eChapters

Standard solutions

Standard solutions are solutions of accurately known concentration

Different standard solutions are

The influence of water quality on the soil and plant growth is related to the chemical and physicalproperties of the soil, the salt tolerance of the crop, the climaticregime of the area and the method,frequencyand the amount of irrigation water applied. Irrigation water quality refers to its suitability and sustainability for use in agricultural crops. The problems thatresultfrom the use of a particular irrigation water, vary both in kind and degree, and are modified by soil, climate and crop as well as by the skill and knowledge of the water user. As a result there is no set limiton water quality, rather itssuitability for use is determined by the conditions of use which affects the accumulation of water constituents andwhichmayrestrictcrop yield.The soilproblems mostcommonlyencountered and used as a basisto evaluate water quality are those related to salinity, water infiltrationrate,toxicityanda group of other miscellaneous problems. Numerous guidelines are available for evaluation of water quality. Time to time some of theseguidelines has been updated with modification of some criteria like SAR to Adj. SAR and the Adj. R_Na and development of new concepts like water qualityIndex (WQI) whichhave increasedour predictability. Thenewguidelines are relied heavily on old ones.The modified guideline by Ayers and Westcot (1985) was foundto be themost reliabletopredict thewaterqualityforirrigation.

Irrigated agriculture is playing a major role in enhancing food and livelihood security of a country. Supply of fresh water which is an importantinput for the sustainable and economic development of agriculture are not enough to meet the requirement of all sectors of economy. Reduced water availability to agriculture from the present share of 85% of country’s water resources to about 70-75% by 2020AD wouldaffect the capacity of the country to meet the food production target, unless supplies are augmented from unconventional sources. For future agriculture there are no alternatives but to rely on non conventional sources for partial alleviation of the forecasted water scarcity. Amongthese sources extraction of marginal quality groundwater and the waste water generatedfromurban and industrial activities have thepotential to augment the water supplies. Many associatedsoil, plant and environmental problems come up when these sources of water are directly used for irrigation. For addressing theseproblems and to get more benefit from thesesourcesof water, the first step is to understand how an irrigation water source affects the soil plantsystem.Thereforeknowledge of irrigationwaterqualityiscriticaltodevelop appropriate site and crop specific comprehensive short term and long term management programs.

1.    Mass transfer co-efficient is expressed as

(a) m/s₂

(b) m/s

(c) kg/s

(d) kg/ms

2.    Heat is related to

(a) Flow rate

(b) Energy

(c) Temperature

(d) Momemtum

3.    The units of mass transfer coefficients are

(a) Moles transferred / (time x area x concentration)

(b) Moles transferred / (time x area x mole-fraction)

(c) Moles transferred / (time x area x pressure)

(d) All of the above

Landform, water and plants form the three basic elements of garden designing. Each of these basic element is described and discussed in detail.

I Landform

“Landform” refers to three-dimensional relief of earth’s surface. Thus, in simple words it is the lay of land, synonymous with, “topography”. Land is defined as the surface of the earth and all its natural resources. Landform is thus 3-D view of earth’s surface including all the visible feature of an area of land and landscape refers to the picture representing a view of natural inland scenery. Landform is the common module in exterior environments, a base, an axis, a thread, which ties all the physical elements, space together along the horizon or the water edge. Landforms can be classified as macro-landforms, micro-landforms and mini-landforms. Macro-landforms refers to valleys, mountains, rolling hills, prairies, desert, seashore and plains. Micro-landforms refers to mounds, slopes, level areas or elevation changes using steps and ramps. Mini-landforms refers to subtle, undulations or ripples of a sand dunes or the textural variation of stones and rocks.

Different techniques are used for explaining and representing the type of landform. These include (i) Contour lines, (ii) Models, (iii) Ratio method, (iv) Value and colour, (v) Spot elevation, (vi) Computer graphics, (vi) Hatches (disconnected lines are used) and (viii) Percentage method. These techniques are used for proper study of the landform, to identify loopholes and need to modification in order to establish proper drainage or to modify the site in order to accommodate of various elements or to create an aesthetically pleasing ground plan.

Sustainable agriculture’s benefit to farm and community economies is grounded in four well-established economic development principles and a fifth, concern for the community:

Lower input farming system (LIFS)

Lower input farming system means reduced production levels with larger area of land used in order to maintain the same revenue; or reduced dependency on external inputs with similar production structure but improved valorization of the product through transformation and or direct marketing, cutting the length of the production chain is a sustainability concept (produce and consume locally). LIFS are seeking optimization of on-farm resources, minimization of off-farm resources use. It also leads to mixed farming system, characterized by animal valorization of vegetal production on farm and organic manure restitution to farm soil from farm husbandry. Mixed character of farming system optimally combines annual and perennial crops and animal production on the same farm. Lower input farming also maintains ecological infrastructures (at least 5% in integrated farming)-which prove to be very beneficial for biodiversity – can provide shelter for organisms providing biological control and also be a source of raw material (wood) for producing on-farm energy.

Things required for cell culture

1. Lab – having negative pressure (HEPA filter)

2. Safety cabinet (Hood/laminar flow)

a) Biosafety level 1 (BSL-1) – Basic level of protection. Agents handled under this cabinet are NOT infectious.

b) BSL-2 – Appropriate for moderate risk agents. Most of the non infectious cell cultures are done under this facility.

12.1. BASIC AND CURRENT FACTS OF AGRICULTURE

Basic information related to agriculture and allied sciences in India

2.1 Introduction

In a fiber optic sensor the heart of the sensor is an optical fiber. An optical fiber in its simplest form is a cylindrical symmetric structure consisting of a central ‘core’ glass/plastic of uniform refractive index and of diameter 4-600 µm. It is surrounded by a ‘cladding’ glass/plastic of slightly lower refractive index. To provide the mechanical and environmental protection to the fiber, the cladding is covered with an external plastic coating (seeFig. 2.1). The light in the fiber propagates by bouncing back and forth from the core-cladding interface. The design of the fiber optic sensor depends critically on the choice of optical fiber. Telecommunication fibers are inexpensive but may not be the right choice for sensors. Some of the fiber optic sensors dictate the use of application-specific optical fibers. In this chapter we shall first describe ray analysis for the light propagation in the fiber. The modes propagation, numerical aperture of the fiber, fiber characteristics and different kinds of optical fibers used for sensing will be described later.

Gardens have been considered important, sacred from ancient time and the styles developed being inspired form its surroundings. Thus the influences of climate, general landform, religion, spiritual vision, culture, nation, prevailing political conditions, social factors, architectural styles, etc have influenced in developing specific garden style in a particular region. These styles developed slowly over hundreds of years and remained insulated and remained intact till the travelling approach between different countries got well established. Later as the mobility between different countries became widespread, these style forms became intermingled and refined even to new forms. This resulted into the development of Japanese garden style or the arts of ‘bonsai’ making which had its origin in China, or the creation of west coast American garden that originated from the Bauhaus and modern movement that stated life in Germany, the mughal garden style in India based on Persian style from Iran etc.

Basically, the different garden styles can be classified into formal, informal, intermediate and wild garden styles. Aristotle, the father of mathematics and Pythagorus, the father of geometry and disciple of Aristotle, strongly influenced the geometry, mathematics and calculative features of formal garden style. While informal garden style have evolved from the eastern vision of thoughts, originated with Laotsu and Confucious contemplation (preaching) that manifested gardens to express peaceful and compassionate atmosphere influencing meditation, silence and internal harmony.

2.1 Introduction

Microbes are the oldest form of the life on earth. These organisms date more than 3 billion years to a time when they were discovered with oceans. They are so tiny in size that million microbes can fit into the eye of a needle. Without microbes, we can’t live. Thus, understanding microbes is vital to understanding past and future. Microbes play many roles in the earth’s environment recycling dead plant and animal matter through the soil, removing CO2 from the atmosphere by photosynthesis in the oceans and nitrogen from the atmosphere to form nitrogenous fertilizers plants. Microbes play an important role in nutrient recycling, management, organic matter, decomposition and increasing the crop productivity and quality and protection against diseases (Panwar et al., 2009). Over the past century, many of the basic scientific principles of plant nutrition and soil fertility have been explained. In developed countries, inorganic chemical fertilizers have been widely accepted as a major source of improving and maintaining soil fertility.

To understand how radiographs are produced by using X-rays, an understanding of how photons of diagnostic range can interact with matter is necessary in five possible mechanism of interaction:
    ·    Coherent scattering.
    ·    Photoelectric absorption.
    ·    Compton scattering.
    ·    Pair production.
    ·    Photodisintegration.

1. General Instructions

Instructions to work in the laboratory are given below. Students are advised to read them carefully before they begin their work in the laboratory.

• Apparatus to be used should be neat and clean.
• Graduated pipette should be used for pipetting.
• The small amount of liquid remaining in the pipette should not be blown out while standardizing the pipettes; allowance is always made for this. However, a frosted ring near the top of recently manufactured pipettes indicates that the last drop is to be blown out.

Introduction

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) viz., Heterorhabditis, Neosteinernema and Steinernema have been recovered from many regions of the world and have been used commercially as biocontrol agents of insect pests. They are associated with mutualistic bacteria in the genus Xenorhabdus for Steinernematidae and Photorhabdus for Heterorhabditidae. The infective juvenile nematodes enter their host insect through natural openings (mouth, anus or spiracles), they release bacteria into the insect and cause rapid death of insect host (24-48 h). EPNs were used against many insect pests viz., rice leaf folder, Cnaphalocrocis medinalis (Srinivas and Prasad, 1991); tobacco cutworm, Spodoptera litura (Rajkumar et al., 2003); brinjal fruit borer, Leucinodes orbonalis (Hussaini et al., 2002) diamond back moth, Plutella xylostella (Singh and Shinde, 2002); Diaprepes abbreviates (Jenkins et al., 2007); Bemesia tabaci (QiuBaoli et al., 2008) and sugar beet beetle (Saleh et al. 2009).

Abstract

The Basic Local Alignment Search Tool, or BLAST, is an online tool provided by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) that allows users to search for matches between their query sequences and the sequences stored in NCBI databases. BLAST can be used to search for nucleotide sequences against nucleotide sequences, protein sequences against protein sequences, and protein sequences against translated nucleotide sequences in the databases. BLAST is widely used to study sequence similarity, identify target sequences, analyze the functional aspects of molecular sequences, and investigate evolutionary relationships. This chapter details on the BLAST and its applications.

Molecular biology involves the study of DNA, RNA and proteins in cells. It emphasizes the biomolecules that carry out biological processes. One should understand the biomolecules participating in the process to understand the cellular function. In diagnostic microbiology, biomolecules are the analytes for testing and characterization. The analytes for molecular testing are the genomes (DNA), transcriptomes (RNA) and proteomes (Proteins) of the microorganism. Traditional methods of microorganism characterization depend on the culturing of the organisms, which is time-consuming and sometimes challenging to perform. Molecular techniques involve the characterization of DNA, RNA and protein to identify microorganisms. Nucleic acid sequence details are used to classify bacterial species, and mass spectrometry is used to identify microorganisms based on peptide profiles.

DNA (Deoxy ribonucleic acid)
DNA contains the genetic information required for the development and functioning of the living organism. It is the central informational molecule comprising a sequence of A, T, G and C nucelotides linked together by a phosphodiester bond. DNA is double helical in structure, composed of two complementary strands of nucleotides held together by hydrogen bonds between nitrogenous bases.

The basic philosophy of nutrient management should be to apply fertilizers at rates to ensure high fertilizer use efficiency so that the amount of unutilized fertilizers is reduced to environmentally acceptable levels. Leaching of nitrate into public drinking water supplies has become a national problem. There is no realistic alternative but to use increasing quantities of inorganic fertilizers for maintaining food supplies in order to feed the increasing population. Used properly, fertilizers can, in fact, lead to better environment because greater vegetative growth and higher crop yields leave large quantities of residues in the soil, thus reducing erosion; absorb more carbon dioxide, a major source of green house effect and lessen the need to bring marginal and forest land into cultivation. The declining or stagnating yield trend in India has been attributed to multiple nutrient deficiencies and imbalance of nutrients. Therefore, the most widely recognized alternative is integrated nutrient management (Trehan et al., 2008).

Soil test based fertilizers is the maintenance of soil fertility and plant nutrient supply to an optimum level for sustaining the desired productivity through optimization of the benefits from fertilizers, organic manures, green manures, bio-fertilizers, non-conventional sources and crop residues. Soil test based fertilizers  aims at maximization of the use efficiency and minimization of the avoidable losses of nutrients from all the sources such that triple objective of maximization of crop yields, sustenance of soil, water and air quality and improvement of socio-economic conditions of farming community is accomplished.

    1.    Absorbance (A) - Defined as –log (1-a) = log (1/t), where ‘a’ is the absorbance and‘t’ the transmittance of a medium through which a light beam passes.

    2.    Absorption coefficient (a) - The relative decrease in the intensity of a collimated beam of electromagnetic radiation, as a result of absorption by a medium, during traversal of an infinitesimal layer of the medium, divided by the length traversed.

    3.    Acceleration due to gravity (g) - The standard value (9.80665 m/s2) of the acceleration experienced by a body in the earth’s gravitational field.

    4.    Acid - Historically, a substance that yields an H+ ion when it dissociates in solution, resulting in a pH< 7. In the Brönsted definition, an acid is a substance that donates a proton in any type of reaction. The most general definition, due to G.N. Lewis, classifies any chemical species capable of accepting an electron pair as an acid.

    5.    Acid dissociation constant (Ka) - The equilibrium constant for the dissociation of an acid HA through the reaction HA + H2O1 A- + H3O+. The quantity pKa = -log Ka is often used to express the acid dissociation constant

    6.    Acyl groups - Groups formed by removing the hydroxy groups from oxoacids that have the general structure RC (=O) (OH) and replacement analogues of such acyl groups.

    7.    Adiabatic process - A thermodynamic process in which no heat enters or leaves the system.

A. Purchase

a)Do not purchase leaking containers, loose, unsealed or torn bags.

b)Do not purchase pesticides without proper/approved labels.

c)Purchase only just required quantity e.g. 100, 250, 500 or 1000 g/ml for single application in specified area.

Landscaping combines elements of art and science to create a functional, aesthetically pleasing extension of indoor living to the outdoors. One initial purpose of landscape design is to blend mans’ technology (house or building) into the natural surroundings. To work towards a desirable landscape design, the landscape horticulturist must have a working knowledge of art elements and design principles.

The “art” is always changing as the plants grow, environmental conditions change and people use the space. For this reason, landscape designers use a design process that systematically considers all aspects of the land, the environment, the growing plants, and needs of user to ensure a visually pleasing, functional, and ecologically healthy design. The design process begins by determining the needs and desires of the user and the conditions of the site. With this information, the designer then organizes the plants and hardscape materials, which are collectively referred to as the features. The features can be physically described by the visual qualities of line, form, color, texture and visual weight—the elements of design. The principles are the fundamental concepts of composition—proportion, order, repetition and unity—that serve as guidelines to arrange or organize the features to create an aesthetically pleasing or beautiful landscape. Knowledge of the elements and principles of design are essential to designing a landscape and working through the design process.

Homeopathy

Homeopathy is a different system of health care being practiced across the world. It is not only an alternate health approach but a distinct full-fledged complete rational system of medicine having holistic, individualistic, and dynamistic approach to life, health, disease, remedy and cure. This system of health care science is offering treatment option for acute and chronic ailments of humans and animals. Homoeopathy takes a holistic approach towards the sick individual through promotion of inner balance at mental, emotional, spiritual and physical levels.

Birth of Homeopathy

Homeopathy was founded by Dr Hahnemann who was more concerned to evolve a safe and effective therapeutic paradigm around the key concept of similia. Dr. Hahnemann codified a new medical system with seven principles/ concepts when vital force theory , miasmatic theory of causation of diseases (Bhalwar, 2009) were prevalent and the concept of drug proving on healthy human being was proposed by Albrecht von Haller (Hahnemann,1922) .He fortified his key concept of “similia” with drug proving, drug dynamisation and individualization, and four ancillary theories viz. chronic diseases (Miasm), vital force (vital principle), single medicine and minimum dose. He named his new system of therapy as “Homeopathy” and published the first edition of Organon of Medicine in 1810.