eBook Chapters

INTRODUCTION

The cultivated almond (Prunus dulcis (Miller). D.A. Webb; Syn. Prunus amygdalus L. Batsch.) known as “Badam” in hindi is an important stone fruit tree species producing highly nourishing nuts of great medicinal value, called as almond. Badam Pappu (Telugu), Badam Paruppu (Tamil), Baadami (Kannada), Badam kayu (Malayalam) are other local names for almond in India. Surprisingly, the almond is not a true nut member, but rather is actually a family member of stone fruits such as nectarines, peaches, plums and cherries. For this reason, some people refer to an almond as a fruit. It is a medium sized deciduous tree belonging to Rosaceae family which produces edible seeds in hard outer shell and is cultivated mainly between latitudes 36o and 45o N. The almond is the most favoured nut with Indians and is very much relished by people. Spain , USA, Itlay, China, Iran, Greece, Tunisia, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Algeria, Morroco, France, Persia and Syria are the important almond growing countries. In India it is mainly cultivated in the Kashmir valley and some parts of Himachal Pradesh.

Introduction

The green revolution in mid-sixties stirred by research based new technological developments involving new materials, models and ways of organizing farm inputs (water, fertilizer, chemical etc) and government’s policies transformed the agriculture dramatically. The outcome chewed a many fold increase in production and productivity viz. food grain production of 211 million tonnes (which was only 74.23 million tonnes in 1966-67) and food grain productivity of 1697 kg ha-1 (which was only 644 kg ha-1 in 1966-67). The country thus became self-sufficient in food production despite tremendous pressure to sustain 16% of world human population and 10% of cattle population with just 2.4% of total land.

The analysis of chromosome behaviour at meiosis can provide valuable information about the genomic composition of both species and hybrids. The basis for this analysis is the idea that chromosomes that pair and undergo chiasma formation are homologous. Where two genomes are present, as in diploids, the expectation is that only bivalents will be observed and where there are multiple genomes, as in polyploids, two general patterns of pairing are possible. In autopolyploids, configurations of multiple chromosomes are to be expected since all the component genomes are homologous and have the possibility of pairing with each other, whereas in allopolyploids, with different genomes, bivalent formation is the expectation. Thus, meiotic analysis can provide an oversight for genome analysis to investigate genetic relationships between the species. Further, chromosomal rearrangements are correlated with pollen fertility in species and F₁ hybrids.  Observations on pollen formation, size and viability can provide useful information, as low pollen viability is often indicative of meiotic irregularities and large sized pollen can indicate the formation of unreduced gametes. In addition, the occurrence of nucleolar dominance has been recorded in many interspecific hybrids.

Computation has become an essential tool in life science research. This is exemplified in genomics, where first microarrays and now massively parallel DNA sequencing have enabled a variety of genome-wide functional assays that require increasingly complex analysis tools. The problem of accessibility of computational tools has long been recognized. Without programming or informatics expertise, scientists needing to use computational approaches are impeded by problems ranging from tool installation; to determining which parameter values to use; to efficiently combining multiple tools together in an analysis chain. The severity of these problems is evidenced by the numerous solutions to address them. Kowledge on software  and web-based interfaces for tools all improve the accessibility of computation. These approaches each have advantages, but do not offer a general solution that enables a computational tool to be easily included in an analysis chain and run by scientists without programming experience.However, making tools accessible does not necessarily address the crucial problem of reproducibility.

Q.1.    In what sense the analysis of covariance is an extension of ANOVA ?

    Answer
    
    The analysis of covariance is an extension of ANOVA in the sense that it covers the case where observations are taken on more than one variable from each experimental unit. The interest centers on the study variable y which depends upon on auxillary variable x.

Two schemes of labeling are in common use today. One variant labels a single sample, either radioactively or fluorescently. Radioactive labeling is used, e.g., in conjunction with hybridization on nylon membranes (Lennon and Lehrach, 1991). The company Affymetrix synthesizes sets of short oligomers on a glass wafer and uses a single fluorescent label (Lipshutz et al., 1999). Alternatively, two samples are labeled with a green and a red fluorescent dye, respectively. The mixture of the two mRNA preparations is then hybridized simultaneously to a common array on a glass slide. This technology is usually referred to as the Stanford technology (David Duggan et al., 1999). Quantification utilizes a laser scanner that determines the intensities of each of the two labels over the entire array. Recently, companies like Agilent have immobilized long oligomers of 60 to 70 base pairs length and used two-color labeling.

The male genital system consists of:

1. The pair gonads, the testes
2. Epididymis
3. Vas deference or ductus deference
4. Accessory glands (Seminal vesicles, prostate glands, & bulbo-urethral glands)

1.     Tissue Collection and Culture
    
2.     Trypsinization of Cells
    
3.     Cell Separation by Density Gradient Method
    
4.     Low Speed Separation of Cells
    
5.     Isolation of Lymphocyte
    
6.     Cryo Preservation
    
7.     Isolation of Spleen Cells
    
8.     Isolation of Peritoneal Macrophage
    
9.     Isolation of Blood Dna
    
10.     Differential Count of Leucocytes
    
11.     Slide Gel Electrophoresis
    
12.     Haemagglutination Assay
    
13.     Elisa
    
14.     Western Blotting
    
15.     Widal Test
    
16.     Identification of Y-chromosomes in Cattle using Pcr

Analysis of Variance
    
Completely Randomised Design (C.R.D.)
    
Randomised Block Design (R. B. D.)
    
Latin Square Design

INTRODUCTION

Aonla or Indian gooseberry (Emblica officinalis Gaertn.) is an important indigenous minor fruit grown in tropical and subtropical regions of India. It is known with many vernacular names such as amla, aura, amlaki, nelli, amolphal, amlakamu, amlet, amlay. Aonla, cultivation is highly remunerative due to its high productivity even on marginal lands. The plant is quite hardy, heavy bearer giving better income to the farmers. It can be grown successfully in marginal soil and various kinds of wasteland conditions such as sodic and saline soils, ravines, dry and semi dry regions.

1.    Groups of Apomixis
    
2.    Recurrent Apomixis
    
3.    Non-recurrent Apomixis
    
4.    Vegetative Apomixis
    
5.    Genetic Control of Apomixis
    
6.    Mechanism of Apomixis
    
7.    Ovule, Seed and Fruit Development in Sexual Plants
    
8.    Double Fertilization and Control of Embryo Initiation
    
9.    Sequential Events in Apomictic Pathway
    
10.    Gametophytic Apomixis
    
11.    Significance and Scope of Apomixis in Crop Plants
        
References

Appendix A: Diagrammatic Presentation of Processes Involved in Obtaining an Indian Patent

INTRODUCTION

The apple ( Malus x domestica Borkh.) is an important temperate fruit, grown in areas experiencing cold winters, frost free springs and mild summer. The genus Malus has 25 species. Apple is considered best premier table fruit of the world. The commercially grown cultivars of apple are sweet, juicy and have a pleasing grainy texture. Apple is the most important crop or cash crop of hilly states and occupy 49 per cent of the total area under fruit crop.

Nutritive and Cultural Significance

Apple fruit is in rich source of proteins, minerals, potassium, thiamine, vitamin B6 and carbohydrates. Apple fruits contains sugars (sucrose, glucose, fructose), dextrins, starch, hemicellulose, cellulose and pectin substances. Maleic acid is the major acid of apple fruits. The fruit contain Carbohydrates 14.5 per cent, protein 0.3 per cent, potassium 110 mg, phosphorus 10 mg, iron 0.12 mg and calcium 6 mg per 100 g of fruit. Among the vitamins, it contain vitamin C 10-40 mg, vitamin A 90-120 1U, thiamine (B1) 0.017 mg, Riboflavin 0.026 mg per 100g of fruit. Apple fruit contains 86 per cent water content.

Abstract

Accurate forecasting of the rice yields is very important for the organization to make a better planning and decision making. The aim of the study is to investigate the ability of neural network for yield prediction of rice in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Field experiments were conducted at the various regions of Andaman and Nicobar Islands during 1980 to 2002 and data collected was subjected to Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) approach for developing a meaningful yield prediction for four varieties of rice C14-8, Quing Livan No.1, Taichung , Sen Yu, Jaya under island conditions with the objective to estimate the crop production a few days or months before harvesting of crop. The observations of all experiments viz., Varietal spectrum, Weather parameters , Yield components, Soil, Abiotic stressors, Biotic stressors for the period of twenty years from 1980 to 2002 were collected from the basic records of experimental field. All the data were used for training data set. Prediction of crop yield, mainly strategic plant of rice has been an interesting research area to agronomists since long for its importance in national and international economic programming. Application of ANN was found to be significant tool for prediction of yield in rice.

Bioinformatics is the application of information technology to the field of molecular biology. The term Bioinformatics was coined by Paulien Hogewag, in 1978 for the study of informatic processes in biotic systems. Bioinformatics nowadays, entails the creation and advancement of databases, algorithms, computational and statistical techniques, and theory to solve formal and practical problems arising from the management and analysis of biological data. Bioinformatics deals with storing and searching of large biological data sets and analysis of these data sets using computers to determine various relationships. 
The rapid developments in genomic and other molecular research technologies and developments in information technologies have been combined to produce tremendous amount of information related to molecular biologists. Now bioinformatics has developed and deals with many other types of biological data like protein structures, sequence alignment, gene finding, genome assembly, gene expression profiles, structure alignment, protein structure prediction, protein–protein interactions and the modelling of evolution. Being an interface between modern biology and informatics, it involves detection, expansion and implementation of computational algorithms and some of the software tools used to provide applications primarily in agriculture and healthcare divisions. In developing countries, bioinformatics play a major role in agricultural area where it can be used for increasing the nutritional content, and increasing the volume of the agricultural products etc.

Introduction

Conventional practises of raising livestock had been practised for several years on a worldwide basis to satisfy the protein needs. Increasing human population, income growth and increase of urbanization, pressurizes serious demand on the quantity and attribute of livestock products. The feed stuffs such as maize, soya, groundnut, etc. used in livestock especially for poultry possesses a great competition for human food.

1. Introduction

The emergence of food borne illness due to contaminated food is one of the most frequently occurring event and challenge for the food processing industry. This has resulted into economy as well as energy requirement to counter the food borne pathogens. Some of the important pathogenic microorganisms of concern are E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes, salmonella, etc. To address the food safety and quality issues, several non-thermal food processing technologies have been developed in the last decades, with an aim of achieving food safety without significantly affecting the quality of the food product. Cold plasma in one of the non-thermal processing technology, which has shown promising results as evidenced by recent scientific investigations.

The plasma is known as fourth state of matter after solid, liquid and gas state. Plasma contains diversity of energetic species including ions, electrons, atoms, excited molecules and charged particles. In a plasma, a significant number of electrons have such a high energy that no nucleus can hold them. When a gas is subjected to heat or an electric field, some of the atoms become ions and the gas is said to be ionized. An ionized gas in its normal condition, can conduct electric current to a limited extent. If the heat or electric current becomes extreme, many of the atoms become ions. The resulting super ionized gas, which can conduct a large and sustained electric charge. Plasmas are used in several materials processing industries like textiles, electronics, paper and glass industries etc.

Introduction 
Plant disease has been highly impacted by the development of new technology. The degree of the impact depends on how much the technology affects the component steps of the system. Many of the steps in plant disease diagnosis and management depend heavily on accurate and timely information and so can greatly benefit from the development of improved methods of accessing and disseminating information. Computers provide a wide range of tools which are extensively used in plant disease diagnosis and management. In fact, they will be a key to improve farm practices in the coming decades as it is scientifically pertinent to organize farm information in spatial databases because agricultural systems are inherently spatial. Biological and physical aspects of agricultural system create spatial heterogeneity, and as a result, patchiness is the rule in the occurrence and distribution of plant pathogens and disease (Campbell and Madden, 1990). In the area of plant diseases computers are useful

Biotechnology in the food processing sector targets the selection and improvement of microorganisms, including bacteria, yeasts and moulds with the objectives of improving process control, yields and efficiency as well as the quality, safety and consistency of bioprocessed products. They perform a series of processes such as fermentation, hydrolysis, etc. and even spoilage of food, depending upon the species of organisms, nature of raw material (food), environmental factors (temperature, pH, salt concentration, etc.), duration, etc.

Fermentation
Is the process of bioconversion of organic substances by microorganisms and/or enzymes (complex proteins) of microbial, plant or animal origin. It is one of the oldest forms of food preservation which is applied globally.

ABSTRACT
Increased environmental pollution and high demand over supply for conventional fossil fuel sources have led to the exploration of other renewable energy sources. Out of the potential alternatives, methane has come up with a promising unconventional fuel source. Several technologies have been developed to establish methanation, including biomethanation, chemical methanation and gas-to-liquid technology. Several factors like process parameters, catalysts and reactors have been studied for process optimisation and making methane production commercially viable. Although methane as a greenhouse gas is a contributor to global warming, its combustion produces relatively ‘environment friendly’ gas CO₂, and H₂O. The released CO₂ is fixed into biomass by plant through photosynthesis process. Only rarely does methane combustion produces CO when combusted in an oxygen-limited condition. Thus, methane production and combustion are carbon neutral process. This chapter focuses on the application of methane as a source of alternate energy. Various technologies used, recent advances and challenges faced in methanation process are discussed.

Abstract

The term nano technology, buzzword of present day science owes its origin from the Greek word ‘nano’ literally meaning dwarf. It is expressed in terms of dimension one nanometer equals to one billionth of a meter (1nm=10-9m), work on the principle of particle movement, smallest particle accelerate fast in the system. The nano technology deals with manufacturing, study and manipulation of matter at nano-scale (or atomic scale) in the size range of  1-100 nm, called as nanoparticles (Rajan, 2004). Nano technology is one of the most fascinating and rapidly possessing potential to revolutionize in science and technology of medicine and agriculture. In plant pathology, nano technology has potential scope to detection, diagnosis and management of plant diseases. Micromechanical cantilever arrays for selective immobilization and fast quantitative detection of vital fungal spores (Nugaeva et al., 2005). Micro-fabricated chambers designed to mimic some of the features of xylem vessels and discovered that Xylella fastidiosa migrates via type IV pilus-mediated twitching motility (Meg et al., 2005). Antifungal properties of chitosan, chitosan-saponin and Cu-chitosan nanoparticle reveal against phytopatogenic fungi namely Alternaria alternate, Macrophomina phaseolina and Rhizoctonia solani (Sharan et al. 2013). 

1. Introduction

Biopolymers nowadays are grabbing a nice place in packaging industries replacing synthetic polymers. The most important advantage of biopolymer over synthetic polymers is that they are biodegradable and can be developed from agricultural or food processing wastes. Among the wide variety of materials currently used in food packaging, polymers have taken a major share because of their versatility and advantageous performance (Valdés et al., 2014). However, most polymers used for food packaging are not biodegradable or compostable and therefore represent an increasingly serious end-of-life disposal problem worldwide. Although food package stability during the shelf-life of the product is an advantage, it turns into a disadvantage when the packages enter the post-use phase.

ANN is a Mathematical model or Computational model based on biological neural networks. It consists of an interconnected group of artificial neurons and processes information using a connectionist approach to computation. Neural Networks are non-linear statistical data modeling tools. That can be used to model complex relationships between inputs and outputs or to find patterns in data.

Bioinformatics is a discipline that deals with computation of biological information. Bioinformatics is a newly emerging interdisciplinary research area spanning a range of specialties that include biology, biophysics, computer science, mathematics & statistics. It makes use of scientific and technological advances in the area of computer science, information technology and communication technology to solve complex problems in life sciences particularly problem in Biotechnology.

Explosive growth in biological data from large sequencing projects that are producing nucleotide sequences continuously at a faster rate and the content of the nucleotide database is doubling in every 14 months. The latest release of Gene bank (v.102) exceeded one billion base pairs. To cope with this huge volume of data, a new scientific discipline has emerged comprising bioinformatics, biocomputing & computational biology.

Introduction

After the advent of Post Genomic era, Biological data is accumulating at an electrifying pace every day. Storage and analysis of these data serve as a major source for scientific research to understand the phenomena of origin, evolution and existence of various forms of life. The management of these data requires different statistical techniques used for retrieval, storage, analysis and extraction of precise information from small as well as large biological datasets. Application of statistical tools in Bioinformatics especially in fisheries data has been reported (Roy and Martha, 2008).

Abstract

The protein classification prediction is an important Problem in molecular biology, and one that has attracted a lot of attention, because there is a gap between sequence and structure of proteins from various resources. The proteins can be usually classified into one of the four structural classes; they are all-a, all-b, a/b and a+b. To address the problem of protein classification, many different algorithms and efforts have been made so far. In this paper, a new rule based data mining method for the prediction of protein structural classes is constructed using Rough Sets algorithm. Rough Sets Theory (RST) is a new mathematical approach to study the realistic information (Z. Pawlak, 1982). It focuses on knowledge reasoning by the whole set directly approximating to the incomplete and uncertain information. There are studies on the knowledge reduction and features selection of mass data. To apply rough sets algorithm, a decision table is constructed using Amino acid compositions and eight physicochemical properties data as conditional attributes. The generated decision rules after reducing the decision system can be used to classify new objects.The classification results of Rough Sets is verified by using self-consistency and jackknife tests on the datasets constructed by G.P. Zhou and comparison is made with some of the previous works.

A large number of insect pests are associated with stored grains which are directly related to geographical and climatic conditions. There are different estimates on post harvest losses in food. During storage both quantitative and qualitative losses occur due to insects, rodents, and microorganisms. Almost all the insect species may destroy 10.0 - 15.0 % of grain and contaminate with undesirable odour. These pests also helps in transportation of fungi. Some insect pests initiate damage at the ripening stage of crops and continue during storage. Major sources of infestations are old gunny bags, storage structure and old containers (Pruthi and Singh, 1950). The spread and distribution of stored product pests are facilitated by movement of grains from one area to another and by flight of insect pests as some of the adult insects are strong fliers. The cracks and crevices are probable sites for cross infestation. Nearly one thousand species of insects have been associated with stored products in different part of the world. Majority of insect pests belong to the orders Coleoptera and Lepidoptera (Khare, 1994).

INTRODUCTION

Apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.), belongs to the family Rosaceae and is one of the most important fruit crop of mid hills and dry temperate regions of India. It was introduced in India by the European settlers and Missionaries in the late 19th century. Cultivated apricot has its origin in North-Eastern China, whereas wild apricot, popularly known as zardalu, appears to be indigenous to India. It grows wild in hills of Shimla and Kinnaur districts of Himachal Pradesh. Fruit is delicious, rich in vitamin A and contains more carbohydrates, proteins, phosphorous and niacin than many other common fruits. Besides its use as dessert, it is also canned and dried. Fruit is processed into jam, nectar and squash. The kernels are either sweet or bitter, depending upon the variety. The sweet kernels are used as a cheap substitute for almonds in pastries and confectionery. The bitter kernels are used for oil extraction. In India, apricot is grown commercially in the hills of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and to a limited extent in north eastern hills. Some drying type apricots are being grown in the dry temperate areas of Kinnaur and Lahaul Spiti in Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir.

In recent years, a new branch of biological science, called as bio-informatics receives more attention among its users and calls for application of computational statistical algorithms to a greater extent and needs employment of more sophisticated mathematical/statistical tools. Though biological science and information technology forms a major part in bio-informatics research as applied to agriculture, statistical tools act as their backbone. Its utility is more felt starting from the stage of framing of hypothesis till analyzing/interpreting results of a scientific experiment.  It can also be viewed as a three way multi-disciplinary approach with biotechnology, information technology and statistical technology as its three faces, with the principles of statistics applied to biological science through an interface information technology.

5.1. INTRODUCTION
     
Rice is an important provider of nourishment for the world’s population. Indian scented rice, ‘Basmati’ has dominated the domestic and international market for aroma. Aromatic rice is an important commodity worldwide and command premium price over non-scented varieties. Most of the trade in aromatic rice is from India, Pakistan and Thailand. Bulk of aromatic rice from India and Pakistan consist of Basmati, while Thailand is the supplier of Jasmine rice. The Indian subcontinent has the Natural Gift of basmati rice that has been accepted as the best scented, long and slender grain in the world markets and gets high price. In addition to Basmati, many local landraces are grown traditionally, which excel in aroma, grain quality and cooking quality. Most of these genotypes are short bold to medium bold grain and hence not traded in the international market. However, in the domestic market its demand is greater than the Basmati rice. These are mainly used for special preparation, such as Khir in Bengal.

The goats play a vital role in the economy of the poor and marginal farmers of rural India. Notwithstanding the fact that the goat population has shown a steady growth over the year’s very little effort has been taken for genetic improvement at farm level. As per 20th Livestock Census, 27.74% of the livestock population is Goats. Out of 148.88 million Indigenous Goats (Including Non-descript), 27.4% are pure breed, 9.1% are graded breeds and the remaining 63.5% are non-descript breeds. So, to increase the productivity per goat, we need to improve the breed quality scientifically. Artificial insemination (AI) using frozen semen is practiced to produce superior progeny and to accelerate the up gradation of stock. The conception rate with AI is lower but it has great potential to multiply superior quality of goat with faster rate. This technique also spread elite genetic material throughout a population with increased rate of genetic improvement. This technique is also important for the breed conservation process and has paved the way for other reproductive biotechnologies. The sufficient elite germplasm of male buck is not available throughout the country to cover breeding programmed by natural mating. AI is the best solution to improve the quality and productivity per goat.

The selection of breeding bucks in relation to maximizing the reproductive efficiency depends upon males. AI permits intense selection of sires with exceptional merits and provides opportunity to exploit the value of superior sires. Young males can be trained for exhibiting sexual behaviors and semen collection through the uses of male, anoestrus doe or oestrus doe as dummy. Successful AI depends on precise management of semen collection, its frequency and use. The semen collection implies mounting a teaser doe or a dummy. Artificial vagina (AV) and electro-ejaculator (EE) are the two methods for semen collection in bucks. AV method is being used as universal method for routine semen collection whereas electro-ejaculation is generally used for collecting semen from untrained and valuable sires incapable of service. Moreover, this method of collection is painful for the animals. Semen evaluation should be rapid and effective so that collected semen samples can be processed for initial quality which ultimately affects the fertility. There are several tests for the assessment of semen quality but no single test is reliable to give definite prediction of the fertility.

• What is Intelligence?
• What is Artificial Intelligence?
• Branches of AI
• Natural–Language
• Natural Language Processing 
• Natural Language Recognition
• Simple Natural Language Grammar
• Intelligent Technologies in Agriculture
• Intelligent Animal Houses
• Agricultural Robots

• What is a Neural Network?
• How does an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) work?
• Characteristics of Neural Networks 
• Architectures of Artificial Neural Networks
• Learning Process
• Classification of Learning Algorithms
• Artificial Neural Networks in Agriculture -Intelligent Agent 
• Classes of Intelligent Agents
• Characteristic of Intelligent Agents

Introduction

Modern agriculture has been of great help in alleviating hunger from the world, because the world population more than doubled itself during the last half of the 20th century; it increased from 2.5 billion in AD 1950 to 7.1 billion in 2012 (USCB, 2013). It is predicted that the world population will again double itself by the end of the 21st century and will touch the 12 billion mark. Most of this increase in population has been, and will be, in the developing countries in Asia, Africa and South America. India occupies 2.4 percent of the total land area of the world, but supports 16.7 per cent of the world population. Like many other developing countries in the world, population in India is increased from 345 million in 1947 to 1210 million as per the 2011 census with a growth rate of 1.76 during last decade. Therefore, pressure on land has been mounting up at an alarming rate. Population growth coupled with live stock population expansion, urbanization and industrialization are major contributory factors to it. The unscientific and unplanned exploitation of this limited resource takes its toll in terms of degrading the land. A large proportion of the land area shows clear evidence of advanced and continuing degradation seriously affecting the country’s productive resource base (Abrol and Sehgal, 1994). Jammu & Kashmir and  Nagaland  have maximum share of their land (94%) under degradation. This is primarily due to large areas under mountains, cold deserts and other such degraded lands. In the agriculturally prominent states like Uttar Pradesh (63%), Madhya Pradesh (50%) and Karnataka (46%) (Shalander Kumar, 2011) the extent of land degradation is of great concern and posing a big threat to the natural resources, resulting in almost 5 billion tonnes soil and 6 million tones of nutrient loss every year (Singh, 2009).

Introduction

Road traffic in cold snowy regions during winter season faces problems, like icing of road, snow compaction and snow storms that obstruct visibility. In snowy region there is also danger of damage due to snow avalanches. Avalanches often severely damage road service facilities or road structures. Quick response and corrective actions are required to cope with the damages, if any avalanche occurs.

Influenza a Pandemics

15.1    Banana Chips/Crisps
    
15.2    Banana Puree/Pulp
    
15.3    Banana Flour
    
15.4    Banana Powder
    
15.5    Banana Flakes
    
15.6    Banana Figs or Dehydrated Banana
    
15.7    Banana Jam
    
15.8    Ready-To-Serve (Rts) Beverage
    
15.9    Banana Beer and Wine
    
15.10    Banana Vinegar
    
15.11    Banana Catsup
    
15.12    Banana Inflorescence Relish
    
15.13    Candied Banana
    
15.14    Other Banana Based Products

INTRODUCTION

Banana (Musa species) also known as ‘Apple of Paradise’ is an important and commercial fruit crop of tropical regions of the world. It is the only tropical fruit traded to the extent, that it is the 5th largest agricultural commodity after cereals, sugar, coffee and cocoa in world market.

The word ‘banana’ is now applied to all table varieties. Formerly, it was applied to ‘Nendran’ banana of Kerala which was however called ‘Plantain’ by Westerners. The English used the word ‘Plantain’ to represent cooking banana while in parts of South India, even sweet fruited clones were called ‘Plantains’. The variant with persistent bracts and male flowers with large fruits held in lax manner and eaten after cooking were grouped under plantains. All other types which had small fruits, held compact in a bunch with softening of the pulp when ripe, dropping of withered bracts and staminate flowers as the banana. In other words plantain are starchy, not sweet and cooked as vegetable. They usually resembles green bananas, are longer and have thick skin. Bananas are sweet, shorter and have thinner skin. They are eaten as a fruit and have yellow colour when ripe.

14.1. INTRODUCTION

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L. emend. Bowden) is one the most important ancient crops and played very important role in the development of agriculture and human civilization. It has also played crucial role in the progress of science of agriculture, physiology, genetics, plant breeding and malting and brewing science. It is the fourth most cereal crop after rice, wheat and maize in acreages and production in the world.  It is grown and used all around the world in many countries and has fed livestock, poultry and people since ancient time.  Barley was domesticated about 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East. Fertile Crescent is considered the first of at least seven primary centres of agriculture origin in the world (Smith, 1998; Baik and Ulrich, 2008). Barley is best known around the world as a feed grain and a premier grains for malting and brewing. When most people think of composition of beer, they only think of barley over other cereals. Although utilization of barley for food is relatively low as compared to other cereals today, throughout its history barley has remained an important and major food source poor people living in Western and Eastern Asia and Northern and Eastern Himalayan region nation like Tibet, Nepal and in Northern and Eastern Africa (Newman and Newman, 2006, 2008). Moreover, there has been resurgence of interest and use of barley as food primarily in the developed world due to an increasing emphasis on incorporating the diversity in consumption of whole grain in people’s diets due to its health benefits.

Natural Gene Flow in Plants

More than 70% of plant species, for example potato, oat, rape-seed, wheat, and kiwifruit have come from spontaneous interspecific or intergeneric hybridization although the extent of natural hybridization differs among the plant genera and families. It creates genetic variation and produce recombinant genotypes that may exhibit heterosis.The stabilization of these hybrids often through polyploidy (autopolyploidy or allopolyploidy) can result in the formation of new biological species (Masterson, 1994), thereby, having impact on both ecological and evolutionary processes (Martinsen et al., 2001). In addition, species genomes are often differentially permeable to introgression if they are under simple genetic control (unlike many genes contribute to hybrid fitness with linkages) and certain portion of the genome can readily incorporate alien alleles. Introgression is a selective process of gene flow that filters deleterious genes and takes only beneficial genes (incorporating the alleles from one taxon into other).

Abstract

Beekeeping is an agro-based activity which is being undertaken by farmers/landless labours in rural area as an integrated framing practice. It supplements income & employment generation and nutritional intake. Honeybees have been offering services to the society through ensured pollination in crops and providing honey and a variety of other bee hive products viz.; royal jelly, pollen, propolis, bee wax, bee venom, etc. Honey Bees have their vital role in sustaining plants bio-diversity resulting in environmental stability. Mainly five species of honeybees viz.; Apis cerana, A. mellifera, A. florea, A. dorsata, Stingless bees are in used in India.  Beekeeping industry has quadruple benefits: 1) providing self employment to rural and forest based population; 2) production of honey, pollen and beeswax, venom, royal jelly, etc., 3) providing employment to rural educated youths in collecting, processing and marketing of bee/beehive-products; and 4) cross-pollination of various agricultural and horticultural crops and improving their quality and increasing yields.

A gene microarray is a (mxn) matrix, containing n-experimental conditions, also called attributes for m-genes. Gene clustering refers to partitioning a microarray of genes based on the commonality of attributes. Genes belonging to a cluster often do not coexpress or coregulate. This calls for biclustering that segregates the (mxn) matrix into small windows. In other words biclustering refers to simultaneous clustering of rows and columns of the microarray. This chapter reviews some of the well known biclustering algorithms, and proposes an alternative solution to the problem using evolutionary multi-objective optimization technique.

Introduction

Clustering is process to automatically partition a set of p-dimensional data points (p³1) into classes, where the data in each class have similarity with respect to a given distance metric. Each class usually has an ideal member that possesses the necessary characteristics of the class.

Abstract

The bio-drainage system used to control the water logging hazards and restore the ground water table depth at a level favourable for other crops to grow. The water utilization efficiency per unit area of land improved through bio-drainage and associated cropping activities. The huge quantity of shallow and good quality groundwater that remains perpetually unutilized by the prevalent lowland cultivation system was effectively used by the biological drainage system. Thus the bio-drainage is expected to alleviate the land degradation problem due to high depth of water stagnant, to restore the crop cultivation programme on a sustainable way, to improve the water management practices, to improve the economic conditions of the lowland farmers and finally, to conserve the ecological values of this fragile agro-ecosystem.The objectives of efficient bio-drainage system are to evaluate ET and depended on growth characteristics of different trees and vegetation species having bio-drainage potential in the waterlogged land thereby to study the water table behaviour in the land under plantation and in the surrounding region and use the result in developing suitable plantation geometry to ensure desired water table draw-down, to assess interaction between bio-drainage plantation and co-existing crops and/or companion crops, to assess the value of the tree species through fodder, fuel wood and timber use, and to development of a new technology for land reclamation and evaluating its impact on soil, water and plant bodies in the basin.

INTRODUCTION

Insects are the major group of arthropods and the most diverse group of animals across the Earth. Though some of them are beneficial to environment and to humans, many insects are considered as pests as they transmit diseases and damage the crops and forests. Chemical, biological, cultural and mechanical methods are being used to eradicate, control or manage these pests. The main strategy used for controlling pests has been the use of chemical pesticides because of their long residual action and wide spectrum toxicity (Casida and Quistad, 1998). However, the indiscriminate usage of chemical pesticides are toxic to mammals, birds and fish, also pollute the environment, besides the development of pest resistance and the emergence of secondary recalcitrant insect pest populations (Li et al., 2007). These negative impacts prompted the change of strategies in managing the pests by resorting to ecofriendly and cost effective pest control strategies (Ferre et al., 1991). 

Abstract
 
Adoption of agricultural practices is cost effective bioremediation techniques to mitigate arsenic problems and can contribute substantially to the cause of removal of arsenic and other heavy metal contamination of soils and water thereby quality enrichment in marketable agricultural produce leading to increased crop productivity in the area of intensive cropping under irrigated eco system. Though the farmers are already practicing some traditional techniques to mitigate the arsenic problems in soils and water, like cultivation of crops which are less affected to arsenic and heavy metals pollution, growing hyper accumulating crops and so many practices wherein the modern methods are not prevalently used by the farmers due to the lack of scientific validity of these techniques, particularly in the context of prevailing socio-economic conditions. Moreover, acceptance of these improved practices by the small farmers of this region is an evolutionary process and should be intensively proved. Hence, extensive studies need for bio or phyto-remediation of heavy metals including arsenic contamination for quality marketable agricultural produce, which ultimately can realize better crop productivity.

1. Introduction

The growing prevalence of obesity and obesity associated disorders as well as its impact on public health has received increased attention in recent years. As a result, obesity is now considered one of the world’s leading public health problems. A study published in the noted medical journal Lancet says India is just behind US and China in this global hazard list of top 10 countries with the highest number of obese people. The study - titled ‘Global, regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980-2013: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013’ - used data collected by international bodies and organizations in various countries like India over three decades. China and India together accounted for 15 per cent of the world’s obese population, with 46 million and 30 million obese people, respectively. According to the study, the number of overweight and obese people globally increased from 857 million in 1980 to 2. 1 billion in 2013. This is one-third of the world’s population.

With lifestyle disorders forcing more and more people to reel under excess body weight, even relatively younger people are developing joint disorders and knee pain. Excessive weight is associated with a series of health problems, including blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiovascular ailments. Therefore there in an urgent need to envision effective anti-obesity strategies through effective interventions.

Introduction

The organic matter added to soil externally as FYM, crop residues, leaf fall, root deposition etc. has been a part and parcel of Indian agriculture. The total carbon added to soil is subject to microbial decay and slowly the major portion of it finds way back to the atmosphere. There is every possibility that atmospheric CO₂ concentration will increase in near future; that will further lead to increased attention of scientific community to make soil a possible sink for atmospheric CO2. when the carbon sequestration is thought with the perspective of reducing carbon dioxide emission for healthy atmosphere at one hand and improving soil health on the other, there is utmost need to opt for technologies that can fulfill both these objectives. There is growing interest in the use of charcoal or ‘biochar’ to sequester carbon in soil and improve soil fertility (Lehmann and Joseph, 2009). There are many types of soil additives and fertilizers used to improve the structure and functions of soil. Biochar has re-emerged as an issue in the last ten years as everyone is looking for sustainable ways to improve soils and decrease use of chemical fertilizers. 

1.     Determination of lmax
    
2.     Verification of Beer-Lambert Law
    
3.     Estimation of Carbohydrate by Anthrone Method
    
4.     Estimation of Reducing Sugar by Di Nitro Salicylic (DNS) Acid
    
5.     Estimation of Protein by Biuret Method
    
6.     Estimation of Protein by Lowry’s Method
    
7.     Estimation of Protein by Bradford Method
    
8.     Estimation of Cholesterol
    
9.     Estimation of DNA
    
10.     Estimation of RNA
    
11.     Determination of iso Electric Point of Amino Acid