Reverse Logistics model for Horticultural packaging at the proposed facility

The Indian horticulture distribution sector is comprised of companies that sell products in the wholesale market and are geographically established outside rural warehouses and markets, although many of these companies are located very near them.The horticulture market lacks packages that are palletizable and modular, appropriate for different products, clean, cheap, and if returnable, with a guarantee of return and disinfection, with guaranteed availability, and when empty; do not enter the commercialization area. The capacity of managing returns has been considered as an important competitiveness factor of companies. This is especially important for the food industry given the high perishability of its products and the complexity of its distribution channel. These factors combined make critical the relation between the members of the distribution channel. Traditionally, the products flow in a distribution channel happens from the industry towards the final consumer. However, some factors such as defective products, or damaged, date expired, recyclable, order errors cause a flow in the opposite sense, what generates the need for a logistics operation called reverse. With this emergent project in mind, this paper aims at presenting the reverse logistics model proposal for horticulture packages used at the proposed facility mentioned in the business plan

A concatenation approach-based disease prediction model for sustainable health care system

In the present world, due to many factors like environmental changes, food styles, and living habits, human health is constantly affected by different diseases, which causes a huge amount of data to be managed in health care. Some diseases become life-threatening if they are not cured at the starting stage. Thus, it is a complex task for the healthcare system to design a well-trained disease prediction model for accurately identifying diseases. Deep learning models are the most widely used in disease prediction research, but their performance is inferior to conventional models. In order to overcome this issue, this work introduces the concatenation of Inception V3 and Xception deep learning convolutional neural network models. The proposed model extracts the main features and produces the prediction result more accurately than traditional predictive models. This work analyses the performance of the proposed model in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and f1-score. It compares the proposed model to existing techniques such as Stacked Denoising Auto-Encoder (SDAE), Logistic Regression (LR), MLP, MLP with attention mechanism (MLP-A), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Multi Neural Network (MNN), and Hybrid Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-Random Forest (RF)

Optimization of Process Parameters for the Production of γ-Linolenic Acid by Cunninghamella elegans CFR C07 in Submerged Fermentation

U radu je ispitana proizvodnja γ-linolenske kiseline submerznom fermentacijom s pomoću gljivice Cunninghamella elegans CFR C07, te je proces optimiran odabirom najprikladnijeg izvora ugljika i optimalnog vremena inkubacije. Radi poboljšanja ekstrakcije lipida iz biomase nakon fermentacije ispitane su četiri različite metode: ekstrakcija pomoću otapala i pijeska tretiranog kiselinom, ekstrakcija pomoću otapala i staklenih kuglica, liofilizacija ili ekstrakcija u Soxhlet uređaju. Proizvodnja je γ-linolenske kiseline prvo optimirana u tikvici zapremnine 250 mL na tresilici, a zatim u fermentoru od 3 L. Postignut je prinos γ-linolenske kiseline od 882 mg/L na tresilici, te 733 mg/L u fermentoru. Rezultati istraživanja potvrđuju da je C. elegans CFR C07 odličan mikroorganizam za proizvodnju γ-linolenske kiseline u submerznim uvjetima.The production of γ-linolenic acid (GLA) by the fungus Cunninghamella elegans CFR C07 in submerged fermentation was studied. Culture parameters such as carbon source and incubation time were optimized. Four different extraction methods using solvents with acid washed sand, glass beads, lyophilization and Soxhlet extraction were evaluated for improved extraction of lipids from the fungal biomass after fermentation. The GLA production was initially optimized in 250-mL flask and the process was demonstrated in a 3-litre fermentor. The maximum GLA production was 882 mg/L in shake flask culture and 733 mg/L in the fermentor. The study shows that Cunninghamella elegans CFR C07 is a potent organism for the production of GLA under submerged conditions

Facilitators and barriers to the uptake of COVID-19 vaccine precaution dose among adult population: qualitative analysis across six different states of India

IntroductionIndia launched the COVID-19 vaccination drive on 16th January 2021 by vaccinating the adult population above 18 years of age. This was followed by the introduction of an additional precaution dose. As on 18th October 2022, 1,02,66,96,808 (1.02 Billion) first dose and 94, 95, 39,516 (949 Million) second doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered. However, when compared to the uptake of the primary doses, the precaution dose uptake lagged behind with only 21,75, 12,721 (217 million) doses administered. Even though, the uptake of the primary doses remained optimal, irrespective of different interventions by the Government of India, the uptake of the precaution dose remained poor. In this context, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare wanted to understand the facilitators and Barriers for precaution dose uptake among adults so that future immunization campaigns could address these issues.MethodsAn exploratory qualitative study was conducted to assess the facilitators and barriers for COVID-19 precaution dose uptake at community level across 6 different states in India. From each of the states, two districts with the highest and lowest rates of COVID-19 vaccine precaution dose uptake were selected. In each of these districts, 2 block Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs), one with high and one with low uptake were identified. Within these block PHCs, a PHC field area with high and low precaution dose uptakes was identified. From the identified sites a minimum of four IDIs, four FGDs were conducted among the community members. KIIs of the State Immunization Officers, District Immunisation Officers, PHC Medical Officers, healthcare workers like Accredited Social Health Activist/Auxiliary Nurse Midwife were also conducted. The data was audio recorded and it was transcribed, translated and analysed using framework approach.ResultsIt was observed that rise in COVID-19 cases prompted the community to take the precaution dose, this along with the cost of hospitalization and the number of productive days being lost as a result of being infected resulted in vaccine uptake. The fear of non-availability of COVID-19 vaccines latter on also prompted people for vaccine uptake. While the barriers were, poor accessibility to vaccination centers, long hours of travel, poor road connectivity and lack of transportation facilities. However, the most prominent barriers observed across all study sites was that a sense of pandemic fatigue and complacency had developed both among the providers as well as the beneficiaries. Other barriers include differences in vaccination schedules and longer duration between the primary doses of some vaccines. Media was identified to be both a barrier and facilitator for Covid-19 Precaution dose uptake. Even though media played an important role in disseminating information in the beginning of the campaign, it was soon followed by the circulation of both misinformation and disinformation.DiscussionThe study identified that dissemination of accurate information and community involvement at each stage of planning and implementation are crucial for the success of any campaign. Efforts should be constantly made to address and re-invent strategies that will be most suitable for the needs of the community. Therefore, in order to ensure successful vaccination campaigns, it is crucial that along with political will it is also important to have a decentralized approach with inter-sectoral coordination with different stakeholders such as healthcare workers, community members and the different departments such as the local self-governments, education department, law & order department etc. These lessons learnt from COVID-19 vaccination campaigns must not be forgotten and must be applied in future vaccination campaigns and while framing public health policies

Reverse Logistics model for Horticultural packaging at the proposed facility

The Indian horticulture distribution sector is comprised of companies that sell products in the wholesale market and are geographically established outside rural warehouses and markets, although many of these companies are located very near them.The horticulture market lacks packages that are palletizable and modular, appropriate for different products, clean, cheap, and if returnable, with a guarantee of return and disinfection, with guaranteed availability, and when empty; do not enter the commercialization area. The capacity of managing returns has been considered as an important competitiveness factor of companies. This is especially important for the food industry given the high perishability of its products and the complexity of its distribution channel. These factors combined make critical the relation between the members of the distribution channel. Traditionally, the products flow in a distribution channel happens from the industry towards the final consumer. However, some factors such as defective products, or damaged, date expired, recyclable, order errors cause a flow in the opposite sense, what generates the need for a logistics operation called reverse. With this emergent project in mind, this paper aims at presenting the reverse logistics model proposal for horticulture packages used at the proposed facility mentioned in the business plan

Hydrogeological, Geophysical And Geochemical Studies In Parts Of Coastal And Midland Areas, Central Kerala - A Gis Approach

The present study deals with the different hydrogeological characteristics of the coastal region of central Kerala and a comparative analysis with corresponding hard rock terrain. The coastal regions lie in areas where the aquifer systems discharge groundwater ultimately into the sea. Groundwater development in such regions will require a precise understanding of the complex mechanism of the saline and fresh water relationship, so that the withdrawals are so regulated as to avoid situations leading to upcoming of the saline groundwater bodies as also to prevent migration of sea water ingress further inland. Coastal tracts of Kerala are formed by several drainage systems. Thick pile of semi-consolidated and consolidated sediments from Tertiary to Recent age underlies it. These sediments comprise phreatic and confined aquifer systems. The corresponding hard rock terrain is encountered with laterites and underlined by the Precambrian metamorphic rocks. Supply of water from hard rock terrain is rather limited. This may be due to the small pore size, low degree of interconnectivity and low extent of weathering of the country rocks. The groundwater storage is mostly controlled by the thickness and hydrological properties of the weathered zone and the aquifer geometry. The over exploitation of groundwater, beyond the ‘safe yield’ limit, cause undesirable effects like continuous reduction in groundwater levels, reduction in river flows, reduction in wetland surface, degradation of groundwater quality and many other environmental problems like drought, famine etc.Cochin University of Science and TechnologyDept. of Marine Geology and Geophysics School of Marine Sciences Cochin University of Science and Technolog

Growth of CuS Nanostructures by Hydrothermal Route and Its Optical Properties

CuS nanostructures have been successfully synthesized by hydrothermal route using copper nitrate and sodium thiosulphate as copper and sulfur precursors. Investigations were done to probe the effect of cationic surfactant, namely, Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) on the morphology of the products. A further study has been done to know the effect of reaction time on the morphology of CuS nanostructures. The FE-SEM results showed that the CuS products synthesized in CTAB were hexagonal plates and the samples prepared without CTAB were nanoplate like morphology of sizes about 40–80 nm. Presence of nanoplate-like structure of size about 40–80 nm was observed for the sample without CTAB. The synthesized CuS nanostructures were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), FE-SEM, DRS-UV-Vis spectroscopy, and FT-IR spectroscopy. A possible growth mechanism has been elucidated for the growth of CuS nanostructures

Comparative Evaluation of Remineralizing Potential of a Paste Containing Bioactive Glass and a Topical Cream Containing Casein Phosphopeptide-Amorphous Calcium Phosphate: An in Vitro Study

Objective:To evaluate and compare the remineralization potential of a dentifrice containing bioactive glass and a topical cream containing casein phosphopeptide-amorphous calcium phosphate (CPP-ACP) in remineralizing artificial carious lesion on enamel. Material and Methods:Forty-five freshly extracted human permanent premolar teeth were selected. Samples were divided into three groups: GI - regular tooth paste without specific remineralizing agent; GII - tooth paste containing calcium sodium-phosphosilicate (novamin) and GIII - topical cream containing casein phosphopeptide-amorphous calcium phosphate. All the sound enamel samples were viewed under scanning electron microscope (SEM) to assess the topographical pictures of enamel surface and energy dispersing x-ray analysis (EDAX) was done to estimate quantitatively the amounts of mineral (calcium and phosphorous). The mineral content of calcium and phosphorus after demineralization in each group was noted. The samples were then subjected to SEM and EDAX. Results:GI does not show any increase in the calcium and phosphorus after applying toothpaste without any remineralizing agent but GII and GIII showed a net increase in calcium and phosphorous values after applying concern-remineralizing agents. Inter group comparison showed GIII yield higher net calcium and phosphorous values than GII. Conclusion:Two remineralizing agents showed remineralization potential on enamel surfaces. Casein phosphopeptide-amorphous calcium phosphate showed better remineralizing potential than calcium sodium phosphosilicate. Hence CPP-ACP can be considered as the material of choice in remineralizing early enamel carious lesions

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in Precision Agriculture: Applications and Challenges

Agriculture is the primary source of income in developing countries like India. Agriculture accounts for 17 percent of India’s total GDP, with almost 60 percent of the people directly or indirectly employed. While researchers and planters focus on a variety of elements to boost productivity, crop loss due to disease is one of the most serious issues they confront. Crop growth monitoring and early detection of pest infestations are still a problem. With the expansion of cultivation to wider fields, manual intervention to monitor and diagnose insect and pest infestations is becoming increasingly difficult. Failure to apply on time fertilizers and pesticides results in more crop loss and so lower output. Farmers are putting in greater effort to conserve crops, but they are failing most of the time because they are unable to adequately monitor the crops when they are infected by pests and insects. Pest infestation is also difficult to predict because it is not evenly distributed. In the recent past, modern equipment, tools, and approaches have been used to replace manual involvement. Unmanned aerial vehicles serve a critical role in crop disease surveillance and early detection in this setting. This research attempts to give a review of the most successful techniques to have precision-based crop monitoring and pest management in agriculture fields utilizing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or unmanned aircraft. The researchers’ reports on the various types of UAVs and their applications to early detection of agricultural diseases are rigorously assessed and compared. This paper also discusses the deployment of aerial, satellite, and other remote sensing technologies for disease detection, as well as their Quality of Service (QoS)