Mushrooms in the food culture of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Kaani</i> tribe of Kanyakumari district

150-153India is inhabited by over 50 million tribals belonging to 550 communities and in Tamil Nadu 36 tribal communities live, while six tribal communities are found in the Southernmost Kanyakumari district. Of the six tribes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Kaani tribe lives in the forests and hills of the Western Ghats. The Kaani tribe lives in consonance with Nature and their life is linked to the forest ecosystem. Though they live in settled areas, they still retain the traditional hunter-gatherer instinct, and collect their food from the forests that include mushrooms. Mushrooms contain a host of defense potentiators, which stimulate the immune system of humans. These mushrooms provide rich resources for the gene banks

Intra-alveolar extraction of impacted distoangular mandibular third molars: A novel technique

Recent trends in maxillofacial surgery are to reduce the trauma to the adjacent soft tissue. The distoangular impaction presents a challenge to the maxillofacial surgeon and also results in more surgical morbidity. Here, we present a minimally invasive extraction technique for the distoangular mandibular third molar impaction

Occurrence of <i>Noctiluca</i> bloom in Kalpakkam coastal waters, east coast of India

289-290An intense bloom of Noctiluca scintillans (Macartney) was observed along the coast of Kalpakkam between 11 and 17 October 1988. The coastal waters appeared dense green. Estimations of Noctiluca population, chlorophyll a,b,c, and total carotenoid and physicochemical characteristics were carried out during the bloom period. Species composition of diatoms were assessed before, after, and during the peak bloom period. Diatoms were absent in phytoplankton samples during the peak period of the bloom

Assessing Vignetting As A Means To Reduce Vr Sickness During Amplified Head Rotations

Redirected and amplified head movements have the potential to provide more natural interaction with virtual environments (VEs) than using controller-based input, which causes large discrepancies between visual and vestibular self-motion cues and leads to increased VR sickness. However, such amplified head movements may also exacerbate VR sickness symptoms over no amplification. Several general methods have been introduced to reduce VR sickness for controller-based input inside a VE, including a popular vignetting method that gradually reduces the field of view. In this paper, we investigate the use of vignetting to reduce VR sickness when using amplified head rotations instead of controller-based input. We also investigate whether the induced VR sickness is a result of the user’s head acceleration or velocity by introducing two different modes of vignetting, one triggered by acceleration and the other by velocity. Our dependent measures were pre and post VR sickness questionnaires as well as estimated discomfort levels that were assessed each minute of the experiment. Our results show interesting effects between a baseline condition without vignetting, as well as the two vignetting methods, generally indicating that the vignetting methods did not succeed in reducing VR sickness for most of the participants and, instead, lead to a significant increase. We discuss the results and potential explanations of our findings