An Ethnobotanical Study of Medicinal Plants of Billawar Region, Jammu and Kashmir, India

The present study was carried out in some interior regions of Billawar in Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory to collect the information of traditionally used and ethno-botanically important medicinal plants by the local communities. Proper identification of the plant species and their importance to the local people can provide useful information and play a pivotal role in efficient utilization of natural wealth. So, it is important to scientifically identify and document this natural wealth before they are lost forever. The field survey was conducted at different sites namely, Dewal, Billawar, Bhaddu, Sukrala, Koti Marhoon and Kishanpur of Kathua district from December 2019 to June 2020. During this study, a total of 64species of medicinal plants (including trees, shrubs herbs, and grasses) belonging to 40 families and 43 genera were identified and were commonly used by the local people to cure different diseases. Each recorded plant was identified for their economic importance and medicinal values for the treatment of diseases like headache, toothache, epilepsy, gastric problem, skin disorders earache, pneumonia, jaundice, etc. Therefore, the present work was an attempt to document and compute which includes the collection and compilation of different plant species of the region.

Impact of Financial Inclusion on Income Generation and Savings in Mountain Regions: A Case Study of Rural Households of Uttarakhand

The major drive for financial inclusion started in the country mainly from year 2014 after the launch of Jan Dhan Yojana which focused mainly towards empowering dwellers of resource deprived and underdeveloped regions. Economic empowerment of such deprived sections is possible only when they are provided with ample opportunities for income generation in various economic activities. The prominent aim of financial inclusion is to facilitate residents of such deprived regions by reaching out to them and delivering them facilities so that they could identify and work on their capabilities to generate employment and income earning opportunities. The economically deprived and vulnerable population, through it, could be secured, from falling in the trap of poor informal level activities. These low-level informal activities are not suitable for them and for their overall development in the long run. Financial inclusion thus helps them in getting out of the poverty trap and hence acts as one of the important facility or an instrument which could help in a larger achievement of the goal of the development of residents of such deprived regions. Keeping these aspects in consideration the present study aims to understand the impact of financial inclusion on two important variables i.e. income generation and enhancement of savings among the residents of Mountain regions of the state which also represents the deprived and underdeveloped regions. The study was conducted in three mountain districts of the state and the results of the study shows that financial inclusion has helped in income generation in these regions but the impact of it has been different among different caste categories. Further the study shows that financial inclusion worked to enhance the income generation with larger benefits to households having higher levels of income. The study also depicts the positive impact of financial inclusion on savings but with noticeable variations in its impact on different caste groups.

Digestive And Tracheal System of Menopon Gallinae (Phthiraptera: Amblycera) Infesting Poultry Bird (Gallus Gallus Domesticus)

The digestive and tracheal system of a poultry shaft louse, Menopon gallinae (Phthiraptera: Amblycera) has been studied in greater details. Alimentary canal of louse was dissected out along with crop under stereozoom binocular microscope. Entire alimentary canal of M. gallinae was found more or less straight and has three basic parts (fore-gut, mid-gut and hind-gut) while crop-teeth was present in the crop. The posterior end of crop contains 20-30 well developed crop-teeth arranged in a single arced plate, in comb-like fashion. Mid-gut was found as simple tube and contributes nearly one half of the total length, while the hind-gut was marked by the opening of Malpighian tubules in alimentary canal. The heart of M. gallinae is of simplest kind, one chambered bulbous structure having three pairs of laterally placed ostia and supported by four pairs of alary muscles. In the tracheal system there were seven pairs of spiracles occurred on the terga of M. gallinae. The first pair of spiracle was found located close to legs while remaining six abdominal spiracles occur from segment 3rd to 8th. The degree of tracheation of various visceral organs has also been noted.

Drifting Behaviour of Aquatic Mites and Regulating Ecological Parameters in Khankragad Stream, A Springfed Trubutary of Alaknanda River, Rudrarayag, Garhwal, Uttarakhand, India

Water mites are a large group of macroinvertebrates that are very vulnerable to contamination and environmental changes. As a result, they are often used to monitor water quality. Khankra gad stream, a third-order perennial spring-fed stream of the Alaknanda River in Uttarakhand, India, was studied to determine the drift behavior of water mites and water quality. Drift nets were set up for 24 hours in both spots of the Khankra stream where there was little or no human influence over a two-year sampling period (June 2018-20). Every four hours, the nets were changed out with new ones. Water mites signify a particular drift month and diel drift pattern. The majority of the drift mite species were present in considerably higher numbers in the daytime. During the two-year study period, a total of 2503 mite samples were collected from the Khankra stream, from which 204 water mite species drifted. The least number of Hydrachnidia (694) were collected from Spot-1, and the highest (1809) were collected from Spot-2, with 106 water mites drifting from Spot-1 and 134 mites drifting from Spot-2 during the study period. From Spot-2 maximum 25 mite species were collected and minimum 19 mite species were collected from Spot-1. For various mite species, the DBDI value ranged from 0.155 (July) to 0.204 (April) in Spot-1 and 0.134 (July) to 0.149 (February) in Spot-2. It was also observed that maximum water mite species were day-drifter. The physico-chemical parameters of the Khankra stream were also reported. The effect of ecological parameters on mite drift was investigated using Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA).

Antibiotic Resistance of Escherichia Coli Isolated from Lake Nainital, Uttarakhand State, India

Researchers have encountered new challenges with the discovery of multiple drug resistance in microbes. Currently, multidrug resistant bacteria are considered a major public health concern and an emerging global epidemic. Presence of Escherichia coli in water is used as a faecal pollution measure. In this study E. coli isolates were collected from 20 sample collection sites at Lake Nainital. 20 E. coli isolates, 1 from each sample collection sites, were examined for their antibiotic response patterns against a panel of widely used 15 antibiotics. The result of this study showed 100% resistance to Penicillin G followed by Erythromycin (80%). All isolates (100%) were found susceptible for Gentamycin. The susceptibilities for Chloramphenicol and Co-trimoxazaole were found next to Gentamycin as 90 and 85% respectively. Multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) index was also determined. 0.73 MAR index was observed as highest in 1 isolate. 13 out of 20 isolates had more than 0.2 MAR indices. The result reveals the origin of E. coli isolates from an area of high antibiotics use.

Generating Vector Fields of the Metric Semi-Symmetric Connection on Almost Hyperbolic Kaehlerian Manifolds

Negi and Semwal (2011), have studied on almost Kaehlerian conformal recurrent and symmetric Manifolds. In this paper, we have defined and calculated Generating vector fields of the metric semi-symmetric connection (MS-Sc) on almost Hyperbolic Kaehlerian Manifolds and its some theorems established.

Investigation of Catalytic Property of Plant Mediated Silver Nanoparticles as Degradation of Toxic Dyes in Water

Nowadays, silver nano-compounds mediated by plant materials are widely used material in daily life chemistry as well as across the industries, medical, electronics, ceramics, and in all research fields, because it has some specific characteristics such as non-toxic, inexpensive, nature-friendly, heat resistant, catalytic activity, high electric conductivity and so on. In the present work we reported the photo-catalytic dye degradation of green synthesized silver nanoparticles of size 43.75 nm by using the flowers extract of Rhododendron campanulatum tree. Synthesized AgNPs have worked as a strong nano-catalyst for the degradation of toxic dyes such as malachite green (MG), and acridine orange (AO). As a catalyst, synthesized AgNPs degraded the malachite green (MG) dye 47.22 % within 90 min, and acridine orange (AO) dye 66.16 % in 4 h of solar irradiation, while in the absence of nanocatalyst, MG and AO dye degraded upto 22.13 % in 90 min and 46.75 % in 4 h of photo-irradiation respectively. Synthesized nano material (AgNPs) may be applicable as a strong catalytic agent for the degradation of toxic dyes, water purifying agent as well as a good antioxidant agent.

Dielectric Properties of Deuterated Cesium Dihydrogen Phosphate Crystal

Modified two sublattice pseudospin lattice coupled-mode model Hamiltonian has been applied to study the dielectric properties of deuterated cesium dihydrogen phosphate crystal. With the help of model Hamiltonian and Green’s function theory, the theoretical expressions for normal mode frequency, dielectric constant and loss tangent are derived. By fitting the model values of different physical parameters, the thermal dependence of the above quantities has been calculated. Our theoretical obtained results are well compared with experimental data.

Ultrasonic Parameters of Some Ternary Liquid Mixture

At different composition and frequeny ultrasonic velocity has been measured in some ternary liquid mixtures at room temperature with the help of ultrasonic interferometer. Composition and frequency dependent variation of relaxation time (τ) have been shown in Figs. And analyzed for these ternary liquid mixtures.

A Numerical and Analytical Study of Phase Synchronization in Coupled SC-CNN Based Non-Identical Chaotic Systems

This paper seeks to address the phase synchronization phenomenon using the drive-response concept, in our proposed model, State Controlled Cellular Neural Network (SC-CNN) based on variant of MuraliLakshmanan-Chua (MLCV) circuit. Using this unidirectionally coupled chaotic non autonomous circuits, we described the transition of unsynchronous to synchronous state, by numerical simulation method as well as the results are confirmed by solving explicit analytical solution. In this aspect, the system undergoes the new effect of phase synchronization (PS) phenomenon have been observed before complete synchronization (CS) state. To characterize these phenomena by the phase portraits and the time series plots. Also particularly characterize for PS by the method of partial Poincare section map using phase difference versus time, numerically and analytically. The study of dynamics involved in SC-CNN circuit systems, mainly applicable in the field of neurosciences and in telecommunication fields.