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Acampe rigida (Buch.-Ham.ex Sm.) P.F.Hunt (Family: Orchidaceae), locally known as ‘Miral Baha’ among the Santhal community of Ultapani Forest Range, BTR, Assam, blooms in the month of July to November. The present study was aimed to carry out the ethnobotanical studies, macroscopic, pharmacognostic, preliminary phytochemical and heavy metal analysis of A. rigida. Apart from being an eye-catching ornamental plant, it has a number of medicinal potentialities as folk medicine among the Santhal community where the leaves are used for recovering throat cancer and epilepsy and the paste helps in relieving rheumatism, healing wound as tonic to strengthen the body and increase blood in the body. Parenchyma cells, stomata, fibre were observed in the microscopic examination of powdered plant part. The pulverised leaves colour, odour, flavor/taste and texture were all satisfactory. Preliminary phytochemical screening of A. rigida leaves aqueous extract confirmed the presence of alkaloids, carbohydrates, flavonoids, glycosides, phenols, steroids, saponins, tannins, terpenoids, whereas phlobatannins was absent. Heavy metal tests revealed that the samples were free from bismuth, cadmium and lead. The present studies might be significant to establish the pharmacognostic and phytochemical standards of this orchid species and may help in the identification, to ensure quality and purity and standardization of the herbal drug.

Financial inclusion has become a prime concern for the society now-a-days. It has huge impact in recovering the downfall of GDP in any country by contributing a huge share in the process of growth and development of the economy. Though government has been providing good impetus to bring all the segment of the society under one umbrella of financial inclusion, still some portions are yet to get the benefit. Unorganised labourers are one amongst them. Poverty, lack of education, non-willingness to know ongoing events of society are the chief characteristics of these labourers. In India more than 90% of the population are working on unorganised sector. But majority of them are still far behind the arena of financial inclusion. Through this research paper the researchers want to focus on different aspects of financial inclusion of unorganised labourers.

A new ratiometric fluorescent probe (E)-2-(benzo[d]thiazol-2-yl)-3-(8-methoxyquinolin-2-yl)acrylonitrile (HQCN) was synthesised by the perfect blending of quinoline and a 2-benzothiazoleacetonitrile unit. The probe can selectively detects hydrazine and hypochlorite with two different outputs.

A pH-regulated hydrothermal synthesis method was employed to synthesize Sb4O5Br2 and Sb4O5Cl2 crystallites.

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Bioplastics are used as potent eco-friendly alternatives to minimise the adverse environmental impacts induced by petroleum-based plastics. Bioplastics, especially biodegradable plastics are materi...

Let $\{Y_{1},\ldots ,Y_{n}\}$ be a collection of interdependent nonnegative random variables, with $Y_{i}$ having an exponentiated location-scale model with location parameter $\mu _i$, scale parameter $\delta _i$ and shape (skewness) parameter $\beta _i$, for $i\in \mathbb {I}_{n}=\{1,\ldots ,n\}$. Furthermore, let $\{L_1^{*},\ldots ,L_n^{*}\}$ be a set of independent Bernoulli random variables, independently of $Y_{i}$'s, with $E(L_{i}^{*})=p_{i}^{*}$, for $i\in \mathbb {I}_{n}.$ Under this setup, the portfolio of risks is the collection $\{T_{1}^{*}=L_{1}^{*}Y_{1},\ldots ,T_{n}^{*}=L_{n}^{*}Y_{n}\}$, wherein $T_{i}^{*}=L_{i}^{*}Y_{i}$ represents the $i$th claim amount. This article then presents several sufficient conditions, under which the smallest claim amounts are compared in terms of the usual stochastic and hazard rate orders. The comparison results are obtained when the dependence structure among the claim severities are modeled by (i) an Archimedean survival copula and (ii) a general survival copula. Several examples are also presented to illustrate the established results.

It is now difficult for an agricultural-labour household to get employment as agricultural labourers throughout the year. So, this type of household for survival purposes has to depend on diversified occupations when sometimes only the household head participates and sometimes more than one able-bodied household member participate. Based on a village-level field investigation in West Bengal, the article explores that possibility to keep an agricultural labour household above the poverty line will be more effective if more than one adult member participates in different types of occupations throughout the year. Except this, other possible determinants which can play an effective role to keep an agricultural-labour household above the poverty line are higher operational land among the marginal farmer household who are also working as hired agricultural labour in others’ land and accessibility of microcredit for income-generating activity for the female member(s) of a household from self-help groups (SHGs).

Detection of biological phosphate is very important for environmental and health care applications. In this study, a new ratiometric fluorescent probe (

In this work, a triphenylamine and rhodamine-B (donor–acceptor) hybrid switch (TPRH) was rationally designed, synthesised and characterised as a novel fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) ratiometric fluorescent chemosensor for specific sensing of Al3+ over other important metal ions in mixed aqueous solution. We proposed that the sensor in hand (TPRH) is non-toxic and can be successfully employed to detect the Al3+ ion in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), showing intracellular ‘FRET-ON’ mechanism. The orientation of the probe was designed in such a way that the fluorescence (or Förster) resonance energy transfer (FRET) proceeded from the ‘donor moiety’ triphenylamine to the ‘accepter moiety’ rhodamine-B. This fluorescent probe was found to be highly selective towards Al3+ over other important guest metal ions, including Fe3+ and Cr3+. Considering the adverse effects of Al3+ ions on human health and also on the environment, the development of sensitive and specific tools for the detection of Al3+ ions is of great value. The limit of detection (LOD) of TPRH was found to be in the order of 10−8 M. The TPRH–Al3+ complex showed reversible binding with demetallation in the presence of EDTA. In accordance with this reversibility, the fluorescence output at 576 nm from two active chemical inputs, namely, Al3+ and EDTA, followed a truth table of an INHIBIT logic gate. Moreover, cytotoxic studies found that the probe was safe to use in a biological system with good cell membrane permeability. More importantly, the bio-imaging of living human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) showed that TPRH could be used as an effective fluorescent probe for a prominent ratiometric in vitro detection of the transition trivalent metal ion Al3+. We evidenced a significant (p < 0.05) shift from blue to red fluorescence when Al3+ was added to the cell suspension, thus proving TPRH as a good candidate to detect intracellular Al3+.

The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is rising and anticipated to be doubled by the end of the current century. Agricultural crop production is one of the key sectors that might be affected by rising atmospheric CO2 through its effect on photosynthetic rates and thus productivity. It was reported that C3 plants respond to elevated CO2 by modification of morpho-physiological traits. The crop selected for the present study was Green gram (Vigna radiate L. Wilczek). Though it is an important crop, the availability of pulses has declined. So, a study of the plant responses to high atmospheric CO2 is important since it regulates productivity and quality. Moreover information about genotypic variation of crops under elevated CO2 is lacking in legumes. The general aim of the study is test whether Green gram can adapt to such a change and to explore mechanisms underlining the adaptive response. Six genotypes of green gram used in the study were SML1827, SML832, SML1831, PM1533, Pusa M-19-31, and Pant M-5. Three different levels of CO2 concentration namely 390ppm, 600 ppm and 750ppm under open top chambers along with an ambient concentration were maintained to assess the response of growth, physiological and yield parameters. The purpose of Open Top Chamber was to study the response of plants in high CO2 environment with precise control and regulation of desired CO2, temperature and humidity. The results obtained for this experiment showed that elevated CO2 has a positive effect on crop growth and development. Results indicated that 600ppm CO2 enhanced some growth parameters viz. leaf area, number of branches per plant, number of effective root nodules and total biomass of plant which ultimately influenced the yield. Under 750 ppm CO2, An opposite trend was recorded where yield was significantly reduced. Genotypes like Pant M-5, Pusa M-19-31 could be considered as better genotypes when grown under elevated levels of CO2 as they have better N acquisition capability because of greater nodule formation in addition to biomass accumulation. Therefore, such genotypes may be utilized as future breeding materials for adaptation to the changed climatic condition.

The investigation was carried out to study the growth of seven rice genotypes (Oryza sativa L.) under different levels of aluminum in the stress physiology laboratory, Department of Crop Physiology, Assam Agricultural University. Results obtained from the investigation revealed that higher levels of aluminum significantly influenced the growth of the genotypes. However, some tolerant genotypes viz. Rajamani and Rene Nepung Aam showed a better performance than the other genotypes by maintaining the Leaf area index, Specific leaf weight, Root biomass accumulation and other yield attributing characters (Panicle weight, Harvest index). Considering all these characters Rajamani and Rene Nepung Aam may be considered as tolerant genotypes under high aluminium conditions.

In an experiment conducted during 2015-2016, about 150 rice genotypes from different ecotypes were collected and screened for drought response. Out of 150 genotypes, some genotypes showed tolerance under drought condition. The genotypes were grouped into three numbers viz. highly tolerant (HT, survive 25-37 DAS), medium tolerant (MT, 20-24 DAS), susceptible (ST, 10-19 DAS) based on germination, survival and growth from days of sowing. After screening, five genotypes viz. Banglami, Inglongkiri, Boga ahu, Ronga ahu, and Bengungutia ahu were selected and evaluated to understand the mechanism of tolerance under aerobic and normal condition by comparing with aerobic rice variety CR Dhan. Some genotypes viz. Ronga ahu, Inglongkiri and Banglami recorded higher seedling vigour index (SVI), therefore seed of those genotypes easily survived for even 30-35 days under aerobic condition. Thus identification of long-coleoptile trait in rice may improve seedling establishment and yield stability of the rice under aerobic condition in farmers’ field. Such genotypes may be used for future breeding material for moisture stress condition.

A new ratiometric π-conjugated luminophore with donor-acceptor (D- π- A) network CM {(E)-2-(4-(2-(9-butyl-9H-carbazol-3-yl)vinyl)benzylidine)malononitrile} has been synthesized by malononitrile conjugated carbazole dye with an intervening p-styryl spacer. Here, p-styryl conjugated malononitrile is used as a recognition site for the detection of HSO3− with a fast response time (within 50 s). In a mixed aqueous solution, CM reacts with HSO3− to give a new product 1-(9-butyl-9H-carbazol-3-yl)-2-(4-(2, 2-dicyanovinyl)phenyl)ethane-1-sulfonic acid. The probe exhibits positive solvatofluorochromism with solid state red fluorescence. The restriction of intermolecular rotation of p-styryl conjugated malononitrile unit enhances the typical solid state fluorescence properties. The probe (CM and its corresponding aldehyde CA) also demonstrates a strong solvent dependence yielding blue to green to pink and even red fluorescence in commonly used organic solvents like n-hexane, toluene, diethyl ether (DEE), THF, DCM, Dioxane, CH3CN and MeOH. The chemodosimetric approach of HSO3− selectively takes place at the olefinic carbon exhibiting a prominent chromogenic as well as ratiometric fluorescence change with a 147 nm blue-shift in the fluorescence spectrum. CM can detect HSO3− as low as 1.21 × 10−8 M. Moreover, the CM can be successfully applied to detect intrinsically generated intracellular HSO3− in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). CM has shown sharp intensities (2628 ± 511.8) when the cells are HSO3− untreated. At green channel (at 486 nm) almost negligible fluorescence intensities are found (423 ± 127.5) for HSO3− untreated samples. However, the green fluorescence (2863 ± 427.5) increases significantly (p < 0.05), and simultaneously the red fluorescence gets significantly (p < 0.05) diminished (515 ± 113.2) after addition of HSO3−. The CM has been effectively utilized for evaluating the bisulfite ions in food samples as well. The concentrations of HSO3− in diluted sugar samples have been determined with the recovery of 97.6–9.12%.

A study was conducted during 2012–2014 in carbondioxide temperature gradient tunnels (CTGTs) and in ambient condition to assess the interaction effect of elevated carbondioxide and temperature in two genotypes of Capsicum chinense Jacq. on some developmental processes. The treatments consisted of field (ambient CO2 and ambient temperature), CTGT I (380 ppm CO2 and ambient temperature), CTGT II (550 ppm CO2 with ambient temp. + 2 °C elevation) and CTGT III (750 ppm CO2 with ambient temp. + 4 °C elevation). Elevated CO2 and temperature brought about a significant difference in phyllochron index and leaf number in both the years. A lower phyllochron or higher leaf emission rate was reported in cv. Manipur over cv. Assam. A variation among the species was also observed in the present experiment where days to anthesis was much more accelerated in cv. Manipur than that of cv. Assam. There was a significant difference in days to anthesis between the cultivars, treatments and interaction of treatments and cultivars. A significant difference in number of fruit/plant was noted amongst the treatments and among the cultivars in both the years. This indicates the responses of genotypes under future climate change conditions.

In actuarial science, it is often of interest to compare stochastically extreme claim amounts from heterogeneous portfolios. In this regard, in the present work, we compare the smallest order statistics arising from two heterogeneous portfolios in the sense of the usual stochastic, hazard rate, reversed hazard rate and likelihood ratio orderings. We also consider the multiple-outlier model and obtain some ordering results. It is assumed that the portfolios belong to the general exponentiated location-scale model. The results obtained here are based on vector majorization of parameters and multivariate chain majorization with heterogeneity in different parameters. For the purpose of illustration, the derived results are applied to some well known distributions. Various examples and counterexamples are also provided. Finally, a simulation study is conducted to validate some of the results established here.

This paper is devoted to some ordering results for the largest and the smallest order statistics arising from dependent heterogeneous exponentiated location-scale random observations. We assume that the sets of observations are sharing a common or different Archimedean copula(s). Sufficient conditions for which the usual stochastic order and the reversed hazard rate order between the extreme order statistics hold are derived. Various numerical examples are provided for the illustration of the proposed results. Finally, some applications of the comparison results in engineering reliability and auction theory are presented.

Japan experienced natural hazards during the COVID-19 pandemic as some other countries did. Kumamoto and Kagoshima prefectures, including many other parts of southern Japan, experienced record-breaking heavy rain on 4th July 2020. While many countries were affected by compound hazards, some cases such as the Kumamoto flood did not cause a spike of the COVID-19 cases even after going through massive evacuation actions. This study aims to understand how COVID-19 made an impact on people’s response actions, learn the challenges and problems during the response and recovery phases, and identify any innovative actions and efforts to overcome various restrictions and challenges through a questionnaire survey and interviews with the affected people. With an increase in the risk of compound hazards, it has become important to take a new, innovative, and non-traditional approach. Proper understanding and application of adaptive governance can make it possible to come up with a solution that can work directly on the complex challenges during disasters. This study identified that a spike of COVID-19 cases after the disaster could be avoided due to various preventive measures taken at the evacuation centers. It shows that it is possible to manage compound hazard risks with effective preparedness. Furthermore, during emergencies, public-private-partnership as well as collaboration among private organizations and local business networks are extremely important. These collaborations generate a new approach, mechanism and platform to tackle unprecedented challenges.

In this paper, we consider exponentiated location-scale model and obtain several ordering results between extreme order statistics in various senses. Under majorization type partial order-based conditions, the comparisons are established according to the usual stochastic order, hazard rate order and reversed hazard rate order. Multiple-outlier models are considered. When the number of components are equal, the results are obtained based on the ageing faster order in terms of the hazard rate and likelihood ratio orders. For unequal number of components, we develop comparisons according to the usual stochastic order, hazard rate order, and likelihood ratio order. Numerical examples are considered to illustrate the results.

In this paper, we consider Marshall and Olkin’s family of distributions. The parent (baseline) distribution is taken to be a scaled family of distributions. Two models: (i) modified proportional hazard rate scale and (ii) modified proportional reversed hazard rate scale, are considered. Some stochastic comparison results in terms of the usual stochastic, hazard rate and reversed hazard rate orders are studied to compare order statistics formed from two sets of independent observations following these models. Most of the sufficient conditions are obtained depending on various majorization-type partial orderings. Further, the setup with multiple-outlier model is taken. Various stochastic orders between the smallest and largest order statistics are developed. Several numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the established theoretical results.

Labour force participation rate in the Indian agricultural sector is gradually declining. This paper wants to investigate the possible causes behind it. Here both possible push and pool factors behind this decline are considered simultaneously. Initially, on the basis of 70th round NSSO data on agricultural households, it is tested whether or not marginal farmers are enjoying comparative advantage during the time of getting employment in the agricultural sector as agricultural labourer. But as ‘decline’ is a flow concept, to investigate possible reasons behind this decline, we have considered six rounds state-level NSSO data on Employment Unemployment Survey of India and its 20 major states. Applying fixed effect panel data regression technique after considering state-specific possible factors, it is found that gradual decline of per capita land holdings is the major push factor responsible for gradual decline of labour force participation rate in Indian agriculture. Apart from that, other push factors like hike of real agricultural wage rate, improvement in education level of the agricultural households and pull factor like hike of non-farm real wage, employment opportunities in construction and other non-farm activities are found significant for gradual decline of labour force participation rate in Indian agriculture.

The efficiency of automated heart sound analysis mostly depends on accurate detection of acoustic events. In this study, an acoustic feature based heart sound segmentation algorithm has been proposed for automatic identification of the fundamental heart sounds (FHS). Gammatone filter bank energy has been introduced to represent the heart sound distinctive features. A supervised artificial neural network (ANN) model is used to detect S1-S2 and non S1-S2 segments of the cardiac cycle. Finally time based information is utilized to identify S1 and S2 positions. Performance of the system is evaluated using 764 real and noisy heart sound cycles (both normal and abnormal domains) from the 2016 PhysioNet/CinC challenge database with annotations provided for heart sound states. The accuracy achieved using Cochleagram feature is more than 95% for both first and second heart sound identification. Proposed technique shows that multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network using Cochleagram feature improvises the overall S1-S2 identification accuracy compared to the other acoustic features reported earlier.

Objectives The aim of this study was to identify and characterise probable extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-, AmpC lactamase- and/or metallo-β-lactamase (MBL)-producing Escherichia coli variants circulating in the livestock and poultry environment to establish their epidemiological significance, genetic diversity, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) trends and virulence. Methods The culture method and E. coli-specific multiplex PCR identified 78 E. coli strains from faecal samples of healthy livestock and poultry. The antibiogram was determined by the disk diffusion and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) methods. Antimicrobial-resistant E. coli isolates were screened for the presence of ESBL, AmpC and MBL genes. Isolates were further characterised by plasmid replicon typing, integron assay and virulence gene analysis. Genetic diversity was assessed by random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). Results ESBL (CTX-M group 1, CTX-M group 4, TEM), AmpC (EBC, FOX, CMY, DHA) and MBL (IMP, SIM) resistance determinants were identified in 75%, 19% and 6% of isolates, respectively. Nine plasmid replicon types were distributed among resistant E. coli strains, with the most common plasmid replicon types being L/M and Y. Integrons were detected in 19% of E. coli isolates. RAPD analysis categorised the E. coli isolates into three clusters. MLST revealed seven different sequence types (STs), with ST10 being the most common. Conclusions This study demonstrated a high prevalence of animals carrying potential ESBL- and AmpC-producing E. coli and emphasises the need for rigorous surveillance in the animal sector to identify critical control points conducive to prevent the rapid dissemination of AMR.