Combining extension services with agricultural credit

India has nearly 90 million farm households. More than 80 percent of these farmers operate on a small or marginal scale, farming less than two hectares of land. They also usually have one or two buffaloes or cows, reared for milk and dung. Most of these small and marginal farmers fall below the poverty line. To reduce overall poverty in India, it is important to enhance the incomes of small and marginal farmers. One way to do that is to provide credit so they can get access to yield-enhancing inputs like seed, fertilizer, and cattle feed, as well as acquire irrigation pumps and crossbred cattle. But these kinds of investments alone will not raise farmers’ incomes. Agricultural and livestock development services are also crucial to give farmers knowledge of improved practices and strengthen their links to markets. BASIX is an Indian livelihood promotion institution working with more than a million poor households. Its mission is to promote sustainable livelihoods for a large number of rural poor people and women. When it started in 1996, BASIX’s primary focus was delivering microcredit to its customers. In 2001, however, BASIX asked the Indian Market Research Bureau to carry out an impact assessment, and the results were rather disappointing. Only 52 percent of the customers, who had received at least three rounds of microcredit from BASIX, showed a significant increase in their income (compared with a control group); 25 percent reported no change in income level; and 23 percent reported a decline in their income level. BASIX then carried out a detailed study of those who had experienced no increase or a decline in income and found that the reasons for these results could be grouped into three factors: 1. unmanaged risk; 2. low productivity; and 3. unfavorable terms in input and output market transactions.agricultural extension, BASIX, Rural poverty, Sustainable livelihoods,

Formulation design, development and characterization of dexibuprofen emulgel for topical delivery: In-vitro and In-vivo evaluation

Emulgels have emerged as a promising drug delivery system for the delivery of hydrophobic drugs. The objective of the study was to prepare emulgel of Dexibuprofen, a NSAID, using Carbapol 940 as a gelling agent. Clove oil and Mentha oil were used as penetration enhancers. The emulsion was prepared and it was added in gel base. The formulations were evaluated for rheological studies, spreading coefficient studies, bioadhesion strength, skin irritation studies, in vitro release, ex vivo release studies, anti-inflammatory activity and analgesic activity. Formulation showed comparable analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity when they compared with marketed diclofenac sodium gel. So, it can be concluded that topical emulgel of Dexibuprofen possess an effective anti-inflammatory and analgesic activity. Keywords: Emulgel, Dexibuprofen, Topical Drug Delivery, bioavailability, NSAID

Attention, Compilation, and Solver-based Symbolic Analysis are All You Need

In this paper, we present a Java-to-Python (J2P) and Python-to-Java (P2J) back-to-back code translation method, and an associated tool called CoTran, based on large language models (LLMs). Our method leverages the attention mechanism of LLMs, compilation, and symbolic execution-based test generation for equivalence testing between the input and output programs. More precisely, we modify the typical LLM training loop to incorporate compiler and symbolic execution loss. Via extensive experiments comparing CoTran with 12 other transpilers and LLM-based translation tools over a benchmark of more than 57,000 Java-Python equivalent pairs, we show that CoTran outperforms them on relevant metrics such as compilation and runtime equivalence accuracy. For example, our tool gets 97.43% compilation accuracy and 49.66% runtime equivalence accuracy for J2P translation, whereas the nearest competing tool only gets 92.84% and 40.95% respectively

Clinical Profile and Outcomes of COVID-19 in Renal Transplant Recipients

There is minimal information on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in developing countries regarding renal transplant recipients (RTRs). This paper aimed to study the clinical profile, immunosuppressive regimen, treatment, and outcomes in an RTR with COVID-19. This retrospective study was conducted in the nephrology department of Sri Aurobindo Medical College & Postgraduate Institute, Indore (MP), India, from April 1, 2020 to December 15, 2020. We studied 15 patients, of which 13 were treated at our hospital and two were treated in OPD. The median age of transplant recipients was 45 (Interquartile range [IQR]: 26–62) years, the majority being males, and recipients presented at a median of 4 (IQR: 0.3–11) years after transplant. The most common comorbidities included hypertension in 14 (94%) and diabetes 3 (20%) patients. The presenting symptoms at presentation were cough (80%), headache (52%), fever (46%), and breathlessness (26%). Clinical severity as per computerized tomography (CT) severity score ranged from mild (20%), moderate (53%), and severe (27%). Strategies to modify immunosuppressants included discontinuation of antimetabolites without changes in calcineurin inhibitors and steroids (100%). Antiviral therapy (Favipiravir and Remdesivir) was associated with better outcomes and reduced hospital stay. Risk factors for mortality included ABO-incompatibility, severity of disease, high Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Reporting and Data System (CO-RADS) score, allograft dysfunction before COVID-19 infection, acute kidney injury, elevated inflammatory markers, and intensive care unit/ventilator requirement. Overall patient mortality was 13.2%. Risk factor for mortality in COVID-19 positive with RTR appears to be ABO-incompatible transplant, having a previous history of rejection, and patient requiring ventilatory support

Characterization of <em>Allium</em> germplasms for conservation and sustainable management using SSR markers

193-199Allium species are very important due to their medicinal values. Quercetin and allicin are medicinally important compound of onion and garlic, respectively which are proved useful to treat various diseases. However, highly heterozygous nature, self-incompatibility and long gestation period limits genetic improvement of Allium species. Further, the existing germplasms in Indian subcontinents are largely cultivated ones with poor genetic characterization, which limits the germplasm conservation and future management. A total of thirty polymorphic Simple Sequence Repeats (SSRs) were utilized for characterisation of popular onion germplasms and their cross-transferability revealed relatedness with fifteen garlic and wild relatives. Average number of alleles per SSR locus, PIC and heterozygosity was found to be 3.9, 0.51 and 0.57,respectively.Overall genetic diversity recorded was higher in wild relative compared to cultivated A. cepa, possibly because most of the A. cepa variety is derived by domestication but wild relatives are open pollinated and undergoes extensive gene pool shuffling leading to higher heterogeneity. In this study, SSR markers were successfully utilized to assess genetic variations in popular Indian A. cepa, A. sativum and establish genetic relationships with wild Allium species. These markers can be harnessed for molecular breeding, varietal identification and planning germplasm conservation strategies in future