Improving Milk Yield Performance of Crossbred Cattle in North-Eastern States of India

Crossbreds hold the solution to the milk-deficit problem of North-Eastern states of India. The proportion of crossbred cattle in the region is 7.54 per cent (3.46 per cent of the country) as against 13.33 per cent for the country as a whole. However, the productivity of crossbred cattle has been found considerably low (4.8 L/day) in the region as against the all-India average of 6.4 L/day of milk yield. Yield gap analysis has been applied to find out the intra-regional milk yield gaps and the factors that could be addressed in the short-run to make-up the deficit. Based on the analysis, it has been identified that the major factors affecting the milk yield of crossbred animals in the N-E states are the technological and socio-economic constraints, which could be addressed by adopting improved management practices, better feeding practices, controlling of diseases and amelioration of the socio-economic conditions of the farmers through training, education and enhancing access to the funds. Addressal of these constraints will increase actual milk yield by about 66 per cent, sufficient enough to meet the deficit of milk requirement in the region. Category-wise yield gap analysis has shown that the highest increase in milk yield will be obtained on medium category households. The factors significantly affecting the milk yield at the household level are allocation of human-days per animal, expenditure on concentrate, economic status of the farmer and availability of the green fodder in the surroundings. While no major breakthrough is expected immediately, improvement in these factors would meet the milk deficit in the region.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Experimental and computational investigations of biomass mixing and combustion processes

Biomass is considered to be a promising source of sustainable energy and consequently it is attracting more research attention. The focus of this ongoing study is on the performance of biomass combustion processes. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques are planned to simulate the combustion process in various models. This is done in parallel with experimental work to understand the mixing and combustion behaviour biomass. For this purpose CFD models based on both Euler-Lagrange and Euler-Euler have been used. A new combustion chamber has been designed and fabricated to validate the theoretical models. As a first step research investigations on static combustion are currently underway. The mixing and concentration of a small fixed quantity of carbon powder has been investigated and some preliminary results are presented

Maximal ratio combining of two amplify-forward relay branches with individual links experiencing Nakagami fading

Abstract;Relay based communication has gained considerable importance in the recent years. In this paper we find the end-toend statistics of a two hop non-regenerative relay branch, with each hop being Nakagami-m distributed. Analytical expression for the density function of the signal envelope at the output of a maximal ratio combiner in the destination node is also derived and compared with the simulation results, assuming that the destination node receives the signal through two independent relay paths. These statistics are useful in evaluating the system performance

Time and angle of arrival statistics of mobile-tomobile communication channel employing dual annular strip model

Abstract: In this paper, a generalized channel model for mobile-to-mobile communication based on the single bounce geometrybased channel modeling techniques has been proposed and analyzed. The model assumes the scatterers to be present in annular strips around the transmitting and the receiving mobile stations. Time of arrival and angle of arrival statistics, being two important channel parameters, have been derived and verified through computer simulations

Effect of array geometry on the capacity of outdoor MIMO communication

Abstract: MIMO systems have gained immense attention in the recent times for supporting high data rates and reliability. Different MIMO channel models have been proposed in the literature. Geometrically based single bounce one ring channel model is a widely used technique for modeling the channel. Evaluation of the performance of the channel has been widely studied under a uniform linear and circular array assumption. Other easily implementable array geometries require to be explored. In this paper four different array geometries each having four elements have been studied

A Foliage Scatter Model to Determine Topology of Wireless Sensor Network

Abstract: 1Applications of low cost wireless sensor networks (WSN) in precision agriculture is gaining popularity because of the ability of sensors to provide site-specific data over a variable field. Wireless communication between nodes is impeded by the surrounding vegetation of the plants being monitored. To guarantee reliable communication between sensor nodes, the initial node density and topology of a WSN application has to consider the increased foliage of a mature plant. In this paper we propose a model for deployment of wireless nodes based on experimental results that takes into account the scattering effect of surrounding foliage on the wireless signal

An S-Parameter based modeling of a MIMO channel using half-wave dipole antennas

Abstract: In this paper we have introduced an S-parameter based approach for computation of MIMO channel matrix where the entire channel model is developed using half-wave dipoles. For the model under consideration, suitably terminated dipole antennas represent scatterers with different scattering coefficients. We first validate our approach by comparing results obtained by our method with the results already reported in literature for similar model evaluated using different method. Using our proposed method, we determine the variation of capacity of a MIMO link as function of separation of antennas in the mobile station for a macrocellular scenario where the scattering environment is represented by a ring of scatterers surrounding the mobile station. We further extend our approach for modeling a dual polarized MIMO system. Simulation results on capacity match with the expected results that further corroborate the effectiveness of our approach

Maximal Ratio combining In N Dual-hop Nakagami-m faded relay branches

Abstract: In recent years relay based communication has gained attention of researchers and the scientific community. In this paper the source-to-destination statistics of a two hop amplify-forward relay branch, with the channel fading statistics of each hop being Nakagami-m distributed has been evaluated. The expression for the statistics of the signal envelope at the output of a maximal ratio combiner in the destination node of a N-path dual-hop relay braches is derived and compared with the simulation results. The statistics are helpful in evaluating the performance of systems using co-operative dual hop relaying and employing maximal ratio combining at the receiver terminal

Wireless sensor node placement due to power loss effects from surrounding vegetation

Abstract: Wireless communication in an agricultural environment is weakened by surrounding vegetation. The scattering effect on the wireless signal by the foliage surrounding plants means that sensor nodes within the application area have to be placed so that the received signal strength ensures reliable communication. We propose modeling the scattering effect of surrounding foliage with a Gaussian distribution to determine the optimum placement of sensor nodes within the application area. An algorithm to place sensor nodes at optimum positions to ensure reliable communication is presented and analyzed

Prediction of electromagnetic wave attenuation in dust storms using Mie scattering

Abstract: Electromagnetic wave propagation in arid and semiarid regions is influenced by sand and dust storms. This phenomenon has received considerable interest in recent time with emphasis on signal attenuation. To this end, electromagnetic waves equation is proposed in this paper to compute and predict the attenuation of electromagnetic waves in dust storm, in which the propagating frequency, the dielectric constant of dust particles and the visibility during dust storm are accounted for. This was done based on modification of Mie theory. The proposed model enables convenient computation of electromagnetic waves attenuation using visibility, frequency and dust particles’ characteristics such as permittivity and particle radius. Accuracy of this model, especially when the attenuation is a function of visibility, is verified and validated by using existing models. It can be found that attenuation increases when the visibility during dust storms gets severe