Estimation of Post-Harvest Losses in Kinnow Mandarin in Punjab Using a Modified Formula

This study undertaken in Punjab on kinnow mandarin has suggested to include marketing loss in the estimation of marketing margins, price spread and efficiency and has used a modified formula for it. It has been observed that a majority of kinnow producers sell their orchards to the pre-harvest contractors/ traders at different stages. The aggregate post-harvest losses from orchards to consumers in kinnow in two different markets ranges from 14.87 per cent in Delhi market to 21.91 per cent in Bangalore market. It has indicated the necessity of establishing kinnow processing industries for development of value-added ready-to-serve (RTS) quality products, minimizing post-harvest losses and providing remunerative price to the producers. The results have emphasized that efforts should be made to adopt improved packaging techniques, cushioning material and cold storage facilities at the retail level. The producer’s share in consumer’s price as estimated by old method has been found higher in local market than Bangalore and Delhi markets, largely because of lower marketing costs and profit margins of traders. The inclusion of marketing loss in the estimation of marketing margins, price spread and efficiency has indicated that the old estimation method unduly over-states the farmers’ net price and profit margins to the market middlemen. It is appropriate to use modified method for the estimation of marketing margins and price spread.Crop Production/Industries,

A study of the Topographical Anatomy of the External laryngeal Branch of Superior Laryngeal Nerve in patients undergoing Thyroidectomy

INTRODUCTION: Thyroidectomy is a frequently performed surgery all over the world. One forgotten and usually ignored complication is voice change. This can either be due to recurrent laryngeal nerve injury or external laryngeal nerve injury. The pattern of voice change varies in each of these injuries. Identifying the nerves during the surgery and a comprehensive knowledge about the variants of the nerves can be beneficial to the surgeon. AIM AND OBJECTIVES: To find out the prevalence of various courses of external branch of superior laryngeal nerve in patients undergoing thyroidectomy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 50 patients undergoing thyroidectomy in the Department of General Surgery from April 2016 to September 2016 were studied. The course of external laryngeal nerve was classified according to Kierner Classification. RESULTS: The total number of nerves analysed were 83. The mean length of nerve was 2.21 cm. The most common type of EBSLN was type 1 [46.98%]. The second most common type of EBSLN was type 2[25.3%]. The third most common type of nerve was the nerve could not be identified in 22.89% of cases. The fourth most common type of type 4 nerve [4.81%]. There was no type 4 nerve identified in this study. CONCLUSION: The description of various courses of external branch of superior laryngeal nerve and its routine identification can minimise risk of iatrogenic injury to the nerve during thyroidectomy

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF KARELA COMPARED WITH VIJAYASAR IN THE MANAGEMENT OF MADHUMEHA

Vijayasar (Pterocarpus marsupium) has been mentioned in Charak Samhita, as a remedy for Madhumeha (Diabetes Mellitus). A study conducted by ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) revealed that the hypoglycemic effects of Vijayasar are comparable to that of tolbutamide. Karela (Mormordica charantia) is another herb used in Madhumeha and it is a routinely used vegetable in Nepal. In this study we measured the effectiveness of Karela in patients of Madhumeha and compared with that of Vijayasar. A total of sixty four patients diagnosed with Madhumeha (Fasting Blood Glucose ≥126mg/dl or Post Prandial Blood Glucose≥200mg/dl) were given either Karela or Vijayasar powder two times a day for one month, along with dietary and lifestyle advices and their blood glucose levels were measured before initiating treatment and after one month of treatment. Changes in the subjective complaints of Madhumeha like Prabhutamutrata, Avilmutrata, etc. and appearance of adverse events were also evaluated. Randomization of treatment was done and dosage was titrated on the basis of glycemic control and duration of Madhumeha. The mean reductions in fasting blood glucose and post prandial blood glucose in Karela treated group are 60.83 mg/dl and 79.74 mg/dl respectively and that in Vijayasar treated. Karela is a safe and effective medicine in the management of Madhumeha and it is as effective as Vijayasar

Critical Exponents for Three-Dimensional Superfluid--Bose-Glass Phase Transition

The critical phenomenon of the zero temperature superfluid--Bose-glass phase transition for hard-core bosons on a three-dimensional disordered lattice is studied using a quantum real-space renormalization-group method. The correlation-length exponent $\nu$ and the dynamic exponent z are computed. The critical exponent z is found to be 2.5 for compressible states and 1.3 for incompressible states. The exponent $\nu$ is shown to be insensitive to z as that in the two-dimensional case, and has value roughly equal to 1.Comment: 11 pages, REVTE

New Constraints on Terrestrial and Oceanic Sources of Atmospheric Methanol

We use a global 3-D chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem) to interpret new aircraft, surface, and oceanic observations of methanol in terms of the constraints that they place on the atmospheric methanol budget. Recent measurements of methanol concentrations in the ocean mixed layer (OML) imply that in situ biological production must be the main methanol source in the OML, dominating over uptake from the atmosphere. It follows that oceanic emission and uptake must be viewed as independent terms in the atmospheric methanol budget. We deduce that the marine biosphere is a large primary source (85 Tg a−1) of methanol to the atmosphere and is also a large sink (101 Tg a−1), comparable in magnitude to atmospheric oxidation by OH (88 Tg a−1). The resulting atmospheric lifetime of methanol in the model is 4.7 days. Aircraft measurements in the North American boundary layer imply that terrestrial plants are a much weaker source than presently thought, likely reflecting an overestimate of broadleaf tree emissions, and this is also generally consistent with surface measurements. We deduce a terrestrial plant source of 80 Tg a−1, comparable in magnitude to the ocean source. The aircraft measurements show a strong correlation with CO (R2=0.51−0.61) over North America during summer. We reproduce this correlation and slope in the model with the reduced plant source, which also confirms that the anthropogenic source of methanol must be small. Our reduced plant source also provides a better simulation of methanol observations over tropical South America.Earth and Planetary SciencesEngineering and Applied Science

Effect of seasonal spectral variations on performance of three different photovoltaic technologies in India

The accuracy of outdoor performance of a photovoltaic (PV) array can be improved by considering the spectral effects. In this paper, the impact of seasonal spectral variations on the three different silicon PV technologies: single junction amorphous silicon (a-Si), Hetero-junction with Intrinsic Thin-layer (HIT) and multi crystalline silicon (mc-Si) has been presented first time in Indian environmental conditions. The spectral effect on HIT PV module technology has been presented first time along with the first simultaneous study of variation in spectral indicators by useful fraction (UF), average photon energy (APE) and spectral mismatch factor (MMF), based on monthly and seasonal data. The maximum observed variation in UF was 26.4, 8.2, 10.8 %, while in MMF, variation was up to 24.7, 7.6, 8.2 % for a-Si, HIT and mc-Si, respectively, and in APE variation was up to 15.3 %. Among all three technology modules, first time reported HIT technology showed the least variation while maximum variation was observed in a-Si technology. The observed spectral effect variations have been discussed on Performance Ratio and compared with reported results of other global sites. The value and trends of spectral parameters are important to understand the effect of spectral variation on different technology. This study is especially important in Indian subcontinent perspective because of the strong monsoon season, where observed variation in the spectrum-related parameter found to be highest among all the seasons

A Gaussian Theory of Superfluid--Bose-Glass Phase Transition

We show that gaussian quantum fluctuations, even if infinitesimal, are sufficient to destroy the superfluidity of a disordered boson system in 1D and 2D. The critical disorder is thus finite no matter how small the repulsion is between particles. Within the gaussian approximation, we study the nature of the elementary excitations, including their density of states and mobility edge transition. We give the gaussian exponent $\eta$ at criticality in 1D and show that its ratio to $\eta$ of the pure system is universal.Comment: Revtex 3.0, 11 pages (4 figures will be sent through airmail upon request

Disordered Boson Systems: A Perturbative Study

A hard-core disordered boson system is mapped onto a quantum spin 1/2 XY-model with transverse random fields. It is then generalized to a system of spins with an arbitrary magnitude S and studied through a 1/S expansion. The first order 1/S expansion corresponds to a spin-wave theory. The effect of weak disorder is studied perturbatively within such a first order 1/S scheme. We compute the reduction of the speed of sound and the life time of the Bloch phonons in the regime of weak disorder. Generalizations of the present study to the strong disordered regime are discussed.Comment: 27 pages, revte

Destruction of diagonal and off-diagonal long range order by disorder in two-dimensional hard core boson systems

We use quantum Monte Carlo simulations to study the effect of disorder, in the form of a disordered chemical potential, on the phase diagram of the hard core bosonic Hubbard model in two dimensions. We find numerical evidence that in two dimensions, no matter how weak the disorder, it will always destroy the long range density wave order (checkerboard solid) present at half filling and strong nearest neighbor repulsion and replace it with a bose glass phase. We study the properties of this glassy phase including the superfluid density, energy gaps and the full Green's function. We also study the possibility of other localized phases at weak nearest neighbor repulsion, i.e. Anderson localization. We find that such a phase does not truly exist: The disorder must exceed a threshold before the bosons (at weak nn repulsion) are localized. The phase diagram for hard core bosons with disorder cannot be obtained easily from the soft core phase diagram discussed in the literature.Comment: 7 pages, 10 eps figures include