An economic analysis of paddy production in Tiruvannamalai district – Tamil Nadu during the period 1997-2007

Agriculture is the backbone of the Indian Economy. It is the largest sector of economic activity. More than 63 per cent of the total population has been living depending on agriculture in the country. So the agriculture is the most dominant sector of such an economy. India’s agriculture export present 9% of the value of total exports while the share of agriculture in total imports is just 5% India’s agricultural exports totaled $9.3 billion in the year 2007. While imports were worth roughly$5.5 billion, in the sampling 90.0 percent and 96.0 percent of the marginal and small farmers were male. 10.0 percent and 4 percent of marginal farmers were female this confine that 96.0 percent of the small farmers were engaged in paddy cultivation.  It reveals that the yield expectancy of marginal farmers were less than small farmer due to lack of irrigation new methods etc. The 71 per cent were applying fertilizer in their land. Among them small farmer were 56.35 percent 43.67 percent contributed by marginal farmer. 29 per cent of the respondents were not applying the fertilizer which mentioned. The increasing trend of paddy production is due to application of fertilizer

On a hump-back dolphin Sousa chinensis (Osbeck) washed ashore at Sangumal (Palk Bay) near Rameswaram

The Carcass of a female dolphin was washed ashore at Sangumal (Palk Bay) near Rameswaram. After studying the external characters it was idenfified to be Sousa chinensis (Osbeck

Development of novel techniques to maintain Chlorella spp. stock culture in artificial seawater

Chlorella spp. are used as feed to culture almost all species of zooplankton. Besides they form the important feed in the finfish/shell fish culture systems. Culture media such as Miquel's medium and Convey medium are conventionally used to maintain the stock culture of Chlorella spp. For the outdoor mass culture, water is enriched with groundnut oilcake, urea and super phosphate

Studies on fruit-bud differentiation in Mango (Mangifera indica)

The time of fruit-bud-differentiation in mango is known to be governed by localweather conditions, which varies from place to place. To some extent, it also varies withvarieties grown under the same climatic conditions. The knowledge of the time of fruit-buddifferentiationunder a particular set of climatic conditions for a given variety would enablethe orchardists to schedule the manuring, irrigation and other cultural operations to havebetter yield. The fruit-bud-differentiation is a crucial event in the growth and developmentof mango, as it marks the change in partitioning and transport of metabolites from source tosink between the vegetative and reproductive organs which are governed by the growthhormones. The physiological and biochemical factors governing fruit-bud-differentiation inmango have not been adequately studied. Little is known about the role of naturallyoccurring growth substances and other metabolites involved in fruit-bud-differentiation.Need for such studies is all the more important, since these naturally occurring growthsubstances are now recognized as important factors controlling the ontogeny of flowering inhigher plants

Insights into cation ordering of double perovskite oxides from machine learning and causal relations

This work investigates the origins of cation ordering of double perovskites using first-principles theory computations combined with machine learning (ML) and causal relations. We have considered various oxidation states of A, A', B, and B' from the family of transition metal ions to construct a diverse compositional space. A conventional framework employing traditional ML classification algorithms such as Random Forest (RF) coupled with appropriate features including geometry-driven and key structural modes leads to highly accurate prediction (~98%) of A-site cation ordering. We have evaluated the accuracy of ML models by entailing analyses of decision paths, assignments of probabilistic confidence bound, and finally introducing a direct non-Gaussian acyclic structural equation model to investigate causality. Our study suggests that the structural modes are the most important features for classifying layered, columnar and rock-salt ordering. For clear layered ordering, the charge difference between the A and A' is the most important feature which in turn depends on the B, B' charge separation. Based on the outputs from ML models, we have designed functional forms with these features to derive energy differences forming clear layered ordering. The trilinear coupling between tilt, rotation, and A-site antiferroelectric displacement in Landau free-energy expansion becomes the necessary condition behind the formation of A-site cation ordering

Progress of Biorefinery in India

India is one among the world’s largest economies and its energy demand accounts for 3.5% of world’s commercial energy consumption. According to the International Energy Agency oil demand in India is expected to grow by a factor 2.2 by 2030, increasing the oil import dependency from 69% now to 91%. Rising energy prices and climate change are increasing the demand for biofuel production. The Planning Commission of India recommends replacing 20% of India’s diesel consumption mainly by non-edible Jatropha oil and Pongamia. Biorefinery could be one of the best solutions to overcome the problem. A review on the progress of biorefinery in India is attempted

An unusual bumber catch of white prawn, Penaeus indicus from Kovalam bay near Madras

In the history of the fishing village, namely, Kovalam (lat. 12°47'N long. 80°15'E), formerly known as Covelong, situated 35 km south of Madras City, heavy landings of the Indian white prawn, Penaeus indicus caught with gill net have occurred for the firsi time during 16th-20th December, 1984. Recent mark-recapture experiments on P. indicus have also established the fact that a longer migration of tagged white prawns took place from Cochin, (place of release) to Ovari - Manappad fishing villages on the southeast coast (Tinnaveli coast), covering a distance of 330-380 km in 68 to 103 days at a rate of 3.5 to 5.5 km/day. The southward migration of white prawns during the present study was in conjunction with the prevailing southerly current along the coast

Nickel sulphide-carbon composite hole transporting material for (CH3NH3PbI3) planar heterojunction perovskite solar cell

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordThe present work reports about the low-cost inorganic nickel sulphide-carbon composite synthesized using the simple chemical method and to be used as hybrid hole extraction and as a counter electrode material for perovskite (CH3NH3PbI3)-based solar cells (PSCs). The structural analysis confirms the existence of nickel sulphide (NiS) crystalline phase composed of small-sized crystallites. The optimal bandgap values of the prepared perovskite (1.51 eV) and NiS (3.71 eV) materials found to be favorable in achieving the active absorbing and hole extraction properties in PSCs. The surface morphology of the nickel sulphide materials is found to be highly dependent on the NiS-carbon composition. The current density-voltage (J-V) results of the fabricated perovskite solar cells with nickel sulphide-carbon composite hole transporting layer (HTL) suggests that incorporation of commercial carbon paste into the nickel sulphide nanoparticles tends to promote the charge carrier transporting ability and resulted in yielding high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 5.20%, when compared to that of the bare NiS (1.87%). The results show that this nickel sulphide-carbon composite can serve as an efficient dual role as an HTL to transport holes and as a conductive counter electrode for the planar heterojunction PSCs with the structure FTO/compact-TiO2/porous-TiO2/perovskite/NiS-carbon. So, nickel sulphide-carbon composite can be considered as an efficient replacement for the other unstable HTMs and high-cost metal counter electrodes used in PSCs.TEQIP, IndiaUTFORSK program, NorwayWestern Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norwa

Development and application of C - scan ultrasonic facility

This paper presents the in-house development and application of a C-scan ultrasonic facility ULTIMA 200M2 at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam, carried out in collaboration with the Electronics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai. The paper describes various constituents of the system developed and also highlights the typical results obtained using this system, including bond integrity assessment of explosive welds and imaging of fuel sub-assembly heads of the Fast Breeder Test Reactor. The system has also been used for imaging both the sides of a one rupee Indian coin. All the finer details of the coin could be extracted, demonstrating the resolution capabilities of the system

Comparable Overall Survival in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma Diagnosed within and outside a Surveillance Programme:The Potential Impact of Liver Cirrhosis

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third leading cause of cancer death, and its incidence is rising. Mortality from HCC is predicted to increase by 140% by 2035. Surveillance of high-risk patients with cirrhosis or chronic liver disease may be one means of reducing HCC mortality, but the level of supporting evidence for international guidelines is low/moderate. This study explores the real-world experience of HCC surveillance at a tertiary referral centre. Electronic patient records for all new HCCs diagnosed between August 2012 and December 2021 were retrospectively reviewed. Patient and tumour characteristics were evaluated, including the co-existence of chronic liver disease, cancer treatment and survival, and categorised according to HCC diagnosis within or outside a surveillance programme. Patients with HCC who presented through surveillance had smaller tumours diagnosed at an earlier stage, but this did not translate into improved overall survival. All patients in surveillance had chronic liver disease, including 91% (n = 101) with cirrhosis, compared to 45% (n = 29) in the non-surveillance cohort. We propose that the immune dysfunction associated with cirrhosis predisposes patients to a more aggressive tumour biology than the largely non-cirrhotic population in the non-surveillance group