Primary calcified hydatid of spleen: a case report

Most splenic cysts are parasitic. Hydatid disease, a parasitic disease, isendemic in Kashmir. Splenic involvement alone in hydatid disease is very rare. It may remain asymptomatic or, by causing pressure due to increasing size on adjacent viscera, may become symptomatic. A non specific presentation always makes diagnosis difficult. A case of hydatid spleen in a young boy who presented with abdominal pain is reported. Radiology complemented with serology made the diagnosis. Hydatid disease should beconsidered as a differential diagnosis in every patient with a calcified cystic mass of the spleen in endemic areas.KEY WORDS: Calcified hydatid; Spleen; Splenic cyst; Case repor

Climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies for sustainable crop production

Climate change is the main environmental problem facing humanity. Evidences over the past few decades show that significant changes in climate are taking place all over the world as a result of enhanced human activities through deforestation emission of various greenhouse gases and indiscriminate use of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide (CO2) Methane and Nitrous Oxide are the major greenhouse gases. CO2 enters the atmosphere mostly through burning fossil fuels. Methane emissions also result from livestock and other agricultural practices and Nitrous Oxide is emitted during agricultural and industrial activities. Global atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased from pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million (ppm) to 408 ppm in Feb 2018. Global projections indicate higher temperature of 1.5 to 4.5°C by the year 2050 as a result of enhanced greenhouse gases. There is medium confidence in that the Indian summer monsoon circulation weakens but this is compensated by increased atmospheric moisture content leading to more rainfall. There is medium confidence in an increase of Indian summer monsoon rainfall and its extremes throughout the 21st century under all RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways) scenarios

Genetic studies for flower yield and component traits in Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat

Study on genetic variability, character association and path analysis was carried out with sixty chrysan-themum genotypes keeping in mind of their applicability in future crop improvement programmes. High phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation were found for the character such as number of flower per plant, number of branches per plant, number of primary branches, number of secondary branches, plant spread and plant height. High heritability coupled with high expected genetic advance was observed for number of flower per plant, number of secondary branches and branches per plant. In general, genotypic correlation coefficients were found to be higher than the phenotypic correlations for most of the characters. Number of flowers per plant showed highly positive significant correlation at both genotypic and phenotypic level with plant spread (0.977,0.974), number of primary branches (0.952,0,828), number of branches per plant (0.956, 0.950), number of flower per spray (0.932, 0.821) and number of secondary branches (0.770, 0.744). Path analysis revealed that plant spread, number of primary branch-es, number of flower per spray and number of branches per plant had highest positive and direct effects on number of flowers per plant at genotypic and phenotypic levels. Thus, the useful cultivars can be used as parents in hybridization programme to obtain admirable progenie

Genetic studies for flower yield and component traits in Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat

Study on genetic variability, character association and path analysis was carried out with sixty chrysan-themum genotypes keeping in mind of their applicability in future crop improvement programmes. High phenotypic and genotypic coefficient of variation were found for the character such as number of flower per plant, number of branches per plant, number of primary branches, number of secondary branches, plant spread and plant height. High heritability coupled with high expected genetic advance was observed for number of flower per plant, number of secondary branches and branches per plant. In general, genotypic correlation coefficients were found to be higher than the phenotypic correlations for most of the characters. Number of flowers per plant showed highly positive significant correlation at both genotypic and phenotypic level with plant spread (0.977,0.974), number of primary branches (0.952,0,828), number of branches per plant (0.956, 0.950), number of flower per spray (0.932, 0.821) and number of secondary branches (0.770, 0.744). Path analysis revealed that plant spread, number of primary branch-es, number of flower per spray and number of branches per plant had highest positive and direct effects on number of flowers per plant at genotypic and phenotypic levels. Thus, the useful cultivars can be used as parents in hybridization programme to obtain admirable progenie

Relationship between incidence of Leucinodes orbonalis (Guenee) and Chlorophyll content in leaves of Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.)

The present study on biochemical basis of resistance against Leucinodes orbonalis infestation was conducted during the year 2011-2012. The results revealed that highest chlorophyll-‘a’- content of 0.497 mg/gfw was recorded in the susceptible genotype SHB-1.The lowest amount of 0.319 and 0.381 mg/gfw was observed in the resistant genotypes Brinjal-85 and Local long respectively, which were significantly different from other evaluated genotypes. The chlorophyll ‘a’content was positively correlated with the brinjal shoot and fruit borer infestation. Thehighest chlorophyll -‘b’- content of 0.442 mg/gfw was recorded at 70 DAT (days after transplanting). The amount of chlorophyll -‘b’- varied significantly among the genotypes at different ages and decreased with the age of crop. The average highest amount of chlorophyll -‘b’- was estimated in the genotype SBH-1 which was significantly at par with hybrid SBH-2. The lowest chlorophyll -‘b’- content was recorded at 40 DAT in the genotype Brinjal-85 followed by Local Long. The lowest amount of total chlorophyll was estimated in the resistant variety as compared to susceptible therefore exhibiting lowest level of infestation

Fusing Two Images using DWT and Hybrid PCA Algorithms

Image fusion is of extraordinary significance in safeguard and data from various images of same scene. The consequence of fusion is another image which is more reasonable for human and machine recognition. Pixel level image fusion utilizing wavelets and essential part investigation has been actualized and illustrated. diverse execution measurements with and without reference image are actualized to assess the execution of mage fusion calculations. It has been reasoned that image fusion utilizing wavelets with larger amount of disintegration indicated better execution in a few measurements and in different measurements PCA demonstrated better execution

Prediction of agroforestry adoption among farming communities of Kashmir valley, India: A logistic regression approach

The study investigated the socioeconomic and psychological variables that influence the agroforestry adoption in farming communities of Kashmir. The data were collected from 142 households of 5 villages selected in Baramulla and Kupwara districts utilizing multi-stage random sampling. The results revealed that regarding agroforestry adoption majority (52.11%) of the respondents belonged to medium category followed by low (27.47%) and high (20.42%) categories. The socioeconomic variables specified that the rural people are in underprivileged condition while they are in prosperous condition regarding psychological variables. The correlation analysis (r) indicated that among explanatory variables, education, social participation, family composition, size of land holding, main occupation, housing status, farm power, farm implements, livestock possession, wealth status, gross annual income, knowledge about agrforestry, attitude towards agroforestry and level of aspiration had shown positively significant correlation with the agroforestry adoption, while, the age had a non-significant correlation. All the explanatory variables jointly accounted 90.80 % (R2= 0.908) variation on the agroforestry adoption and among these, nine variables viz., education, size of land holding, main occupation, farm power, livestock possession, wealth status, knowledge about agrforestry, attitude towards agroforestry and level of aspiration were statistically significant (p < 0.05) in influencing the agroforestry adoption. The study recommends that recognition and exploitation of explanatory variables that predict agroforestry adoption, needs due consideration among policy makers, researchers and extension providers as prominent strategy for agroforestry promotion and development

Participatory rural appraisal and farmers’ perception about common bean varieties in temperate Kashmir

Present investigation was undertaken during 2012 to 2014 in which 54 genotypes, both pole and bush type of Common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) were selected among a number of germplasm lines, land races and research material in order to generate information on the farmer’s’ perception about the Common bean varieties. Participatory rural appraisal was conducted in 32 villages of Kashmir through a broad questionnaires comprising of questions pertaining to the socio-economic conditions, farming systems, production constraints and varietal preferences of the common bean. The Participatory Rural Appraisal results revealed that common bean is generally grown as a rainfed crop (70 %) and is intercropped with maize/ potato/vegetable and merely as sole crop (20.66 %). Low yielding varieties and diseases (68.27 %) are considered as major challenges in the success of common bean crop, while as red colour with kidney shaped types (50 %) are highly being preferred as a pulse crop. The exercise of Participatory Rural Appraisal was carried out to generate basic information by assessing the need based constraints and devise the target breeding approach, by taking into consideration all constraints and also devise future breeding programme. A successful PRA provides the information needed to specify the characteristic in a new variety regarding its physical environment and the existing varietal diversity. For a breeding program, well applied Participatory Rural Appraisal techniques or customer profiling results in better client orientation and makes possible efficient goal setting or product design. Successful PRA provides everything that could be included in the full design specification of a new crop variety

Transcription factors and plants response to drought stress: Current understanding and future directions

Increasing vulnerability of plants to a variety of stresses such as drought, salt and extreme temperatures poses a global threat to sustained growth and productivity of major crops. Of these stresses, drought represents a considerable threat to plant growth and development. In view of this, developing staple food cultivars with improved drought tolerance emerges as the most sustainable solution toward improving crop productivity in a scenario of climate change. In parallel, unraveling the genetic architecture and the targeted identification of molecular networks using modern “OMICS” analyses, that can underpin drought tolerance mechanisms, is urgently required. Importantly, integrated studies intending to elucidate complex mechanisms can bridge the gap existing in our current knowledge about drought stress tolerance in plants. It is now well established that drought tolerance is regulated by several genes, including transcription factors (TFs) that enable plants to withstand unfavorable conditions, and these remain potential genomic candidates for their wide application in crop breeding. These TFs represent the key molecular switches orchestrating the regulation of plant developmental processes in response to a variety of stresses. The current review aims to offer a deeper understanding of TFs engaged in regulating plant’s response under drought stress and to devise potential strategies to improve plant tolerance against drought