Vayala Vasudevan Pillai: A Playwright Par Excellence

Vasudevan Pillai is an eminent theatre personality who made significant contributions to the development of indigenous theatre concepts particularly to Malayalam theatre. His spirit of inquiry and quest for knowledge in performing arts were so high that he travelled far and wide and interacted with world renowned dramatists like Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski, Richard Schechner and Bertolt Brecht which gave him new insights into the world of theatre. Though he had acquired the technical skills of different theatres he never tried to imitate those into the native theatre. Following the footsteps of his mentor G. Sankara Pillai, who set a direction to his dramatic genius Vasudevan Pillai attempted to explore the latent indigenous theatre tradition of Kerala. However, Western theatrical techniques had an influence in shaping his dramatic concepts. Though he has a deep knowledge of the philosophy and techniques of both Eastern and Western theatres, he has not tried to deliberately fit them into his composition and presentation. He preached and penned what he thought proper. Thus he became the voice and expression of truth and humanity in Malayalam theatre

Dimensionality Reduction Using Band Selection Technique for Kernel Based Hyperspectral Image Classification

AbstractHyperspectral images have abundant of information stored in the various spectral bands ranging from visible to infrared region in the electromagnetic spectrum. High data volume of these images have to be reduced, preserving the original information, to ensure efficient processing. In this paper, dimensionality reduction is done on Indian Pines and Salinas-A datasets using inter band block correlation coefficient technique followed by Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) and QR decomposition. The dimensionally reduced images are classified using GURLS and LibSVM. Classification accuracies of the original image is compared to that of the dimensionally reduced image. The experimental analysis shows that, for 10% training sample the overall accuracy, average accuracy and kappa coefficient of the dimensionally reduced image (about 50% of the dimension is reduced) is i)83.52%, 77.18%, 0.8110 for Indian Pines and ii)99.53%, 99.40%, 0.9941 for Salinas-A dataset which is comparable to that of original image i)84.67%, 82.28%, 0.8247 for Indian Pines and ii)99.32%, 99.18%, 0.9916 for Salinas-A dataset

Smart Approach for Public Transport

This paper is to provide public a Smart Assistance in Public Transport System. The paper is to be implemented for public bus (for PMTs in Pune). It has the entire smart assistance system required for public security and safety. The smart system includes safety form rash driving as well. It has accident detection and monitoring facility. It also has user friendly application for user to track bus on smart their phones. The smart system designed has both online (GPS) and offline (GSM) for user friendly service. It allows user to save its time by acknowledging no. of persons present in the bus as well as no. of seats available in the bus along with the current and next stop acknowledgment with its arrival timings. It also has ramp facility for handicap people. The system also many additions feature to make public transport system an intelligent and easy to use system so that public can take smart advantage of it. The system is specially designed for Smart Cities as it\u27s the recent development plan

Aqua­{6,6′-dimeth­oxy-2,2′-[ethane-1,2-diylbis(nitrilo­methyl­idyne)]diphenolato}(4-hydroxy­benzoato)manganese(III)

The title compound, [Mn(C18H18N2O4)(C7H5O3)(H2O)], was synthesized by a template reaction of ethane-1,2-diamine and 3-methoxy­salicylaldehyde in presence of manganese(II) 4-hydroxy­benzoate. The Jahn–Teller-distorted manganese(III) centre has an octa­hedral geometry. Extensive O—H⋯O hydrogen-bonding inter­actions generate a two-dimensional sheet structure parallel to (103)

Insight into the gut microbiology of wild-caught Mangrove Red Snapper, Lutjanus argentimaculatus (Forsskal, 1775)

Documenting bacteria present in healthy individuals forms the first step in understanding the effects of microbial manipulation in aquaculture systems. Among the commensal microflora, gut microbiota has attracted extensive attention owing to their role in host metabolism and health maintenance. Basic knowledge on normal gut microbes within a particular host species is thus essential to determine how successfully these microbes can be manipulated and engineered for sustainable aquaculture systems. In spite of the good aquaculture potential of Mangrove red snapper, Lutjanus argentimaculatus, the information on microbial communities associated with the gut of this fish, and their contribution towards digestive efficiency and disease resistance is scarce. Therefore, an attempt was made to elucidate the abundance and diversity of cultivable gut microbes of wild caught L. argentimaculatus along with their digestive exoenzyme profiles and prohibitory effect against fish pathogens. Results on abundance showed similar gut bacterial loads as that of other marine fish imposing the less contribution of microflora to the volume of gut materials in fish. Eleven distinct bacterial species including two proposed novel vibrios were identified. An incidental observation of Morganella morganii throughout samples is an alarming signal, emphasizing the need for immediate de-gutting to avoid histamine intoxication. Abundance of digestive enzyme producers and excellent enzymatic potential of some isolates suggested the contribution of digestive enzymes may supplement to the symbiosis between gut flora and host and the information is of interest to aquaculture nutritionists/commercial industries. Interestingly, some isolates demonstrated estimable co-aggregation with aquatic pathogens, indicating their involvement in disease resistance and the results correlated well with gut microbial diversity. These findings highlight the significant role of gut microbes towards nutritional physiology and disease resistance of this aquaculture candidate in natural ecosystem. The culturable microbiota profiles of wild fish generated in the study can be applied for measuring the quality of husbandry routines in aquaculture facility of this marine fish. Overall, the present study fetches insights on the gut microbiome of healthy L. argentimaculatus which forms a platform for follow-up studies. The study may also help in the development of “functional” fish feeds for L. argentimaculatus. The investigation also demonstrated some potential digestive enzyme-producing isolates having probiotic applications in commercial aquaculture

Climbing the ladder of success through Pearl spot seed production technology: The saga of SHG entrepreneurs in Vallarpadam

Climbing the ladder of success through Pearl spot seed production technology: The saga of SHG entrepreneurs in Vallarpada

Effect of biocontrol agents on production of rooted back pepper cutting in serpentine method

Availability of disease free quality planting material is a major limiting factor in black pepper cultivation. In order to meet the increasing demand and also to create awareness on good agricultural practices for healthy disease free planting material production to farmers, a nursery experiment was started with improved varieties of black pepper by adopting a non-chemical bio-intensive management strategy. Here solarization of potting mixture was the main concern followed my amending the solarized potting mixture with potential bioagents. The experiment was designed in a two factor CRD with four improved varieties and five treatments. Each treatment contains a combination of two bioagents with antifungal and nematicidal properties respectively. The common recommended fungicide Metalaxyl-Mancozeb (0.125%) and nematicide carbsosulfan (0.1%) was used as control. The treatments were incorporated individually into solarized potting mixture and planted with improved varieties used viz., IISR Girimunda, Malabar Excel, Shakti and Thevam, The plants in each treatment were kept for multiplication by serpentine method with proper irrigation and phytosanitation. The results of plant growth and establishment in different treatments, showed that  fortification of solarized potting mixture with Trichoderma harzianum + Pochonia chlamydosporia combination or combination of Streptomyces  strains  (Act 2+9) are significantly superior (35.46% and 21% respectively) for the production of healthy rooted planting material. IISR Malabar Excel and IISR Thevam produced the maximum  number of plants from a single node cutting in treatment with T. harzianum + P. chlamydosporia (T1) (59 nos. and 51 nos. respectively) followed by Malabar Excel with Act 2+9 and Act 5+9 (45 nos. each). So an average of 6-7 plants/month/cutting was produced in the potential treatment while it was only 3-4 plants in control. The advantage of the method is that, after solarization and fortification with respective bioagents, there is no need for further application of any fungicides, insecticides or any other nutrient spray as usually done. Thus the method of soil solarization followed by fortification of either T. harzianum+ P. chlamydosporia  or combination of Streptomyces strains viz., Ketasatospora setae (Act 2) and S. tauricus (Act9) is found suitable for the production of healthy quality planting material of high yielding varieties to meet the increasing demand of planting material with a C:B ratio of 1:2

Book of Abstracts & Success Stories National Conference on Marine Debris COMAD 2018

Marine debris has become a global problem with considerable threats to the habitat and to the functions of marine ecosystem. One of the first reports of large areas of plastics in the ocean has been by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1988 about the Great Pacific Garbage patch or the Pacific trash vortex, where the density of litter is estimated as four numbers per cubic meter. Globally, this shocking information led to initiation of new research programs on marine litter and in India, the ICAR-CMFRI started an in house research program on this theme in 2007.Understanding the significance of this ecological problem which is purely a direct impact of anthropogenic activity, the Marine Biological Association of India decided to organise a National Conference on Marine Debris (COMAD 2018 ) with an aim to bring together researchers, planners, NGOs, entrepreneurs and local governing bodies working on this theme. Thus, this conference was planned with three main componentsunderstand the research outputs, get first- hand information on the various activities carried out by the public to reduce or recycle non degradable waste generated at various levels and also to have an exhibition of eco-friendly activities and products which would help to reduce marine debris in the long run. The response to all the three themes has been very encouraging. We have received about 50 research articles on themes ranging from micro-plastics to ghost nets and the same number of success stories which are actually details of the diverse activities carried out in different maritime states of the country to solve the issue of solid waste generated in the country. The section on success stories includes attempts by eco-clubs, individuals, schools, colleges, local governing bodies, district administrations, Institutions and NGOs. Activities by some Panchayats like banning plastics in public functions and mechanisms to collect sold waste from households are really commendable. Similarly, the efforts put in by various groups to remove marine debris from the coastal waters is something which should be appreciated. The message from these success stories is that, this problem of increasing marine debris can be resolved. We have got success stories from almost all states and these leaders of clean campaign will be presenting their work in the conference. It is well known that visuals such as photographs and videos are powerful tools of communication. In COMAD 2018, we have provided an opportunity for all across the nation to contribute to this theme through photographs and videos. Am very happy that we have received more than 300 photographs and nearly 25 videos. The MBAI will place these on the web site. It is really shocking to see the quantity of litter in the fishing ground and in the coastal ecosystem

Marine Ecosystem Challenges & Opportunities (MECOS 3)

The Marine Biological Association of India (MBAI), established in 1958, is proud to gear up for MECOS3, the third symposium on Marine Ecosystems- Challenges and Opportunities during 7-10 January, 2020. The MBAI besides organising MECOS1 (2009) and MECOS2 (2014) has inculcated active interest and participation among its members by handling several national and international symposia/seminars, since its formation. The MBAI has 794 life members and 20 institutional members. The mandate of the MBAI is promotion of scientific research in the field of marine biology and allied sciences