Bio-efficacy of tank mixed herbicides for control of complex weed flora in soybean (Glycine max L. Merril)

A field experiment was conducted at ZARS, Jhabua (M.P.) during kharif 2014 to find out most suitable and efficient method of weed control in soybean. The experiment consisted of nine treatments laid out in randomized block design with three replications. All the weed management practices led to significant reduction in density and dry matter of weeds as compared to weedy check. Two hand weeding (20 & 40 DAS) recorded lowest weed density (4.9/ m2), weed dry matter (22.35 g/m2) with highest weed control efficiency of 59.67% and found at par with the application of Chlorimuron Ethyl @ 9gm /ha + Quizalofop-p-ethyl @ 50 g /ha (density 5.48/ m2, dry matter 26.62 g/m2 and WCE of 51.97%) and Imazethapyr @ 35 g /ha + Imazamox @ 35 g/ha (density 6.13/ m2, dry matter 26.00 g/m2 and WCE of 53.08%). Maximum yield of 1782 kg/ha was recorded in two hand weeding (20 & 40 DAS) closely followed by Chlorimuron Ethyl @ 9gm /ha + Quizalofop-p-ethyl @ 50 g /ha (1723 kg/ha) and Imazethapyr @ 35 g / ha + Imazamox @ 35 g/ha (1697 kg/ha). Reduction in soybean yield in weedy check to be recorded is 38.78 per cent when compared to weed free and 36.68 per cent in comparison to Chlorimuron Ethyl @ 9gm /ha + Quizalofopp-ethyl @ 50 g /ha. However, highest Benefit to Cost ratio is recorded in Chlorimuron Ethyl +Quizalofop-p-ethyl (3.26) closely followed by Imazethapyr + Imazamox (3.22) and Weed free (3.21)

Mosaic Atlas: Interview with Arjun Verma

This interview with Arjun Verma, an Indian-American sitar artist and composer based in the Bay Area, was conducted by Sukanya Chakrabarti as part of the Mosaic Atlas project. Arjun Verma combines traditional and contemporary approaches to Indian classical music. Deeply rooted in Hindustani classical music, yoga, and Vedanta, Verma views music as a holistic expression of life and a medium for conveying emotions beyond words. He aims to preserve the classical tradition\u27s essence while innovating within its framework, offering audiences profound and transformative experiences. As a steward of this living art form, Verma highlights challenges such as limited platforms and resources for sharing Indian classical music, which is often marginalized. He envisions a future where global artistic traditions are integrated into mainstream education, fostering greater accessibility and appreciation. As part of the Mosaic Atlas project, Mosaic Staff and Volunteers, SJSU students and faculty from the Anthropology and Film, Theater, and Dance Departments interviewed people who support and produce art throughout the Bay Area

Guiding Digital Economy: Yama and Niyama Approach

This research conceptualizes a framework to guide digital enterprises using indigenous theoretical perspectives. Based on Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga, it applies Yama (ethical restraints) and Niyama (observances) to guide interactions between digital enterprises, actors, and the environment. The framework emphasizes ethical engagement, self-discipline, and sustainability. The study contributes to understanding digital economy governance through indigenous principles and their application in developing regions

'Through the looking glass' : diversity and its functional significance in marine benthic microbial eukaryotes

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Science.Marine microbial eukaryotes are of immense ecological and evolutionary significance in marine ecosystems. Understanding their biodiversity and functional evolutionary traits are key to improving our understanding of marine ecosystem functioning. The East Australian Current (EAC) is a global climate change hotspot, and yet we lack in our understanding of its impact on phytoplankton distribution and dynamics. Ostreopsis species have been reported to cause severe blooms and produce palytoxin (PLTX) – like compounds all around the globe but we do not have basic information on the distribution and dynamics of Ostreopsis species in Australia. In this dissertation, I established the first comprehensive report of Ostreopsis species from Australian waters and explored cryptic diversity and functional traits in this genus. Extensive sampling along a north-south gradient of 1800 km from sub-tropical to temperate waters yielded the identification of three species, including a novel pseudo-cryptic Ostreopsis rhodesae from the Great Barrier Reef, along with Ostreopsis cf. ovata. Ostreopsis cf. siamensis was identified at all locations and its eco-physiological traits and genetic population structure were investigated. The genetic diversity in the northern subtropical locations was greater compared to the more southern locations, reflecting a longstanding divergence and local radiations originating from the ancestral population and a potential southward range expansion, which may be related to the intensification of the EAC over the past century. Intra- and inter-population variations in physiological traits were investigated to understand its range expansion and functional trade-offs. This is the first study to our knowledge to report growth rates, cell size, cellular toxic concentrations and photobiological parameters on fifty-three clones of a marine protist, in order to investigate intra-specific diversity in key functional traits. The toxin biosynthesis pathway in the three species was investigated using de novo transcriptomics and compared to Coolia malayensis. All essential domains needed to synthesize a PLTX-like carbon backbone were identified in the three Ostreopsis species and were also found in the non-PLTX producing C. malayensis. Putative molecules with potential polyketide-like backbone structures were reported in this investigation using non-targeted metabolomics, suggesting a greater diversity of polyketide compounds amongst these species than previously anticipated. Results from this dissertation add to the knowledge of species biodiversity, population structures, eco-physiological traits and toxin biosynthesis mechanisms in marine microbial eukaryotes, and Ostreopsis species in particular

Modeling Prejudice and Its Effect on Societal Prosperity

Existing studies on prejudice, which is important in multi-group dynamics in societies, focus on the social-psychological knowledge behind the processes involving prejudice and its propagation. We instead create a multi-agent framework that simulates the propagation of prejudice and measures its tangible impact on the prosperity of individuals as well as of larger social structures, including groups and factions within. Groups in society help us define prejudice, and factions represent smaller tight-knit circles of individuals with similar opinions. We model social interactions using the Continuous Prisoner's Dilemma (CPD) and a type of agent called a prejudiced agent, whose cooperation is affected by a prejudice attribute, updated over time based both on the agent's own experiences and those of others in its faction. Our simulations show that modeling prejudice as an exclusively out-group phenomenon generates implicit in-group promotion, which eventually leads to higher relative prosperity of the prejudiced population. This skew in prosperity is shown to be correlated to factors such as size difference between groups and the number of prejudiced agents in a group. Although prejudiced agents achieve higher prosperity within prejudiced societies, their presence degrades the overall prosperity levels of their societies. Our proposed system model can serve as a basis for promoting a deeper understanding of origins, propagation, and ramifications of prejudice through rigorous simulative studies grounded in apt theoretical backgrounds. This can help conduct impactful research on prominent social issues such as racism, religious discrimination, and unfair immigrant treatment. This model can also serve as a foundation to study other socio-psychological phenomena in tandem with prejudice such as the distribution of wealth, social status, and ethnocentrism in a society.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, 4 table

RecXplainer: Post-Hoc Attribute-Based Explanations for Recommender Systems

Recommender systems are ubiquitous in most of our interactions in the current digital world. Whether shopping for clothes, scrolling YouTube for exciting videos, or searching for restaurants in a new city, the recommender systems at the back-end power these services. Most large-scale recommender systems are huge models trained on extensive datasets and are black-boxes to both their developers and end-users. Prior research has shown that providing recommendations along with their reason enhances trust, scrutability, and persuasiveness of the recommender systems. Recent literature in explainability has been inundated with works proposing several algorithms to this end. Most of these works provide item-style explanations, i.e., `We recommend item A because you bought item B.' We propose a novel approach, RecXplainer, to generate more fine-grained explanations based on the user's preference over the attributes of the recommended items. We perform experiments using real-world datasets and demonstrate the efficacy of RecXplainer in capturing users' preferences and using them to explain recommendations. We also propose ten new evaluation metrics and compare RecXplainer to six baseline methods.Comment: Awarded the Best Student Paper at TEA Workshop at NeurIPS 2022. 13 page

"Nurturing Balance: A Correlational Inquiry into the Interplay of Family Supportive Supervisor Behaviors, Job Satisfaction, and Work Family Conflict"

University educators have a pivotal role in shaping the educational landscape and facilitating the intellectual and personal development of students. The well-being of educators is crucial for fostering a robust and thriving academic environment. The landscape of higher education in India is undergoing rapid transformation, necessitating a comprehensive examination of the well-being of university teachers. One of the foremost issues among university educators in India pertains to the burdensome nature of their workload. Das & Mukherjee (2019) conducted a study which revealed that the escalating requirements for research, teaching, and administrative duties are significant contributors to elevated levels of stress experienced by faculty members at universities. Teaching is renowned for its inherent time-consuming characteristics, which involve many tasks such as class preparation, assessment, and engagement in extracurricular pursuits.&nbsp