Nature and Dimensions of Farmers’ Indebtedness in India

This paper examines nature and extent of farmers’ indebtedness in India using unit record data from NSSO 59th round, and provided a comparative picture of major Indian states. It shows using data from rice cultivating farmers that productivity of small farmers is not only higher than the medium farmers, it increases with access to credit. In terms of access to credit, seen through extent of indebtedness, Karnataka is better placed than many Indian states. But Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Kerala lie ahead of Karnataka. Ironically however, almost half of the credit is still provided by the informal sector in the state of Karnataka (on an average). Region wise picture shows that Southern region is more dependent on informal sources of credit. Poor farmers with lower land holdings are much more deprived of the formal sources of credit than the comparatively richer ones. Thus they also pay a much higher rate of interest with modal value of 36%. But it is heartening to note that loans are taken mostly for income generating purposes. It also indirectly implies that even for the income generating purposes poor are not getting access to formal sources of credit

Research for practice in small human service organisations: doing and disseminating smallscale research

A series of novel alkynyl substituted 3,4-dihydropyrimidin-2(1H)-one (DHPM) derivatives were designed, synthesized and evaluated in vitro as potential inhibitors of chorismate mutase (CM). All these compounds were prepared via a multi-component reaction (MCR) involving sequential I2-mediated Biginelli reaction followed by Cu-free Sonogashira coupling. Some of them showed promising inhibitory activities when tested at 30 μM. One compound showed dose dependent inhibition of CM with IC50 value of 14.76 ± 0.54 μM indicating o-alkynylphenyl substituted DHPM as a new scaffold for the discovery of promising inhibitors of CM

Synthesis of N-(3-arylprop-2-ynyl)substituted olanzapine derivatives as potential inhibitors of PDE4B

The linkage between dopamine D2 receptors and PDE activity via cAMP prompted us to design a series of novel N-(3-arylprop-2-ynyl)substituted olanzapine derivatives as potential inhibitors of PDE4B. The target compounds were conveniently prepared by using a simple and inexpensive method involving Pd/C-mediated CC bond forming reaction under Sonogashira conditions. A number of compounds were synthesized by using this strategy in good yields. Some of the compounds showed promising inhibition of PDE4B when tested in vitro that was supported by the docking studies

Cholera forecast for Dhaka, Bangladesh, with the 2015-2016 El Nino: Lessons learned

A substantial body of work supports a teleconnection between the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and cholera incidence in Bangladesh. In particular, high positive anomalies during the winter (Dec-Feb) in sea surface temperatures (SST) in the tropical Pacific have been shown to exacerbate the seasonal outbreak of cholera following the monsoons from August to November. Climate studies have indicated a role of regional precipitation over Bangladesh in mediating this long-distance effect. Motivated by this previous evidence, we took advantage of the strong 2015-2016 El Nino event to evaluate the predictability of cholera dynamics for the city in recent times based on two transmission models that incorporate SST anomalies and are fitted to the earlier surveillance records starting in 1995. We implemented a mechanistic temporal model that incorporates both epidemiological processes and the effect of ENSO, as well as a previously published statistical model that resolves space at the level of districts (thanas). Prediction accuracy was evaluated with "out-of-fit" data from the same surveillance efforts (post 2008 and 2010 for the two models respectively), by comparing the total number of cholera cases observed for the season to those predicted by model simulations eight to twelve months ahead, starting in January each year. Although forecasts were accurate for the low cholera risk observed for the years preceding the 2015-2016 El Nino, the models also predicted a high probability of observing a large outbreak in fall 2016. Observed cholera cases up to Oct 2016 did not show evidence of an anomalous season. We discuss these predictions in the context of regional and local climate conditions, which show that despite positive regional rainfall anomalies, rainfall and inundation in Dhaka remained low. Possible explanations for these patterns are given together with future implications for cholera dynamics and directions to improve their prediction for the city

Effect of noise on coupled chaotic systems

Effect of noise in inducing order on various chaotically evolving systems is reviewed, with special emphasis on systems consisting of coupled chaotic elements. In many situations it is observed that the uncoupled elements when driven by identical noise, show synchronization phenomena where chaotic trajectories exponentially converge towards a single noisy trajectory, independent of the initial conditions. In a random neural network, with infinite range coupling, chaos is suppressed due to noise and the system evolves towards a fixed point. Spatiotemporal stochastic resonance phenomenon has been observed in a square array of coupled threshold devices where a temporal characteristic of the system resonates at a given noise strength. In a chaotically evolving coupled map lattice with logistic map as local dynamics and driven by identical noise at each site, we report that the number of structures (a structure is a group of neighbouring lattice sites for whom values of the variable follow certain predefined pattern) follow a power-law decay with the length of the structure. An interesting phenomenon, which we call stochastic coherence, is also reported in which the abundance and lifetimes of these structures show characteristic peaks at some intermediate noise strength.Comment: 21 page LaTeX file for text, 5 Postscript files for figure

Machine-Part cell formation through visual decipherable clustering of Self Organizing Map

Machine-part cell formation is used in cellular manufacturing in order to process a large variety, quality, lower work in process levels, reducing manufacturing lead-time and customer response time while retaining flexibility for new products. This paper presents a new and novel approach for obtaining machine cells and part families. In the cellular manufacturing the fundamental problem is the formation of part families and machine cells. The present paper deals with the Self Organising Map (SOM) method an unsupervised learning algorithm in Artificial Intelligence, and has been used as a visually decipherable clustering tool of machine-part cell formation. The objective of the paper is to cluster the binary machine-part matrix through visually decipherable cluster of SOM color-coding and labelling via the SOM map nodes in such a way that the part families are processed in that machine cells. The Umatrix, component plane, principal component projection, scatter plot and histogram of SOM have been reported in the present work for the successful visualization of the machine-part cell formation. Computational result with the proposed algorithm on a set of group technology problems available in the literature is also presented. The proposed SOM approach produced solutions with a grouping efficacy that is at least as good as any results earlier reported in the literature and improved the grouping efficacy for 70% of the problems and found immensely useful to both industry practitioners and researchers.Comment: 18 pages,3 table, 4 figure

Trophic Garnishes: Cat–Rat Interactions in an Urban Environment

BACKGROUND:Community interactions can produce complex dynamics with counterintuitive responses. Synanthropic community members are of increasing practical interest for their effects on biodiversity and public health. Most studies incorporating introduced species have been performed on islands where they may pose a risk to the native fauna. Few have examined their interactions in urban environments where they represent the majority of species. We characterized house cat (Felis catus) predation on wild Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus), and its population effects in an urban area as a model system. Three aspects of predation likely to influence population dynamics were examined; the stratum of the prey population killed by predators, the intensity of the predation, and the size of the predator population. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:Predation pressure was estimated from the sizes of the rat and cat populations, and the characteristics of rats killed in 20 alleys. Short and long term responses of rat population to perturbations were examined by removal trapping. Perturbations removed an average of 56% of the rats/alley but had no negative long-term impact on the size of the rat population (49.6+/-12.5 rats/alley and 123.8+/-42.2 rats/alley over two years). The sizes of the cat population during two years (3.5 animals/alley and 2.7 animals/alley) also were unaffected by rat population perturbations. Predation by cats occurred in 9/20 alleys. Predated rats were predominantly juveniles and significantly smaller (144.6 g+/-17.8 g) than the trapped rats (385.0 g+/-135.6 g). Cats rarely preyed on the larger, older portion of the rat population. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:The rat population appears resilient to perturbation from even substantial population reduction using targeted removal. In this area there is a relatively low population density of cats and they only occasionally prey on the rat population. This occasional predation primarily removes the juvenile proportion of the rat population. The top predator in this urban ecosystem appears to have little impact on the size of the prey population, and similarly, reduction in rat populations doesn't impact the size of the cat population. However, the selected targeting of small rats may locally influence the size structure of the population which may have consequences for patterns of pathogen transmission

A Data Model for Object-Oriented Databases

We present an object-oriented data model. The data model represents all entities as objects. The system uses internally generated object identifiers for giving objects their unique identity. An object also has a state, and a behavior. Each object belongs to a class. The class defines the structure of the object's state, and its behavior. Classes are organized in inheritance hierarchy. An object of a class ø can be used where an object of ø 's superclass is expected. Inheritance polymorphism is provided through late binding of methods based on actual classes of objects. The data model eliminates the object-versus-values dichotomy by representing all entities as objects. This is achieved at no loss of modeling power, or performance. The data model provides for exclusive access of objects by other objects