Gender Equality in Agricultural Education

Women play an important role in Agriculture, especially in developing countries. Promoting gender equality is crucial for agricultural development and food security. Agricultural extension services have a long tradition of working predominantly with men and only 15 percent of the world’s extension agents are women. World Bank has suggested“Increased women’s enrollment in agricultural courses” as one among the strategies when addressing gender issues in the education and training components of agricultural development projects. In this context the study was carried out to ascertain the representation of women and their academic achievement in agricultural education. The study revealed that almost equal representation was found for women in agricultural course and they were also provided better quality education in their schooling, in the form of English medium education and education in private schools. Recent trends for the past four years showed a higher percentage of enrollments of women in agricultural course than men. The growth rate was also higher for the female students. Women also showed a significantly higher percentage of academic achievement than men. These positive indicators provide sufficient signals for equality of women in agricultural course and have positive implications for development of the agricultural sector in future

Management Characteristics and Adoption Index of Indigenous Agricultural Practices by Rice Farmers

The study was conducted in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu, to assess the relationship between Management characteristics of farmers and their adoption of Indigenous Agricultural Practices (IAPs) in Rice cultivation. One hundred and twenty Rice growing farmers were purposively selected from five blocks of Vellore district for the study. Thirty eight IAPs for Rice cultivation as listed in Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Agritech portal were selected for the study and the adoption index regarding these technologies revealed that majority (65%) of the respondents had ‘medium’ adoption index. With regard to the management characteristics studied, majority of the respondents had medium level of management orientation (75.00%), coordination ability (70.80%), risk orientation (75.80%), self-confidence (69.20%) and self-reliability (56.70%). The study also revealed that therewas a positive and significant relationship with regard to self-confidence and self-reliance of the farmers with the extent of adoption of Indigenous Agricultural Practices. Risk orientation had a negative but significant relationship with extent of adoption. Training the farmers to improve their management skills could lead to better adoption of the indigenous practices

Understanding Learning Style Variations among Undergraduate Students

A study was conducted in Vellore district of Tamil Nadu state to understand the learning styles of students. The term learning style refers to the way or method or approach by which a student learns. The study explored the possible learning style variations among agricultural, horticultural, engineering and arts & science students and their association with academic achievement. One hundred and twelve students were randomly selected from the four streams and their learning styles were analyzed. In the agricultural and horticultural streams, a majority of the students were auditory learners. They were also found to be predominantly unimodal learners. Overall, it was found that majority of the students were visual learners followed by auditory and kinesthetic style. The highest percentage of kinesthetic learners was found among engineering students. Trimodal learners scored the highest mean percentage of marks. The influence of learning styles on the academic achievements of the students did not show a significant relationship

A Method for Measuring the 6S1/2↔5D3/26S_{1/2} \leftrightarrow 5D_{3/2} Magnetic Dipole Transition Moment in {Ba}+^{+}

We propose a method for measuring the magnetic dipole (M1) transition moment of the $6S_{1/2} \big(\mathrm{m}=-1/2\big)\leftrightarrow 5D_{3/2}\big(\mathrm{m}=-1/2\big)$ transition in single trapped Ba$^{+}$ by exploiting different symmetries in the electric quadrupole (E2) and M1 couplings between the states. The technique is adapted from a previously proposed method for measuring atomic parity nonconservation in a single trapped ion [Norval Fortson, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{70}, 17 (1993)]. Knowledge of M1 is crucial for any parity nonconservation measurement in Ba$^{+}$, as laser coupling through M1 can mimic the parity-violating signal. The magnetic moment for the transition has been calculated by atomic theory and found to be dominated by electron-electron correlation effects [B.K. Sahoo et. al., Phys. Rev. A \textbf{74}, 6 (2006)]. To date the value has not been verified experimentally. This proposed measurement is therefore an essential step toward a parity nonconservation experiment in the ion that will also test current many-body theory. The technique can be adapted for similar parity nonconservation experiments using other atomic ions, where the magnetic dipole moment could present similar complications

Noise Suppression in Images by Median Filter

A new and efficient algorithm for high-density salt and pepper noise removal in images and videos is proposed. In the transmission of images over channels, images are corrupted by salt and pepper noise, due to faulty communications. Salt and Pepper noise is also referred to as Impulse noise. The objective of filtering is to remove the impulses so that the noise free image is fully recovered with minimum signal distortion. Noise removal can be achieved, by using a number of existing linear filtering techniques. We will deal with the images corrupted by salt-and-pepper noise in which the noisy pixels can take only the maximum or minimum values (i.e. 0 or 255 for 8-bit grayscale images)

The effects of the 2004 Tsunami on mainland India and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Mortality from the tsunamis was high, with more than 7,000 deaths in the Nicobar group alone (the final number may never be known as many indigenous people on remote islands may have perished). On the mainland, there were a similar number of fatalities ; The greatest losses were in fishing communities although the waves destroyed roads, jetties, other basic infrastructure and entire villages; There was major damage to the coastal resources of southeast India, particularly to mangrove and coastal forests. On the Andaman and Nicobar Islands there was considerable damage to the coral reefs and beaches, as well as the forests; The earthquakes changed the bathymetry of the coral reefs and coasts of the Andaman and Nicobars: reefs in the South Andamans to the Nicobars subsided by 1 - 3 metres; many reefs in the northern Andamans were uplifted out of the water and died; and some beaches have almost disappeared, while new beaches have formed; There was major damage to large areas of coral reefs of the Andamans and Nicobars, particularly due to debris being washed off the land and smothering by sediments; Mainland coral reefs in the Gulf of Mannar and elsewhere suffered very minor, localised damage. Many mainland beaches were seriously eroded; and The affected reefs are expected to recover within 5-10 years, if there is effective resource management and enforcement of legislation controlling destructive fishing, coral mining, over-harvesting of reef resources, coastal development, sedimentation and pollution