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The current investigation was undertaken to explore the physico-biochemical properties of sewage sludge (SS) and its feasible application in agricultural field as an organic manure as source of nutrients with to solve the environmental concern. Sewage sludge samples were collected from sewage treatment plants (STP), Bhagwanpur, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India and passed through a 2 mm sieve for further analysis of different physical, chemical and biological parameters. The treated sewage sludge consists of both major and micro nutrients along with a good amount of organic matter. Application of this sewage sludge has the ability to enhance the physical, chemical and biological properties of soil which is beneficial for plant growth and development sustainable soil environment. However, it also contains some amount of toxic heavy metals and organic pollutants that can adversely affect soil environment depending on the origin source of sewage sludge, and treatment process of sewage sludge. Furthermore, the toxic elements go through the food chain due to its uptake and accumulation by crops posing a possible threat to human health. Sewage sludge application in soil offers essential nutrients particularly for plant growth, maintains the organic carbon in soil and decreases environmental concern with economic factors that restrict landfill or incineration disposal of sewage sludge. However, a careful assessment of the characteristics of sewage sludge is required prior to its soil application to improve the soil health without causing environmental hazard. The SS analyzed in the present study had heavy metals content but was within permissible limits as resulted its suitable for soil application as source of nutrients.

India, with its plethora of religions and cultures, has been an enigmatic place for foreigners. Hinduism, a way of life more than being a religion (as proclaimed by the Supreme Court of India), has often been misunderstood by outsiders. Sometimes a biased attitude is reflected in the literature produced by these foreigners. A person like Thomas Babington Macaulay, who himself admitted that he had no knowledge of Sanskrit or Arabic, had the foolish courage of saying that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. In this paper we shall analyze the representation of religion in the short stories of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

Renewable energy sources are becoming more common in the energy generation field these days. Renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic (PV) systems, wind power (WP), and biomass are gaining popularity due to their ease of use, low cost, and low environmental impact. The environmental issues, declining fuel supplies, and increasing energy demands have drawn our attention to the glimmer of hope for a future focused entirely on sustainable and non-polluting energy sources. Photovoltaic (PV) power generation is becoming more common in comparison to other renewable energy sources due to advantages such as ease of access, low cost, low environmental emissions, and lower maintenance costs. In this dissertation, three separate Maximum power point monitoring techniques are used to construct a solar PV system (MPPT). Modeling and simulation using the MATLAB Simulink programmeare being used to check the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. The model is investigated using two partial shading patterns. By providing different values of input radiations to all four modules connected in sequence, we were able to create partial shading conditions using the PV array block. The panel's output is fed to the optimization technique block, which then feeds the boost converter from their duty cycle output. Under partial shading, the results show that the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm outperforms the Perturb and Observe and Incremental Conductance algorithms..

Biodiesel is a promising option instead of fossil energy, particularly when non-edible feedstocks are utilized in the production process. To limit the environmental effects of biodiesel production, the production method should be properly chosen and the process variables should be optimized. Ultrasound-based biodiesel synthesis using waste cottonseed cooking oil (WCCO) is significant process. It requires less reaction time and is a highly energy-efficient process. This work focused on a comparison and analysis of optimization results using response surface methodology (RSM) based box-behnken design (BBD) and full factorial design (FFD) methods for a biodiesel production from waste cottonseed cooking oil (WCCO) catalyzed by KOH via an ultrasound (US) based transesterification process and also described the benefits to the environment caused by ultrasound method for producing biodiesel. For optimization of the biodiesel yield following parameters are considered: methyl alcohol: oil ratio (molar ratio) (A), KOH wt % (B), process temperature (C) and found to be methyl alcohol: oil molar ratio: 6:1, KOH wt %: 0.50% reaction temperature: 50 °C, with the process biodiesel yield: 98%. Quadratic polynomial equations are obtained by analyzing experimental values for transesterification reaction. The impact of these parameters on biodiesel yield is inspected and analyzed by different plots. The process variables optimized for biodiesel yield were in a good match for BBD and FFD method.

A burn is an injury which is caused by application of heat or chemical substances to the external or internal surfaces of the body, which causes destruction of tissues. Thermal deaths are those which result from the effects of systemic and/ or localized exposure to excessive heat and cold The present study has been carried out on 150(39 males and 111 females) cases of death due to burn, brought to the mortuary of Swaroop Rani Nehru Hospital, Moti Lal Nehru Medical College, Prayagraj for medico legal autopsy during the study period of one year extending from 01 July 2019 to 30 June 2020. Female outnumbered males i.e. 111(74.00%) females and 39(26.00%) males. Maximum number of burn deaths i.e., 56(37.33%) cases occurred in the young age group 21–30. Accidental burn injuries can be reduced by bringing about regulations to develop safer cooking appliances, promoting less inflammable fabrics to be worn at home and educating the community especially women.

Wind and solar energy are currently the most prominent and reliable sources of renewable energy. Wind and solar power deployment largely depend on government policies and have a specific policy and regulatory provisions. The declaration of hybrid wind–solar policy has changed the dynamics of individual wind and solar power projects by introducing the scope for developing hybrid power projects to harness wind and solar energy simultaneously. The techno-economic structure and the existing scenarios of the fractional contribution of wind and solar sectors are going to play an important role in the development of hybrid power projects. This paper aims to present a comprehensive review of the impact of the existing individual wind and solar energy policies along with the recently declared hybrid policy in India and how this hybrid policy will affect the techno-economic structure of the existing and new power projects. Further, various kind of barriers faced by project developers while establishing renewable energy-based power projects and recommendations which can be practically implemented have been elaborated to facilitate and achieve the faster deployment of wind and solar power generation.

Salinity is one of the major threats to an agriculture production system and limits crop growth and productivity. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) form a mutualistic association with majority of ...

Economic assets play a key role in the growth of renewable power projects and depend on financial scenarios and policy structures offered by government policies. The focus of the study is to assess...

This generator generates lightning impulse voltages of upto 45 KV. This paper defines the progress of a cost effective and effortlessly portable compact 10 stages Marx Generator proficient of manufacturing lightning impulses voltage up to 45kV. In adding, three different investigational circuits of HV DC provisions have been made. The uppermost output was 15 kV DC which was occupied as the main supply for the Marx generator circuit. This generator can be castoff by small scale productions and theoretical institutions to prove impulse voltages and also to achieve testing on insulators of lower rating in laboratory. A total of 10 stages of both replicated, new Marx impulse generator circuit was considered and the impulse waves were documented. In this work, the assessment in terms of magnitude of the investigational and simulated 10 stages Marx generator circuit has been carried out as well as its descriptive curve has been drawn. These results have long-established the strength of the planned technique and they were in close arrangement. How to cite this article:Pandey A K, Saxena R K, Dua S S. Marx Multistage Impulse Generator. J Adv Res Power Electro Power Sys 2020;7(1&2):7-12. DOI: http//doi.org/ 10.24321/2456.1401.202002

This study develops an understanding on human dimension approach of adaptation with special context to Indian agriculture. The study conducts a micro-level assessment of farmer’s perception and adaptation responses based on survey data analysis of 200 farm household from two districts, i.e., Jalaun and Jhansi of Bundelkhand region. The study finds perceive and adapt cognitive condition to the main adaptation condition. The study recognizes the importance of social relations for developing an understanding of climate change. Government sources are found to be less impactful in delivering climate information along with other hypothesized sources. The study results provide a useful guide for identifying region-specific adaptation strategies options like, adoption of disease resistant seed varieties and use of new plant protection chemicals to deal with climate change. The role of government needs to be escalated in providing appropriate and adequate climate information to the farmers. Policy action is needed in creating awareness, increasing faith on reliability and accuracy of climate information services by the government.

The present study is attempted to identify the determinants of migration in India. The National Sample Survey data of 64th round (July 2007-June 2008) was used and decoded to elicit household-level information. A multi-criteria approach was adapted to the analysis of the data. The study’s findings revealed that about 70% of migrated people are illiterate, while 57% of migrated people were agricultural laborers. The multi-criteria analysis results for permanent migration revealed that farmers belong to the rural area, having a land size less than two hectares, belonging to the Hindu religion, are likely to migrate permanently. Also, illiteracy, marital status, low consumption expenditure in rural areas, rainfall, and minimum temperature motivate farmer’s decision to adopt migration as an ultimate coping strategy against climate change. As far as grass-root policy interventions are concern, it is suggested that in rural areas, where unemployment has the main driver for migration, a proactive social protection programme, i.e., MGNREGA can be part of a proactive approach to managing climate-induced migration. Climate change as a cause of migration is uncertain and contextual. This necessitates the inclusivity of local populations in decision-making wherein their perceptions and responses are democratically represented and not merely channeled into participatory processes.

The Present study focuses on the impact of various factors on the growth of wind power generation in seven most wind energy prone states of India, that contain 97 % of India’s total wind power potential. The impact of state-wise policy parameters Feed-in Tariff (FIT) rate, Renewable Purchase Obligations (RPO) and Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) are evaluated in terms of aggregate policy indices that indicate the likelihood of wind power deployment in that state, through multivariate statistical analysis. The wind energy technology with reference to wind turbine specific policies, scaling of the project, the impact of hybrid policy, grid-related technological advancements and the improvement of capacity utilization factor (CUF) are discussed. Further, the impact of per capita net domestic product (PCNDP) and power demand-supply scenario are assessed. It was found that these two factors are non-influential on wind power growth. The outcome of the present study is that aggregate policy indices, captive/third party use of feasibility, presence of repowering policy, actual CUF obtained at the location, delay in cash flow and total available power potential are the factors that significantly influence the growth of cumulative installed capacity. This study provides an insight for policymakers for a quantitative assessment of the existing policies along with other factors and assists the project developers to compare and identify suitable locations for wind power projects in the near future. The exchange rate of 1 USD ($) = 69.38 INR (₹) has been taken throughout the manuscript.

Traditional medicines and natural products from ethnomedicinal plants have great significance in recent time. Various forms of medicines like Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, kampo, Unani, have been plasticising in recent days due to their effectiveness against various human ailments and also have blossomed into the regulated systems of traditional medicine. This chapter reviews the relationship of plants and humans, along with their cultural relationship and role of the traditional medicines, by exploring the methodologies and various concepts for the discovery of various drugs. Further, this will also illustrate traditional medicines that have their incomparable advantages over the modern allopathic medicines.

To find out thyroid hormone profile (Serum T3, T4, TSH level) in overweight and obese subjects of either sex and age. (18-60 yrs.) This study was undertaken to find out relationship between thyroid function tests with overweight and obesity. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in the Medicine Department of Jhalawar Medical College. Approximately overweight and obese patient of BMI >25 come in to OPD or emergency department & admitted in Jhalawar hospital. Total 100 subjects taken for study which fulfil the inclusion and exclusion criteria of study. Results: In our study, Maximum 3 (50%) hypothyroid patient had extremely risk of obesity having BMI >40 and 4 (28.6%) patient having very high risk obesity BMI 35-40 and 6 (18.75%) patient having high risk BMI 30-35 and only 6 (12.5%) patient having BMI 25-30 overweight (low risk) patient. Conclusion: This study concludes that obesity increases the risk of hypothyroidism, which is more common among, younger female than males. in this study some overweight and obese subject were found both clinically and biochemically hypothyroid and some subject are found only biochemically hypothyroid.

Micronutrients are important for plant growth and they significantly play an important role in balanced crop nutrition. They are vital for appropriate growth and development of plants in their entire life span. A deficiency of any one of the micronutrients in the soil can limit the growth of plants, even when all other nutrients are available in adequate amounts. The deficiency of micronutrients is widespread in many areas due to the nature of soils, high pH, low organic matter, salt stress, continuous drought, high bicarbonate content in irrigation water and imbalanced application of fertilisers. In India, the most deficient micronutrient in the soil is Zn, followed by B. In recent years, the deficiency of micronutrient has risen to a great extent. Zn and B deficiencies are focussed mainly for their adverse impacts on human health and food production. This chapter attempts to examine the defects of Zn, Fe, Mn, Cu, B and Mo deficiency in the soil and crops as well as the management of micronutrient deficiencies by way of fertilisation, development of agronomic strategies and creation of awareness of micronutrient dose. Deficiencies of Zn and B cause some severe complications in crop production in India. In view of the problems, we discuss the importance of micronutrients in agriculture and their roles and ways to improve crop productivity.

Soda black liquor lignin is extracted from wood chips during the soda pulping process and ends up in the residual pulping liquor after brownstock washing. This liquor is commonly concentrated from approximately 15–20% to 70–80% solids which can be used as fuel to replace fossil fuel. In this work, the effect of temperature, pH, and solids content as process variables on the viscosity is analyzed. The viscosity of black liquor generated from soda pulping of wheat straw was optimized using Box-Behnken design (BBD) response surface method with numerical optimization technique. The results show that they have significant influence on the viscosity of black liquor. The experimentally observed data was analyzed through ANOVA. It is observed that the best optimum conditions for minimum viscosity (0.055 mPas) of black liquor were temperature (343 K), pH (7), and solids content (37%) respectively. The multiple regression analysis was used to develop second-order polynomial model equation, which fitted well and predicted the experimentally observed data within acceptable limits. The value of regression coefficient (R2) was high as near to unity. The viscosity is sensitive function of temperature, pH, and solids content. The black liquor viscosity plays major role on effectiveness of all operations used to process the black liquor through storage tank, multiple effect evaporators, concentrator, and its firing in the chemical recovery furnace. This study may be contributed for process equipment design and energy efficient operations of paper mill.

Clustering is an unsupervised method of classifying data objects into similar groups based on some features or properties usually known as similarity or dissimilarity measures. K-Means is one of the most popular clustering methods that come under the hard clustering group. In this clustering method, any data object can belong to a single cluster. On the other hand, in soft clustering methods (e.g., fuzzy c-means clustering), the data object can be clustered in more than one cluster with some degree which is specified by the membership value with the limitation imposed as the summation of these membership values should be equal to individual. While the clustering method of K-Means is a comparatively old technique, it still has tremendous popularity in terms of being used in applications for data grouping and machine learning. In this article, K-Means approach with five different distance measures such as Euclidean, Squared Euclidean, Half Squared Euclidean, Cosine, and City Block distance has been explored. A comparative study is made based on the performance of these similarity criteria on real-time Edible oil dataset acquired using MIR spectroscopy. In addition, it attempts to investigate the measure of similarity for a specific collection of unique patterns carrying data. In the MATLAB R2015b environment given by Mathworks, the K-Means algorithm with different similarity and dissimilarity measures were formulated and implemented.

Sildenafil is a widely used drug for the treatment of erectile dysfunction in a dosage ranging from 50 to 100 mg per day. Recreational use is reported among youth for its sexual function enhancing effects. To date, however, no study has reported the use of sildenafil for its nonsexual, psychoactive effects. We report a case of a 38-year-old male with opioid and sedative use disorder who self-administered sildenafil orally in a dose of up to 2000 mg per day for its psychoactive effects (primarily) for 10 years before seeking treatment and discuss the literature relevant to the case.

Gingival recession is the apical shift of the marginal gingiva from its normal position on the crown of the tooth to levels on the root surface beyond the cemento-enamel junction.It is a widespread clinical finding in adults with more than 50% of the population having one or additional sites with gingival recession of 1mm or more and its severity increases with age. Root surfaces exposure in oral environment can cause root hypersensitivity, root caries and create esthetic problems. The pedicle graft is simple and less time-consuming surgical procedure with excellent results, without involving second surgical site for donor harvesting. In this case report the Miller’s Class-II isolated gingival recession defect was treated with lateral pedicle graft and postoperative clinical outcome showed stable & significant root coverage. Keywords: Gingival recession, Lateral pedical graft, laterally positioned flap, Root coverage, Mucogingival surgery

Proper dissipation of thermal energy has always been a requirement for better efficiency of a system. Fins provide additional surfaces to reject heat to the surrounding from the working faces. The current work considers the thermal analysis of pin fins of circular and drop-shaped cross section. Fins of uniform cross section are placed over a base plate arranged in a staggered manner. With an analysis of various thermal and flow parameters, the drop-shaped pin fin is found to yield a better thermal enhancement over cylindrical pin fins. Further, the drop-shaped fins are modified to make a split to enhance the interaction between the fluid and the fin surface. The modification shows slightly better result compared to existing drop-shaped fin. The modelling has been done using ANSYS FLUENT 17.1.

A method based on the tracking of the peaks of interference fringes as a function of time-dependent analyzer setting is used to detect the Pancharatnam phase of light. The advantage of this method is demonstrated by observations of the nonlinearity of the Pancharatnam phase for certain paths on Poincare sphere where the fringe visibility reduces to almost zero. We also describe variations of this experiment with structured light beams, where the Pancharatnam phase leads to linear or nonlinear rotation of flower-pattern or spiral-shape interference fringes.

Background: Psoriasis is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory disorder, reported to be associated with obesity, dyslipidaemia and diabetes via common immunological mechanisms. All of these components ultimately increase the risk of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular morbidities. Aims and Objectives: To assess the association of Metabolic Syndrome (MS) and its components in patients suffering from psoriasis. To study the relationship between the duration and severity of psoriasis and MS. Materials and Methods: A hospital based cross-sectional study was conducted involving 100 adult patients with psoriasis and 100 controls. All participants were evaluated forpsoriasis and the components of MS. Psoriasis was categorized as mild, moderate and severe based on Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) (12, respectively). In all patients and controls, body mass index was calculated, blood pressure and waist circumference were measured and fasting blood sugar and lipid profile were estimated. Results: In the present study, a higher prevalence of MS in Psoriasis patients than in controls (38% v/s 23%) was observed. Psoriatic patients had higher prevalence of hypertension (36% v/s 14%). It can be concluded that association of MS and psoriasis is independent of the type, duration and severity of psoriasis. Conclusion: The present study suggests that subjects with psoriasis present a greater risk of MS and should trigger a higher clinical suspicion for their co-existence. Psoriasis is a systemic disease with significant morbidity and mortality. This study emphasizes the critical need for providers to screen psoriasis patients for early diagnosis and treatment of associated MS. However, more number of large population based cohort studies are required to establish stronger association between psoriasis and MS.

Present work compares and optimizes the performance of cooling tower assisted cascaded and hybrid configurations of vapor compression-absorption integrated refrigeration system. Both the systems ar...

The Haney Soil Health Test (HSHT) is a recent approach to quantify soil health by focusing mostly on soil biology. It uses a new extractant (H3A) for the extraction of plant available nutrients, a ...

In this paper, we have proposed two models to classify dogs according to their breeds. Since the classification of dogs is becoming very difficult and moreover, these classifications are taken on the deep learning concept and training a fully defined data set helps in training both models which predicts the different accuracy levels at both ends. Since every now and then predictions are taken for every model. During the study, we came across many types of functionality levels that were not taken in previous studies too. Also, our approach also works on the main concept of transfer learning which deals with data augmentation technique with its properties to increase the size of data set, after which accuracy levels are matched or it is compared with both the models so that a comparison can be made for both the models and the classification is also done with a profound approach.

The study aims at quantifying the advantage of increased exergy and energy efficiency of a hybrid renewable energy system as compared to stand-alone wind turbine and solar photovoltaic cell. The study primarily aims at comparing stand-alone systems with their hybrid counterparts using the energy and exergy analysis. The produced power pattern, efficiencies, and parameter optimization calculations have been carried out using MATLAB. The study reports that the stand-alone energy as well as exergy efficiency of different photovoltaic cells are in the range of 15–22% and 8–12%, while for wind turbine it is reported to be 34.78% and 23.58%, respectively. A hybrid system comprising of both the stand-alone systems has a reported energy and energy and exergy efficiency in the range of 20–25 and 40–45%, respectively.

With ever-increasing population of the world, which has now reached 7.75 billion, it has become a major challenge for world to meet the sustainable development goal (SDG) of zero hunger via meeting demand for food, feed, and other agricultural products especially in developing countries. Therefore, improving and sustaining agricultural crops yield without posing negative impact on environment should be the ultimate goal to meet food and nutritional requirement around the world. Application of chemical fertilizers although has increased the crop productivity but simultaneously has posed serious threat to human and environmental health. Therefore, biofertilizers from microorganisms have potential to replace these chemical fertilizers in sustaining agricultural productivity and maintaining environmental health. Moreover biofertilizers are easy to use and less expensive than chemical fertilizers. Biofertilizers includes one or more beneficial microbes that facilitate better nutrient uptake, greater production of growth hormone and beneficial phytochemicals in crops leading to higher quantity as well quality crop production. Nitrogen-fixing microbes, phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB), sulfur-solubilizing bacteria (SSB), potassium-solubilizing bacteria (KSB), and vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhiza (VAM) etc. are already being utilized in combination for making biofertilizers formulations for enhancing crop production but on small scale. Thus, large scale exploitation of agriculturally important microbes for sustaining agricultural productivity is the need of the hour. This chapter highlights the types, quality control measures, inoculation techniques of microbial biofertilizers; their role in sustaining agricultural productionand challenges as well as ways forward to promote the use of biofertilizers in order to achieve sustainable agricultural production to meet out the SDG of zero hunger.

In the ongoing years with the headway of innovation, cloud computing has gotten colossal mainstream among organizations, aggressors just as people because of a few favorable circumstances however the fundamental advantages being versatility, flexibility, unwavering quality, high computation power, convenience and cost-proficient as these hugely advantage all the parties in question. Be that as it may, with this exponential increment cloud computing environments have become a high potential target for the attackers as they have witnessed some drawbacks in terms of security and data privacy. One of the fundamental reasons behind for cloud computing environments being a gold dig for attackers is the presence of unencrypted data on these platforms which are indexed and along these lines effortlessly found. This paper talks about the risks, challenges and security concerns present in a cloud computing environment that affects both the cloud service providers and the clients. This paper has talked about the issues and concerns from an end-user perspective as well as from a business viewpoint also. In this way these risks, challenges and security concerns end up being compelling and proficient in deciding the general security of a cloud domain as it covers practically all the specialized issues just as well as standardization, regulations and supervising perspectives identified with it. The challenges have likewise prompted development opportunities that must be tackled. As cloud computing environment is an extremely unpredictable and dynamic as for conventional computing environment, so the customary security practices and arrangements does not delineate in cloud situations. There are unbounded potential outcomes of development in cloud computing which cannot be inconspicuous because of security and data privacy issues so these risks, challenges, and security concerns must be tended to.

The conventional way of performing experiments has many drawbacks in terms of time and resources investments and lack of accuracy in analysis. Use of scientific tools for design of experiments (DoE) is a better approach for experimentation such that, minimum number of experiments can successfully give requisite aspects of analysis. Currently, many researchers still use the conventional way for performing experiments which results in higher utilization of resource and time investment, while the same objectives can be achieved by combined application of DoE with response surface methodology (RSM) which utilizes minimal efforts, time and resources. The experimental data from a published research paper have been considered as a case study in which conventional approach was used to decide to conduct experimental runs for transesterification process. The authors reported the optimized reaction conditions viz. methanol to oil molar ratio (6:1), catalyst amount (1 wt. %), reaction temperature (60 °C), and reaction time (15 min) for biodiesel production (98.1% yield) using hydrodynamic cavitation technique. They used a method of varying one factor at a time while the other three factors were constant. Twelve sets of experiments with total 176 number of sample observations were performed with varying factor conditions. Compared to this fifteen-run based on Box-Behnken technique with RSM has been used in the present study to predict the optimized reaction condition. The accuracy of the predicted yield and operating parameters were 99.99% and 99.8% respectively. Thus Box-Behnken DoE method with RSM is clearly a better approach as compared to the conventional one in terms of better resource utilization and time saving.

A large proportion of world’s agricultural land is becoming less productive or completely unproductive due to different environmental factors. Drought is one of the major agriculture constraints which is caused by insufficient rainfall, prolonged and frequent dry spells or changes in rainfall patterns. Drought impairs growth, water relations and water use efficiency of plants, which further alters their morphological, physiological and biochemical activities. Crop growth models predict that occurrence and intensity of drought will be more severe in future. In the current scenario, to meet global food demands, various strategies have been formulated to cultivate the crops under drought-affected area. Among them, the use of different microbial community could be a viable strategy, which enables plants to combat with water stress through various direct and indirect ways. The use of microbial inoculation for drought stress management is considered as cost-effective and more eco-friendly approach than traditional methods. Various rhizospheric soil microbes, including arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, N-fixing bacteria and plant growth promoting microbes (PGPMs), help in stress resistance and better plant performance. PGPMs represent a broad range of archaea, bacteria and fungi, which are having excellent root association ability to produce different enzymes and metabolites for various abiotic stress tolerances. In the present chapter, the exploration of potential soil and root microbiome and their mechanism of actions for drought tolerance in relation to better plant growth and development have been discussed.

Climate change may affect wind patterns. It will impact wind energy generation. Climate models will help to assess how wind speed is affected by climate change. Climate models have different boundary conditions, and the forcing variables lead to the uncertainty of data. The present study provides a comparison of six regional climate models (RCMs) with reanalysis data (ERA-Interim) and validated with measured data at Rameshwaram. Further quantile mapping technique has been used for the removal of bias from RCM models. Results show that all six RCMs have lesser correlation (~0.50), high bias (~1.4 m/s) with measured data before quantile mapping. However, after the quantile mapping with reanalysis data, the RCMs achieved a higher correlation (~0.63) and less bias (~0.45). Further, the trends of wind speeds for all RCMs have been analysed and checked the significance of trends with the t-test. Results show that wind speed trends are increasing with 0.03 m/s/decade at Rameshwaram.

Globally, agriculture is recognized as a highly vulnerable sector to climate change and risks from climatic aberrations pose an imminent danger to the food security and sustainability of livelihoods. To bring robustness in climate adaptation planning, evaluation of resilience across homogenous regions is essential for developing and scaling suitable location-need-context specific interventions and policies that build the resilience of the agricultural system. In this paper, we present an analysis and discussion of multi-scalar and multi-indicator assessment, by profiling resilience across agro-climatic zones of India, based on the development of a Climate-Resilient Agriculture Index embracing environmental, technological, socio-economic, and institutional and infrastructural dimension. A total of 26 indicators, spread across these four dimensions, were employed to purport inter- and intra-agro-climatic zone differentials in the level of resilience. Among the zones, it was found that West Coast Plains & Ghats and Tans-Gangetic Plains had the highest degree of resilience to manage climate risks. Most of the districts lying within Eastern Himalayan Region, Middle Gangetic Plains, Eastern Plateau & Hills, and Western Dry Region had a lower degree of resilience. The study places greater emphasis on deciphering region-specific drivers and barriers to resilience at a further disaggregated scale for improving rural well-beings. It is construed that devising action plans emphasizing awareness, preservation of natural resources, diversification, building physical infrastructure, strengthening of grass-root institutions, and mainstreaming climate adaptation in the developmental policy is crucial for climate-resilient pathways.

The data mining is the approach which can process the information which is available in large quantity. The prediction analysis is the approach of data mining that predicts future possibilities based on current information. The prediction analysis has the three phases which are pre-processing, feature extraction, and classification. In this paper, various heart disease prediction techniques are analyzed and reviewed in terms of certain parameters. It is analyzed that machine learning is most efficient technique for the prediction analysis.

Agriculture in Bundelkhand region is highly vulnerable to risks and uncertainties. Marginal and small farmers among all farm groups are most vulnerable to the effects of climatic variability. The impact of extreme weather events and natural resources on which farmers are dependent aggravates their vulnerability. The present study uses field surveyed data and IPCC- vulnerability approach, to assess the livelihood vulnerability status of two districts of Bundelkhand region, India. Data was collected using a multistage sampling technique including 200 households. The study concluded that 90% of farmers perceived (exposed) that Kharif season remained hotter and frequencies of droughts have increased over the last five years. Sample households were also highly sensitive due to lack of basic amenities. The lower adaptive capacity due to agriculture as a sole income source, lack of non-farm employment opportunities, monoculture and income diversification and illiteracy are responsible for livelihood vulnerability in the region. From the policy perspective, water conservation through rainwater harvesting, construction of new ponds and check dams would be a possible solution to the present water crisis in the region.

An attempt was made to understand the gap between health and social vulnerability to Covid-19 pandemic. By using multistage sampling technique, 150 samples were collected during March- April 2020. Data highlight that households are highly exposed to novel Covid-19, and also equally sensitive to inadequate and poor availability and accessibility of clean water, sanitation and health care system. Data suggest a grass root awareness program (ex-ante preventive measures) in the regional languages; increase public health budget to meet the demand and improve the supply chain; establishment of more physical and human infrastructure in long run; comprehensive plan to ensure continuous water supply in the rural areas.

In her biodramatic trilogy My Life after and Other Texts (2016) the Argentine playwright and director Lola Arias explores several resources that the generation of children has at its disposal. In this remake the life stories shared on stage belong to the generation of parents but they are reconstructed afresh in the present by the generation of children using their own creativity, imagination and interpretation. This article aims to study the intergenerational and intragenerational transmission of memory and the contribution of photographic memories in the remake of the family history of the performers to fill the gaps in the history of Latin America., Rassegna iberistica

Plants are an important component of the ecosystem and vital for survival of human beings. As human beings need nutrition for their proper growth and development, plants also require different nutrients to complete their life cycle. Among the all essential nutrients, zinc is one of the important nutrients required not only by plants but also by human beings. Several researchers have reported the decline in zinc level of Indian soils. An approx. 47–49% of Indian soils are facing zinc deficiency, which is continuously rising up. The deficient soils are not able to supply the crop the required amount of nutrients, since soils with zinc deficiency are unable to provide an adequate amount of nutrients. The cereal crop like rice is prone to face zinc deficiency worldwide. Keeping in view such global crop issues, a greater attention is required to fulfil the zinc requirement of crop by different agronomic and plant breeding approaches. Zinc biofortification becomes one of the promising strategies to supply zinc in the crop at an optimum level. Zinc solubilization and mobilization are one of the suitable strategies to overcome zinc-deficiency issues. The chapter has emphasized on mechanism of biofortification and its challenges and limitations for adoption at ground level.

Micro-scale capacity organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is commercially unavailable in the Indian market due to cost effectiveness and unavailability of local manufactures. The present work is an effort toward manufacturing ORC test rig from the locally available components. In this paper, an experimental study of ORC test rig using low-temperature source has been presented. The experimental results show that the isentropic efficiency of the expander is in the range of 60–73%. The overall thermal efficiency of the cycle is calculated in the range of 2.5–4.8%. The levelized cost of energy for the developed ORC test rig is calculated 0.079 USD/kWh.

Beneficial microbes associated with plant roots play an important role to achieve higher agriculture production for burgeoning population in sustainable way. Among various microbes, arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi interaction with higher land plants is unique as they occupy position both inside and outside of roots. AM fungi as a natural symbionts of land plants provide various ecological services, in particular by improving plant water and nutrition availability, soil health and fertility, alleviating stress condition and wasteland management. Mycorrhizae as a broader group of fungi include seven types of members, i.e. arbuscular, ecto, ectendo, arbutoid, monotropoid, ericoid and orchidaceous, while arbuscular and ectomycorrhizae are the most abundant and ubiquitous. In this chapter, we focus on AM fungi and provide an overview on mycorrhizal interaction, benefits, processes, production development and potential application domain under various conditions. Along with recent advances in AM fungi role under various stress condition, reclamation of problematic wastelands and production aspects, we also discuss about the basic features of AM fungi with past developments to provide an overall glimpse of this plant-fungal interaction. In spite of its growing trends, AM fungi’s current application and market sharing are far below to full potential. Regarding this, current challenges, constraints and strategies for future road map to overcome these problems are also discussed briefly.

With the increasing energy demand, fossil fuel depletion rate is increasing, therefore a need to develop sustainable and energy-efficient biodiesel production systems is arising which can compensate for the rate of fossil fuel depletion. The current study aims to analyze biodiesel production from castor oil using a novel hydrodynamic cavitation reactor. Response surface methodology (RSM) coupled with Box-Behnken design was incorporated to carry out the optimization of reaction parameters (reaction temperature, methanol to oil molar ratio, catalyst amount, and reaction time) to obtain desired castor oil methyl ester (COME) yield, functional exergy efficiency (FEE), Universal exergy efficiency (UEE) and normalized exergy destruction (NED). The developed model shows higher goodness of fit with values of R2 > 99% and R2adj > 98% for all these responses. Desirable reaction conditions for maximum COME yield (92.31 %) were: 57.9 °C temperature, 10.3:1 MeOH:Oil molar ratio, 1.05 %wt. catalyst amount and 58.94 min reaction time whereas based on exergetic indicators along with COME yield using multi-response optimization the same were: 60.3 °C temperature, 9.82:1 MeOH:Oil molar ratio, 1.06 %wt. catalyst amount and 50.86 min reaction time. The COME yield of 93.83 % and 92.27 ± 0.43%, FEE of 86.85% and 85.13 ± 0.40%, UEE of 98.21% and 98.22 ± 0.18%, NED of 0.14 and 0.13 ± 0.01 were predicted and experimentally calculated respectively at optimized reaction conditions considering composite desirability of all the responses. Consideration of exergetic indicators in multi-response optimization using RSM resulted in reduction of reaction time and exergy destruction by 14% and 15% respectively.

In present work, a novel configuration of vapor compression-absorption integrated refrigeration system (VCAIRS) is analyzed. Unlike previous vapor compression-absorption cascaded refrigeration system (VCACRS), proposed configuration works at lower generator temperature of 60 °C. Thus, allowing the use of low grade waste heat for its operation. The performance of VCAIRS is also compared with the equivalent vapor compression refrigeration system (VCRS) and VCACRS for the same cooling capacity of 100 kW. The comparative study result shows that electrical energy requirement in VCAIRS is 21.4% more as compared to VCACRS but it is still 63% less as compared to the equivalent VCRS. Further, the second law efficiency of VCAIRS, VCACRS and VCRS are determined to be 27.9%, 32.7% and 18.8%, respectively. Thus, both the VCAIRS and VCACRS are energy and exergy efficient configurations; but, VCACRS results in more energy efficient cooling technology in the foreseeable future as it utilizes heat at lower generator temperature as compared to VCACRS. After the comparative performance study, the exergetic performance of VCAIRS is further explored based on the coefficient of structural bonds (CSB) and advanced exergy analysis methods. Highest CSB of 4.39 is obtained for high pressure solution heat exchanger but its overall contribution in total irreversibility rate is merely 0.2%; whereas, the highest contribution of 17.4% in total irreversibility rate is by compressor 1 but CSB value computed for it is merely 1.73. Further, advance exergy analysis results show that 35.2% of total irreversibility rate of VCAIRS can be avoided by improving the efficiency parameter of components of system.