Economic loss and gains of marine fishing along Kerala coast

Along the Kerala coast, the capital investment in mechanized, motorised and non-mechanised sectors of various craft-gear combinations, on an average, ranges from Rs. 23000 for a small catamaran unit in the non-motorised sector to RS.25 lakh for a small trawler in the mechanised sector. The average operating cost of individual craft among these categories varies between Rs.8,000 and Rs.13 lakh providing returns to the tune of 15 per cent to 140 per cent of the capital investment. Economic loss due to juvenile fishing is severe for species like flatfish with a difIerential ratio 0.14, anchovies with 0.20, thread tin breams with 0.21 , carangids 0.29 and shrimps 0.33

Impact of environmental threats on marine fishery resources of coastal Kerala: an economic assessment

Competition and commercialization in marine fisheries have generated discrepancies and imbalances in marine ecology, sustainable production and distributive justice. The private capital investment made on crafts-gears in capture fisheries does not any way compensate the social cost of overexploitation of certain resources, uncontrolled juvenile fishing and discards. The common property nature of marine fisheries coupled with market driven catching strategies and technological changes led to overexploitation of varieties such as elasmobranchs, catfish and goatfish along Kerala coast. However, the analysis of production trends for a period of four decades reveals increasing trends in the landings of species such as oilsardine, anchovies, lizardfish, perches, carangids, tunnies, barracudas, flat fish and cephalapods. The study on the environmental economics of inshore fishery resource utilisation of coastal Kerala has been undertaken in four southern Districts (Ernakulam, Alappuzha, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram) during the year 2001-2003 with focus on environmental hotspots of industrial pollution and sea erosion along with details of economic loss of juvenile fishing by trawl fisheries

Electrodeposited NiX2 (X= S, Se) thin films for solar cell applications

Thin films of nickel chalcogenide, NiX2 (X= S, Se) have been electrosynthesized on indiumtin-oxide (ITO) coated glass substrates. The films were characterized for their structural, morphological and compositional characteristics. Their optical and semiconducting parameters were also analysed in order to determine the suitability of the thin films for photoelectrochemical (PEC) / solar cell applications. Structural analysis via X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis reveals that the films are polycrystalline in nature. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) studies reveals that the films were adherent to the substrate with uniform and pin-hole free. Compositional analysis via energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) technique confirms the presence of Ni, S, and Se elements in the films. The optical studies show that the films are of direct bandgap. Results on the semiconductor parameters analysis of the films showed that the nature of the Mott-Schottky plots indicates that the films obtained are of p-type material

MICU1 Motifs Define Mitochondrial Calcium Uniporter Binding and Activity

SummaryResting mitochondrial matrix Ca2+ is maintained through a mitochondrial calcium uptake 1 (MICU1)-established threshold inhibition of mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU) activity. It is not known how MICU1 interacts with MCU to establish this Ca2+ threshold for mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake and MCU activity. Here, we show that MICU1 localizes to the mitochondrial matrix side of the inner mitochondrial membrane and MICU1/MCU binding is determined by a MICU1 N-terminal polybasic domain and two interacting coiled-coil domains of MCU. Further investigation reveals that MICU1 forms homo-oligomers, and this oligomerization is independent of the polybasic region. However, the polybasic region confers MICU1 oligomeric binding to MCU and controls mitochondrial Ca2+ current (IMCU). Moreover, MICU1 EF hands regulate MCU channel activity, but do not determine MCU binding. Loss of MICU1 promotes MCU activation leading to oxidative burden and a halt to cell migration. These studies establish a molecular mechanism for MICU1 control of MCU-mediated mitochondrial Ca2+ accumulation, and dysregulation of this mechanism probably enhances vascular dysfunction

Gender Differences in Russian Colour Naming

In the present study we explored Russian colour naming in a web-based psycholinguistic experiment (http://www.colournaming.com). Colour singletons representing the Munsell Color Solid (N=600 in total) were presented on a computer monitor and named using an unconstrained colour-naming method. Respondents were Russian speakers (N=713). For gender-split equal-size samples (NF=333, NM=333) we estimated and compared (i) location of centroids of 12 Russian basic colour terms (BCTs); (ii) the number of words in colour descriptors; (iii) occurrences of BCTs most frequent non-BCTs. We found a close correspondence between females’ and males’ BCT centroids. Among individual BCTs, the highest inter-gender agreement was for seryj ‘grey’ and goluboj ‘light blue’, while the lowest was for sinij ‘dark blue’ and krasnyj ‘red’. Females revealed a significantly richer repertory of distinct colour descriptors, with great variety of monolexemic non-BCTs and “fancy” colour names; in comparison, males offered relatively more BCTs or their compounds. Along with these measures, we gauged denotata of most frequent CTs, reflected by linguistic segmentation of colour space, by employing a synthetic observer trained by gender-specific responses. This psycholinguistic representation revealed females’ more refined linguistic segmentation, compared to males, with higher linguistic density predominantly along the redgreen axis of colour space

Relation of exaggerated cytokine responses of CF airway epithelial cells to PAO1 adherence

In many model systems, cystic fibrosis (CF) phenotype airway epithelial cells in culture respond to P. aeruginosa with greater interleukin (IL)-8 and IL-6 secretion than matched controls. In order to test whether this excess inflammatory response results from the reported increased adherence of P. aeruginosa to the CF cells, we compared the inflammatory response of matched pairs of CF and non CF airway epithelial cell lines to the binding of GFP-PAO1, a strain of pseudomonas labeled with green fluorescent protein. There was no clear relation between GFP-PAO1 binding and cytokine production in response to PAO1. Treatment with exogenous aGM1 resulted in greater GFP-PAO1 binding to the normal phenotype compared to CF phenotype cells, but cytokine production remained greater from the CF cell lines. When cells were treated with neuraminidase, PAO1 adherence was equalized between CF and nonCF phenotype cell lines, but IL-8 production in response to inflammatory stimuli was still greater in CF phenotype cells. The polarized cell lines 16HBEo-Sense (normal phenotype) and Antisense (CF phenotype) cells were used to test the effect of disrupting tight junctions, which allows access of PAO1 to basolateral binding sites in both cell lines. IL-8 production increased from CF, but not normal, cells. These data indicate that increased bacterial binding to CF phenotype cells cannot by itself account for excess cytokine production in CF airway epithelial cells, encourage investigation of alternative hypotheses, and signal caution for therapeutic strategies proposed for CF that include disruption of tight junctions in the face of pseudomonas infection