Mussel resources of Andaman Islands

A variety of molluscan resources such as edible oysters, pearl oysters, clams, mussels and gastropods are distributed along the coastal area of Andaman and Nicobar islands. Among the bivalves, the distribution of green mussel Perna viridis was earlier known only from a small creek at Sippighat (Mahadevan, 1983)

Distribution and abundance of the mangrove bivalves Isognomon ephippium (Linnaeus) and Cyrena ceylonica (Chemnitz) in Andamans

Investigations were carried out on the occurrence, distribution, population density, sex ratio, percentage edibility and total biomass of the oyster Isognomon ephippium in three different locations namely Sippighat creek, Mithagari jetty and Diglipur port area and the clam Cyrena ceylonica in the marshy areas around Sippighat and Bimbleton creeks of Andaman islands. The study revealed that the density of oyster population was high in Sippighat than the other two locations and the clam was more abundant in the mangrove creeks and backwater canal of Sippighat

Comparison of maternal and neonatal outcome in elective lower segment cesarean section done at 38 and 39 weeks

Background: Time to perform elective LSCS is a relevant issue related to mother and foetus. LSCS can be done from 37 weeks onwards because foetal lungs mature by then. But foetuses born at 37 weeks of gestation have more risk of developing respiratory problems, transient tachypnoea of new born, hypothermia, hypoglycaemia and NICU admission.The purpose of this study is to find out appropriate gestational age at which elective LSCS can be performed without adverse maternal and neonatal outcome.Methods: This is an observational comparative study done on 209 antenatal women who underwent elective caesarean section from December 2014 to January 2016.Patients were divided into two groups after taking consent. Maternal parameters like formation of lower uterine segment need for blood transfusion. Neonatal parameters like Apgar score, respiratory distress syndrome and NICU admission with indication and duration were analyzed by chi-square test. Gestational Age and Pre-Op Hb and Post-Op Hb were analyzed by independent ‘t’test.Results: In this study 55% of the pregnant women belong to 38 weeks,45% belongs to 39 weeks. The formation of lower uterine segment was statistically significant and the need for blood transfusion was slightly increased at 39 weeks. But there was no significant difference in Apgar score, Respiratory distress, NICU admission comparing both study groups.Conclusions: Elective caesarean section can be done safely at 38 weeks without affecting maternal and perinatal outcome

Investigation on physical and mechanical behaviour of A356 - x wt. % SiC/Gr hybrid composites

The experiments were planned to fabricate an A356 as a matrix material with 3, 6, 9, 12 wt. % of SiC and 3 wt. % of Gr as reinforcements to cast the hybrid composites at optimal process variable conditions using squeeze casting technique. Further T6 heat treated casted samples are prepared for testing as per standard procedure to record the responses like density, porosity, hardness, ultimate tensile strength, and percentage elongation respectively. There is a gradual increment in density because of adding an optimal level of up to 9 wt. % of SiC and 3 wt. % of Gr strengthening particles available in the A356 matrix and the porosity present in the sample diminishes, which in turn increases the hardness

The Dominance of Power and Mythological Representations in Girish Karnad’s The Fire and the Rain

This Research paper Focuses on Dominance of power and mythological creatures in the The play The Fire and the Rain, Which occurs in a small region of India long ago that has experienced a lack of rain for ten years. The king proposed to propitiate the Gods through fire sacrifice. So that God would be pleased and send rain to the parched land. In this fire sacrifice Paravasu the son of a learned Brahmin Raibhya, was appointed as the Chief Priest. And the play deals with this appointment and the disappointments of certain other characters. One disappointment definitely with reference to the father going by ancient Indian tradition, a lot of emphasis was put on age seniority i.e. age has always been respected. Older people have always been considered wiser because of their wider experience. Going by this tradition the learned Raibhya should have been appointed as the chief Priest but for practical reasons longevity of life span, the King chose to appoint Paravasu, the elder son as the Chief Priest. This appointment had disappointed and agonized the senior. The high priest of the temple, Paravasu is eager to perform a ceremony to bring rain. the play The Fire and The Rain opens with the representative of an actor`s group expressing their desire to give a dramatic performance as a means of entertainment for the Gods. After much discussion the group is given permission to perform at the fire sacrifice

Translation, Cross-Cultural Adaptation, Reliability, and Validity of the Tamil Version of Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire in Chronic Low Back Pain

Background: Excessive fear of movement, restricted physical activity, and cognitive distortions are frequently found with chronic low back pain (CLBP) subjects. The Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire (FABQ) is the most well-founded and often used tool to measure fear and avoidance beliefs in CLBP subjects. In India, there is a diversity of culture, educational level, and language. So, there is a need to translate FABQ into the regional language Tamil, which will improve understanding of FABQ and reduce the language barrier of the Tamil population. Objective: To translate, cross-cultural adapt, and investigate the psychometric properties of the Tamil version of FABQ in CLBP subjects. Materials & Methods: The standard translation and adaptation guideline was used to translate FABQ into Tamil version FABQ. CLBP subjects referred to a low back rehabilitation program in an outpatient clinic took part in this study. They completed a FABQ-Tamil questionnaire [includes subscales for Physical Activity (FABQ-PA) and Work (FABQ-W)], pain rating visual analog scale and the Roland- Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ)-Tamil version, on two occasions five days apart. Test-retest reliability, internal consistency and validity were evaluated. Results: Fifty CLBP subjects participated with a mean age of 39.94 (± 15.55) years. Convergent validity analysis displayed a moderate correlation between FABQ-PA and VAS (r = 0.63); FABQ-W and VAS (r = 0.64). Divergent validity analysis demonstrated a moderate correlation between FABQ-PA and RMDQ (r = 0.69) and a good correlation between FABQ-W and RMDQ (r = 0.85). The test-retest reliability was high; the intra-class correlation coefficients of FABQ-PA and FABQ-W were ICC-0.90 and 0.94, respectively. Cronbach\u27s alpha for the FABQ-PA and FABQ-W were 0.87 and 0.92, demonstrating high internal consistency. Conclusion: The findings of this study demonstrated that the FABQ-Tamil version questionnaire is a reliable and valid measure of fear of pain and fear-avoidance beliefs in the Tamil-speaking CLBP subject

The third moment of quadratic Dirichlet L-functions

We study the third moment of quadratic Dirichlet L-functions, obtaining an error term of size $O(X^{3/4 + \varepsilon})$.Comment: 27 pages. v2: modified a remark on p.

Understanding the Perceived Quality of Video Predictions

The study of video prediction models is believed to be a fundamental approach to representation learning for videos. While a plethora of generative models for predicting the future frame pixel values given the past few frames exist, the quantitative evaluation of the predicted frames has been found to be extremely challenging. In this context, we study the problem of quality assessment of predicted videos. We create the Indian Institute of Science Predicted Videos Quality Assessment (IISc PVQA) Database consisting of 300 videos, obtained by applying different prediction models on different datasets, and accompanying human opinion scores. We collected subjective ratings of quality from 50 human participants for these videos. Our subjective study reveals that human observers were highly consistent in their judgments of quality of predicted videos. We benchmark several popularly used measures for evaluating video prediction and show that they do not adequately correlate with these subjective scores. We introduce two new features to effectively capture the quality of predicted videos, motion-compensated cosine similarities of deep features of predicted frames with past frames, and deep features extracted from rescaled frame differences. We show that our feature design leads to state of the art quality prediction in accordance with human judgments on our IISc PVQA Database. The database and code are publicly available on our project website: https://nagabhushansn95.github.io/publications/2020/pvqaComment: Project website: https://nagabhushansn95.github.io/publications/2020/pvqa.htm