Quantifying Economic Losses due to Milk Fever in Dairy Farms

Milk fever, a metabolic disease, affects dairy animals usually within one or two days after calving, resulting in a huge reduction in milk production and thus becomes economically most important. This study, conducted in five milkshed districts of Tamil Nadu, has estimated the economic losses arising from milk fever, based on the data collected from a random sample of 557 milk fever affected bovines (516 cows and 41 she buffaloes) during 2005-08. For assessing economic losses caused by milk fever, cost of medicines, veterinarian’s fee, cost of additional labour utilized, loss due to reduction in milk output, cost of animals dead and culled have been considered. The prevalence of milk fever has been found 13.67 per cent in cows and 11.99 per cent in buffaloes across the study districts. The total loss has been found as Rs 1,068 per affected cow and Rs 665 per buffalo. Taking into account the observed prevalence of milk fever, the population of milch cows and buffaloes and the per animal loss due to milk fever has been estimated to be of Rs 40.62 crore in the state, which is a substantial damage to the dairy farming community. Some suggestions for prevention and management of milk fever have been given in the study.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Quality Improvements in Public Livestock Services Delivery: Are Farmers Ready to Pay? An Inquiry in South India

Farmers Willingness To Pay (WTP) for improving the quality of public livestock services delivery, in terms of Service Provider and Farmer Relationship (SPFR), chance of recovery from ailments and chance of conception following Artificial Insemination (AI), was assessed through Contingent Valuation (CV) in southern peninsular state of India, the Tamil Nadu State. The districts of the state were categorized as '˜Livestock Developed' (LD) and 'Livestock Under Developed' (LUD) based on initial base line developed. Contingent Valuation (CV) approach and Tobit regressions were used to assess variations in the stated Willingness To Pay (WTP) values, and the probability of stating a positive WTP value for respondents who declared that they were not willing to pay. Overall, the respondents in the study area were willing to pay INR 3.91 for improving the SPFR attribute of the public veterinary centre, while they were ready to pay INR 5.84 for augmenting the chances of recovery from illness by the services of public veterinary centres. In order to benefit from improved chance of conception of their bovines after AI, the farmers were willing to pay INR 11.71. An absolute concordance on the levels of attributes and the variations in the stated positive WTP values for quality improvements was noticed. Tobit regression analyses on the improvements of all above attributes indicated that the farmers who were at disadvantaged levels of an attribute were willing to pay more compared to those at an advantaged level.

Crystal structure of 4-(dimethylamino)-pyridinium 4-aminobenzoate dihydrate

Acknowledgements The authors thank SAIF, IIT, Madras for thedata collection.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Hybrid Composites for the Design and Development of Pressure Vessel for Underwater Applications

The study’s main objective is to design and develop pressure vessels in underwater applications using Hybrid composites-Fibre Metal Laminates (FML) so that the weight will be reduced. The proposed pressure vesselaccommodates electronics in the underwater ambient noise measurement system under an external hydrostatic pressure of 1 MPa (10 bar). The research study aims initially to design and develop a pressure vessel with stainless steel 316 L and subsequently design a pressure vessel with hybrid composites with a combination of composite materials of E-glass and carbon/epoxy materials with a metal alloy stainless steel 316 L. The pressure vessel has been optimised with varying metal and composite percentage combinations. The cylinder’s wall thickness has been pivotal in optimizing pressure vessel design. Classical Laminate Theory (CLT) transforms the FML pressure vessel or cylinder into a rectangular plate. As preliminary measures, FML specimen with a size of 0.45 m square laminate and 0°orientation has been developed with 50 % metal layer and 50 % fibre composites, and corresponding mechanical tests have been carried out as per the standards. The tensile strength of the developed FML is 420 MPa compared to base metal (SS316 L) strength of 556 MPa, and similarly, Flexural and Impact properties have shown a higher level when compared to other types of FMLs

Normal modes and mode transformation of pure electron vortex beams

Electron vortex beams constitute the first class of matter vortex beams which are currently routinely produced in the laboratory. Here, we briefly review the progress of this nascent field and put forward a natural quantum basis set which we show is suitable for the description of electron vortex beams. The normal modes are truncated Bessel beams (TBBs) defined in the aperture plane or the Fourier transform of the transverse structure of the TBBs (FT-TBBs) in the focal plane of a lens with the said aperture. As these modes are eigenfunctions of the axial orbital angular momentum operator, they can provide a complete description of the two-dimensional transverse distribution of the wave function of any electron vortex beam in such a system, in analogy with the prominent role Laguerre- Gaussian (LG) beams played in the description of optical vortex beams. The characteristics of the normal modes of TBBs and FT-TBBs are described, including the quantized orbital angular momentum (in terms of the winding number l) and the radial index p> 0. We present the experimental realization of such beams using computer-generated holograms. The mode analysis can be carried out using astigmatic transformation optics, demonstrating close analogy with the astigmatic mode transformation between LG and Hermite-Gaussian beams

PUPAL EMERGENCE INHIBITION ACTIVITY OF ACALYPHA INDICA LEAF EXTRACT AGAINST DENGUE VECTOR, AEDES ALBOPICTUS MOSQUITO

Objective: To investigate the larvicidal activities of six varying extracts of Acalypha indica (A. indica) leaves from family Euphorbiaceae against the dengue mosquito vector, Aedesalbopictus (Ae. albopictus) in laboratory.Methods: Leaves from the study plants were separated, air dried in room temperature, grounded and extracted with different solvents (petroleum ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate, n-butanol, ethanol and aqueous) by solvent apparatus and aqueous extract by maceration method. The extra solvents were evaporated to obtain crude extracts by using rotary evaporator. The crude extracts of six different solvents were dissolved in dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO) to prepare test dosages of 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000 and 5000 ppm. Third instar larvae of Ae. albopictus were exposed to 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000 and 5000 ppm concentrations of petroleum ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate, n-butanol, ethanol and aqueous extracts of A. indica and compared with control to determine the larvicidal effects. Larval bioassays were carriedout according to World Health Organisation (WHO) procedures. The rate of larval mortality was recorded after 24h and 48 h of time exposure. Three duplicate trials were made for each tested dosage. IC50 and IC90 values were calculated by using probit analysis.Results: Based on probit analysis result the 24h and 48h LC50 and LC90 of petroleum ether extract of A. indica against Ae. albopictus was found to be 2805.43 ppm and 2376.11 ppm, 3825.14 ppm and 3327.8 ppm, respectively. An LC50 and LC90 value of chloroform extracts of A. indicaa gainst third instar larvae was found to be 2276.5 ppm and 4015.8 ppm (24h), 2213.36 ppm and 3430.43 ppm (48h), respectively. An LC50 value of 4472.17 ppm and 2469.61 ppm, and LC90 value of 4215.84 ppm was obtained on ethylacetate extract treatment against Ae. albopictus for 24h and 48h exposure, respectively. The 24h and 48 h LC50 and LC90 values of n-butanol extracts of A. indica was found to be 2777.88 ppm and 3628.19 ppm, 2225.61 ppm and 2518.86 ppm, respectively. In the present study, the larvicidal bioassays demonstrated that the n-butanolextract was most effective with 100% mortality against larvae of Ae. albopictus at 3000, 4000 and 5000 ppm compared to other extracts. All other extracts (petroleum ether, chloroform and ethyl acetate) of A. indica at high concentration (4000 ppm and 5000 ppm) manifested a significant (P<0.01 and 0.05) knock down effect of 100% moratality after 24h and 48h exposure. While the third instar lavae of Ae. albopictus were found to be most susceptabile and produced no mortality to ethanol and aqueous extract at varying parts per million. Conclusion: A. indica leaf extract was tested for the first time against dengue vector Ae. albopictus and the results revealed that A. indica can be used to control dengue vector. Further this extract needs to be evaluated under field conditions for proper exploitation of Ae. albopictus mosquito larvae. Thus, the present study provided a first report on A. indica as a prompting mosquito larvicidal activity and can be considered for further investiagtions such as formulation of bioinsecticides to control Ae. albopictus population

Even-odd effect in higher-order holographic production of electron vortex beams with nontrivial radial structures

Structured electron beams carrying orbital angular momentum are currently of considerable interest, both from a fundamental point of view and for application in electron microscopy and spectroscopy. Until recently, most studies have focused on the azimuthal structure of electron vortex beams with well-defined orbital angular momentum. To unambiguously define real electron-beam states and realize them in the laboratory, the radial structure must also be specified. Here we use a specific set of orthonormal modes of electron (vortex) beams to describe both the radial and azimuthal structures of arbitrary electron wavefronts. The specific beam states are based on truncated Bessel beams localized within the lens aperture plane of an electron microscope. We show that their Fourier transform set of beams can be realized at the focal planes of the probe-forming lens using a binary computer-generated electron hologram. Using astigmatic transformation optics, we demonstrate that the azimuthal indices of the diffracted beams scale with the order of the diffraction through phase amplification. However, their radial indices remain the same as those of the encoding beams for all the odd diffraction orders or are reduced to the zeroth order for the even-order diffracted beams. This simple even-odd rule can also be explained in terms of the phase amplification of the radial profiles. We envisage that the orthonormal cylindrical basis set of states could lead to new possibilities in phase contrast electron microscopy and spectroscopy using structured electron beams

Orbital-Angular-Momentum Mode Selection by Rotationally Symmetric Superposition of Chiral States with Application to Electron Vortex Beams

A general orbital-angular-momentum (OAM) mode selection principle is put forward involving the rotationally symmetric superposition of chiral states. This principle is not only capable of explaining the operation of vortex generating elements such as spiral zone plate holograms, but more importantly, it enables the systematic and flexible generation of structured OAM waves in general. This is demonstrated both experimentally and theoretically in the context of electron vortex beams using rotationally symmetric binary amplitude chiral sieve masks

Incidence of resistant mastitis in dairy cows in Tamil Nadu, India

The incidence of resistant mastitis in dairy cows in Tamil Nadu, India was 56.l %. The predominant resistant causative pathogen was Escherichia coli (50.64 %) followed by Staphylococcus aureus (44.25 %) and Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (5.11 %). Incidence of resistant mastitis was high in Holstein Friesian cross breed followed by Jersey cross breed and non descript. Highest incidence was observed in early stage of third lactation. In vitro antibiotic sensitivity test revealed the E. coli, S. aureus and MRSA organisms showed more sensitivity to enrofloxacin, amoxicillin+sulbactam, gentamicin and ceftriaxone and had highest resistant to penicillin followed by amoxicillin, oxytetracycline and methicillin. The study highlights the need for preventing the indiscriminate use of antibiotics

Spawning grounds of the milkfish and seasonal abundance of the fry along the east and southwest coasts of India

The fish seed resources surveys conducted along the east and southwest coasts of India have shown the occurrence of fry and fingerlings of Chanos chanos in appreciable quantities during different months. An attempt is made to present a quantitative distribution of fry of the milkfish in space and time in the study area. The occurrence of spawners and fry along some stretches of the coast indicate the proximity of spawning grounds of the milkfish and these are delineated. The research programmes on controlled breeding of Chanos and its culture aspects underway at the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute are also discussed