Investigations on the structural and operational changes of Ring Seine Fishing Systems of Kerala and its Life Cycle Assessment (lCA)

The study covers theFishing capture technology innovation includes the catching of aquatic animal, using any kind of gear techniques, operated from a vessel. Utilization of fishing techniques varies, depending upon the type of fisheries, and can go from a basic and little hook connected to a line to huge and complex mid water trawls or seines operated by large fishing vessels.The size and autonomy of a fishing vessel is largely determined by its ability to handle, process and store fish in good condition on board, and thus these two characteristics have been greatly influenced by the introduction and utilization of ice and refrigeration machinery. Other technological developments especially hydraulic hauling machinery, fish finding electronics and synthetic twines have also had a major impact on the efficiency and profitability of fishing vessels.A wide variety of fishing gears and practices ranging from small-scale artisanal to advanced mechanised systems are used for fish capture in Kerala. Most important among these fishing gears are trawls, seines, lines, gillnets and entangling nets and traps The modern sector was introduced in 1953 at Neendakara, Shakthikulangara region under the initiative of Indo-Norwegian project (INP). The novel facilities introduced in fishing industry by Indo- Norwegian project accordingly are mechanically operated new boats with new fishing nets. Soon after mechanization, motorization programme gained momentum in Kerala especially in Alleppey, Ernakulam and Kollam districts.

Antibody Based Diagnostic for Detection Of Vibrios and their Biological Control using Antagonistic Bacteria in Macrobrachium Rosenbergii Larval Rearing Systems

The main objective of the work undertaken here was to develop an appropriate microbial technology to protect the larvae of M.rosenbergii in hatchery from vibriosis. This technology precisely is consisted of a rapid detection system of vibrios and effective antagonistic probiotics for the management of vibrios. The present work was undertaken with the realizations that to stabilize the production process of commercial hatcheries an appropriate, comprehensive and fool proof technology is required primarily for the rapid detection of Vibrio and subsequently for its management. Nine species of Vibrio have been found to be associated with larvae of M. rosenbergii in hatchery. Haemolytic assay of the Vibrio and Aeromonas on prawn blood agar showed that all isolates of V. alginolyticus and Aeromonas sp., from moribund, necrotized larve were haemolytic and the isolates of V.cholerae, V.splendidus II, V.proteolyticus and V.fluvialis from the larvae obtained from apparently healthy larval rearing systems were non-haemolytic. Hydrolytic enzymes such as lipase, chitinase and gelatinase were widespread amongst the Vibrio and Aeromonas isolates. Dominance of V.alginolyticus among the isolates from necrotic larvae and the failure in isolating them from rearing water strongly suggest that they infect larvae and multiply in the larval body and cause mortality in the hatchery. The observation suggested that the isolate V. alginolyticus was a pathogen to the larvae of M.rosenbergii. To sum up, through this work, nine species of Vibrio and genus Aeromonas associated with M.rosenbergii larval rearing systems could be isolated and segregated based on the haemolytic activity and the antibodies (PA bs) for use in diagnosis or epidemiological studies could be produced, based on a virulent culture of V.alginolyticus. This could possibly replace the conventional biochemical tests for identification. As prophylaxis to vibriosis, four isolates of Micrococcus spp. and an isolate of Pseudomonas sp. could be obtained which could possibly be used as antagonistic probiotics in the larval rearing system of M.rosenbergii.

Development of Cell Culture Systems from Selected Species of Fish and Prawns

The present work deals with the development of primary cell culture and diploid cell lines from two fishes, such as Poecilia reticulata and Clarias gariepinus. The greatest difficulty experienced was the avoidance of bacterial and fungi contamination. Three types of cell cultures are commonly developed, primary cell culture, diploid cell lines and heteroploid cell lines. Primary cell culture obtained from the animal tissues that have been cultivated in vitro for the first time. They are characterized by the same chromosome number as parent tissue, cultivated in vitro for the first time, have wide range of virus susceptibility, usually not malignant, six chromatin retarded and do not grow as suspension cultures. Diploid cell lines arise from a primary cell culture at the time of subculturing. Diploid cell lines commercially used in virology are W1-38 (human embryonic lung), W1-26 (human embryonic lung) and HEX (Human embryonic kidney). Heteroploid cell lines have been subcultivated with less than 75% of the cells in the population having a diploid chromosome constitution. Tissue cultures have been extensively used in biomedical research. The main applications are in three areas, Karyological studies, Identification and study of hereditary metabolic disorders and Somatic cell genetics. Other applications are in virology and host-parasite relationships. In this study an attempt was made to preserve the ovarian tissue at low temperature in the presence of cryoprotectants so that the tissue can be retrieved at any time and a cell culture could be developed.

Impact of Self-generation of Priorities and Non-preemptive Service in Single/Multiserver Queues

In this thesis we have studied a few models involving self-generation of priorities. Priority queues have been extensively discussed in literature. However, these are situations involving priority assigned to (or possessed by) customers at the time of their arrival. Nevertheless, customers generating into priority is a common phenomena. Such situations especially arise at a physicians clinic, aircrafts hovering over airport running out of fuel but waiting for clearance to land and in several communication systems. Quantification of these are very little seen in literature except for those cited in some of the work indicated in the introduction. Our attempt is to quantify a few of such problems. In doing so, we have also generalized the classical priority queues by introducing priority generation ( going to higher priorities and during waiting). Systematically we have proceeded from single server queue to multi server queue. We also introduced customers with repeated attempts (retrial) generating priorities. All models that were analyzed in this thesis involve nonpreemptive service. Since the models are not analytically tractable, a large number of numerical illustrations were produced in each chapter to get a feel about the working of the systems.

Biocontrol of Vibrio harveyi in Penaeus monodon larval rearing systems employing probiotics and vibriophages

National Centre for Aquatic Animal Health, School of Environmental Studies, Cochin University of Science and Technology.

Nonlinear Optical Properties of Organic and Polymer Systems

Present thesis has discussed the design and synthesis of polymers suitable for nonlinear optics. Most of the molecules that were studied have shown good nonlinear optical activity. The second order nonlinear optical activity of the polymers was measured experimentally by Kurtz and Perry powder technique. The thesis comprises of eight chapters.The theory of NLO phenomenon and a review about the various nonlinear optical polymers has been discussed in chapter 1. The review has provided a survey of NLO active polymeric materials with a general introduction, which included the principles and the origin of nonlinear optics, and has given emphasis to polymeric materials for nonlinear optics, including guest-host systems, side chain polymers, main chain polymers, crosslinked polymers, chiral polymers etc.Chapter 2 has discussed the stability of the metal incorporated tetrapyrrole molecules, porphyrin, chlorin and bacteriochlorin.Chapter 3 has provided the NLO properties of certain organic molecules by computational tools. The chapter is divided into four parts. The first part has described the nonlinear optical properties of chromophore (D-n-A) and bichromophore (D-n-A-A-n-D) systems, which were separated by methylene spacer, by making use of DPT and semiempirical calculations.Chapter 4: A series of polyurethanes was prepared from cardanol, a renewable resource and a waste of the cashew industry by previously designed bifunctional and multifunctional polymers using quantum theoretical approach.Chapter 5: A series of chiral polyurethanes with main chain bis azo diol groups in the polymer backbone was designed and NLO activity was predicted by ZlNDO/ CV methods.In Chapter 7, polyurethanes were first designed by computational methods and the NLO properties were predicted by correction vector method. The designed bifunctional and multifunctional polyurethanes were synthesized by varying the chiral-achiral diol compositions

Development of nitrifying and photosynthetic sulfur bacteria based bioaugmentation systems for the bioremediation of ammonia and hydrogen sulphide in shrimp culture

This thesis entitled Development of nitrifying ans photosynthetic sulfur bacteria based bioaugmentation systems for the bioremediation of ammonia and hydregen sulphide in shrimp culture. the thesis is to propose a sustainable, low cost option for the mitigation of toxic ammonia and hydrogen sulphide in shrimp culture systems. Use of ‘bioaugmentors’ as pond additives is an emerging field in aquaculture. Understanding the role of organisms involved in the ‘bioaugmentor’ will obviously help to optimize conditions for their activity.The thesis describes the use of wood powder immobilization of nitrifying consortia.Shrimp grow out systems are specialized and highly dynamic aquaculture production units which when operated under zero exchange mode require bioremediation of ammonia, nitrite nitrogen and hydrogen sulphide to protect the crop. The research conducted here is to develop an economically viable and user friendly technology for addressing the above problem. The nitrifying bacterial consortia (NBC) generated earlier (Achuthan et al., 2006) were used for developing the technology.Clear demonstration of better quality of immobilized nitrifiers generated in this study for field application.

“Urban Water Supply Management: A Study Of Centralised And Community Based Systems In Calicut City

Studies in urban water supply system are few in the state of Kerala. It is a little researched area. In the case of water pricing a number of studies are available. In Kerala state, exception to Jacob John’s study on “Economics of Public Water Supply System”, which is a case study of Trivandrum Water Supply System in 1997, no exhaustive research work has so far come out in this field. loreover no indepth research study has come up, so far, relating to household ater demand analysis and the distribution system of urban piped water supply. he proposed study is first of its kind, which focuses on the distributional and Iailability problems of piped water supply in an urban centre in Kerala state. Hence there is a felt need for enquiring into the sufficiency of )table water supplied to people in urban areas and the efficiency maintained in roviding the scarce resource and preventing its misuse by the consumers. It is in llS backdrop that this study was undertaken and its empirical part was conducted |Calicut city in the state of Kerala. Study is confined to the water supply system ithe city of Calicut

Performance Improvement of Fuzzy and Neuro Fuzzy Systems: Prediction of Learning Disabilities in School-age Children

Learning Disability (LD) is a classification including several disorders in which a child has difficulty in learning in a typical manner, usually caused by an unknown factor or factors. LD affects about 15% of children enrolled in schools. The prediction of learning disability is a complicated task since the identification of LD from diverse features or signs is a complicated problem. There is no cure for learning disabilities and they are life-long. The problems of children with specific learning disabilities have been a cause of concern to parents and teachers for some time. The aim of this paper is to develop a new algorithm for imputing missing values and to determine the significance of the missing value imputation method and dimensionality reduction method in the performance of fuzzy and neuro fuzzy classifiers with specific emphasis on prediction of learning disabilities in school age children. In the basic assessment method for prediction of LD, checklists are generally used and the data cases thus collected fully depends on the mood of children and may have also contain redundant as well as missing values. Therefore, in this study, we are proposing a new algorithm, viz. the correlation based new algorithm for imputing the missing values and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for reducing the irrelevant attributes. After the study, it is found that, the preprocessing methods applied by us improves the quality of data and thereby increases the accuracy of the classifiers. The system is implemented in Math works Software Mat Lab 7.10. The results obtained from this study have illustrated that the developed missing value imputation method is very good contribution in prediction system and is capable of improving the performance of a classifier.

Spatial Variability and Contamination of Heavy Metals in the Inter-tidal Systems of a Tropical Environment

Heavy metals in the surface sediments of the two coastal ecosystems of Cochin, southwest India were assessed. The study intends to evaluate the degree of anthropogenic influence on heavy metal concentration in the sediments of the mangrove and adjacent estuarine stations using enrichment factor and geoaccumulation index. The inverse relationship of Cd and Zn with texture in the mangrove sediments suggested the anthropogenic enrichment of these metals in the mangrove systems. In the estuarine sediments, the absence of any significant correlation of the heavy metals with other sedimentary parameters and their strong interdependence revealed the possibility that the input is not through the natural weathering processes. The analysis of enrichment factor indicated a minor enrichment for Pb and Zn in mangrove sediments. While, extremely severe enrichment for Cd, moderate enrichment for Zn and minor enrichment of Pb were observed in estuarine system. The geo accumulation index exhibited very low values for all metals except Zn, indicating the sediments of the mangrove ecosystem are unpolluted to moderately polluted by anthropogenic activities. However, very strongly polluted condition for Cd and a moderately polluted condition for Zn were evident in estuarine sediments

Hydrogeology and hydrochemistry of the aquifer systems of Kuttanad area, Kerala: Their role in understanding the evolution of groundwaters

This is an attempt to understand the important factors that control the occurrence, development and hydrochemical evolution of groundwater resources in sedimentary multi aquifer systems. The primary objective of this work is an integrated study of the hydrogeology and hydrochemistry with a view to elucidate the hydrochemical evolution of groundwater resources in the aquifer systems. The study is taken up in a typical coastal sedimentary aquifer system evolved under fluvio-marine environment in the coastal area of Kerala, known as the Kuttanad. The present study has been carried out to understand the aquifer systems, their inter relationships and evolution in the Kuttanad area of Kerala. The multi aquifer systems in the Kuttanad basin were formed from the sediments deposited under fluvio-marine and fluvial depositional environments and the marine transgressions and regressions in the geological past and palaeo climatic conditions influenced the hydrochemical environment in these aquifers. The evolution of groundwater and the hydrochemical processes involved in the formation of the present day water quality are elucidated from hydrochemical studies and the information derived from the aquifer geometry and hydraulic properties. Kuttanad area comprises of three types of aquifer systems namely phreatic aquifer underlain by Recent confined aquifer followed by Tertiary confined aquifers. These systems were formed by the deposition of sediments under fluvio-marine and fluvial environment. The study of the hydrochemical and hydraulic properties of the three aquifer systems proved that these three systems are separate entities. The phreatic aquifers in the area have low hydraulic gradients and high rejected recharge. The Recent confined aquifer has very poor hydraulic characteristics and recharge to this aquifer is very low. The Tertiary aquifer system is the most potential fresh water aquifer system in the area and the groundwater flow in the aquifer is converging towards the central part of the study area (Alleppey town) due to large scale pumping of water for water supply from this aquifer system. Mixing of waters and anthropogenic interferences are the dominant processes modifying the hydrochemistry in phreatic aquifers. Whereas, leaching of salts and cation exchange are the dominant processes modifying the hydrochemistry of groundwater in the confined aquifer system of Recent alluvium. Two significant chemical reactions modifying the hydrochemistry in the Recent aquifers are oxidation of iron in ferruginous clays which contributes hydrogen ions and the decomposition of organic matter in the aquifer system which consumes hydrogen ions. The hydrochemical environment is entirely different in the Tertiary aquifers as the groundwater in this aquifer system are palaeo waters evolved during various marine transgressions and regressions and these waters are being modified by processes of leaching of salts, cation exchange and chemical reactions under strong reducing environment. It is proved that the salinity observed in the groundwaters of Tertiary aquifers are not due to seawater mixing or intrusion, but due to dissolution of salts from the clay formations and ion exchange processes. Fluoride contamination in this aquifer system lacks a regional pattern and is more or less site specific in natureThe lowering of piezometric heads in the Tertiary aquifer system has developed as consequence of large scale pumping over a long period. Hence, puping from this aquifer system is to be regulated as a groundwater management strategy. Pumping from the Tertiary aquifers with high capacity pumps leads to well failures and mixing of saline water from the brackish zones. Such mixing zones are noticed from the hydrochemical studies. This is the major aquifer contamination in the Tertiary aquifer system which requires immediate attention. Usage of pumps above 10 HP capacities in wells taping Tertiary aquifers should be discouraged for sustainable development of these aquifers. The recharge areas need to be identified precisely for recharging the aquifer systems throughartificial means.