly correlated with number of days taken for first floret opening (rg: -0.714 & rp: -0.664), number of daughter corms per plant (rg: -0.826 & rp: -0.724) and marketable spikes per plant (rg: -0.561 & rp: -0.418) at both genotypic and phenotypic levels. For path analysis the residual effect was 0.174 and it was evident that the highest direct effect on length of rachis was observed in case of mother corm size (0.951) and weight of the daughter corm (0.943), followed by number of daughter corms per plant (0.859), number of florets per spike (0.849), length of first floret (0.832), marketable spikes per plant (0.385), number of leaves per plant at 60th DAP (0.384), diameter of first floret (0.374) and length of spike (0.221) under Shevaroys condition

Influence of size grading on physiological parameters in Tephrosia (Tephrosia purpurea) MDU (KO)-1

Seed grading is an important practice for better crop establishment and to improve efficiency of planting ratio in field and also useful in separation of quality seed in a seed lot. The influence of seed size on physiological and biochemical seed quality characters were evaluated in Tephrosia seeds using seeds retained on 5.5/64?, 6/64? and 7/64? sieves along with control. The estimations revealed that larger size seeds retained on 7/64" sieves recorded the maximum recovery (64 %), 100 seed weight (2.0 g), speed of germination (14.1) germination ( 86 %), root length (8.5 cm), shoot length (11.0 cm), dry matter production (15.92 mg seedlings-10), vigour index (1677) and protein (10.56 %) compared to BSS 5.5 / 64'', BSS 6 / 64'' and ungraded seeds

A Study of Psychiatric Morbidities in patients with Diabetes Mellitus

INTRODUCTION: Diabetes is a complex chronic medical conditions which requires a high degree of patient self-management within a supportive social network to ensure optimal outcomes. Psychiatric illness can affect patients’ self-care behaviors and their abilities to interact with others. Psychiatric illnesses, such as depression, may lead to neurohormonal changes such as changes in the hypothalamic–pituitary axis, which may adversely affect glucose control. AIM OF THE STUDY: To assess the frequency and type of psychiatric morbidity in patients with Diabetes mellitus and to understand the relationship with stressors, Sociodemographic variables, Quality of life and Disease related variables. OBJECTIVES: 1. To study the prevalence of Psychiatric morbidities in patients of Diabetes mellitus. 2. To assess the relationship of Psychiatric morbidity and psychosocial stressors. 3. To know the relationship between Psychiatric morbidity and Quality of Life. 4. To correlate illness related variables like duration of illness and disease severity with Psychiatric morbidity. METHODOLOGY: A sample of 52 consecutive patients with an established diagnosis of Diabetes mellitus, attending the diabetology OP as well as Inpatients were selected for the study. OPERATIONAL DESIGN: 1. The study was conducted at Government Rajaji Hospital, Madurai, and a tertiary care centre for 2 months. 2. The study was approved by Institutional Ethical Committee, Government Rajaji Hospital, Madurai. 3. The study is designed as a cross-sectional study. 4. The sample was chosen from patients attending Diabetology OP as well as those who were admitted in Medical ward for investigation or therapeutic purposes. 5. Every consecutive patient attending the Diabetology department were selected. 6. The cases who met the criteria for Diabetes according to American Diabetes Association guidelines 2018 and who had been diagnosed by Senior Diabetologist were chosen and subsequently assessed in Psychiatry Department under the supervision of Senior Psychiatrist. 7.The subjects were explained about the nature of the study and informed consent was obtained. 8.Likewise 52 consecutive patients were assessed. STATISTICAL DESIGN: Statistical design was formulated using the data collected as above, for each of the scales and socio-demographic variables. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Studies) version 17.0. The central values and dispersion were calculated. In comparison of the data for categorical variables chi-square and for numerical variables student “t” test were used. For multiple comparisons of more than two numerical variables, ANOVA and Scheffe post hoc tests were used. Correlation among variables was studied using Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Then all variables were subjected to Multiple linear regression, with Quality of Life as the dependent Variable. TOOLS USED: 1. Proforma, 2. Kuppusamy rating scale for socioeconomic status, 3. MINI International Neuropsychiatric Interview, 4. Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, 5. Presumptive Stressful Life Events Scale, 6. The World Health Organisation Quality of Life (WHOQOL- BREF). DISCUSSION: This study was done to assess the prevalence of psychiatric morbidity and the types of Psychiatric comorbidities in patients with Diabetes mellitus. The stressful life events experienced by the patients and their association with psychiatric comorbidity was also assessed. Among the patients in the sample, the age distribution was, 26.9% of patients below 34 years, 48.1% were between the age of 35 to 54 years, 25.1% belonged to the age group of above 55 years. Among the cases 65.4% of the population were males and 34.6% were females. A majority of the patients (86.5 %) were married and 13.5% of the patients were unmarried. On analyzing the socio economic status of the patients, a majority of the patients (69.2%) belonged to Lower Upper Socioeconomic status, 23.1% belonged to Middle socioeconomic status and an equal percentage (3.8%) belonged to Upper middle and Lower socioeconomic status. The duration of illness of the sample population is as follows – 51.9% between 6 to 12 years, 32.7%, less than 5 years and 15.4% above 13 years. In our study, we found that, among the 52 Diabetes mellitus patients, 25 patients were suffering from psychiatric comorbidity, amounting to a proportion of 48.1. In our study, the sample Population was divided into three age groups of less than 34 years, 35 to 54 years, and a third group of above 55 years. The HADS- A score, HADS-D score and Presumptive Stressful Life Events number and score were assessed in all the three groups. The Quality of Life was assessed in four domains, namely Physical domain,Psychological domain, Social Relationship domain and Environmental domain. The total score on WHO QOL was then assessed. Mean scores were calculated for all three groups.In our study, we tried to find the differences in the Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale Scores, Presumptive Stressful Life Events number and score, Quality Of Life among males and females. The mean scores on HADS, PSLE events and PSLE score were calculated.The four domains of the WHO QOL BREF namely, physical domain, Psychological Domain, Social Relationship domain and Environmental domain as well as the total scores were assessed and the mean was calculated. In our study, though we did not find any difference between males and females with respect to stressful Life Events & Hospital Anxiety Depression scores, there was significant difference in the Social relationship domain of the Quality of Life Scores, with females scoring lower than males in Social Relationship domain. In this regard, the findings of our study are similar to other previous studies. In our study, we tried to find the various types of Psychiatric comorbidities associated with Diabetes using MINI International Neuropsychiatric Interview. We found that, among the 25 out of 52 patients who had comorbid psychiatric illness, 11 of them were suffering from Major Depression amounting to a proportion of 21.2%, 6 patients had Social Anxiety Disorder, amounting to 11.5%, 5 patients were suffering from Generalised Anxiety Disorder (9.6%) and a minority (5.8%), 3 out of 25 patients were suffering with Dysthymia. Our study has found that depression is the most common Psychiatric comorbidity associated with Diabetes. However, the Prevalence rate of depression was 21.2%, in contrast to other studies, which have reported a higher prevalence of depression.As per our study, on assessing the Stressful Life events and comparing them between patients who had a Psychiatric comorbidity and those who did not have Psychiatric comorbidity, there was a significant difference between the two groups. On further analyzing the data and comparing the scores among the various types of Psychiatric comorbidities in our study, we found a significant difference between patients with no Psychiatric comorbidity and patients with Depression. There was no significant difference between the “No illness” group and other types of Psychiatric comorbidities. The findings suggest that patients with Psoriasis, who have comorbid Depression tend to experience more number of Stressful Life Events and consequently score high on the Presumptive Stressful Life Events Scale. On studying the Quality of Life of the patients with Diabetes, we compared the four domains of the WHO QOL BREF scale as well as the total QOL score among patients with and without Psychiatric comorbidity. We found that, in all four domains of the WHO QOL BREF scale, there was a significant difference between the patients with and without Psychiatric comorbidity. Patients who had comorbid Psychiatric illness scored low on all four domains of the Quality of Life Scale. Significant difference was found between the “No illness and Depression” , “No illness and Generalised Anxiety Disorder”, “No illness and Social Anxiety Disorder”. No significant difference was found in between “No illness and Dysthymia”.However, there are limited studies available, comparing the Quality of life in Diabetic patients with and without psychiatric comorbidity. In Correlation test for the variables PSLE events, PSLE scores, HADS scores and QOL scores we found that the scores on HADS and scores on PSLES were positively correlated, which means that, the scores on HADS-A and HADS-D increase, as the number of stressful life events and PSLE scores increase. CONCLUSION: The study findings reveal, with respect to the Hypothesis that: 1. Psychiatric comorbidity is highly prevalent in patients with Diabetes mellitus. 2. Major depressive disorder is the most common Psychiatric comorbidity associated with Diabetes mellitus. 3. There is no difference with respect to Duration of Illness, in the presentation of psychiatric comorbidity. 4. The risk of developing a comorbid Psychiatric illness increases with increasing severity of Diabetes mellitus. 5. Patients with more number of Stressful life events are prone to develop Psychiatric comorbidities

Correlation and R2 analysis of radicle emergence test to predict seed vigour and field emergence in blackgram (Vigna mungo L.) seed lots

Blackgram (Vigna mungo L.) is one of the major pulse crops grown throughout India.  Prediction of seed vigour and field emergence of seed before sowing is important for assured yield. A standard germination test is time-consuming and does not always show the seed lot potential performance, especially if field conditions are not optimal. There is need of advanced technology, which can give a precise result in a short period. The experiment was conducted to correlate the radicle emergence test with seed vigour parameters to predict seed vigour and planting value of 10 varying vigour lots (L1, L2, L3, L4 - high vigour lots; L5, L6, L7 - medium vigour lots; L8, L9, L10 - low vigour lots) of blackgram var. VBN 6. The study showed that all the seed vigour parameters of the blackgram were more highly correlated with the percentage of radicle emergence with 2 mm length than with 1 mm length. The correlation analysis results showed that the radicle emergence test with 2 mm radicle length at 28 hours had a highly significant negative correlation with EC (electrical conductivity) of seed leachate (-0.974**), followed by MJGT (mean just germination time) (-0.967**) and MGT (mean germination time) (-0.933**). However, it was positively correlated with field emergence (0.972**), germination (0.952**) and dehydrogenase enzyme activity (0.928**). The maximum R2 value of 0.923 was recorded in the 28-hour counting of radicle emergence with a length of 2 mm compared with the 26-hour counting of radicle emergence with a length of 1 mm (0.913). The study concluded that counting 2 mm radicle emergence at the 28th hour could be used to quickly evaluate seed vigour in field emergence in blackgram seed lots

SEGMENTATION OF UAV-BASED IMAGES INCORPORATING 3D POINT CLOUD INFORMATION

Numerous applications related to urban scene analysis demand automatic recognition of buildings and distinct sub-elements. For example, if LiDAR data is available, only 3D information could be leveraged for the segmentation. However, this poses several risks, for instance, the in-plane objects cannot be distinguished from their surroundings. On the other hand, if only image based segmentation is performed, the geometric features (e.g., normal orientation, planarity) are not readily available. This renders the task of detecting the distinct sub-elements of the building with similar radiometric characteristic infeasible. In this paper the individual sub-elements of buildings are recognized through sub-segmentation of the building using geometric and radiometric characteristics jointly. 3D points generated from Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) images are used for inferring the geometric characteristics of roofs and facades of the building. However, the image-based 3D points are noisy, error prone and often contain gaps. Hence the segmentation in 3D space is not appropriate. Therefore, we propose to perform segmentation in image space using geometric features from the 3D point cloud along with the radiometric features. The initial detection of buildings in 3D point cloud is followed by the segmentation in image space using the region growing approach by utilizing various radiometric and 3D point cloud features. The developed method was tested using two data sets obtained with UAV images with a ground resolution of around 1-2 cm. The developed method accurately segmented most of the building elements when compared to the plane-based segmentation using 3D point cloud alone

Impact of different levels of iron on mitigation of iron chlorosis in varagu CO 3 (Paspalum scrobiculatum. L)

Iron (Fe) deficiency is a major nutritional disorder in crops growing in calcareous soils. Varagu crop are more susceptible to (Fe) deficiency in the early stage of growth and the deficiency is exhibited as chlorosis developing interveinally in the new leaves.  The objective of the present study was to see the impact of different levels iron on mitigation of chlorosis in varagu, Paspalum scrobiculatum under calcareous soil and to investigate the influence of soil and foliar application of iron on growth, physiological and improvement of yield potential of varagu under calcareous soil condition. The varagu variety CO3 taken for this study The treatments comprised T1, NPK (44:22:0 kg ha-1) + 12.5 t  FYM/ha,T2, NPK (44:22:30 kg ha-1) +12.5 t FYM/ha, T3, T1 + Soil application of FeSO4   (25 kg ha-1), T4, T2 + Soil application of FeSO4 (25 kg ha-1), T5, T1 + Soil application of FeSO4 (50 kg ha-1), T6, T2 + Soil application of FeSO4 (50 kg ha-1), T7, T3 + Foliar spray of 0.5% FeSO4, T8, T4 + Foliar spray of 0.5% FeSO4, T9,T5 + Foliar spray of 0.5% FeSO4, T10,  T6 + Foliar spray of 0.5% FeSO4. During experimentation, morphological characteristics, growth attributes, physiological and biochemical components and biomass traits determined the mitigation of iron chlorosis. The iron deficiency in varagu was effectively controlled by T10, soil treatment 50 kg ha-1 FeSO4 and foliar spray of 0.5% FeSO4 applied on the 30th and 50th days after sowing through maintaining highest growth parameter values, maximum catalase and peroxidase activity and maintaining more chlorophyll content

Radicle emergence test as a quick vigour test to predict field emergence performance in rice (Oryza sativa L.) seed lots

An experiment was made to standardize the radicle emergence test to predict the field emergence performance in ten different seed lots [L1 to L4: high vigour lots (> 90 % germination), L5 to L7: medium vigour lots (80-90 % germination) and L8 to L10: low vigour lots (< 80 % germination)] of rice cv. CO 51. The results showed that the significant differences are observed in physiological and biochemical parameters in different seed lots. The seed vigour was classified into three groups viz., high, medium and low vigour based on the relationship between mean germination time and field emergence. When the Mean Germination Time (MGT) was < 34 hours, the field emergence was > 85 per cent, which was considered as high vigour; when the MGT was 34-35 hours, the field emergence was 80-85 per cent, that was considered as medium vigour; when the MGT was > 35 hours, the field emergence was < 80 per cent, that was considered as low vigour. The radicle emergence test (2mm radicle length) was highly negatively correlated with mean germination time (-0.930**) followed by mean just germination time (-0.852**) and electrical conductivity of seed leachate (-0.827**) and it was positively correlated with field emergence (0.894**) followed by germination (0.878**) and dehydrogenase activity (0.864**). The R2 values between seed vigour parameters and radicle emergence test were significantly higher in 2mm length of radicle emergence when compared with 1mm length of radicle emergence. Finally, the study concluded that 36 hour MGT with the attainment of 2mm radicle emergence percentage could be used as a quick method to assess rice seed lots' quality by the seed analysts and seed industry