Archives-December 

Mycotoxin contaminations are ubiquitous in livestock diets. This comes under many generic names of which Fumonisin B1 (FB1) was the object of evaluation on its influence on growth and laying performance of laying birds fed with graded level of FB1 with or without vitamin C supplementation. One hundred and five (105) point-of-lay Isa brown breed at 18 weeks and twenty-one (21) cocks at 25 weeks were purchased for the experiment. The birds (layers) were assigned to Seven (7) dietary treatments of 15 birds each at three (3) birds per replicate. The treatments were classified according to inclusion level of Fumonisin B1 and Vitamin C. Treatment A served as the control, B (10 mg/kg of FB1), C (20 mg/kg of FB1), D (30 mg/kg of FB1), E (10 mg/kg of FB1 + Vitamin C), F (20 mg/kg of FB1 + Vitamin C), and G (30mg/kg of FB1 + Vitamin C). Feed intake and weights of the birds were taken for performance evaluation. Eggs were daily collected and counted and analysed for Hen-house and Hen-day production. The relative weight of organs were taken to examine the influence of fumonisin on them. It was observed that there are no significant difference (P>0.05) in the final weight, total weight and daily weight gain of hens when compared with the control. Increased inclusion of FB1 resulted in significant (P<0.05) increase in total feed intake, daily feed intake and feed conversion ratio. There were no significant difference in the organ weight for treatment and levels of inclusion. The weight of the laying hens was reduced with increased feed intake. This showed that FB1 caused poor feed conversion rate which was evident in the result of this study. Meanwhile, the Vitamin C effectively ameliorated the toxic effect of the FB1. It is therefore important to include Vitamin C in the diet of laying hens so as to reduce the negative effects of FB1 on the performance and Carcass characteristics.

The Urban Cooperative Banking (UCB) system has come a long way since 1904 when the first UCB was started at Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu. UCBs remain not-for-profit, owned and controlled by the members who use their services. With the tightening of prudential norms, the banking sector has been consistently conforming to and adopting international prudential norms and accounting practices. Such strengthening of prudential norms have resulted in increased levels of Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) for the Urban Cooperative Banking Sector. This study is an attempt to analyze the asset quality of UCBs in India. This paper also traces the return on assets of UCBs in India along with pattern of financing to different sectors.

Rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common soft tissue sarcoma encounered in childhood and adolescence; that arises from embryonic mesenchyme. It is most common found in the head and neck region, and the parameningeal location has the least favorable prognosis because of its tendency to local and intracranial extension. Parameningeal Rhabdomyosarcoma represents a diagnostic and therapeutic problem. We present the case of a child who got treated for her local nasopharyngeal rhabdomyosarcoma for over 1 month, and then got admitted for cranial nerve paralysis (peripheral facial palsy and Orbital apex syndrome) after the cranial extension of the tumor.

An important feature of India’s wetland development programme is that it combines the task of securing out a strategy for wetland development alternatives with the task of lending similar support to implement the projects.  Such a unified programme ensures reduction of gap between expected benefit and actual outcome – a gap that has been a matter of serious consent in many of the lofty endeavors all over the world. Toxic metal pollution of water and soil is a major environmental problem, and most conventional remediation approaches do not provide acceptable solutions. Wetland plants are being used successfully for the phytoremediation of trace elements in natural and constructed wetlands. This study demonstrates the phytoremediation potential of three different water hyacinths ( Eichornia crassipes, Ipomea spp, Stachytarpheta jamaicensis ) in three different lake system ( Ramanaickan Lake, Basthi Lake Dharga Lake) of Hosur district. Our results shows Eichornia crassipes is a potent metal (Ca,  Mg,  Cl) accumulator and tolerant species collected from Rama Naicken Lake, Hosur. Ipomeas spp  is a moderate accumulator (Fe, SO_4, PO₄) and sensitive species collected from Dharga lake whereas Stachytarpheta jamaicensis is non accumulator and tolerant species. Eichornia crassipes is a promising candidate for phytoremediation of wastewater polluted with different metals and can be used for natural wetland cultivation.

Nine genotypes of grain amaranthus (Amaranthus hypochondriacus) were evaluated for nine characters to evaluate field performance. Experiments were conducted at G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Hill Campus, Ranichauri, Tehri Garhwal, Uttarakhand during kharif 2011 and 2012. The results revealed that, the genotype Durga followed by IC35468 showed minimum days to 50% flowering during both years and Durga was found to be best for the character days to maturity having minimum days. The highest yield was recorded by PRA 2010-1 followed by PRA3, however, genotype PRA3 showed stability for many characters like germination per-cent, Days to 50% flowering, Spikelets as well as inflorescence length and can be used for improvement of these traits in breeding programme. Genotype PRA2010-1 performed better for almost all the characters over checks.

Today most of the world population is moving towards herbal medicines. Traditional plant medicines might offer a natural treatment to treat various human ailments. Research work goes to be focused on finding successful results on the therapeutic values of medicinal plants and also exact molecular mechanism of their action at molecular levels. The article gives an overview of Therapeutic and current status of the pharmacological perspectives of Gloriosa superba L. a member of lililaceae family, with phytochemicals present in this species were found to have analgesic, anti-inflammatory, anti-thrombotic, anti-coagulant, anti-tumor, “enzyme inhibitor, and anti-venom characteristics”. Further clinical studies are necessary to increase our understanding of the links between the documented traditional uses and toxicity of G. superba, this article is aimed at compiling an up-to-date medicinal uses and poisonous properties of G. Superba over its distributional.

The production of extracellular ?-amylase by thermotolerant Bacillus amyloliquefaciens was studied under solid state fermentation (SSF). Various agro- byproducts namely Wheat flour, Barley flour, Corn flour, Gram flour, Moong husk, Arhar husk, Mustard oil cake, coconut oil cake, Banana peel, Potato peel, Sweet Potato peel, Soybean hull, Wheat bran, Rice bran, and Sugarcane baggase were examined for ?- amylase production. Wheat flour was found to be best substrate for amylase production (145.56 IU/ml) in phosphate buffer as extracting medium. Further, the appropriate incubation period, moisture level, incubation temperature and inoculum concentration was determined. Maximum yields of 149.62 IU/ml, 144.64 IU/ml, 173.28 IU/ml, 164.48 IU/ml were achieved by employing wheat flour as substrates at temperature 37°C, pH 7, moisture content 80% and incubation period 72 h. The inoculums concentration 4ml (106cfu/ml) and phosphate concentration 0.03M were found to enhance ?- amylase yield. Media supplementation with carbon source as maltose in SSF medium increased amylase enzyme yield (167.44 IU/ml). Organic nitrogen (tryptone) and inorganic source (ammonium chloride) supplementation showed a higher enzyme production 169.16 IU/ml and 167.11 IU/ml respectively.

Banking in India originated in the last decades of the 18th century. After the nationalization of banks, the major concern was the productivity and profitability of public sector banks. It was believed that the new direction given to the banks since their nationalization in 1969, and the slacking productivity, has led to declining trends in the profits and profitability. This study is conducted to know the profitability of selected Nationalised Indian banks. In order to access and evaluate the profitability of selected nationalized banks of India, financial ratios of the different banks have been studied and correlation analysis and multiple regression techniques are used. The study shows the explanatory power of some variables such as NII, C/D ratio, Business per employee, Profit per employee are significantly high and Interest spread, OE, P&C are found with low explanatory power. To strengthen the position further, the public sector banks must strive to greatly enhance efficiency through a control over increasing non-interest income, and maximizing business per employee and per branch, etc.

The problem of generating Trivariate Normal Distributions from univariate ones is drawing the attention of the reliability analyst. Amongst these approaches the characterisation approach and the modelling approach are very appealing. Infact the characterisation approach is of great interest to both theoreticians and applied workers. Here we have used a Trivariate Normal Distribution for application by extending univariate distribution through characterisation approach. In our application part we have considered post-menopausal women. We have concentrated on a 24 hr profile of Melatonin, ACTH, Cortisol, TSH ,Prolactin and GH under the treatment with Placebo and with Progesterone. In this respect we have developed a mathematical model which describes the purpose of the present study. The study investigates in post-menopausal women, the effects of a 24-hr profile of progesterone and placebo administration both on sleep architecture and on multiple hormones profile. The protocol allows us to explore the effects of the placebo and progesterone treatment on combined effects of hormones.

A survey of adult tapeworms from marine fishes from coastal area of Maharashtra, India. It is presented on the basis of the taxonomic evaluation of freshly collected fishes from different coastal regions of Maharashtra. The cestode parasites are collected from various parts of Maharashtra from June, 2009 to December, 2013. They are having 750 fishes of 14 species. Thirty one species of helminthes are recovered, the eight monogeneans, nine nematodes and fourteen cestodes. A detailed report is on the tapeworms Tylocephalum yorkei Southwell, 1925, T.minimum Subhapradha, 1955, T.elongatum Subhapradha,1955, T.madhukari Chincholikar and Shinde,1980, T.singhii Jadhav and Shinde 1981, T.bombayensis Jadhav 1983, T. aurangabadensis Jadhav et. al., 1987, T.hanumanthraoae Shinde et. al., 1989, T.mehdii Bhagwan et. al., 2002, T.alibagensis Bhagwan and Mohekar, 2003, T.gajananae Wankhede and Jadhav, 2003, T.babulalae Pawar and Jadhav, 2005, T.shindei Pawar and Jadhav, 2005, Tylocephalum damodarae Pathan and Bhure, 2013. Data regarding the morphology of all species, their hosts and distribution in Maharashtra is also provided.