The influence of orthography on spoken word recognition in Bangla

The lexical representation of words constitutes the phonological, orthographic and semantic information about a word, which is accessed together despite the task demanding only one aspect of the information. The role of orthography in word recognition tasks has been validated, though its influence on phonological tasks is lesser known. Recent studies in psycholinguistics have begun to investigate the possible influences of orthography on the auditory processing of words. The present paper reviews studies that have looked at orthographic influence on phonological tasks, and reports findings from a Rhyme-monitoring task in Bangla, to examine the role of orthography in auditory processing

Spatial Domain Representation for Face Recognition

Spatial domain representation for face recognition characterizes extracted spatial facial features for face recognition. This chapter provides a complete understanding of well-known and some recently explored spatial domain representations for face recognition. Over last two decades, scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT), histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) and local binary patterns (LBP) have emerged as promising spatial feature extraction techniques for face recognition. SIFT and HOG are effective techniques for face recognition dealing with different scales, rotation, and illumination. LBP is texture based analysis effective for extracting texture information of face. Other relevant spatial domain representations are spatial pyramid learning (SPLE), linear phase quantization (LPQ), variants of LBP such as improved local binary pattern (ILBP), compound local binary pattern (CLBP), local ternary pattern (LTP), three-patch local binary patterns (TPLBP), four-patch local binary patterns (FPLBP). These representations are improved versions of SIFT and LBP and have improved results for face recognition. A detailed analysis of these methods, basic results for face recognition and possible applications are presented in this chapter

Production of Extra Cellular Exoglucanase by Rhizopus oryzae from Submerged Fermentation of Agro Wastes

Rhizopus oryzae PR7 MTCC 9642, a producer of endoglucanse was found to produce extra cellular exoglucanase or avicelase when grown on avicel or micro crystalline cellulose. In order to curtail the cost of production the strain was grown in media supplemented with various cellulosic wastes, of which dried flower showed the best result followed by the sweet lime peel at optimum pH 8.0 and 5.0 respectively at 37° C. Peptone was found to be the best nitrogen source for exoglucanase production whereas amongst metal ions Mn2+ and Fe2+ could bring a 1.23 fold increase in enzyme production in sweet lime peel supplemented culture. Under optimized condition, highest exoglucanse production was achieved at 96 hours of growth. The enzyme showed optimum activity at pH 5.0 and 40°C and stability at pH range of 5-9 and about 90% activity was retained even after an exposure of 10 minutes at 80° C. The enzyme activity was enhanced in presence of Mn2+ and Fe2. The enzyme was found to saccharify avicel and the wastes into cellobiose

Nutritional status of children in India: household socio-economic condition as the contextual determinant

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Despite recent achievement in economic progress in India, the fruit of development has failed to secure a better nutritional status among all children of the country. Growing evidence suggest there exists a socio-economic gradient of childhood malnutrition in India. The present paper is an attempt to measure the extent of socio-economic inequality in chronic childhood malnutrition across major states of India and to realize the role of household socio-economic status (SES) as the contextual determinant of nutritional status of children.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Using National Family Health Survey-3 data, an attempt is made to estimate socio-economic inequality in childhood stunting at the state level through Concentration Index (CI). Multi-level models; random-coefficient and random-slope are employed to study the impact of SES on long-term nutritional status among children, keeping in view the hierarchical nature of data.</p> <p>Main findings</p> <p>Across the states, a disproportionate burden of stunting is observed among the children from poor SES, more so in urban areas. The state having lower prevalence of chronic childhood malnutrition shows much higher burden among the poor. Though a negative correlation (r = -0.603, p < .001) is established between Net State Domestic Product (NSDP) and CI values for stunting; the development indicator is not always linearly correlated with intra-state inequality in malnutrition prevalence. Results from multi-level models however show children from highest SES quintile posses 50 percent better nutritional status than those from the poorest quintile.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In spite of the declining trend of chronic childhood malnutrition in India, the concerns remain for its disproportionate burden on the poor. The socio-economic gradient of long-term nutritional status among children needs special focus, more so in the states where chronic malnutrition among children apparently demonstrates a lower prevalence. The paper calls for state specific policies which are designed and implemented on a priority basis, keeping in view the nature of inequality in childhood malnutrition in the country and its differential characteristics across the states.</p