Efficiency in Delivering Obstetric Care-A Comparison of Public and Private Hospitals in Ernakulam District

Department of Applied Economics, Cochin University of Science and Technology

Studies on the technological aspects and economic efficiency of trawl gear operating along the Cochin coast

Trawling, despite being heavily energy expensive, still continues to be the most energy expensive fishing method particularly so in View of the export oriented nature of the Indian seafood industry. This study therefore aims at analyzing the efficiency of trawls operation from Cochin, an important fishing center along the southwest coast of India. The analysis is made along two perspectives - economic and technological. Even though technological efficiency complement economic efficiency, in the fishing parlance, parameters like the size composition of the catch, selectivity factors, etc., will have a direct bearing on the technological qualities of the trawl, and which parameters will have a significant impact on the effective exploitation of a fishery stock. Whereas the technological analysis aims at improving the efficiency with regard to the effective utilization of fuel and fishery stocks, economic analysis ascertains the present status of the trawling operations from the commercial angle.

Analysis of resource use efficiency of the spinning mills in Kerala

This thesis discusses the factors which influence the productive and financial performance of the spinning mills in Kerala. The study will also help to assess the effect of ongoing reforms in the industrial sector in India. The main objective of the study is to identify and analyse the factors affecting the efficiency of the spinning mills. The unique feature of the study is that it compares the performance of private sector in relation to its public counterparts and also performance of small sector in relation to medium sector. The study is carried out with reference to the relative performance of differmills in Kerala and to identify the sources of differences in performance. The study covers twenty one spinning mills in Kerala, of which ten are in the private sector, four under NTC, three under co—operat;ive sector and four under KSTC.Measured in terms of firm-size fifteen belong to small size with a spindleage of less than 26,000 and six are in the medium size with a spindleage of 26,000 to 50,0OO.1 The period of study is 1982-83 to 1991-92. Hence, only those companies, of which data of 10 years upto 1991-92 wereavailable, are taken for study.

"Statistical Methods in Gear Selectivity and Gear Efficiency Studies”

The preceding discussion and review of literature show that studies on gear selectivity have received great attention, while gear efficiency studies do not seem to have received equal consideration. In temperate waters, fishing industry is well organised and relatively large and well equipped vessels and gear are used for commercial fishing and the number of species are less; whereas in tropics particularly in India, small scale fishery dominates the scene and the fishery is multispecies operated upon by nmltigear. Therefore many of the problems faced in India may not exist in developed countries. Perhaps this would be the reason for the paucity of literature on the problems in estimation of relative efficiency. Much work has been carried out in estimating relative efficiency (Pycha, 1962; Pope, 1963; Gulland, 1967; Dickson, 1971 and Collins, 1979). The main subject of interest in the present thesis is an investigation into the problems in the comparison of fishing gears. especially in using classical test procedures with special reference to the prevailing fishing practices (that is. with reference to the catch data generated by the existing system). This has been taken up with a view to standardizing an approach for comparing the efficiency of fishing gear. Besides this, the implications of the terms ‘gear efficiency‘ and ‘gear selectivity‘ have been examined and based on the commonly used selectivity model (Holt, 1963), estimation of the ratio of fishing power of two gear has been considered. An attempt to determine the size of fish for which a gear is most efficient.has also been made. The work has been presented in eight chapters

‘Studies on Bacterial Indicators and Pathogen Vibrio parahaemolyticus in Cochin Backwater

Microbiological studies on the incidence, behaviour, activity and ecological implications of marine micro~organisms, particularly microbial pathogens in coastal waters and estuaries exhibit the increasing concern and awareness of environmental impacts on health and wealth. Marine microbiologists have been active in investigating on the distribution, kinds of organisms and their activity in the environment. However, informations on the effect of environment on the ecology or on the distribution (spatial/temporal) of microbial comunity and competition among groups inhabiting the ecosystem are sparE§L Estuarine environment are complex with respect to diversity of habitats, variation in physicochemical parameters and contamination by terrestrial bacterial species. Being the organisms of‘public health significance, ecological studies on total coliforms, faecal coliforms, faecal streptococci, §. ggli and X. parahaemolyticus have great relevance as studies of these types would provide a wealth of information to environmentalists and to fishery industry. In order to evalé%e the status, role and significance of potentially hazardous bacterial species in natural environment it is necessary to monitor the ecology of such organisms systematically in relation to physico-chemical parameters

Linking sustainability indicators of Indian wild caught ornamental fish industry

The Indian ornamental fish industry is divided into two- the domestic market and the export market. 90% of the freshwater ornamental fish exported from India are wild caught indigenous species. The study formed the criteria and indicators assessing the sustainability of wild caught ornamental fish exported from India. These indicators were then analyzed for their interactions, connections, linkages and relationships using cognitive mapping. The work is first of its kind in the ornamental fisheries

Return and Efficiency of Intercropped Pineapple Cultivation in Kerala

School of management studies

Soft Computing Approach for Optimization of siRNA Efficiency Prediction for Post-transcriptional Gene Silencing

Post-transcriptional gene silencing by RNA interference is mediated by small interfering RNA called siRNA. This gene silencing mechanism can be exploited therapeutically to a wide variety of disease-associated targets, especially in AIDS, neurodegenerative diseases, cholesterol and cancer on mice with the hope of extending these approaches to treat humans. Over the recent past, a significant amount of work has been undertaken to understand the gene silencing mediated by exogenous siRNA. The design of efficient exogenous siRNA sequences is challenging because of many issues related to siRNA. While designing efficient siRNA, target mRNAs must be selected such that their corresponding siRNAs are likely to be efficient against that target and unlikely to accidentally silence other transcripts due to sequence similarity. So before doing gene silencing by siRNAs, it is essential to analyze their off-target effects in addition to their inhibition efficiency against a particular target. Hence designing exogenous siRNA with good knock-down efficiency and target specificity is an area of concern to be addressed. Some methods have been developed already by considering both inhibition efficiency and off-target possibility of siRNA against agene. Out of these methods, only a few have achieved good inhibition efficiency, specificity and sensitivity. The main focus of this thesis is to develop computational methods to optimize the efficiency of siRNA in terms of “inhibition capacity and off-target possibility” against target mRNAs with improved efficacy, which may be useful in the area of gene silencing and drug design for tumor development. This study aims to investigate the currently available siRNA prediction approaches and to devise a better computational approach to tackle the problem of siRNA efficacy by inhibition capacity and off-target possibility. The strength and limitations of the available approaches are investigated and taken into consideration for making improved solution. Thus the approaches proposed in this study extend some of the good scoring previous state of the art techniques by incorporating machine learning and statistical approaches and thermodynamic features like whole stacking energy to improve the prediction accuracy, inhibition efficiency, sensitivity and specificity. Here, we propose one Support Vector Machine (SVM) model, and two Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models for siRNA efficiency prediction. In SVM model, the classification property is used to classify whether the siRNA is efficient or inefficient in silencing a target gene. The first ANNmodel, named siRNA Designer, is used for optimizing the inhibition efficiency of siRNA against target genes. The second ANN model, named Optimized siRNA Designer, OpsiD, produces efficient siRNAs with high inhibition efficiency to degrade target genes with improved sensitivity-specificity, and identifies the off-target knockdown possibility of siRNA against non-target genes. The models are trained and tested against a large data set of siRNA sequences. The validations are conducted using Pearson Correlation Coefficient, Mathews Correlation Coefficient, Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis, Accuracy of prediction, Sensitivity and Specificity. It is found that the approach, OpsiD, is capable of predicting the inhibition capacity of siRNA against a target mRNA with improved results over the state of the art techniques. Also we are able to understand the influence of whole stacking energy on efficiency of siRNA. The model is further improved by including the ability to identify the “off-target possibility” of predicted siRNA on non-target genes. Thus the proposed model, OpsiD, can predict optimized siRNA by considering both “inhibition efficiency on target genes and off-target possibility on non-target genes”, with improved inhibition efficiency, specificity and sensitivity. Since we have taken efforts to optimize the siRNA efficacy in terms of “inhibition efficiency and offtarget possibility”, we hope that the risk of “off-target effect” while doing gene silencing in various bioinformatics fields can be overcome to a great extent. These findings may provide new insights into cancer diagnosis, prognosis and therapy by gene silencing. The approach may be found useful for designing exogenous siRNA for therapeutic applications and gene silencing techniques in different areas of bioinformatics.

Nutrient cycling and nutrient use efficiency in urban and peri-urban agriculture of Kabul, Afghanistan

Like elsewhere also in Kabul, Afghanistan urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) has often been accused of being resource inefficient and unsustainable causing negatives externalities to community health and to the surroundings. These arise from the inappropriate management and use of agricultural inputs, including often pesticides and inter-city wastes containing heavy metal residues and pathogens. To address these concerns, parallel studies with the aims of quantification of carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) horizontal and vertical fluxes; the assessment of heavy metal and pathogen contaminations of UPA produce, and an economic analysis of cereal, vegetable and grape production systems conducted for two years in UPA of Kabul from April 2008 to October 2009. The results of the studies from these three UPA diverse production systems can be abridged as follows: Biennial net balances in vegetable production systems were positive for N (80 kg ha-1 ), P (75 kg ha-1) and C (3,927 kg ha-1), negative for K (-205 kg ha-1), whereas in cereal production systems biennial horizontal balances were positive for P (20 kg ha-1 ) and C (4,900 kg ha-1) negative for N (-155 kg ha-1) and K (-355 kg ha-1) and in vineyards corresponding values were highly positive for N (295 kg ha-1), P (235 kg ha-1), C (3,362 kg ha-1) and slightly positive for K (5 kg ha-1). Regardless of N and C gaseous emissions, yearly leaching losses of N and P in selected vegetable gardens varied from 70 - 205 kg N ha-1 and 5 - 10 kg P ha-1. Manure and irrigation water contributed on average 12 - 79% to total Inputs of N, P, K and C, 10 - 53% to total inputs of C in the gardens and fields. The elevated levels of heavy metal and pathogen loads on fresh UPA vegetables reflected contamination from increasing traffic in the city, deposits of the past decades of war, lacking collection and treatment of raw inter-city wastes which call for solutions to protect consumer and producer health and increase reliability of UPA productions. A cost-revenue analysis of all inputs and outputs of cereal, vegetable and grapes production systems over two years showed substantial differences in net UPA household income. To confirm these results, more detailed studies are needed, but tailoring and managing the optimal application of inputs to crop needs will significantly enhance farmer’s better revenues as will as environmental and produce quality.

The social dimension: a neglected policy item in the Bologna Process

Since its beginning in 1999, the Bologna Process has influenced various aspects of higher education in its member countries, e.g., degree structures, mobility, lifelong learning, social dimension and quality assurance. The social dimension creates the focus of this research. The social dimension entered the Bologna Process agenda in 2001. Despite a decade of reforms, it somehow remained as a vague element and received low scholarly attention. This research addresses to this gap. Firstly, different meanings of the social dimension according to the major European policy actors are analysed. Unfolding the understandings of the actors revealed that the social dimension is mostly understood in terms reflecting the diversity of population on the student body accessing to, progressing in and completing higher education, with a special concern on the underrepresented groups. However, it is not possible to observe a similar commonality concerning the actual policy measures to achieve this goal. Divergence occurs with respect to the addressed underrepresented groups, i.e., all underrepresented groups or people without formal qualifications and mature learners, and the values and institutional interests traditionally promoted by these actors. Secondly, the dissertation discusses the reflection of this social dimension understanding at the national level by looking at cases of Finland, Germany and Turkey. The in-depth analyses show an awareness of the social dimension among most of the national Bologna Process actors and a common understanding of the social dimension goals. However, this understanding has not triggered action in any of the countries. The countries acted on areas which they defined problematic before the Bologna Process. Finally, based on these findings the dissertation discusses the social dimension as a policy item that managed to get into the Bologna Process agenda, but neither grew into an implementable policy, nor drop out of it. To this aim, it makes use of the multiple streams framework and explains the low agenda status social dimension with: i. the lack of a pressing problem definition: the lack of clearly defined indicators and a comprehensive monitoring system, ii. the lack of a viable solution alternative: the proposal of developing national strategies and action plans closed the way to develop generic guidelines for the social dimension to be translated into national policy processes, iii. low political perceptivity: the recent trends opt for increasing efficiency, excellence and exclusiveness discourses rather than ensuring equality and inclusiveness iv. high constraints: the social dimension by definition requires more public funding which is less appreciated and strategic constraints of the actors in allocating their resources v. the type of policy entrepreneur: the social dimension is promoted by an international stakeholder, the European Students’ Union, instead of the ministers responsible for higher education The social dimension remains a policy item in the Bologna Process which is noble enough to agree but not urgent enough to act on.

Sensor-based Control of Chewing and Rumination Behavior of Dairy Cows

The measurement of feed intake, feeding time and rumination time, summarized by the term feeding behavior, are helpful indicators for early recognition of animals which show deviations in their behavior. The overall objective of this work was the development of an early warning system for inadequate feeding rations and digestive and metabolic disorders, which prevention constitutes the basis for health, performance, and reproduction. In a literature review, the current state of the art and the suitability of different measurement tools to determine feeding behavior of ruminants was discussed. Five measurement methods based on different methodological approaches (visual observance, pressure transducer, electrical switches, electrical deformation sensors and acoustic biotelemetry), and three selected measurement techniques (the IGER Behavior Recorder, the Hi-Tag rumination monitoring system and RumiWatchSystem) were described, assessed and compared to each other within this review. In the second study, the new system for measuring feeding behavior of dairy cows was evaluated. The measurement of feeding behavior ensues through electromyography (EMG). For validation, the feeding behavior of 14 cows was determined by both the EMG system and by visual observation. The high correlation coefficients indicate that the current system is a reliable and suitable tool for monitoring the feeding behavior of dairy cows. The aim of a further study was to compare the DairyCheck (DC) system and two additional measurement systems for measuring rumination behavior in relation to efficiency, reliability and reproducibility, with respect to each other. The two additional systems were labeled as the Lely Qwes HR (HR) sensor, and the RumiWatchSystem (RW). Results of accordance of RW and DC to each other were high. The last study examined whether rumination time (RT) is affected by the onset of calving and if it might be a useful indicator for the prediction of imminent birth. Data analysis referred to the final 72h before the onset of calving, which were divided into twelve 6h-blocks. The results showed that RT was significantly reduced in the final 6h before imminent birth.

Technical and scale efficiency of cassava production system in Delta State, Nigeria: an application of Two-Stage DEA approach

The present study examines the level of pure technical and scale efficiencies of cassava production system including its sub-processes (that is production and processing stages) of 278 cassava farmers/processors from three regions of Delta State, Nigeria by applying Two-Stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach. Results reveal that pure technical efficiency (PTE) is significantly lower at the production stage 0.41 vs 0.55 for the processing stage, but scale efficiency (SE) is high at both stages (0.84 and 0.87), implying that productivity can be improved substantially by reallocation of resources and adjusting operation size. The socio-economic determinants exert differential impacts on PTE and SE at each stage. Overall, education, experience and main occupation as farmer significantly improve SE while subsistence pressure reduces it. Extension contact significantly improves SE at the processing stage but reduces PTE and SE overall. Inverse size-PTE and size-SE relationships exist in cassava production system. In other words, large/medium farms are technically and scale inefficient. Gender gap exists in performance. Male farmers are technically efficient at processing stage but scale inefficient overall. Farmers in northern region are technically efficient. Investments in education, extension services and infrastructure are suggested as policy options to improve the cassava sector in Nigeria.

Determinants of technical efficiency of freshwater prawn farming in southwestern Bangladesh

This paper estimates a translog stochastic production function to examine the determinants of technical efficiency of freshwater prawn farming in Bangladesh. Primary data has been collected using random sampling from 90 farmers of three villages in southwestern Bangladesh. Prawn farming displayed much variability in technical efficiency ranging from 9.50 to 99.94% with mean technical efficiency of 65%, which suggested a substantial 35% of potential output can be recovered by removing inefficiency. For a land scarce country like Bangladesh this gain could help increase income and ensure better livelihood for the farmers. Based on the translog production function specification, farmers could be made scale efficient by providing more input to produce more output. The results suggest that farmers’ education and non-farm income significantly improve efficiency whilst farmers’ training, farm distance from the water canal and involvement in fish farm associations reduces efficiency. Hence, the study proposes strategies such as less involvement in farming-related associations and raising the effective training facilities of the farmers as beneficial adjustments for reducing inefficiency. Moreover, the key policy implication of the analysis is that investment in primary education would greatly improve technical efficiency.

The efficiency of direct payments versus tax reductions under uncertainty

This paper analyzes the optimal behavior of farmers in the presence of direct payments and uncertainty. In an empirical analysis for Switzerland, it confirms previously obtained theoretical results and determines the magnitude of the theoretical predicted effects. The results show that direct payments increase agricultural production between 3.7% to 4.8%. Alternatively to direct payments, the production effect of tax reductions is evaluated in order to determine its magnitude. The empirical analysis corroborates the theoretical results of the literature and demonstrates that tax reductions are also distorting, but to a substantially lesser degree if losses are not offset. However, tax reductions, independently whether losses are offset or not, lead to higher government spending than pure direct payments