Archives-December 

Thambraparani River empties in Arabian Sea at Punnakayal area and forms the Punnakayal estuary and it is situated in Tuticorin, South east coast of India. Mangroves are abundant in this area especially Avicennia sp. Diversity of marine fungi colonizing the drift wood samples collected from the intertidal regions at different season of the Punnakayal mangrove environment was studied. They are categorized into rare (0-25% frequency), occasional (26-50% frequency), frequent (51-75% frequency) and common (76-100% frequency) species. A total number of 62 species of fungi under 33 genera were recorded from the drift wood samples. They were assigned to Deuteromycetes (46 species), Ascomycetes (14 species), Trichomycetes (1 species) and Basidiomycetes (1 species).

Environmental pollution has been a major irritant to industrial development. Chemical and chemical based industries are prime targets of the environmentalists for their crusade against pollution. Leather industry contributes to one of the major industrial pollution with the generation of pollutants causing chemicals namely lime, sodium sulphide, salts, organic solvents and phenolic compound. Leather industry has faced serious challenges on phenolic compounds. Thus this work focused on evaluation of biodegradation of phenol by using microaerophilic bacterial consortium to overcome the deleterious effect of chemical effluents to the environment. This biodegradation process will be ecofriendly and cost effective. This could be one of the ways of solving the industrial pollution resulting from tannery effluent. Tannery effluent with high phenol level fed in both batch reactor and continuous reactor by using sustainable Microaerophilic Bacterial consortia to degrade the phenolic compounds.

Copper is one of the essential trace nutrients in all high plants and animals. But it can be toxic in high concentration. It has been found that marine life is damaging due to high copper concentration in water. This study investigated that degradation of copper by a group of bacteria isolated from copper polluted areas, Dhapa, Kolkata. Copper resistant bacteria i.e. Stenotrophomonas sp. PD2 was isolated from soil of Dhapa had shown maximum copper resistance upto 200 mg L^-1 Cu(II). The influence of different parameters responsible for the bioremediation of copper by the copper-resistant bacteria, such as initial copper concentration and initial pH, contact time of the solution was studied. From experimental results it was observed that almost 95% copper can be reduced from wastewater using the isolated micro-organism.

This paper focused on a content analysis of the translated tamil fiction, “KARUKKU” by Bama, “Karukku” structured like a novel besides being an “autobiographical intervention as a speech act”. Most of her novels are autobiographical works. “Karukku” besides being a projection of the intersection of gender, caste and class. Bama has suffered multiple hegemonies as a dalit woman, and therefore poor and as a Christian Indian. The autobiography has several stories embedded in the narrative as a pointer to the patriarchal oppression of women.

Esthetics is the science of beauty and encompasses almost every field of dentistry. Gingival recession is defined as the oral exposure of the root surface due to displacement of the gingival margin apical to the cement-enamel junction and it is regularly linked to the deterioration of dental aesthetics. It has been associated with many factors such as inflammatory periodontal disease, developmental anatomic abnormalities (aberrant frenal attachment, thin bony plate), toothbrush injury, tooth malposition and iatrogenic factors. Among the various treatment modalities for root coverage, Coronally Advanced Flap (CAF) procedure demonstrates a high percentage of root coverage with a high predictability and without significant post-surgical complications. Management of gingival recession using Choukroun’s Magic Wand i.e. Platelet Rich Fibrin along with CAF, undoubtedly is a promising treatment modality for root coverage in vogue and should definitely be explored in future.

The present work analyzes the influence of first order homogeneous chemical reactions on unsteady transient free convection flow of a viscous, incompressible, electrically conducting fluid between two long vertical parallel plates through a porous medium with heat generation/absorption in the presence of transverse magnetic field. The problem is solved analytically in closed form by Laplace transform technique and the expressions for velocity, temperature and concentration has been obtained. The velocity, temperature and concentration profiles are studied for different physical parameters like Schmidt number, Prandtl number, magnetic parameter, buoyancy ratio parameter, chemical reaction parameter, time, permeability parameter and heat generation/absorption parameter. The numerical values of skin-friction have been tabulated.

A study was conducted to assess the knockdown and adulticidal efficacy of d-trans allethrin (0.1%) and d-allethrin (0.2%) mosquito coils under laboratory condition against Anopheles stephensi Liston, Aedes aegypti Linn. and Culex quinquefasciatus Say. These coils provided significant knockdown activity against the tested mosquitoes. KT₅₀ and KT₉₅ values indicated that Ae. aegypti was more susceptible to d-trans allethrin and An. stephensi was more susceptible to d-allethrin. Cx. quinquefasciatus was less susceptible to both the coils and needed longer time to be knocked- down. Mortality and revival rates after 24 h varied between the mosquito species. The highest mortality was recorded against Ae. aegypti (68.5%) followed by Cx. quinquefasciatus (55.5%) and An. stephensi (34.5%) respectively after 24 h of exposure to the coil fumes.

In this study, we compare the mineralogical properties of two different kind of Peat and Swamp. To achieve this goal, Samples from a highland peat and a peat swamp forest in Golestan Province, have been considered. These studies were carried out using thin sections, XRF, and XRD. Quartz, muscovite, biotite, pyroxene, and Fe in forest swamp and Fe–Mn component, Quartz, aluminum and clay in high land peat are composed mainly mineral. Result shows the concentration of aluminum and quartz in highland peat swamp and the concentration of sodium, sulphur, calcium and L.O.I in peat swamp forest is more.

This study compared self-efficacy and hopes in 30 elementary school (sixth grade) children with learning disabilities (LD) and 30 their peers without LD. An ex post facto design was used. Statistical population comprised of all students in elementary schools (sixth grade) in, harsin, Iran, during the 2012-2013 academic year. Students with learning disability were randomly selected. The students with LD had been diagnosed by Colorado Learning Difficulties Questionnaire (CLDQ). The student completed the Wechsler Memory scale, General Self-Efficacy Scale, and Children’s Hope Scale. Data were analyzed using analysis of variance. Differences were found between the groups on the self-efficacy and hope.

The primary objective was to evaluate if batch staining of malaria blood films results in false positive smears. False positive smears (>1%) may cause a serious underestimate of a drug’s or vaccine’s protective efficacy, as well as affect evaluation of diagnostics, estimates of malaria prevalence, and clinical management. Thick blood films may float from a glass slide during staining and adhere to other films if batch staining is used resulting in false positive readings. Venous blood in EDTA anticoagulant from malaria positive samples of ? 20 parasites per high power field and a true negative sample was utilized to make thick and thin smears. Two true negative smears were stained with Giemsa stain with eight positive smears in batch in Coplin jars for 10 minutes or overnight. Two control negatives were stained alone with the same batch of stain. Blinded microscopists read these slides using a rereading paradigm. Thick film loss was graded by gross appearance ranging from 0 (none) to 4+ (> ¾ loss). A total of 602 slides were evaluated in this study, of which 392 were true positives (65%) and 210 (35%) were true negatives. Of the true negatives, 110 were batch stained with true positives, and 100 were true negative controls stained alone. Of the initial readings, 11-20% were reported falsely positive. “Fishing” or cross-contamination was infrequently noted by one of the microscopists, but was uniformly present in these smears on reexamination. Of the true positive smears (high density), 1-3% were read falsely negative. On reexamination of these slides, the cause was found to be reporting of results from very poor quality smears. Thick film loss was clearly more severe for the positive slides with 10 minute versus overnight drying (means score 0.97 vs 1.97, p <0.001). This experiment confirmed that false positive smears result from cross-contamination during batch staining using methods employed today. Since low frequencies of false positive smears can adversely impact research and product development results, single slide staining should become the norm in this setting. Reporting of false negative results occurred in malaria smears with high densities of parasites. Microscopists should be trained not to report results when smear quality is not adequate.