Sustaining Growth in Tourism Sector: Opportunities and Challenges

The paper has broadly made an attempt to examine the growth and challenges faced by the tourism sector in Goa, a destination in India; during the last one decade.Of late, the number of tourists visiting the state is more than twice the population of the state. Empirical evidence also reveals an improvement in the growth of tourists' arrival but with wide fluctuation over the years. However, there are emerging issues of concern including the saturation of the carrying capacity of the state and the scope to sustain the growth momentum in the long run. Given the low geographical area and stiff competition among the destination managers to woo quality tourists, the state needs to be fully aware of their expectations and accordingly design the tourism policy

A Simple Scheme for Visual Cryptography

Here an algorithm is proposed to implement (2, 2) secret sharing problem which reduces the size (resolution) of the generated shares. Instead of considering one pixel at a time to generate the share, two consecutive pixels of the original image are considered row wise. Finally a pixel share having six pixels is generated for the considered two consecutive pixels. Thus we get six pixels instead of eight pixels in the shares corresponding to two pixels in the original image. As a result two pixels (8-6 = 2) in the share are reduced corresponding to two pixels of original image

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Not AvailableNeural stem cells (NSCs) can self-renew and give rise to neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes; they are found in the nervous system of mammalian organisms, representing a promising resource for both fundamental research and therapeutics. There have been few investigations on NSCs in the livestock species. Therefore, we have successfully isolated and characterised NSCs from the foetal brain of a small domestic animal, the goat (called GNSCs). These cells from the foetal brain showed self-renewal, rapid proliferation with a population doubling time of 88 h, were morphologically homogeneous and maintained normal chromosome throughout the culture period. The cells expressed NSC-specific markers (Sox2, Pax6 and Mushashi), but were negative for CD34 and CD45. They were capable of multi-differentiation into neurons, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, as well as adipocytes and osteocytes. The availability of such cells may hold great interest for basic and applied neuroscience.Not Availabl

Where Brain, Body and World Collide

The production cross section of electrons from semileptonic decays of beauty hadrons was measured at mid-rapidity (|y| < 0.8) in the transverse momentum range 1 < pt < 8 Gev/c with the ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC in pp collisions at a center of mass energy sqrt{s} = 7 TeV using an integrated luminosity of 2.2 nb^{-1}. Electrons from beauty hadron decays were selected based on the displacement of the decay vertex from the collision vertex. A perturbative QCD calculation agrees with the measurement within uncertainties. The data were extrapolated to the full phase space to determine the total cross section for the production of beauty quark-antiquark pairs

Flexibility of Oral Cholera Vaccine Dosing—A Randomized Controlled Trial Measuring Immune Responses Following Alternative Vaccination Schedules in a Cholera Hyper-Endemic Zone

<div><p>Background</p><p>A bivalent killed whole cell oral cholera vaccine has been found to be safe and efficacious for five years in the cholera endemic setting of Kolkata, India, when given in a two dose schedule, two weeks apart. A randomized controlled trial revealed that the immune response was not significantly increased following the second dose compared to that after the first dose. We aimed to evaluate the impact of an extended four week dosing schedule on vibriocidal response.</p><p>Methodology/Principal Findings</p><p>In this double blind randomized controlled non-inferiority trial, 356 Indian, non-pregnant residents aged 1 year or older were randomized to receive two doses of oral cholera vaccine at 14 and 28 day intervals. We compared vibriocidal immune responses between these schedules. Among adults, no significant differences were noted when comparing the rates of seroconversion for <i>V</i>. <i>cholerae O1 Inaba</i> following two dose regimens administered at a 14 day interval (55%) vs the 28 day interval (58%). Similarly, no differences in seroconversion were demonstrated in children comparing the 14 (80%) and 28 day intervals (77%). Following 14 and 28 day dosing intervals, vibriocidal response rates against <i>V</i>. <i>cholerae</i> O1 Ogawa were 45% and 49% in adults and 73% and 72% in children respectively. Responses were lower for <i>V</i>. <i>cholerae</i> O139, but similar between dosing schedules for adults (20%, 20%) and children (28%, 20%).</p><p>Conclusions/Significance</p><p>Comparable immune responses and safety profiles between the two dosing schedules support the option for increased flexibility of current OCV dosing. Further operational research using a longer dosing regimen will provide answers to improve implementation and delivery of cholera vaccination in endemic and epidemic outbreak scenarios.</p></div

Vibriocidal antibody titers and proportion of ≥ 4 fold rise from baseline GMT in children.

<p>^aGeometric mean reciprocal titers</p><p>^bGeometric mean-fold rise from baseline to 14 days after first dose or from baseline to 14 days after second dose</p><p>^c # with ≥4 fold rise in titers from baseline to 14 days after first dose or from baseline to 14 days after second dose</p><p>^d 95% confidence intervals using Wilson Score method</p><p>^e Primary endpoint. Difference in seroconversion rates after second dose were calculated by subtracting 14 day interval from 28 day interval. The 28 days interval group is non-inferior to the 14 day interval group as the lower limit of the proportion difference is greater than pre-defined cut-off (-20%)</p><p>Vibriocidal antibody titers and proportion of ≥ 4 fold rise from baseline GMT in children.</p

Flowchart of adult and children participants in the study.

<p>Flowchart of adult and children participants in the study.</p

Vibriocidal antibody titers and proportion of ≥ 4 fold rise from baseline GMT in adults.

<p>^bGeometric mean-fold rise from baseline to 14 days after first dose or from baseline to 14 days after second dose</p><p>^c # with ≥4 fold rise in titers from baseline to 14 days after first dose or from baseline to 14 days after second dose</p><p>^d 95% confidence intervals using Wilson Score method</p><p>^e Primary endpoint. Difference in seroconversion rates after second dose were calculated by subtracting 14 day interval from 28 day interval. The 28 days interval group is non-inferior to the 14 day interval group as the lower limit of the proportion difference is greater than pre-defined cut-off (-20%)</p><p>Vibriocidal antibody titers and proportion of ≥ 4 fold rise from baseline GMT in adults.</p