eChapters

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.