Management of scombroid resources of India

Scombroids consisting of mackerels, seerfishes and tunas are an economically important pelagic fishes whose average landings during the 90s was 2.81 lakh t forming 11.7 % of the total marine fish production in India. Their demand in the domestic and export markets is on the rise and the group assumes topical importance in a situation where most of the coastal fishery resources are exploited to the near optimum level. Resource potential, status of exploitation and management and conservation issues regarding the scombroid resource in the coastal fishery sector are presented and discussed

Prospects of development of marine fisheries resources in Lakshadweep

A good data base has already been developed by CMFRI on various marine resources of Lakshadweep islands and related conservation problems. In the present paper, the potentialities and the areas where future research and developmental activities need to be directed are briefly discussed

A possible observational bias in the estimation of the virial parameter in virialized clumps

The dynamics of massive clumps, the environment where massive stars originate, is still unclear. Many theories predict that these regions are in a state of near-virial equilibrium, or near energy equi-partition, while others predict that clumps are in a sub-virial state. Observationally, the majority of the massive clumps are in a sub-virial state with a clear anti-correlation between the virial parameter $\alpha_{vir}$ and the mass of the clumps $M_{c}$, which suggests that the more massive objects are also the more gravitationally bound. Although this trend is observed at all scales, from massive clouds down to star-forming cores, theories do not predict it. In this work we show how, starting from virialized clumps, an observational bias is introduced in the specific case where the kinetic and the gravitational energies are estimated in different volumes within clumps and how it can contribute to the spurious $\alpha_{vir}-M_{c}$ anti-correlation in these data. As a result, the observed effective virial parameter $\tilde{\alpha}_{eff}<\alpha_{vir}$, and in some circumstances it might not be representative of the virial state of the observed clumps.Comment: A&A letter, accepte

Hot Core, Outflows and Magnetic Fields in W43-MM1 (G30.79 FIR 10)

We present submillimeter spectral line and dust continuum polarization observations of a remarkable hot core and multiple outflows in the high-mass star-forming region W43-MM1 (G30.79 FIR 10), obtained using the Submillimeter Array (SMA). A temperature of $\sim$ 400 K is estimated for the hot-core using CH$_3$CN (J=19-18) lines, with detections of 11 K-ladder components. The high temperature and the mass estimates for the outflows indicate high-mass star-formation. The continuum polarization pattern shows an ordered distribution, and its orientation over the main outflow appears aligned to the outflow. The derived magnetic field indicates slightly super-critical conditions. While the magnetic and outflow energies are comparable, the B-field orientation appears to have changed from parsec scales to $\sim$ 0.1 pc scales during the core/star-formation process.Comment: accepted, ApJ Letter

Magnetic Field Uniformity Across the GF 9-2 YSO, L1082C Dense Core, and GF 9 Filamentary Dark Cloud

The orientation of the magnetic field (B-field) in the filamentary dark cloud GF 9 was traced from the periphery of the cloud into the L1082C dense core that contains the low-mass, low-luminosity Class 0 young stellar object (YSO) GF 9-2 (IRAS 20503+6006). This was done using SOFIA HAWC+ dust thermal emission polarimetry (TEP) at 216 um in combination with Mimir near-infrared background starlight polarimetry (BSP) conducted at H-band (1.6 um) and K-band (2.2 um). These observations were augmented with published I-band (0.77 um) BSP and Planck 850 um TEP to probe B-field orientations with offset from the YSO in a range spanning 6000 AU to 3 pc. No strong B-field orientation change with offset was found, indicating remarkable uniformity of the B-field from the cloud edge to the YSO environs. This finding disagrees with weak-field models of cloud core and YSO formation. The continuity of inferred B-field orientations for both TEP and BSP probes is strong evidence that both are sampling a common B-field that uniformly threads the cloud, core, and YSO region. Bayesian analysis of Gaia DR2 stars matched to the Mimir BSP stars finds a distance to GF 9 of 270 +/- 10 pc. No strong wavelength dependence of B-field orientation angle was found, contrary to previous claims.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures ApJ, accepte

Fishery, biology and stock assessment of skipjack tuna in Indian seas

In India the oceanic skipjack, Katsuwonus pelamis (Linnaeus) forms a significant fishery only in Lakshadweep islands. Here itself the catch is only an insignificant component in the lotal annual catch of this species from western Indian Ocean. The infrastructural facilities now available in these islands are insufficient to expect any major improvement in its fishery. As this group of islands arc increasingly coming to focus in the national context with a view for further devlopment, the fisheries sector will have to get its due importance

Security Aware Virtual Base Station Placement in 5G Cloud Radio Access Networks

© 2018, ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering. In fifth generation (5G) cloud radio access networks (C-RAN), baseband processing of base stations (BS’s) will be processed on virtual machines called virtual BSs (VBS) in the centralized cloud architecture. The existing researches mostly focus on how to maximize resource utilization and reduce energy consumption in 5G C-RAN using VBS placement. However, security issues in the context of VBS placement within 5G C-RAN have been rarely addressed. In this paper, a security aware VBS placement (SAV) scheme within 5G C-RAN is proposed where the placement of VBSs to physical machines (PMs) considers the security levels of both the VBS and the PM. A rigorous simulation study is conducted for validating the proposed scheme, which shows a significant security improvement of 16% compared to the heuristic simulated annealing scheme (HSA).Published versio

Artificial reefs

At Tuticorin and Minicoy observations were made on the experimental artificial reefs constructed by the Scientists of CMFRI during 1988-'92, whereas at Vizhinjam the artificial reefs constructed by the local artisanal fishermen were monitored by the Scientists of the Institute. Good congregation of fishes was observed in the vicinity of the artificial reefs at all the three Centers. In the experimental artificial reef constructed at Tuticorin, four distinct groups of fishes were recognized based on their mode of attraction towards the reef structures. At Vizhinjam, an increase in the landing offish was noticed in the commercial catches. At Minicoy, settlement of pearl oyster spat and growth of several species of seaweeds were recorded

Serum estradiol level on the day of ovulation trigger and pregnancy outcomes in in-vitro fertilisation-intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycles

Background: There is conflicting evidence with regards to the impact of supraphysiologic estradiol levels in in-vitro fertilisation-intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF-ICSI) cycles on pregnancy outcomes such as oocyte quality, implantation, and clinical pregnancy. The objective of our study was to evaluate the effect of serum estradiol levels on the day of ovulation trigger on pregnancy outcomes in IVF-ICSI cycles.Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study, which included eighty-three women who underwent IVF-ICSI and experienced fresh embryo transfer (ET) over one year period. The women included in the study were divided into four groups according to the serum estradiol level on the day of ovulation trigger; Group I: 4000pg/ml. The outcome measures including number of oocytes retrieved, MII (metaphase II) oocytes, fertilization rate, embryo quality, overall pregnancy rate, implantation rate and clinical pregnancy rate were compared among these four groups.Results: The total number of oocytes, MII oocytes as well as good quality embryos significantly increased from group 1 to group 4. The implantation rate was lowest in group 4 compared to all other groups, although not statistically significant. There was no significant difference in overall and clinical pregnancy rate between the groups.Conclusions: Serum estradiol level shows a positive correlation with the number of oocytes retrieved and good quality embryos. A higher estradiol level does not have a significant negative impact on the implantation rate, overall or clinical pregnancy rate

A study on the prescription pattern of antifungal drugs in the Dermatology Department of a tertiary care teaching hospital in Southern Kerala

Background: Skin disorders form 2% of total Out Patient Department consultations worldwide. But no such data is available from India. Studying prescription pattern is a component of medical audit that help prescribers to provide rational and cost-effective medical care. This study is about the prescription pattern of antifungals in this institution and will help in developing local policies for appropriate use of antifungal drugs. The objective was to study the prescription pattern of antifungals in dermatological diseases.Methods: This is a retrospective study conducted from 1st June 2017 to 30th November 2017 in Dermatology Department. Prescriptions included all newly diagnosed patients with cutaneous fungal infection of both sex who attended Dermatology OPD. Factors considered were sociodemographic parameters, number of patients with combination and monotherapy, number of single topical agents and Fixed Dose Combination (FDC) details of prescribing indicators.Results: 1500 prescriptions were analysed; 500 prescriptions were of fungal infection. 40.2% of the patients were in 18-35 years age group. There were a greater number of males (59.6%) than females (40.4%).Conclusions: The most common oral antifungal used was fluconazole. Terbinafine and clotrimazole were the most commonly used topical agents