NOPR Collection:

Current status and scope of coral reef research in India: A bio-ecological perspective

2017-04-05T11:15:40Z

Title: Current status and scope of coral reef research in India: A bio-ecological perspective Authors: De, Kalyan; Venkataraman, K.; Ingole, Baban Abstract: Coral reefs are staggeringly diverse and complex ecosystem. But, this tropical wonder is currently degrading at alarming rates and, facing a high risk of extinction due to several anthropogenic and natural disturbances. Despite knowing the complex and huge reefs India has, and all the benefits this country gets from its reefs; the efforts to manage and conserve appears poor. Review of research suggests that better management coupled with trained marine biologists, modern infrastructure facility and long-term funding. This review also intends to highlight the current focal area of bio-ecological research in Indian coral reefs and, discuss scopes for further study on some of the key themes on which primary research is being conducted globally. Moreover, there is a pressing need for effective communication between the scientific community and stakeholders for the strict implication of conservation practice to protect the spectacular coral reef ecosystem. Page(s): 647-662

Potential pharmaceutical and biomedical applications of Diatoms microalgae - An overview

2017-04-06T09:08:17Z

Title: Potential pharmaceutical and biomedical applications of Diatoms microalgae - An overview Authors: Kuppusamy, Palaniselvam; Soundharrajan, Ilavenil; Srigopalram, Srisesharam; Yusoff, Mashitah M.; Maniam, Gaanty Pragas; Govindan, Natanamurugaraj; Choi, Ki Choon Abstract: Naturally occurring two girdle band valves of diatoms are made up of siliceous material as covering the cell wall of the organism. The unicellular microalgae are coming under bacillariophyceae groups and identified more than 10,000 species. It found in various natural sources such as sea water, river, ponds and wastewater. Diatom is very small in size approximately 20-200 nm. The microalgae diatoms are used in pharmaceutical and biomedical industries due to the smaller in size and structure. Also, the nanoscale structures of diatom frustules are highly observed and using as a drug delivery material for therapeutic approaches. On other hand, diatom is one of the main sources of the food chain in the marine system. It is the photosynthetic organism which synthesis the required foods themselves by photosynthesis. Diatoms utilize the atmospheric CO₂ and releases oxygen through the biochemical process and maintain the atmospheric CO₂ level when the biological process occurred. In addition, the diatom microalgae contain the high amount of unsaturated fatty acids (50-60%), lipids, polysaccharides and other biomolecules which are used in the chronic and acute diseases treatments. In this review, we are mainly focused on the diatoms for therapeutic applications in different pharmaceutical and biomedical arena. Page(s): 663-667

Can the Drought/Flood Monsoon Conditions over the Indian subcontinent be forecasted using Artificial Neural Networks?

2017-04-05T11:10:33Z

Title: Can the Drought/Flood Monsoon Conditions over the Indian subcontinent be forecasted using Artificial Neural Networks? Authors: Pai, Maya L.; Pramod, K. V.; Balchand, A. N.; Kumar, M. R. Ramesh Abstract: The Indian summer monsoon rainfall during the months June, July, August and September (JJAS) has been classified into seven climatic zones, according to standard precipitation index. Prediction of rainfall within the six hydrological zones of India was attempted with the oceanic predictors, which highly influence the terrestrial precipitation, such as Sea Surface Temperature (SST), Sea Level Pressure (SLP), Humidity and zonal and meridional components of Surface Wind (u and v) to quantify the rainfall amounts by clustering based artificial neural networks for the distinguishable dry and wet years. In the present analysis, we have used data for the period 1960 – 2012, which incidentally had several extreme events (of drought and flood conditions) over the Indian subcontinent. Next, the results indicate that the predicted values are well comparable with the actual measured values proving the usefulness of this approach. In addition, this approach has improved upon the past and recent attempts to model rainfall (including extreme cases) which in turn will have a significant impact on farmers and agriculturists. Page(s): 669-677

Study on aromatic hydrocarbons toxicity to chlorella vulgaris based on QSAR model

2017-04-05T11:08:21Z

Title: Study on aromatic hydrocarbons toxicity to chlorella vulgaris based on QSAR model Authors: Yang, Shenglong; Wang, Cuihua Abstract: Predicting ability based on the quantitative structure–activity relationships (QSAR) model of unknown aromatic hydrocarbons toxicity is one of the tasks of security precaution. To establish the QSAR model between the physical and chemical properties of aromatic hydrocarbons and the inhibited activity of Chlorella vulgaris(C. Vulgaris), the optimized geometries, based on the 96 hr-EC50 of 25 aromatic hydrocarbons with C. Vulgaris were carried out at the B3LYP/6-311G** level by density functional theory (DFT) calculation. With matlab2010(a) software, multiply linear regression(MLR) and three types principal components regression (PCR) methods were used to develop the QSAR model. Three methods were introduced to select the PCs, namely k-values(K), eigenvalue ranking(EV) and correlation ranking(CR) procedures. The different resutls then were compared. After eliminated one of the collinear descriptor and constants, 6, 1 and 4 PCs were select by K, EV, CR for PCR method respectively. LOO cross-validated coefficient (R²_CV) of training set to MLR,K-PCR,EVPCR,CRPCR were 0.673,0.817,0.874,0.907,the R² of prediction were 0.569,0.678,0.519,0.79,respectively. Page(s): 678-685