Texture Mineralogy and Geochemistry Of Sediments From The Coastal Plains Between Kodungallur And Chellanam Central Kerala India

The present study addresses to understand the sedimentological properties of the coasts of kodungallur and chellanam, central Kerala to bring out the relationship between the textural, mineralogical and geochemical characters with that of the respective environment. The grain size study of the beach ridge sediments from different pits has been investigated at close intervals, which enables to understand the grain size variations with depth. The sediment samples from various pits of the beach ridges indicate that the sediments range primarily from medium to very fine sand, well to moderately sorted, fine to coarse skewed and leptokurtic to platykurtic. The study area is considered as a prograding coast. Variations in grain size down the pit give three phases of beach building activities i.e.; a coarsening upward sequence in the bottom layers, a fining upward in the middle and coarsening upward in the top. Beach ridges are formed by swash built sediments with cross bedding and setting lag type sediments with seaward dipping/horizontal units. Geochemical signatures in the study area have been brought out through the analysis of major and trace elements. Iron is significantly enriched and its control over many trace elements is evident. Copper, chromium, cobalt, lithium, lead and zinc show decreasing trend with depth, while sodium, potassium,strontium,nickel and organic carbon increases. The association of many trace elements with organic carbon has also been established. Dissolution of trace elements in anoxic environment, at depth and reprecipitation in the oxic layers, at near or subsurface, are the major mechanism that brought out the variation of certain environmentally sensitive elements

Provenance, Sedimentation and Geochemistry' of the Modern Sediments of time Mud Banks Off the Centrai Keraia Coast, India

This thesis is an attempt to Provenence, Sedimentetion and Geochemistry of the Modern Sediments of the Mud Banks off the Central Kerela Coast, India. In the present doctoral work, an attempt has been made to study in detail the mud banks of central Kerala, i.e. of Narakkal, Saudi and Purakkad areas which are reported as permanent mud banks, since olden days. The studies have been conducted during the years 1985 and 1986. The important findings of the study is stated as clay mineralogical studies of the rivers, lake and mud bank sediments reveal that the dominant clay mineral is kaolinite followed by montmorillonite, illite and gibbsite. Geochemical analysis of the Vembanad lake and mud bank sediments show that the iron and manganese are widely distributed both in the lake and mud bank sediments

A study of the co-operative banking system in kerala

The co-operative credit structure in a state set up consists of 3 tiers — Primary Societies at the base, District Co-operative Banks at the middle and State Cooperative Bank at the top. But, some societies at the primary level are governed by, in addition to Co-operative Societies Act, the Banking Regulation Act. Thus they are under dual control. In addition, they are working under the direct purview of Reserve Bank of India. The scope of this study is restricted to such Primary Societies, District Co-operative Banks and State Co-operative Bank. For the evaluation of the working of Co-operative Banks, the board of directors and staff were interviewed with the help of pre-constructed and pre-tested interview schedules. However, the share holders and customers were not interviewed mainly because almost all respondents were reluctant to provide copies of an exhaustive list of share holders and non-share holder customers, for the purpose of maintaining secrecy. This being an individual work, it was found physically and financially very difficult to extend the study so as to cover the share holders and non-share holder customers. Limitations of time were also responsible for restricting this study. The period of study was restricted to 1980-'81 to 1983-'84 as the data relating to earlier periods were firstly not available from all banks and secondly the prior data was considered out of date for the purpose of the study.

Personnel Management Practices in the Kerala based Scheduled commercial Banks

The thesis entitled Personnel Management Practices in the Kerala-Based Scheduled Commercial Banks. Personnel management function is of cardinal importance, requiring a sophisticated and scientific approach. In a labour-intensive, service industry like banking. Productivity and ultimate profitability of the entire organization depend considerably on the effectiveness with which personnel management function is executed; and the prudence with which personnel problems are handle. The main objectives of the study are to understand the current status of personnel management functions in the banks and to evaluate the practices in the light of the principles and theories of personnel management so as to identify the strengths and weaknesses. The universe of this study is the eight Scheduled Commercial Banks based in Kerala. The major limitation of the study is that as State Bank of Travancore, the lone public sector bank based in Kerala did not grant permission for collection of data, this study had to be confined to private sector banks only. Almost the entire data used for this study are primary and were collected from the files and other records or the concerned banks. This report has chapters dealing with the functional areas of personnel management such as determination of human resource requirements, recruitment and selection, training and development, performance appraisal, promotions and compensation. Findings reveal that the practice of personnel management in the Kerala-based private sector scheduled commercial banks has not gained a degree of sophistication compatible with its role in modern business management.

Role Of Commercial Banks In The Financial Inclusion Programme

Commercial banks play a vital role in the economic development of a country like India. Indian economy in general and banking services in particular have made rapid strides in the recent past. However, a sizeable section of the population, particularly the vulnerable groups, such as weaker sections and low income groups, continue to remain excluded from even the most basic opportunities and services provided by the financial sector. To address the issue of such financial exclusion in a holistic manner, it is essential to ensure that a range of financial services is available to every individual

Service provider switching: a study on the switching process in retail banking

In a business environment that is characterized by intense competition, building customer loyalty has become a key area of focus for most financial institutions. The explosion of the services sector, changing customer demographics and deregulation and emergence of new technology in the financial services industry have had a critical impact on consumers’ financial services buying behaviour. The changes have forced banks to modify their service offerings to customers so as to ensure high levels of customer satisfaction and also high levels of customer retention. Banks have historically had difficulty distinguishing their products from one another because of their relative homogeneity; with increasing competition,the problem has only intensified with no coherent distinguishing theme. Rising wealth, product proliferation, regulatory changes and newer technologies are together making bank switching easier for customers. In order to remain competitive, it is important for banks to retain their customer base. The financial services sector is the foundation for any economy and plays the role of mobilization of resources and their allocation. The retail banking sector in India has emerged as one of the major drivers of the overall banking industry and has witnessed enormous growth. Switching behaviour has a negative impact on the banks’ market share and profitability as the costs of acquiring customers are much higher than the costs of retaining. When customers switch, the business loses the potential for additional profits from the customer the initial costs invested in the customer by the business get . The Objective of the thesis was to examine the relationship among triggers that customers experience, their perceptions of service quality, consumers’ commitment and behavioral intentions in the contemporary India retail banking context through the eyes of the customer. To understand customers’ perception of these aspects, data were collected from retail banking customers alone for the purpose of analysis, though the banks’ views were considered during the qualitative work carried out prior to the main study. No respondent who is an employee of a banking organization was considered for the final study to avoid the possibility of any bias that could affect the results adversely. The data for the study were collected from customers who have switched banks and from those who were non switchers. The study attempted to develop and validate a multidimensional construct of service quality for retail banking from the consumer’s perspective. A major conclusion from the empirical research was the confirmation of the multidimensional construct for perceived service quality in the banking context. Switching can be viewed as an optimization problem for customers; customers review the potential gains of switching to another service provider against the costs of leaving the service provider. As banks do not provide tangible products, their service quality is usually assessed through service provider’s relationship with customers. Thus, banks should pay attention towards their employees’ skills and knowledge; assessing customers’ needs and offering fast and efficient services.

Petrography, Geochemistry and Diagenesis of Coral Deposits of Kavaratti and Minicoy Islands, Lakshadweep, India

In the present thesis the petrographic, geochemical and digenetic variability of the sediments in the islands of Kavaratti and Minicoy has been investigated .The beach profile studies show that in the Kavaratti lagoon beach, the slope is steeper in the southern and south central part than in the northern end’s marginal deposition is taking place in the northern end of the Kavaratti island, whereas a marginal erosion is observed at the southern end. In Minicoy the slope of the lagoon beach is gentle in the south and is slightly steeper at the northern part of the beach. The southern and northern beach sections show a marginal deposition. Based on the mineralogical and geochemical studies it is concluded that the main digenetic changes observed is the transformation of aragonite to LMC.The transformation takes place mainly in the vadose zone and is caused by the abundance of fresh water infiltration.

Dopamine D2 and 5-HT2A receptor gene expression

Neuronal dopamine and serotonin receptors are widely distributed in the central and the peripheral nervous systems at different levels. Dopaminergic and serotonergic systems have crucial role in aldehyde dehydrogenase regulation Stimulation of autonomic nervous system during ethanol treatment is suggested to be an important factor in regulating the ALDH function. The ALDH enzyme activity was increased in plasma, cerebral cortex, and liver but decreased in cerebellum. The ALDH enzyme affinity was decreased in plasma, brainstem and liver and increased in cerebral cortex and cerebellum. Dopamine and serotonin content decreased in liver and brain regions - cerebral cortex, corpus striatum of ethanol treated rats with an increased HVA/DA, 5-HIAA/5-HT tumover rate. Dopamine content decreased in brainstem with an increased HVA/DA turnover rate and serotonin content decreased with an increased 5-HIAA/5-HT turnover rate in the brainstem of ethanol treated rats compared to control. Serotonin content increased in hypothalamus with a decreased 5-HIAA/5—HT turnover rate where as dopamine content decreased in hypothalamus with an increased HVA/DA tumover rate of ethanol treated rats compared to control.alterations of DA D2 and 5-HTQA receptor function and gene expression in the cerebellum, hypothalamus, corpus striatum, cerebral cortex play an important role in the sympathetic regulation of ALDH enzyme in ethanol addiction. There is a serotonergic and dopaminergic functional regulation of ALDH activity in the brain regions and liver of ethanol treated rats. Gene expression studies of DA D2 and 5'HT2A studies confirm these observations. Perfusion studies using DA, 5-HT and glucose showed ALDH regulatory function. Brain activity measeurement using EEG showed a prominentfrontal brain wave difference. This will have immense clinical significance in the management of ethanol addiction.

Role of trace element of the growth and Physiology of selected microalgae

The main objective of the study is primarily to determine the magnitude of selected trace elements, the concentrations of which would possibly accelerate growth resulting in larger biomass and sustained period of exponential phase for economically viable harvest. The study on the effect of three trace elements namely Cu, Mn and Zn on two species of algae,ISOChrySiS galbana Parke and Synechocystib salina Wislouch under different conditions of salinity, PH and temperature involves several combinations for each metal, from which the relative set of conditions has been adduced. The scheme of the experiments was statistically designed for interpretation of data and factors were assessed and graded according to relative importance. The methodology adopted for data interpretation is analysis of variance by split-plot design method. The thesis has been divided into five chapters. The introductory chapter explains the relevance of the research work undertaken. Chapter 11 gives a review on the work pertaining to the above mentioned three trace elements in relation to nutrition as well as on the toxic aspects about which there is an abundance of literature. Chapter Ill presents a detailed description of the material and specialised methods followed for the study. The results and conclusions of the various experiments on effect of metals on growth and other physiological activities are discussed in Chapters IV and V.

Design and Development of a Frame Based MT System for English-to-ISL

This paper presents the design and development of a frame based approach for speech to sign language machine translation system in the domain of railways and banking. This work aims to utilize the capability of Artificial intelligence for the improvement of physically challenged, deaf-mute people. Our work concentrates on the sign language used by the deaf community of Indian subcontinent which is called Indian Sign Language (ISL). Input to the system is the clerk’s speech and the output of this system is a 3D virtual human character playing the signs for the uttered phrases. The system builds up 3D animation from pre-recorded motion capture data. Our work proposes to build a Malayalam to ISL

Barriers Faced By Micro, Small And Medium Enterprises In Raising Finance

Worldwide, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) have been accepted as an engine of economic growth and for promoting equitable development. In developing countries including India, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises sector constitute an important part in its development. In spite of this importance, this sector face number of constraints like absence of adequate and timely supply of bank finance, difficulties in procuring raw materials, marketing and distribution challenges and non availability of suitable technology. Review of literature found that there exists problem in accessing finance from banks and financial institutions and this problem may differ from region to region, between sectors, or between individual enterprises within a sector. This paper tries to identify the various barriers faced by these units in raising finance and also try to identify the various sources of finance other than banks. The study is based upon the primary data collected from the 200 MSMEs owners in Kozhikode District of Kerala. The data has been analysed with the help of percentage. The study attempts to submit some recommendations to enhance the overall credit accessibility to MSMEs sector

Biochemical Characterization and Bio-evaluation of Collagen and Collagen Peptides Extracted and Purified from Fish Skin: In vitro and In vivo Studies on Antiarthritic and Wound Healing Properties

In fish processing plants, there is huge amount of skin that is left as the waste. When this skin is taken and processed into fish collagen, it will save large amount of money that is used for extraction of collagen from other animal s.Fish collagen can be used as an alternative to replace mammalian collagen, especially collagen extracted from bovine, when we consider the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) and the foot - and-mouth disease (FMD) issues. BSE and TSE are progressive neurological disorders affecting cattles caused by proteinacious infectious particles called prions.The study aims in producing collagen that has been extracted from fish skin to replace other animal collagen so as to overcome the problem of other animal collagen issues. Also the study utilized the abandoned fish waste produced by fish processing industry since bone, skin, fin and scales of fish can be a useful source of collagen.