Structural and Raman Spectroscopic Study of Antimony Doped Bi<SUB>0.5</SUB>Na<SUB>0.5</SUB>TiO<SUB>3</SUB>Electroceramic

Pure and Antimony (Sb, x = 0.01%, 0.02% and 0.03%) doped Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3 electro ceramics were successfully synthesized by a conventional solid state reaction route. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that a distinct 002/200 peak splitting appears when doping percentage changes from 0.02 to 0.03, referring to a hexagonal symmetry. The data show the Lorentzian deconvolution of the 002 and 200 peaks of the tetragonal phase and the 202 peak of the rhombohedral phase. There is no significant change in the Raman spectra for the prepared compositions while some additional peaks around 151, 281, 585 and 853 cm-1 compared to the peaks observed in BNT. It may be possible that a morphotrophic phase boundary (MPB) exists around x = 0.03. Analysis of peak positions, widths and intensities of Raman spectroscopy study also confirmed the existence of structural change around x = 0.03 composition.

Therapeutic and Medicinal Uses of <i>Aloe vera</i>: A Review

The plant Aloe vera is used in Ayurvedic, Homoeopathic and Allopathic streams of medicine, and not only tribal community but also most of the people for food and medicine. The plant leaves contains numerous vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids, natural sugars and other bioactive compounds with emollient, purgative, anti-microbial, anti inflammatory, antioxidant, aphrodisiac, anti-helmenthic, antifungal, antiseptic and cosmetic values for health care. This plant has potential to cure sunburns, burns and minor cuts, and even skin cancer. The external use in cosmetic primarily acts as skin healer and prevents injury of epithelial tissues, cures acne and gives a youthful glow to skin, also acts as extremely powerful laxative.

Influence of Fly Ash and Growth Regulator with Soil for Determination of Chlorophyll in <i>Arachis hypogaea</i>L.

The present investigation was conducted to find out the effect of varying levels of fly ash and growth hormones on the determination of chlorophylls. The experiments were conducted in pots during 2009-2010 with Arachis hypogaea L. (groundnut) grown with different levels of fly ash concentration, and soil was used (various combinations) at Guru ghasidas University, Bilaspur (CG.) India. In fresh leaf, chlorophylls content varies in the plain soil from 0.29 to 0.64 mg g-1, which is less for photosynthetic activities. Arachis hypogaea L. showed maximum germination percentage, increasing leaf area, enhancement of root & shoot length, whereas Fly ash, bio fertilizers with growth hormone showed minimum values in all parameters. Results showed that, for combination of A to E, the value of chlorophyll ranged from 0.270 mg g-1 to 0.395 mg g-1, and chlorophyll b ranged from 0.400 mg g-1 to 0.489 mg g-1, whereas fro total chloro- phyll ranged from 0.67 to 0.85 mg g-1. In the present work, chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b & total chlorophyll content in fresh leaf, after 45 days, were recorded as 0.395 mg g-1, 0.489 mg g-1 and 0.851 mg g-1 while in 90 days were recorded as 10.38 mg g-1, 0.48 mg g-1 and 0.86 mg g-1 respectively, in less amount combination of fly ash, soil content with application of growth hormone.

Economics of Yield and Production of Alkaloid of <i>Withania somnifera</i>(L.) Dunal

The yield parameters and cost economics of Withania somnifera were studied using Integrated Nutrient Management (INM) treatments. Withania somnifera is cultivated in around 10,780 ha with a production of 8429 tones in India. The annual demand of this herb increased from 7028 tones (2001-2002) to 9127 tones (2004-2005). The field experiment was conducted at the research farm of Department of Plant Physiology, College of Agriculture, Jabalpur during Kharif season of 2008-2009 (1st year) and 2009-2010 (2nd year), whereas the laboratory work was carried out in Quality Laboratory, College of Agriculture, Jabalpur. The soil of experimental field was sandy loam in texture with pH 7.5, EC 0.18 dsm-1 having good drainage. Soil analysis revealed that available nitrogen was low (202.0 kg·ha-1) whereas available phosphorus (16.25 kg·ha-1) and potassium (236.0 kg·ha-1) were in the medium range. The present paper shows how to determine the economics of varying INM treatments. Cultivation of W. somnifera in India is gaining popularity among farmers;however, due to poor soil fertility, and costly chemical fertilizers and pesticides its production is not economical or profitable.

Diversity in Macrobenthic &Algal Fauna of Limha Pond, Ghutku Bilaspur India

The present study reported on phytoplankton in comparison to the zooplankton in Limha Pond, Ghutku, Bilaspur. The phytoplankton represented in larger number of Cyanophyceae with least density of Dinophyceae and Chlorophyceac, and Bacillariophyceae is the second dominant group. The present study tried to discuss on the problem Macrobenthic fauna of Limha Pond, Ghutku Bilaspur and observed quantitative algal and faunal diversity i.e. phytoplankton (34 species), aquatic organism (6 species) Bacillariophyceae (8 species), Chlorophyceae (11 species), Euglenophyceae (6 species), Zooplankton (20 species), and Fish species (16 species). Present study revealed that Cyprinidae (carps) were the dominant fish and Catla was a major contributor among carps. The following species Catla catla, Labeo rohita, Cirrhinus mrigala, Labeo calbasu, Barbus tor and Cirrhinus reba etc. were noted in Limha pond, Ghutku, Bilaspur.

Ethnomedicinal Plants Used in the Healthcare Systems of Tribes of Dantewada, Chhattisgarh India

The tribal people depend on forests for their livelihood and most of the rural people still depend on traditional medicine as a primary healthcare source. The paper highlights the rich plant resources and the vast wealth of ethnobotanical information available with the various tribes of the region. In this paper, some new and less known ethno medicinal uses of 104 plants of tribes of Dantewada, Dakshin Bastar C.G. in different ailments have been reported. The main objective of present work is to give the information and documentation of medicinal plant used by tribal of the study sites. The ethnomedicinal information was gathered from interviews with living elders belonging to Madiya, Muriya, Gond and Bhatra tribes of the study area. The present work on ethnomedicinal plants, used in the healthcare systems of tribes in 15 villages, was carried out from Geedam block of Dantewada, Dakshin Bastar C.G.

Microbial Observation in Bioaccumulation of Heavy Metals from the Ash Dyke of Thermal Power Plants of Chhattisgarh, India

Several mechanisms are developed by the microorganisms to tolerate few high concentrations of heavy metals. One of these mechanisms dependent upon anabolic and catabolic energy of microorganisms is the bioaccumulation of heavy metals. In present work, approximately four varieties of bacteria have been isolated from the ash dyke sample of four thermal power plants of Chhattisgarh, i.e., Bharat Aluminium Company (BALCO), Chhattisgarh State Electricity Board (CSEB), Korba, Thermal Power Cooperation (NTPC), Bilaspur and KSK Akaltara, Chattisgarh. Out of one hundred fifty isolates, three were capable to grow in varying concentration of heavy metals. The strains were tested for their tolerance against six different types of heavy metals dominant in the ash samples viz. Pb, Hg, Ni, Co, Cu, Mn. Their maximum resistance existed up to 0.6mM/ml of the above mentioned different metals under lab standard conditions. Three isolates are found suitable for the multiple metal resistance ability viz SM2, SM3, and SM12. These are categorized as Bacillus cereus (SM2, SM3), and Bacillus subtilis (SM12) after performing 16S rDNA sequencing.

Impact of <i>Parthenium hysterophorus</i>L. Invasion on Species Diversity of Cultivated Fields of Bilaspur (C.G.) India

In present study invasion of Parthenium hysterophorus L. and its impacts on agriculture fields will be done in different cultivated crops in Bilaspur. The present work deals with diversity and distribution of weeds species in cultivated fields of Bilaspur C.G. A total number of 28 species under 27 genera and 16 families was distributed in three study sites (Koni, Sakri & Kota) of cultivated fields in Bilaspur C.G. These study sites were located in different altitudinal zones responding different conditions in the this study. The number of species per sites ranged from 13 to 24. In the Sakri, number of species was ranged from 17 to 27, and the relative density of plant species ranged between 0.77 (Heteropogon contortus, Solanum surratense, Vernonia cinneria and Leucas aspera) and 22.92 (Parthenium hysterophorus). In the Kota, number of species was ranged from 14 to 28, and the relative density of plant species ranged between 0.85 (Ageratum conyzoides, Heteropogon contortus, Triticum aestivum) and 29.06 (Zea mays) and 30.91 (Parthenium hysterophorus). In the Agriculture field, number of species was ranged from 15 to 28, and the relative density of plant species ranged between 0.58 (Leucas aspera) and 26.23 (Triticum aestivum). Present work will give the information that weeds are harmful to herbs, crops and medicinal plants. Parthenium weed can suppress and crowd out other weed species, and could form a single dominant population in the invasion area, causing serious threat to plant community biological diversity.

Bridging the semantic gap with human perception based features for scene categorization

Purpose–The purpose of this paper is to build a classification system which mimics the perceptual ability of human vision,in gathering knowledge about the structure,content and the surrounding environment of a real-world natural scene,at a quick glance accurately.This paper proposes a set of novel features to determine the gist of a given scene based on dominant color,dominant direction,openness and roughness features.Design/methodology/approach–The classification system is designed at two different levels.At the first level,a set of low level features are extracted for each semantic feature.At the second level the extracted features are subjected to the process of feature evaluation,based on inter-class and intra-class distances.The most discriminating features are retained and used for training the support vector machine(SVM)classifier for two different data sets.Findings–Accuracy of the proposed system has been evaluated on two data sets:the well-known Oliva-Torralba data set and the customized image data set comprising of high-resolution images of natural landscapes.The experimentation on these two data sets with the proposed novel feature set and SVM classifier has provided 92.68 percent average classification accuracy,using ten-fold cross validation approach.The set of proposed features efficiently represent visual information and are therefore capable of narrowing the semantic gap between low-level image representation and high-level human perception.Originality/value–The method presented in this paper represents a new approach for extracting low-level features of reduced dimensionality that is able to model human perception for the task of scene classification.The methods of mapping primitive features to high-level features are intuitive to the user and are capable of reducing the semantic gap.The proposed feature evaluation technique is general and can be applied across any domain.