Physiological Efficiency of some Weeds Species under Hill Farming Systems of Subtropical Meghalaya

Weeds are integral part of any farming system. Weeds are more aggressive in their ability to utilize limited moisture and nutrients in the soil relative to cultivated crops. Weeds grow more profusely in high rainfall areas such as subtropical Meghalaya owing to favourable climatic conditions which favours the growth of weeds particularly in uplands and limits the crop yields due to increased crop-weed competition for nutrients and light. The weed species such as Ageratum conyzoides, Spilanthus acmella, Galinsoga parviflora, Bidens pilosa, Crassocephalum crepidioides, Polygonum capitatum, Alternanthera philoxeroides, Amaranthus spinosus and Mikania micrantha are very common in most of the cultivated crops. These weeds are also very common in grazing lands, wastelands, agroforestry systems, abandoned fields etc. in northeast India and some of them are also consumed as green vegetables by the local inhabitants. Most of these weeds are also a menace in fodder cultivation and managing grasslands. A high rate of photosynthesis is always associated with higher productivity, unless sink capacity is limiting. However, studies on photosynthesis and its associated parameters in relation to crop-weed competition are limited. Therefore, an attempt was made to study the photosynthesis rate, transpiration rate, stomatal conductance and other associated parameters in major crops and the associated weed species under hill environment

Assessment of Cell Toxicity and Oxidation Catalytic Activity of Nanosized Zinc-doped Ceria UV Filter

The abundance of cerium in natural resources, its ability to absorb UV light while being transparent to visible light, as well as low photocatalytic activity make ceria (CeO2) a promising candidate for UV filter material in sunscreens. Doping with different elements can further decrease ceria catalytic and photocatalytic activity, thus preventing the degradation of other sunscreen ingredients. In this work, pure and zinc-doped ceria nanoparticles were prepared by a simple and environmentally benign hydrothermal synthesis, and characterized using various techniques. Fine ceria and doped ceria nanoparticles with particle sizes of 6.1±0.9 and 4.2±0.4 nm were prepared. In both samples, cubic ceria was the only crystalline phase, but the homogeneous distribution of zinc in the doped sample was confirmed by energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry. Nanoparticles exhibited transparency in the visible region and absorbance in the UV region with band gap of 3.23 to 3.14 eV for pure and doped sample, respectively. The oxidation stability time, determined through Castor oil oxidation process, was 23 hours for the pure and 15 hours for the doped sample, which is quite satisfactory. In vitro cytotoxicity study showed that the prepared nanoparticles were well tolerated by human skin keratinocytes (HaCaT cell line) with no significant differences in skin cells viability. However, further investigations on in vivo systems are necessary to reach a firm conclusion regarding the toxicity of ceria and doped ceria nanoparticles, and other potential dopants should be considered for improvement of ceria properties for sunscreen application. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Video synthesis from Intensity and Event Frames

Event cameras, neuromorphic devices that naturally respond to brightness changes, have multiple advantages with respect to traditional cameras. However, the difficulty of applying traditional computer vision algorithms on event data limits their usability. Therefore, in this paper we investigate the use of a deep learning-based architecture that combines an initial grayscale frame and a series of event data to estimate the following intensity frames. In particular, a fully-convolutional encoder-decoder network is employed and evaluated for the frame synthesis task on an automotive event-based dataset. Performance obtained with pixel-wise metrics confirms the quality of the images synthesized by the proposed architecture

From Composite Indicators to Partial Orders: Evaluating Socio-Economic Phenomena Through Ordinal Data

In this paper we present a new methodology for the statistical evaluation of ordinal socio-economic phenomena, with the aim of overcoming the issues of the classical aggregative approach based on composite indicators. The proposed methodology employs a benchmark approach to evaluation and relies on partially ordered set (poset) theory, a branch of discrete mathematics providing tools for dealing with multidimensional systems of ordinal data. Using poset theory and the related Hasse diagram technique, evaluation scores can be computed without performing any variable aggregation into composite indicators. This way, ordinal scores need not be turned into numerical values, as often done in evaluation studies, inconsistently with the real nature of the phenomena at hand. We also face the problem of \u201cweighting\u201d evaluation dimensions, to account for their different relevance, and show how this can be handled in pure ordinal terms. A specific focus is devoted to the binary variable case, where the methodology can be specialized in a very effective way. Although the paper is mainly methodological, all of the basic concepts are illustrated through real examples pertaining to material deprivation

Soil health as affected by altered land configuration and conservation tillage in a groundnut (Arachis hypogaea) - toria (Brassica campestris var toria) cropping system

A field experiment was conducted during the year 2009-11 at ICAR Research Complex for North Eastern Hill Region (NEHR), Meghalaya to study the influence of land configuration and conservation tillage on soil health in a groundnut-toria cropping system. The experiment consisted of seven treatments [i. flat bed farmer’s practice (FP) no residue; ii. broad beds and furrows (BBF) with residue incorporation; iii. BBF with residue + hedge leaves (Tephrosia sp) incorporation; iv. BBF with residue + hedge leaves (no tillage, NT); v. raised bed (RB) with residue incorporation; vi. RB with residue + hedge leaves incorporation; vii. RB with residue + hedge leaves (NT)] laid out in randomised block design and replicated thrice. The conservation treatments were found to significantly improve biological activity and chemical properties of soil. However, physical properties such as texture and bulk density were not significantly affected by any of the treatments. Infiltration rate and hydraulic conductivity were 108% and 46% higher, respectively, in the treatments under RB with residue + hedge leaves (NT) as compared to FP. Soil microbial biomass carbon was 67% higher under RB with residue + hedge leaves incorporation than FP after the harvest of both the crops in the second year while dehydrogenase activity was 135% higher in RB with residue + hedge leaves (NT) after the harvest of groundnut and RB with residue incorporation after the harvest of toria than FP, respectively. System productivity under RBs were significantly higher than that recorded under BBF and FB. Conservation treatments showed better soil health at the end of the cropping cycles and it is concluded that raised beds along with residue management can provide an alternative and sustainable technology contributing to sustainable agriculture in the NEHR of India which can be extrapolated to other similar areas