P R A methods for studying the impact of technology adoption in crop and poultry enterprises in a rural village

Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) methods have of late been highly successful in bridging the gap between development functionaries and target groups for whom the development straties and efforts have been focused at. PRA describes a growing family of approaches and methods to enable local people to share, enhance and analyze their knowledge of life and conditions, to plan and to act. (Chambers, 1994)

Livelihood analysis using wealth ranking tool of PRA

The present study was undertaken in Maroorpatti village in Namakkal district of Tamilnadu. From the results o/the livelihood analysis conducted/or the three different categories a/wealth ranking, it may be pointed out that with respect to the size of land holdings the rich farmer had double the size a/the medium and as such large as 10 times that the poor farmer. The rich farmer had an incomparably large number o/cattle with respect to his counterparts. While the rich farmer received monthly income from livestock, the medium farmer, who was thus classified solely by his agricultural land holdings, always expected his agricultural field to boost his monthly income. Furthermore, from the expenditure pal1ern observed, the rich farmer's were inclined to save nearly 35% of their monthly income, while the poor farmers were always in need of 25% loan to meet their monthly needs. As a consequence, the crises analysis indicated that the poor farmer as well as the medium farmer usually takes a loan of 40% towards meeting any calamities faced in their agricultural and livestock sectors

Application of PRA technique for field problem identification

This paper deals with the application of participatory rural appraisal technique for identification of agricultural field problems of Maroorpatti village . The economic importance of problems was also worked out

6'-Methoxy Raloxifene-analog enhances mouse bone properties with reduced estrogen receptor binding

Raloxifene (RAL) is an FDA-approved drug used to treat osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. RAL suppresses bone loss primarily through its role as a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM). This hormonal estrogen therapy promotes unintended side effects, such as hot flashes and increased thrombosis risk, and prevents the drug from being used in some patient populations at-risk for fracture, including children with bone disorders. It has recently been demonstrated that RAL can have significant positive effects on overall bone mechanical properties by binding to collagen and increasing bone tissue hydration in a cell-independent manner. A Raloxifene-Analog (RAL-A) was synthesized by replacing the 6-hydroxyl substituent with 6-methoxy in effort to reduce the compound's binding affinity for estrogen receptors (ER) while maintaining its collagen-binding ability. It was hypothesized that RAL-A would improve the mechanical integrity of bone in a manner similar to RAL, but with reduced estrogen receptor binding. Molecular assessment showed that while RAL-A did reduce ER binding, downstream ER signaling was not completely abolished. In-vitro, RAL-A performed similarly to RAL and had an identical concentration threshold on osteocyte cell proliferation, differentiation, and function. To assess treatment effect in-vivo, wildtype (WT) and heterozygous (OIM+/-) female mice from the Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) murine model were treated with either RAL or RAL-A from 8 weeks to 16 weeks of age. There was an untreated control group for each genotype as well. Bone microarchitecture was assessed using microCT, and mechanical behavior was assessed using 3-point bending. Results indicate that both compounds produced analogous gains in tibial trabecular and cortical microarchitecture. While WT mechanical properties were not drastically altered with either treatment, OIM+/- mechanical properties were significantly enhanced, most notably, in post-yield properties including bone toughness. This proof-of-concept study shows promising results and warrants the exploration of additional analog iterations to further reduce ER binding and improve fracture resistance

Transgender Lifestyle Oriented Food Items

Transgender has a unique history in human society. Transgender is one of them. People living all over the world fulfill their needs and rituals with the food they use for their daily needs. From the ritual of adoption, which is performed from the day one is born male and eventually becomes feminine, from the day one joins one's race, to the ritual of reassignment surgery to physically transform one's self into a female. In this article, we can see how they fulfill the traditional rituals necessary for their life with food through the betel nut, betel nut, milk, bread etc. which they use until the death ceremony and also the contribution of food in their beliefs, worships and rituals

Tamil Food by Land

Food is essential and indispensable in the world from the beginning of man till today. Food is not uniform in all regions. The price and use of food vary according to the climate of the country. There were changes in the ways of life of the people according to the conditions of nature. But the workers by birth worked according to their ability, ate, dressed, slept and lived in a car. The purpose of this article is to explain their land based food security

Source Separation using ICA

Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is a statistical signal processing technique having emerging new practical application areas, such as blind signal separation such as mixed voices or images, analysis of several types of data or feature extraction. Fast independent component analysis (Fast ICA ) is one of the most efficient ICA technique. Fast ICA algorithm separates the independent sources from their mixtures by measuring non-gaussianity.In this paper we present a method that can separate the signals as individual channels from other channels and also remove the noise using fast ica algorithm. The method is to decompose a multi channel signal into statistically independent components