Performance of Public-Private-Partnership Model of Veterinary Services in West Bengal

ABSTRAC

Climate change awareness among the livestock rearers of east coast of India

The phenomenon of global climate change is directly affecting the livestock production system world overall. Therefore, understanding the changing climatic scenario by the millions of resource poor livestock rearers across the east coast of India found to be imperative to get information for strategic planning to improve the livelihoods of rural people. But, systematic methodology to assess climatic change awareness among the livestock rearers is currently not available. Therefore, a psychometric scale entitled “Climate Change Awareness Scale” was developed and applied among the randomly selected 480 livestock rearers of eastern coastal region of India. Results reflected majority of the population exhibit their strong level of awareness towards changing climatic scenario in general and particularly towards broad spectrum of climate change like causes, features, effects and impacts. It was also found that 37.188% of livestock rearers of coastal region were having higher level of awareness followed by 31.973% and 30.839% were having lower and medium level of awareness. Comparisons of state of awareness with the factual climatic data validated farmers’ claim and established the authenticity of the psychometric tool. Hence, this study will provide a significant tool for researchers and policy makers to assess state of climate change awareness among the end users and to develop appropriate adaptation strategies to minimize the risk of livestock sector to climate change

Genomic characterization and epidemiology of an emerging SARS-CoV-2 variant in Delhi, India

Delhi, the national capital of India, experienced multiple severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreaks in 2020 and reached population seropositivity of >50% by 2021. During April 2021, the city became overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases and fatalities, as a new variant, B.1.617.2 (Delta), replaced B.1.1.7 (Alpha). A Bayesian model explains the growth advantage of Delta through a combination of increased transmissibility and reduced sensitivity to immune responses generated against earlier variants (median estimates: 1.5-fold greater transmissibility and 20% reduction in sensitivity). Seropositivity of an employee and family cohort increased from 42% to 87.5% between March and July 2021, with 27% reinfections, as judged by increased antibody concentration after a previous decline. The likely high transmissibility and partial evasion of immunity by the Delta variant contributed to an overwhelming surge in Delhi

Surface Tension Studies on the Micellization of Cetyltrimethylammonium Bromide in Presence and Absence of KCL and NaCl in Aqueous Media at Room Temperature

NOTE: on 27th May 2014 in the abstract, the sentence "The surface tension of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide is found less in presence of KCl than NaCl in aqueous media" was changed to read "The surface tension of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide is found more in presence of KCl than NaCl in aqueous media." In the Conclusion (p.56) the sentence "The surface tension of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide is found less in presence of KCl than NaCl in aqueous media." was changed to read "The surface tension of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide is found more in presence of KCl than NaCl in aqueous media."   Precise measurements on Surface tension of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide in presence and in absence of KCl and NaCl in aqueous media are reported. The results showed a sharp decrease in surface tension with increase in concentration of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide and then almost constant value of surface tension was observed. Also, the surface tension decreases with addition of salts. The surface tension of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide is found less in presence of KCl than NaCl in aqueous media. In presence of monovalent salts, the critical micelle concentration (cmc) value decreases which is explained on the basis of the orientation of the surfactant and reduction of the free energy of the surface, thus decreasing surface tension. The graphs of surface tension versus concentration are used in determining the critical micelle concentration (cmc). BIBECHANA 10 (2014) 52-57 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/bibechana.v10i0.931

Determination of critical micelle concentration of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide in presence and absence of KCl and NaCl in aqueous media at room temperature by viscosity measurement

NOTE: The correct reference list was added to this article on 08/07/2014. Viscosity measurement of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide in presence and in absence of KCl and NaCl in aqueous media is done. The results showed a sharp increase in viscosity with increase in concentration of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide. Also, the viscosity increases with addition of salts. The viscosity of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide is found more in presence of KCl than NaCl in aqueous media. In presence of monovalent salts, the critical micelle concentration (cmc) value decreases which is explained on the basis of nature and ionic strength of the added ion. The graphs of viscosity versus concentration are used in determining the critical micelle concentration (cmc). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/bibechana.v11i0.10392 BIBECHANA 11(1) (2014) 131-13

Combination of finasteride and flutamide as potency-sparing hormone ablation therapy in management of advanced carcinoma of prostate

Complete androgen blockade by LHRH agonist /Orchiectomy plus antiandrogen results in androgen deficiency amongst males (ADAM). We treated advanced cancer prostate with finasteride and flutamide with an aim of potency sparing in relatively younger males with the disease. 45 sexually active males between the age of 48 to 65 having advanced cancer of prostate were treated, for 1 year with Flutamide (750mg) and Finasteride (5mg) daily and followed up for 18 months. Results showed 89% having low PSA and 80% maintained their sexual potency. Side effects were mild: 20% of patients developing diarrhoea, gynaecomastia and hot flushes with good drug compliance. This combination is ideal as potency sparing androgen ablation therapy for advanced cancer of prostate among young & sexually active males

Farmers’ Perception towards Climate and Millet Producer Organizations

Aims: Majority of the farmers in India are small and marginal (nearly 88.6%) & facing issues in getting timely inputs (seed, fertilizer, pesticide and farm implements), credit access, market linkages, & existence of intermediaries reduced the producers share in consumer rupee. Farmers as collectives viz., FPOs/Co-operatives/FPC helps small, marginal and tenant farmers in  enhancing their production, marketing, income, bargaining power, and provides benefits through joint action by eliminating the intermediaries. FPOs boost farmers income by establishing businesses among farming communities, brings industry and agriculture together that develops rural areas. Study Design:  Random sampling. Place and Duration of Study: Karnataka, January 2023. Methodology: Four millet FPOs promoted by ICAR-IIMR from Northern Karnataka were taken for the study. Data regarding perception of millet farmers towards FPOs was collected by using well framed interview schedule from 120 farmers which were selected randomly. The data                     pertaining to study was collected during 2022-23 and basic statistical tools like descriptive             statistics, percentage analysis, factor analysis were employed for analyzing the perception levels of farmers. Results:  Majority of the millet farmers in the study area were medium aged with family size of four to six members. The average land holding capacity of farmers was 7.85 acres and are customized with organic farming of cultivation. It was noticed that majority of the millet FPO famers have medium level of perception towards general (80 %) and service activities (68.3 %) of FPOs and have higher level (73.3 %) of perception towards extension activities of FPOs. Lack of effective market linkages, Timely availability of agri-inputs and lack of coordination among FPO members were major constraints faced by millet FPO members. Conclusion: Establishment of Millet farm gate processing units at FPOs, CHCs, linking small holders to market through FPOs, value addition of millets, e-marketing, organizing trainings on aspects of second agriculture programs will make FPOs sustain in long run and thereby strengthen millet value chain. Collective efforts of Millet FPOs can contribute in building climate-resilient agricultural systems and support sustainable livelihoods for millet farmers

Adapting to climate change: Traditional coping mechanism followed by the <i>Brokpa </i>pastoral nomads of Arunachal Pradesh, India

752-761Transhumance system of livelihood of the Brokpa pastoral nomads inhabiting in the yak tracts of Arunachal Pradesh with special emphasis on climate change adaptation was assessed in the present study. A representative sample of the 240 Brokpa pastoral nomads from all the yak rearing tracts of Arunachal Pradesh was selected randomly. The Brokpa pastoral nomads mainly depend upon livestock, like yak, yak-cattle hybrid etc, rearing for their livelihood. They perceived that season cycle has been changed in lower and mid altitude. They also perceived that onset of summer is getting started 1-2 month(s) earlier than before and also extended by 2-3 months. Therefore, Brokpa pastoral nomads of Arunachal Pradesh have expanded their migration duration by 2-3 months in searching of congenial environment for their livestock specially yak and yak-cattle hybrid. They adopted 10 coping mechanisms to cope up with negative impact of climate change. Among the coping mechanisms, ‘duration of migration has expanded by 2-3 months’ and ‘change in pasture utilization practice’ were found to be mostly adopted

Machine learning driven intelligent and self adaptive system for traffic management in smart cities

Traffic congestion is becoming a serious problem with the large number of vehicle on the roads. In the traditional traffic control system, the timing of the green light is adjusted regardless of the average traffic rate at the junction. Many strategies have been introduced to solve and improve vehicle management. However, in order to handle road traffic issues, an intelligent traffic management solution is required. This article represents a self adaptive real-time traffic light control algorithm based on the traffic flow. We present a machine learning approach coupled with image processing to manage the traffic clearance at the signal junction. The proposed system utilizes single image processing via neural network and You Only Look Once (YOLOv3) framework to establish traffic clearance at the signal. We employed YOLO architectures because it is accurate in terms of mean average precision (mAP), interaction over union (IOU) values and fast in object detection tasks as well. It runs significantly faster than other detection methods with comparable performance. The average processing time of single image was estimated to be 1.3 s. Further based on the input from YOLO we estimated the ‘on’ time period green light for effective traffic clearance. Several real time parameters like number of vehicles (two wheelers, four wheelers), road width and junction crossing time are considered to estimate the ‘on’time of green light. Moreover, we used the real traffic images to test the performance and trained the system with different dataset. Our experiments investigation reveals that the predicted vehicle counts were well matched with the actual vehicle count and proposed method apprehended an average accuracy of 81.1%. The reported strategy is self adaptive, highly accurate, fast and has the potential to be implemented in the traffic clearance at the junctions.Scopu