eChapters

The research work carried out throughout citrus growing countries of the world including India showed utility of different rootstocks for citrus plants, which varies greatly with scion variety and agro-climatic condition. A wide range of citrus rootstocks are available, each having desirable attributes. The success of a rootstock is determined by its tolerance to prevailing conditions of soil, climate and diseases. Citrus plants are unusual in that many species and cultivars including the commercial rootstocks reproduce true to type from seed. Commercial citrus rootstocks are usually highly polyembryonic but there can be 1-40 zygotic seedlings in the seedbed.

Plants are most important of all elements of the garden that influence design. Therefore, selection of variety of plants is required to exhibit different forms of growth, leaf texture, flowers and flower colour. Trees, shrubs, climbers, annuals, roses, bulbous and rhizomatous plants usually find place in the gardens along with other secondary groups. Every type of garden has enough scope to accommodate various groups of plants as per design.

Plants infuse life in the gradens and make the place living. Every feature of the garden has a separate requirement of plants. The right choice, therefore, complements the design and helps to create desired effects. Every plant species selected for planting should have sufficient reasons for its inclusion. May be, it has been selected considering particular flower colour, fragrance, curious structure, colour of the leaves, attractive fruits etc. Over and above, selection should be considering requirement of individual feature and its suitability. None other than plants influence the general apperance of the gardens besides giving them three dimensional look, enabling your plan into reality.

There are several approaches for selecting plants for the gardens. Preference should be given to the plants suitable for growing in local agro-climatic conditions for better performance. However, inclusion of new and novel type for creating special effects is always desirable. Selecting perennials and seasonals are, therefore, very much justfied in order to create desirable effects round the year. While using trees, emphasis should be given for selecting both foliage and flowering type, blooming in different season. Similarly, shrubs, climbers and other plant groups are added attraction of the gardens by their diversity of growth, foliage and flowers.

Selection of plants for the gardens needs careful consideration of vegetative, floral attributes besides growth habit and flowering for best use. Keeping this in view, basic information on various plant groups is provided under different categories.

India produces 9.2% of world’s vegetables and fruits, nearly 109 million tons of vegetables and 57.69 million tons of fruits. The production of horticultural commodities is expected to grow to 300 million tons in near future (Kaur, 2008). India accounts for 18.2% of global trade in vegetables and 0.5% in fruits. The overall food wastages are very high amounting to around Rs. 10.4 lakh million. India wastes more fruits and vegetables than what U.K consumes. It is estimated that cumulative wastage of fruits and vegetables, on the farm, during procurement, storage and at the retail outlets, is worth about Rs.422250 million. 

2.1. LABORATORY SETUP

The setting up of a tissue culture laboratory needs proper planning. It depends on the nature of research works to be under taken and/or commercialization of tissue culture technology and the availability of space. The ideal tissue culture laboratory should have the following components:

1. Store facility for chemicals
2. Media preparation room
3. Autoclave room
4. Storage facilities for autoclaved laboratory-ware and media
5. Washing facilit
6. Culture room
7. Inoculation room
8. Instrumentation room
9. Hardening facility

Introduction
Genetic research has been transformed by technological developments, and has by necessity become extremely quantitative, as massive quantities of varying complex data types can now be generated very rapidly. High-throughput data are being used in a variety of basic science investigations that have implications in the diagnosis and treatment of human disease: identification and characterization of genetic variants associated with a particular disease within and across populations; discovery of gene expression signatures associated with disease phenotypes; identification and testing of potential disease biomarkers. Methodological advances in the statistical treatment and interpretation of these data are needed in order to meet the pressing need for powerful, efficient and robust analysis.

Tropical root and tuber crops are the third important group of food crops after cereals and pulses. Tuber crops hold a premier position among food crops in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. These crops are rich in starch and calories and have great potential in meeting the food and energy needs.  More than 840 million people do not have enough food to meet their basic daily energy needs. Far more - an estimated 3 billion - suffer the insidious effects of micronutrient deficiencies leading to hidden hunger. Apart from its popular use as food, tubers also find an important space in cattle feed and agro industries sector.Tropical tuber crops possess high photosynthetic ability coupled with the capacity to yield under marginal lands, adverse biotic and abiotic stress etc (Ravindran et al., 2008).

Introduction

Milk is regarded as the “ideal food” as it contains nutrients necessary for both newborns and adults (Azad & Ahmed, 2016). It is high in protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. Unfortunately, milk is easily adulterated all over the world for several reasons, including a gap between supply and demand, the inherent nature of milk which can imbibe many adulterants that are difficult to identify, the low purchasing power of consumers, an insufficient share of the organized sector in the dairy business, and, most importantly, a lack of efficient and rapid methods for detecting adulterants (Ellis et al., 2012; Moore et al., 2012).

Abstract

In recent years there has been a world-wide shift in consumer choice and preferences for herbal drugs. Herbal drugs are crude preparations of various kinds of medicinal plants. It involves dried plant or any part such as leaf, stem, root, flower, or seed. According to WHO survey, about 70-80% of the world population particularly in the developing countries rely on non-conventional medicines mainly of herbal sources for their primary health care.^[1] Herbal medicines are being widely accepted for their safety, efficacy, cultural acceptability, better compatibility with the human body and lesser side effects. With the legal acceptance in many countries of the world as an alternative system of medicine, the growth rate of ayurvedic and herbal industry is estimated to be more than 30% for the last 25 years. 

Introduction

With an ever-increasing global inclination towards the consumption of herbal medicines, there is a growing need of raw materials and to identify the active principles that should be available in optimum quantities at the requisite time. Currently, the herbal medicine sector faces numerous challenges such as narrow genetic base, identification and authentication of species, chemical characterization of active compounds and identification of the target molecules. The pharmacologically active metabolites are produced in very low amounts by the plants and their chemical synthesis is expensive, hence there is a growing pressure of procuring these active metabolites from the wild leading to diminishing the populations, loss of genetic diversity and local extinctions. Domestic cultivation of medicinal plants offers an attractive alternative but not much information is available regarding the cultivation practices for many plants and also, there are issues related to storage practices, quality, safety and stability assessment that need to be addressed. Futher, the study of secondary metabolites and their enhancement is a bottleneck due to lack of knowledge about characterized biosynthetic pathways and enzymes in many plants and how their synthesis is regulated at molecular level. To address these challenges, new molecular tools and biotechnological approaches are much warranted. However, the rapidly changing pace of technology and development of high-throughput research, the field of plant biotechnology is beginning to suffer from data overload. All biotechnological efforts have involved empirical, labor-intensive and time-consuming methods. Bioinformatics is one such approach in which biology and information technology converge. It is an interdisciplinary scientific tool that facilitates both the analysis and integration of information from ‘omics’ technologies including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and phenomics. The present chapter highlights some of the important areas in bioinformatics which play a significant role and could also have immense impact in medicinal plants research.

Data Collection and Report Writing

Many a times you may be asked questions like what is the average milk production of deshi cows of your area? What is the average lactation period of CB cows of your area? or maybe what is the impact of AI programme in your area? etc., by your higher officers. How to answer all these questions? All these questions may be answered scientifically if you possess elementary knowledge on statistics. We have to frame a research design and to collect data to answer these questions.

What is Data ?

Data is a collection of facts, such as numbers, words, measurements, observations or even just descriptions of things. Example: 5, Ram, Kilogram, Good, Male, etc. Independently they do not produce any meaning.

These are special types of information, generally obtained through observation, surveys, enquiries or are generated as a result of human activities.

Once you have decided what to study and how to study, you are faced with the task of systematically collecting reliable and valid evidence upon which you can base your findings. Data (singular datum) are facts which are observed and measurable phenomena. The purpose of gathering and summarizing data is to transform them into information. The data collected in the research study may be quantitative or qualitative in nature. Quantitative data can be counted and can be computed. Such as age of a boy, marks scored by a student, distance, etc. Quantitative data are easier for analysis. We also collect qualitative data like sex of a person as Male or Female or Transgender. The qualitative characteristics can be counted, but as such cannot be computed. For example, we may get “Yes’ or “No” to a question to farmers about vaccination of his animals. For this “Yes” or “No” , we may assign 0 to “Yes” and 1 to “No” in an artificial or nominal way to categorise these qualitative data, and go for computation. So, quantitative data are expressed in the form of numerals and are amenable to statistical analysis readily. Whereas, qualitative data are descriptive in nature and can be statistically analysed only after processing and after having them classified into some appropriate categories. Data is required to make a decision in any business situation. The researcher is faced with one of the most difficult problems of obtaining suitable, accurate and adequate data. Utmost care must be exercised while collecting data because the quality of the research results depends upon the reliability of the data. There are basically two sources from which we obtain data for our research works. They are known as primary data and secondary data.

Caecae: Saclike or tubular structures open at only one end (blind), often opening from the mid-intestine (Fig. 41).

Caecum (pl. caeca): A blind-ending tube or sac or pouch sac of the alimentary canal (L. caecus= blind) e.g., haepatic caecae in the alimentary canal of insects (Fig. 41).

Calamistrum: One or two rows of curved spines on the metatarsus of the hind legs (spiders; fig. 608, clm).

Calibration: The adujustment of application equipment so that a defined quantity of chemical or other material is applied per unit time or area.

Calling: A vergin female moth releasing sex pheromones to attract males for the purpose of mating.

Calliphorin: A protein produced in the fat body and stored in the haemolymph of larval Calliphoridae (Diptera).

3.1. Introduction
Sports nutrition is one of the areas of nutrition that closely coordinates with human anatomy research and the science of sports. The application of nutrition science to a practical daily eating plan intended to optimise the performance of athletes in competitive events, speed up the healing and reconstruction process following intense physical activity, and supply the energy for physical activity is known as sports nutrition. It also seeks to promote wellness and general health. Nutrition is strongly connected to fitness, specifically whilst sports activities are involved. It is necessary to recognize the physiology of the workout on the way to recognizing the specific metabolic pathways that coexist in the course of sports activities practice (O’Donoghue, 2014). Three things are necessary for athletic success: genetic endowments, level of training, and nutrition. It is impossible to change one’s genetic makeup. The most efficient method for enhancing athletic performance is specialized exercise training, and any kind of workout regimen must include adequate nutrition. The dietary requirements of athletes and workout aficionados are different from those of physically inactive people due to variations in their calorie needs as well as macro- and micro- nutrient needs. To achieve peak athletic performance, it is crucial to investigate and evaluate the dietary requirements of athletes prior to, during, and following the contest (Cotugnae et al., 2005). Exercises that improve one’s heart health involve swimming, jogging, and climbing. Other exercises that improve one’s flexibility, power, and endurance of muscles involve stretching and hard training with resistance. For example, if someone decides to choose to lose excess fat and to do so, they would design a regular exercise routine that incorporates all of the above-mentioned elements, as well as choosing more nutritious foods in the diet to meet the higher demands to endeavors. Athletic performance requires sports-related abilities. These neuromotor skills, such as balancing, pace, power, durability, stamina, agility, and execution, are particular to sports.

1. INTRODUCTION

Ginger (Zingiber officinale Rosc.) is a perennial herb and the economic part is underground stem (rhizome), which is used as a spice. It is native to tropical South-East Asia, introduced into the West Indies, African countries and other tropical belt of the world. The ginger rhizome is harvested between 6 and 12 months after planting and used as spice in the fresh condition,  peeled and split dried or powedered forms. Ginger is utilized widely as a spice, for pickles, candies and as a medicinal herb. The anti-inflammatory and anti-nausea qualities of ginger have applications in the pharmaceutical industry. Ginger and supplements derived from ginger have received attention for the treatment of chronic inflammation. Administration of ginger has resulted in decreased symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (Srivastava and Mustafa, 1992) and gingerol (a component of ginger) has been reported to have anti-inflammatory actions (Kiuchi et al., 1992; Tjendraputra et al., 2001).

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Turmeric (Curcuma domestica Val. (syn. C. longa Koenig non L.) is an important spice, a native of India and South East Asia. Chikarmane et al. (2003) by analyzing historical patterns of movement of South Asian and Southeast Asian people known to have used turmeric suggested that turmeric was introduced into Southeast Asia via Indian colonization in the early Christian centuries. An increase in colonization events from South India during this time was because of discoveries in navigational science and desires to expand civilizations, rather than military conquests. The cultural expansion from South India supports the introduction of turmeric cultivation to Southeast Asia via human means. These human migratory patterns are compared to a phylogenetic analysis of DNA sequence data within Curcuma, and suggested that key locations such as the Isthmus of Kra were important not only to human movement but to species evolution in Curcuma (Chikarmane et al., 2003).

I. General information

1. Climbers which climbs up with the help of tendrils are Antigonon leptopus, Bignonia gracilis, Pyrostegia venusta, Clematis paniculata
2. Climbers which climbs up with the help of thorns or prickles are Bougainvillea spp., climbing rose
3. Climbers which climbs up with the help of root and rootlets are Campsis grandiflora, Ficus repens
4. A climber which climbs up with the help of sticky substances from growing points is Ficus repens
5. A Climber which climbs up with the help of hookers is Combretum comosum
6. Climbers which climbs up with the help of clingers are Passiflora caerulea, Passiflora quadrangularis and Hydrangea petiolaris
7. Climbers which grow well under sunny situation are Pyrostegia venusta, Quisqualis indica, Antigonon leptopus, Adenocalymma alliaceum, Bougainvillea spp., Campsis grandiflora and Wisteria sinensis

In the changing Global scenario, food, nutrition, healthcare and livelihood security are the matter of great concern to human, social and economic development. The global community is increasingly looking towards finding means of sustainable nutrition for the growing population across all countries. The emphasis is on identifying lowresource strategies acceptable to the communities that do not put an unnecessary burden on the environment (FAO, 1993).
Nutritional security denotes the consumption and equitable access to adequate quantities of healthy, safe, affordable and nutritious food by every member of the family essential for optimal health and well-being. Concern for improvement of nutritional quality of vegetables has arisen in the context of providing nutritional security to our everincreasing population because poor nutrition is linked with increased risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease as well as broader impacts including higher health care costs and decreased productivity.
More than 1.0 billion people globally are hungry due to food insecurity problem and about 3.0 billion people are malnourished due to poor nutrition causing mainly micronutrient deficiency.

Supervised classification is the technique to classify raster image in which prior information about the classes in the form of training sites is provided by the user. Training site represents a homogeneous area in a particular class. The spectral response pattern of training sites is used to classify the raster image.The pixels of raster imagewhich have spectral response pattern similar to that of training sites of a particular class are grouped in that class. As there is some variability in the spectral response pattern of a particular class, therefore, multiple training sites per class are taken for supervised classification. Supervised classification of raster images can be performed by various methods. Conventional methods include maximum likelihood classifier, minimum distance to mean classifier, and parallelepiped classifier. Now a days, machine learning algorithms are also gaining importance in this context. These classifying algorithms are first trained or calibrated using the data of training sites.This trained model is then validated on the independent datasets for accuracy assessment. If the accuracy of the developed model is of acceptable level, then that model is used for the classification of raster data.

In this chapter, we are going to discuss the execution of maximum likelihood classifier and few machine learning techniques for supervised classification of raster image in R software. The training sites used in this exercise are in the form of points shapefile. The raster image is classified into six classesi.e. built- up, fallow soil, riverine sand, salt-affected soil, vegetation, and water. For performing this exercise, first of all,set the working directory and import the required packages.

Summary

Water security can be defined as reliable availability of water in sufficient quantity and quality to sustain human health, livelihoods, food (agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture) and the environment (biodiversity and ecosystems). Discharge of chemical and biological pollutants (from agriculture, industry and domestic uses) into rivers and development of engineering infrastructure such as dams and weirs over rivers have modified river ecosystems threatening the global water security, water quality and water dependent biodiversity. Climate change (increase in the intensity and frequency of floods, droughts, bushfire and sea-level rise, ocean acidification, etc.) is an additional stress on water security. There is a need to reduce climate change impacts on water security which can be done via adaptations to climate change. Adaptation is adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities. In other words, the adaptation can be considered as, tackling the effects of climate change. Adaptation to climate change in terms of sustainable use of water may include increasing water availability by developing hydro-basins and transferring water from areas in which it is abundant to areas in which there is scarcity, the reduction of water losses, increasing storage capacity by building reservoirs and dams, rainwater harvesting, improvement of water use efficiency, desalination of seawater, water savings (leakage management, metering, retrofitting existing homes with water efficient products in toilets, showers, baths, using energy efficient dishwashers and washing machines), mandatory rainwater tanks in new and old buildings (for toilet flushing, washing clothes, gardens, car washing), use of recycled or reclaimed water for landscape irrigation or to recharge groundwater aquifers, and to meet commercial and industrial water needs.

12.0. Introduction

The benefits of food laws to the consumers and the processing industries depend upon the efficacy with which the laws are implemented. The implementation of laws requires not only a well organized national infrastructure for inspection and quality control, but also requires reliable methods of analysis, that can be used to check the quality standards for improvement of the food product w.r.t. nutrition, safety and sensory attributes. Early and accurate analysis of food product prior to preservation, during preservation or post preservation is a crucial component for quality evaluation and their quality control. Quality control in food industries depends upon three principles viz. i) raw material control, ii) process control and iii) finished product inspection. Once a product has gone through the manufacturing process, little can be done to alter its quality or to overcome the faults. Examination of the finished product at the most represents analysis with respect to standards – to accept or reject. Effective control over the raw material and process minimizes the rejection of the products. The food spoilage can be managed most effectively, if control measures are introduced at an early stage of food preparation/contamination. Reliance on symptom is often not adequate because spoilage may occur before symptom appears. The spoilage of the food may affect sensory, physical, chemical or microbiological attributes. Therefore, now a day, food processors want to analyze their food samples quickly without any delay in shipment for which they have to depend on the different methods for their quality evaluation. The analysis and quality control of food products involve physical, chemical, microbiological and sensory methods. So, widely used standard procedures / methods for evaluation of quality of food prior to preservation, during preservation or post preservation has been given in this chapter for easy implementation.

1. Introduction

Food is processed for its preservation, hygienization or value addition. To date, the food preservation technologies such as canning, dehydration, freezing, pasteurization and controlled atmosphere and modified atmosphere packaging have been the main processes employed to preserve foods, with the use of antimicrobials and microwaves also being employed more recently. In future, however, technologies such as exposure to ionizing radiation, high pressure processing, ohmic heating and pulsed electric field processing, could potentially be the new alternatives to the above food preservation technologies.

Irradiation of food involves the exposing of food, either in prepacked form or as such to controlled doses of ionizing radiation being generated either by electrically driven machines such as electron beam accelerators, x-rays or gamma rays produced by radioactive isotopes such as CS-137,CO-60, to achieve certain desirable objectives. The process of exposing a range of food stuffs to specific doses of ionizing radiation is being used to extend the shelf life of food stuffs, to improve their overall safety and quality by eliminating pathogenic bacteria, by reducing number of food spoilage organisms, to reduce the bacterial load on herbs and spices and thereby making them safe to incorporate into food stuffs, to inhibit sprouting in stored tuber and bulb crops such as potatoes, onions and garlic, to disinfest grains, grain products and tropical fruits to prevent damage to the commodity and to meet the quarantine regulations(Arun Sharma, 2004, Farkas, 2006).

4.1. INTRODUCTION

Rice (Oryza sativa) is the major food crop in the world. Nearly 40% of the world population consumes rice as the major staple food. Most of the people, who depend on rice as primary food, live in the less developed countries.  Archeological evidence on rice in India dates back to 1500-1000 B.C. Since the dawn of civilization, rice has served humans as a life-giving cereal in the humid regions of Asia and, to a lesser extent, in West Africa. Introduction of rice into Europe and the America has led to its increased use in human diets. There are 42 rice producing countries throughout the world but China and India are major rice production centers. Rice is grown in wide range of agro-climatic conditions ranging from mountainous (Jammu) lands to low land delta areas (Sundarban), spanning an area from 53° latitude north to 35° south of the world but about 90% of the crop is grown and consumed in Asia. Rice provides fully 60% of the food intake in Southeast Asia and about 35% in East Asia and South Asia. The highest level of per capita rice consumption (130-180 kg per year, 55-80% of total caloric source) takes place in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, and Vietnam (Kenneth and Kriemhild, 2000). In many cultures of the world rice is the central part of people’s life and culture. Rice is an excellent food and is an excellent source of carbohydrates and energy.