Development of Livelihood Index for Different Agro-Climatic Zones of India

A livelihood index has been developed for different agro-climatic zones of India, based on the secondary data for TE 2003. Six different sub-indices obtained are indicators of Infrastructure Status, Agricultural Status, Nutritional Status, Economic Status, Health and Sanitation Status and Food Availability Status in respective zones. A total of 57 variables have been considered for this study. Finally, a composite integrated livelihood index has been developed which indicates the livelihood status of different agro-climatic zones in the country. Also, 103 districts of low agricultural productivity have been identified within low livelihood regions. The results of this study have been compared with those of backward districts identified under Wage Employment Program by the Task Force of Planning Commission of India. It is found that about 60 per cent districts identified in this study are the same as identified by the Task Force. Further, the spatial distributions of the identified districts under the study have been mapped using GIS maps and it has been observed that almost same region of the country has been found to be most backward in both the studies. The study has revealed regional disparity in the development process and has suggested to formulate appropriate policies to bridge this disparity gap.Productivity Analysis, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Correlation and path analysis between yield and different morphological characters in Kinnow Mandarin (C. Noballis × C. Deliciosa)

A study of interrelationship and cause-effect analysis of yield of Kinnow Mandarin (C. Noballis × C. deliciosa) and its component traits for 104 and 96 trees from Indora (Location L-1) and Indpur (Location L-2) blocks of Kangra district respectively had been done in 2014-15. F-test suggested that there was significant (1.47) variation among yield characteristics between these two locations except for fruit weight (gm) and LD ratio. Results obtained from path coefficient analysis, showed that for location L-1, number of fruits per branch (0.229), plant height (0.215) and tree girth (0.212) had highest and direct effect on yield per tree whereas for location L-2, fruit weight (0.38), number of flowers per branch (0.176) and plant girth (0.161) had highest direct effect on yield per plant. Thus, number of fruits per branch, number of flowers per branch and tree girth were the most important yield components of kinnow crop which should be exploited through a breeding programme for improving its yield potential

Protective Effect of Phyllanthus niruri on DMBA/Croton Oil Mediated Carcinogenic Response and Oxidative Damage in Accordance to Histopathological Studies in Skin of Mice

The current study has been designed to unveil the preventive effect of Phyllanthus niruri extract (PNE) on two stage skin carcinogenesis and oxidative damage in Swiss albino mice. Single topical application of 7, 12-dimethylbenz (a) anthracene (DMBA), followed by croton oil thrice weekly produced 100% incidence of tumors in carcinogen control animals (Gr. III) by 16 weeks. On the other hand, oral administration of animals with PNE (1 week before of DMBA application & continued until the end of experiment, Gr. IV), significantly reduced the tumor incidence, tumor burden, tumor volume and weight and the number of tumors but  prolong the latent period of tumor occurrence, as compared with carcinogen control animals. Furthermore, administration of PNE protected against the losses provoked in levels of glutathione, Vit.C, total proteins and activity of catalase and superoxide dismutase in skin and liver of animals by the application of DMBA/croton oil, concomitantly, the levels of lipid peroxidation were also reduced significantly. P. niruri administration profoundly reverted back the pathological changes observed in skin and liver of cancerous animals. From the results, P. niruri extract proves to scavenge free radical and found to be a potent chemopreventive agent against chemical induced skin carcinogenesis. Keywords: carcinogenesis, Phyllanthus niruri, cancer chemoprevention, tumor incidence, reactive oxygen species (ROS), antioxidant enzyme

LIBS-Based Detection of Antioxidant Elements in Seeds of Emblica officinalis

The aim of the study was to determine the effect of the elements of the extract of seed from Emblica officinalis on antioxidant enzymes and osmotic fragility of erythrocytes membrane in normal as well as streptozotocin-induced severely diabetic albino Wister rats. The results revealed that the untreated diabetic rats exhibited increase in oxidative stress as indicated by significantly diminished activities of free radical scavenging enzymes such as catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) by 37.5% (p

Evaluation of Ganoderma lucidum strains for the production of bioactive components and their potential use as antimicrobial agents

In the present study, mycelial biomass of Ganoderma lucidum strains was produced in mushroom complete media under optimized culture conditions of temperature, pH, agitation and the fruiting bodies were raised on wheat straw supplemented with 5 per cent rice bran. Maximum biomass (16.39 mg ml-1) was recorded in strain GL-3 and minimum (10.99 mg ml-1) was observed in strain GL-1 after 28 days of incubation period. Maximum biological efficiency of 13.1 per cent was obtained in 57 days in GL-2 strain. Moreover, weight of fruiting bodies was highest (91 g bag-1) in 5 per cent wheat bran supplemented bags in strain GL-2. Polysaccharides were extracted, characterized and analysed. The maximum yield of polysaccharides was obtained from fruiting bodies (30.06- 63.70%), followed by mycelial biomass (7.61- 21.32%) and culture filtrates (0.86- 2.86%). Non-reducing sugars were the main fraction of sugars which constituted 69.82- 70.39 per cent in fruiting body extracted polysaccharides, 62.08- 83.39 per cent in biomass and 59.75- 77.54 per cent in crude extracts. The extracts from fruiting bodies and biomass of G. lucidum strains also exhibited antibacterial effect against some pathogenic bacteria, Staphylococcus sp. and Enterobacter sp. The present study clearly indicated that variations existed among G. lucidum strains with respect to the production of bioactive molecules, yield and antimicrobial activity. Bioactive components from G. lucidum strains are promising antimicrobial agents that can be harnessed as potent antimicrobial toxicant

Fisheries profile mapping of coastal districts in Maharashtra state through GIS

In recent times, GIS is being increasingly used as a decision support system for management of fisheries and aquaculture. It provides new innovative approaches of the dynamic relations that characterize this sector. In this context, a study is conducted based on the secondary data of a major maritime state, Maharashtra, where mapping of fisheries profile of coastal districts in the state is performed through GIS tool having critical geographic dimensions. This paper aims to map information of the state which can be used for the purpose of planning and decision making as each aspect of map has a different component involved. For this purpose, at the core of the system, the data were accessed and integrated from different sources mainly from the five coastal districts of Maharashtra state. Data were brought in tabular form through Microsoft Excel and then joined to Map info Professional version 8.0 GIS software was used with the digitized map of Maharashtra state to enable mapping. This was further synchronized and integrated to generate four thematic maps searchable on several criteria. Map 1 contains the searchable criteria as regards to the fish growth for the year 1997-2004 and fish seed production for the year 2003-04. Map 2 contains fisher population along with their occupation for the year 1992. Map 3 contains brackish water and shrimp farming production and culture area. Map 4 contains infrastructural facilities which include type of boats etc. With this mapping, planners and various stakeholders have accessible information as regards to the various components of fisheries in the state of Maharashtra

A Fuzzy-based approach to Enhance Cyber Defence Security for Next-generation IoT

In the modern era, the Cognitive Internet of Things (CIoT) in conjunction with IoT evolves which provides the intelligence power of sensing and computation for next-generation IoT (Nx-IoT) networks. The data scientists have discovered a large amount of techniques for knowledge discovery from processed data in CIoT. This task is accomplished successfully and data proceeds for further processing. The major cause for the failure of IoT devices is due to the attacks, in which Web spam is more prominent. There seems a requirement of a technique which can detect the Web spam before it enters into a device. Motivated from these issues, in this article, a cognitive spammer framework (CSF) for Web spam detection is proposed. CSF detects the Web spam by fuzzy rule-based classifiers along with machine learning classifiers. Each classifier produces the quality score of the webpage. These quality scores are then ensembled to generate a single score, which predicts the spamicity of the webpage. For ensembling, the fuzzy voting approach is used in CSF. The experiments were performed using a standard data set WEBSPAM-UK 2007 with respect to accuracy and overhead generated. From the results obtained, it has been demonstrated that CSF improves the accuracy by 97.3%, which is comparatively high in comparison to the other existing approaches in the literature

Chemoreceptor Sensitivity ‘in Women Mountaineering Trainees of Different Altitudes Inducted by Trekking to 4350 m

This study was conducted on women mountaineering trainees to evaluate the hypoxic and hypercapnic ventilatory responses, and the precise nature of changes in the sensitivity of chemoreceptors on induction by trekking to 4350 m. Two groups of women belonging to different ethnic origins and residents of different altitudes, ie, moderate-altitude women (MAWMongolians) and low-altitude women (LAW-Caucasians) were the subjects in this study. Tests of sensitivity to hypoxia and hypercapnia were carried out initially at 2100 m, then during 4 to7 days of sojourn at 4350 m following induction by trekking, and re-tested on return to 2 100 m. The results indicate that there is a significant difference (P c 0.05) of hypoxic ventilatory response in women of two different ethnic groups: Both hypoxic and hypercapnic ventilatory responses increased significantly (P < 0.05) on induction to high altitude. On descent, hypoxic values reverted back to pre-induction levels, whereas hypercapnic ventilatory response showed relatively higher values (P < 0.05)