A comparative analysis of phytoplankton diversity and abundance during monsoon season in selected beels (wetlands) of Assam, India

Water collected from 8 selected floodplain wetlands (beels) of Brahmaputra valley basin were examined using both filtered method (FM) and sedimentation method (SM) for the assessment of phytoplankton diversity and abundance. A total 22 and 41 species were recorded by employing FM and SM, respectively. There was a significance difference (p<0.05) between FM and SM. Species and abundance of phytoplankton were lesser in FM than SM and it was due to exclusion of minute size (<25?) from net and maximum retention of species in sedimentation method. Chlorophyta, Bacillariophyta, Cyanophyta, Euglenophyta, Chrysophyta and Dinophyta were recorded during study period. Chlorophyta, Bacillariophyta and Cyanophyta were dominant groups. Bacillariophyta was dominant group followed by Chlorophyta and Cyanophyta in FM while Chlorophyta was dominant group followed by Bacillariophyta and Cyanophyta SM. Total phytoplankton densities were recorded from 35 cells L-1 to 3808 cells L-1 in FM while 1.55×104 cells L-1 to 12.33×105 cells L-1 to in SM. Diversity indices of phytoplankton were varied widely in FM and SM. Siligurijan beel and Bildora beels were considered more stable environment than other beels based on diversity indices

Value creation using social media in a virtual business model: how Amazon approaches customer service on twitter

With the growing popularity of social media sites, consumer-focused businesses across industry sectors have started conducting both promotional activities and customer service related interactions via the same platforms. Companies can no longer hope to keep expressions of customer dissatisfaction hidden from the public eye. This preliminary qualitative study examines the exchanges between Amazon and their customers on the micro blogging platform Twitter from over a period of 18 days. 2385 conversations involving 6518 tweets were analyzed and coded to achieve an understanding of how an online shopping site is approaching promotions and customer service issues. The study provides insight on how Amazon uses Twitter to interact with customers in relation to their enquiries, suggestions, and negative and positive feedback

On spectra of Hermitian Randic matrix of second kind

We propose the Hermitian Randi\'c matrix $R^\omega(X)=(R^\omega_{ij})$, where $\omega=\frac{1+i \sqrt{3}}{2}$ and $R^\omega_{ij}={1}/{\sqrt{d_id_j}}$ if $v_iv_j$ is an unoriented edge, ${\omega}/{\sqrt{d_id_j}}$ if $v_i\rightarrow v_j$, ${\overline{\omega}}/{\sqrt{d_id_j}}$ if $v_i\leftarrow v_j$, and 0 otherwise. This appears to be more natural because of $\omega+\overline{\omega}=1$ and $|\omega|=1$. In this paper, we investigate some features of this novel Hermitian matrix and study a few properties like positiveness, bipartiteness, edge-interlacing etc. We also compute the characteristic polynomial for this new matrix and obtain some upper and lower bounds for the eigenvalues and the energy of this matrix

Self-organized Networks of Competing Boolean Agents

A model of Boolean agents competing in a market is presented where each agent bases his action on information obtained from a small group of other agents. The agents play a competitive game that rewards those in the minority. After a long time interval, the poorest player's strategy is changed randomly, and the process is repeated. Eventually the network evolves to a stationary but intermittent state where random mutation of the worst strategy can change the behavior of the entire network, often causing a switch in the dynamics between attractors of vastly different lengths.Comment: 4 pages, 3 included figures. Some text revision and one new figure added. To appear in PR

Bacteriological quality of water and diarrhoea among ethnic and non-ethnic communities of rural area of West Tripura, India

Background: Waterborne diseases are the major causes of health seeking by ethnic and non-ethnic communities of West Tripura district of India. Safe and wholesome water is a basic requirement for good health. Microbiological contamination of water is responsible for most of the waterborne diseases and diarrhoea is still a major killer of childhood.Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 177 ethnic and non-ethnic households chosen by multi stage sampling from West Tripura District of North East India during June - July 2016 to assess the bacteriological quality of water and to find out its association with the occurrence of diarrhoea.Results: Among the ethnic and non-ethnic households shallow tube wells were the source for 52.18% and 62.35 %, deep tube wells for 19.56% and 29.41%, and pipe water for 20.65 % and 5.89 households respectively. Sanitary latrines ware used in 46.73% ethnic and 50.59% non-ethnic households. In both the group filtration was practiced by 85% and no purification by 1%. Covered vessels were used for storing water in 94.57% ethnic and 95.30% non-ethnic households. Source of water was mildly contaminated in 15% ethnic and 10% non-ethnic, moderate and heavy contaminations were 11% and 8% each respectively in both the groups. At the point of consumption moderate and heavy contaminations were 2% each in ethnic households. Mild and severe contaminations were 3% and 1% respectively in non-ethnic group. Diarrhoea was significantly more frequent among households consuming coliform contaminated water (p<0.05).Conclusions: Half of the study population was using insanitary latrine and one fifth were collecting water from contaminated sources. Hence provision of safe water and promotion of sanitary latrine is needed to prevent waterborne diseases in this community

Properties of annealed jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.) seed starch

Jackfruit seed starch was annealed by single stage and double stage processes and characterised for changes in properties. Single-stage annealing gave higher crystalline order than double-stage annealed starch. No major change in the granular morphology was observed. Annealing resulted in notably altered pasting properties. Increased peak viscosity was indicative of molecular rigidity developed in the granules due to annealing. The increased thermal stability in DSC and specific peak sharpening in the XRD patterns of single-stage annealed starches indicated development of ‘site specific’ crystallinity. The new crystallites formed during the first stage of double-stage annealing were heat labile as crystallinity lowered after the second stage. Single stage annealed jackfruit seed starch can be used for noodle making

Occurrence of functional single-lobed ovary in Cirrhinus mrigala (Hamilton,1822) brood fish from Assam, India

Occurrence of abnormally developed gonads in fish is rather more uncommon in freshwater fish than marine fish. It is therefore worthwhile to disseminate the information of occurrence of a single-lobed ovary in Cirrhinus mrigala brood fish as an abnormal phenomenon. During April 2011 to March 2013, around 500 brood fish samples of Indian major carps (Labeo rohita, Catla and C. mrigala) were collected from different government and private fish farms of Assam and Tripura located in the Northeast of India. Among them, one C. mrigala specimen measuring 41 cm in total length and 640 g in weight collected from Ulubari fish seed farm of Guwahati, Assam during June, 2012 was found to have a single-lobed ovary instead of the normal bilobed structure. The ovary occupied the entire body cavity and the majority of ova were round and translucent. The ovary contributed substantially to the total body weight with gonado-somatic index of 32.81 which was the highest among all the mrigal specimens examined. The study indicates possibility of artificially inducing development of single-lobed ovary in C. mrigala for achieving possible higher spawn outputs in induced breeding of the cultivable species

Effect of Freezing Rate on Quality of Cryopreserved Goat Spermatozoa Using a Programmable Freezer

Abstract: A total of 45 ejaculates from nine Beetal bucks collected by artificial vagina, washed and extended i

A self-organized model for cell-differentiation based on variations of molecular decay rates

Systemic properties of living cells are the result of molecular dynamics governed by so-called genetic regulatory networks (GRN). These networks capture all possible features of cells and are responsible for the immense levels of adaptation characteristic to living systems. At any point in time only small subsets of these networks are active. Any active subset of the GRN leads to the expression of particular sets of molecules (expression modes). The subsets of active networks change over time, leading to the observed complex dynamics of expression patterns. Understanding of this dynamics becomes increasingly important in systems biology and medicine. While the importance of transcription rates and catalytic interactions has been widely recognized in modeling genetic regulatory systems, the understanding of the role of degradation of biochemical agents (mRNA, protein) in regulatory dynamics remains limited. Recent experimental data suggests that there exists a functional relation between mRNA and protein decay rates and expression modes. In this paper we propose a model for the dynamics of successions of sequences of active subnetworks of the GRN. The model is able to reproduce key characteristics of molecular dynamics, including homeostasis, multi-stability, periodic dynamics, alternating activity, differentiability, and self-organized critical dynamics. Moreover the model allows to naturally understand the mechanism behind the relation between decay rates and expression modes. The model explains recent experimental observations that decay-rates (or turnovers) vary between differentiated tissue-classes at a general systemic level and highlights the role of intracellular decay rate control mechanisms in cell differentiation.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Food spectrum dynamics of anadromous Hilsa, Tenualosa ilisha (Hamilton, 1822) inhabiting River Brahmaputra, India curtailing apprehension of food selectivity: An insight into its domestication

Food and feeding habits of Tenualosa ilisha collected from two sampling locations in Brahmaputra River, Assam, India for a period of 12 months from May 2018 to April 2019 were studied. Index of preponderance revealed semi-digested animal matter (25.92 %) as the most dominant food item followed by Bacillariophyta (23.32 %). 31 genera of phytoplankton and 15 genera of zooplankton were observed in the gut of the species. Major groups of zooplankton include cladocerans, copepods, followed by rotifers, while diatoms, green algae and blue green algae were dominant phytoplankton groups. The anadromous tropical shad is planktivorous by nature and has a preference for zooplankton in smaller size groups (&lt; 250 mm) and phytoplankton in larger size groups (&gt; 250 mm). GaSI values (mean±SE) ranged from 1.50±0.14 to 6.93±0.89 and HSI values from 0.58±0.06 to 1.54±0.15. Index of fullness was found to range from 7.08±0.42 to 1.81±0.40. Feeding intensity, GaSI, HSI values showed seasonal variation, found to be low during October to December and high during February to June. Size group-wise analysis of feeding intensity showed high feeding intensity in lower size groups (&lt; 250 mm) and comparatively low feeding intensity and high percentage of empty stomachs in higher size groups (&gt; 250 mm). RLG values ranged from 1.181±0.028 to 1.450±0.052. Monthly average RLG values were found to be highest during November and in the size group of 351 – 400 mm. Changes in food composition were noticed in both months and as well as size groups