Women empowerment through green mussel (Perna viridis) farming : Focus on Kerala

Mussel farming is one of the best ideas for the utilisation of natural resources as well as human resources in a sustainable manner. It is an activity with potential to empower women by giving them a chance to earn additional income for their family, thereby making them self-reliant. Thus, looking at the larger picture mussel farming could bring about an improvement in the socio-economic condition of families in the coastal States of India. Additionally, it also ensures production of healthy and protein rich food for the consumers

Effect of Graded Levels of Condensed Tannin (CT) from \u3cem\u3eMimosa pudica\u3c/em\u3e on \u3cem\u3ein-Vitro\u3c/em\u3e Methane Production

Livestock in the country are primarily being fed on fibrous feed resulted in high enteric methane (CH4) emission along with low nutrients availability to host animal. Rumen methano genesis is necessary for the host system as this process ensure the removal of fermentative H2 through the reduction of CO2 into CH4. At the same time this process is wasteful because the emission also represents a loss of dietary energy (6-12% of gross energy intake) apart from contributing to global warming. Worldwide livestock contribute around 90-95 Tg methane to the pool with a contribution of 12-13% from the Indian livestock. Various nutritional and other approaches have been attempted with highly variable success rate in the country and elsewhere for the enteric methane amelioration. The cost of the item used for the mitigation purpose, adaptation of ruminal microbes and toxicity to either host animal or inhabiting microbes are few important criteria for an economic, sustainable and effective amelioration approach (Malik et al. 2015). Herbal materials are being used by the peoples since ages; however, their anti-methanogenic effect is recently established. The anti-methanogenic effect of different herbal materials mainly lies in their secondary metabolites which are highly effective even at very low concentration (Bhatta et al., 2014). Keeping these facts in view, a study was carried to ascertain the effect of varying levels of CT on in vitro total gas and methane production

EXTENT OF LEAD IN HIGH-SULFUR ASSAM COALS

This study has been undertaken to understand the precise nature of association of lead in high sulphur Assam coal. Sequential extraction of lead with ammonium acetate, HCl and RuCl 3 solutions havebeen carriedout. RuCl3 hasbeenusedasasuitable reagent fortheextractionoflead.Itisfound thattreatment ofsamplewithCCl 4increasestheextractionofleadbyRuCl 3solution. Theamountof leadinthecoalstudiedvariesbetween43.2and50.4ppm.Ithasbeenfoundthatleadispredominantly occurring in coals in association with organic matter and needs concerted attention to understand its bio-availability. The chemical principles involved therein are also discussed. D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Cleaning of Indian coals by agglomeration with xylene and hexane

A laboratory scale agglomeration process has been undertaken for cleaning Indian coals using oils namely, xylene and hexane. Maximum organic matter recovery for xylene has been found to be 91.9% whereas with hexane, the value is 54.7% on a dry basis. The highest ash rejection values with xylene (90.7%) and with hexane (89.7%) are almost same. Promising results for rejection of metals (Fe, Mg and Zn) have been observed. It has been found that xylene is more selective than hexane for the agglomeration process. Knowledge gained from this study will be helpful for technological advancement of this kind of work

Effect of Selected Tanniniferous Leaves on \u3cem\u3ein Vivo\u3c/em\u3e Enteric Methane Emission in Sheep

Concentration of methane is continuously increasing in atmosphere and now almost 155% (IPCC, 2007) more than that recorded during pre-industrial era. Livestock production is a major sector accountable for high methane emission into atmospheric pool. World’s livestock is contributing around 15% of total atmospheric methane on annual basis feeds (Moss et al., 2000). Additionally, methane emission from ruminants leads to a loss of 2 to 15% of the dietary energy (Holter and Young, 1992). Due to these two crucial issues, researchers are working tirelessly to find a suitable and effective way for enteric methane amelioration accompanied with minimal inputs. So far numerous interventions have been tried with variable results, but due to one or another reason the search for effective strategy is on the priority of animal scientist. One of the possible approaches for enteric methane amelioration may be the use of plant secondary metabolites which are being traditionally used by the people since ages. Under the ICAR sponsored outreach project on Estimation of methane emission under different feeding systems and development of mitigation strategies more than 1700 feed, herbs and grasses samples were screened through in vitro gas production technique at different participating centres and finally selected few plant & herbs for evaluating the secondary metabolites on in vivo enteric methane emission. Three selected tanniniferous leaves were evaluated for their effect on enteric methane emission and feed fermentability in adult sheep

Mice lacking C1q or C3 show accelerated rejection of minor H disparate skin grafts and resistance to induction of tolerance

Complement activation is known to have deleterious effects on organ transplantation. On the other hand, the complement system is also known to have an important role in regulating immune responses. The balance between these two opposing effects is critical in the context of transplantation. Here, we report that female mice deficient in C1q (C1qa(−/−)) or C3 (C3(−/−)) reject male syngeneic grafts (HY incompatible) at an accelerated rate compared with WT mice. Intranasal HY peptide administration, which induces tolerance to syngeneic male grafts in WT mice, fails to induce tolerance in C1qa(−/−) or C3(−/−) mice. The rejection of the male grafts correlated with the presence of HY D(b)Uty-specific CD8(+) T cells. Consistent with this, peptide-treated C1qa(−/−) and C3(−/−) female mice rejecting male grafts exhibited more antigen-specific CD8(+)IFN-γ(+) and CD8(+)IL-10(+) cells compared with WT females. This suggests that accumulation of IFN-γ- and IL-10-producing T cells may play a key role in mediating the ongoing inflammatory process and graft rejection. Interestingly, within the tolerized male skin grafts of peptide-treated WT mice, IFN-γ, C1q and C3 mRNA levels were higher compared to control female grafts. These results suggest that C1q and C3 facilitate the induction of intranasal tolerance

Sulfur in Assam Coal

Research carried out on sulphur in Assam coals are reviewed. It is intended to provide a general overview with some recent advances on the forms of sulphur in these coals and their desulphurization and recovery in the forms of elemental sulphur or useful compounds. Greater emphasis is given on a new form of sulphur, i.e., secondary sulphur, in Assam coals. Studies on sulphur in Assam coals would be potentially useful in coal utilization

Sulphate behaviour from dissolution of gypsum in organic acids

The solubility of gypsum in organic acids namely acetic, oxalic, tartaric and succinic acids at low temperature (3

Thermal instability of an expanding dusty plasma with equilibrium cooling

We present an analysis of radiation induced instabilities in an expanding plasma with considerable presence of dust particles and equilibrium cooling. We have shown that the equilibrium expansion and cooling destabilize the radiation condensation modes and the presence of dust particles enhances this effect. We have examined our results in the context of ionized, dusty-plasma environments such as those found in planetary nebulae (PNe). We show that due to the non-static equilibrium and finite equilibrium cooling, small-scale localized structures formed out of thermal instability, become transient, which agrees with the observational results. The dust-charge fluctuation is found to heavily suppress these instabilities, though in view of non-availability of convincing experimental data, a definitive conclusion could not be made.Comment: 23 pages, 14 figure