Archives-December 

Over the years, horticulture emerged as a crucial and emerging part of agriculture, offering a wide range of choices to the farmers for crop diversification. It also provides sufficient opportunities for sustaining large number of agro industries which generate substantial employment opportunities. In India, there are a number of major fruits like banana, mango, citrus, papaya, apple, litchi, pineapple and many others. If we talk about the area covered under fruits we have found out that there is almost 100% increase in the area and 121% increase in production. Specifically speaking Apple is by far the most important fruit. Today, India ranks second in the world in terms of area under apple cultivation. With 2.5 million hectares under cultivation, India produces more than 1.4 million tonnes of apples every year (FAO). Among the fruit grown in India, apple has the third largest area under cultivation, after banana and mango. Being somewhat hard, the potential post-harvest losses in transportation are relatively low and shelf life compared to other tropical fruit grown in India is comparatively large.

The Coronary artery development is a delicate process that includes a complex interaction among the pericardium and the myocardium which leads to involving of multiple cellular pathways. There has been a growing engrossment in the study of the coronary artery development. These leads to identify some of the important causes of anomalous coronary development.There are different kinds of anomalous coronary arteries, having variable risk in myocardial ischemia, malignant arrhythmias, and sudden cardiac death also. A good understanding of this process could help us insharing new avenues in the treatment of clinically relevant anomalous coronary arteries.

Generally, Gonadal Dysgenesis is a condition which can be characterized by the underdeveloped or imperfect formation of the gonads. This occurs either due to the absence of the sex determining region of the Y chromosome (SRY) gene and therefore differentiation of the indifferent gonad would not occur. Hence, the other activities such as development of testes, production of its specific hormones and the formation of the other internal reproductive organs that needs those hormones in order to develop would be under developed.

WHO defines Overweight and obesity as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health. A crude population measure of obesity is the body mass index (BMI), a person’s weight (in kilograms) divided by the square of his or her height (in metres). A person with a BMI of 30 or more is generally considered obese. A person with a BMI equal to or more than 25 is considered overweight.

The Eastern Dahomey Basin is a rift basin located in the Southwestern part of Nigeria with formations spanning from the Cretaceous to Tertiary ages which are well defined in their lithology types ranging from sand, silt, carbonates, and shale. Shale is now considered as a reservoir rock in the unconventional petroleum system unlike its previous characterisation as only a source rock and/or seal in the conventional petroleum play. The hydrocarbon field operators in the Dahomey basin have reported higher percentage of gas production up to 20% LPG and 52% gas and also identified the syn-rift to contain light oil and condensate-rich gas. The increasing demand of natural gas as a cleaner energy compared to other fossil fuels and the several commercialization strategies of the Federal Government of Nigeria has necessitated the exploration possibility of more gas, even unconventional gas. This paper reviewed the geological and geochemical properties of the Dahomey basin from previous authors and selected some producing plays in the USA as possible analogues for its shale gas potential.

Institutional ranking has become a competitive trend in promoting quality education across the globe. This ranking system facilitates fare competition in terms of teaching-learning and investment among its various stakeholders namely students, teachers, parents and investors with special focus on academic excellence leading towards lucrative placement in the corporate world. The college and university ranking practice mostly conducted by leading magazines, newspaper, websites, government and academics has been primarily observed since long in the western world especially in the USA and Europe. However it has not remained confined within that territory only; rather it has expanded its boundaries and reached all corners of the world including South- East Asia as well. This article is a critical review of the existing ranking systems available worldwide with special focus on the USA and European college and university ranking practices. Thus this paper has critically reviewed various ranking systems along with their general and specific criteria such as admission acceptance rate, average alumni donation rate, average graduation rate and performance, class size, expenditure per student, faculty compensation rate, faculty with PhD or terminal degree, lucrative placements of alumni, peer assessment, SAT/ACT score and Student-teacher ratio and many more. Finally this study has highlighted many important issues relevant in our context some of which are not feasible to adopt in this very socio-economic as well as cultural context of our country. However the study has been found very significant in the context of our education system to promote fare competition among the relevant stakeholders and ensure quality education both in public and private universities leading towards pertinent placement in the Government and industrial sector.

Mobile broadband services are growing rapidly as it provides freedom to the users to be online wherever they are at a competitive price and significant facilities such as increasing amounts of bandwidth, using mobile and roaming devices. The earliest version of WiMAX is based on IEEE 802.16 and is optimized for fixed and roaming access, which is further extended to support portability and mobility based on IEEE 802.16e, also known as Mobile WiMAX. This paper presented an analysis on those routing protocols designed for wireless networks. A comparison on the performance of seven routing protocol (AODV, DSR, OLSR, ZRP, TORA, GRP and DSDV) for Mobile WiMAX environment is done. The performance matrix includes Packet Delivery fraction (PDF), Throughput, End to End Delay, and number of packet dropped were identified. The study used NS2 simulator for the comparison on the performance analysis.

The early history of entrepreneurship in India reflects from the culture, customs and tradition of the Indian people. Entrepreneurship has its heredity in the occupational pursuits opted by the individual under the caste system in India. Entrepreneurship plays an important role in the economic growth and development of the nation. It is a purposeful activity which includes an initiation, promotion and distribution of wealth and service. An entrepreneur is a critical factor in economic development and an integral part of the socioeconomic transformation. The entrepreneurial career can not be developed over night. It is a risk taking activity and challenging task, needs utmost devotion, total commitment and greater sincerity with fullest involvement for his/ her personal growth and personality. Further if such activities are taken up by women, they need to put double the effort compared to men. A survey of women entrepreneurs owning different micro enterprises is initiated to understand motivational factors behind their entry into entrepreneurship. The study also focuses on the problems and challenges that emerge in women entrepreneurship. Entry of women in this male dominated field gives them a real empowerment in terms of economic independence and decision role.

Education system in India can be dated centuries back to the age of Buddha but, now there has in fact been substantial improvement in the higher education state of affairs of India in both quantitative and qualitative terms post globalization. The higher education system in India suffers from acute paucity of funds, lack of autonomy, burden of affiliation etc. It is characterized by extreme rigidity and lack of flexibility. The real weakness of the higher education is in the structure itself, and there is a need for introspection and reflection on what we have achieved and where do we go from here during the times of globalization on the other hand, the effects of globalization on education bring rapid developments in technology and communications are foreseeing changes within learning systems across the world as ideas, values and knowledge, changing the roles of students and teachers, and producing a shift in society from industrialization towards an information based society.

This article aims at analyzing the various hidden, explicit, aboveboard and shady themes of the novel. The article tackles the concepts of individuality, independence and identity crisis in the novel. A constant search for identity, which is prevalent throughout the novel, is reflected at different angles in the article.