Jit Singh

Marker assisted selection and crop management for salt tolerance: A review

Salinity is one of the major abiotic constraints for crop management in irrigated as well as rainfed areas and results to poor harvests. The yield reduction in salt affected soils can be overcome by soil reclamation or by improving salt tolerance in crops. The saline soils can be reclaimed by leaching the salt and cultivation of salt tolerance crops. Rice is known as a good reclamation crop. Salt tolerance is a complex polygenic trait. Insufficient knowledge about mechanism of its inheritance results to slow progress in its introgression into target crops. The role of traditional as well as marker assisted breeding approaches has been discussed for introgression of salt tolerance in crops in order to obtain better harvests. Key word : Abiotic constraints, salinity, crop management, introgression, traditional breeding, marker assisted selection.

Identification of modal parameters of a multistoried RC building using ambient vibration and strong vibration records of Bhuj earthquake, 2001

Modal parameters of an instrumented multi-storied reinforced concrete building (G +9) have been studied using strong motion records of Bhuj Earthquake, 2001. The Ambient Vibration Testing (AVT) is also conducted to measure the modal parameters of the same building under ambient environmental forces. Frequency Domain Decomposition (FDD) or Peak Picking (PP) in frequency domain and Stochastic Subspace Identification (SSI) technique in time domain is used for extracting the modal parameters. The observed natural frequencies during strong motion are smaller than the ambient vibration testing. The difference in the frequencies may be caused by interaction between structure and soil due to high level of strain during strong motion earthquake. The modal pattern of first five modes obtained from strong motion records and ambient vibration records are identical.

A multi-centric double-blind randomized homoeopathic pathogenetic trial of Gymnema sylvestre

Objective: To elicit the pathogenetic response of Gymnema sylvestre in homoeopathic potencies on apparently healthy human volunteers. Methodology: Gymnema sylvestre was proved by the Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy through double-blind placebo-controlled method. The study was carried out at four centers. The drug was proved in two potencies (6C and 30C) on 63 apparently healthy volunteers who were selected after conducting pre-trial medical examination by the medical specialists and routine laboratory investigations. In the first phase volunteers were given 56 doses (04 doses per day for 14 days) of placebo. In the next two phases 56 doses (04 doses per day for 14 days) of each potency or placebo were consumed. The symptoms generated during the trial period were noted by the volunteers and elaborated by the proving masters. The data obtained from all the four centers was compiled at proving-cum-data processing cell at CCRH headquarters after decoding. Results: Out of 37 provers who were on actual drug trial, 16 manifested symptoms. The drug was able to produce symptoms in each potency in most of the parts of the body. Conclusion: The pathogenetic responses elicited during the drug proving trial expand the scope of use of the drug Gymnema sylvestre and will benefit the research scholars and clinicians. The generated symptoms of the drug will carry more meaning when verified clinically.

Formic acid : A multicentric observational homoeopathic clinical verification trial

Aims: This study was done to clinically verify the symptomatology of Formic acid by ascertaining the symptoms improved during verification and to incorporate new findings (if any) to the known symptomatology of Formic acid. Methods: A multicentric observational clinical verification study was conducted at nine research centers of Central Council for Research in Homoeopathy to verify the proving symptoms of rarely used medicine, Formic acid. Two hundred and seventy participants having symptomatological similarity with Formic acid were included and prescribed in 6C, 30C, 200C, and 1M potencies, as per need of each case. The data were compiled in a specially designed Excel spreadsheet for further analysis. The collected data were presented in terms of descriptive statistics. Prevalence of the symptoms in the responding and nonresponding population was compared using Chi-square or Fisher′s exact test. Results: Out of 266 followed up patients, 215 cases responded (80.8%) with 95% confidence interval of 0.75-0.85. The number of symptoms verified was as follows: proving symptoms (n = 11) and new observations (n = 22). The widely emerged new general symptoms, i.e., clean tongue, disturbed sleep, loose stool, tastelessness, and profuse sweat may be worth consideration during prescription of Formic acid. Conclusions: The proving symptoms of Formic acid could be verified clinically, but the correlation of patient-specific symptom needs cautious interpretation. Further replication on larger sample and estimation of likelihood ratio in real-time clinical practice are needed.