176 research outputs found
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
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