Financial Inclusion of Fisher Households in Coastal Kerala-Role of Micro Finance

Dept.of Applied Economics,Cochin University of Science and Technology

Biochemical Studies on the Protective Effect of Taurine on Experimentally Induced Myocardial infarction in Rats

The present study indicate that prior administration of taurine is effective in minimizing all the deleterious effects induced by isoproterenol, thereby justifying its use as a potent cytoprotective agent. The overall cardioprotective effect of taurine is probably related to its antioxidant property evidenced by its ability to reduce lipid peroxidation and to maintain the activities of free radical enzymes and nonenzymatic antioxidants, its membrane stabilizing action and to its hypolipidemic property.

Realization of a Scanning Photoacoustic Technique: Thermal properties of Bulk and Film Samples

Among the large number of photothcrmal techniques available, photoacoustics assumes a very significant place because of its essential simplicity and the variety of applications it finds in science and technology. The photoacoustic (PA) effect is the generation of an acoustic signal when a sample, kept inside an enclosed volume, is irradiated by an intensity modulated beam of radiation. The radiation absorbed by the sample is converted into thermal waves by nonradiative de-excitation processes. The propagating thermal waves cause a corresponding expansion and contraction of the gas medium surrounding the sample, which in tum can be detected as sound waves by a sensitive microphone. These sound waves have the same frequency as the initial modulation frequency of light. Lock-in detection method enables one to have a sufficiently high signal to noise ratio for the detected signal. The PA signal amplitude depends on the optical absorption coefficient of the sample and its thermal properties. The PA signal phase is a function of the thermal diffusivity of the sample.Measurement of the PA amplitude and phase enables one to get valuable information about the thermal and optical properties of the sample. Since the PA signal depends on the optical and thennal properties of the sample, their variation will get reflected in the PA signal. Therefore, if the PA signal is collected from various points on a sample surface it will give a profile of the variations in the optical/thennal properties across the sample surface. Since the optical and thermal properties are affected by the presence of defects, interfaces, change of material etc. these will get reflected in the PA signal. By varying the modulation frequency, we can get information about the subsurface features also. This is the basic principle of PA imaging or PA depth profiling. It is a quickly expanding field with potential applications in thin film technology, chemical engineering, biology, medical diagnosis etc. Since it is a non-destructive method, PA imaging has added advantages over some of the other imaging techniques. A major part of the work presented in this thesis is concemed with the development of a PA imaging setup that can be used to detect the presence of surface and subsmface defects in solid samples.Determination of thermal transport properties such as thermal diffusivity, effusivity, conductivity and heat capacity of materials is another application of photothennal effect. There are various methods, depending on the nature of the sample, to determine these properties. However, there are only a few methods developed to determine all these properties simultaneously. Even though a few techniques to determine the above thermal properties individually for a coating can be found in literature, no technique is available for the simultaneous measurement of these parameters for a coating. We have developed a scanning photoacoustic technique that can be used to determine all the above thermal transport properties simultaneously in the case of opaque coatings such as paints. Another work that we have presented in this thesis is the determination of thermal effusivity of many bulk solids by a scanning photoacoustic technique. This is one of the very few methods developed to determine thermal effiisivity directly.

Simple and Encapsulated Transition Metal Complexes of Schiff Bases Derived from Quinoxaline-2-Carboxaldehyde and Diamines: Biological and Catalytic Activity Studies

This thesis is mainly concerned with the synthesis and characterisation of new simple and zeolite encapsulated transition metal (manganese(II),nickel(II),and copper(II)complexes of quinoxaline based double Schiff base ligands.Theses ligands are N,N'-bis(quinoxaline-2-carboxalidene)hydrazine,N,N'-bis(quinoxaline-2-carboxalidene)-1,2-diaminoethane,N,N'-bis(quinoxaline-2-carboxalidene)-1,3-diamonopropane,N,N'-bis(quinoxaline-2-carboxalidene)-1,4-diaminobutane,N,N'-bis(quinoxaline-2-carboxalidene)-1,2-diaminocyclohexane and N,N'-bis(quinoxaline-2-carboxalidene)-1,2-diaminobenzene.The Schiff base ligands have been characterised by spectral and single crystal XRD studies.Theses ligands provide great structural diversity during complexation.Mn(II) and Ni(II) form octahedral with these Schiff bases,whereas Cu(II) forms both octahedral and tetrahedral complexes.Studies on the biological and Catalytic activity of the copper(ll) complexes are also presented in this thesis.

Development of Electrochemical Sensors for Various Pharmaceuticals

The development of electrochemical sensors is currently one of the active areas of research in analytical chemistry.Voltammetric sensors as an important class of electrochemical sensors are extensively used in pharmaceutical applications.In voltammetric analysis,many active compounds in dosage forms,in contrast to excipients,can be readily oxidised or reduced at the electrode surface by applying a potential.Chemically modified electrodes have great significance in the electrochemical determination of pharmaceuticals.The modification of electrode results in efficient determination of electroactive species at very lower potential without any major interferences.The present study involves the fabrication of 8 voltammetric sensors for the drugs Metronidazole Benzoate, Sulfamethoxazole, Acyclovir, Pam Chloride , Trimethoprim , Tamsulosin Hydrochloride and Ceftriaxone Sodium.Two sensors were developed for the drug tamsulosin hydrochloride while one sensor each was developed for the other drugs.

Biology of Flat Toadfish,Colletteichthys dussumieri(Valenciennes,1837) of Cochin Estuary

Dept.of Marine Biology,Microbiology and Biochemistry,Cochin University of Science and Technology

Response of Eastern Arabian Sea to Extreme climatic Events with Special Reference to Selected Pelagic Fishes

The thesis attempts to study the changes in oceanographic parameters associated with extreme climatic events,the influence of oceanographic as well as meteorological parameters on fishes.The characteristics of major pelagic fishes of southwest coast of India(Oil sardine and Indian mackerel) have been described here.A description on study area and period of study is also described .The impact of extreme climatic events on the oceanographic variability of Eastern Arabian Sea.The extreme climatic event,the Indian Ocean Dipole associated with EI Nino Southern Oscillation is taken into consideration.The variability in oil sardine and mackerel landings of southwest coast of India during the study period.The trend analysis of the landings has been done and also a prediction model is applied for the landings.The influence of environmental parameters on oil sardine as well as mackerel fishery has been explained .With regression analysis ,the significant relation between environmental parameters and fish landings are also been recognized.The prediction of landings is done with these environmental parameters.

Mean Squared Residue Based Biclustering Algorithms for the Analysis of Gene Expression Data

Computational Biology is the research are that contributes to the analysis of biological data through the development of algorithms which will address significant research problems.The data from molecular biology includes DNA,RNA ,Protein and Gene expression data.Gene Expression Data provides the expression level of genes under different conditions.Gene expression is the process of transcribing the DNA sequence of a gene into mRNA sequences which in turn are later translated into proteins.The number of copies of mRNA produced is called the expression level of a gene.Gene expression data is organized in the form of a matrix. Rows in the matrix represent genes and columns in the matrix represent experimental conditions.Experimental conditions can be different tissue types or time points.Entries in the gene expression matrix are real values.Through the analysis of gene expression data it is possible to determine the behavioral patterns of genes such as similarity of their behavior,nature of their interaction,their respective contribution to the same pathways and so on. Similar expression patterns are exhibited by the genes participating in the same biological process.These patterns have immense relevance and application in bioinformatics and clinical research.Theses patterns are used in the medical domain for aid in more accurate diagnosis,prognosis,treatment planning.drug discovery and protein network analysis.To identify various patterns from gene expression data,data mining techniques are essential.Clustering is an important data mining technique for the analysis of gene expression data.To overcome the problems associated with clustering,biclustering is introduced.Biclustering refers to simultaneous clustering of both rows and columns of a data matrix. Clustering is a global whereas biclustering is a local model.Discovering local expression patterns is essential for identfying many genetic pathways that are not apparent otherwise.It is therefore necessary to move beyond the clustering paradigm towards developing approaches which are capable of discovering local patterns in gene expression data.A biclusters is a submatrix of the gene expression data matrix.The rows and columns in the submatrix need not be contiguous as in the gene expression data matrix.Biclusters are not disjoint.Computation of biclusters is costly because one will have to consider all the combinations of columans and rows in order to find out all the biclusters.The search space for the biclustering problem is 2 m+n where m and n are the number of genes and conditions respectively.Usually m+n is more than 3000.The biclustering problem is NP-hard.Biclustering is a powerful analytical tool for the biologist.The research reported in this thesis addresses the problem of biclustering.Ten algorithms are developed for the identification of coherent biclusters from gene expression data.All these algorithms are making use of a measure called mean squared residue to search for biclusters.The objective here is to identify the biclusters of maximum size with the mean squared residue lower than a given threshold. All these algorithms begin the search from tightly coregulated submatrices called the seeds.These seeds are generated by K-Means clustering algorithm.The algorithms developed can be classified as constraint based,greedy and metaheuristic.Constarint based algorithms uses one or more of the various constaints namely the MSR threshold and the MSR difference threshold.The greedy approach makes a locally optimal choice at each stage with the objective of finding the global optimum.In metaheuristic approaches particle Swarm Optimization(PSO) and variants of Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure(GRASP) are used for the identification of biclusters.These algorithms are implemented on the Yeast and Lymphoma datasets.Biologically relevant and statistically significant biclusters are identified by all these algorithms which are validated by Gene Ontology database.All these algorithms are compared with some other biclustering algorithms.Algorithms developed in this work overcome some of the problems associated with the already existing algorithms.With the help of some of the algorithms which are developed in this work biclusters with very high row variance,which is higher than the row variance of any other algorithm using mean squared residue, are identified from both Yeast and Lymphoma data sets.Such biclusters which make significant change in the expression level are highly relevant biologically.

Studies on Methylene Blue Sensitized Poly(Vinyl Alcohol): Effect of Molecular Weight of the Polymer and Crosslinking Agents on its Holographic Properties

Dept.of Polymer Science and Rubber Technology,Cochin University of Science and Technology

The influence of organophosphorus pesticide-methylparathion on protein, lipid metabolism and detoxifying enzymes in rohu (Labeo rohita)

Methylparathion (MP) is an organophosphorus insecticide used world wide in agriculture due to its high activity against a broad spectrum of insect pests. The aim of the study is to understand the effect of methylparathion on the lipid peroxidation, detoxifying and antioxidant enzymes namely catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione Stransferase (GST), total reduced glutathione (GSH), lipid peroxidation (LPO), acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and disease diagnostic marker enzymes in liver, sarcoplasmic (SP) and myofirbirllar (MF) proteins in muscles, lipids and histopathlogical changes in various organs of Labeo rohita of size 75 i 6g at lethal and sublethal level of exposure. The probit analysis showed that the lethal concentration (LC 50%) for 24, 48, 72 and 96h were 15.5mg/L, 12.3mg/L, 11.4mg/L and 10.2mg/L respectively which is much higher compared to the LC50 for juvenile fish. The LPO level and GST activity increased five folds and two folds respectively on exposure to methylparathion at 10.2 mg/L and the level of the enzymes increased, on sub lethal exposure beyond 0.25mg/L. AChE activity was inhibited by 74% at a concentration of 1.8mg/L and 90% at 5.4mg/L. The disease diagnostic marker enzymes AST, ALT, ALP and LDH increased by about 2, 3 ,3 and 2 folds respectively at pesticide concentration of 10.2mg/L when compared to control. On sub lethal exposure, however the enzymes did not show any significant changes up to 0.5mg/L. At a concentration of 10.2 mg/L, there was a three fold increase in myofibrillar proteins while the increase in sarcoplasmic protein was above 1.5 fold. On sub lethal exposure, significant alteration was noticed up to 30 days up to 1mg/L of methylparathion concentration. Further exposure up to 45 days increased sarcoplasmic proteins (upto 0.5mg/L). ln the case of myofibrillar proteins, noticeable changes were observed at 1mg/L concentration right from 15th day. The cholesterol content in brain tissues increased by about 27% at methylparathion concentration of 5.4 mglL. However at 0.25mg/L sub lethal concentration, no significant alteration was observed in enzyme activity, muscle proteins, lipids and histopathology of the tissues. The results suggest that methylparathion has the potential to induce oxidative stress in fish, and that liver, muscle and brains are more sensitive organs of Labeo rohita, with poor antioxidant potentials at higher concentrations of the pesticide. The various parameters studied in this investigation can also be used as biomarkers of methylparathion exposure.

Tridentate Schiff Bases of Some Aroylhydrazides and their Metal Complexes: Spectral and Structural Studies

The present work deals with the complexation of Schiff bases of aroylhydrazides with various transition metal ions. The hydrazone systems selected for study are capable of forming bridged polymeric structures which is one of the fascinating subjects in the crystal engineering of coordination polymers owing to their attractive new topologies and intriguing structural features. Complexation with metal ions like copper, manganese, vanadium, nickel, palladium, zinc and cadmium are tried. Various spectral techniques are employed for characterization. The structures of some complexes have been well established by single crystal X-ray diffraction studies.The work is presented in seven chapters and the last section deals with summary and conclusion. The studies reveal that the aroylhydrazone systems vary in their geometrical configuration depending on the substituents. The coordination modes of the ligands also differ upon chelating with metal ions. One of the hydrazone system selected for study proved that it could give rise to polymeric metal complexes.

Sustainability and Livelihood Issues of Vembanad Ecosystem Fisherfolk Communities

Dept.of Applied Economics,Cochin University of Science and Technology

Mangrove plant Ceriops tagal as a potential source of anti White Spot Syndrome Virus preparations for Penaeus monodon

White spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is the deadliest virus among crustaceans ever discovered having several unique and novel features. Recent developments in genomics and proteomics could elucidate the molecular process involved in the WSSV infection and the host pathogen interaction to some extent. Until now no fool proof treatment or prophylactic measure has been made available to control WSSV out breaks in culture system. Even though there are technologies like application of immunostimulants, vaccines, RNAi and several antiviral natural products none of them has been taken to the level of clinical trials. However, there are several management options such as application of bioremediation technologies to maintain the required environmental quality, maintenance of zero water exchange systems coupled with application of probiotics and vaccines which on adoption shall pave way for successful crops amidst the rapid spread of the virus. In this context the present work was undertaken to develop a drug from mangrove plants for protecting shrimp from WSSV.Mangroves belong to those ecosystems that are presently under the threat of destruction, diversion and blatant attack in the name of so called ‘developmental activities’. Mangrove plants have unique ecological features as it serves as an ecotone between marine and terrestrial ecosystem and hence possess diversity of metabolites with diverse activities. This prompted them being used as remedial measures for several ailments for ages. Among the mangrove plants Ceriops tagal, belonging to the family Rhizophororaceae was in attention for many years for isolating new metabolites such as triterpenes, phenolic compounds, etc. Even though there were attempts to study various plant extracts to develop anti-viral preparations their activity against WSSV was not investigated as yet.

Systematics, Life history traits, abundance andstock assessment of cobia, Rachycentron canadum ( Linnaeus, 1766) occurring in Indian waters with special reference to the north west coast in India

This thesis entitled Systematics,life history traits ,abundance and stock assessment of cobia rachycentron canadum (linnaeus ,1766) occurring in indian waters with special reference to the northwest coast of india.Cobia, Rachycentron canadum is a fast growing pelagic fish belonging to the monotypic family Rachycentridae. They show worldwide distribution in tropical and sub tropical waters. Cobia is exploited commercially in various countries like Taiwan, Pakistan, India, United State of America, Australia, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Recreational fishery of Cobia exists in different parts of the world. In India Cobia is caught as bycatch of trawlers, gillnet and hook and line fishery.This study also focuses on to bring out the distribution pattern and also to assess the biomass and estimate sustainable yield of Cobia inhabiting in Indian EEZ. In addition to above, present study standardised live collection methods and also reviewed culture prospects.Results of osteological study and morphological studies indicate its close resemblance to Remora and support the view that Cobia was evolved from Dolphin fishes and remoras followed it. Study also confirmed that Cobia does not have any relative or similar species and is a monotypic species belonging to the family Rachycentridae. Re description of the species was done based on the characters identified. In this study, feeding intensity was also assessed following methods like Gastrosomatic index, Mean index of feeding intensity and Index of fullness. Sex wise, month wise and length group wise fluctuations in the feeding intensity also were studied. Cobia actively fed during post monsoon period. In general, adult fed actively than the juveniles. Trophic level value estimated (4.36) indicates that Cobia occupy top level position in the food chain.

Hydrogeological, Geophysical And Geochemical Studies In Parts Of Coastal And Midland Areas, Central Kerala - A Gis Approach

The present study deals with the different hydrogeological characteristics of the coastal region of central Kerala and a comparative analysis with corresponding hard rock terrain. The coastal regions lie in areas where the aquifer systems discharge groundwater ultimately into the sea. Groundwater development in such regions will require a precise understanding of the complex mechanism of the saline and fresh water relationship, so that the withdrawals are so regulated as to avoid situations leading to upcoming of the saline groundwater bodies as also to prevent migration of sea water ingress further inland. Coastal tracts of Kerala are formed by several drainage systems. Thick pile of semi-consolidated and consolidated sediments from Tertiary to Recent age underlies it. These sediments comprise phreatic and confined aquifer systems. The corresponding hard rock terrain is encountered with laterites and underlined by the Precambrian metamorphic rocks. Supply of water from hard rock terrain is rather limited. This may be due to the small pore size, low degree of interconnectivity and low extent of weathering of the country rocks. The groundwater storage is mostly controlled by the thickness and hydrological properties of the weathered zone and the aquifer geometry. The over exploitation of groundwater, beyond the ‘safe yield’ limit, cause undesirable effects like continuous reduction in groundwater levels, reduction in river flows, reduction in wetland surface, degradation of groundwater quality and many other environmental problems like drought, famine etc.