Livestock Systems and Their Performance in Poor Endowment Regions of India

The study pertaining to the semi-arid tropic region of the country, which has maximum concentration of livestock, has identified livestock systems, investigated their performance, and determined their carrying capacity. Seven major livestock systems have been identified using cluster analysis: cattle, buffalo, cattle-buffalo-goat, cattle-goat, cattle-sheep, sheep-goat-cattle and the mixed. The cattle-livestock system has been found to be the most dominating system while sheep-goat-cattle system has been the least important system. Milk productivity and adoption of crossbred technology have been found highest in the buffalo-based livestock systems (buffalo, cattle-buffalo-goat, mixed), which are the systems prevalent in the agriculturally developed and socio-economically rich areas. Vast differences have been observed in the existing averages and exploitable potential in the milk productivity and adoption of the crossbred technology in cattle-based livestock systems (cattle, cattle-goat, cattle-sheep, sheep-goat-cattle). The research and development efforts need to be concentrated on these livestock systems in increasing the dry matter (DM) availability for which agricultural development is inevitable, and to develop a suitable crossbred technology thriving best in the marginal areas. The resultant increase in productivity will reduce the existing status of livestock units (LUs) per thousand hectares, which has been observed to be more than the carrying capacity in the cattle-based livestock systems.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Improving Milk Yield Performance of Crossbred Cattle in North-Eastern States of India

Crossbreds hold the solution to the milk-deficit problem of North-Eastern states of India. The proportion of crossbred cattle in the region is 7.54 per cent (3.46 per cent of the country) as against 13.33 per cent for the country as a whole. However, the productivity of crossbred cattle has been found considerably low (4.8 L/day) in the region as against the all-India average of 6.4 L/day of milk yield. Yield gap analysis has been applied to find out the intra-regional milk yield gaps and the factors that could be addressed in the short-run to make-up the deficit. Based on the analysis, it has been identified that the major factors affecting the milk yield of crossbred animals in the N-E states are the technological and socio-economic constraints, which could be addressed by adopting improved management practices, better feeding practices, controlling of diseases and amelioration of the socio-economic conditions of the farmers through training, education and enhancing access to the funds. Addressal of these constraints will increase actual milk yield by about 66 per cent, sufficient enough to meet the deficit of milk requirement in the region. Category-wise yield gap analysis has shown that the highest increase in milk yield will be obtained on medium category households. The factors significantly affecting the milk yield at the household level are allocation of human-days per animal, expenditure on concentrate, economic status of the farmer and availability of the green fodder in the surroundings. While no major breakthrough is expected immediately, improvement in these factors would meet the milk deficit in the region.Agricultural and Food Policy,

The Role of Gendered Racial Microaggressions on African American Women\u27s Sleep Quality

The Role of Gendered Racial Microaggressions on African American Women\u27s Sleep Quality Shanya Chandel, Depts. of Psychology and Human Resource Management, and Ashlynn Bell and Chelsie Dunn, Dept. of Psychology Graduate Students, with Dr. Kristina Hood, Dept. of Psychology African American women are often subjected to oppressive and marginalizing commentary directed toward various facet of their being. This subtle yet harmful oppressive commentary is commonly referred to as silencing and marginalizing gendered racial microaggressions (Lewis & Neville, 2015). These types of microaggressions can be expressed by silencing, meaning taking away the voices of others. Microaggressions can also be used to marginalize individuals in regard to physical appearance, stereotypes about behavior, and even sexually objectifying messages. While the deleterious effects (e.g., mental health, sleep quality) of the more overt workplace and academic discrimination have been previously established; little is known about the subtle, pervasive forms of discrimination (Whitaker, 2019). It is important to explore one’s sleep quality as adequate sleep allows for critical cognition, or the ability to think clearly, be alert, and sustain attention (Worley, 2018) – aspects essential for good workplace and academic performance. Previous work has established the link between discriminatory experiences and the sleep quality of African American adults (Fuller-Rowell et al., 2017; Owens et al., 2017). Additionally, frequent exposure to microaggressions can impact African American women’s bodily functioning, such as their sleep quality (Lewis, Williams, Peppers & Gadson, 2017). However, little to no research has examined the potential effects of silencing and marginalizing experiences on African American women, who experience a unique combination of racism and sexism in the workplace, school, or other professional settings. The present study sought to examine the moderating role of frequency of silencing and marginalizing gendered racial microaggressions (GRM) on the link between GRM stress appraisal and sleep quality due to discriminatory events after controlling for gendered racial socialization, sleep patterns, silencing behaviors, ethnic identity, and self-worth contingencies. The current study consisted of 229 Black/African American women between the ages of 18 and 55 (M=33.30,SD=8.49). Majority of the sample was employed (87%) and about 27% were enrolled in a two- or four-year university. Participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk and completed questions assessing their sleep quality due to discrimination, stress appraisal and experiences of GRM, ethnic identity, self-worth contingencies, and demographics. The moderation model was assessed via the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2018) within SPSS v.26 using 5,000 bootstrapped samples. Moderation analysis revealed a statistically significant interaction between GRM frequency and stress appraisal on sleep quality due to discrimination, b=.05, SE=.02, 95% CI [.00, .10], p=.05. To interpret the statistically significant moderation effect, we used Hayes’s PROCESS v.3 (2017) Johnson-Neyman and bootstrap analysis. Findings revealed that GRM frequency is a significant moderator of the link between GRM stress appraisal and sleep quality due to discrimination at both higher (b=.25, SE=.05, 95% CI [.14, .36], p=.00) and lower (b=.12, SE=.05, 95% CI [.02, .23], p=.02) frequencies. More specifically, among those who higher frequency of GRM events, those who reported greater stress appraisal of GRM events reported poor sleep quality due to discrimination compared to those with lower stress appraisal. This positive relationship was also true for those who reported lower frequency of GRM events. Findings could potentially enhance existing mental health interventions by increasing awareness of how silencing and marginalizing experiences at work or school impact sleep quality among African American women.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1304/thumbnail.jp

Collective transport of weakly interacting molecular motors with Langmuir kinetics

Filament based intracellular transport involves the collective action of molecular motor proteins. Experimental evidences suggest that microtubule (MT) filament bound motor proteins such as {\it kinesins} weakly interact among themselves during transport and with the surrounding cellular environment. Motivated by these observations we study a driven lattice gas model for collective unidirectional transport of molecular motors on open filament, which incorporates the short-range interactions between the motors on filaments and couples the transport process on filament with surrounding cellular environment through adsorption-desorption Langmuir (LK) kinetics of the motors. We analyse this model within the framework of a Mean Field (MF) theory in the limit of {\it weak} interactions between the motors. We point to the mapping of this model with the non-conserved version of Katz-Lebowitz-Spohn (KLS) model. The system exhibits rich phase behavior with variety of inhomogeneous phases including localized shocks in the bulk of the filament. We obtain the steady state density and current profiles and analyse their variation as function of the strength of interaction. We compare these MF results with Monte Carlo simulations and find that the MF analysis shows reasonably good agreement as long as the motors are weakly interacting. We also construct the non-equilibrium MF phase diagram.Comment: 4 figure

On the Nevanlinna problem -- Characterization of all Schur-Agler class solutions affiliated with a given kernel

Given a domain $\Omega$ in $\mathbb{C}^m$, and a finite set of points $z_1,z_2,\ldots, z_n\in \Omega$ and $w_1,w_2,\ldots, w_n\in \mathbb{D}$ (the open unit disc in the complex plane), the \textit{Pick interpolation problem} asks when there is a holomorphic function $f:\Omega \rightarrow \overline{\mathbb{D}}$ such that $f(z_i)=w_i,1\leq i\leq n$. Pick gave a condition on the data $\{z_i, w_i:1\leq i\leq n\}$ for such an $interpolant$ to exist if $\Omega=\mathbb{D}$. Nevanlinna characterized all possible functions $f$ that \textit{interpolate} the data. We generalize Nevanlinna's result to a domain $\Omega$ in $\mathbb{C}^m$ admitting holomorphic test functions when the function $f$ comes from the Schur-Agler class and is affiliated with a certain completely positive kernel. The Schur class is a naturally associated Banach algebra of functions with a domain. The success of the theory lies in characterizing the Schur class interpolating functions for three domains - the bidisc, the symmetrized bidisc and the annulus - which are affiliated to given kernels.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1812.00147, Accepted in Studia Mathematic

Automatically Switching to a Rear-Facing, Wide-Angle Camera When Entering Rear Camera Selfie Mode on a Foldable Mobile Device

This publication describes techniques directed at automatically switching to a rear-facing, wide-angle camera when a user utilizes a “rear selfie mode” on a foldable mobile device (e.g., foldable smartphone). Rear selfie mode and similar modes allow users to take self-portrait photographs (“selfies”) using the rear-facing camera on a foldable mobile device. Foldable mobile devices may utilize a camera with a standard lens by default when the rear selfie mode is entered. Selfies have a limited field of view due to a short camera distance from the user, so a wide-angle camera is desirable when taking selfies. Switching to a wide-angle camera often takes the user several steps, causing a potential photo opportunity to be missed and may cause frustration for the user. If a foldable mobile device is configured to automatically switch to a wide-angle camera upon entering a rear selfie mode, users would be able to capture more subjects and objects without taking unneeded time switching to the wide-angle camera themselves