Technology Adoption Behaviour of Jasmine Growers – A Critical Analysis

Jasmine (Jasminum sambac) is one of the oldest fragrant flowers cultivated by man. The flower is used for various purposes viz., making garlands, bouquets, decorating hair of women, religious offerings etc. Scientific cultivation of jasmine is one of the important prerequisites for increasing the production and productivity among the jasmine growers. The technology adoption of jasmine cultivation by the jasmine growers has not received the attention of both the extension functionaries of State Department of Horticulture and Agriculture to the required level and hence, the present study was undertaken with the objective to study the adoption behavior of jasmine growers in Tiurnelveli District. Vallioor block of Tirunelveli district in Tamil Nadu was selected purposively for the study based on more area under jasmine cultivation with a sample size of 120. The respondents were selected based on proportionate random sampling method. The data were collected from each respondent through pre-tested interview schedule. The results of the study revealed that majority of the jasmine growers had adopted local variety (Ramanathapuram), pest management practices for blossom midge and bud worm, right time of harvest, application of inorganic fertilizers, water management, weed management and application of manure after pruning. One-third of the respondents had adopted the technologies like optimum spacing, application of FYM and root rot disease management. Based on the findings , the paper suggests concerted dissemination efforts by the change agents in the region, for improving jasmine productivit

Properties of Al-doped ZnS films grown by chemical bath deposition

Zinc sulphide (ZnS) buffer layers are a cadmium free, wider energy band gap, alternative to the cadmium sulphide(CdS) buffer layers commonly used in copper indium gallium diselenide (CuInGaSe2)-based solar cells. However extrinsic doping of the ZnS is important to lower the resistivity of the layers and to improve flexibility of device design. In this work, Al-doped ZnS nanocrystalline films have been produced on glass substrates using a chemical bath deposition (CBD) method. The Al- concentration was varied from 0 at. % to 10 at. %, keeping other deposition parameters constant. The elemental composition of a typical sample with 6 at. % ‘Al’ in ZnS was Zn=44.9 at. %, S=49.8 at. % and Al=5.3 at.%. The X-ray diffraction data taken on these samples showed a broad peak corresponding to the (111) plane of ZnS while the crystallite size varied in the range, 8 – 15 nm, depending on the concentration of Al in the layers. The films with a Al-doping content of 6 at. % had an optical transmittance of 75 % in the visible range and the energy band gap evaluated from the data was 3.66 eV. The films n-type electrical conductivities and the electrical resistivity varied in the range, 107-103 Ωcm, it decreasing with an increase of the Al-concentration in the solution

CPMTS: Catching packet modifiers with trust support in wireless sensor networks

Security in wireless sensor networks is critical due to its way of open communication. Packet modification is a common attack in wireless sensor networks. In literature, many schemes have been proposed to mitigate such an attack but very few detect the malicious nodes effectively. In the proposed approach, each node chooses the parent node for forwarding the packet towards sink. Each node adds its identity and trust on parent as a routing path marker and encrypts only the bytes added by node in packet before forwarding to parent. Sink can determine the modifiers based on trust value and node identities marked in packet. Child node observes the parent and decides the trust on parent based on successful and unsuccessful transactions. Data transmission is divided into multiple rounds of equal time duration. Each node chooses the parent node at the beginning of a round based on its own observation on parent. Simulated the algorithm in NS-3 and performance analysis is discussed. With the combination of trust factor and fixed path routing to detect malicious activity, analytical results show that proposed method detect modifiers efficiently and early, and also with low percentage of false detection

CMNTS: Catching malicious nodes with trust support in wireless sensor networks

Security in wireless sensor networks is critical due to its way of open communication. In this paper we have considered suite of attacks - packet modification, packet dropping, sybil attack, packet misrouting, and bad mouthing attack, and provided a solution to detect attacks. In literature, many schemes have been proposed to mitigate such attacks but very few detect the malicious nodes effectively and also no single solution detects all attacks. In the proposed approach, each node chooses the parent node for forwarding the packet towards sink. Each node adds its identity and trust on parent as a routing path marker and encrypts only the bytes added by node in packet before forwarding to parent. Sink can identify the malicious node based on trust value and node identities marked in packet. Child node observes the parent and decides the trust on parent based on successful and unsuccessful transactions. Data transmission is divided into multiple rounds of equal time duration. Each node chooses the parent node at the beginning of a round based on its own observation on parent. Simulated the algorithm in NS-3 and performance analysis is discussed by comparing the results with other two recently proposed approaches. With the combination of trust factor and fixed path routing to detect malicious activity, simulation results show that proposed method detect malicious nodes efficiently and early, and also with low percentage of false detection

Farmer led gross root level entrepreneurial initiatives for sustainable sugarcane production system in Tamil Nadu, India

The major objective of the study was to explore the rural entrepreneurial initiatives and its socio- economic impact among the sugarcane farmers across Tamil Nadu. Exploratory surveys, Focused Group Discussions (FDGs) and case study methods have been adopted. A total of seven successful entrepreneurial activities initiated by cane farmers, across different districts of Tamil Nadu were selected, purposively. The study revealed that entrepreneurial initiatives accomplished the needs of farmers and these either were developed by farmers themselves or with collaboration of sugar factories. Among seven entrepreneurial initiatives; ‘two wheeler sprayer’, ‘tractor mounted sprayer’, ‘trichogramma production’ and ‘Agricultural Service Provider (ASP)’ were initiated by the sugar factories under the Entrepreneurship Development Programme (EDP) in participatory mode. The other initiatives viz., organic jaggery powder and trash based vermi-compost production were initiated by farmers themselves. Budchip settling production was practiced by individual farmers as well as promoted by factories in participatory mode. It is also found that all seven entrepreneurial initiatives are profitable and sustainable. Further, the study found that the production cost for 1 cc trichogramma is Rs. 16 and selling cost is Rs. 23/cc, thus farmer getting a net profit of Rs. 7/cc of Trico card. In case of budchip settling production, total cost incurred for production of one settling is around 60-85 paisa. Selling cost of one-month old settling is Rs. 1.25. Thus, a farmer gains a net profit of 40 paisa per settling

SDLM: Source detection based local monitoring in wireless sensor networks

Security in wireless sensor networks is critical due to its way of open communication. Local monitoring is one of the powerful technique to secure the data and detect various malicious activities. In local monitoring, neighbour nodes observe the communication between current sender, current receiver and next hop receiver to detect the malicious activity. To make sensors power efficient, sleep-wake scheduling algorithms along with local monitoring are suggested in literature. Solutions in the literature do not address the problem if source node is malicious and do not consider unnecessary wake up of the nodes as malicious activity. This paper tries to achieve without assuming source node as honest and considers unnecessary wake up of the node as a malicious activity. Simulated the algorithm in NS-2 and performance analysis is discussed. Even with additional checks applied to detect malicious activities, analytical results show no degradation in the performance

Influence of active stiffening on dynamic behaviour of piezo-hygro-thermo-elastic composite plates and shells

The active stiffening and active compensation analyses are carried out to present the influence of active stiffness on the dynamic behaviour of piezo-hygro-thermo-elastic laminates. A coupled piezoelectric finite element formulation involving a hygrothermal strain field is derived using the virtual work principle and is employed in a nine-noded field consistent Lagrangian element. The closed-loop system is modelled with elastic stiffness, active stiffness introduced by isotropic actuator lamina and geometric stiffness due to stresses developed by hygrothermal strain. Through a parametric study, the influence of active stiffening and active compensation effects on the dynamics of cross-ply and angle-ply laminated plates and shells are highlighted. The active stiffening on thin shells is significantly influenced by boundary effects and the actuator efficiency further decreases with increase in curvature. The reduction in natural frequencies of cross-ply laminates due to hygrothermal strain is actively compensated by active stiffening; however, it is observed that the actuator performance reduces significantly with increase in curvature particularly in angle-ply laminates, which demands the use of directional actuators. The active stiffening and active compensation effects are low in moderately thick piezo-hygro-thermo-elastic plates and shells, which are less influenced by boundary conditions

Gynocentrism in Langston Hughes selected poetic works

Gynocentrism exclusive focuses on women both as theory and practice. Anything can be considered gynocentric when it is concerned exclusively with a female point of view. The works of Langston Hughes, which reflect the intersection of races and genders in the lives of blacks, are studied. His contributions take multiple forms including poetry, short stories, dramas and novels which are about black women's love, nature, romantic dilemmas, mother - daughter relationships, friendship, and silences. The authors analyze how gender in a special way colors female identity in Hughes' works. He expresses interdependence of genders and racial identities in his representations of black women and hence can be dubbed as gender racial. His writings are in a gender racial style, highlighting and intertwining gender and racial identities. Hughes' overcomes gender and racial stereotypes with open discussions on contentious themes. It is concluded that Hughes creates an alternative to repressive social realities by combining challenges with sensual visions

Mining Privacy-Preserving Association Rules based on Parallel Processing in Cloud Computing

With the onset of the Information Era and the rapid growth of information technology, ample space for processing and extracting data has opened up. However, privacy concerns may stifle expansion throughout this area. The challenge of reliable mining techniques when transactions disperse across sources is addressed in this study. This work looks at the prospect of creating a new set of three algorithms that can obtain maximum privacy, data utility, and time savings while doing so. This paper proposes a unique double encryption and Transaction Splitter approach to alter the database to optimize the data utility and confidentiality tradeoff in the preparation phase. This paper presents a customized apriori approach for the mining process, which does not examine the entire database to estimate the support for each attribute. Existing distributed data solutions have a high encryption complexity and an insufficient specification of many participants' properties. Proposed solutions provide increased privacy protection against a variety of attack models. Furthermore, in terms of communication cycles and processing complexity, it is much simpler and quicker. Proposed work tests on top of a realworld transaction database demonstrate that the aim of the proposed method is realistic