Reading the Agricultural Landscape in a River Basin: Integrating Agro-ecological and Social Perspectives

AbstractAgricultural landscape of a river basin is constituted by interlinkages between resources used and social relations, both within the basin and linking the basin to the non-basin areas. Expanding scarcities of land and water resources, and the human response to these scarcities, make it imperative to freshly examine these concepts of resource interrelationships, basin unity and stewardship concerns in an agrarian landscape of a river basin from an integrated agroecological and social perspective. The trajectories of change in agricultural resource use at the river basin is conceptualized as influenced by and carried out within multilevel networks of social relations that exchange resources and engage in reciprocal interactions within and outside the river basin. Keywords: River basin, Agricultural landscape, Resource interlinkages, Stewardship, Agro-ecology, Agricultural production network

Comparision of Properitoneal Non Tension Sutured Mesh Repair Versus Conventional Mesh Repair for Reducing Postoperative Pain in Direct Inguinal Hernia - A Randomised Control Trial

AbstractBackground: Numerous repairs exist for direct inguinal hernias.  These repairs are limited by the shortcomings of their respective technique. Each study has its own self limitations for the reduction of postoperative pain. With the introduction of  Properitoneal  nontension sutured mesh repair, the postoperative pain has been lessened,proving efficacy in terms of decreased hospital stay, patient comfort and early return to activities. Hence there is need for comparing Properitoneal nontension sutured mesh repair with Conventional mesh repairs for the reduction of postoperative pain.Materials and Methods:A Randomized clinical trial was designed with a sample size of 60 patients, which were divided into 2 groups; Group A (properitoneal non tension sutured mesh repair) & Group B (conventional mesh repair). These two groups were analyzed for postoperative pain (visual analogue score) from 2 weeks to 12 weeks.Results:On analysis, three months follow up pain score is significantly less in the group A patients at 2week and even upto 8weeks, thereafter  no patients experienced any pain. In group B the pain is significantly more than Group A and minimal pain persisted until 11weeks. Conclusion:The results of the new technique demonstrate that it provides less postoperative pain than has been reported in other nontension mesh repairs. There is apparent advantage in the use of properitoneal nontension sutured mesh repair compared to conventional mesh repair. Short term follow up of the study did not allow any conclusion regarding recurrence rates, thus larger cohorts with longer follow up are needed.Keywords: hernia repair, properitoneal  nontension sutured mesh repair, lichenstein mesh repai

Centennial rainfall variation in semi arid and tropical humid environments in the cardamom hill slopes, southern Western Ghats, India

Studies of rainfall variation generally focus on large areas. For example, in India, the area average monsoon rainfall series of the whole country or meteorological subdivisions are used. This would be of no use for local agriculture, particularly in places where rainfall is very high or very low, especially for crops like small cardamom and vanilla which are very sensitive to soil moisture and atmospheric air relative humidity. With this view, we present the data and analysis of the long term rainfall variations in semi arid as well as tropical humid environments in cardamom hill slopes in south-WesternGhats in India. In our analysis, the semi-arid cardamom hill slopes showed decreasing trend in rainfall over the recent past three decades ranging from 2.7 to 3.4 mm/yr with R2 values ranging from 0.42 to 0.85 (P= 0.05). Year-to-year variation in rainfall was considerable. No alternating pattern of increase and decrease in rainfall was seen in decads, epochal trends as accounted by ISM for the rest of the country were absent. If the present trend continues, agricultural production in this semi-arid, poor rain fed system will suffer, unless conservation and mitigation efforts are undertaken. In case of windward side humid tropics, the year- to- year variations in the monthly rainfall values were very large. For example, January and February rainfall values changed by a factor as high as two or more from one year to another. The lowest rainfall during a period was reported in 1987 which was one of the intense El-Nino years. There was a strong association of El-Nino phenomenon with below average rainfall (67% of the El-Nino years), indicating a good ENSO relationship. In case of La-Nina years, fifty per cent of the years had enjoyed excess rainfall. However, the impact of El-Nino phenomenon was not severe during the first pentad of this century (2000-2005) in this mountain range. This indicates that the relationship seems to have weakened. The coefficient of variation of rainfall for the entire data series ranged from 9 to 27%. The decadal averages for the first three decades (1896-1925) and the last three decades (1976-2005) studied, reported less than the annual mean (5000 mm) for the whole period (1896-2005). Only during the middle period (1926-1975) the decadal average rainfall exceeded the series annual mean

Purification and characterization of antiviral protein from silkworm fecal matter

Antiviral proteins (AVP), present in silkworm fecal matter, show activity against nuclear polyhedrosis virus (NPV) in vitro and in vivo. The extract of silkworm fecal matter prepared in phosphate buffer solution of pH 7.5 was subjected to 50% solid ammonium sulfate precipitation to enrich AVP, then which was dialyzed. The dialysate was applied to the column containing silica gel-G, the column elutes were purified by gelfiltration chromatography. The gelfiltration pattern gave three protein peaks A, B and C. The protein obtained from peak fractions of peak A is found to be active against NPV in vitro. Whereas the proteins were obtained from peak fractions of peaks C and B were not shown activity against NPV in vitro. The peak A fractions were collected and further purified by High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) using C4 column. Purified AVP of SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) resulted in two protein bands with the molecular mass of 23 KD and 16 KD. Thymol sulphuric acid method of carbohydrate staining indicated that both of these protein bands are glycoproteins. AVP activity is determined in vitro by precipitation reaction. In vivo activity of the AVP is confirmed by conducting the bioassay in silkworms

Priapism – A Rare Presentation in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia: Case Report

Priapism is a complication rarely seen in leukemia. We report a 19-year-old man presented with persistent painful erection of penis for over 24 hours at home. The patient had underwent immediate irrigation and decompression of priapism by urologist at emergency services of the hospital. This approach resulted in a flaccid penis later. During hospitalization, peripheral blood smear and bone marrow aspiration confirmed the diagnosis of chronic myeloid leukemia