P. B. S. Bhadoria

Vertical accuracy of digital elevation model from Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission – a case study

Vertical accuracy of the processed Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) digital elevation model (DEM) was evaluated using spot height as well as reference DEM. Terrain dependency of error was also explored in relation to elevation, slope and aspect of the terrain. The positive mean error (6.77 ± 1.79 m) indicated that the SRTM DEM was slightly underestimating the elevation and this pattern gradually increases towards higher elevation. The observed root mean square error (RMSE) (27.58 ± 4.22 m) for the region do not fulfill the 16 m RMSE specification of the SRTM mission. High magnitude errors are typical to steep slope (due to overestimation) and in stream valley (due to underestimation). The magnitude of residuals for NW, W and SW facing slope was smaller as compared to their complementary angle. Results also indicated a S and NE components in SRTM DEM because of underestimation and overestimation of elevation, respectively.

Comparative effectiveness of different organic and industrial wastes on peanut: Plant growth, yield, oil content, protein content, mineral composition and hydration coefficient of kernels

Abstract The present study aimed to evaluate the relative efficacy of different organic and industrial wastes, namely, farmyard manure (FYM), water hyacinth (WH) and paper factory sludge (PFS) in combination with chemical fertilizer (CF) along with or without soil amendments like lime or rice husk ash (RHA) on plant growth, yield, mineral composition, oil content, protein content and hydration coefficient of peanut kernels. Results revealed that the integrated application of organic or industrial wastes and CF in conjunction with soil amendments significantly (p ≤ 0.05) improved the yield and quality of peanut kernels over sole CF. Application of RHA improved the content of P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Zn and Cu. Application of lime under similar combinations decreased the content of Fe, Mn, Zn and Cu, however, improved the content the other nutrients in kernels. Among three organic sources, PFS was superior against FYM and WH. RHA along with organic wastes and CF improved the yield and quality of peanut kernels in a better and comparable way than lime. Hence, these two industrial wastes (PFS and RHA) could be used as a substitute for FYM and lime, respectively, for improving yield and quality of peanut kernels under acid lateritic soils.

Phosphorus Efficiency of Wheat, Maize and Groundnut Grown in Low Phosphorus-Supplying Soil

Crop species differ in their ability to grow well in low phosphorus-supplying soils. To test this hypothesis, field experiments were carried out on low P Oxisol with three different crop species. Taking the relative yield as a measure of P efficiency, maize (Zea mays L.) was most efficient followed by groundnut (Arachieo hypogaea L.) and wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). For maximum yield (> 80%), wheat required about 0.5% P in shoot, whereas only 0.20 to 0.25% P were enough for the maximum yield of maize and groundnut. Total P uptake of maize was twice that of wheat and groundnut. The P efficiency of wheat was mainly based on its large root-to-shoot growth ratio, whereas maize and groundnut relied on a large P influx. The latter probably depends strongly on root exudates and arbuscular mycorrhizae.

Relative Influence of Organic Manures in Combination with Chemical Fertilizer in Improving Rice Productivity of Lateritic Soil

ABSTRACT Field experiments were carried out to evaluate relative efficacy of organic manures in combination with chemical fertilizers (CF) against application of only CF in improving the productivity of rice in a lateritic soil. Organic manures were applied at 50 percent recommended N equivalent basis and balanced with chemical fertilizers to attain the recommended N, P and K levels. The effect of three commercial manures: processed city waste (PCW) + CF, vermicompost (VC) + CF, and oil cake pellets (OC) + CF and locally available farmyard manure (FYM) + CF were assessed in comparison to chemical fertilizer. Results indicate that organic manure treatment on balancing with chemical fertilizers to the recommended dosage of N, P and K favored higher dry matter production and grain yield as compared to application of only CF. Among the different manures tested, the increases in yield was maximum with FYM + MC + CF and minimum with OCP + CF. The percentage increase in grain yield of different organic treatment plus chemical fertilizer over chemical fertilizer only varied from, 4% for OC + CF and 26% for FYM + MC + CF, respectively. The uptakeof N, P and K by rice plants was significantly greater in treatments with organic manures in combination with CF. Among the commercial manures PCW + CF showed high promise and emerged as a potential alternative to FYM.

Soil organic carbon: Towards better soil health, productivity and climate change mitigation

The presence of organic C in soil is a key determinant for soil quality and productivity. Soil, being the largest C sinks, also controls the global warming. In this regard, this review focused onto the soil C dynamics, C sequestration potential of soil and related C pools. Detailed discussion of several researches depicted that, C sequestration depends onto soil C saturation deficit, presence of biochemically protected recalcitrant C fractions, aggregation and aggregate associated physically shielded C. On the other hand, labile organic C is the soil nutrient reservoir and is closely related with diversified soil biology. For the sustainable and holistic soil resource management and to mitigate climate change, this study also highlighted the possible management practices towards longer residence time of C in soil.

Microbial Biomass and Activity in Relation to Accessibility of Organic Carbon in Saline Soils of Coastal Agro-Ecosystem

In coastal agro-ecosystems, soil salinity follows a decreasing gradient from coastal margin towards inland and this variation of salinity influences carbon (C) dynamics and soil biology. Following this trend, an experiment was conducted to study the changes in soil microbial biomass and activities in relation to organic C accessibility along salinity gradient and under different rice based cropping systems in coastal saline soils of eastern India. Findings inferred reduced soil microbial biomass and activities with increase in soil salinity. On the other hand, preponderance of flocculating Ca2+ with increase in salinity resulted in higher soil aggregation, formation of greater number of soil micro-aggregates within macro-aggregates and subsequent increase in aggregate-associated C. Further, there was increase in soil organic C (SOC) content but decrease in labile C per unit SOC with increase in soil electrical conductivity. Along with salinity induced hyper-osmotic stress, this higher soil aggregation and relative reduction in labile organic C might be accountable for curbed microbial biomass and activities in these soils, by restricting the availability of C for soil micro-organisms. Slow decomposition of organic C under prolonged submergence resulted higher accumulation of stable organic C under rice–rice-fallow cropping system as compared to soils under other rice-based cropping systems.

Software Secureness for Users: Significance in Public ICT Applications

Software secureness as experienced by a user has connotations that imply better control over information that is getting encoded. It also implies adherence to established protocols by the software and provision to inspect software sources for coding errors. The significance of some of these issues is evident in some reference manuals on Software Quality. Software secureness could be treated as a significant constituent in software quality which can be enhanced by altering the properties of the software applications, software environment and software implementation of protocols or data standards that are deployed in the software projects. Traditional approaches to Software Quality often provide a privileged position to developers of software projects, in providing them the freedom to fix the prerequisites and conditions that determine quality. In situations where software serves public interests or needs, software secureness should not contrast amongst the communities that use, develop, test or maintain the same software project. For most of the services in public domain, the user community is the one which is constitutionally the most empowered. Utilities that serve public needs may also involve processing of information of user communities. Therefore, software secureness must be evaluated from the viewpoint of the community of its users, even if it happens to be the least privileged in setting the prerequisites or conditions for software quality. A shift of this nature is necessary because a proprietary software environment may be completely transparent to its developer community, even while remaining opaque or insecure to its user community.

Synthesis of sustainability and secureness of software in public applications using deductive-nomological model

Sustainability and secureness of software gain prominence when the software application serves public needs. Sustainability of software is an important concept for the agency providing the service, and secureness of software is often a concern of the citizens whose information get processed. There do not exist sufficient theories which adequately explain sustainability and secureness of software which serves some public application. In this work, an attempt was made to synthesize and explain sustainability and secureness of software using a Hempelian deductive-nomological (D-N) model. The covering law for the D-N model capable of explaining software sustainability was derived from world commissions report on sustainable development, and the covering law for the model describing software secureness was derived from standards related to information security management. Using the premises of the D-N model, a software prototype was designed and developed that showed promise of enhancing software sustainability as well as software secureness. A monitoring software associated with a rural employment guarantee scheme was used as a sample case.