Sustainable Agroecosystems for Livelihood Security in Indian Himalayas

Agroforestry systems are an age-old practice in the Indian Himalayan region. Agroforestry deals with the combination of tree species with crop plants, fisheries, animals, bee keeping, and so on, and it is based on the principle of optimum utilization of land. Agrihorticulture, silvihorticulture, hortipastoral, and silvipastoral systems are diversified land use options for agroforestry in the hill region. The study was conducted at experimental farm Hawalbagh (29o36′N and 79o 40′ E, 1250 m amsl) of Vivekananda Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan, Almora, India. Study in an agri-horti system revealed that ragi (Eluesine coracana) and soybean (Glysine max) during kharif (rainy season) and wheat (Triticum estivum) and lentil (Lens esculenta) during rabi (winter season) can be grown successfully with pecan nut (Carya illinoinensis) tree without significant reduction in the yield of the crop. However, grain yield of these crops was numerically higher in the field without pecan nut tree. In fruit-based agri-horti system four fruit crops, hill lemon (Citrus limon), pear (Pyrus communis), plum (Prunus domestica), and apricot (Prunus armeniaca) were planted with soybean in kharif and dual purpose wheat during rabi season. During initial years, no significant effect on grain yield was observed with the presence of different fruit trees. Green forage yield varied from 4600 to 5900 kg/ha in different treatments. In different treatments, ginger (Zingiber officinale) and turmeric (Curcuma longa), turmeric and taro (Colocasia esculenta), and two varieties of turmeric (Pant Pitabh and Swarna) were grown under Grewia optiva, Quercus leucotrichophora, Bauhinia variegata, and Celtis australis. Turmeric and ginger produced significantly higher yield (12.04 and 7.99 t/ha) under oak. The highest rhizome yield was obtained under Quercus leucotrichophora (11,738 kg/ha) followed by Bauhinia variegata. Pant Pitabh gave significantly higher yield (10,860 kg/ha) than swarna. Improved systems with five tree species, that is, Grewia optiva, Quercus leucotrichophora, Bauhinia retusa, Melia azedarach, and Morus alba and four grasses, that is, Setaria kazugulla, Setaria nandi, Congo signal, and Broad leaf paspalum (Paspalum spp.) were tested under the silvipastoral system. Quercus leucotrichophora yielded (10,675 kg/ha) significantly higher green biomass than others, and the lowest green biomass was harvested from Grewia optiva. Among grasses, Setaria nandi produced the highest green forage (6234 kg/ha). Thus, in hilly terrain, planting of interspatial woody perennials, with least negative influences on the agronomic crops, seems productive in agroforestry system for settled farming. Therefore, agroforestry is a set of land use alternative, which if developed for resource poor farmers, can provide increased values and reduced risks and it should be made more popular in the rural areas

Climatic Variation and Its Impacts on Yield and Water Requirement of Crops in Indian Central Himalaya

Climate is most important factor affecting agriculture, and issues related to climate and its implications have attracted attention of policy makers globally. The farm sector, particularly marginal ecosystems in mountains are vulnerable because of unpredictable variation and severe sink limitations. Efforts to impart resilience to farm and its allied sector are an urgent need. The climatic parameters play very important role to determine type of crops, cattle rearing and the life style adopted by the people. Moreover, weather has a significant impact on crop growth and development. Weather plays a vital role and affects the production and productivity of the crops. According to an estimate, weather contributes 67% variation in productivity and rest of the factors (soil, nutrient and management practices etc.) accounts for 33%. Therefore, there is a need of in-depth analysis of each meteorological parameters and identification of their trend over the years in order to identify and adapt suitable agriculture practices, better adaptable crops, varieties and their duration, time of field preparation, sowing time and irrigation as per the climatic conditions of the region. This will lead farming community to plan strategies of agriculture operation to obtain optimum yield. The climatic data from the meteorological observatory of ICAR-VPKAS, Hawalbagh located at mid hill condition (1250 m amsl) were analyzed for different periods (annual, seasonal, monthly, weekly). It was revealed that rainfall is decreasing over the years but significant (P < 0.05) decrease was recorded at mid hills. The maximum temperature is increasing significantly (P < 0.05) during post-monsoon and winter season however decreasing in monsoon season whereas minimum temperature is decreasing round the year. These changes in rainfall and temperatures are affecting production and productivity of the crops, as hills are largely rainfed. In terms of crop water demand, there is no need to apply irrigation during the rainy season except the transplanted rice. However, during the winter season as there is more than 60% of water deficit to irrigate the crops. The proper understanding of climate is necessary to bring sustainability in hill agriculture by adjusting crop sowing window and other operations as per suitability of the climate

A new approach for ocular artifact removal from EEG signal using EEMD and SCICA

EEG data obtained from the scalp using the electrodes, usually gets contaminated by various artifacts like muscle artifact, line interference artifact, ocular artifact, and others. The Ocular artifact which is caused due to eye-blink or other eye movements, while measuring EEG is the most common and most critical EEG artifact. For a long time, it has been a research challenge for any method to remove the ocular artifact from EEG without causing loss of the EEG signal. In this paper, a new approach is introduced to remove the ocular artifact from EEG signal using Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) and Spatial Constraint Independent Component Analysis (SCICA) without causing loss to EEG signal. The contribution of the method lies in the fact that it combines the advantages of both EEMD and SCICA. Here, EEMD is applied to the artifactual EEG signal to obtain Implicit Mode Functions (IMFs). The artifactual IMFs are separated from artifact-free IMFs by using the Correlation Coefficient-based algorithm. Now, the artifactual IMFs are provided as the input channels to Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and to obtain Independent Components (ICs) and inverse mixing matrix. Then, the Kurtosis and mMSE techniques are used to define the threshold levels for differentiating between artifactual and artifact-free ICs. Moreover, the mixing matrix is also modified using spatial constraints. The modified mixing matrix and ICs are then used to obtain restored IMFs. Finally, the artifact-free EEG signal is reconstructed by summing up artifact-free IMFs and restored IMFs. The proposed method is compared with other state-of-the-art methods in terms of Mutual Information, Correlation Coefficient, and Coherence. The results show that the proposed method has better performance as compared to other state-of-the-art methods for ocular artifact removal from EEG

Prebiotic synthesis of α-amino acids and orotate from α-ketoacids potentiates transition to extant metabolic pathways

The Strecker reaction of aldehydes is the pre-eminent pathway to explain the prebiotic origins of α-amino acids. However, biology employs transamination of α-ketoacids to synthesize amino acids which are then transformed to nucleobases, implying an evolutionary switch—abiotically or biotically—of a prebiotic pathway involving the Strecker reaction into today’s biosynthetic pathways. Here we show that α-ketoacids react with cyanide and ammonia sources to form the corresponding α-amino acids through the Bucherer–Bergs pathway. An efficient prebiotic transformation of oxaloacetate to aspartate via N-carbamoyl aspartate enables the simultaneous formation of dihydroorotate, paralleling the biochemical synthesis of orotate as the precursor to pyrimidine nucleobases. Glyoxylate forms both glycine and orotate and reacts with malonate and urea to form aspartate and dihydroorotate. These results, along with the previously demonstrated protometabolic analogues of the Krebs cycle, suggest that there can be a natural emergence of congruent forerunners of biological pathways with the potential for seamless transition from prebiotic chemistry to modern metabolism

A plausible metal-free ancestral analogue of the Krebs cycle composed entirely of α-ketoacids

Efforts to decipher the prebiotic roots of metabolic pathways have focused on recapitulating modern biological transformations, with metals typically serving in place of cofactors and enzymes. Here we show that the reaction of glyoxylate with pyruvate under mild aqueous conditions produces a series of α-ketoacid analogues of the reductive citric acid cycle without the need for metals or enzyme catalysts. The transformations proceed in the same sequence as the reverse Krebs cycle, resembling a protometabolic pathway, with glyoxylate acting as both the carbon source and reducing agent. Furthermore, the α-ketoacid analogues provide a natural route for the synthesis of amino acids by transamination with glycine, paralleling the extant metabolic mechanisms and obviating the need for metal-catalysed abiotic reductive aminations. This emerging sequence of prebiotic reactions could have set the stage for the advent of increasingly sophisticated pathways operating under catalytic control

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Not AvailableThe experiment was laid out in a factorial randomized block design comprising eighteen treatment combinations of three levels of N (0, 10 and 20 kg ha-1), three levels of S (0, 10 and 20 kg ha-1) and two levels of biofertilizer (seed bio-priming and without Rhizobium) which were replicated three times. The results indicated that plot with the application of N and S @ 20 kg ha -1 gave significantly (p< 0.05) higher seed yield (~ 32 and 21%) and stover yield (~ 16 and 18%) as compared to control plot, respectively. Bio-primed observed significantly (p < 0.05) higher seed yield (~ 996 kg ha ) and stover yield (~ 1829 kg ha -1 ) as compared to un-inoculated treatments. Meanwhile, plot with the application of N and S @ 20 kg ha bio-priming @ 25 g kg -1 seeds on loamy sand soil resulted the increased the seed yield ~ 32, 21 and 7%, respectively and nutrients availability besides organic carbon (5, 2 and 2.3%), available N (5, 4.5 and 4.6%), P 2 O (7.5, 2 and 0.5%), and S (12, 22 and 11%, respectively) concentration increased in soil after harvest of green gram under bio-primed treatments. 5 -1 -1 +Not Availabl

Comparison of different Animal Species Hairs with respect to their Medullary Index for the Individual Identification and comparison from the Animals of local Village of Palam Vihar, Gurugram, Haryana

In this study hair sample of different domestic animal species is evaluated on the basis of their medullary index, which help the forensic scientist for the identification and comparison of different animal hair species. Animal hair always has a medullary index of 1/3 or greater with hair root having rounded in shape. Animal hair is rough and has larger medulla than human hair. Forensic scientist determine the number of things from hair sample, from the crimescene i.e, verifying whether the hair in question is that of human or an animal, if the hair is from animal, the forensic investigator can potentially identify the species from which it is originated, the hair can be of pet or wild animal, the clues reveals including which part of the body hair came from, if human hair; race of the person, gender, age, if the hair shed naturally or pulled from someone's body part. In the present study different species of animal hair i.e., Dog, Cat, Buffalo, Cow are collected from local area of PalamVihar, Gurugram were microscopically examined. This research paper provides the data to the identification and comparison of different animal hair with respect to their medullary index based on their microscopic examination because hair is strongly resistant from decomposition and this property makes hair a nearly ideal type of physical evidence

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Not AvailableThe experiment was laid out in a factorial randomized block design comprising eighteen treatment combinations of three levels of N (0, 10 and 20 kg ha-1), three levels of S (0, 10 and 20 kg ha-1) and two levels of biofertilizer (seed bio-priming and without Rhizobium) which were replicated three times. The results indicated that plot with the application of N and S @ 20 kg ha-1 gave significantly (p< 0.05) higher seed yield (~ 32 and 21%) and stover yield (~ 16 and 18%) as compared to control plot, respectively. Bio-primed observed significantly (p < 0.05) higher seed yield (~ 996 kg ha-1) and stover yield (~ 1829 kg ha-1) as compared to un-inoculated treatments. Meanwhile, plot with the application of N and S @ 20 kg ha-1 + bio-priming @ 25 g kg-1 seeds on loamy sand soil resulted the increased the seed yield ~ 32, 21 and 7%, respectively and nutrients availability besides organic carbon (5, 2 and 2.3%), available N (5, 4.5 and 4.6%), P2O5 (7.5, 2 and 0.5%), and S (12, 22 and 11%, respectively) concentration increased in soil after harvest of green gram under bio-primed treatments.Not Availabl

A Plausible Prebiotic One-Pot Synthesis of Orotate and Pyruvate Suggestive of Common Protometabolic Pathways

A prebiotic synthesis of the nucleobase orotate, and the citric acid cycle intermediate pyruvate, proceeds in a single pot from two small glycine derivatives, hydantoin and glyoxylate, under mild aqueous conditions. These findings support a co-evolution of pathways to core protometabolites and nucleic acid building blocks in a common environment. Additionally, open-chain thiohydantoin derivatives enable a synthesis of thioorotate nucleosides

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Not AvailableThe increasing demand for crop production, given worldwide increases in the human population, puts pressure on moving natural resources towards sustainable development. This creates a big challenge for the upcoming generation. If improvement is not successful, there exists the unfortunate consequence that global food production may soon become insufficient to feed all of the world’s people. It is therefore essential that agricultural productivity be significantly increased in a more sustainable and environmentally friendly approach. Plant-beneficiary rhizobacteria (PBR) naturally activate microorganisms found in the soil. Because they are inexpensive, effective, and environmentally friendly, PBR are gaining importance for use in crop production by restoring the soil’s natural fertility and protecting it against drought and soil diseases, thereby stimulating plant growth. PBR decrease the use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and artificial growth regulators; the intensive use of these inputs has led to severe health and environmental hazards, such as soil erosion, water contamination, pesticide poisoning, decreased groundwater table, water logging, surface crusting and depletion of biodiversity. The use of PBR has been proven to be an environmentally sound way of increasing crop yields by facilitating plant growth through either a direct or indirect mechanism with the aim of sustaining soil health over the long term.Not Availabl