Response of inoculation technique to seed and seedling infection by M. phaseolina in sorghum

Sorghum is a major cereal of the world and is a staple food for millions of the poorest and most food insecure people. The yield and quality of sorghum is affected by a wide array diseases among them charcoal rot of sorghum caused by Macrophomina phaseolina (Tassi) Goid. is causing more yield loss in rabi sorghum growing areas compared to kharif. Different inoculation techniques were followed to know effective method for infecting the seeds and seedlings by the pathogen among method C, that is seed soaking in spore suspension method recorded maximum pre and post emergence mortality of seeds are 43 and 27 per cent respectively compared to other methods

Hierarchical fusion using vector quantization for visualization of hyperspectral images

Visualization of hyperspectral images that combines the data from multiple sensors is a major challenge due to huge data set. An efficient image fusion could be a primary key step for this task. To make the approach computationally efficient and to accommodate a large number of image bands, we propose a hierarchical fusion based on vector quantization and bilateral filtering. The consecutive image bands in the hyperspectral data cube exhibit a high degree of feature similarity among them due to the contiguous and narrow nature of the hyperspectral sensors. Exploiting this redundancy in the data, we fuse neighboring images at every level of hierarchy. As at the first level, the redundancy between the images is very high we use a powerful compression tool, vector quantization, to fuse each group. From second level onwards, each group is fused using bilateral filtering. While vector quantization removes redundancy, bilateral filter retains even the minor details that exist in individual image. The hierarchical fusion scheme helps in accommodating a large number of hyperspectral image bands. It also facilitates the midband visualization of a subset of the hyperspectral image cube. Quantitative performance analysis shows the effectiveness of the proposed method

Occurrence and distribution of black pod rot of Cocoa (Theobromae cocoa L.) in southern transition zone of Karnataka

Straminipile genus Phytophthora cause significant disease losses to global cocoa production. Phytopthtora palmivora is one of the major constraints in cocoa production causes significant pod losses. P. palmivora has a complex disease cycle involving several sources of primary inoculum and several modes of dissemination of secondary inoculum. This results in explosive epidemics during favorable environmental conditions. Highest severity of Seedling blight was observed in raised bed nurseries as compared to poly bag nurseries in Shivamogga district (59.26%) followed by Chikkamagluru (53.85%) of the state Karnataka , respectively. Further, the highest incidence of 72.00, 70.83 and 70.00% of black pod rot disease was recorded in Udupi, Dakshina Kannada and Shivamogga district followed by Chikkamagaluru (65.22%), Kodagu (64.00%) and Davanagere (55.56%) district respectively. Due to continuous rain fall or high moisture conditions and the crop was grown as intercrop with arecanut is vulnerable for the attack of pathogen due to the presence of pathogenic variability

Wetting of Curved Surfaces

As a first step towards a microscopic understanding of the effective interaction between colloidal particles suspended in a solvent we study the wetting behavior of one-component fluids at spheres and fibers. We describe these phenomena within density functional theory which keeps track of the microscopic interaction potentials governing these systems. In particular we properly take into account the power-law decay of both the fluid-fluid interaction potentials and the substrate potentials. The thicknesses of the wetting films as a function of temperature and chemical potential as well as the wetting phase diagrams are determined by minimizing an effective interface potential which we obtain by applying a sharp-kink approximation to the density functional. We compare our results with previous approaches to this problem.Comment: 54 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in Physica

Study of Grid Connected Wind Energy System with Fuzzy Logic Based MPPT Controller

Renewable energy sources (RESs) are gaining more importance due to depleting fossil fuel sources in few decades. When compared to other RESs wind energy system is widely available and user friendly in nature. This paper presents modelling and simulation of grid connected PMSG based wind energy conversion system with P&O maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control technique.  The PQ controller is used for grid tied inverter to exchange real and reactive power with DC bus voltage regulation. The fuzzy logic controller (FLC) is used for MPPT implementation as it provides better performance as compared to the traditional PID controllers. The various case studies are considered for power management between wind system and the utility grid and the results are evaluated in MATLAB/ Simulink platform

Impact of Technology on the Financial Performance of Indian Commercial Banks

The banks' freedom to choose their capital structure is restricted by the capital adequacy rules. The implementation of the capital adequacy ratio may have a detrimental effect on the banks' profitability. Since debt repayment imposes restraint on managers' behaviour, It has been argued that when capital ratios are larger, agency costs between managers and shareholders typically increase.. However, the improved monitoring required by the capital adequacy rules and the larger surplus brought about by a positive bank-borrower relationship will have a favourable effect on the banks' profitability. Indian banking. stated that in terms of cost and profit efficiencies, Indian public sector banks were more effective than private and foreign banks. The use of technology enabled banks to create their own websites that their clients may view from the comfort of their homes or offices using web browsers.      &nbsp

Bioactive potential of symbiotic bacteria and fungi from marine sponges

Marine sponges are rich in microbial biota. In this study, totally four sponges namely Callyspongia diffusa, Hyattella Cribriformis, Sigmadocia carnosa, Spongia officininalis Var ceylonensis were collected and their associated bacteria and fungi were isolated. Among the microbes isolated, Pseudomonas fluorescens and Penicillium citrinum were isolated from C. diffusa which showed broad range of activity against tested pathogens. This study demonstrates that the culturable fraction of bacteria and fungi from the sponges were diverse and appears to possess much potential as a source for the discovery of new medically relevant biological active agents.Keywords: Sponges, antibacterial activity, antifungal activityAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 11(29), pp. 7500-7511, 10 April, 201

A Novel Optimization Algorithm Based on Stinging Behavior of Bee

Optimization algorithms are search methods to find an optimal solution to a problem with a set of constraints. Bio-Inspired Algorithms (BIAs) are based on biological behavior to solve a real world problem. BIA with optimization technique is to improve the overall performance of BIA. The aim of this paper is to introduce a novel optimization algorithm which is inspired by natural stinging behavior of honey bee to find the optimal solution. This algorithm performs both monitor and sting if any occurrence of predators. By applying a novel optimization algorithm based on stinging behavior of bee, used to solve the intrusion detection problems. In this paper, a new host intrusion detection system based on novel optimization algorithm has been proposed and implemented. The performance of the proposed Anomaly-based Host Intrusion Detection System (A-HIDS) using a novel optimization algorithm based on stinging behavior of bee has been tested. In this paper, after an explanation of the natural stinging behavior of honey bee, a novel optimization algorithm and A-HIDS are described and implemented. The results show that the novel optimization algorithm offers some advantage according to the nature of the problem