Search

Silicon (Si) is the second most abundant element in the earth crust constituting 27.7 per cent. The beneficial effects of Si includes mitigation of various forms of abiotic and biotic stresses. Rice (Oryza sativa), a typical Si accumulator, takes up Si actively in the form of silicic acid. There are three transporters involved in the uptake of Si viz, LSi1, LSi2 and LSi3. Influx transporter (LSi1) takes up silicic acid from soil solution and mediates its transport upto the exodermal layer of root system, followed by the efflux transporter (LSi2), which transports it across the aerenchyma. Further movement of Si to the aerial parts of the plant is mediated by another influx transporter, LSi6 and finally gets deposited as silica in the plant parts. Silicon present in soil solution as well as its deposition in plants helps in mitigating various stresses in rice. Si application during drought stress prevents compression of xylem vessels and thereby resulting in reduction of transpiration rate. Sufficient supply of Si stabilises the culms and serves to decrease the risk of lodging. Rice is sensitive to metal toxicities like Iron (Fe), Manganese (Mn) and Aluminium (Al). Si complexation with these metal ions decreases their translocation rate and reduces the toxic effects. Heavy metal toxicity due to accumulation of cadmium (Cd) and arsenic (As) can be alleviated through supplementation of Si. Si also ameliorates salt stress by decreasing Na uptake and its root-to-shoot translocation. Silicon deposition in plant parts provides a mechanical barrier against pathogens and pests. The plants supplied with Si produce phenolics and phytoalexins in response to fungal infection and cuticle-Si double layer act as a defence mechanism preventing pests. The key mechanisms of Si-mediated alleviation of stresses in rice include stimulation of antioxidants, complexation of toxic metal ions with Si, immobilization of toxic metal ions and compartmentation of metal ions within plants.

Sense organs of human body can be undertaken as essential aspects of human life. Our world is alive with stimuli, all the objects and events that surround us. Sensation and perception are the processes that allow us to detect and understand various stimuli. We do not actually experience these stimuli directly, rather, our senses allow us to get information about aspects of our environment, and we then take that information and form a perception of world. Sensation is the processes of receiving stimulus energies from external envi-ronment and transforming those energies into neural energy. Physical energy such as light, sound, heat is detected by physical receptors cells in the sense organs-eyes, ears, skin, nose and tongue. When the recep-tor cells register a stimulus, the energy is converted to an electrochemical impulse or action potential that relays information about stimulus through the nervous system to brain. An action potential is brief wave of electric charge that sweeps down the axon of a neuron for possible transmission to another neuron. When it reaches the brain, the information travels to the appropriate area of cerebral cortex. The brain gives mean-ing to sensation through perception. Perception is the process of organizing and interpreting sensory infor-mation so that it makes sense. Every species is adapted to sense and perceive stimuli that matter to that spe-cies ability to survive in its environment. Ayurved says that Indriyas able to pertain knowledge of Vishayas - Sabda, Sparsa, Rupa, Rasa and Gandha. The production of speech is pertained by the help of Vagendri-ya. Acharya Charak said that knowledge is obtained by conjoint action of Aatma, Indriya, Mana and Vishayas.

In the Rig-veda, the word "nadi" signifies "stream." It is important to understand the term "Stream," which underpins the entire Nadi concept. In other terms, every channel through which energy flows is referred to as Nadi. Tantra's artistic side has its own set of rules. It isn't a tradition without rules, nor does it approve of anything dramatic, sensational, novel, or unconventional. Tantra offers a structured and orderly view of art based on an understanding of the universe's occult and spiritual rules. [1] Yogis made the fewest anatomical correlations on this subject because it was well known at the time that these are the main path or tract through which consciousness travels, or because it was not necessary for them. Tantric and Yogic Gurus both mention the conducting pathways, but they do so in distinct ways. Because they are made up of subtle matter, they cannot be seen with the naked eye, and we are unable to conduct any tests at this level to demonstrate that they are the nerves that we met during the dissection of the human body. So the quest for “Nerves” in the physical body can be clearly identified, but those Nadis or Nerves in the astral body have yet to be identified.

Background: Development of fortified organic formulations using various organic sources and fertilizers for soil application will ensure efficient nutrient management in homestead vegetable production systems. Fortified organic formulations will help in preventing nutrient leaching also. Hence, the present study has been undertaken during 2019-20 to develop low cost fortified organic manure discs using various biodegradable agro waste materials and NPK fertilizers and to study its effect on growth and yield of tomato in sandy soils of Kerala. Methods: A fortified manure disc was developed by combining local biodegradable agro waste materials with conventional NPK fertilizers. Organic manures like rice husk ash, cow dung, rice husk, coirpith compost, vermicompost, neem cake and clay were used to develop the manure disc. The combination of organic manures was fortified with fertilizers at various proportions of manure: fertilizer viz., 1:1, 2:1, 0.5:1 and manure alone and used for incubation for a period of two months to study the nutrient release pattern of N, P and K.The 2:1(manure: fertilizer) formulation was selected based on the highest peak of nutrient availability of N, P and K even after 2 months. Effect of fortified manure disc was evaluated by using tomato variety Anagha as test crop in a pot culture experiment. Result: Growth, yield and quality of tomato increased significantly due to the application of fortified manure disc. The highest yield per plant of 0.97 kg was recorded for T8 (50% recommended dose fortified manure disc in 2 splits) and lowest yield was recorded for T9 (Manure alone). The fortified manure disc had a significant influence on nutrient use efficiency also. The highest NUE of 45.5% was recorded in treatment T8 (50% fertilizer fortified discs in 2 splits). Study revealed that fortified manure disc is a promising technology to reduce nutrient leaching and enhancing the nutrient use efficiency in sandy soils. Fifty percentage reduction in the recommended dose of NPK fertilizers were achieved by fortifying the manure disc with fertilizers.Thus the cost of fertilizers and fertilizer load per unit area can be reduced by the application of fortified manure disc which will act as slow release fertilizer.

In this paper, a novel technique for the control of voltage fluctuations and current distortions for photovoltaic integrated system is being proposed. Integration with solar provides a clean environment along with power quality improvement with dc-link voltage constant. Series and shunt compensation allow to compensate for all shortcomings likely to happen in the system thus power quality improvement is achieved. Influence of solar irradiance variation on various parameters is also analyzed.

Background: The Fe toxicity is a perpetual problem of low lying poorly drained acid soils. It also affects the solubility and availability of most of the plant nutrients, by reducing toxic concentrations of iron, aluminum and manganese. To overcome these constraint, application of lime is inevitable but high cost of liming materials necessitate the use of low-cost, internally sourced, environmentally friendly and adoptable organic sources. In present study rice husk ash was used as a soil ameliorant in lieu of liming. Methods: A field experiment was conducted at Rice Research Station, Moncompu during 2017-2018 with nine treatments replicated thrice in RBD using rice variety Uma. A customized formulation with composition of K (8.9 %), Mg (3.2 %), Ca (3.7 %), Zn (2.1 %), Mn (0.23 %), B (3.5 %) and Cu (0.96 %) was developed based on the available nutrient status of the region and crop requirement and used for supplementary foliar nutrition. Result: It was found that treatment comprising of Soil test based RDF + Rice husk ash @ lime (based on pH) + foliar spray of 0.5 % solution of customized formulation @ 5 kg ha-1 as foliar application of 0.5 % solution in two splits at maximum tillering and panicle initiation stage was the best treatment in increasing yield by 23 % compared to recommended dose of lime and fertilizer application and B:C ratio increased from 1.53 to 1.91. Effect of rice husk ash in ameliorating soil acidity was found to be on par with application of lime based on pH in acid sulphate soils of Kuttanad zone.

In this paper, the supercapacitor electrode properties of a core/shell multifunctional nano composite, with unique physiochemical properties, is presented. The synthesis method of polyaniline /NiO (PAESNI) with polyaniline (PANI) shell on NiO core, their morphological studies including Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) to know their surface chemistry and most important property required for explaining super capacitor properties like Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) and Charging Discharging studies (GCD) are explained. TEM and SEM images reveal that the polyaniline shells as-prepared are narrowly dispersed on NiO nano particles and possess uniform morphologies. CV shows that the PAESNI exhibits multiple redox behaviour during potentiodynamic cycling in acidic media at different potentials. A simple and cost-effective preparation technique with hierarchical structure and good capacitive behaviour (362 Fg-1 at 1 Ag-1 current density and 372 Fg-1 at 20 mVs-1 scan rate), Energy density (50.2 WhKg-1 at 1 Ag-1 current density), Power density (2 kWKg-1) and 99% coulombic efficiency at 4 Ag-1 current density encourages its commercial use as a high performance supercapacitor electrode.

In the twenty-first century, smart city surveillance management is one of the advancements of Information and Communication Technology. Intelligent Transport System (ITS) is an essential component of the smart city. Moving vehicle detection and speed estimation are major tasks of traffic management. Vehicle tracking and speed measurement methods failed to achieve good accuracy rate due to unsuccessful detection of moving vehicles. In the existing system, the conventional de-noising filters reduce the noise in smooth regions. The edges of object boundaries are not sharply identified. In this chapter, the Probabilistic Principal Component Analysis (PPCA) method is proposed to detect multiple outliers in objects. It is computationally fast and robust in identifying outliers which helps to reduce the dimension of video by finding an alternate set of coordinates. The proposed approach consists of three stages. First, Spatio-temporal Varying Filter (STVF) is applied to preprocess extracted frames. Contour finding algorithm is used to detect the vehicle. The frame count scheme is applied to estimate the vehicle speed. This approach provides high detection accuracy with high precision and recall rate in BrnoCompSpeed dataset.

This paper is a report on synthesis and analysis of the structure, morphology, and physicochemical properties of a three-component-Polyaniline/Chitosan/Co3O4 – (CPAESCO)-hierarchical core/shell ternary nanocomposite. This was achieved by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), Electrical Conductivity and UV–Visible analysis. The chemical bonding established in the composites were confirmed by using FT-IR. XRD patterns helped analysis of intensity variation of Co3O4 peaks, polyaniline (PAES) peaks, Crystallite size (D) and inter-crystallite separation (R) of the composites. Thermal stability increases and electrical property shows a step wise increase with increase in nanoparticle addition. Morphological changes from granular PAES to plate like CPAESCO is visible in SEM. The polaron lattice structures, hypsochromic shift, and crystallite size dependent band gaps in CPAESCO due to energy confinement produced from ligand-metal charge transfer (LMCT) interaction of Co3O4 in PAES matrix, are visible in UV–Vis spectra. The improved properties of the composite are as a result of the formation of core/double shell as shown in TEM. This nanocomposite can be used in optoelectronic and biomedical applications, catalysis, chemical and bio sensors, and energy storage devices because of its enhanced properties.

A study was conducted in the Onattukara sandy plain (AEU 3) of Kerala to assess the available nutrient status of the region to develop a multi nutrient mixture for balanced crop nutrition and to evaluate the effect of multi nutrient mixture on growth and yield of okra. Two hundred georeferenced soil samples were drawn at random from twenty soil series of the Onattukara region and analysed for 13 soil fertility parameters. The soil was very strongly acidic with high level of phosphorus, low oxidisable organic carbon and available potassium and wide spread deficiencies of calcium, magnesium, boron and zinc. Micronutrient fertilizer requirement was computed based on the available micronutrient status of the region and crop requirement. A multi nutrient mixture having a composition of Zn (9.5%) + B (2.6%) +Cu (1.2%) +Mg (2.4%) +N (0.46%) @ 20kg ha-1 was developed and the effect of multi nutrient mixture was assessed in the field experiments using okra variety Varsha Uphar as the test crop. Application of soil test based NPK and secondary nutrients + foliar application of 0.5 per cent solution of computed dose of nutrient mixture @ 5 kg ha-1 in two splits at 15 DAS and 30 DAS (T7) yielded significantly higher (11.3 t ha-1) over rest of the treatments with a B: C ratio of 3.02. Soil status of micronutrients in the experiment site before the experiment was Zn (0.27 mg kg-1), Cu (0.21 mg kg-1) and B (0.17 mg kg-1). After two consecutive applications of multi nutrient mixture, the soil status of Zn, Cu and B were in the range of 0.62 to 1.58 mg kg-1, 0.74 to 0.99 mg kg-1 and 0.19 to 0.31 mg kg-1 respectively. In general the highest nutrient content and uptake in shoot and fruit were recorded by T7. Application of multi nutrient mixtures customized for agro ecological units and crops ensured increased yield and sustained soil health.

A study has been undertaken at Agricultural Research Station, Thiruvalla with an objective to study the effect of thermo chemical processing on storability of sugarcane juice to develop a protocol for preservation of sugarcane juice. Fresh sugarcane juice was subjected to ten different treatments. Juice under different treatments was analyzed before preservation and after preservation. The scores for sensory qualities (colour, taste, smell and overall acceptability) reduced significantly with the advancement of storage. Change in physico- chemical characteristics (pH, TSS, titratable acidity and Brix: acid ratio) also followed the same decreasing trend during storage period. The treatment T5 recorded the highest scores in sensory evaluation and it recorded the highest Brix: acid ratio after the storage period, indicating better consumer acceptability. The results revealed that good quality beverage from sugarcane juice with satisfactory storage stability of 30 days at refrigeration could be prepared by adding 0.5ml lime juice, 0.2ml ginger extract and 125 ppm of sodium meta bisulphite per 100 ml of sugarcane juice and microwave pasteurization of the treated juice for one minute. This protocol for preservation of sugarcane juice with microwave pasteurization and preservatives will be very useful for commercial preservation of sugarcane juice.

This study focuses on performance-comparison of different tuning methods for a PI controller applied to a buck-boost converter. Comparison between the controllers is made by analysis of design methodology implementation issues and empirically measured performance. Design of PI controller is based on frequency response of the converter. The optimization of PI controller is based on ant colony algorithm. Experimental results show that, tuning the PI controller using ACO algorithm gave better performance than the conventional algorithm. This is mainly due to the fact ACO is capable of reducing the overshoot without oscillation.

Inter Area Oscillations amounting to a major portion of the class of low frequency oscillations, are detrimental to the dynamic stability of the present day power system. Power system stabilizer (PSS) installed throughout the system aids in mitigating such oscillations. Static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) based damping controllers installed in the system also provide oscillation damping apart from their intended purpose of reactive power compensation. Hence to improve the overall performance coordinated design of PSS and STATCOM is essential. The coordinated design of power system stabilizer (PSS) and static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) for mitigation of inter area oscillations is presented in this paper. The coordinated design is formulated as an optimization problem and particle swarm optimization (PSO) is employed for this design. Then the designed PSS and STATCOM are implemented in the test system and the response is analysed. The test system is simulated with and without Power system stabilizer and static synchronous compensator. The simulation results show that the coordinated design mitigates the inter area oscillations in an effective way.

In this paper, two control strategies for Transformerless Dynamic Voltage Restorer(TDVR) are analyzed on the basis of its performance under voltage sag, and swell. Eliminating the usage of a transformer for DVR precisely reduces the size and cost. The load voltage profile is controlled using model predictive control, an advanced control which tracks the reference voltage by predicting the future behaviour of the system. Predictive voltage control scheme uses the discrete system model for prediction and hence the nonlinearities of the system are included in the control technique. The proposed control technique is compared with conventional PI control. As the system dynamics are well addressed in the predictive scheme it produces better response compared to PI and reduced THD levels. Simulation results prove the effectiveness of the application of the control scheme to the system.

Due to fast growth of temporal databases has made temporal data mining mandatory for knowledge discovery. Temporal association rule classification, a sub-task of temporal mining, integrates association rule mining and classification. The growth and increased complexities in temporal databases have necessitated this research work to propose techniques that enhance the process of associative mining and classification. Hierarchical partitioning with frequent pattern list with multiple projection pruning and 2-Step Associative rule Classification with Temporal characteristic (HM2ACT) is proposed to solve the issues and designed enhanced temporal association rule classification algorithm. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed algorithm produces high quality rules and improved classification performance.

The higher demand for electric power and poor reactive power management has led to voltage stability problems in power system. The voltage instability of a power system is mainly caused due to some disturbance occurring at some location, due to which rapid voltage drop occurs. This voltage drop can turn cumulative and finally lead to voltage collapse. In this work the voltage stability analysis is performed on the test system to evaluate the influence of FACTS devices on improving the voltage profile of the system. The optimal location for the installation of the FACTS controllers is obtained using the line stability index Lmn and validated using power flow analysis. A comparative study is conducted to select the best FACTS controller in terms of voltage stability. The WSCC 9-bus system is taken as the test system. Simulations are done in MATLAB/PSAT environment. From the simulation results it has been found that with the optimal implementation of FACTS controllers the voltage stability of the power system was improved and the real power losses in the system was reduced considerably.

Voltage stability is an issue of prime importance in the present power system scenario since the demand for electric power is increasing drastically. Voltage instability may be due to a disturbance occurring at some location in the power system. The increase in active and reactive power loss along the heavily loaded transmission network is another undesirable effect of the same. In this paper a solution to this problem is put forward by using series connected flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) controllers, namely thyristor controlled series capacitor(TCSC) and static synchronous series compensator(SSSC). The main objective of this paper is to provide adequate compensation to reduce system losses and to improve the voltage profile of the system. The optimal location for installation of the FACTS device is found out using the line stability index Lmn and validated using power flow studies. The performance of the controllers are compared to find out the best one in terms of voltage stability enhancement and loss reduction. The test has been conducted in MATLAB/PSAT environment and the test system considered is the WSCC 9 bus system.

Reactive Power Dispatch (RPD) problem is a complex nonlinear problem involving integer, discrete and continuous types of control variables. This paper proposes a novel algorithm for solving the RPD problem using Diversity Enhanced Particle Swarm Optimization (DEPSO) technique. The proposed method offers an effective technique for solving Mixed Integer Discrete Continuous (MIDC) problems; hence suitable for the RPD problem. The effectiveness of the proposed method is reflected on the rounding off of control variables to the nearest integer or nearest available discrete values. With the implementation of the solution obtained in real time applications, the system becomes less prone to voltage instability. In this paper, DEPSO is applied to standard IEEE 30-bus test system. The results obtained are compared with those of basic PSO method.

The effects of gamma (γ) irradiation on dielectric and optical properties of polymer electrolyte film were investigated. The dielectric constant and ac conductivity increases with γ dose. Also optical band gap decreased from 4.23 to 3.78ev after irradiation. A large dependence of the polymer properties on the irradiation dose was noticed. This suggests that there is a possibility of improving polymer electrolyte properties on gamma irradiation.

The conductivity and optical properties of Li2SO4 doped polyethylene oxide (PEO) films were studied. The polymer electrolyte films are prepared using solution casting technique. The material phase change was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique. Optical absorption study was conducted using UV- Vis. Spectroscopy in the wavelength range 190–1100nm on pure and doped PEO films. The direct and indirect optical band gaps were found decreased from 5.81–4.51eV and 4.84–3.43eV respectively with increasing the Li2SO4. The conductivity found to increases with increasing the dopant concentration due to strong hopping mechanism at room temperature.

Of all forms of writing, a biography is, on the surface, the least demanding since one deals with facts which naturally arrange themselves chronologically. But a moment's reflection shows that biography has its problems. The writer must be selective in the choice of facts. What principle will he follow? Should the historical background be given a role and, if so, how much of a role? Does the historical background include the intellectual too? Should one peer into the psychology of the subject, perhaps to throw light on his intellectual creations? In the preface of his biography of Keynes, Professor Moggridge is cognizant of these problems: he stoutly rejects, for instance, the Stigler-Walker view that the biography of an economist must be solely concerned with his economic theorizing, with the arduous climb from error to truth. Indeed, Moggridge introduces his preface with a quotation from Virginia Woolf to the effect that a biography should give us "the creative fact; the fertile fact; the fact that suggests and engenders." Moggridge agrees: "facts do not speak for themselves . . . Selection and arrangement do matter . . ." Alas, anyone tackling J. M. Keynes' biography has his work cut out. By his own admission, Keynes was a compulsive writer (see My Early Beliefs) and a hoarder of paper. One suspects that when he took the train or went to the theater, he saved the ticket to enable future biographers to follow his footsteps. This Moggridge does with unrelenting thoroughness. Via appointment calendars, diaries, letters and carbon copies of letters, aides de memoir, financial records, tabulations of "sexual activities" and of "partners" (see Plates 9 and 10), and memoirs and records of conversations, he gives a thorough account of his subject's life. He examined the Charleston Papers, the Keynes Papers, the Joan Robinson Papers, the Richard Keynes Papers, the Polly Hill Collection, plus the official public record of background events, and, of course, Keynes' own professional writings, most of whose thirty volumes Moggridge himself edited. Moggridge's diligent work on Keynes has stretched over two decades and, not surprisingly, has resulted in this most complete biography. There are so many facts demanding attention that sometimes the language creeks under the strain: "Maynard spent a further two to five days there [in Florence] before he went off to [sic] London via Germany to collect his brother who had been spending a term in the Black Forest improving his German before going up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, to read natural sciences."(1) The problem, of course, is the pace of Keynes' life: dinner parties, outings, weekends in the country, working lunches, trips abroad, addresses to various groups, sicknesses, arguments with Bloomberries, meetings with politicians, economists, friends; gambling excursions to the South of France . . . all demand attention and they get it. At the beginning of August [1919] he settled down to Charleston with the book [the writing of The Economic Consequences of the Peace] after a whirlwind ten days in London, during which he opened a discussion at the Tuesday Club on the Peace terms; gave evidence to the Official Committee on Indian Exchange and Currency, which was picking up where the Chamberlain Committee had left off in the Spring of 1914 as well as examining the appropriate post-war exchange rate for the rupee; addressed the Fight the Famine Council; went to the Diaghilev ballet season at the Alhambra twice (including the premiere of The Three Cornered Hat); and, with Clive Bell, threw an end-of-season ballet dinner party for thirty-three including a selection of Bloomsbury, members of the cast plus Derain, the Picassos, Massine and Ernst Ansermet. He remained there, except for two overnight visits to London, until the beginning of October.(2) (A footnote adds the information that Lydia Lopokova was not at the dinner, having "disappeared," much to Keynes' regret). …

I Keynes and Free Markets In a 1925 essay Keynes quotes with approval Professor John R. Commons' sweeping view of the evolution of economic systems. The American institutionalist saw mankind as passing through three epochs. The first is "the era of scarcity" which ended in the 16th century. The second is the "era of abundance" which culminated in the liberalism and laissez faire of the 19th century. The third is "the era of stabilization" that arose in the 20th century from the ashes of the previous period. In this period . . . there is a diminution of individual liberty, enforced in part by governmental sanctions, but mainly by economic sanctions through concerted action, whether secret or semi-open, open, or arbitrational, of associations, corporations, union, and other collective movements of manufacturing, merchants, labourers, farmers and bankers. The passage from the second to the third epoch is that "from economic anarchy to a regime which deliberately aims at controlling and directing economic forces in the interest of social justice and social stability.(1) Keynes' approval of this vision raises many questions. To what extent was it inspired by the comparative economic success of communist Russia? By what extent was it strengthened by the fact that Nazi Germany was the only major country to cope with the Depression successfully? We know that in the preface to the German translation of The General Theory (1936) Keynes went so far as to note that his theory of output "is more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state" than to a state characterized by a large measure of laissez faire. And why so? Because in a totalitarian state, "national leadership is more pronounced," so that the free play of market forces can more easily be interfered with.(2) We do not wish to pursue here the question of Keynes' political ideas, except to note in passing that, perhaps, when older, Keynes outgrew the youthful "Burke essays" just as he outgrew A Treatise on Probability. We rather wish to address a narrower, more technical question: what was Keynes' attitude toward the free market as a key capitalist institution? Are there specific cases of criticism of free markets? And if such cases exist, on what grounds did he criticize them? In what follows it is shown that Keynes' attitude toward markets was very pragmatic and, hence, often negative. The first instance of what may be called a realistic and critical attitude toward free markets came in March 1907. When Keynes was attached to the India Office it came to his attention that India's near monopoly in the production of jute (from which sacks are made) was threatened by a widespread adulteration, as merchants sold wet jute "unfit for use, or at any rate inferior, even after it had been cleaned and dried."(3) Now, a dogmatic believer in free markets and in the "Invisible Hand" would argue that "the consumer is king" and that the market itself would solve the problem: the inferior jute would not be bought, so that the dishonest merchants would have to mend their ways or go bankrupt. Keynes' argument is precisely the reverse: adulteration, if unchecked, will "naturally become universal." In time, "the general level of excellence which is expected will steadily sink until dishonesty is so well known that it becomes honesty again." Also, the dishonest merchants, with their lower costs, can lower the price and drive the honest producers out of business. In an early statement of what was to become the fallacy of composition, Keynes concludes that "while adulteration is plainly opposed to the interests of the trade as a whole, it is nevertheless to the interest of every individual to practice it," since his profits then rise. Thus it is not surprising that he advises the Indian government to pass legislation to protect the buyers of jute. The "Invisible Hand" is also absent in the financial markets. During the war Keynes began to trade in stocks and foreign currencies, an activity that continued throughout his life and was, in fact, his major source of income. …

I Keynes' activities as an investor were of two types: those dealing with his own account and those he performed as chairman or director of companies managing other people's money. Data on the first type of activities leave no doubt that Keynes' income from investment and speculation soon dwarfed his income from academic activities, including royalties from books and articles. Already in 1916-17, about three fourths of his income was from investment sources. Academic income surged in 1919-20 because of the substantial royalties earned by The Economic Consequences of the Peace, but by 1924-25, speculative income again represented seventy-five per cent of the total. Thereafter, the relation between the two portions of income was affected by the impact of the various depressions, but in the last seven years of his life investment income averaged around eighty per cent of the total. At his death in 1946 his gross security assets were about 436,000 pounds(1) or approximately 9 million pounds (13.5 million dollars) in today's prices. Skidelsky has already disposed of the myth, propagated by Harrod, that Keynes' involvement in the stock market before 1919, when he was attached to the Treasury, was minimal.(2) His security holdings of [pounds]539 in 1910 had by 1919 grown to [pounds]14,453,(3) a not inconsiderable amount when one considers that a King's fellowship in 1909 paid [pounds]120 a year.(4) After leaving the Treasury in 1919, Keynes' investment activity certainly broadened. He entered into a partnership with an old Treasury war associate, Mr. O.T. Falk, investing not only his savings but those of some of his friends, of his parents and of his brother. The resulting syndicate began with a capital of [pounds]30,000 and invested its funds mainly in foreign exchange. Months of concentrated thinking and learning about the European financial situation resulted not only in The Economic Consequences but also in his going bearish on European currencies and bullish on the dollar. But, in what turned out to be the first shock of his life as an investor, it was the dollar that depreciated, the ten per cent margin on the basis of which he had speculated providing insufficient cover, so that by April 1920, the whole position had to be liquidated at a loss of [pounds]22,575.(5) In the aftermath of the debacle, we find Keynes appealing to a millionaire banker in Cologne, Sir Ernest Cassel, for a loan of [pounds]5,000. Presenting himself as one who "knows the ropes" (a claim that makes sense only if we grant that he had been an investor for many years prior to 1920), Keynes noted that the European currencies bore no relation to their "real value." The forthcoming Brussels and Spa Conferences, he added, do not justify these values and talk of an international loan is "pure deception." Anyone "prepared to stand the racket" for a couple of months would make substantial profits.(6) Keynes' 1919-20 foreign exchange dealings were the result of an invitation he received in October 1919 to meet other influential people at Amsterdam in a gathering that was "entirely private, confidential and unofficial," as he wrote.(7) The Economic Consequences of the Peace had not yet appeared but his views on European problems and reconstruction were so well known to influential people that he was asked to join an unofficial body formed to lobby the United States and other neutral countries to come forth with an international loan to rescue Europe from the coming catastrophe. Dr. Visserling (Governor of the Bank of the Netherlands), Fred Kent (once head of the foreign exchange department of the Federal Reserve and U.S. representative at Versailles), Paul Warburg (the influential banker), all took "an exceedingly pessimistic view" of the European situation following the Treaty of Versailles. The information gained at the Amsterdam meeting led Keynes to write four aides de memoir which formed the basis for a lecture delivered three months later at Manchester on "The Present State of the Foreign Exchange," in which he noted the "extraordinary" speculative purchases of marks and expressed foreboding at the possible negative impact of this speculation: what would "the vast army of speculators" do in the future? …

A single group pre-post test study evaluated the impact of a pharmacist provided education session on medication adherence behaviour in 104 HIV/AIDS patients receiving highly active Anti Retroviral Therapy. A brief medication questionnaire was administered to eligible patients at baseline and follow up to assess their reported medication adherence and barriers to adherence. The number of subjects reporting greater than 95% adherence increased significantly between baseline (n = 39 (43%)) and final follow up (n = 79 (80%). Pharmacist provided education sessions were found effective in improving medication adherence behavior in HIV/AIDS patients.

This paper examines a minor methodological foray by Keynes: his 1941 reaction to what is now a well-known conclusion of price theory, the so-called “below-capacity theorem” first advanced by Joan Robinson’s 1933 Economics of Imperfect Competition. By the graphical analysis that has now become universal, the theorem “proves” that any profit-maximizing firm faced with a downward-sloping demand curve will produce to the left of the average cost curve’s lowest point, the difference between this lowest-cost output and the output determined by MC=MR being a measure of excess capacity. The paper will conclude that Keynes’ denigration of the theorem is wholly due to his different cast of mind, to a methodology that preferred observation and history over deductive methods.&nbsp

Keynes severely criticized the “Benthamite tradition,” the overvaluation of the “economic criterion” He found “the love of money” corrosive of community and esthetic values and an encouragement to reckless exploitation of places that should be in the public domain In “Art and the State,” he proposes the rebuilding of large sections of modern cities to rekindle popular feelings of beauty and community values One of the factors behind this philosophy was G E Moore's Principia Ethica (1903) It criticizes Bentham for committing “the naturalistic fallacy” of confusing means with ends and idealizes two “goods” in themselves, the pleasure of human relations and the enjoyment of beauty in nature and art These ideals Keynes saw undermined by the Benthamite tradition Such criticism is the “moral-political paradigm” on which The General Theory is erected Minute calculation of advantages and disadvantages, on which classical economics is based, is rejected Behind consumption and investment functions are sociological and psychological factors, “animal spirits,” and the like Calculation prevails in the stock and bond markets (liquidity preference)–to everybody's sorrow The proposed slow elimination of institutions that make liquidity preference possible, and of the rentier, follow logically Econometrics, viewed as the tool of the overvaluation of the economic criterion, is also rejected. In many articles Keynes aimed at much more than revolutionizing political economy, he aimed at weaning England from Benthamite utilitarianism and raising the cultural values of the populace By 1938 he knew that he had failed.

This is the first of two volumes celebrating Keynes's contribution to economics, and the development of post Keynesian economics in recent years. It reinstates the importance of Keynesian economics and its revival since the end of the 1980s, and the book's authoritative chapters are presented by an outstanding group of international contributors.

Sonerila veldkampiana, a new species of Melastomataceae collected from an exposed, high-elevation rocky grassland in Kerala, India is described and illustrated. It resembles S. rotundifolia, but differs in having several important characters like pilose leaf-lamina, terete and glabrous peduncle, inflorescence with 10–35 flowers in branched or unbranched scorpioid cymes, an obscurely ridged hypanthium, long acuminate anthers with a deeply cordate base, and seeds with a sub-excurrent raphe.

To a large extent Keynes was ‘made’ by the Great War. A boring job at the India Office, which he resigned after two years, and the ‘drudgery’ of lecturing at Cambridge suddenly became the ‘exciting’ work at the Treasury where he was in charge of allocating England’s scarce foreign exchange resources to the best war uses.1 That history that he knew only through the pages of books read and discussed at Eton and King’s now swept him in its current. Through its effect on his personality the war influenced his attitudes, his social ideas, his view of human nature, and hence his methodology, so weakening his already weak loyalties to the nineteenth century and its values that, when economic troubles came in the post-war decades, Keynes was freer than most from the baggage of outworn dogma. His wartime absorption in the world of politics began to dissolve the power of intellectualistic considerations embodied in the Probability study. Chance, uncertainty, fears became more prominent in his thought. Finally, his war work clashed with the values of the Society, creating the psychological stress hinted at in My Early Beliefs and which found release in The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919).

We shall take it for granted that the great classical economic methodologists from Adam Smith to Nassau Senior, Robbins, von Mises, Menger and Machlup were brought up in an educational system centred on classical studies and dominated by Platonic notions of Forms and by Christian attitudes toward the body and passions. In England this tradition was somewhat tempered by British empiricism, and perhaps this is why the most clear-minded methodologists are Austrians, economists from a country where the empiricist tradition was weak. But we shall see that British economists, too, did realise that economic theory did not draw sustenance from the visible kingdom.