Elevating fishers of Dal Lake in Jammu and Kashmir

The deteriorating condition of one of the most magnificent lakes of India, the Dal Lake, has provoked a lot of research interest from the biological and ecological points of view. However, the impact of deterioration of the ecology on the inhabitant fisher folk around Dal Lake has not been given much importance. In this study, the three major beats of the lake, namely, Hazratbal, Nishat and Nehru Park, were surveyed, randomly taking 10% of the fishermen families. It was observed that the summer mean catch per day (5.18 ± 0.69 kg) was more than the mean winter catch per day (2.85 ± 0.40 kg). However, the total annual catch per person was only 1195.56 ± 211.63 kg. Moreover, marketing through middlemen, especially, during summer, was observed to be very low fetching in terms of mean price per kilogram fish, amounting to Rs 37.50 ± 2.54 for local fish and Rs 22.50 ± 2.88 for the carp. It was also observed that the fisher folk had borrowed a good amount of money for the repair and construction of their houses and boats. Therefore, on the whole, the fishing business around Dal Lake was observed to be under severe stress. In this context, this paper has come out with recommendations to uplift the socio-economic conditions of the fishers

IMPROVEMENT OF DIPOLE ANTENNA GAIN USING 8 CBU AMC-EBG AND 8 CBU FSS

This paper investigates the performances of dipole antenna incorporated with and without 8 CBU AMC-EBG and 8 CBU FSS at 5.8 GHz. The designs are simulated on Rogers RO 3010. Due to the flexibility of the material used as a substrate, the effect of a different angle is investigated. Both 8 CBU AMC-EBG and 8 CBU FSS act as reasonably good ground plane for the dipole antenna and help improving the realised gain and improve the radiation patterns by push the front lobe at the same time reduce the side lobes. The maximum improvements led by dipole antenna with 8 CBU AMC-EBG thus 8.543 dB of realised gain achieved and the front lobe is pushed higher and the side lobe is significantly lowered than with 8 CBU FSS. The designs of dipole antenna with 8 CBU AMC-EBG and 8 CBU FSS can be applied as high gain atenna for Intelligent Transport System (ITS)

Seasonal variation of mixed layer depth in the north Arabian Sea

The Arabian Sea is unique due to the extremes in atmospheric forcing that lead to the semi-annual seasonal changes. The reversing winds of summer and winter monsoon induce the variation in the characteristics of mixed layer depth. The importance of mixed layer depth is recognized in studying the biological productivity in the ocean. In this paper variability of mixed layer depth in the north Arabian Sea have been discussed. The study is based on the data collected under North Arabian Sea Environment and Ecosystem Research (NASEER) program. The results of the study indicate that there is a significant variation in the mixed layer depth from summer to winter monsoon as well as coast to offshore

The President’s Failure in Implementing Presidential Visions, Missions and Programs: Tort or Breach of Contract? (Civil Law Perspective)

The visions, missions and programs are offered by candidate in the Presidential election campaign, so they become part of the campaign promises. Campaign promises does not meet the requirements of the contract in Article 1320 of the Indonesian Civil Code, so the failure of fulfilling campaign promises is not breach of contract (based on Judge’s decision on the Case Number 17/PDT.G/2009/PN.JKT.PST). In the name of justice for the people, the failure of fulfilling campaign promise must be able to be sued in court. Since the presidential visions, missions and programs are regulated by Laws, so the failure in implementing it is unlawful (tort) based on the Case Number 278/PDT.G/2010/PN.JKT.PST. The lawsuit against the President for his failure is not to dismiss the President, but to force the President to implement the visions, missions and programs in his term of office. Keywords: campaign promise; torts; breach of contract; presidential vision, mission and program

Establishment of a complete alien tomato chromosome addition series in potato through the use of GISH and RFLP analyses

Producing somatic fusion hybrids between distantly related non-crossable taxa opened the possibilities for the introgression of useful genes or chromosomes from various species to cultivated crops. The molecular biological techniques like genome analysis by molecular markers, amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and in situ hybridization (ISH) have enabled the identification of genomes and individual chromosomes with great accuracy and efficiency. These techniques have surpassed all the difficulties that were faced in conventional breeding or classical cytogenetics in identification of desirable chromosomes and genes.The main aims of the present series of investigation, were the following; a) to complete the series of monosomic alien tomato addition lines by identifying the five chromosomes (3,5,7,9,11) that were not identified in a previous investigation; b) to gain more insight into the possible phenotype in a nullisomic potato background of a known genetic locus (amylose-free) present on one of the monosomic addition chromosome; c) to explore the possibilities of increasing the prospects of intergenomic recombination between potato and tomato chromosomes by crossing with a bridge species and d) to test whether homoeologous recombination segments can be cytologically detected, i.e., through GISH, so that the alien segments can be monitored in individual potato chromosomes for the purpose of introgression of tomato encoded traits in potato.For this purpose, basically a combination of RFLP and GISH analyses was used to identify and prove the presence of an alien tomato chromosome in potato. Where all the monosomic addition lines were identified, an additional disomic line was also identified for chromosome 11 by GISH analysis. Meiotic analysis of this disomic addition had a tendency for precocious separation of the paired homologous alien chromosomes at metaphase I and anaphase I stages. There is no definite answer for such a behaviour but a higher ploidy level of potato is reasoned as one cause. This high ploidy level is also a drawback for the phenotypic expression of alien tomato genes. To study phenotypic expression, an attempt was made to introduce the amylose-free wildtype locus of tomato ( Amft ), which is involved in the synthesis of amylose during starch formation, into a nulliplex ( amfp4 ) genotype of potato. The Amft is present on chromosome 8 of tomato that is homoeologous to chromosome 8 of potato. The idea was to complement tomato chromosome 8 for potato chromosome 8 and see its effect on starch formation and synthesis. Unfortunately, the complementation for chromosome 8 of potato was not achieved through chromosome 8 ( Amft ) of tomato because of its too low transmission frequency. Despite this absence, two types of starch phenotypes were attributed to the simplex Amfpamfp3condition, clearly indicating variable expression of the wildtype Amfp -allele in different genetic backgrounds. The two starch phenotypes observed consisted of blue or red starch granules with a blue core. However, previous investigations by our group have shown that very little, if any, homoeologous recombination occurs between the chromosomes of potato and tomato. In order to overcome the lack of recombination between potato and tomato genomes, the use of a "bridge species", Lycopersicon pennellii was tested. For this purpose, the tetraploid potato (+) tomato fusion hybrid was successfully crossed with the diploid L. pennellii which gave rise to a trigenomic hybrid. The trigenomic hybrid consisting of one genome each of potato, tomato and L. pennellii indeed showed trivalent formation at metaphase I stage during microsporogenesis but it was highly sterile. After chromosome doubling through tissue culture of this triploid a typical hexaploid was produced. Despite the expected normal meiotic chromosome pairing, the hexaploid also proved to be sterile.In order to test whether it is possible at all to cytologically identify recombinant segments, an investigation was carried out by using F 1 hybrids between L. esculentum and L. pennellii and its backcross progeny. Because these two species are relatively closely related the homoeologous chromosomes paired and crossing over as well as recombinant segments were certainly expected in the meiotic product of their F 1 hybrids. A detailed GISH analysis of both mitotic and meiotic chromosomes indicated that in the case of small chromosomes such as found in tomato and L. pennellii it is not possible to differentiate recombinant segments in a comparable way to those found in hybrids and their backcrosses in species with large chromosomes (e.g., Alstroemeria and Lily). However, in case of tomato x L. pennellii hybrids it was possible to visualize and differentiate the heterochromatic region around the centromeres of the chromosomes and we could differentiate between the chromosomes to these two genomes following the GISH hybridization pattern. In the absence of cytological detection methods to prove introgression, an alternative has to be used such as RFLP and AFLP molecular mapping methods.It might be concluded from the series this investigations that a) the fusion hybrids could be used for backcrossing; b) potato genotypes do retain all alien tomato chromosomes to a reasonable extent (i.e., no preferential elimination) and that these alien chromosomes are transmitted to progenies; c) there is very little or no homoeologous recombination between potato and tomato chromosomes; d) the use of the bridge species, L. pennellii can facilitate exchange of genetic material between potato and tomato after sterility problems have been solved. In principle, potato (+) tomato fusion hybrids can be used for introgression, though the process to come to it is laborious.</p

Facial Emotion Recognition Based on Empirical Mode Decomposition and Discrete Wavelet Transform Analysis

This paper presents a new framework of using empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and discrete wavelet transform (DWT) with an application for facial emotion recognition. EMD is a multi-resolution technique used to decompose any complicated signal into a small set of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) based on sifting process. In this framework, the EMD was applied on facial images to extract the informative features by decomposing the image into a set of IMFs and residue. The selected IMFs was then subjected to DWT in which it decomposes the instantaneous frequency of the IMFs into four sub band. The approximate coefficients (cA1) at first level decomposition are extracted and used as significant features to recognize the facial emotion. Since there are a large number of coefficients, hence the principal component analysis (PCA) is applied to the extracted features. The k-nearest neighbor classifier is adopted as a classifier to classify seven facial emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, neutral, sadness and surprise). To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method, the JAFFE database has been employed. Based on the results obtained, the proposed method demonstrates the recognition rate of 80.28%, thus it is converging

Development of Microstrip Monopole Antenna Integrated with Light Emitting Diode (LED)

This paper presents the integration of Microstrip Antenna with Light Emitting Diode (LED). The objective of this design is to have a dual application in one single antenna, which is for wireless communication and illumination. Based on the result, the frequency is inversely proportional to the increase of the antenna size. The LED itself acts as a conductance for the antenna as it is also a part of the antenna. The antenna design is based on the structure of monopole antenna at 3.6 GHz. To design the antenna structure, Computer Simulation Technology (CST) was used with the permittivity, r = 4.3 thickness, h = 1.6mm on FR4 substrate. The SMD5050 LED was used to integrate the antenna structure in parallel connection. The effects of integrating the LED into the antenna structure of antenna were determined through the performance of antenna in terms of return loss, gain, directivity and the efficiency. The results are 3.88GHz during the OFF state for the resonant frequency with -23.88dB return loss, whereby the results during the ON state are 3.75 GHz and -21.2 dB, respectively

Current advances in lipid and polymeric antimicrobial peptide delivery systems and coatings for the prevention and treatment of bacterial infections

Bacterial infections constitute a threat to public health as antibiotics are becoming less effective due to the emergence of antimicrobial resistant strains and biofilm and persister formation. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are considered excellent alternatives to antibiotics; however, they suffer from limitations related to their peptidic nature and possible toxicity. The present review critically evaluates the chemical characteristics and antibacterial effects of lipid and polymeric AMP delivery systems and coatings that offer the promise of enhancing the efficacy of AMPs, reducing their limitations and prolonging their half-life. Unfortunately, the antibacterial activities of these systems and coatings have mainly been evaluated in vitro against planktonic bacteria in less biologically relevant conditions, with only some studies focusing on the antibiofilm activities of the formulated AMPs and on the antibacterial effects in animal models. Further improvements of lipid and polymeric AMP delivery systems and coatings may involve the functionalization of these systems to better target the infections and an analysis of the antibacterial activities in biologically relevant environments. Based on the available data we proposed which polymeric AMP delivery system or coatings could be profitable for the treatment of the different hard-to-treat infections, such as bloodstream infections and catheter- or implant-related infections.Immunogenetics and cellular immunology of bacterial infectious disease

A Multicultural Demographic Study to Evaluate the Impact of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic on the Job Satisfaction across the Dental Industry

Objective: To evaluate the difference in working conditions as perceived by dentists during the pandemic and their professional satisfaction levels. Material and Methods: An online survey was conducted using the convenience and snowball sampling methods. Two hundred seventy-two respondents across various countries answered information related to socio-demographic data and work satisfaction levels during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Results: 40.1% of dentists reported dissatisfied with their current work, while another 13.6% of dentists fell in the extremely dissatisfied category. 22.8% of dentists were significantly dissatisfied with their current income. Furthermore, 38.4% of the dentists were dissatisfied with physical working conditions, while 33.5% reported dissatisfaction with the freedom of working methods. Conclusion: This study was focused on the connection between various intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting working conditions, social interactions, and psychological stresses. From the findings of this multicultural study, we can see that dentists across different countries have been affected and have varying levels of dissatisfaction. Therefore, regulatory authorities must plan for support and interventional programs to help dental professionals pass this difficult period