eChapters

Introduction
The renal system is primarily responsible for the filtration of waste products from blood plasma through urine production. The kidneys, along with the ureters, bladder, and urethra, are part of the urinary system responsible for removing waste products from blood and eliminating them in urine. They filter around 120 ml of blood plasma per minute and perform homeostatic roles such as regulating blood volume and pressure, pH and electrolyte
composition, stimulating erythropoiesis, and supporting vitamin D biosynthesis. Nephrons, with around 1-1.3 million per adult kidney, are primarily cortical, with 80-85% of them located in the renal cortex. The remaining 15-20% are called juxtamedullary nephrons. The kidneys remove nitrogenous compounds like urea, uric acid, and creatinine, as well as metabolic waste products, toxins, excess hormones, water, and electrolytes. Urine formation involves three main stages: glomerular filtration, tubular reabsorption, and secretion. The kidneys produce renal filtrate, which contains blood components that can be filtered out, and the body recovers 99% of the water and electrolytes from the filtrate. The renal corpuscle, comprising the Bowman’s capsule and glomerular capillaries, is responsible for filtration of blood plasma and producing renal filtrate. Its structural elements allow
for efficient filtration, with glomerular capillaries having a 100-fold greater permeability to water, small ions, and solutes. The glomerular capillaries also have increased pressure due to the smaller diameter of the efferent arteriole. The filtration membrane consists of endothelium, basement membrane, and podocytes. The proximal convoluted tubule in the kidneys plays a crucial role in reabsorption of water and electrolytes, including sodium,
chloride, potassium, calcium, and bicarbonate. It reabsorbs approximately 80% of filtered bicarbonate, with further reabsorption from the loop of Henle and distal convoluted tubule. This reabsorption regulates the body’s acid-base balance, contributing to the acidic nature of urine. The proximal convoluted tubule is the only region able to reabsorb glucose. The loop of Henle is a crucial region in the kidney, responsible for concentrating urine and facilitating water and electrolyte reabsorption. It regulates fluid volume, blood pressure, and acid-base balance through bicarbonate reabsorption. The loop consists of two main regions: the descending limb and the ascending limb.

Gladiolus is a major commercial cut flower appreciated for its long spikes, attractive florets and wide range of colours. This chapter describes its origin, species, genetics, botanical characteristics and improved varieties. It explains corm and cormel propagation, climate, soil, planting time, spacing, nutrient management, irrigation, staking and other crop-management practices. The chapter also discusses major pests and diseases, physiological problems, harvesting stages, grading, postharvest handling, storage and yield. Emphasis is placed on producing long, straight and high-quality spikes suitable for domestic and export markets. The chapter provides practical production guidance for commercial gladiolus cultivation under Indian conditions. effectively.

Vitamins are essential organic nutrients required by an organism in small quantities. They are essential since they cannot be synthesized in sufficient quantities by an organism, and must be obtained from the diet. The term vitamin does not include other essential nutrients like dietary minerals, essential fatty acids, or essential amino acids which are needed in larger quantities than vitamins. The term vitamin is derived from “vitamine,” coined in 1912 by the Polish biochemist Funk. The name is from vital and amine, meaning amine of life. Thirteen vitamins are generally recognized presently. Vitamins are used in small quantities by an organism to keep it in a healthy condition.

Vitamins are given letters of alphabet (A,B, C, D, etc.) in the order in which they have been discovered. The letters do not bear any relation to their structures or their importance. Vitamins are classified by their biological and chemical activity and not by their structure. Thus, each “vitamin” refers to a number of vitamer compounds that all show the biological activity associated with a particular vitamin. Vitamin A includes the compounds retinal, retinol, and four known carotenoids. Vitamers by definition are convertible to the active form of the vitamin in the body, and are sometimes inter-convertible to one another, as well.

I. Definitions

Transpiration - evaporation of water from a plant surface

Evapotranspiration - evaporation of water from a plant surface and the soil (and abiotic surroundings.

Take-home-lesson: Plants loose a lot of water by transpiration. See text for some specific examples.

8.1 Introduction

The objective of this chapter is to develop a smart control for site-specific management of fixed irrigation system with Blynk app. Mobile app is designed to control the water management in field. The complete system comprises of two sections field device and mobile app. Field device comprises of Arduino, Node MCU, Power supply, LCD, Relay board, soil moisture sensor, temperature & humidity sensor, water level sensor, motor1, motor2. The system is designed to establish control and communication with specific agricultural field to take sensory data from the sensors and control the PUMP IN motor and PUMP OUT motor with the help of mobile app. Fig.8.1 shows a block diagram for a system.

Introduction

Agriculture occupies a prominent place in Indian economy and rural livelihoods. But, it is faced with the challenge of producing food for a rapidly growing population whilst maintaining the nation’s fragile resources.Efforts through green revolution brought out significant increase in food grain production by concentrating on the potential farms in terms of irrigation and other basic resources.Nationally and globally, it is necessary that the growth rate of food production must remain higher than the population growth rate to avoid hunger and overcome famines. But, food security one of the basic human rights is in jeopardy, today. Agriculture is crucial for ensuring the food and livelihood security of the country and hence it is important that this sector with diversified farming systems becomes resilient to increasing climatic variabilities and global economic changes. This concept encourages the farmers towards efficient utilization of natural resources and also proper channelization of by-products of one enterprise to the other enterprise in farming. The integrated farming systems, therefore, assume prime place for sound management of farm resources to enhance the farm productivity, reduce the environmental degradation, and improve the quality of life of resource poor farmers and to maintain the sustainability to meet the challenges of food security. In order to meet the soaring demand for food there is a need to go for integrated faming system.This approach facilitates in strengthening the socio-economic status of Indian farmers besides strengthening ecological balance. Integrated farming system is common to Indian farmers simply because of the preponderance of small farm systems which form the backbone of traditional agriculture. For small farmers, these systems enable a means of diversifying the use of meagre resources in the context of a rational means of reducing risk. Additionally, it also enables increased efficiency in the use of these same resources in a manner that there will be livelihood security and stability to farming systems. There is no scope for increasing the farm size. Yet steady increase in population with shrinkage of cultivated land as a result of industrialization and urbanization would pose serious hurdle for agricultural development. Only vertical expansion is possible by integrating appropriate farming components requiring lesser space and time ensuring continuous income to the farmers.

ABSTRACT

A low molecular weight antifungal protein has been purified from the leaves of a medicinal herb, Mentha viridis, L. using a combination of cold acetone precipitation, carboxymethyl cellulose column, Q-sepharose column chromatography, and preparatory native PAGE techniques. The purified protein migrated as a single band on SDS-PAGE, with a molecular weight of ca 15.5 kDa. The purified leaf protein of M. viridis inhibited mycelial growth of phytopathogens such as Fusarium solani, Fusarium sp., and Pythium aphanidermatum. The purified protein from the leaves of M. viridis inhibited the growth of human pathogens such as Candida albicans and C. tropicalis (75 mg/mL). This inhibition is concentration dependent. The purified antifungal protein of leaves of M. viridis did not show protease, chitinase, and b-1, 3 glucanase activity.

1. Which one of the following is the botanical name of dill
   1. Cuminum cyminum
   2. Trychospremum ammi
   3. Apium graveolens
   4. Anethum graveolens
2. The normally in cardamom could be seen in
   1. Throughout year
   2. 4 month
   3. 6 month
   4. 2 month
3. The hortus malabaricus is written by
   1. Ravindran
   2. Subramniyan
   3. Hendrick Van Rheede
   4. Venugopaln Nambiyar

India has experienced marked changes, both at international and national levels. Technological progress, ICT penetration in rural and urban areas, and changes in current government policies have resulted in changes in the country’s social structure and power relations. The government initiated various programmes like Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK), Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA), Mahila e-Haat, and Support to Training & Employment Programme (STEP) etc. are there to improve the state of rural women. 

Toxicological screening is essential for the development of new drugs (ND) and exploring the therapeutic potential of existing compounds.While animal testing is still regarded as the “gold standard” in traditional toxicity assessments, there is a growing need to transition towards alternative methods for drug safety testing. This shift is driven by the emergence of cutting-edge technologies and the adoption of the 3Rs principle (replace, reduce, refine) which emphasizes animal welfare.Routine in vitro safety screeningalong with GLP (Good Laboratory Practice) and non-GLP toxicity testing follow regulatory frameworks established by agencies such as the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), ICH (International Council for Harmonization)and EMA (European Medicines Agency) (Tang et al., 2023).In recent years, there has been a shift towards enhanced safety screening during the lead optimization stages of drug discovery. Regulatory toxicology testing plays a pivotal role in determining the potential risks associated with new drug compounds and ensuring their safety before they can proceed to human clinical trials and, ultimately, be marketed to the public.

Climate risk management in the semi-arid tropics (SAT) is one of the major challenges to achieving food security and development in India and large parts of sub-Saharan Africa and also in the case of Australia. Climate-induced production risk associated with the current season-to-season variability of rainfall is a major barrier in making rainfed agriculture sustainable and viable farm business. Since season outcomes are uncertain, even with the best climate information, farmers have limited flexibility in applying management with confidence. In fact in risky environments, farmers most often respond by adapting a risk averse strategy and are reluctant to invest in even risk reducing measures (Leathers and Quiggin 1991). In the SAT agro-ecologies, there are a limited range of enterprise or crop options to consider which may be further restricted by cultural traditions, food preferences or market opportunities.While there are fundamental differences between large scale commercial farms in Australia compared to the predominantly smallholder resource poor farms found in India, when it comes to climate risk management in the SAT, there are many commonalities. The purpose of this paper is therefore to (i) establish a framework for managing climate variability and transforming farming systems to be more resilient and sustainable for future climates; and (ii) provide some case study examples from climate risk management in low rainfall cropping system in Australia and consider how they may be applied in smallholder systems of the SAT.

9.1 Introduction

The objective of this chapter is to design an icloud and cayenne based perimeter monitoring system for agricultural field. Mobile app is designed to monitor the sensory data. The complete system comprises of two sections field device and mobile app. Field device comprises of NodeMCU, battery, motion sensors and laser sensors. The system is designed to monitor the agriculture field perimeter with motion and laser sensors, which are deployed at different locations of field. The sensory data is transmitted through NodeMCU and received at mobile app which can be accessed by authorized person. The same data can be accessed on webserver from anywhere in the world. Fig.9.1 shows a block diagram for a system. Table.9.1 shows the component list.

The arid zone of India covers about 12% of the country’s geographical area and occupies over 31.7 mha of hot desert and about 7 m ha under cold desert. The arid regions of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana together constitute the Great Indian Desert known as Thar Desert that accounts for 89.6% of hot arid regions of India. In Gujarat, 6.22 m ha area is under arid zone which constitute 19.6% of the arid area of country (Fig 1). In Gujarat, eight districts fall under arid zone, namely, Kachchh (100% of district area), Jamnagar (80%), Surendranagar (29%), Junagadh (20%), Banaskantha (18%), Mehsana (7%), Ahmedabad (6%) and Rajkot 6%).

Introduction

The term “Integrated Nutrient Management” refers to the process of ensuring that the fertility of the soil and the delivery of plant nutrients are kept at an optimal level in order to maintain the desired level of production. This is accomplished by using an integrated approach to maximize the advantages that may be obtained from all conceivable sources of organic, inorganic, and biological components. Due to the fact that it supplies plants with anchoring, water, and nutrients, soil is an essential component for crop development. It is common for soils to have a certain amount of organic and mineral nutrient sources; but, in order to improve plant development, it is often necessary to supplement these soils with external treatments, sometimes known as fertilisers. It is common practice to apply fertilizers in order to boost the fertility of the soil, encourage the development of plants, increase crop yields, and provide support for agricultural intensification. Generally speaking, fertilizers may be categorized as either organic or mineral. Manure, compost, seaweed, and cereal straw are all examples of organic fertilizers. Organic fertilizers are created from components that are either plant or animal based. In general, organic fertilizers have lower amounts of plant nutrients because they are coupled with organic matter, which enhances the soil’s physical and biological features. This results in the soil having better qualities. Mineral fertilizers that are based on nitrogen, potassium, and phosphate are the ones that are used the most often. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute (1995), in order to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for food throughout the world, it will be of the utmost significance to make the most efficient and well-balanced use of nutrient inputs from mineral fertilizers. Since 1960, the usage of mineral fertilizer has expanded by approximately fivefold, which has greatly supported the expansion of the world population. According to Smil (2002), nitrogen-based fertilizer has contributed an estimated forty percent to the gains in per-capita food production over the previous fifty years. In spite of this, mineral fertilizers should not be the only means by which crop nutrient needs are satisfied. This is because environmental issues and economic limits make this situation impossible. As a result, Integrated Nutrient Management has to be used in order to encourage the efficient utilization of all nutrient sources, which includes organic sources, recyclable wastes, mineral fertilizers, and biofertilizers (Roy et al, 2006).

Introduction

Research in different fields of biological science requires test systems to observe the effects of chemicals or drugs. Testing new chemical entity (NCE) in drug discovery and development requires either in vitro or in vivo systems, including cell culture, tissue, organs and whole animal. Various advantages and disadvantages of each test system force scientists to find an alternative test system. The use of laboratory animals like rodents and non-rodents for evaluation of the effects of drugs or toxicity studies having ethical concerns. The cell-based and tissue-based test systems have various disadvantages including problem related prediction of the desirable and undesirable effects in animals. All such factors favor the use of laboratory animals like rats, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits, dogs, and primates in the pre-clinical phase of drug discovery. However, cost, manpower, and time-consuming efforts can be considered unfavorable for the use of such animals for testing every newly synthesized compound. Because of such difficulties in the field of new research with animal models, scientists made efforts to identify a newer animal model that can replace currently available animal species in research up to a certain extent. The animal model that is used in such drug discovery programs and toxicological testing must have homology to human beings or target species. The limitations or disadvantages of currently available animal models may be solved up to a certain level by using aquatic animal species like zebrafish.

Abstract
Integrated Farming Systems (IFS) represent a holistic and sustainable approach to agriculture that seeks to maximize resource efficiency, environmental conservation and economic viability by integrating various agricultural enterprises within a farm. The concept hinges on the synergistic interactions between crops, livestock, aquaculture, agroforestry and other components, ensuring that waste from one system serves as input for another, thus minimizing resource wastage and enhancing productivity. IFS promote diversification, reducing dependency on a single crop or product and thereby mitigating risks associated with market and climate fluctuations. By incorporating livestock and aquaculture, IFS enhance nutrient cycling and soil fertility through the recycling of organic matter and manure. Agroforestry practices within IFS contribute to soil conservation, water management, and biodiversity enhancement, creating a resilient agricultural ecosystem. The economic benefits of IFS are notable, with diversified income streams providing financial stability to farmers. The reduced need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides, owing to natural nutrient cycling and pest control, also contributes to cost savings and environmental health. Additionally, IFS support food security by producing a variety of food products, from grains and vegetables to meat and fish, on the same farm. The successful implementation of IFS requires careful planning and knowledge integration, ensuring that the various components harmonize and contribute positively to the overall system. Despite challenges such as initial investment costs and the need for technical expertise, IFS offer a viable pathway towards sustainable agriculture, balancing productivity with ecological and economic sustainability.

The field of talent management continues to mature from agri-business to extension service, but it is also being impeded both by the scale of debates taking place. The field continues to agree that talent management “adds value” to the organisation such as extension system. To understand the development scenarios of strategic talent management, we need a “theory of value” to understand the elements of talent management which are the most valuable for business-led extension service (BLESS) effectiveness. “Theory of Value” is a generic term which encompasses all the theories within economics that although explain the exchange value (or) price of goods and services. Alternatively, “Value of Theory” encompasses a range of approaches in extension system to understand how, why, and to what degree humans should value things, whether the thing is person, idea, object, (or) anything else for effective functioning of strategic business-led extension service to sustain its clients system.

Paphiopedilum is a genus of the orchid subfamily Cypripedioideae and family Orchidaceae. It is derived from Paphos and ancient Greek word “pedilon” means “slipper”. Paphiopedilums are often called “slipper orchids” because of their unique pouch. The pouch traps insects seeking nectar and to leave again they have to climb up past the staminode, behind which they collect or deposit pollinia. Paphiopedilum has a highly ornamental value being the treasure of Orchidaceae. They are easily grown as houseplants and their care is very similar to African Violets.

ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION

The genus name Paphiopedilum was established by Ernst Hugo Heinrich Pfitzer in 1886. Ironically, no paphiopedilum occurs on Cyprus- at least not as the genus is understood today. But it was long mixed up with its holarctic relative Cypripedium, which indeed grows in the Mediterranean region. Paphiopedilum was finally decided to be a valid taxon in 1959, but its use has become restricted to eastern Asian species. The genus is native to Indo-Malaysia (South China, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands) and India. Paphiopedilum armeniacum is found from China (west Yunnan province) to northern Myanmar. It occurs at 1,600 to 2,000 metres above sea level. It is found growing on limestone hills, in semi-shaded deciduous forest, usually on cliffs above rivers.

SPECIES

Over fifty species of Paphiopedilum have been discovered in the far east from the higher, cooler elevations of the Himalayas, across to China and Southeast Asia and down to the warmer, sea-level regions of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines (Hawkes, 1965). Most species, like Paphiopedilum callosum are terrestrial in nature growing under the shaded and moist conditions of the forest floor (Fitch, 1982). Some species, such as Paphiopedilum niveum are lithophytic found in colonies on the coastal rock formations of the Malaysian islands (Fitch, 1982a). While a few of the larger strap-leaf Paphiopedilum species exposed to the higher light conditions found in their loftier habitats. Paphiopedilum philippinense var. roebelenii and Paphiopedilum lowii provide a strong contrast to such as Paph. lowii, are usually epiphytic Paphiopedilum charlesworthii previously described and serve to illustrate the extent of variation in both plant and flower habit within this genus. Unlike the single-flowered spikes of Paphiopedilum charlesworthii, which are usually around 15 cm tall, those of Paph. philippinense var. roebelenii and Paph. lowii can bear up to a half-dozen flowers and can measure 60 cm or more in length. Paphiopedilums with this kind of flowering habit are referred to as multifloral paphiopedilums (Batchelor). The plants themselves can be quite large particularly in the case of Paphiopedilum lowii, where individual leaves are often well over 30 cm long, though narrow.

Introduction

Microorganisms generally present in all the environments are the most abundant and diverse living organisms present on earth. Microorganisms have great impact on the biosphere due to their inbuilt ability to transform the key elements of life into forms usable by other organisms and plants. Because of heterogeneity in nature of soils from variations in physical, chemical and biological properties the various natural habitat are microbially most diverse environments on the earth maintaining the stability between complex microbial communities and their function (Daniel 2005). One gram of soil contains about 10 billion microorganisms of possibly thousands of different species but microbial diversity in general, and particularly in extreme environments, and its role in ecology is poorly understood (Rossello-Mora and Amann 2001).

Deserts present a unique environment with very little precipitation and large variations in day and night temperatures, making it inhospitable environment for living organisms. Still a number of microbial species do survive in those harsh environments. The populations of aerobic bacteria in deserts across the world are reported to vary from < 10 in Atacama desert to 1.6 × 10⁷ cfu g^–1 in soils of Nevada (Skujnis 1984), and India is not exception to that with the bacterial population in the range of 1.0 × 10³ to 8.35 × 10⁶ cfu g^–1 sediment or ml^–1 water in the samples collected from cold deserts of north western Himalayas (Yadav et al. 2015).