Combining extension services with agricultural credit

India has nearly 90 million farm households. More than 80 percent of these farmers operate on a small or marginal scale, farming less than two hectares of land. They also usually have one or two buffaloes or cows, reared for milk and dung. Most of these small and marginal farmers fall below the poverty line. To reduce overall poverty in India, it is important to enhance the incomes of small and marginal farmers. One way to do that is to provide credit so they can get access to yield-enhancing inputs like seed, fertilizer, and cattle feed, as well as acquire irrigation pumps and crossbred cattle. But these kinds of investments alone will not raise farmers’ incomes. Agricultural and livestock development services are also crucial to give farmers knowledge of improved practices and strengthen their links to markets. BASIX is an Indian livelihood promotion institution working with more than a million poor households. Its mission is to promote sustainable livelihoods for a large number of rural poor people and women. When it started in 1996, BASIX’s primary focus was delivering microcredit to its customers. In 2001, however, BASIX asked the Indian Market Research Bureau to carry out an impact assessment, and the results were rather disappointing. Only 52 percent of the customers, who had received at least three rounds of microcredit from BASIX, showed a significant increase in their income (compared with a control group); 25 percent reported no change in income level; and 23 percent reported a decline in their income level. BASIX then carried out a detailed study of those who had experienced no increase or a decline in income and found that the reasons for these results could be grouped into three factors: 1. unmanaged risk; 2. low productivity; and 3. unfavorable terms in input and output market transactions.agricultural extension, BASIX, Rural poverty, Sustainable livelihoods,

Structure of Carbon Nanotube-dendrimer composite

Using all atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations we report the microscopic picture of the nanotube-dendrimer complex for PAMAM dendrimer of generation 2 to 4 and carbon nanotube of chirality (6,5). We find compact wrapping conformations of dendrimer onto the nanotube surface for all the three generations of PAMAM dendrimer. The degree of wrapping is more for non-protonated dendrimer compared to the protonated dendrimer. For comparison we also study the interaction of another dendrimer, poly(propyl ether imine) (PETIM), with nanotube and show that PAMAM dendrimer interacts strongly as compared to PETIM dendrimer as is evident from the distance of closest approach as well as the number of close contacts between the nanotube and dendrimer. We also calculate the binding energy between the nanotube and the dendrimer using MM/PBSA methods and attribute the strong binding to the charge transfer between them. Dendrimer wrapping on CNT will make it soluble and can act as an efficient dispersing agent for nanotube

Optimized Ensemble Approach for Multi-model Event Detection in Big data

Event detection acts an important role among modern society and it is a popular computer process that permits to detect the events automatically. Big data is more useful for the event detection due to large size of data. Multimodal event detection is utilized for the detection of events using heterogeneous types of data. This work aims to perform for classification of diverse events using Optimized Ensemble learning approach. The Multi-modal event data including text, image and audio are sent to the user devices from cloud or server where three models are generated for processing audio, text and image. At first, the text, image and audio data is processed separately. The process of creating a text model includes pre-processing using Imputation of missing values and data normalization. Then the textual feature extraction using integrated N-gram approach. The Generation of text model using Convolutional two directional LSTM (2DCon_LSTM). The steps involved in image model generation are pre-processing using Min-Max Gaussian filtering (MMGF). Image feature extraction using VGG-16 network model and generation of image model using Tweaked auto encoder (TAE) model. The steps involved in audio model generation are pre-processing using Discrete wavelet transform (DWT). Then the audio feature extraction using Hilbert Huang transform (HHT) and Generation of audio model using Attention based convolutional capsule network (Attn_CCNet). The features obtained by the generated models of text, image and audio are fused together by feature ensemble approach. From the fused feature vector, the optimal features are trained through improved battle royal optimization (IBRO) algorithm. A deep learning model called Convolutional duo Gated recurrent unit with auto encoder (C-Duo GRU_AE) is used as a classifier. Finally, different types of events are classified where the global model are then sent to the user devices with high security and offers better decision making process. The proposed methodology achieves better performances are Accuracy (99.93%), F1-score (99.91%), precision (99.93%), Recall (99.93%), processing time (17seconds) and training time (0.05seconds). Performance analysis exceeds several comparable methodologies in precision, recall, accuracy, F1 score, training time, and processing time. This designates that the proposed methodology achieves improved performance than the compared schemes. In addition, the proposed scheme detects the multi-modal events accurately

A clinical study of ectropion and entropion.

INTRODUCTION The eye is one of the delicate organs in the body. It is situated within the bony orbit and is protected by the walls of the orbit. The eyelids are the important structures that protect the eyeball apart from the orbit. The eyelid malpositions are of a common occurrence now a days. Meticulous repair of these malpositions is essential for restoration of eyelid form and function. A detailed knowledge of the eyelid anatomy is essential for the surgeon to be able to achieve a good repair. Various surgical modalities are available for the correction of the eyelid malpositions such as ectropion and entropion. We shall have a overview of the eyelid anatomy and its malpositions in this thesis work. AIM OF THE STUDY: To analyse the incidence of different types of ectropion and entropion To analyse the various clinical presentations of ectropion and entropion To analyse the various surgical procedures and also to find out the procedures which can be easily performed even by a general ophthalmologist in the correction of ectropion and entropion. To assess the outcome of surgical repair of ectropion and entropion MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was conducted at the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology and Govt. Ophthalmic Hospital, Egmore, Chennai from Jan 2005 to March 2006 for a period of 15 months. The patients presenting to the OPD with ectropion and entropion especially needing the surgical repair were taken up for the study. Inclusion Criteria: 1. Various clinical patterns of ectropion and entropion. 2. Presentation with trichiasis and distichiasis. SUMMARY: • Males were involved in 56% of the cases. Females were involved in 44% of the cases. 81% of the affected patients were in the age group of > 50yrs. 17% of the affected patients were between 10-50yrs. 2% were < 10yrs 72% of the reported cases were ectropion. 28% of the cases were Entropion. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS: Out of the different presentations of ectropion, the involutional type was found to be the commonest presentation. The commonly performed surgical procedure for involutional type of ectropion was the lateral strip procedure. The outcome of the surgery was good in almost all the cases. CONCLUSION: Ectropion and entropion of the lids is more or less equally distributed in both the sex. Most of the affected patients were above 50 yrs. It shows that involutional type of ectropion and entropion is more common

A state-oriented, partial-order model and logic for distributed systems verification

A theory of state-oriented, partially-ordered model named, Communicating Minimal prefix machines (CMpms) that represent a fixed set of processes, is presented. Each of these Mpms is a possibly infinite, State Transition System . Communication among a set of Mpms is by synchronization. Enriched by a global, causal dependency relation among the Mpm-states that is partial , the disjoint union of CMpms comprise a sum machine . It is shown that the set of all global states of the product machine of CMpms is obtainable dynamically from the local Mpm-states of the sum machine using the monotonicity property, linking the product machine's global states and the sum machine's local ones. In this sense, the product-machine is generated virtually , simulated by the sum-machine. More interestingly, it is shown that from every given set of Communicating Finite state machines (CFsms), a truncated (finite) version of a set of CMpms and so a sum machine can be generated in a recursive functional manner. The set of global states of the product machine of CMpms surjectively map onto that of CFsms. Consequently, it is possible to generate all the global states of the latter using the local states of the sum machine composed by a corresponding set of CMpms. The sum machine models true causality and hence true sequence, true concurrency and true choice among local states, as exhibited by the original input CFsms specification without enumerating all the runs of the system nor all the nondeterministic interleavings of each run as opposed to the product machine . A Spatial, temporal logic or space-time logic named CML (Computational Mpms Logic), is proposed that combines the conventional branching time feature with what is proposed as branching space feature: the latter corresponds to concurrency just as the former to conflicts , as exhibited by the input specification. CML therefore introduces operators to reason about properties of interleavings within each run, orthogonal to the branching time operators, to reason about runs . The logic turns out to be more expressive than the ones in vogue for specifying properties of concurrent systems. In addition, CML coupled with the sum machine model, enables the implementation of a deterministic model checker algorithm to verify the properties of a given CFsm system that is free of exponential complexity caused by the enumeration of runs as well as that of all interleavings within each run

Identity-Based Cryptosystem Based on Tate Pairing

Tate Pairings on Elliptic curve Cryptography are important because they can be used to build efficient Identity-Based Cryptosystems as well as their implementation essentially determines the efficiency of cryptosystems In this work we propose an identity-based encryption based on Tate Pairing on an elliptic curve The scheme was chosen ciphertext security in the random oracle model assuming a variant of computational problem Diffie-Hellman This paper provides precise definitions to encryption schemes based on identity it studies the construction of the underlying ground field their extension to enhance the finite field arithmetic and presents a technique to accelerate the time feeding in Tate pairing algorith

Simulation of solar light intensity distribution in open pond photobioreactor

Abstract Photobioreactor (PBRs) are being used for growing microalgae under controlled conditions. Light distribution in PBR is a critical design parameter. A conservative variant of discrete ordinate model has been used to solve the radiative transport equation

Flotation of low-grade graphite ore using collector derived from low density polyethylene waste

The increasing wide range of applications of graphite for electrode, lubricants, refractory applications especially the recent surging electric automobile industry, resulting in significant need of graphite in future. Graphite demand in the energy storage industry is expected to grow 15 times faster than today's demand by 2030. Due to depleting high-grade ore, utilization of low-grade ore by beneficiation becomes utmost importance for sustainable development and resource management. In this work, low-grade graphite ore from Tamil Nadu, India with 86.84% ash was beneficiated by flotation technique for recovering graphite with lower ash content. Flotation, a surface phenomena, based on the surface hydrophobicity of the mineral surface to be separated and since graphite is naturally flotation mineral, this technique is adopted for beneficiation. The mostly commonly used collector in graphite flotation is diesel. In view of continuous cost escalation of diesel, an alternate collector was developed utilizing the low-density polyethylene (LDPE) waste paving way for plastic waste utilization. The flotation efficacy of this new collector (Collector PE) derived from LDPE waste was compared with that of diesel in graphite flotation. The run-of mine graphite ore was initially size reduced for liberation of values from its associated impurities, followed by flotation. The mesh-of-grind, dosages of collector (diesel and PE) and frother (Methyl Isobutyl Carbinol, MIBC) were optimized for better process efficiency for increasing the surface hydrophobicity of graphite particles leading to better separation efficacy. The ore characterization by x-ray diffraction revealed that graphite was accompanied predominantly by quartz with minor fractions of pyrites and several other phyllosilicates such as kaolinite and muscovite. Exfoliated morphology of graphite with thick layers were observed from SEM images. Flotation reagents such as diesel, collector PE and MIBC were characterized by FTIR to analyze their functional groups that enhances the efficiency of the separation process. A graphite float (rougher concentrate) with 15.2% weight recovery and 17.7% ash content was obtained after 10 minutes of grinding (d80: 240.5µm) with 0.85kg/t of collector (diesel) and 0.07kg/t of frother (MIBC) dosages and on two-stage cleaning, a final concentrate with 12.66% weight recovery and 8.70% ash content was obtained. A graphite final concentrate with 13.04% weight recovery and 8.90 % ash was achieved with two-stage cleaning, when treated with 0.57 kg/t of collector PE and 0.07 kg/t of MIBC. These results indicate that the flotation efficiency of the collector PE derived from LDPE wastes is comparable with that of diesel and would be economical when used in large scale industrial graphite flotation