Setting Research Priority for Livestock Sector in Gujarat

Research resource allocation strategy has been worked out for the livestock sector across districts/ regions of the Gujarat state by using multi-criteria scoring model. The study has covered all the 19 districts of the state and six livestock species. In the commodity priority, the highest share (83%) has been claimed by milk research, followed by draught power (15%). The research share of meat, egg, skin and hair & wool is very low. The trend has been found same in the state as well as the districts. Within milk research, buffalo milk has got the highest priority in all the districts and research on poultry meat has claimed the highest share in meat research in most of the districts. The hide research should focus on the goat hide in the most of the districts. Wool research has claimed the highest priority in the Saurashtra, Middle and North Gujarat regions, while the South Gujarat region should focus on goat hair research. For the wool and hair research, the Kachchh district should receive the highest priority. Research resource allocation strategy has been worked out for the livestock sector across districts/ regions of the Gujarat state by using multi-criteria scoring model. The study has covered all the 19 districts of the state and six livestock species. In the commodity priority, the highest share (83%) has been claimed by milk research, followed by draught power (15%). The research share of meat, egg, skin and hair & wool is very low. The trend has been found same in the state as well as the districts. Within milk research, buffalo milk has got the highest priority in all the districts and research on poultry meat has claimed the highest share in meat research in most of the districts. The hide research should focus on the goat hide in the most of the districts. Wool research has claimed the highest priority in the Saurashtra, Middle and North Gujarat regions, while the South Gujarat region should focus on goat hair research. For the wool and hair research, the Kachchh district should receive the highest priority.Livestock Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Optimal taxation policy maximum-entropy approach

The object of this paper is firstly to present entropic measure of income inequality and secondly to develop maximum entropy approaches for the optimal reduction of income inequality through taxation.

How do intrahousehold dynamics change when assets are transferred to women? Evidence from BRAC’s challenging the frontiers of poverty reduction—targeting the ultra poor program in Bangladesh

Growing evidence shows that the distribution of individuals' ownership and control of assets within a household can have important implications for women’s empowerment and children’s well-being. Interventions that target assets to specific individuals can shift these intrahousehold dynamics, yet little evidence exists from rigorous evaluations. We study BRAC’s Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction—Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR-TUP) program in Bangladesh, which targets asset transfer (primarily livestock) and training to rural women in poor households. Previous research has shown large, significant positive program impacts at the household level. In this paper, we examine intrahousehold impacts using mixed methods. We focus on the Specially Targeted Ultra-Poor(STUP) component of the program, which targets households selected following a randomized controlled trial design. Adding a new round of data collection with quantitative sex-disaggregated information and qualitative exploration, we exploit the randomized design to assess intrahousehold impacts of STUP. Our analysis confirms that the program significantly increases household ownership of various assets but has complex effects on the targeted women. Quantitative estimates show increases in women’s sole and joint ownership of or control over transferred assets such as livestock, but a much greater increase in men’s sole ownership over nearly all other assets (including agricultural and nonagricultural productive assets, land, and consumer durables). These findings suggest that while the transferred assets tend to remain with women, new investments from mobilized resources are controlled by men. Moreover, the program reduces women’s mobility outside the home and their control over income, consistent with the transferred asset’s requiring maintenance at home. Qualitative findings are consistent with these quantitative results , but women’s contribution to their households is perceived as increasing their confidence and social capital, which they themselves value. Therefore, while provision of assets and training to women has ambiguous effects on women’s empowerment in terms of tangible assets and decisionmaking, women take intangibles into account and largely perceive positive (though still mixed) effects. The analysis shows that asset transfer targeted to women can increase women’s ownership of and control over the transferred asset itself but may not necessarily increase women’s intrahousehold bargaining position. Moreover, it reveals that outcomes valued by individuals may not always be tangible, highlighting the complexity of assessing whether interventions improve women’s empowerment

Survival in equilibrium step fluctuations

We report the results of analytic and numerical investigations of the time scale of survival or non-zero-crossing probability $S(t)$ in equilibrium step fluctuations described by Langevin equations appropriate for attachment/detachment and edge-diffusion limited kinetics. An exact relation between long-time behaviors of the survival probability and the autocorrelation function is established and numerically verified. $S(t)$ is shown to exhibit simple scaling behavior as a function of system size and sampling time. Our theoretical results are in agreement with those obtained from an analysis of experimental dynamical STM data on step fluctuations on Al/Si(111) and Ag(111) surfaces.Comment: RevTeX, 4 pages, 3 figure

Salicylic acid enhances resistance in cowpea against Meloidogyne incognita

Salicylic acid (10 mM) sprayed on cowpea leaves inoculated with Meloidogyne incognita reduced nematode infection and promoted plant growth. Salicylic acid did not kill nematodes in an in vitro test and induced expression and accumulation of pathogenesis related-1 protein in the leaves of sprayed plants. The presence of Tween-20 enhanced the effect of salicylic acid on the accumulation of pathogenesis related-1 protein

Bianchi Type III Anisotropic Dark Energy Models with Constant Deceleration Parameter

The Bianchi type III dark energy models with constant deceleration parameter are investigated. The equation of state parameter $\omega$ is found to be time dependent and its existing range for this model is consistent with the recent observations of SN Ia data, SN Ia data (with CMBR anisotropy) and galaxy clustering statistics. The physical aspect of the dark energy models are discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, Accepted version of IJT

Functional and genetic analysis of regulatory regions of coliphage H-19B: location of shiga-like toxin and lysis genes suggest a role for phage functions in toxin release

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/74784/1/j.1365-2958.1998.00890.x.pd

Dark Energy and Gravity

I review the problem of dark energy focusing on the cosmological constant as the candidate and discuss its implications for the nature of gravity. Part 1 briefly overviews the currently popular `concordance cosmology' and summarises the evidence for dark energy. It also provides the observational and theoretical arguments in favour of the cosmological constant as the candidate and emphasises why no other approach really solves the conceptual problems usually attributed to the cosmological constant. Part 2 describes some of the approaches to understand the nature of the cosmological constant and attempts to extract the key ingredients which must be present in any viable solution. I argue that (i)the cosmological constant problem cannot be satisfactorily solved until gravitational action is made invariant under the shift of the matter lagrangian by a constant and (ii) this cannot happen if the metric is the dynamical variable. Hence the cosmological constant problem essentially has to do with our (mis)understanding of the nature of gravity. Part 3 discusses an alternative perspective on gravity in which the action is explicitly invariant under the above transformation. Extremizing this action leads to an equation determining the background geometry which gives Einstein's theory at the lowest order with Lanczos-Lovelock type corrections. (Condensed abstract).Comment: Invited Review for a special Gen.Rel.Grav. issue on Dark Energy, edited by G.F.R.Ellis, R.Maartens and H.Nicolai; revtex; 22 pages; 2 figure

Kinetics of Eotaxin Generation and Its Relationship to Eosinophil Accumulation in Allergic Airways Disease: Analysis in a Guinea Pig Model In Vivo

Challenge of the airways of sensitized guinea pigs with aerosolized ovalbumin resulted in an early phase of microvascular protein leakage and a delayed phase of eosinophil accumulation in the airway lumen, as measured using bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL). Immunoreactive eotaxin levels rose in airway tissue and BAL fluid to a peak at 6 h falling to low levels by 12 h. Eosinophil numbers in the tissue correlated with eotaxin levels until 6 h but eosinophils persisted until the last measurement time point at 24 h. In contrast, few eosinophils appeared in BAL over the first 12 h, major trafficking through the airway epithelium occurring at 12–24 h when eotaxin levels were low. Constitutive eotaxin was present in BAL fluid. Both constitutive and allergen-induced eosinophil chemoattractant activity in BAL fluid was neutralized by an antibody to eotaxin. Allergen-induced eotaxin appeared to be mainly in airway epithelium and macrophages, as detected by immunostaining. Allergen challenge of the lung resulted in a rapid release of bone marrow eosinophils into the blood. An antibody to IL-5 suppressed bone marrow eosinophil release and lung eosinophilia, without affecting lung eotaxin levels. Thus, IL-5 and eotaxin appear to cooperate in mediating a rapid transfer of eosinophils from the bone marrow to the lung in response to allergen challenge