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Abstract The present study introduces “rock slope instability score (RSIS)” a novel classification system for assessing rock slope stability. It takes into account geological and geotechnical parameters, as well as the impact of human activities and triggering parameters, which have become more frequent due to climate change and few of them have been ignored in existing classifications. The study focuses on rock slopes of various lithologies from the Indian Himalayas. The development of this new classification system is based on the examination of 81 different rock slopes from various states of the Indian Himalayas. Extensive field surveys, rock sampling, geotechnical laboratory tests, and ground measurements have been conducted at the various slope sites to establish a comprehensive scoring system for the stability assessment. The distributions of weightage to each parameter have been considered, corresponding to its degree of impact in causing slope instability. Sensitivity analysis of all defined parameters of RSIS system has revealed that the majority of the parameters exhibit a strong positive correlation, with Pearson correlation coefficients ranging from 0.74 to 0.61. However, two parameters, namely discontinuity dip and the relationship between slope & discontinuity direction, gives moderate relationship with correlation coefficient values of 0.48 and 0.41, respectively. To avoid any designer biasness in the system, several individuals gathered data set at different times. The proposed classification system has demonstrated a strong correlation with the actual slope condition, and it is quite promising. The outcome of RSIS classification for studied 81 slopes classified 2 slopes under stable condition, 21 slopes as partially stable, 44 as unstable, and 14 as completely unstable.

Abstract The present study was conducted to evaluate the genetic variability for morphological and qualitative traits of Coccinia for development of trait specific lines at ICAR-Central Horticultural Experiment Station (CIAH-RS), Panchmahals (Godhra), Gujarat during 2020–2022. In this study, we evaluated 26 gynoecious accessions to assess the genetic divergence through principal component and cluster analysis. The experiment was carried out in a randomized complete block design with three replications under rainfed semi-arid conditions. High values of PCV and GCV were observed for variables such as NFFP (25.13 and 22.20), PL (23.14 and 20.69), FD (24.01 and 21.46), AFW (22.98 and 20.13), NFPY (26.38 and 24.40), FYP (37.57 and 31.29), FY (35.55 and 33.20), AsC (28.65 and 27.73), Ac (24.32 and 21.06), TSS (37.23 and 35.94), DPPHL (20.71 and 20.38), FRAPL (21.08 and 20.92), TPF(20.81 and 20.45) respectively. High heritability coupled with high genetic advance as per cent of mean was observed for vine length (VL), internodal length (IL), number of female flowers per plant (NFFP), fruit length (FL), peduncle length (PL), fruit diameter (FD), average fruit weight (AFW), number of fruit per plant per year (NFPY), fruit yield per plant (FYP), fruit yield (FY), ascorbic acid (AsC), acidity (Ac), total soluble solids (TSS), total phenols in leaves TPL), total flavonoids in leaves TFL, CUPRAC in leaves (CUPRACL), DPPH in leaves (DPPHL), FRAP in leaves (FRAPL), Total phenols in fruits (TPF), Total flavonoids in fruits (TFF), CUPRAC in fruits (CUPRACF) and DPPH in fruits (DPPHF). The FYP exhibited a significant positive correlation with variables like VL (0.6833), IL (0.2991), NFFP (0.8107), FD (0.5245), AFW (0.6766), NFPY (0.7659), ASC (0.4611), TSS (0.5004) and TPF (0.4281). The estimates of genetic parameters revealed scope for further improvement of fruit yield by selection. Of the eight principal components, PC-I through PC-VIII had eigen values greater than 1 and it accounts 85.02% of the total variation for 26 gynoecious accessions of Ivy gourd. The eigen values of PC-I comprised 5.775% of total variation followed by PC-II (4.250%), PC-III (3.175%), PC-IV (2.588%), PC-V (1.828%), PC-VI (1.447%), PC-VII (1.179%) and PC-VIII (1.013%).The cluster VI and cluster I having highest mean values for most of traits under study. Thus, genotypes from the distinct cluster like cluster VI and I for should be used for selection of parents and varietal improvement for further breeding programme in ivy gourd.

Climate change is an inevitable event that obstructs the output of aquaculture farms and culture-based fisheries in open waters. It poses a serious threat to global food security, altering biodiversity, ecosystems, and global fish output by displacing fish stocks from their natural habitats. When compared to freshwater aquaculture, marine/coastal aquaculture is more affected. To combat the effects of climate change, several mitigation methods and adaptations are being implemented, emphasizing future demands of affordable protein. Selective breeding, species diversification, and aquaculture systems like integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, aquaponics, and recirculating aquaculture system are some of the most widely accepted and adapted solutions. Further research on intervention in seed and feed in terms of quality improvement, bioresource utilization, and technological and genetic improvement is required. Climate change policies from the government are also essential. The present study differs from previous reviews by portraying the various abiotic stress factors contributing to the drastic climate change, encompassing adaptation strategies followed in distinct aquaculture sources such as freshwater, inland saline water, brackish water, coastal waters, and culture-based capture fisheries with its future implications. HIGHLIGHTS Climate-resilient aquaculture adaptations are necessitated to sustain production and to uphold socio-economic conditions.; This review provides insights into climate-resilient aquaculture and culture-based fisheries.; This review provides linkage between abiotic stressors causing climate change and building resilience for adaptation to climate change.;

Abstract Conservation agriculture (CA)-based practices have been promoted and recouped, as they hold the potential to enhance farm profits besides a consistent improvement in soil properties. A 7 years' field experiment consisting of three crop establishment practices viz., zero-till flatbed (ZTFB), permanent beds (PNB), conventional system (CT) along with the three-nutrient management; nutrient expert-based application (NE), recommended fertilization (RDF), and farmers’ fertilizer practice (FFP), was carried out from 2013 to 2020. The CA-based practices (ZTFB/PNB) produced 13.9–17.6% greater maize grain-equivalent yield (MGEY) compared to the CT, while NE and RDF had 10.7–20% greater MGEY than the FFP. PNB and ZTFB gave 28.8% and 24% additional net returns than CT, while NE and RDF had 22.8% and 17.4% greater returns, respectively over FFP. PNB and ZTFB had 2.3–4.1% (0.0–0.20 m soil layers) lower bulk density than the CT. Furthermore, microbial biomass carbon (MBC) increased by 8–19% (0.0–0.50 m soil layers) in ZTFB/PNB over the CT, and by 7.6–11.0% in NE/RDF over FFP. Hence, CA-based crop establishment coupled with the NE or RDF could enhance the yields, farm profits, soil properties of the maize–chickpea rotation, thereby, could sustain production in the long run.

Space-based observation of crops and agro-system on the Earth surface is one of the most important applications of remote sensing using the sensors in optical and microwave spectrum to assess the crop growth for decision making for developing crop information and management system. Remote sensing technology provides scalable and reliable information in respect of rice crop grown area, its crop growth and prediction of crop yield due to acquisition of satellite imagery during the revisit of the orbit by space-borne sensors in optical and microwave spectrum. Synthetic Aperture Radar has the advantages of all-weather, day and night imaging, canopy penetration, and high-resolution capabilities, which makes Space-borne SAR sensors as an effective system for monitoring crop growth, crop classification and mapping of crop area based on the crop canopy interaction of SAR signals due to backscattering coefficients of the earth surface. SAR data from ERS-1/2 SAR, ENVISAT ASAR, ALOS-1/2 PALSAR, Radarsat-1/2 SAR, TerraSAR, COSMO-SkyMed, and Sentinel-1 have been used by various researchers for identification and analysis of rice crop growth based on the backscattering values in different regions of Asia and European region, where backscattered image depends of various earth surface and SAR sensors parameters. In this paper, knowledge based classifier using SAR images of existing space-borne-SAR sensors have been developed based on modeling of SAR backscattering coefficients in C-band and X-band for monitoring the rice crop growth and its analysis using multi-temporal and multi-frequency- SAR sensors data.

The major part of Uttar Pradesh is covered by Gangatic alluvium in the north whereas the southern part is covered by peninsular terrain. This alluvium cover belongs to Holocene age and is mainly dominated by Varanasi older sediments exposed beyond the river basinal areas and Banda younger sediments exposed around the rivers flowing. The older alluvium comprises finer grained, well compacted and more mature sediments occupying extensive stretches at relatively higher elevations. The drainage pattern in region is subdendritic to dendritic type formed by hills and nalas flowing over the soil cover. The Peninsular part of Uttar Pradesh is covered by the rocks of Archean to Mesozoic age. The Bundelkhand craton nuclei mostly composed of Archean granitoids show heterogeneity in texture and composition, intruded by later phase of magmatic activity. The Mahrauni Group of the rocks exposed around Girar, Manpura and Rajaula areas in Madawara block of Lalitpur region. The Bijawar Group is exposed in Sonrai area district Lalitpur of Uttar Pradesh. The rocks of Dudhi Gneissic Complex and Mahakoshal Group are exposed in Sonbhadra and Mirzapur district. Few exposures of Ajabgarh Group rocks are exposed in Mathura district. These Bijawar Group, Mahakoshal Group and Ajabgarh Group rocks are equivalent to Delhi Supergroup. The Bundelkhand craton is capped by the sedimentary units of Vindhyan Supergroup which is exposed mainly in the southern part of Uttar Pradesh and a few exposures are observed in Agra district. The Deccan Trap rocks are also traces in Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh.

We have generated sub-millimetre-resolution DEMs of weathered rock surfaces using SfM photogrammetry techniques. We apply a close-range method based on structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetry in the field and use it to generate high-resolution topographic data for weathered boulders and bedrock. The method was pilot tested on extensively weathered Triassic Moenkopi sandstone outcrops near Meteor Crater in Arizona. Images were taken in the field using a consumer-grade DSLR camera and were processed in commercially available software to build dense point clouds. The point clouds were registered to a local 3-D coordinate system (x, y, z), which was developed using a specially designed triangle-coded control target and then exported as digital elevation models (DEMs). The accuracy of the DEMs was validated under controlled experimental conditions. A number of checkpoints were used to calculate errors. We also evaluated the effects of image and camera parameters on the accuracy of our DEMs. We report a horizontal error of 0.5 mm and vertical error of 0.3 mm in our experiments. Our approach provides a low-cost method for obtaining very high-resolution topographic data on weathered rock surfaces (area 2). The results from our case study confirm the efficacy of the method at this scale and show that the data acquisition equipment is sufficiently robust and portable. This is particularly important for field conditions in remote locations or steep terrain where portable and efficient methods are required.

For decades researchers have used the micro-erosion meter and its successor the traversing micro-erosion meter to measure micro-scale rates of vertical erosion (downwearing) on shore platforms. Difficulties with “upscaling” of micro-scale field data in order to explain long-term platform evolution have led to calls to introduce other methods which allow for the measurement of platform erosion at different scales. Structure from motion photogrammetry is fast emerging as a reliable, cost-effective tool for geomorphic change detection, providing a valuable means for detecting micro-scale to mesoscale geomorphic change over different terrain types. Here we present the results of an experiment in which we test the efficacy of structure from motion photogrammetry for measuring change on shore platforms due to different erosion processes (sweeping abrasion, scratching, and percussion). Key to this approach is the development of the coordinate reference system used to reference and scale the models, which can be easily deployed in the field. Experiments were carried out on three simulated platform surfaces with low to high relative rugosity to assess the influence of surface roughness. We find that structure from motion photogrammetry can be used to reliably detect micro-scale (sub-millimetre) and mesoscale (cm) erosion on shore platforms with a low rugosity index. As topographic complexity increases, the scale of detection is reduced. We also provide a detailed comparison of the two methods across a range of categories including cost, data collection, analysis, and output. We find that structure from motion offers several advantages over the micro-erosion meter, most notably the ability to detect and measure the erosion of shore platforms at different scales.

Medicinal plants have been used form ancient times in treatment of many diseases. These plants are the cheap source of drugs and have very fewer side effects. Lepidium latifolium is an invasive plant belongs to Brassicaceae family. It found in the mountainous area of Ladakh. It used as a phytofood in the Ladakh area. It is used in treatment of many diseases due to its medicinal properties. It has several natural antioxidants which suppress the biological system. From ancient times, it mainly used as stomach tonics and diuretics. Although it also used in the treatment of other diseases like kidney related diseases, hypertension, diabetes and many more. It also has anti-tumor properties. Due to the mountainous region, Ladakh has very low temperature. Due to its physiological plasticity, epidium latifolium can grow in the extremely harsh conditions of Ladakh area. In this review, we will discuss about the medicinal properties and the light adaptation of Lepidium latifolium in Ladakh area.

Aim: The study evaluates the microbial as well as physicochemical pollution of groundwater of Brij region of Uttar Pradesh, a major tourist destination in the country along with estimating the drug resistance evident in the isolated Escherichia coli. Materials and Methods: A total of 60 samples of groundwater were collected from six different sites and assessed for physicochemical (pH, color, taste, turbidity, total dissolved solids [TDS], total hardness [TH], chlorides, fluorides, nitrates, and iron) and microbiological parameters (standard plate count [SPC], most probable number test [MPN], E. coli). Results: A majority of the samples were found to be out of the range for most of the parameters except iron. Particularly, high values of TDS (up to 9000 ppm), TH (1500 mg/L), chlorides (3250 mg/L), fluorides (2.5 mg/L), and nitrates (100.2 mg/L) were observed at most of the sites in the region highlighting the fact that groundwater of the area is not potable. Samples were turbid and salty to taste. High SPC values, up to 3500 colony-forming unit/ml and coliforms beyond BIS range were found in 40% samples suggesting gross microbial contamination. Only 2 sites (G3 and G5) had low MPN values. Overall 16 (26.67%) E. coli were isolated with 3 (18.75%) producing red colonies on conge red agar, hence supposed to be pathogenic. No E. coli O157:H7 was isolated. High antimicrobial resistance was observed against amoxicillin and erythromycin, whereas E. coli isolates were sensitive toward cefotaxime-clavulanic acid and imipenem. 12 isolates (75%) were multidrug resistant (MDR) with MDR index >20%, and 2 isolates (12.5%) were found to be extended spectrum beta-lactamases positive. Conclusion: Groundwater is considered to be a safe option for potable water but it is obvious from the findings of this study that considerable physicochemical and microbial contamination is there in groundwater samples of Brij region. The occurrence of MDR E. coli in these waters is a matter of great public health concern.

Aim: The aim was to study the associated factors and extent of short lactations in Sahiwal cattle maintained under organized herd. Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted on Sahiwal cattle (n=530), utilizing 1724 lactation records with respect to lactation length (LL), spread over a period of 15 years (1997-2011), maintained at Livestock Research Center, National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal. Observations of LL were analyzed by descriptive statistical analysis in order to know the extent of short lactation of animals in the herd. Paternal Half sib method was used to estimate the genetic parameters, i.e., heritability, genetic, and phenotypic correlation. The influence of various non-genetic factors (season of calving, the period of calving, parity, type of calving, and season of drying) on LL was studied by least squares analysis of variance technique. Results: The least squares means for LL was found to be 215.83±3.08 days. Only 32.48% of total lactation records were fell in the range of 251-350 days of LL, while more than three-fourth (76%) of total observations were failed to reach the standard level of 305 milking days. LL class ranges from 251 to 300 days accommodated maximum number of observations (19.2%). The heritability estimate of LL was 0.22±0.07. Positive correlations were found between LL and service period, LL and 305 or less days milk yield, LL and calving interval; whereas dry period was negatively correlated with the LL. The least squares analysis had shown that LL was significantly (p

Image classification is a compulsory step in any remote sensing research. Classification uses the spectral information represented by the digital numbers in one or more spectral bands and attempts to classify each individual pixel based on this spectral information. Crop classification is the main concern of remote sensing applications for developing sustainable agriculture system. Vegetation indices computed from satellite images gives a good indication of the presence of vegetation. It is an indicator that describes the greenness, density and health of vegetation. Texture is also an important characteristics which is used to identifying objects or region of interest is an image. This paper illustrate the use of decision tree method to classify the land in to crop land and non-crop land and to classify different crops. In this paper we evaluate the possibility of crop classification using an integrated approach methods based on texture property with different vegetation indices for single date LISS IV sensor 5.8 meter high spatial resolution data. Eleven vegetation indices (NDVI, DVI, GEMI, GNDVI, MSAVI2, NDWI, NG, NR, NNIR, OSAVI and VI green) has been generated using green, red and NIR band and then image is classified using decision tree method. The other approach is used integration of texture feature (mean, variance, kurtosis and skewness) with these vegetation indices. A comparison has been done between these two methods. The results indicate that inclusion of textural feature with vegetation indices can be effectively implemented to produce classifiedmaps with 8.33% higher accuracy for Indian satellite IRS-P6, LISS IV sensor images.

Insufficient knowledge of medical chemicals and their improper use have destructive effects. Accidental exposure to chemicals on facial tissue may result in large facial defect. For ages the tradition of piercing nose is common but improper use of unknown chemical for piercing has deleterious effect. Mostly rhinectomy defects are acquired caused by trauma or malignant diseases. Prosthetic rehabilitation is the preferred treatment of choice for any large rhinectomy defects as medical and surgical interventions are ineffective in developing esthetics. Main concern with the prosthesis for such defects is retention. This article describes rehabilitation of a patient with large size nasal defect created by chemical burn in childhood during piercing. Implant retained customized silicone nasal prosthesis was fabricated using simple O-ring attachments and innovative modified polyamide acrylic resin substructure acting as skeleton.

The present study describes the development of microstructural and textural trends with and without process annealing of the Cu-30Zn brass. Process-annealing refines the grain size and randomizes the crystallographic texture. The best benefits of grain refinement and randomization of texture have been obtained in process-annealing after early stage of deformation. The crucial advantages of (random + Bs) texture strengths in formability of final cold rolled gauges and annealed sheets have also been highlighted.

Lymphatic metastasis in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is eminent; however, the extent of central compartment lymph nodes dissection (CCD) is controversial and requires the knowledge of pattern and risk factors for central compartment lymph nodes metastasis (CCM). We did a prospective study of 47 cases with PTC who underwent total thyroidectomy (TT) with CCD with/without lateral lymph nodes dissection (LND). Clinicopathological profile including CCM as ipsilateral and contralateral was documented. On histopathology, the mean tumour size was 3.57±2.42 cm 59.6% had CCM, which was bilateral in the majority (60.72%). The tumour-size was the most important predictor for lymph nodes metastasis-(P=0.018) whereas multicentricity-(P=0.002) and ipsilateral CCM-(P=0.001) were the predictors for contralateral CCM. The long-term morbidity of CCD done in primary setting is comparable with TT-alone. Bilateral CCD should be done with thyroidectomy in PTC, otherwise the risk of residual diseases and subsequent recurrence is high. The long-term morbidity is comparable in experienced hands.