Antibiotic resistance pattern of motile aeromonads from farm raised fresh water fish

Motile aeromonads isolated from the intestines of farm-raised freshwater fish such as Catla catla, Labeo rohita and Ctenopharyngodon idella have been characterized to species level. Morphological and physiological grouping revealed 61% Aeromonas hydrophila, 30% Aeromonas caviae, 7% Aeromonas sobria and 2% which remained unidentified. Hemolytic activity was detected mostly in A. hydrophila, while only half of the A. sobria and A. caviae showed this activity. Antibiotic resistance patterns of the strains revealed that they had acquired a relatively higher resistance to oxytetracycline, amoxycillin, ampicillin, novobiocin and polymixin-B, implicating possible use of these antibiotics in the aquaculture systems.

Consumption Expenditure Pattern of Scheduled Caste Households of Kerala: a Study of Idukki District

The present study made an attempt to analyze the socio-economic background and the consumption pattern of scheduled caste households in Idukki district. The objectives of the study are to examine consumption pattern among the scheduled cast population, differences in the average consumption expenditure of different decile groups, consumption expenditure elasticity of items, variations in expenditure of SC households on food, non-food and total expenditure and to examine the association between consumption expenditure and variables such as income, education, occupation and area of residence. The study reveals that the Monthly Per Capita Expenditure of scheduled castes population in rural Kerala is lower than that of the general population. Average household size is higher in rural sector for Scheduled Caste in Kerala as well as all-India. The per capita expenditure of Scheduled Castes of rural Kerala is found to be much lower than that of general population. The study has found that the levels of livings of the Scheduled Castes are far the below the expectations. Large percentage of the Scheduled Caste belongs to the lower income groups. This is due their very low economic status and the consequent employment prospects in low paying occupations. The consumption standards of the majority of Scheduled Castes are found much below that of General population. Effective implementation of the Schemes for their economic upliftment is needed for improving their consumption standards, Minimum Wage Act in the case of agricultural labourers etc. are some of recommendations on the basis of this study.

STUDIES ON HAEMOLYMPH CONSTITUENTS OF INDOPLANORBIS EXUSTUS (DESHAYES) AND LYMNAEA ACUMINATA (LAMARCK) F.RUFESCENS (GRAY) AND THE EFFECTS OF COPPER ON THE ACTIVITY PATTERN OF SELECTED TRANSAMINASES AND PHOSPHATASES

The problem investigated is on the haematological aspects of two freshwater pulmonate snails, Indoplanorbis exustus (Deshayes),and Lymnaea acuminata f.rufescens (Gray). An important aspect of the present investigation is to emphasize the utilization of freshwater organisms as models for research directed at understanding the basic biomedical problems that remain unresolved. Another aspect is to demonstrate how haemolymph can be treated as a tissue because of late, it has been shown that several parameters of blood can be taken as reliable indicators for diagnostic purposes, and also to monitor environmental pollution. The various haematological parameters studied are total haemocyte number,packed cell volume, haemoglobin, and inorganic as well organic constituents in three size groups of both the snail species. The effect of copper toxicity was measured in terms of total haemocyte count, and the activity pattern of selected phosphatases and transaminases.The study concluded that enzyme activity levels can be taken as reliable indicators to monitor pollution. Age is a factor that determines several of the physiological, biochemical and metabolic activities. This study also indicates that haemolymph can be taken as an organ system to study the various changes taking place at organ systems levels.

STUDIES ON HAEMOLYMPH CONSTITUENTS OF PILA VIRENS (LAMARCK) AND THE EFFECTS OF PESTICIDES ON THE ACTIVITY PATTERN OF SELECTED ENZYMES

The present study is an attempt to understand the physiological responses of a freshwater gastropod, in terms of haematological parameters, in normal conditions as well as in various natural and man made altered conditions of the environment.Pila virens, a freshwater prosobranch,commonly found in paddy fields, ponds, and streams of Kerala is selected as the test animal for the present investigation. Various haemolymph constituents such as total carbohydrate, glycogen, total protein, total lipid, urea,ammonia,sodium,potasium, calcium, and chloride which are directly involved in the control and maintenance of different physiological systems, were analysed in the present study. Selected haematological parameters like total haemocyte number, and packed cell volume were also determined. Besides , the activity pattern of selected haemolymph enzymes such as acid phosphatase (ACP), alkaline phosphatase (ALP),Glutamate-oxaloacetate transaminase (GOT), and glutamate-pyruvate transaminase (GPT), all having diagnostic value in terms of internal defence system and metabolism of the organism, were also studied.

Systematics, Germplasm evaluation and pattern of distribution and abundance of freshwater fishes of Kerala (lndia)

The overall focus of the thesis involves the systematics,germplasm evaluation and pattern of distribution and abundance of freshwater fishes of kerala (india).Biodiversity is the measure of variety of Life.With the signing on the convention on biodiversity, the countries become privileged with absolute rights and responsibility to conserve and utilize their diverse resources for the betterment of mankind in a sustainable way. South-east Asia along with Africa and South America were considered to be the most biodiversity rich areas in the world .The tremendous potential associated with the sustainable utilization of fish germplasm resources of various river systems of Kerala for food, aquaculture and ornamental purposes have to be fully tapped for economic upliftment of fisherman community and also for equitable sharing of benefits among the mankind without compromising the conservation of the rare and unique fish germplasm resources for the future generations.The study was carried during April 2000 to December 2004. 25 major river systems of Kerala were surveyed for fish fauna for delineating the pattern of distribution and abundance of fishes both seasonally and geographically.The results of germplasm inventory and evaluation of fish species were presented both for the state and also river wise. The results of evaluation of fish species for their commercial utilization revealed that, of the 145, 76 are ornamental, 47 food and 22 cultivable. 21 species are strictly endemic to Kerala rivers. The revalidation on biodiversity status of the fishes assessed based on IUCN is so alarming that a high percentage of fishes (59spp.) belong to threatened category which is inclusive of 8 critically ndangered (CR), 36 endangered and 15 species under vulnerable (VU) category.The river wise fish germplasm inventory surveys were conducted in 25 major river systems of Kerala.The results of the present study is indicative of existence of several new fish species in the streams and rivulets located in remote areas of the forests and therefore, new exclusive surveys are required to surface fish species new to science, new distributional records etc, for the river systems.The results of fish germplasm evaluation revealed that there exist many potential endemic ornamental and cultivable fishes in Kerala. It is found imperative to utilize these species sustainably for improving the aquaculture production and aquarium trade of the country which would definitely fetch more income and generate employment.

Pattern of Executive Remuneration in the Manufacturing Public Enterprises in Kerala

The study is undertaken by the researcher with the object of examining the remuneration pattern of executive personnel in the manufacturing public enterprises in Kerala so as to find out whether there is any rationale or criteria involved in remunerating executives. It is also envisaged to find out the pattern of executive remuneration in the various categories of industries and inter—industry disparities among the public sector enterprises. This is considered to be a very fruitful area for investigation, particularly in view of the generally prevailing notion that public sector executives in Kerala are not remunerated properly and glaring inequalities and disparities are existing among the various categories of industries and within the same industry. Therefore the study is to explore the criteria used for the determination of executive remuneration and the relative weightage of various factors such as size of the firm, rate of return sales volume etc of the organisation and various other factors such as qualification, experience, level of job and functions of executives. Further the study is extended to find out the role of 'pay' towards motivation and efficiency of the executive personnel

Virulence Potential And Antibiotic Susceptibility Pattern Of Motile Aeromonads Associated With Freshwater Ornamental Fish Culture Systems: A Possible Threat To public Health

Aeromonas spp. are ubiquitous aquatic organisms, associated with multitude of diseases in several species of animals, including fishes and humans. In the present study, water samples from two ornamental fish culture systems were analyzed for the presence of Aeromonas. Nutrient agar was used for Aeromonas isolation, and colonies (60 No) were identified through biochemical characterization. Seven clusters could be generated based on phenotypic characters, analyzed by the programme NTSYSpc, Version 2.02i, and identified as: Aeromonas caviae (33.3%), A. jandaei (38.3%) and A. veronii biovar sobria (28.3%). The strains isolated produced highly active hydrolytic enzymes, haemolytic activity and slime formation in varying proportions. The isolates were also tested for the enterotoxin genes (act, alt and ast), haemolytic toxins (hlyA and aerA), involved in type 3 secretion system (TTSS: ascV, aexT, aopP, aopO, ascF–ascG, and aopH), and glycerophospholipid-cholesterol acyltransferase (gcat). All isolates were found to be associated with at least one virulent gene. Moreover, they were resistant to frequently used antibiotics for human infections. The study demonstrates the pathogenic potential of Aeromonas, associated with ornamental fish culture systems suggesting the emerging threat to public health

Temporal pattern of fish production in a microtidal tropical estuary in the south-west coast of India

The status of fisheries and seasonal variation in fish diversity in the Kodungallur-Azhikode Estuary (KAE) were investigated. Total annual average fish production in the estuary declined significantly to 908.6 t with average yield of 5.4 kg ha-1 day-1, when compared to earlier study; where 2747 t was reported. During the present study, 60 species of finfishes (belonging to 34 finfish families), 6 species of penaeid shrimps, 2 species of palaemonid prawns, 2 species of crabs (4 crustacean families), 6 species of bivalves and 2 species of edible oysters (3 molluscan families) were noticed. Finfishes were the major group that contributed 69.62% of total fishery in the estuary and crustaceans (23.47%), bivalves (6.84%) and oysters (0.07%) also formed good fishery. Many of the fish species in the estuary were observed as threatened (Horabagrus brachysoma, Channa striatus, Channa marulius, Clarias batrachus, Heteropneustes fossilis and Wallago attu). The major fishing gears employed in the estuary were gillnets, cast nets, stake nets, scoop nets, ring nets, traps and Chinese dip nets. Gillnets contributed 45% of the total fish catch. Gillnets also showed highest catch per unit effort (CPUE) of 6.91 kg h -1 followed by cast nets (1.85 kg h -1), Chinese dip nets (3.20 kg h -1), stake nets (3.05 kg h -1), ring nets (1.27 kg h -1), hooks and lines (1.35 kg h -1) and scoop nets (0.92 kg h -1). The study implies that temporal changes in fish landing pattern of the KAE was mainly due to environmental variability, habitat modification and fish migration; under the influence of south-west monsoon and anthropogenic activities in the KAE. Results of the study suggest that spatio-temporal variations in the fish community structure could be an indicator for anthropogenic stress and it should be considered for restoration programmes.

Studies on the Quality of Rainwater at Various Land Use Locations and Variations by Interaction with Domestic Rainwater Harvesting Systems

The present study focused on the quality of rainwater at various land use locations and its variations on interaction with various domestic rainwater harvesting systems.Sampling sites were selected based upon the land use pattern of the locations and were classified as rural, urban, industrial and sub urban. Rainwater samples were collected from the south west monsoon of May 2007 to north east monsoon of October 2008, from four sampling sites namely Kothamangalam, Emakulam, Eloor and Kalamassery, in Ernakulam district of the State of Kerala, which characterized typical rural, urban, industrial and suburban locations respectively. Rain water samples at various stages of harvesting were also collected. The samples were analyzed according to standard procedures and their physico-chemical and microbiological parameters were determined. The variations of the chemical composition of the rainwater collected were studied using statistical methods. It was observed that 17.5%, 30%, 45.8% and 12.1% of rainwater samples collected at rural, urban, industrial and suburban locations respectively had pH less than 5.6, which is considered as the pH of cloud water at equilibrium with atmospheric CO,.Nearly 46% of the rainwater samples were in acidic range in the industrial location while it was only 17% in the rural location. Multivariate statistical analysls was done using Principal Component Analysis, and the sources that inf1uence the composition of rainwater at each locations were identified .which clearly indicated that the quality of rain water is site specific and represents the atmospheric characteristics of the free fall The quality of harvested rainwater showed significant variations at different stages of harvesting due to deposition of dust from the roof catchment surface, leaching of cement constituents etc. Except the micro biological quality, the harvested rainwater satisfied the Indian Standard guide lines for drinking water. Studies conducted on the leaching of cement constituents in water concluded that tanks made with ordinary portland cement and portland pozzolana cement could be safely used for storage of rain water.

Influence of short term climatic fluctuations on the agricultural land use in Kerala

In the present study, the land use over Kerala State and its spatial and temporal variations, spatio-temporal variations of water budget elements, climatic shifts, incidence of droughts and the influence of inter-annual fluctuations of rainfall on area. production and yield of selected crops, have been studied in detail. The thesis consists of seven chapters including the introduction. The first section of the Second Chapter deals with the importance of agrocliinatological studies in general and its application in agricultural land use in particular. It also gives an overview of the short term climatic fluctuations, water balance studies, crop weather relationships, land use patterns and various agricultural indices. This includes a detailed review of available literature in this field. The basic concepts. data used and the methodology adopted in the study forms, the second section of this Chapter. The Third Chapter gives the details of the physical features of the State such as the relief, geology, geomorphologysoils, drainage, and vegetation. The agroclimatology of the State is discussed in detail in Chapter Four. The first Section presents annual and seasonal variations of temperature and rainfall of the State along with a discussion on the water balance of the State. The secondSection of this Chapter deals with the influence of rainfall and water balance elements on various crops. The district-wise general land use pattern of theState and its spatio-temporal variations are discussed in Chapter Five. The first Section of Chapter Six gives an overview of the agricultural land use pattern of the State, cropping patterns, cropping intensity, crop combination and their spatio-temporal variations. The inter-annual variability of water balances of various stations of the State computed using the method of Thornthwaite (1948) and Thornthwaite & Mather (1955) is presented in the second Section of Chapter Six. This also includes a discussion of how the climatic shifts have occurred over the State and the influence of variations of climatic and water balance elements on the crops. The Seventh Chapter gives the summary of the work carried out and the results obtained from the study. Interpretations of the results, conclusions and suggestions made,based on the observations of the study are incorporated in this Chapter.

Modifications of secondary reflector antenna patterns due to shaped beams from flanged primary horn feeds

With the advent of satellite communication and radio astronomy, the need for large and efficient reflector antennas had triggered a widespread investigation in reflector feed design techniques. Major improvements sought are reduction in spill-over, cross polarization losses and the enhancement of aperture efficiency. The search for such a feed culminated in the corrugated horn. The main idea behind the present work is to use the H-plane sectoral horns fitted with,corrugated flanges as feeds of a paraboloid and see how the secondary pattern of the reflector antenna varies with different parameters of the feed. An offset paraboloid is used as the secondary reflector in order to avoid the adverse effect of aperture ‘blocking by the feed horn structure on the secondary radiation pattern. The measurements were repeated for three different H-plane sectoral horns with the same set of corrugated flanges at various X-band frequencies. The following parameters of the whole system are studied: (a) Beam shaping. (b) Gain. (c) Variation of VSWR and (d) Cross polarization

Estimation of Effective Impervious Surface Area of Cochin using Satellite Images

Urbanization refers to the process in which an increasing proportion of a population lives in cities and suburbs. Urbanization fuels the alteration of the Land use/Land cover pattern of the region including increase in built-up area, leading to imperviousness of the ground surface. With increasing urbanization and population pressures; the impervious areas in the cities are increasing fast. An impervious surface refers to an anthropogenic ally modified surface that prevents water from infiltrating into the soil. Surface imperviousness mapping is important for the studies related to water cycling, water quality, soil erosion, flood water drainage, non-point source pollution, urban heat island effect and urban hydrology. The present study estimates the Total Impervious Area (TIA) of the city of Kochi using high resolution satellite image (LISS IV, 5m. resolution). Additionally the study maps the Effective Impervious Area (EIA) by coupling the capabilities of GIS and Remote Sensing. Land use/Land cover map of the study area was prepared from the LISS IV image acquired for the year 2012. The classes were merged to prepare a map showing pervious and impervious area. Supervised Maximum Likelihood Classification (Supervised MLC),which is a simple but accurate method for image classification, is used in calculating TIA and an overall classification accuracy of 86.33% was obtained. Water bodies are 100% pervious, whereas urban built up area are 100% impervious. Further based on percentage of imperviousness, the Total Impervious Area is categorized into various classes