Determinants and pattern of saving behavior in the rural households of western odisha

Saving is an important macroeconomic variable to be studied under the purview of the economic arena on an individual as well as household basis. In a country like India, the income standard is almost uncertain and leads to more consumption rather than saving which has now been a central problem. If the saving is low, then the investment will also be low leading to low capital formation. The present study analyzes the determinants and patterns of saving behaviour in rural household of western Odisha. The determinants and patterns of saving differ from rural to urban region. In rural areas, the marginal propensity to consume is more rather than the marginal propensity to save. The study is conducted through primary survey with 300 households drawing a sample from rural villages of Sundergarh district of Odisha. These 300 households from Sundergarh district are selected and a cross-sectional primary data is collected by personal interview method. The determinants of saving are analyzed empirically by a linear regression method. The income, level of expenditure, consumption pattern and saving behaviour is taken as the criteria for drawing the samples. The present study reveals that the APC and MPC of the rural households varies in terms of the distribution of income and occupation i.e. in other words, the lowest income groups (the agricultural labours and the non- agricultural labours) have the highest marginal propensity to consume which leads to lowest marginal propensity to save as compared to the other occupational groups. The study finds that most of the rural households have low educational status which is resulting in less awareness of the people towards the benefits of saving. They are even careless towards their health standard as the consumption of local liquor is very prominent in these households which in a way or the other detoriating the health as well as the financial condition of these households

Robust Modified Flower Pollination Algorithm for Power Quality Enhancement in an Autonomous 31-Level Cascaded H-Bridge Photovoltaic Inverter with Partial Shading Conditions

The effect of global warming and the scarcity of fossil fuels has created an enormous problem in today’s era. To overcome such a problem, renewable energy sources, particularly solar energy, play a crucial role in meeting the developing need for power. However, the design of the Solar Photovoltaic (PV) system is interrupted by various factors such as the effect of temperature, isolation, aging, partial shading conditions, etc. Among all the factors mentioned, partial shading results in the significant diminution of power. To address this shading effect and enhance the flexibility of the PV system in terms of better utilization and energy extraction, a 31-Level Cascaded H-Bridge Multilevel Inverter (CHB-MLI) has been implemented to the autonomous PV system comprising of Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) controller, boost converter and variable loads in MATLAB/Simulink architecture. To track maximum power from PV during varying irradiance and temperature and to further improve the system performance in terms of better convergence speed, an MPPT system with a Modified Flower Pollination Algorithm (MFPA) based PID controller has been proposed in this paper. To justify the suggested approach, the is-landed PV system is led to variation in irradiance and load. A detailed comparison of the proposed MFPA technique with classical control techniques has been meticulously discussed. The results obtained indicate that the suggested MFPA tuned PID with MLI outperforms the conventional methods in better system stability, reduced harmonics, and enhanced capacity to track maximum power from the PV system. In addition to this, the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) has been found to verify IEEE-1547 power quality constraints. The values are found to be well within limits, thus justifying its real-time applications

EVALUATION OF SERUM NITRIC OXIDE IN ESSENTIAL HYPERTENSION AND ITS CORRELATION WITH SEVERITY OF DISEASE

ABSTRACTObjective: Hypertension is the most common cardiovascular disease and one of the most important public health concerns all over the world. Primaryor essential hypertension is the major form of arterial hypertension without any definitive cause. It results from increase vascular tone and resistancewhich may be confined to the lower level of endothelial derived relaxing factor such as nitric oxide (NO). Hence, the objective of this study is to findout whether any correlation exists between the concentrations of serum NO (nitrite) and essential hypertensive patients categorized according to theJoint National Committee 7 classification.Methods: We selected age- and sex-matched 24 healthy individuals as controls and 35 essential hypertensive patients as cases. Out of 35 cases, 24were included in stage 1 and 11 in stage 2 of essential hypertension. We estimated serum NO levels in study groups basing on the principle of Griessreaction.Results: We observed reduction in mean serum NO level in cases which was statistically highly significant as compared to controls (8.14±0.33 vs.13.53±0.38 µmol/L, p<0.001) and also in stage 2 patients when compared with stage 1 patients (5.97±0.31 vs. 9.15±0.28 µmol/L, p<0.001). Inhypertensive patients, serum NO showed a highly significant inverse correlation to both systolic (r=−0.89, p<0.001) as well as diastolic (r=−0.64,p<0.001) blood pressure.Conclusion: Thus, we can conclude that lower level of serum NO can be an important causative factor in the progress of essential hypertension.Keywords: Essential hypertension, Endothelial-derived relaxing factor, Nitric oxide, Joint National Committee 7

A view of Homoeopathy on Musculoskeletal Disorders in Sports Injuries

Musculoskeletal disorders and treatment focus on various aspects of Repetitive Motion Injuries, Repetitive Strain Injuries, Cumulative Trauma Disorders, Occupational Cervico-brachial Disorders, Overuse Syndrome, Regional Musculoskeletal Disorders, Soft Tissue Disorders, Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders, Musculoskeletal Disorders. It can be seen in the elderly, arthritis, drug interaction checker, fibromyalgia, living healthy, lupus osteoarthritis, pill identifier, rheumatoid arthritis, sports injuries, etc. Musculoskeletal disorders are among the most common problems in sport injuries resulting loss of mobility and physical independence. Homoeopathic treatment schedule considers disease as a dynamic unit and the derangement of the whole man, expressed through the particular organs of the body, i.e. the ‘whole man’ is primarily diseased and individual organs/parts are only secondarily affected. It distinguishes each entity suffering from various or same diseases as different from others, because individuals are inimitable by virtue of their particular and peculiar mental and physical states, and characteristics. Concisely, it lays emphasis on, the ‘person diagnosis’, instead of the ‘disease diagnosis’. Therefore,” every diseases has a cure” is the believe of homoeopathy. Under this flow of homeopathy principle, the aim of this article is to present some of the most frequent musculoskeletal disorders in sports Injuries and their homoeopathic treatment schedule .Sports is an essential part of each nation. There are many ways to classify sports injuries based on the time taken for the tissues to become injured, tissue type affected, severity of the injury, and type of the injury occurred in the individual. Therefore, different homeopathic treatments are required to tackle different category of injury especially the outcomes of sport activities. Keywords: Acute injuries, homoeopathy, overuse injuries, prevention, sports injuries, treatment

Foliar feeding of boron influencing biochemical attributes and enzyme activity in dragon fruit (Selenicereus monacanthus)

Boron plays crucial role in metabolic processes during fruit ripening and in turn ensures better fruit quality. However limited studies have been conducted to assess the influence of boron on fruit quality of dragon fruit. In the present study, the efficacy of boron was investigated on red-fleshed dragon fruit (Selenicereus monacanthus). Four levels of boron (100 mgL-1, 200 mgL-1, 300 mgL-1 and 400 mgL-1) were applied on 7- and 14-day-old flower buds. The highest pollen germinability, seed weight, fruit weight (274.32 ± 36.72g), pulp content (70.80 ± 1.79%) and pulp firmness (2.74 ± 0.18 N) were recorded when B was applied@300 mg L-1 on 7-day old flower bud. The same treatment also manifested higher soluble solid contents (17.42 ± 0.62 °Brix), sugar content, total carbohydrate (15.92 ± 1.12%), protein (1.33±0.11%), ascorbic acid (112.66 ± 4.98 µg/g), betacyanin (32.86±2.52 µg/g), total phenol (95.26 ± 3.72 µg GAE/ 100g), total flavonoid (37.65 ±2.14 mg QE/100g) and anti-oxidative activity (27.71±2.14 mM Fe II/100g). Correlation studies elucidated significant positive influence of pollen germinability on fruit weight, pulp content and pulp firmness. The activities of α-amylase, invertase and sucrose synthase enzymes were significantly upregulated with the application of B 300 mg L-1 on 7-day old flower bud. On the other hand, the activities of cell wall degrading enzymes such as cellulase, polygalacturonase and pectin methyl esterase were reduced with increasing levels of boron. The principal component analysis (PCA) illustrated the maximal proximity of most of the quality attributes with B 300 mgL-1, applied at 7-day old flower bud stage, thus exemplifying it as the best treatment

Development and characterization of ethylcellulose based microsphere for sustained release of nifedipine

AbstractThis article introduced the work of ethylcellulose based polymeric microsphere loaded with nifedipine for reduction in frequency of administration with low solubility in aqueous medium and high rate of absorption in the stomach. The non-aqueous polymeric suspension was put dropwise into an aqueous medium containing polyvinyl alcohol as a surfactant for the synthesis of microsphere by solvent evaporation. The microspheres were characterized by different techniques, namely, XRD, SEM, and NMR. The formation of microspheres was confirmed by SEM. XRD analysis revealed the semi-crystallinity nature of microspheres. The NMR study indicated the presence of hetero-aromatic nucleus in the microsphere

Derivatives of Cinnamic Acid Esters and Terpenic Diversity in Volatiles of Thirty-Six Sand Ginger (Kaempferia galanga L.) Accessions of Eastern India Revealing Quality Chemovars

The essential oil of Kaempferia galanga L. commonly known as sand ginger has increased its demand in national and international market for decades. Cinnamic acid esters like ethyl-p-methoxy cinnamate (EPMC) and ethyl cinnamate (EC) are major constituents in its essential oil. In spite of the high demand for the plant as raw material, identification of quality chemovars having high essential oil (EO) yield and constituents is still at an infant stage. With this in mind, we have evaluated the EO yield of 36 accessions from three provinces of Eastern India, which varied within a range of 0.41 ± 0.01 to 2.63 ± 0.03 v/w. Further, a total of 65 compounds were detected by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC-MS) with area percentages varying from 76.16 to 97.3%. EPMC was found to be the major component in 14 accessions with area percentages varying from 10.7% to 41.1%, whereas other 22 accessions showed EC as the major constituent, varying from 16% to 29.1%. Further, a diversity study among accessions was performed by agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) and principal component analysis (PCA) analysis based on the abundance of identified constituents, which categorized all 36 accessions into three clusters. Thus, the present study helps to identify quality chemovar K.g16 and K.g14 with respect to oil yield and constituents, respectively, which could be used to guide commercial cultivation and further improvement of the taxa

The impact of natural selection on gene associated with panicle number formation in Oryza sativa

Panicle number is directly associated with grain number in rice. As the panicle number increases, it affects the total yield of rice. We examined the evolution of genes associated with panicle number formation in Oryza sativa. Intramural program written in JAVA script and fastPHASE software used for the generation of genotype and haplotype file of SNPs of 11 individual genes associated with panicle number formation utilizing VCF file obtained from RiceCAP project (USDA/CSREES http://www.uark.edu/ua/ricecap/).Tests for natural selection executed on these genes using the Haplotype data. Tajima’s D and Fu Li’s D* analysis were performed using DNASP v4.0. Rates of non-synonymous Vs synonymous changes were calculated according to the dN/dS algorithm of Nei and Gojobori.dN/dS calculation compared with the ancestral (Oryza meridionalis) sequence individually showed that out of 11, almost all genes responsible for grain number formation, Os01g0746400, Os03g0203200, Os03g0706500, Os04g0550600, Os06g0127800, Os06g0154200, Os06g0610350, Os06g0660200, Os08g0162100 and Os11g0528700 are negatively selected throughout evolution., Although Tajima’s D was not found significant, the negative value for 8 genes, Os01g0746400, Os03g0123300, Os03g0706500, Os06g0127800, Os06g0610350, Os06g0660200, Os08g0162100 and Os11g0528700 indicated that  low frequency variants are more in number than high frequency variants. For Fu Li’s D*, the significantly negative values in most of the genes, Os01g0746400, Os03g0123300, Os03g0706500, Os06g0127800, Os06g0610350, Os08g0162100 and Os11g0528700, indicated that the high frequency variants detected through Tajima’s D are predominantly singletons. Thus, result from dN/dS, Tajima’s D and Fu Li indicated that negative (purifying) selection acts on genes responsible for panicle number formation.These results will be useful for further investigation on  how the genes associated with panicle number and how purifying selection result in stabilizing selection through the purging of deleterious variations that arise

SOX2 Epidermal Overexpression Promotes Cutaneous Wound Healing via Activation of EGFR/MEK/ERK Signaling Mediated by EGFR Ligands.

Oral mucosa contains a unique transcriptional network that primes oral wounds for rapid resolution in humans. Our previous work identified genes that were consistently upregulated in the oral mucosa and demonstrated that induction of one of the identified genes, transcription factor SOX2, promoted cutaneous wound healing in mice. In this study, we investigated the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which SOX2 accelerates wound healing in skin. RNA-sequencing analysis showed that SOX2 induced a proliferative and wound-activated phenotype in skin keratinocytes prior to wounding. During wound healing, SOX2 induced proliferation of epithelial and connective tissue cells and promoted angiogenesis. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assay revealed that SOX2 directly regulates expression of EGFR ligands, resulting in activation of EGFR. In vitro, skin keratinocytes overexpressing SOX2 promoted cell migration via the EGFR/MEK/ERK pathway. We conclude that induction of SOX2 in skin keratinocytes accelerates cutaneous wound healing by promoting keratinocyte migration and proliferation, and enhancement of angiogenesis via upregulation of EGFR ligands and activation of EGFR/MEK/ERK pathway. Through the identification of putative cutaneous SOX2 targets, such as HBEGF, this study opens venues to determine clinical targets for treatment of skin wounds