Influence of Growth Factors on Pigmentation of Chaetomium Cupreum SS-02 and the Antibacterial Efficacy of the Pigment against Ralstonia Solanacearum

An extracellular pigment-producing ascomycetous filamentous fungus Chaetomium was isolated from litter sample and identified as Chaetomium cupreum SS-02. The optimal growth conditions for high pigment yield and the invitro antagonistic activity of the pigment against Ralstonia solanacearum – a phytopathogenic bacterium, was investigated. The optimal culture conditions for pigment production were as follows; Dextrose 2%, Peptone + Yeast extract (0.4%), pH 6, temperature 35°C and inoculum age - 6 days old. The invitro screening of antibacterial activity of the pigment against five pathogenic strains of Ralstonia solanacearum was measured in terms of zone of inhibition. The highest activity was recorded against RS4 strain

Survey on Network Coding for Multiple Cloud Storage

Reliability of data can be provided by maintaining redundancy in multiple cloud storage nodes. The simplest form of providing redundancy is replication, where it involves directly replicating data to multiple clouds. However, replication technique involves high computational cost and monetary cost is high when retrieving data in the multiple cloud environments. Therefore, striping data across multiple cloud storage is one of the best solution for providing redundancy and repair cost is very less when compared to replication. There exists many codes, which performs striping of data, erasure coding is an example where provides good redundancy. However, the erasure codes perform recovery of whole file rather a single block. Therefore new design problem arises when erasure codes are used. However, regenerating codes shows better solution for this problem. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.15031

Photoanode Engineering Using TiO 2 Nanofibers for Enhancing the Photovoltaic Parameters of Natural Dye Sensitised Solar Cells

Dye Sensitized solar cell (DSSC) have been looked upon as having the potential to modernize photovoltaic as a cost effective technology. Especially nanostructured DSSC is proposed to have the capability to boost the efficiency by limiting charge recombination, thereby increasing the charge transportation which affects the overall conversion efficiency favourably. In the present work we discuss the effect of nanofibers as photo anode for increasing the efficiency of a dye sensitized solar cell. As we know nanostructured metal oxides have paying much attention in the field of photovoltaics due to their physical properties and dimensionality. This type of geometry provides direct and spatially separated charge transport channels for electrons and holes. TiO2 single-crystalline nanofibers of different diameter are prepared by electrospinning process and TiO2 nanoparticles by doctor blade technique are used for fabricating the device using natural sensitizers

Anti-Yeast Efficacy of Cinnamomum Verum Extracts on Dermatologically Prevalent Yeast Malassezia Furfur

Malassezia furfur, a lipophilic, saprophytic yeast causes superficial skin diseases such as dandruff, pityriasis versicolor, folliculitis, seborrhoeic dermatitis and some forms of atopic dermatitis. The present study was aimed to investigate anti-yeast potential of Cinnamomum verum bark extracts. The powdered plant material was extracted with water and also successively extracted with hexane, chloroform and methanol, using the soxhlet apparatus. The anti-yeast activity was screened by disc diffusion assay and MIC by microdilution method. The results revealed that hexane extract of C. verum exhibited significant anti-yeast activity with Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of 0.195 mg mL-1. Qualitative phytochemical tests of C. verum bark extracts was done using standard protocols and demonstrated the presence of phytocompounds such as alkaloids, carbohydrates, flavonoids, glycosides, naphthoquinones, phytosteroids, and terpenoids. Subsequently, high performance thin layer chromatographic analysis (HPTLC), followed by scanning of the spots at 254 nm and 366 nm using a UV detection mode and derivatization method was made to establish the phytochemical profile of C. verum. The results substantiate that hexane extract of C. verum exhibited significant activity to be used as an antimicrobial agen

Optimization of dye transfer inhibition properties of polyvinyl pyrolidine for reactive dye on cotton fabric

This study focuses on the optimization of the amount of dye transfer inhibition (DTI) agent in the in-wash liquor using response surface methodology. Polyvinyl pyrrolidone, one of the DTI polymers, has been used to analyse its dye transfer inhibition properties on reactive dyed cotton fabric against the commercial detergent. The box and Benkhen experimental design has been adapted to study the optimum concentration of DTI and washing condition for the better dye transfer inhibition. The CIELAB color difference (ΔE) and color strength (K/S) values are studied for the cotton fabric used in the in-wash liquor. The result shows that the higher the DTI polymer concentration the better is the dye transfer inhibition property. The performance of the DTI agent is majorly influenced by the surfactant present in the detergent powder due to its ionic nature. The influence of washing pH on the efficacy of the DTI is observed as minimal. The developed model shows higher values of R2 for the selected parameters, around 0.82 for color difference and 0.91 for color strength. The optimum values of process parameters for the improved performance of DTI polymer with minimum quantity are found to be DTI polymer concentration 0.24 g/l, detergent concentration 2.9 g/l, alkaline pH level in one liter of water, and 3% (owm) of reactive dye. The washing efficiency analysis shows that the stain removal percentage of detergent remains the same in presence of DTI polymer. The water hardness property has a major influence on the DTI performance. The environmental impact of the DTI polymer is found negligible, except the chemical oxygen demand

Expression analysis of rubber biosynthetic pathway genes in Hevea brasiliensis

Hevea brasiliensisis, the primary commercial source of natural rubber (cis-1, 4-polyisoprene), is a fundamental raw material used for manufacturing a wide range of industrial and domestic rubber products in automobile, medical and defense industries. In Hevea, biosynthesis of rubber takes place through mevalonate pathway. Clonal variations in the productivity of rubber may be the result of variations in the activities of the enzymes involved in rubber biosynthesis in different Hevea clones. In this study, expression of 14 genes corresponding to enzymes/regulatory proteins involved in rubber biosynthesis was analyzed in high and low latex yielding clones of Hevea brasiliensis. The level of expression of HbSUT3, a sucrose transporter and enzymes related to the synthesis of rubber such as hydroxymethyl glutaryl-CoA synthase (hmgs), HMG-CoA reductase (hmgr) and mevalonate diphosphate decarboxylase (MVD) were found to be significantly higher in high rubber yielding clones compared to the low rubber yielding clones. The higher expression of these genes might result in an increased supply of IPP, the isoprenoid monomer, required for rubber biosynthesis. Expression of genes in the downstream rubber biosynthetic pathway such as FPPS, RuT and REF2 were also found to be significantly higher in high rubber yielding clones than low yielders. The results suggest that high rubber yield is associated with high expression of these genes and these genes can be used as markers for high yield potential in Hevea

Drenching aqueous extracts of seaweeds for enhancing growth, biochemical constituents and yield of Solanum melongena

Seaweed liquid fertilizer prepared from aqueous extracts of red and brown seaweeds were tried on Brinjal, Solanum melongena, L. under lab conditions. Basal application of aqueous extract of Sargassum wightii to Brinjal was found beneficial to boost the height of the plant, number of flowers/ plant considerably and the levels of chlorophyll pigments 27% more than the control. This increased the fruit yield exhibited by number and weight of fruits over control as well as the extract of red seaweed Grateloupia lithophila. However, extracts of G. lithophila promoted early flowering, delayed senescence of leaves of eggplant. Biochemical constituents in the treated plants such as total sugars, proteins and lipids too showed considerable increase (mg/g dry weight, P<0.001) due to application of Sargassum extract. These results enabled us to confirm that use of extracts of Sargassum as manure to crops can improve yield, save chemical fertilizers and protect soil fertility

A CONTROL SCHEME USING A STATCOM FOR A GRID CONNECTED OWF AND MCF TO IMPROVE THE DYNAMIC STABILITY OF THE SYSTEM

This paper presents a Novel control scheme is based on the STATCOM for the grid connected integrated system which has 80-MW offshore wind farm (OWF) and 40-MW marine current farm (MCF) to achieve the both voltage control and damping enhancement. The PID damping controller is designed for the STATCOM to contribute effective damping characteristics to the studied system under different operating conditions such as noise wind speed disturbances and marine current speed disturbances. A frequency-domain approach based on a linearized system model using Eigen value techniques and a time-domain scheme based on a nonlinear system model subject to various disturbances are employed to simulate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme. It can be concluded from the simulated results that the proposed STATCOM joined with the designed PID damping controller is very effective to stabilize the studied system under disturbance conditions. The voltage fluctuations of the AC bus subject to the active-power variations of the studied system can also be effectively controlled by the proposed control scheme. The system performance is also improved

ATP concentration in latex as an indicator for early evaluation of yield in Hevea brasiliensis

Adenosine 5’ triphosphate (ATP) in the laticiferous tissues of Hevea brasiliensis plays a major role in rubber biosynthesis through its direct involvement in metabolic pathways and indirectly through H+ ATPase activity. A strong positive correlation was observed between dry rubber yield and latex ATP, when ATP was measured in the latex of ten Hevea clones with different yield potentials such as low, medium and high. The latex ATP was significantly high in clones with higher yield than medium and low yielding clones. The correlation between same day latex yield and ATP during the peak yielding season (September-November) also showed a direct relationship. This study was extended to immature plants of the same clones to confirm the practical application of this finding in crop improvement programme. Latex ATP was analysed in two year old young plants and continued for five years to correlate with rubber yield of the mature trees in field trial. A positive correlation was noticed between ATP in young plants and mature tree rubber yield. Young plants of high yielding clones always showed higher latex ATP concentration. In view of the direct relationship with yield, significant differences between clones and its seasonal insensitivity, latex ATP could be used as an indicator for early prediction of high yield in Hevea

In vitro shoot multiplication and conservation of Caralluma bhupenderiana Sarkaria - an endangered medicinal plant from South India

An efficient protocol was described for the rapid in vitro multiplication of an endangered medicinal plant, Caralluma bhupenderiana Sarkaria, via enhanced axillary bud proliferation from nodal explants collected from young shoots of six-months-old plant. The physiological effects of growth regulators [6- Benzyladenine (BA), kinetin (Kn), 2-Isopentyl adenine (2iP), zeatin (Zn), indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), indole-3-butyric acid (IBA)], different strengths of Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium and various pH levels on in vitro morphogenesis were investigated. The highest number (8.40 + 0.50) of shoots and the maximum average shoot length (3.2 ± 0.31 cm) were recorded on MS medium supplemented with BA (8.87 μM) at pH 5.8. Rooting was best achieved on half-strength MS medium augmented with NAA (2.69 μM). The plantlets regenerated in vitro with well-developed shoot and roots were successfully established in pots containing peat mass and garden manure in 1:1 ratio and grown in a greenhouse with 80% survival rate. The regenerated plants did not show any immediate detectable phenotypic variation.Key words: Apocynaceae, asclepiadoideae, conservation, micro-propagation, endangered, Caralluma bhupenderiana