Nutritional Status in Rural Adolescent Girls Residing at Hills of Garhwal in India (2009)

Nutritional inadequacy leads to health problems, especially during theperiod of increased demand. Adolescents are a potential group in view of rapid growth and maturation which demands extra nutrients. With the multitude of social customs and beliefs cited against adolescents especially adolescent girls it is no wonder that they form the vulnerable group of under nutrition. With poor socio economic status, hostile livingconditions and food influenced by vagaries of nature, adolescents living at hills form the distinct group to be studied. This cross-sectional prevalence study included 45 adolescent girls of age group 12-19 years residing in hills of Garhwal. The outcome measures for nutritional status were stunting, thinness and proportion of underweight/under nutrition. Inthis study 34.61% of adolescents’ girls were found to be stunted. The stunting was more (33.33%) in 16 to 19 years of age group. The overall prevalence of thinness was 43.47%. However percentage of thinness was higher (56.25%) in the lower age group (12-15 years). Under nutrition was prevalent in similar proportions in both the age groups with > 50% ofthe rural adolescent girls having less than 3rd percentile of weight for age by NCHS standards. The prevalence of stunting, thinness and underweight was high among adolescent girls living at high altitudes. In this regard special attention should be paid to the girls of hills and specific strategies should be formulated for meeting their nutritional demands

Studies on the toxicity of Vacor (RH-787) on the reproductive biology of Rattus rattus rufescens

Vacor (RH-787), a relatively new rodenticide, was evaluated for the control of Rattus rattus rufescens. The symptoms of paralysis in hind limbs were observed after feeding it to rodents. The susceptibility to this rodenticide in Rattus rattus increased with the increase in its concentration. Experimental observations revealed that RH-787 bait with 0.0125% concentration affects the reproductive biology of the rats. Bait with 0.025% Vacor proved sublethal and within 5 days 70% mortality was observed, while 100% mortality was observed when rats were fed with 0.05% Vaco

Domain Wall and Periodic Solutions of Coupled Asymmetric Double Well Models

Coupled asymmetric double well ($a\phi^2-b\phi^3+c\phi^4$) one-dimensional potentials arise in the context of first order phase transitions both in condensed matter physics and field theory. Here we provide an exhaustive set of exact periodic solutions of such a coupled asymmetric model in terms of elliptic functions (domain wall arrays) and obtain single domain wall solutions in specific limits. We also calculate the energy and interaction between solitons for various solutions. Both topological (kink-like at $T=T_c$) and nontopological (pulse-like for $T\ne T_c$) domain wall solutions are obtained. We relate some of these solutions to domain walls in hydrogen bonded materials and also in the field theory context. As a byproduct, we also obtain a new one parameter family of kink solutions of the uncoupled asymmetric double well model.Comment: 40 pages, no figure

EFFICACY OF BRODIFACOUM (TALON) BAIT AGAINST THREE RODENT SPECIES

Brodifacoum was fed to three rodent species, viz., M. hurrianae, R. rattus and F. pennanti, using a no-choice feeding trial for 7 days at various concentrations--0.005%, 0.0025% and 0.00125%. The compound was found effective, palatable, developed no sign of poison bait-shyness but indicated a slight aversion of poison. The death of the animals was due to pulmonary distress and hemorrhage

Can pigeonpea hybrids negotiate stresses better than inbred cultivars?

Pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.] is an important rainfed pulse crop of tropics and sub-tropics, and during its long growth cycle of 6–9 months it encounters a number of biotic and abiotic stresses. The recently developed CMS-based pigeonpea hybrids have demonstrated large gains in yield and stability over the traditional inbred cultivars. In this review, the authors argue that the heterosis expressed in traits like seed germination, radicle growth, root biomass production and moisture retention during water stress confers advantages to hybrid plants in negotiating a few abiotic and biotic stresses in much better way than pure line cultivars

A Survey on Important Aspects of Information Retrieval

Information retrieval has become an important field of study and research under computer science due to the explosive growth of information available in the form of full text, hypertext, administrative text, directory, numeric or bibliographic text. The research work is going on various aspects of information retrieval systems so as to improve its efficiency and reliability. This paper presents a comprehensive survey discussing not only the emergence and evolution of information retrieval but also include different information retrieval models and some important aspects such as document representation, similarity measure and query expansion

Synthesis of Al and Ag nanoparticles through ultra-sonic dissociation of thermal evaporation deposited thin films for promising clinical applications as polymer nanocomposite

Nanoparticles (NPs) having well-defined shape, size and clean surface serve as ideal model system to investigate surface/interfacial reactions. Ag and Al NPs are receiving great interest due to their wide applications in bio-medical field, aerospace and space technology as combustible additives in propellants and hydrogen generation. Hence, in this study, we have synthesized Ag and Al NPs using an innovative approach of ultra-sonic dissociation of thin films. Phase and particle size distributions of the Ag and Al NPs have been determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Thin film dissociation/dissolution mechanism, hence conversion into NPs has been characterized by SEM- scanning electron microscope. EDXA & ICPMS have been performed for chemical analysis of NPs. Optical properties have been characterized by UV-Vis and PL spectroscopy. These NPs have also been investigated for their anti-bacterial activity against Escherichia coli bacteria. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time when NPs has been synthesized by ultra-sonic dissociation of thin films. As an application, these NPs were used further for synthesis of nanocomposite polymer membranes, which show excellent activity against bio film formation