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EDITORIAL

EDITORIAL

J-BNB: A Multidisciplinary Journal I

From the Editorial Director’s Desk

Dear Readers,

It gives me immense pleasure to publish 2019-20 J-BNB which is our online research journal

of VPM‟s B. N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane. This year we have modified the

journal to include articles and lots of other heads. Dr. Mrs. M. Saha has taken great pains to

improve the quality of our journal and I am greatly indebted to her efforts to raise the

standard of our journal. Nowadays, research has become an integral component of teaching in

undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Lots of emphasis is laid on training young minds

towards research and startups. With our college, getting autonomy from UGC we should

strive to take our research to the next level and teachers should be encouraged to take up

major research projects. There are a lot of funding agencies which support the research

projects that are directly beneficial to mankind. With these few observations, I congratulate

our research coordinator Dr. Mrs. M. Saha and her entire team for coming out with our

research journal with a new look and wish her the best of luck for a great future.

S. Venkatraman

Editorial Director

EDITORIAL

J-BNB: A Multidisciplinary Journal III

From the Managing Editor’s Desk

Dear Readers,

On behalf of the Editorial Board and the Editorial Team, I would like to greet all authors,

patrons and readers of J-BNB. The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented

situation, hope you and your family are safe and keeping good health. As per the advisory

from the Government of India, we are currently working from home since 23rd March, 2020.

Due to the lockdown in India, educational institutions remain closed for an indefinite period

of time and in such a situation we are working towards a new normal. J-BNB is a

Multidisciplinary Scientific Journal (ISSN 2454-2776) published by the Research Committee

of VPM‟s B. N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane. It is an online open access journal

(http://www.vpmthane.org/BNB/JBNB.aspx), published yearly. J-BNB welcomes submission

of manuscripts from all fields of science and seeks to publish research papers with a cutting

edge that will significantly advance scientific temperament. I take this opportunity to

congratulate the outgoing Editors for their untiring efforts put in for publishing eight volumes

of J-BNB since 2013. I wish them luck in all their future endeavors.

Science has no borders and our goal is to bring the scientific community together. J-BNB has

taken up the initiative to bring together the thinkers, innovators, researchers and academicians

on this common platform. This will be a forum for research groups to publish their research

work, innovations, perspectives, views and knowledge without delay. The submissions to the

journal will be categorised under two headings 1) INSIGHT: This section will include

perspectives, books or media reviews, series articles and viewpoint and 2) RESEARCH:

This section will include research articles/ research papers, review articles and short

communication.

The United Nations declared the year 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health. The

year 2020 should have been a year to raise global awareness on plant health however

COVID-19 and the pandemic changed the scenario. In this issue of J-BNB authors have

shared their views on plant health and the pandemic. On behalf of J-BNB, the Editorial Board

and the Editorial Team will strive to increase the visibility, impact, citations and the overall

quality of J-BNB. We look forward to strengthening our association. Stay Healthy, Stay Safe

& Best Wishes.

Moitreyee Saha

Managing Editor J-BNB

EDITORIAL

J-BNB: A Multidisciplinary Journal III

From the Consulting Editor’s Desk

Balkrishna Naik Bandodkar College of Science is one of its kind having solely a science

faculty college, affiliated to the University of Mumbai. Being specifically a science college, it

ventures for the advent in basic and allied sciences and its benefits to society at its utmost

agenda. Nevertheless, it has been envisaged to propagate the science at a broader spectrum

through intensive research at college and societal level with the initiation of publications

through a research journal titled „J-BNB‟, since 2013.

„J-BNB‟ of our college, envisages to avail the open platform to the college faculty, students

and experts to publicize their findings with affluence. The journal was foresighted to harvest

the intellectual outcomes of various experts in the form of the literature and make it openly

available, online, through the college website. Moreover, we look forward to providing a

freedom of expressing the original scientific concepts (discoveries and inventions) in the

form of research article, methodology, viewpoint, monograms, case study, review, project

series, expedition report, definition etc.

The editorial and publisher teams of J-BNB endeavor to maintain the international standards

and thus follow the stringent publication process such as peer review, research ethics and

anti-plagiarism. Preference will be given to procure DOI and indexing by the renowned

institutions in near future.

Sudesh D. Rathod

Consulting Editor J-BNB

INDEX

J-BNB: A Multidisciplinary Journal IV

INDEX

INSIGHT - PERSPECTIVES

1. COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN CHEMISTRY

Anita S. Goswami-Giri 1-6

2. LIGHT FIDELITY (LI-FI): A WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY

Siddhant Meshram and Sangita Meshram

7-13

INSIGHT - SERIES ARTICLES

3. AWARENESS ABOUT PLANT HEALTH: AN UPSURGE NEED OF

CURRENT ERA Urmila Kumavat

14-16

4. DOMESTICATION OF RICE: VARIETIES AND UTILITY

Vinda Manjramkar

17-21

5. PLANT HEALTH MONITORING USING IoT: SMART OPTIONS

FOR INDIAN FARMERS

Moitreyee Saha

22-26

INSIGHT - VIEWPOINT

6. MINITAB: A STATISTICAL TOOL

Nikhil Bhangale

27

7. ARE WE CHANGING THE UNIVERSE?

Sudesh D. Rathod

28

8. EFFECT OF SEASONAL VARIATION ON IN VITRO CULTURE

STUDIES OF LAWSONIA INERMIS L.

Snehal Bhangale

29

9. LIFESTYLE ADDICTION: STRUGGLE OF MIND WITH VIRTUAL

WORLD

Shruti Desai

30

10. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE TIME OF COVID CRISIS Chetana Santosh Shetty

31

11.

HIVE – MINDED MICROBES AROUND US

Aditya Mhatre

32

INDEX

J-BNB: A Multidisciplinary Journal V

RESEARCH ARTICLES

12. EFFECT OF ORGANIC FERTILIZERS ON PIGMENT CONTENT

AND COOKING TIME OF BHINDI

A. Mhatre and V. Jamdhade

33-40

13. MECHANICAL ANALOG TO ION TRAP

Abhishek S. Dani, Dewang M. Sukhadare and Neha V. Nandi

41-49

14. COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF DRYING METHODS ON

VITAMIN C AND PROTEIN CONTENT OF MORINGA OLEIFERA

LEAVES

Sandeep S. Kahandal, Pratibha S. Kadam, Ayesha Khan, Dhanashree Ahire,

Urma Shaikh, Shikha Singh, Preeti Mishra, Priyanka Varma and Moitreyee

Saha

50-56

15. CARBON SEQUESTRATION POTENTIAL OF TREE SPECIES OF

VPM CAMPUS, THANE

Aishwarya Deshmukh, Nada Noor Shaikh, Neelam Soni and Urmila Kumavat

57-60

16. MICROCONTROLLER BASED HEART RATE MONITORING

SYSTEM

Varsha Shinde, Shahina Shekharan and Ashish Koli

61-65

17. EVALUATION OF ANTIDANDRUFF ACTIVITY OF TWIG

POWDER FROM LAWSONIA INERMIS L. Snehal N. Bhangale and Moitreyee Saha

66-70

18. SMART MIRROR USING 8052 MICROCONTROLLERS Mayuri Shinde, Vidula Joshi, Ashish Koli

71-78

INSIGHT- PERSPECTIVES

J-BNB: A Multidisciplinary Journal 1

COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN CHEMISTRY

Anita S. Goswami-Giri

Department of Chemistry, VPM's B. N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane 400601

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

The goal of education is to improve literacy with cooperative learning for the enhancement of

mankind. It required teachers to pre structure teaching and task management which motivate

the students to enhance the interpersonal skills. The present paper focused on four different

cases observed in the undergraduate and postgraduate level chemistry class; such as good in

laboratory skill but not in theory, good in theory and laboratory skills but not in analysis,

students used common facilities but observed individual attitude in learning while forth case

observed that they do score and have leadership qualities but lacking interview skills. The

finding shows significant differences observed in slow learners, advanced learners, and

average learners.

Keywords: Student anxiety, Basic elements, Transferable skills

INTRODUCTION

The role of science education advances not only science and technology in research-based

learning but also for the development of mankind and society in general. Scientific literacy is

the gateway to achieve economic survival. However, several teachers may not have been

professionally prepared. In science, various concepts are developing day by day, and they

need to be handled carefully in the subjective matter.

In day to day life, Chemistry is very important, since it is a core subject in higher secondary

school required to get admission in the field of science and technology such as for the medical

and engineering, textile and printing technology, agricultural & dairy science, pharmacy and

drugs, chemical engineering, etc. (Jegede, 2003). The concept observed in theoretical as well

as in the laboratory, most students failed to understand chemistry. Student‟s anxiety for

chemistry learning leads to a loss of interest in the sciences (Keeves, 1992). Hence, to

understand its scope and application of chemistry in society, to remove a student's fear, the

subject should be students' friendly and enjoyable; the use of cooperative learning strategy

needs to be applied.

DATA COLLECTION

Cooperative learning in chemistry studied in 4 different cases are as follows;

Case (1). Chemistry is a common subject at the first-year undergraduate level where students

learn theory and practical. Some of the practicals, students do in groups and perform



satisfactorily in laboratory examinations but during viva-voce, it was observed that gross

misconceptions regarding chemical phenomena (Grace et al., 2007).

Case (2). In other cases, learners are good at theory and laboratory skills. They performed

projects in small groups. They do the experimental part nicely with a review of literature and

interaction among themselves and also with the supervisor. But it was observed that, while

writing the report students were not making up the relation of the experimental part with

theoretical and its analysis.

Case (3). Number of time students used common facilities in the laboratory e.g computers,

colorimeters, spectrophotometer, working table, weighing balance, deep freezer, etc. and

required to cooperate with each other. Nevertheless, sometimes, basic elements are not

observed, it may be due to typical types of students and their management while in the fourth

case.

Case (4). In other cases student‟s competencies include problem-solving, communication,

leadership, and collaboration, among others. Exam scores, course evaluations, leadership

behaviors with communications in language, and student assessment of learning gains

(SALG) surveys exhibited students are lacking while employing them (Canelas et al., 2017).

DATA ANALYSIS

Cooperative learning methods applied to solve cases

I] Learning Environment

• Conductive environment is the key to the active participation of students and teachers

in the learning process, where students crave for knowledge and subjective information. It

will be achieved by understanding through active mental ability, background and gender, and

availability of infrastructural facilities. In cooperative learning, students work in a group, the

focus of attention is diffused among the group members.

• Jigsaw was originally developed by Aronson and colleagues in 1978. According to

Jigsaw, students should work in a group of 5-6 students and exchange all ideas in groups, and

each student in the group becomes an expert in the subject (Canelas et al., 2017; Marcalo,

1999). Unfortunately, it does not work effectively because of its individual accountability for

contributing to the achievement of a group goal.

II] Interactive learning and Basic elements

The cognitive theory of Jerome Bruner, “learning at its best is thinking, “where students learn

to ask questions and to verify answers with group mates; it procures the similar thought of



Aronson (Bruner, 2009). „Learning Together Model' put forth by Johnson and Johnson's

(1994); the key summarized in five, basic elements (Johnson and Johnson, 1994).

⦁ Positive interdependence: Students within groups must truly be dependent on one

another.

⦁ Face-to-face interaction: The interaction and verbal interchange among students that

are promoted by positive interdependence which have the greatest effect on educational

outcomes.

⦁ Individual and group accountability: All students within a group are responsible for

learning the study material.

⦁ Appropriate use of interpersonal skills in the group.

⦁ Group processing: Finally, students must be given enough time for analyzing how

well their groups are functioning. With these elements, the Number-Heads-Together model

significantly increased the achievement of the students in chemistry, the students‟ self-

efficacy in learning, and attitude towards chemistry in comparison to the lecture-discussion

method.

III] Three different types of students and student anxiety

During the performance of the experimental work students group‟s task is they must

exchange ideas, make plans, and propose solutions. Competitive, individualistic, and

cooperative students are three different types of students in the classroom and also during

laboratory work and educators/tutors need to plan accordingly. Effective teaching strategies

address these competitive, individualistic, and cooperative students (Sarah et al., 2006;

Marcalo, 1999). Achievement anxiety has a relationship with student study behavior and

academics. Each group mirrored the make-up of the class regarding ability, background, and

gender (Daniel and Awokoy, 2010). Among all the instructional strategies for enhancing

science achievement, the emphasis is laid on the importance of group work achievement.

IV] Relationship between Basic elements and types of students & student anxiety

During laboratory practicals, students perform in small-group learning and theory classroom

lectures and their individual accountability is considered. Due to this learning process, and

rewards for appropriate group functioning, students feeling in the classroom as an individual

and in a group with warmer classroom climate enhances its ability of understanding and

execution, thereby promoting learning and achievement. But these three types of students

have their goals while in the Cooperative learning system, they are working together to



achieve common or shared goals. Owing to students' anxiety, they may not interact with each

other and not participate in the classroom as well as in the laboratory (Daniel and Awokoy,

2010; Johnson et al., 1991). Mainly these students belong to slow learners, mainly in case 2.

To observe all elements and types of students up to the fulfillment level of satisfaction,

teachers are facilitating a variety of study materials and advancing students in various

technologies by arranging workshops, seminars and by providing training. Many find that a

well-balanced program is arranged for the students.

At the undergraduate level, Sem I and II syllabus is included, the foundation of chemistry

where the basic arithmetic skills and understanding the fundamental concept in chemistry

along with laboratory skills such as solutions and aqueous reactions, kinetics, equilibrium,

acids and bases, solubility and equilibrium, thermodynamics, electrochemistry, and nuclear

chemistry etc. After observation of their elements and students, their groups were formed for

the applications of cooperative learning and methodologies (Powell et al., 2020).

V] Key transferable skills

In cooperative learning, students promote each other‟s success by helping, supporting,

encouraging, and praising each other to learn. When students have to organize their thoughts

to explain ideas to teammates, they must engage in cognitive elaboration that enhances their

understanding (Eilks and Byers, 2009). It is observed in case 2 project students.

The main goal of cooperative learning is to help students expand their repertoire of problem-

solving approaches, while its minor goal is to help them develop collaborative skills-

leaderships, decision-making, communication, etc. These goals can only be achieved if

students have enough time to develop group dynamics and overcome difficulties in working

together (Dorian et al., 2017; Alebiosu, 1998). It is observed in case 4 students.

When compared their chemistry knowledge mentioned all in four cases, required

constructive, cooperative controlling during recitation, and laboratory content. Due to

cooperative learning. Behaving as an effective teammate and the leader with the comfort

level reported more growth. This skill observed a very less percentage in cases 2 & 3 who are

slow learners.

DISCUSSION

To collect the relevant data in all four cases Chemistry Anxiety Scale (CAS) the instruments

were used. After analysis of collected data exhibited various feelings like a state of

discomfort, threatening to self-esteem, leads to panic, tension, helplessness, fear, distress,

shame, inability to cope with the current syllabus learning process. Hence, leads to sweaty



palms, nervous stomach, difficulty in breathing, and loss of ability to concentrate that made

them withdraw their participation in the teaching and learning process (Aksela, 2000). Lack

of participation may be found in teaching methodologies that move away from the more

traditional, teacher-centered classrooms and concentrate more on student-centered,

cooperative learning techniques problem-solving strategy in chemistry reduced chemistry

classroom anxiety in students it‟s only due to the effects of cooperative learning in form of

peer feedback.

The basic elements, Positive interdependence, Face-to-face promotive interaction, Individual

accountability, Interpersonal and small group skills, and Group processing are quality criteria

for cooperative learning where processes of cooperation and competition are required to do

the theory as well practical‟s in chemistry.

Recently, the learning paradigm shift is observed due to the development in various fields,

and it‟s in chemistry too which has various branches including paperless and solventless

chemistry. Learning together with parallel traditional teaching, mentoring, convener, and

collaboration with teachers to teacher‟s interaction, students to students‟ interaction, and

teacher-students interaction for the students' inquiry, students may develop higher-order

cognitive skills with satisfactions.

These all the above data vary as per the student‟s background, learning & mental ability in all

four cases.

CONCLUSION

The essential component in cooperative learning is cooperative tasks and structure among the

teachers and students. During cooperative learning, teachers should provide repeated

exposure to students in the group while performing laboratory practicals and learning theory

processes. Staying on-task, allowing students to make decisions undependable, and

continuous structural support of teachers will definitely solve the problem in chemistry

cooperative learning.

REFERENCES

1. Aksela, M. (2000). An approach to students‟ thinking during experimental work through

the use of cooperative learning methods. York 2000 Conference.

2. Alebiosu, K.A. (1998). Effects of two cooperative learning models on senior secondary

school students‟ learning outcomes in chemistry. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of

Ibadan, Nigeria.

3. Bruner, J. S. (2009). The process of education. Harvard University Press.



4. Canelas, D. A., Hill, J. L. and Novicki, A. (2017).Cooperative learning in organic

chemistry increases student assessment of learning gains in key transferable skills,

Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 18: 441-456. DOI: 10.1039/c7rp00014f)

5. Daniel, O. and Awokoy, J. O. (2010). Effect of Cooperative Learning Teaching Strategy

on the Reduction of Students‟ Anxiety for Learning Chemistry. Journal of Turkish

Science Education, 7(1): 30-36.

6. Dorian A., Canelas, Hill, J. L. and Novicki, A. (2017). Cooperative learning in organic

chemistry increases student assessment of learning gains in key transferable skills. Chem.

Educ. Res. Pract., 18(3): 441-456.

7. Eilks, I. and Byers, B. (Eds.). (2009).Innovative Methods of Teaching and Learning

Chemistry in Higher Education, pp. 103-122. © 2009 RSC Publishing

8. Grace, R. and Lago, M. (2007). Influence of Cooperative Learning on Chemistry

Students‟ Achievement,self-efficacy and attitude. 5(1) ISSN: 2094-1064 Liceo Journal

of Higher Education Research DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7828/ljher.v5i1.14

9. Jegede, S. A. (2003). The effect of the component task analysis model of instruction on

students' performance in chemistry. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis of the University of Ado

Ekiti.2.

10. Johnson D. W., Maruyama, G., Johnson, R. T. and Skon, L. (1991). Effects of

cooperative competitive and individualistic goal structures on achievement: a meta-

analysis. Psychological Bulletin.

11. Johnson, D. and Johnson, R. (1994). Learning together and alone: Cooperative,

competitive, and individualistic learning (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

12. Keeves, J. P. and Morgenstern, C. (1992).Attitudes toward science: measures and effects.

In J.P. Keeves (Ed.)The IEA Study of Science III: Changes in science Education and

Achievement: 1970-1984. (pp 122-140). New York: Pergamon Jegede 197.

13. Marcalo M. (1999). Designing an Interactive Learning Environment to Support Children's

Understanding in Complex Domains https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2375285

14. Powell, C. B., Simpson, J., Williamson, V. M., Dubrovskiy, A., Walker, D. R., Ben Jang,

G., Shelton, R.and Mason, D. (2020). Impact of arithmetic automaticity on students'

success in second-semester general chemistry. Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., Advance Article

https://doi.org/10.1039/D0RP00006J

15. Sarah, M. Well and Cassidy, J. (2006). Cooperative learning in elementary school

classrooms. Educational Psychology, 393: 1-5.

http://dx.doi.org/10.7828/ljher.v5i1.14



https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2375285









LIGHT FIDELITY (LI-FI): A WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY

Siddhant Meshram1

and Sangita Meshram2

1T.E Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

SIES Graduate School of Technology, Nerul, India

[email protected] 2VPM‟s B.N.Bandodkar College of Science Thane, India

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Wireless technology has bloomed to a great extent. Nowadays, internet and digital

communication has been in major demand, with a greater speed, safer and secure data

transmission Li-Fi comes into picture. Li-Fi, a fast, upcoming and growing technology, is a

better alternative to Wi-Fi in wireless communication. To overcome complexity in network

traffic and shortage of bandwidth, superfast wireless communication, Li-Fi (Light fidelity) is

a better option. In the present paper the authors have focused on the advantages, applications

and limitations of using Li-Fi in transferring data. This wireless technology is not only

greener but safer and cheaper in the future of communication.

Keywords: Li-Fi, VLC (Visible Light Communication), LED, RF (Radio Frequency)

INTRODUCTION

Exchange of information in digital form and the speed of transmission of data has its own

significance in wireless communication. The currently existing data transmission system has

become old and slow. The new wireless communication technology Li-Fi (Light Fidelity),

transmits data between devices using light at higher speed.

In 2011 TED Global Talk held in Edinburgh, this term was first introduced by Harald Hass

(Prakash and Agarwal, 2014; Khandal and Jain, 2014).

LED‟s are used to transmit multimedia data using Li-Fi between two terminals. Transmission

through illumination is achieved by Li-Fi, LED light bulbs are used to transmit data and it

varies in intensity, that a human eye cannot follow. In our daily life the light we use is also

used to provide communication by illumination (Mahendran, 2016).

Transmission of data at high speeds over the visible light, ultraviolet and infrared spectrums

is possible through Li-Fi (Chakraborty et al., 2017).

Light emitting diodes are used to transmit data wirelessly through this technology. Rapid

pulses of light are used by visible light communication (VLC) to transmit information

wirelessly (Ekta and Kaur, 2014).

This technology is similar to Wi-Fi, the only difference is that radio frequency is used by Wi-

Fi to transmit data. Li-Fi has several advantages, as it uses light to transmit the data. Wider

bandwidth channel, security and high data speed are some of its notable advantages. Several

organizations are actively developing this technology across the globe.



LI-FI TECHNOLOGY WORKING

Figure 1: Block Diagram

Li-Fi is high speed bidirectional networked and mobile communication of data using light.

Li-Fi comprises multiple light bulbs that form a wireless network.

A stream of light (photons) are emitted from the LED light bulb, when an electrical current is

applied to it. Since these LED bulbs are semiconductor devices, brightness of the light

flowing through them can be changed at extremely high speeds. This property of LED bulbs

can be used to modulate the light at different rates before sending the signal. A detector is

used to receive the signal and it also interprets the variation in light intensity (received signal)

as data.

This communication is seamless as the other radio systems, since the intensity modulation

cannot be seen by the human eye, allowing the individuals to be connected to the internet

through Li-Fi enabled light.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

ADVANTAGES OF LI-FI TECHNOLOGY:

Efficiency:

Transmission of data requires negligible additional power due to availability of LED

in the home, offices and malls which makes LiFi efficient in terms of cost as well as

energy.



Availability:

Light bulbs are available in abundance; therefore, availability is not a concern at all.

Security:

Light cannot pass through opaque structures. Users outside the stipulated area cannot

access and misuse the data.

High Speed:

Lifi provides high data rates of about 1 Gbps due to combination of low interference,

high bandwidth and high intensity output.

DISADVANTAGES OF LI-FI TECHNOLOGY:

Limited Usage:

The usage of Li-Fi is limited, as without a light source the internet cannot be used.

Range of Signal:

The range of the signal is limited by the physical barriers as Li-Fi uses visible light.

Interception of the signal:

Interception of the signal outdoors is the biggest potential drawback of this

technology. The interference of the sunlight will also result in interrupted internet.

Cost:

In order to implement Li-Fi a whole new infrastructure will be required and this won‟t

be cheap.

APPLICATIONS

UNDERWATER APPLICATION:

The vehicles used underwater are mostly wired and use large cables, these cables are

fragile and may be destroyed by the underwater animals. Therefore, Lifi is a better

solution, since light can easily travel through water up to 1000 meters (Khare et al.,

2016; Chakraborty et al., 2017).

AVIATION:

Li-Fi can be utilized to provide efficient communication of data in airborne

environments. Aircraft equipment such as radar uses radio waves, so the transmission

using Li-Fi will not interfere with it (Ayara, Usikalu, Akinyemi and Adagunodo,

2016) (www.purevlc.net).

HOSPITAL:

Information of patients can be communicated at a higher speed using Li Fi as light

waves are less harmful for humans. Thus, increases the efficiency of the task (Ayara

et al., 2016).



SMART TRANSPORT:

India has recorded many road fatalities over many years, with UP recording

maximum fatalities in the year 2018 followed by Maharashtra & Tamil Nadu. In order

to ensure safety of pedestrians and drivers, LiFi technology can be used. Vehicles can

communicate with each other via back and the front lights ensuring the safety on

roads (Ekta and Kaur, 2014).

ADVERTISING:

The street lamps or the lights of any store can be used to display advertisements of

new products, job openings and so on, on the smartphones of the people passing by

(Swami, Vijaykumar et al., 2017).

EDUCATION:

Today‟s generation is more techno savvy, therefore to create a more efficient learning

environment along with active participation of students in learning Li-Fi enabled

smartphones/laptops can be used for better understanding of academics (Vijaykumar

et al., 2017).

RAILWAY TRANSPORT NETWORK:

Ever increasing demands of the customers using mobile communication & internet in

the rail transport can be more intelligently met by visible light communication (VLC)

by providing seamless connectivity (Ahamed, 2016).

ISSUES WITH LI-FI

Lifi is a pretty good unguided technology, because of the speeds it can offer. But every

technology has its pros & cons. Here are some issues with LiFi:

COST:

A lot of instruments are required for this technology. We require at least one receiver

for each device (PCs, TV, Laptop, Smart Phones and so on). Nowadays the emitter

and receiver are bundled into a single device, but still there will be a need of separate

Li-Fi routers for each device we want to connect. Since we don‟t use devices in the

same place, we will require multiple Li-Fi routers in each place, this increases the

cost.

LINE OF SIGHT:

Light is a transverse, electromagnetic wave. Since the light follows the principle of

rectilinear propagation, it travels in a straight path. Therefore, line of sight is an issue.

The LED with Li-Fi system embedded in it should be in the line of sight with the



receiving device. More the device is closer to the LED, the more the speed will be.

This issue also restricts the usage of this technology (Ali, 2018).

HEALTH:

Some people may experience seizures due to gazing at the light emitted by the LiFi

embedded LED tube lights (Ali, 2018).

WASTAGE OF POWER:

Smart generation needs the internet 24x7, therefore even during the day, light source

is needed, which is a wastage of power (Sonnad et al., 2013).

RESTRICTED USAGE:

Since the Li-Fi technology uses light waves, it cannot penetrate through thick walls,

which easily stops data transmission (Chatterjee et al., 2015; Navalakha and

Maheshwari, 2012).

FUTURE SCOPE

Lifi Technology has a great scope for the use as it may lead to a cleaner, greener, safer

communication and have a bright future and environment. If the technology becomes mature

and popular, people will use it more and more and it may become an important tool for faster

communication of the mob. In the long run, Li-Fi could be an alternative solution for

unguided speedy and secure data transmission technology. “Li-Fi could be used in India's

upcoming Smart Cities - where IT will be the primary infrastructure”, according to Neena

Pahuja, director general of the Education and Research Network (ERNET), an autonomous

scientific society under the IT ministry. In traffic systems, Li-Fi could serve as an internet

hotspot. In some military operations where RF communication is not allowed Li-Fi could be

used to transmit data keeping it integrity. (https://www.vccircle.com/will-lifi-replace-wifi-it-

ministry-finds-out-if-light-can-power-the-internet/) (Tharunn et al., 2015).

CONCLUSION

Due to increased demands for high speed data, many wireless technologies are evolving and

emerging, LiFi promises great potential in the wireless domain. It is an efficient, fast and

cost-effective technology. Even India‟s IT ministry has successfully tested lifi in a pilot

jointly conducted with IIT Madras and Lighting company Philips. A great change in daily life

will happen if Li-Fi technology replaces Wi-Fi and other broadband networks. Though this

technology‟s biggest challenge is high speed data upload, upcoming and growing technology

is gaining pace in recent times which will potentially resolve the many unsolved mysteries of

the world.



REFERENCES

1. Ahamed, S. (2016). Visible Light Communication in Railways. International Conference

on Railway Engineering 2016, 42-46. ISBN: 978-1-78561-292-3

2. Ali, S. B.(2018). Implementation Issues of Li-Fi. International Journal of Engineering

Research & Technology, 6(09): 1-3. ISSN: 2278-018

3. Ayara, W. A., Usikalu, M. R., Akinyemi, M. L., Adagunodo, T. A. and Oyeyemi, K. D.

(2018). Review on Li-Fi: an advancement in wireless network communication with the

application of solar power. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science,

173(1): 012016. Bibcode:2018E&ES...173a2016A. doi:10.1088/1755-

1315/173/1/012016. ISSN 1755-1315.

4. Chakraborty, A., Dutta, T., Mondal, S. and Nath, A. (2017). Latest advancement in Light

Fidelity (Li-Fi) Technology. International Journal of Advance Research in Computer

Science and Management Studies, 5(12): 47-53. ISSN: 2321-7782, (Online) e-ISJN:

A4372-3114, Impact Factor: 7.327

5. Chatterjee, S., Agarwal, S. and Nath, A. (2015). Scope and Challenges in Light Fidelity

(LiFi) Technology in Wireless Data Communication. International Journal of Innovative

Research in Advanced Engineering, 6(2): 1-9. ISSN: 2349-2163

6. Ekta and Kaur, R. (2014). International Journal of Computer Science and Mobile

Computing, 3(4): 475 – 481. ISSN 2320–088X.

7. https://www.vccircle.com/will-lifi-replace-wifi-it-ministry-finds-out-if-light-can-power-

the-internet/ (online) Date: 15/02/2020

8. Khandal, D. and Jain, S. (2014). Li-Fi (Light Fidelity): The Future Technology in

Wireless Communication. International Journal of Information & Computation

Technology, 4(16): 1687-1693. ISSN 0974-2239.

9. Khare, Y., Tiwari, V. P., Patil, A. B. and Bala, K. (2016). Li – Fi Technology,

Implementations and Applications. International Research Journal of Engineering and

Technology, 03(04): 1391-1394. p-ISSN: 2395-0072, e-ISSN: 2395 -0056

10. Mahendran, R. (2016). Integrated lifi (Light Fidelity) for smart communication through

illumination. International Conference on Advanced Communication Control and

Computing Technologies, IEEE [online], Electronic ISBN: 978-1-4673-9545-8]

11. Navalakha, A. and Maheshwari, N. (2014). Data Services of Li- Fi in Hospital

Management, International Journal of Science and Research, 3(8): 1631-1633. ISSN

(Online): 2319-7064 Impact Factor (2012): 3.358

12. Pure, V. L. C. (2012). Visible Light Communication: An introductory guide. [online]

www.purevlc.net

13. Prakash, R. and Agarwal, P. (2014). The New Era of Transmission and Communication

Technology: Li-Fi (Light Fidelity) LED & TED Based Approach. International Journal

of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering & Technology, 3(2): 285-290

http://www.purevlc.net/



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Advancements in LI-FI Technology". International Journal of Electrical, Electronics

and Data Communication, 1(10): 61-63.

15. Tharunn, G., Reddy, G. D. and Timmaraju, V. (2015). Li-Fi: The Future of Wireless

Technology. International Journal of Advanced Engineering and Global Technology,

03(02): 242-244. ISSN No: 2309-4893

16. Vijaykumar, S. N., Sirsat, N. B. and Holambe, P. R. (2017). Light Fidelity (Li-Fi): In

Mobile Communication and Ubiquitous Computing Applications. Springer Singapore,

75–85. ISBN 978-981-10-2629-4



AWARENESS ABOUT PLANT HEALTH: AN UPSURGE NEED OF

CURRENT ERA

Urmila Kumavat Department of Botany, VPM‟s B.N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane (W) 400601,

Affiliated to University of Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

[email protected]

INTRODUCTION

Nature, the preeminent caretaker has provided plants as one of the precious gifts to mankind.

Plants form an inextricable part of human experience. Apart from fulfilling the basic needs of

life viz., food, shelter and clothing, plants are valued for scent, flavour, fuel, dyes, medicines

and other qualities. Among all these, the extraordinary nutritional and healing capacity of

plants has made an astounding effect on human health. Plants also add beauty to the

surroundings and contribute a great deal to man‟s pleasure. For these reasons, plant health

can't be ignored. Recently, health of crop plants as well as wild plants is under threat due to

climatic changes, increased urbanization, anthropogenic activities, degradation of

ecosystems, reduced biodiversity and formation of new niches of pests (2020). This led to an

upsurge in the need of creating awareness about improving plant health by various means.

CONTEXT

Current dynamic growth in the world's population demands elevated supply of food. But

recent years indicated frequent outbreaks of plant diseases across the globe in agricultural

crops. In 2016-17, wheat blast disease had caused 30% loss of wheat in Asia. „Xylella

fastidosa‟ disease of olive affected 1 million trees in Southern Europe in 2014. Rust disease

of coffee plants led to loss of more than 5,00,000 jobs in Central America (Caribbean region)

in 2012. Annually 40% of global production of agriculture is reduced due to pests (2020). As

far as India is concerned, in January 2019, the country had faced an attack of „Fall

Armyworm‟ on maize which spread to 10 different states in nine months (2019). Agriculture,

with its allied sectors, is the most important sector of Indian Economy. India is the global

leader in production of pulses, rice, wheat, spices and spice products. It provides employment

to 50% of the country's workforce which accounts for 18% gross domestic product (GDP)

(Madhusudhan, 2015). For a heavily populated country like India, food security can be

assured by cultivation of crops with high yield, effective use of land mass, water management

and pest control. There exists additional ways to achieve agricultural success such as organic

https://www.omicsonline.org/searchresult.php?keyword=Indian%20Economy

https://www.omicsonline.org/searchresult.php?keyword=employment

https://www.omicsonline.org/searchresult.php?keyword=employment

https://www.omicsonline.org/searchresult.php?keyword=workforce



farming, use of disease resistant varieties, genetic engineered plants, early detection and

control of diseases by plant health clinics. Among these, production of genetically superior

and healthy agricultural varieties is on top most priority.

Evolution is a constant process which takes place in diverse ecosystems. It allows superior

varieties to evolve and to sustain in unfavourable conditions. It is a well known fact that

intensive monoculturing based agricultural practices invite pest attack and cause massive

loss. It does not allow crops to evolve naturally to fight with diseases. Hence the onset of

plant disease can be avoided by cultivating healthy plants. It can be achieved by innovative

technologies of hybridization and crop improvement programmes. There are traditional

hybridization and modern recombinant DNA technologies available which utilize quality

genes. Both these techniques greatly rely on the available gene pool of plants in nature, i.e.

genetic biodiversity which is found in highly biodiverse regions.

Such mega biodiversity centres of the world are mainly located in developing and poor

countries of Africa, Asia and Southern America. Rapid developmental activities of these

countries are constantly putting pressure on wild flora and fauna. It is reported that 42% of

global plant species have vanished from nature in the last decade due to anthropogenic

activities and not due to natural causes (Meenakshi, 2018). Biodiversity of plants is reducing

day by day due to overpopulation, excessive exploitation of resources, loss of forests land and

climatic changes. In some places forest lands are converted to agricultural sectors for

generating effective income sources. From 2001 to 2018, Indonesia has lost 16% of tropical

forest covering ~26 million hectares area for oil palm cultivation (Zoe, 2019). India is also

one of the mega biodiversity centres with 45000 different plant species. It has been a treasure

house of valuable plants. The plant diversity is quite versatile due to variation in topography,

climatic conditions and other ecological factors (2020). But the two hotspots of India,

Western Ghats and Himalayan region are struggling for their existence. They are the major

pool of genetic diversity. Decline in Indian forest cover can severely reduce all wild relatives

of Indian rice, wheat and pulses from nature as most of them are endemic. Thereby cut down

chances of producing better varieties of crops by hybridization involving wild stock plants.

India is also trading forest products, mainly herbal medicinal compounds. Around 90% of

Indian plants are medicinal in action and are mainly collected from forests. Thus conservation

of available wild flora is important not only for nutritional but also for medicinal purposes. It

is observed that plant health is always connected to the health of crop plants only. But in



reality food and health security can be assured for mankind by protecting and conserving

forest flora. This is possible by strategic management of all bio-resources and sustainable use

of natural commodities by all people. For this purpose, mass communication should be

carried out through awareness programmes involving farmers and tribal people.

The year 2020 has been declared as „International Year of Plant Health‟ by The Food and

Agriculture Organization (FAO). It is an opportunity to celebrate the health of all green plants

which are an indispensable component of human life. Since ages, plants have provided us with several

products, a safe environment and economic benefits. Therefore in the current scenario, all tribal

communities, farmers, academicians, scientists, industrialists, consumers and NGOs are real

stakeholders who can undertake responsibility of plant health for the sustenance of the human

race.

REFERENCES

1. 2020 International year of plant health. (December 2019). Retrieved on 20 February

2020, https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/2020-international-year-

plant-health

2. Fall armyworm attack: deadliest pest epidemic grips India. (26 February 2019).

Retrieved on 20 February 2020,

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/agriculture/fall-armyworm-attack-deadliest-

pest-epidemic-grips-india-63372

3. India. Retrieved on 20 February 2020, https://www.iucn.org/asia/countries/india

4. Madhusudhan, L. (2015). Agriculture Role on Indian Economy. Business and Economics

Journal, 6:176.

5. Major crop disease outbreaks: Disease epidemics are an on-going concern. Retrieved on

20 February 2020, http://2blades.org/major-crop-disease-outbreaks

6. Meenakshi S. (27 March 2018). State of Global Biodiversity. Retrieved on 20 February

2020,

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/feature/live-sustainably-for-biodiversity-s-sake-60034

7. Zoe Schlanger. (18 September 2019). The global demand for palm oil is driving the fires

in Indonesia. Retrieved on 20 February 2020,

ttps://qz.com/1711172/the-global-demand-for-palm-oil-is-driving-the-fires-in-indonesia/

https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/2020-international-year-plant-health

https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/2020-international-year-plant-health

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/agriculture/fall-armyworm-attack-deadliest-pest-epidemic-grips-india-63372

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/agriculture/fall-armyworm-attack-deadliest-pest-epidemic-grips-india-63372

https://www.iucn.org/asia/countries/india

http://2blades.org/major-crop-disease-outbreaks

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/feature/live-sustainably-for-biodiversity-s-sake-60034

https://qz.com/1711172/the-global-demand-for-palm-oil-is-driving-the-fires-in-indonesia/



DOMESTICATION OF RICE: VARIETIES AND UTILITY

Vinda Manjramkar Department of Zoology, VPM‟s B.N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane (W) 400601,


[email protected]

INTRODUCTION

Man lived a nomadic life for many years, ate raw plants and the flesh of other animals. The

idea of domestication of plants and animals would have aroused the evolution of the brain in

man. The need to satisfy hunger without much exertion, there by then the switching on the

lazy, selfish gene in humans must have been the contributing factor for the domestication of

plants. The nomadic where the traders, hunter- gatherer, pastoral who finally settled on river

banks (as of Indus valley civilization, rivers are cradles of civilization) (Bates et al., 2017),

the Neolithic human ancestors about 3,00,000 B.C eventually settled, transformed the culture

from hunting, food gathering to farming and domesticating plants and animals. Thus, the era

of domestication of plants and animals began with cultivation of rye, paddy (rice) and many

more.

It is well set that domestication of plants beginning in the Middle East with grains of Rye

localized phenomenon may be a step towards domestication. The Neolithic crop founders or

domesticators. A crop wild relative (CWR) is a wild plant closely related to a domesticated

plant, whose geographic origins can be traced to regions known as Vavilov Centers (named

for the pioneering botanist Nikolai Vavilov). Genetic material from CWRs has been utilized

by humans for thousands of years to improve the quality and yield of crops. 29% of wild

relative plant species were completely missing from the world‟s genebanks, with a further

24% represented by fewer than 10 samples. Over 70% of all crop wild relative species

worldwide were in urgent need of further collecting to improve their representation in

genebanks.

CONTEXT

Rice is a very important dietary constituent not only in India or east Asian countries but all

over the world. Rice is the seed of the grass species Oryza glaberrima (African rice) (Linares

Olga, 2002) or Oryza sativa (Asian rice), as a cereal grain. All the continents have their own

varieties of rice. It is a tropical to subtropical crop which requires high rains, water logging



in the field and high temperature. Rice is self-pollinating grass, pollen grains are very

sensitive to high temperature.

Given the title of auspiosity, traditionally every ritual of Hindus starts with grains of rice right

from before birth to after death events, domestication of rice is unknown? Humans must have

intentionally planted around some 8000 to 9000 years ago. They would have sorted out plants

with desirable traits and thus the journey of rice began. Rice is one of the earliest cereals

known to human civilization. Tracing the history of rice , wild varieties known as Oryza

rufipogon and O. nivara (Phillips et al., 2017) chromosome number 2n 24, both Asian wild

grasses most closely related to O. sativa. Common Asian rice is a sinewy, weedy plant. O.

sativa has 2n 24 chromosomes, and can be easily genetically modified.

There are a lot of rice varieties locally cultivated by tribals of the world, however tribals of

Thane, Palghar districts cultivate rice varieties which are ready for harvest in 60 days. The

first seeds are offered to deity goddess “Gauri Parvati'' during Ganpati festival in the month

of Bhadrapada, kheer (sweet dish) of new rice harvested is offered. Locally this rice is called

“kali kudai.” Also another variety called Rajghudya both can enhance lactation in

breastfeeding mothers. “Wada kolam” is another variety locally harvested. Indian coastal

region has a special variety of rice called “khar bhaat”, rice grown near estuaries that can

withstand salinity is harvested in 80 to 100 days, it has salty taste and is consumed with fish

curries locally. This variety yield is low.

Each type of rice has its own taste, texture, and unique properties that work well with

different cooking applications. The two subspecies of Asian rice, Indica and Japonica, can

generally be distinguished by length and stickiness. Indica rice is long-grained and non-

sticky, while Japonica is short-grained, thick and glutinous, together they have over 40,000

varieties. The long grain like basmati has a fragrance that is fluffy and light, cuisines like

pulao, biryanis are prepared with this variety. This variety is used in west Asia, North India,

and is also cultivated in this region. Less rice eating population areas, they prefer wheat over

rice. India is the largest exporter in Basmati rice. The semi dwarf basmati varieties like Pusa

Basmati can be cultivated in other parts of the country. Medium grain is less fluffy, a bit

sticky on cooking. Short grain is sticky on cooking. The medium and short grain go well with

curries of fish or vegetables, largely consumed in coastal India, and southeast Asia. Some

medium varieties also have aromas like Indrayani from Pune district. Parboiled rice is short

grain proceeded in milling used in south India. Brown Rice sheds its outer husk and retains



its bran and germ layers that give it a characteristic tan color. Brown rice takes a little longer

to cook than white rice due to the nutrient-dense layers rich in vitamins and minerals.

Forbidden rice rich in nutritional value, this rice is also known as black rice and has a mild

nutty flavor. Slightly sticky on cooking, it is used in a variety of Chinese or Thai dishes. Wild

Rice grains are harvested from the genus Zizania of grasses, high in protein, wild rice adds a

colorfulness. Jasmine Rice, sometimes known as Thai fragrant rice, is a type of long grain

rice with a long kernel, slightly sticky texture. Arborio rice is a medium grain rice that is

wider in size and has a characteristic white dot at the center of the grain from town Arborio in

the Po Valley of Italy, with high starch content, it has a slightly chewy and sticky consistency

and develops a creamy texture when cooked.

There is always a co-evolution of pest and host, thus even the rice no exception for this,

major diseases of Rice (Oryza sativa), are by bacteria, fungus, insects, land crab, they cut the

plant from base with chelicerae (these crabs are specifically threat to paddy fields in some

districts of Maharashtra) can destroy whole field in just one night.

There are lots of local rice varieties from ancient times also having medicinal values in the

area where it is cultivated, like fermented rice water with kojic acid used to treat hair and

skin. Fermented rice paste is applied on the face as a face pack.

Rice wine is traditionally consumed in east Asia, India, preparation techniques may differ. It

is naturally loaded with a variety of probiotics, conferring health benefits on the host. Rice

wine typically has an alcohol, which may vary from varieties to technique used in

fermentation on average it can range between 18-25 percent ABV. Rice beer is used as

adjunct in certain medicinal preparations. Sake rice beer from Japan is well known. The

Tangkhul tribe in the east of Manipur is well known for its varieties of beer. „Xaaj Pani‟ of

the Ahoms (royal family) from Arunachal Pradesh. Handia (Also handi or hadiya) is a rice

beer originating from the Indian subcontinent, popular in the Indian states of Bihar,

Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.

Lot of Indian dishes have rice as an ingredient. The kheer wherein the rice is coarsely

powdered with sugar, milk, dry fruits, is a sweet dish served on occasions of festivals or after

death ceremonies (dry fruits not added). Feerni is Mughal version consumed in a cold and

slightly solid form. Porridge is prepared from roasted rice with little carom seeds as baby

food or to sick person incorporated with mashed vegetables. Anarsa is an Indian pastry (net

like, crispy), made in Diwali made from fermented rice jaggery and poppy seed, fried in



ghee. Rice breads, rice cakes, momos, over hundreds of dishes can be prepared with rice as

the basic ingredient.

Rice is important food, it is also undeniably integral to Indian religious ceremonies and our

social framework. Present in most prayer rituals, oblation to God and devotees alike, more or

less every regional food culture in India counts rice as important. The annual calendar of

festivals has many celebrations based on the harvest cycle of rice. There are folklores and

songs sung during sowing and harvesting. Every religious ceremony starts with tilak

(vermilion and rice applied on forehead) with akshat (rice grains). Breaking of any Hindu

fast is done by the first morsel of rice (bhaat called as dal bhatt). Buddhist venerate rice as

Siddhartha (Lord Buddha) was saved after feeding on Kheer immediately after his

enlightenment. In Java and Bali the goddess of rice is called “Dewi sri”. In India rice is

incarnated with goddess Lakshmi (Asia Folklore, 2015), Japanese folk incarnate it with sun

god. In Christianity, rice signifies spiritual prosperity, attainment of knowledge, purity and

long life. In Islam Zakatul Fitrah donation rice or any other grain, dates, during the holy

month of Ramadan.

Also, after death rituals the raw rice finds place in the mouth of the corpse before cremation

while the plain cooked rice is used in funeral rites and pitru paksha. Ceremonies to appease

restless spirits and ancestors. The cooked rice should be eaten by crows.

New varieties of Rice

The GM rice is called Golden Rice Technology. A japonica variety of rice was engineered

with three genes necessary for the rice grain to produce and store beta-carotene which

included two genes from the daffodil plant and a third from a bacterium. Researchers used a

plant microbe to ferry in the genes into the plant cells. There were a lot of controversies and

protests for golden rice production.

A group of Indian scientists has developed a new salt-tolerant transgenic rice plant by over-

expressing a gene from a wild rice called Porteresia coarctata into the commonly used IR 64

indica rice variety. Porteresia coarctata is a native of India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and

Myanmar and is grown mainly in saline estuaries.

Saudi Arabia is growing a rice variety which is the most expensive in the world. The

“Hassawi Red Rice” (Al-Mssallem et al., 2011) grows in hot areas as high as 48 Celsius and



needs more water compared to other varieties. The water supplied by irrigation. The rice has

rich nutritional value.

CONCLUSION

Rice brings all human beings together on common ground. Rice is undeniably historic and

religious. It is a comparatively simple process to cook rice, the only requirement is boiling

water. Woman folk can do other household tasks while rice is cooking, it also requires only

one utensil with a lid (optional). Handful rice can feed many hungry stomachs. It is wonder

cereal a gift from nature

REFERENCES

1. Bates, J., Petrie, C. A. and Singh, R. N. (2017). "Approaching rice domestication in

South Asia: New evidence from Indus settlements in northern India". Journal of

Archaeological Science, 78: 193–201. 10.1016/j.jas.2016.04.018. ISSN 0305-4403.

2. Linares, Olga F. (2002). "African rice (Oryza glaberrima): History and future

potential". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 99 (25): 16360–

16365.:10.1073/pnas.252604599. ISSN 1091-6490. PMC 138616. PMID 12461173.

3. Phillips, J., Yang, L. and Vaughan, D. (2017). "Oryza nivara". IUCN Red List of

Threatened Species.. T112680564A113899490. :

10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017.RLTS.T112680564A113899490.en

4. Asia FOLKLORE. History Plant use TRAVEL, 2015.

5. Al-Mssallem, M. Q., Hampton, S. M., Frost, G. S. and Brown, J. E. (2011). A study

of Hassawi rice (Oryza sativa L.) in terms of its carbohydrate hydrolysis (in vitro) and

glycaemic and insulinaemic indices (in vivo). Eur J Clin Nutr 65: 627–634.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440316300322



https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.jas.2016.04.018

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISSN_(identifier)

https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0305-4403

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC138616





https://doi.org/10.1073%2Fpnas.252604599

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISSN_(identifier)

https://www.worldcat.org/issn/1091-6490

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMC_(identifier)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMID_(identifier)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12461173

https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/112680564/113899490





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN_Red_List



https://doi.org/10.2305%2FIUCN.UK.2017-3.RLTS.T112680564A113899490.en

https://www.earthstoriez.com/category/asia/

https://www.earthstoriez.com/category/folklore/

https://www.earthstoriez.com/category/history/

https://www.earthstoriez.com/category/plant_use/

https://www.earthstoriez.com/category/travel/



PLANT HEALTH MONITORING USING IoT: SMART OPTIONS FOR

INDIAN FARMERS

Moitreyee Saha

Department of Botany, VPM‟s Bandodkar College of Science, Thane (W)-400 601


[email protected]

INTRODUCTION

Agriculture is an important sector in the Indian economy. It is the largest source of livelihood

as 70 percent of the rural population in India are engaged in agriculture and its allied

branches. Indian agriculture has registered impressive growth over the last few decades. It

contributes about 17% to the total GDP. The exponential growth of population has however,

marginalized the advances made in the agricultural sector.

Modernization in the agriculture sector has helped farmers increase production and prevent

crop losses due to pests, diseases, climatic changes etc. Healthy plants which are free from

disease are important for profitable crop production however, plant health needs to be

monitored constantly. Traditional methods to monitor the plant health are tiresome, time-

consuming and labour intensive. Indian farmers are adopting precision farming methods in

agriculture to implement modern technology to the time tested traditional know-how. The

Internet of things (IoT) has brought a huge impact on agriculture and has opened up a new

era in the monitoring of plant health.

CONTEXT

Healthy plants are vital for agriculture. If crops remain healthy, it results in profitable

production. Healthy plants ascertain sustainable growth in face of environmental stress, pests

and various plant diseases. Agriculture is the mainstay of Indian economy. A series of

successful agricultural revolutions has put India on the roadmap to self-sufficiency. However,

the sheen of spectacular growth in agriculture has gradually diminished as the productivity

levels of several crops remain unsatisfactory. Plant health remains a major concern; thus

monitoring plant health becomes crucial.

Indian farmers traditionally practise intensive farming to get maximum yield from available

land. They depend on the monsoon cycle for major crops and use various kinds of chemical

fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides to increase production. Increased production is also

accredited to improved pest and disease management strategies which include early detection,



monitoring the disease, better understanding of various pathogens and the use of different

control measures.

Modernization, mechanization and increased investments in agricultural infrastructure are

transforming the agriculture sector in India. Indian farmers have started adopting different

modern techniques like the precision farming methods in agriculture. Information technology

plays a key role in precision agriculture. It enables farmers to collect information and data for

better decision making. Precision agriculture is a proactive approach that reduces some of the

risks and liabilities common to agriculture. Precision agriculture is an umbrella concept for

IoT-based approaches where decisions made by farmers are based on data determined by

machines with superhuman accuracy. With IoT, there is no guesswork as precision farming

involves sensors. Farmers monitor various conditions like humidity, soil pH, soil moisture,

water level, light, relative humidity with the help of IoT.

The Internet of Things (IoT) was first developed in 1999 by the network radio frequency

identification (RFID) system proposed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Auto-ID Labs (Sarma et al., 2019). The IoT roadmap is towards a smart future. It has a wide

range of applications and has covered and reached almost every sphere of human life, be it

health care, smart home, smart city, environmental monitoring, industry, agriculture and so

on.

Agriculture is an ideal candidate for the deployment of IoT solutions because it occurs in

wide areas that need to be continuously monitored and controlled (Islam et al., 2015, Asghari

et al., 2019). IoT technology is playing an important role in various areas of protected

agriculture as it is capable of helping farmers monitor soil condition, climate change and

animal and plant health (Dlodlo and Kalezhi, 2015).

With the development of agricultural sensors, wireless communication, cloud computing,

machine learning, artificial intelligence, drone based imaging and big data technologies,

agriculture is seeing rapid changes in farming techniques. Proximity sensing is used for high-

resolution data in soil testing. Proximity sensing requires sensors to be in contact with soil or

in close proximity. Remote sensing is used where sensors are built into airborne systems and

it helps in soil characterization. Cognitive IoT solutions can sense all this data and provide

insights to farmers. The data can be accessed remotely by farmers.



In precision farming, computer vision technology, IoT and drone images generate data to

ensure swift decisions taken by farmers. This has helped farmers in disease identification at

an early stage, pest identification, nutrient deficiency recognition and more. Detection of

plant disease by naked eyes does not provide accurate results especially during the early

stages. Mohammad et al., worked on image processing techniques to detect leaf diseases

accurately. It was done in five phases - image acquisition, preprocessing of the acquired

image, feature extraction, classification of the diseases and displaying the result. A detailed

survey about classification of the agricultural diseases by using the Support Vector Machine

classifier has been provided (Mohammad et al., 2016).

Optimal use of pesticides is possible if plant disease is detected at an early stage. This

requires continuous monitoring which is expensive and time consuming. Rothe and

Kshirsagar stated that image processing techniques are used as an effective way to recognize

and classify the plant leaf diseases quickly (Rothe and Kshirsagar, 2014).

Plant diseases seriously affect the quantity and quality of agricultural products. Manual plant

disease detection is tedious, as it requires vigilance and is work and labour intensive.

Detection of plant diseases using IoT provides promising steps towards sustainable

agriculture. An automated system detects the presence of disease in the plants using sensors

like temperature, humidity and colour parameters. Islam et al., integrated image processing

and machine learning to allow diagnosis of diseases from leaf images. This automated

method could classify potato plant diseases based on an open source plant image database

called `Plant Village'. They demonstrated disease classification of over 300 images with an

accuracy of 95%. Thus, IoT presents a path toward automated plant diseases diagnosis on a

massive scale (Islam et al., 2017). Cameras in the IoT system are able to capture crop

diseases and insect pests in the greenhouse in real time, helping farmers find problems and

take targeted preventive measures (Ma et al., 2015).

Pavel et al., proposed a Raspberry Pi based IoT device which sends images of plants to

classify diseases and updates environmental parameters like air temperature, humidity, soil

moisture and pH in a MySQL database in real-time. Multi-class support vector machine

(SVM) is applied to categorize diseases using fourteen types of features of color, texture and

shape obtained when implementing gray level co-occurrence matrix where the system was

able to classify with an accuracy of 97.33% (Pavel et al., 2019).



Image processing uses algorithms where images are imported as inputs and the output could

be another image or features associated with the input image. It performs machine learning

and artificial intelligence operations on an image, in order to extract some useful information

from it. IoT and image processing in combination assist to increase crop yield and reduce the

chances of crop failure. In plant leaf classification, leaf is classified based on its different

morphological features. Advanced machine learning algorithms like Neural Networks,

Genetic Algorithm, Support Vector Machine, Principal Component Analysis & K-nearest

neighbour classifiers have been used in plant health study. Plant diseases classification has a

wide application in agriculture.

Akkas and Sokullu explained about the system based on IoT for measuring the humidity level

in Real time (Akkas and Sokullu, 2017). Srinidhi Siddagangaiah reported that by sensing all

the factors related to growth, farmers could get data related to the factors affecting plant

health (Siddagangaiah, 2016). Phalke et al., described the IoT components, use of IoT in

agriculture and how it benefits farmers (Phalke et al., 2017). Kuruva and Balumuri used

Raspberry Pi and other sensors to monitor temperature and humidity (Kuruva and Balumuri,

2016). IoT enabled agriculture has helped bridge the gap between quality and quantity of

crop yield. In IoT enabled agriculture, data inputs from multiple sensors in real-time and

storage in a database has ensured swift action and less damage to crops. With seamless end to

end intelligent operations, IoT-enabled agriculture allows farmers to monitor plant health in

real-time.

REFERENCES

1. Akkaş M. A. and Sokullu, R. (2017). “An IoT-based greenhouse monitoring system

with Micaz motes”, Procedia Computer Science, 113: 603-608.

2. Asghari P., Rahmani A.M., Javadi H.H.S. (2018). Internet of Things applications: A

systematic review. Computer Networks. 148:241–261. 10.1016/j.comnet.2018.12.008.

Sciences, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 427432, 2014.

3. Dlodlo, N. and Kalezhi, J. (2015). The internet of things in agriculture for sustainable

rural development; Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Emerging

Trends in Networks and Computer Communications (ETNCC); Windhoek, Namibia.

17–20 May 2015; pp. 13–18.

4. Islam, M., Anh Dinh, Wahid, K. and Bhowmik, P. (2017). Detection of potato

diseases using image segmentation and multiclass support vector machines. 2017

IEEE 30th Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering (CCECE),

Windsor, ON,, pp. 1-4.



5. Islam, S. R., Kwak, D., Kabir, M. H., Hossain, M. and Kwak, K.S. (2015). The

internet of things for health care: A comprehensive survey. IEEE Access., 3:678–708

6. Kuruva, H. and Balumuri, S. (2016). “Remote plant watering and monitoring system

based on IOT”, Int. J. Technol. Res. Eng., 4: 668-671

7. Ma, J., Li, X., Wen, H., Fu, Z. and Zhang, L. A (2015). Key frame extraction method

for processing greenhouse vegetables production monitoring video. Comput. Electron.

Agric.;111: 92–102.

8. Mohammad, M. B., Srujana,R. N., Jyothi,A. J. N. and Sundari, P. B. T. (2016).

Disease identification in plants using K-means clustering and gray scale matrices with

SVM classifier. International Journal of Applied Sciences Engineering and

Management, 05, (02): 84 - 88.

9. Pavel, M. I., Kamruzzaman, S. M., Hasan, S. S. and Sabuj, S. R. (2019). An IoT

Based Plant Health Monitoring System Implementing Image Processing. IEEE 4th

International Conference on Computer and Communication Systems (ICCCS),

Singapore, pp. 299-303.

10. Phalke, R., Tejal, R., Gauri, S. and Komal, J. (2017). “IOT based plant monitoring”,

International Journal of Research In Science & Engineering, 7:1-11.

11. Rothe, P. R. and Kshirsagar, R. V. (2014). SVM based classifier system for

recognition of cotton leaf diseases. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in

Computational and Applied Sciences, 7(4):. 427 - 432.

12. Sarma, S., David, L.B. and Kevin, J.A. The Networked Physical World Proposals for

Engineering the Next Generation of Computing, Commerce & Automatic-

Identification. Availableonline:https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-

Networked-Physical-World-Proposals-for-the-Next-Sarma-

Brock/88b4a255082d91b3c88261976c85a24f2f92c5c3#paper-header (accessed on 13

April 2019).

13. Siddagangaiah, S. (2016). “A novel approach to IoT based plant health monitoring

system”, International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology, 3 (11):880-

886.

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Networked-Physical-World-Proposals-for-the-Next-Sarma-Brock/88b4a255082d91b3c88261976c85a24f2f92c5c3#paper-header



INSIGHT - VIEWPOINT


MINITAB: A STATISTICAL TOOL

Statistical analysis is a study of collecting, organizing, interpreting and presenting data.

Statistic applications span over sciences, arts, medicine, management, engineering and so on.

Statistics which is a widely used scientific tool has excelled greatly due to ease in running

analyses and computing other statistical measures using computer applications like MS

Excel, Minitab, SPSS, SAS, etc.

Minitab Statistical Software revolutionized statistics and helped students see data analysis not

as a hurdle, but a relevant and vital tool. „Minitab‟ is a statistical software that uses graphical

interface to create statistical analysis easy to use and interpret. Minitab was developed by

Barbara F. Ryan, Thomas A. Ryan, Jr., and Brian L. Joiner in 1972 at the Pennsylvania State

University. Minitab is an interactive tool mainly used for coaching statistics. It is concerned

with the analyzing of research information and gives an extensive range of statistical

equipment and simple graphs. Minitab is flexible software and offers a brief and effective

solution wherein high degree of evaluation is required. All these practical applications have

resulted in Minitab gaining importance for educational curriculum across the universities. By

reducing the quantity of heavy computation necessary to create statistical inferences, Minitab

gave students more time to think about what their analyses mean. Statistics education has not

been the same since.

Its creators laid out four immediate benefits to learning statistics with Minitab:

• Eliminating computational drudgery helped students grasp the important concepts without

getting lost in a mass of details.

• A large number of real datasets could be studied, enhancing students‟ ability to transfer

textbook knowledge to practical situations.

• Plotting the data in a variety of ways became standard operating procedure.

• Simulation could be used as a learning tool.

Minitab covers statistics needed to analyze quality improvement data, including Basic

Statistics, Control Charts, Process Capability, ANOVA, DOE (Design of Experiments) and

more. These built-in templates promote greater speed and accuracy.

The need for analysts with expertise in big data software is becoming more apparent in

today‟s society. Unfortunately, the demand for these analysts far exceeds the number

available. Therefore, learning with Minitab gives graduates an edge in the job market,

because Minitab is also the leading software used in quality improvement initiatives in

business and industry.

Nikhil Bhangale

IASSC Six Sigma Black Belt Professional

[email protected]

INSIGHT - VIEWPOINT


ARE WE CHANGING THE UNIVERSE?

The universe is ever-changing, but human unnatural activities may alter it to an „unnatural

way‟. It is evident from the fact that with the advent of science and technology humans have

changed our mother earth to a very deteriorating status which ultimately contributes to the

universe. For instance, on one fine rainy day if a man is driving a car…..he should collect

more raindrops on the windscreen of a speeding car which otherwise would fall on the

ground in a natural manner.

The raindrops collected by the speeding car‟s windscreen would certainly change the

property of our universe although it might be the tiniest of its kind. But this may contribute to

a cumulative change in the universe with unknown consequences. Similarly, any act of

humans in an unnatural way is contributing to a change in the universe which is not of its

attribute. In other words the change in the world caused by human unnatural ways will

undeniably disturb the Euclidean Distance Matrix feature of this universe which might

change the ultimatum in the future.

Sudesh D. Rathod

M. Sc. Ph.D. (Zoology)

Head, Department of Zoology

VPM’s B. N. Bandodkar College of Science,

Thane-400601 (MS)

[email protected]

INSIGHT - VIEWPOINT


EFFECT OF SEASONAL VARIATION ON IN VITRO CULTURE

STUDIES OF LAWSONIA INERMIS L.

Lawsonia inermis L. (Henna) is commonly used in cosmetology. There is huge demand for

henna in the local as well as global market. Due to increased demand for henna there has

been indiscriminate uprooting of plants and mass collection of henna leaves by various small

scale and large scale industries which has made the plant less conspicuous. To fulfill this

demand in vitro culture studies were practiced. The plant requires warm temperature

conditions for better production of dye content in the leaves.

The main problem occurs for in vitro culture studies during the rainy season. During the rainy

season i.e from month July to October, bacterial infection was observed on leaf explants. The

leaf shows black spots on both surfaces. When such leaves were used for in vitro studies it

shows bacterial contamination. The microbial study of these infected leaves shows that the

black spots were caused by Xanthomonas lawsoniae. In the winter season (November -

February) the plant is infected by a fungus Asterina lawsoniae. During this period the

infected leaves are shed and new leaves start to grow, but these new leaves are very delicate

and can not be used for in vitro studies. Both the infections i.e. bacterial as well as fungal can

not be cured by any chemical treatments given during inoculation. Therefore only summer

season is suitable for in vitro culture studies of Lawsonia inermis L.

Snehal Bhangale

Department of Botany,

VPM’s B. N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane

[email protected]

INSIGHT - VIEWPOINT


LIFESTYLE ADDICTION: STRUGGLE OF MIND WITH VIRTUAL

WORLD

It‟s not an unknown term but yes commonly seen and new in the current situation. So; what

is lifestyle addiction? Nowadays we see people sticking to social media ; flaunting on social

media and trying to make themselves a statement on social media ... that is lifestyle

addiction...

Especially kids nowadays try to underline their image “ social image “ through this social

media. How they appear on their Instagram; snapchat is very important to them. They choose

friends to follow trends to make themselves famous and known. Everyone wants to be a

trendsetter. But what‟s the reality; is everything seen, shown and followed is real? Is it a

reality? How can everyone live such a lavish, happy and satisfied life? Are they really happy?

Major struggles faced by these people in lifestyle addiction is...

A) having happy face ... show smile; happiness always

B) showing luxury... it has to be branded ; high profiled and 5 star always..

C) having followers... known or unknown.. more followers more famous you are

D) trend setter... constant pressure of being unique and different...

E) perfect life..... it‟s a struggle of showing a perfect and happy life...

In all these struggles we are struggling with the dilemma of real and unreal friends; can‟t cry

and majorly can‟t express the real feelings and conflicts. Most of the population is also

struggling with depression; anxiety and a lot of personality disorder in this conflict. Lot of

them are unaware ; insecure and happy faces are struggling inside. Depression; anxiety is

more than staying quiet. It‟s more than crying. It‟s more than staying alone.

The people looking happy in a five minute feed can also be lonely and sad for the rest of the

time. So for the same reason it‟s important to have few real friends and more followers;

someone to talk to rather than someone just to make a feed. We already know our talents and

strengths make them real and more than just a feed. Accept your conflict; accept your bad

side .. talk out and accept the real you... because real you is far more beautiful than virtual

you!!!

Shruti Desai

Clinical forensic psychologist

Behavioural therapist

REBT practitioner

[email protected]

INSIGHT - VIEWPOINT


EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE TIME OF COVID CRISIS

The COVID pandemic issue has put us in a helpless position where the only reflex action a

person shows is to switch on the survival mode, though anxiety, frustration, and losing self-

control are some side effects of such immediate approach. The current situation demands a

more responsible behavior towards oneself and others. The attributes required in such

conditions is to stay calm, positive, and aware of our surroundings, i.e. to measure and

manage our emotional intelligence.

Polishing our emotional intelligence must be the topmost concerns now, so that in the future

if one faces such circumstances, he will tide through it with few hiccups. A whole new level

of thoughtfulness is the need of the hour. Practicing self-awareness, empathy, identifying and

understanding people‟s behavior, managing one‟s mental health, etc., are some key

characteristics of a person with a good mental well-being. Let discretion be the key to filter

out all negative thoughts and depressing emotions out of the box. It is a question of the

human race; we need to pull ourselves together. Instead of fighting alone let's embark upon

the journey mutually, conquer our fear and triumph through the crisis with our optimistic and

supreme mental health.

Chetana Santosh Shetty

Research Scholar,


VPM’s B. N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane

[email protected]

INSIGHT - VIEWPOINT


HIVE – MINDED MICROBES AROUND US

Imagine a large number of people with a unified consciousness, making collective decisions

and efforts for the sustenance and betterment of the entire population. This scenario is

frequently used in comic book stories and even in some science fiction movies, called as a

“HIVE-MINDED” population. It may appear to be purely fictional, yet such populations do

exist in nature. Certain insects exhibit swarm intelligence e.g. Honey bees, ants, termites, etc.

in their case, population behavior is governed by the priorities and interests of the QUEEN.

However, there are many microorganisms who also exhibit such hive-minded collective

intelligence.

One such very interesting example is Volvox, one of the 7 wonders of the microbial world.

Volvox is a commonly found freshwater green algae, abundant in eutrophic water. The

individual cell is pear-shaped and motile, due to the presence of the 2 flagella. The adjacent

cells are connected to each other via the cytoplasmic bridges to form a perfect sphere-shaped

colony. Due to the flagella pointing outwards, the sphere is constantly in motion, rotating

around a somewhat fixed axis, just like a typical planetary body. The entire sphere moves

around in the search of light, as one single organism. Another interesting fact is that for each

species, the total number of cells in the sphere is constant, ranging from 500 to 50000.

Another fascinating (commonly found) microorganism is Dictyostelium, a type of slime

mould . Individually, they are unicellular amoeba-like cells, sliding around in search of

moisture, shade and food. When the food material from the environment depletes, the

population undergoes rapid changes. Just like a typical hive-mind, all the cells of the

population aggregate at one point towards the center. These cells then pile up one above the

other, eventually forming a spore dispersing body, the sporangium, which germinates when

conditions revert to favourable once again.

Such organisms have been subject to intense study and are still inspiring future researchers.

Aditya Mhatre


VPM’s B.N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane (W) – 400601,

Affiliated to University of Mumbai

[email protected]

RESEARCH ARTICLES


EFFECT OF ORGANIC FERTILIZERS ON PIGMENT CONTENT AND

COOKING TIME OF BHINDI

A. Mhatre and V. Jamdhade Department of Botany, VPM‟s B.N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane (W) – 400601,

Affiliated to University of Mumbai

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is becoming more and more difficult due to its

increasing cost and probable harmful effects on crops as well as human health. This is the

reason many farmers nowadays are opting organic farming. As a result, organic fertilizers

and pesticides are more in demand. The current research evaluates the efficacy of 3 easily

available organic fertilizers including Beej Sanjeevani (as a seed treating agent), Humaur

(foliar spray) and Myceemeal (soil fertilizer). The crop used was Abelmoschus esculentus L.

Moench Var. Parbhani Kranti, commonly known as Okra or Bhindi. The effect of these

fertilizers is determined by comparison of the Chlorophyll and β-Carotene content in treated

and untreated plants, as well as cooking time taken by the pods of the treated and untreated

plants. For determining the cooking time, four common methods of cooking were employed-

deep fry, shallow fry, baking and steaming.

It was found that Humaur foliar spray gave the best results in terms of the pigment content as

well as the cooking times, followed by Beej Sanjeevani seed treatment. Their results were

also found out to be statistically significant, when compared to the control. Myceemeal and

Myceemeal in combination with Humaur and Beej Sanjeevani, however performed poorly in

the tests.

Keywords : Bhindi, Chlorophyll-a, Chlorophyll-b, β-Carotene, Retinol Equivalent

INTRODUCTION

Okra or Bhindi is also called lady‟s finger (Abelmoschus esculentus L. Moench) belongs to

the family Malvaceae. It is cultivated as a vegetable and is a favourable dish in Indian meals.

It is grown mostly for its tender green fruits which are cooked in various ways dehydrated or

used as salad food (Abusaleha and Shanmugavenu, 1988).

Nowadays, the availability of farm yard manures is very poor and the cost of fertilizers is also

increasing day by day. Since the chemical fertilizers are costly and also their shortage is

experienced many times, it was thought necessary to study whether different seed treatment,

hormones, biofertilizers, can enhance growth, yield and crop productivity of okra or bhindi

by applying chemical fertilizers with reduced dose (Jamdhade & Joshi, 1998).

RESEARCH ARTICLES


In a view of the significance of okra as a vegetable crop, the present research experiment was

planned to find out the effect of crop productivity of various fertilizers available easily in the

market. This research was set in the following objectives

1. To study physiological changes of bhindi by treating the seeds with Beej

Sanjeevani (seed fortification).

2. To study physiological changes of bhindi by applying foliar application of

Humaur.

3. To study physiological changes of bhindi by application of Myceemeal.

4. To study application of Humaur, treating seeds with Beej Sanjeevani and

Myceemeal can increase the crop productivity.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

To study the crop productivity under the influence of various fertilizers of bhindi

(Abelmoschus esculentus L. Moench) var. Parbhani Kranti. All experiments were conducted

at Botanical Garden, Government Institute of Science, Aurangabad. The Field was laid out in

randomised block design.

Type of field treatment (T)

T1: control (100 N : 50 P2O5 : 50 K2O kg/ha)

T2: control + Humaur 2ml/l

T3: control + Humaur 3ml/l

T4: control + Beej Sanjeevani (seed treatment)

T5: control + Myceemeal 500kg/acre

T6: Beej Sanjeevani (seed treatment) + Humaur 2ml/l + Myceemeal 500kg/acre

The spacing between adjacent rows was adjusted to 0.6 cm whereas the spacing between

adjacent plants was around 0.3 cm. Urea was used as a Nitrogen source, whereas super

phosphate and murate of potash were used as phosphorus and potassium source respectively.

2 seeds were planted per hill 0.3 cm apart. The seeds were hand dibbled, immediately after

which, thiamate at 10kg/ha is applied and covered with soil as a plant protection measure.

RESEARCH ARTICLES


Plot layout

Sr. no.

Replication

Row 1 Row 2 Row 3 Row 4

1 T1 T3 T5 T4

3 T3 T5 T4 T2

4 T5 T1 T3 T5 2.20m

5 T6 T4 T1 T3

4.20 m

Plot size: 4.20 × 2.20 m

Treatments: 6

Replications: 4

Design: Randomised Block Design (RBD)

Sr. no. Type of study undertaken Frequency Harvesting time

1 Chlorophyll content of

leaves

2 At 50 days and 70 days since sowing

2 β-Carotene content of leaves 1 At 50 days since sowing

3 Cooking time of pods 1 Harvested pods

1) CHLOROPHYLL CONTENT OF LEAVES

Chlorophyll content in freshly expressed juice at 50 and 70 days after sowing of seeds was

estimated. It was extracted in prechilled 80% Acetone and observation at 663nm and 643 nm

were read in a spectrophotometer. Using the observation coefficient, the amount of

chlorophyll was calculated.

Procedure:

1. 1g of finely cut and well mixed representative sample of leaves or fruit tissue was

weighed and put in a clean mortar

2. The tissue was grinded to a fine pulp with addition of 20 ml of 80% acetone

3. It was centrifuged at 5ooo rpms for 5 minutes. The supernatant was transferred to a

100ml volumetric flask.

4. The residue was again grinded in 20 ml of 80% acetone and centrifuged, the supernatant

was transferred to the same volumetric flask.

RESEARCH ARTICLES


5. The process was repeated until the residue became colourless. The mortar and pestle

were thoroughly washed with 80% acetone and the washings were collected in the same

volumetric flask.

6. The final volume was adjusted up to 100 ml using 80% acetone.

7. The absorbance of the extract was recorded at 645, 663 and 652 nm against solvent

blank using a spectrophotometer

Calculation:

The Chlorophyll content was estimated using the following equations-

a) mg of Chlorophyll-a per gram of tissue = [12.7 (A663) – 2.69 (A645)] × V 1000×W

b) mg of Chlorophyll-b per gram of tissue = [22.9 (A645) – 4.68 (A663)] × V / 1000×W

c) mg of total Chlorophyll per gram of tissue = [20.2(A645) – 8.02(A663)] × V /

1000×W

where, A is absorbance at particular wavelength, V is the final volume of the extract and W is

the fresh weight of the tissue extracted.

2) β-CAROTENE CONTENT IN LEAVES

Columns were prepared with following dimensions, 2.5 cm diameter and 5 cm height. They

were filled with fine powder prepared by grinding aluminium oxide and sodium sulphate in

equal proportions for 5 cm height.

1 g fresh leaves were grinded using mortar and pestle with 5 ml acetone and 5 ml petroleum

ether to make the pigment extract. 10 ml of this extract was loaded on the column. Pigments

were allowed to pass through the column. Elute was collected having β-Carotene up to 20 ml

with petroleum ether. Optical density was read on the spectrophotometer at 450nm.

β-Carotene in fresh leaves was calculated using following formula

O.D. = 80 µg/g of β-Carotene

3) TIME OF COOKING

a) Shallow fry: This is a dry method of cooking. Fresh pods were chopped in small

cylindrical pieces. As a lubricating layer, 50ml of oil was taken on a preheated pan.

Bhindi pieces were allowed to cook for some time. After completion of cooking,

remaining oil was measured and time taken for cooking was noted down.

RESEARCH ARTICLES


b) Deep fry: Fresh pods were chopped in small cylindrical pieces. 50 ml of oil was taken in

the pan. The time taken for cooking was noted down and the remaining oil after frying

was measured.

c) Baking method: Oven was used for baking. Finely chopped pods were placed in the

baking oven tray with 50 ml oil sprayed on the surface of the bottom of the tray. Baking

oven was adjusted at 90°C. Cooking time was recorded along with a change in colour of

the pods.

d) Steaming method: 100 g of freshly available pods chopped to cylindrical size and were

taken in a boiling pan in which 25 ml water was taken. Gas was used as a source of

energy. Time taken for cooking and change in colour was noted down.

The statistical analysis for all the test results were carried out by the method given by Panse

and Sukhatame (1978).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1. EFFECT ON COOKING TIME OF PODS

The cooking times of fruits of 5 plants in all treatments was measured during the experiment

and are presented and graphically represented.

2. EFFECT OF CHLOROPHYLL AND Β-CAROTENE CONTENT IN LEAVES

The Chlorophyll and β-Carotene from selected plants, average of them were analysed and the

results of the same are presented in the table.

It is evident from the data in the table that is presented in percent increase or decrease over

control. The result obtained during the investigation showed in control plots at the age of 50

days, leaves had 347 mg/kg of Chlorophyll-a, 391 mg/kg Chlorophyll-b and 730 mg/kg of

total Chlorophyll.at the age of 50 days, total chlorophyll content enhanced by 7.90% due to

Humaur over control. Seed treatment with Beej Sanjeevani showed enhancement to the

extent of 6.05 to 7.78% for chlorophyll-a, 3.83 to 9.62% for chlorophyll-b and 3.97 to 5.80%

for total chlorophyll for 50th

and 70th

day stages. However, Myceemeal and Myceemeal with

Humaur foliar spray could not increase chlorophyll-a, chlorophyll-b and total chlorophyll as

compared to control at both stages.

The β-Carotene content in leaves at the stage of 50 days of crop age. It is evident from the

table that vitamin A Retinol Equivalent (RE) ranged from 841.66 to 958.33 per 100 g in

RESEARCH ARTICLES


leaves of plants treated with Humaur and Beej Sanjeevani. However,Myceemeal could not

produce required RE over control.

In bhindi leaves, Chlorophyll-a, b and total chlorophyll in mg/kg showed increase or decrease

over control. Close look in these characters under present investigation clearly indicated that

at 50 and 70 days age of the plant, Humaur foliar spray i.e. T2 treatment showed

Chlorophyll-a content 2.3 to 11.52 mg/kg, chlorophyll-b 10.48 to 11.49 mg/kg and total

chlorophyll 7.7 to 7.94 mg/kg. T4 produced chlorophyll-a 6.05 to 7.78 mg/kg, chlorophyll-b

3.83 to 9.62 and total chlorophyll 3.97 to 5.81 mg/kg. T3 produced chlorophyll-a 2.02 to 5.18

mg/kg, chlorophyll-b 2.13 to 2.32 and total chlorophyll 0.13 to 4.79 mg/kg. Myceemeal in T5

and Myceemeal along with Humaur showed no increase in Chlorophyll-a, b and total

chlorophyll content at any stage. This was because of the non-availability of nutrients.

Vitamin A Retinol Equivalent (RE) observations clearly indicated that the application of

Humaur and Beej Sanjeevani produced enhanced results compared to the control. Myceemeal

as well as Myceemeal in conjugation to Humaur spray and Beej Sanjeevani could not

produce more vitamin A possibly because of non-availability of nutrients. Similar types of

results were recorded by Ries and Houtz, (1980), Dixit (1983), Menon and Srivastava (1984),

Joshi (1995) and Jamdhade and Joshi (1998).

Table 1: Effect of fertilizers on cooking time (mins)

Treatment Deep fry Shallow fry Baking Steaming

T1 6.8 6.9 13.4 5.4

T2 6.3 6.0 11.9 5.0

T3 6.7 6.6 12.2 5.1

T4 6.5 6.2 12.4 5.0

T5 7.0 7.7 13.6 7.1

T6 6.8 7.0 13.8 6.1

S.E. 0.049 0.047 0.078 0.054

C.D. at 5% 0.109 0.104 0.170 0.120

F. (t) level 5.52 38.20 25.43 50.81

RESEARCH ARTICLES


Table 2: Effect of fertilizers on Chlorophyll content mg/g in leaf extract of bhindi (%increase

or decrease over control)

Treatment Chlorophyll-a Chlorophyll-b Total Chlorophyll

50 days 70 days 50 days 70 days 50 days 70 days

T2 2.30 11.52 10.48 11.49 7.94 7.70

T3 2.02 5.18 2.32 2.13 4.79 0.13

T4 6.05 7.78 3.83 9.62 3.97 5.81

T5 -16.71 -7.49 -29.41 -29.41 -22.60 -21.48

T6 -1.44 5.76 -12.27 -5.61 -16.30 -3.24

Table 3: Effect of fertilizers on β-Carotene and Vitamin A content

Treatment β-Carotene content (µg) Vitamin A content (RE/100 g)

T1 5100 875.00

T2 5750 958.33

T3 4700 783.33

T4 5050 841.66

T5 3350 558.33

T6 4350 725.00

CONCLUSION

From the results obtained under present investigation carried out, it may be concluded that

application of Humaur at the rate of 2 ml/l, 3 ml/l in 5 applications was found to be superior

for quality of crop with respect to pigment content and average cooking time. However seed

treatment was found to be second most superior for the quality. Myceemeal as recommended

and in combination of Humaur could not affect growth and also poor results.

REFERENCES

1. Abusaleha and Shanmugavenu, K. (1988). Studies on the effect of organic vs inorganic

sources of nitrogen on growth yield and quality of okra (Abelmoschus esculentus (L.)

Moench). Indian J. Hort., 45(3-4): 312-318.

RESEARCH ARTICLES


2. Chhonkar, V. and Singh, B. (1964). Effect of Gibberlic Acid on growth, yield and quality

of Cabbage. Indian Jour., Hort., 57-67.

3. Dixit, D. (1983, August). A new green revolution in the offering? Business India , pp. 1-

4.

4. Jamdhade, V. M. and Joshi, K. G. (1998). Effect of fertilizer on cauliflower (Brassica

oleracea L.) var. S. B.-16. Role of plant physiology and Bio-technology agriculture and

industry, pp. 14-16. Osamic University, Hyderabad.

5. Joshi, R. N. (1995). Leaf concentrate as the practical source of Vitamin A in human

diets. Botany towards 2000 A.D. , 1-10.

6. Menon, K. and Shrivastava, H. G. (1984). Increasing plant productivity through

improved photosynthesis productivity. Indian Acad. of plant sci., 93(3): 93-198

7. Panse, V. and Sukhatame, P. (1978). Statistical methods for Agricultural workers. ICAR

New Delhi.

8. Ries, S. and Houtz, R. (1980). Triacontance as a plant growth regulator. Hort. Sci., 18(5):

602-654.

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MECHANICAL ANALOG TO ION TRAP

Abhishek. S. Dani, Dewang. M. Sukhadare* and Neha. V. Nandi

Department of Physics, VPM‟s B. N. Bandodkar College of Science,

Chendani Bunder Road, Thane (W) 400 601

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Many students may find visual analogies useful aids to intuition and understanding in more

abstract areas of physical theory, especially when dealing with electricity and magnetism. For

the sake of this project, I will focus on

Studying the analogy of a ball moving on a spinning saddle as a mechanical

representation of an ion in an RF-electric-quadrupole trap.

Running Stimulation in Mathematica of Particular Saddle potential.

3d printing Saddle with known physical aspects.

Building the Electronics Involved to vary speed of Saddle attached to DC motor and

Measure RPM.

Although not a perfect analogue to the RF-electric-quadrupole ion trap, the spinning saddle

has the advantage of being visible, tangible, and easy to manipulate without the need for

complicated equipment.

Keywords: Ion Trap, Rotating Saddle Potential, IR Sensor, AT89S52, 555 Timer

INTRODUCTION

Ion traps allow just this sort of confinement: a charged atom can literally be trapped within a

small radius, allowing more accurate study of its properties. In 1989, Wolfgang Paul received

a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his development of the RF-electric-quadrupole ion

trap. This type of trap is especially useful in determining atomic masses–the trap itself can be

used as a mass spectrometer.

DERIVATION OF ION TRAP POTENTIAL (Paul, 1989)

In order to confine an ion to an area, it is necessary to subject the ion to a restoring force that

will draw it back to the system‟s origin. The simplest example of such a force is analogous to

the spring force and takes the form

F=-cr (1)

where F is the force acting on the ion, r is the position vector of the ion, and c is an arbitrary

constant. Following the derivation of Thompson, Harmon, and Ball [4], I will recall that the

force on a charged particle is proportional to the electric field and integrate (1) to find

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ϕ(x,y,z)=ϕ_0/(2r_0^2 ) (αx^2+βy^2+γz^2 ) (2)

where φ is the electric potential at a given point in the Cartesian plane, φ0 is a constant

defining the magnitude of the potential, r0 is the radius of confinement, and α, β, and γ are

constants that serve to determine the shape of the potential. In order to ensure the negative

sign in (1), it is necessary for α, β, and γ to be positive. Additionally, the application of

Gauss‟ Law to free space requires that the integral of the electric field over a sphere must be

zero. Thus

α+β+γ=0 (3)

It appears impossible to satisfy (3) while still ensuring a trapping potential. There is,

however, still the possibility of an arrangement, as I have not yet attempted to vary the

potential with time. After setting α = −β = 0 and γ = 0, and allowing φ0 to vary sinusoidally

with time, (2) becomes

ϕ(x,y,z,t)=(U_RF cos(Ωt))/(r_0^2 ) (x^2-y^2 ) (4)

where URF is the amplitude of the ac component of the electric field applied to create the

trap, and Ω is the frequency of variation. This field can be visualized as a “flapping saddle”–a

quadrupole potential in which extrema oscillate between being peaks and being valleys. In

order to predict the motion of the ion, Newton‟s laws can be applied to (4) to produce the

following differential equations:

m ⅆ^2/(ⅆt^2 ) x=(-2ⅇU_RF)/(r_0^2 ) cos(Ωt)x (5)

m ⅆ^2/(ⅆt^2 ) y=(-2ⅇU_RF)/(r_0^2 ) cos(Ωt)y (6)

where m is the mass of the ion and e is the electron charge. These equations are of the form

of the Mathieu differential equations and admit stable solutions whenever [4]

|(4ⅇU_RF)/(mr_0^2 Ω^2 )|<0⋅ 908 (7)

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It is interesting to notice that this stability condition is independent of the initial position and

velocity of the trapped ion, depending only on the shape of the trap and the frequency of

oscillation. (Thompson, et al., 2002)

THE SPINNING SADDLE POTENTIAL

In place of the ion moving within an electric quadrupole potential, I will now consider the

problem of a ball moving within a gravitational quadrupole potential of the form

U(x,y)=mgh/(r_0^2 ) (x^2-y^2 ) (8)

where U is the gravitational potential, m is the mass of the particle, g is the acceleration due

to gravity, r0 is the radius of the saddle, and h0 is the maximum height at that radius,

measured from the inflection point of the saddle. It is difficult to create a flapping saddle on

which the ball can move, but the time-dependent potential of a saddle spinning at angular

frequency Ω is similar enough to the flapping potential as to be useful [4].

U(x,y,t)=mgh/(r_0^2 ) [x^2-y^z cos(2Ω)t+2xy sin(2Ω)t ] (9)

Again, following the derivation of Thompson, Harmon, and Ball [4], I apply Newton‟s laws

to get the coupled differential equations:

(ⅆ^2 x)/(ⅆτ^2 )+2q[x cos(2τ)+y sin(2τ) ]=0

And (ⅆ^2 y)/(ⅆτ^2 )+2q[y cos(2τ)+x sin(2τ) ]=0 (10)

where τ=Ωt and q=gh/(r_0^2 Ω^2 ) . These equations differ from the ion trap equations only

by the coupled sin term and their solutions are similar in that they predict stable motion for

[4] regardless of the initial position and velocity of the ball (Thompson, et al., 2002)

q≤1/2 (11)

STIMULATIONS IN MATHEMATICA 11.2

For the sake of this project, I used the saddle potential equation and plotted a 3D graph in

Wolfram Mathematica 11.2 software with different heights and radii. Also, with the time

variable t set to vary from 0 to 10 seconds, I was able to watch how the potential rotates as

the time progresses (Wolfram Research, Inc., 2018).

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Time t = 0s Time t = 2s

Time t=4s Time t= 5s

Saddle potential rotating stimulation in Mathematica 11.2

3D PRINTING THE SADDLE POTENTIAL

A hyperbolic paraboloid with dimensions r0 = 7.5 cm and h0 = 1.25

cm was modeled by using Mathematica 11.2 [6] to plot the

intersection of z≤1.45(x^2-y^2 ) and x^2+y^2≤7.5. This graphic was

then exported and 3D printed using a CubePro Duo two-headed

printer.

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Modelling in Adobe AutoCAD Final 3D printed Saddle Potential Model

REQUIRED

In this experiment, the saddle potential must be connected to a DC motor and we need to

calculate the minimum rotational velocity of the saddle required to trap a ball of particular

density. For those purposes, we need to build two electronics circuits as follows:

1. PWM DC Motor Speed Controller using IC 555 Timer.

2. Contactless Digital Tachometer (RPM counter) using 8051 Microcontroller.

1. PWM DC MOTOR SPEED CONTROLLER USING IC 555 TIMER

We can control the speed of the DC motor by controlling the input voltage of the motor. For

that purpose, we can use PWM (pulse width modulation.). PWM is a method through which

we can generate variable voltage by turning on and off the power that‟s going to the

electronic device at a fast rate.

555 TIMER PWM GENERATOR CIRCUIT

The 555 Timer is capable of generating PWM signal when set up in an astable mode. The

output of the 555 timer can sink or source a current of 200mA to the load. So, if the motor

that we want to control exceeds this rating we need to use a transistor or a MOSFET for

driving the motor. In this example, I used a (TIP122) Darlington transistor which can handle

a current up to 5A. The output of the IC needs to be connected to the base of the transistor

through a resistor, and in my case, I used 1k resistor. For preventing any voltage spikes

produced by the motor we need to use a fly back diode which is connected in parallel with the

motor.

COMPONENTS USED

1. NE555P Timer IC

2. R1 = R2 = 1k Ohm

3. C1 = C2 = 100nF

4. D1 = D2 = D3 = 1N4004

5. Potentiometer = 100k Ohm

6. Transistor – Darlington TIP122

2. DIGITAL TACHOMETER USING 8051 MICROCONTROLLER

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A Tachometer is a device which measures the speed of a rotating object like an electric motor

or a crank shaft of a vehicle engine. Speed is measured in RPM (Revolutions per Minute).

Here, in this project, we designed a simple Non – Contact or Contactless Digital Tachometer

using 8051 Microcontroller, which can measure speed with an accuracy of 1 rev/sec

(Administrator, 2017).

Circuit Diagram of Digital Tachometer

COMPONENTS USED

1. 8051 Microcontroller

2. 8051 Microcontroller Programmer

3. IR Sensor Module (Reflective Type)

4. 4 – Digit 7 – Segment Display

5. 4 x 2N2222 NPN Transistors

6. 4 x 470Ω Resistors (1/4 Watt)

7. 8 x 100Ω Resistors (1/4 Watt)

8. 11.0592 MHz Quartz Crystal

9. 2 x 33pF Ceramic Capacitors

10. 2 x 10 KΩ Resistor (1/4 Watt)

11. 10 µF Capacitor (Polarized)

12. Push Button

13. 1 KΩ x 8 Resistor Pack

IR SENSOR

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IR receiver used in the project is a photo diode and it must be connected in reverse bias. The

negative terminal or cathode is connected to 5V supply and the positive terminal or anode is

connected to ground through a current limiting resistor of 10KΩ.And finally, the output of

the IR receiver is given to the comparator. The comparator compares the input from the IR

receiver with a reference value (which is given through a 10KΩ Potentiometer). If the input

from the IR receiver is greater than the reference value, the output of the comparator will be

HIGH or else, the output will be LOW.

CONTROLLER CIRCUIT DESIGN

The controller circuit consists of the microcontroller and its interfaces. Here, we chose the

AT89S52 microcontroller. The AT89S52 is a low-power, high-performance CMOS 8-bit

microcontroller with 8K bytes of in-system programmable Flash memory. The device is

manufactured using Atmel‟s high-density nonvolatile memory technology and is compatible

with the industry-standard 80C51 instruction set and pinout (Dejan, n.d.).

In our project, the Microcontroller reset circuit consists of a push button, a resistor and a

capacitor with values such that the voltage at the reset pin doesn‟t fall below 1.2V and the

timing constant is never less than 100ms. Here, we selected a 10 KΩ resistor and 10µF

capacitor. Since the oscillating frequency of the microcontroller is 11.0592MHz, we selected

the values of ceramic capacitors to be 33pF. The EA‟ pin must be pulled high via a 10KΩ

resistor as we are not using any external memory.

MICROCONTROLLER CODE

Once the circuit is designed and drawn on a piece of paper, the next step is to write and

compile the code. Here, we used the Keil µVision software to write the program in C

language.Once the code is compiled, a hex file is created. In the next step, we use Proteus

software to draw the circuit. The code is dumped into the microcontroller using an 8051

Microcontroller Programmer and the software associated with it.

WORKING OF FINAL SETUP

When the IR sensor is powered, the IR transmitter starts emitting IR rays. A motor is placed

in front of the IR sensor, with its shafted marked with a white dot.

As the motor shaft rotates such that the white spots come in contact with the sensor, the IR

rays are reflected by the dot and falls on the IR receiver. The photo diode, which is used as

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the IR receiver, starts conducting whenever the IR rays are reflected.At this point, the output

of the IR sensor is given to the comparator and the output of the comparator is HIGH when

the IR rays are reflected and the output of the comparator is LOW when there are no

reflections. Hence, the output of the comparator is in the form of an ON-OFF pulse.This

pulse is given to the microcontroller as a timer input and the microcontroller is programmed

to calculate the number of times the motor rotates in a second.

The seed of the motor is calculated by multiplying the value of final count by 60 to get the

speed in revolutions per minute. This value is then displayed on the 4-digit 7-segment

display.

Final Experimental Setup

OBSERVATIONS

1. The IR Sensor needs to be calibrated according to the setup and to make it show the right

RPM value, it was calibrated using Motor with known RPM (120 RPM) at stable 4V

input.

2. Speed calculation may be affected by the varying duty cycle of the timer inside 8051. It

was observed that the value of RPM of the motor shown on the 7-Segment Display

fluctuates continuously within a range of +/- 50 RPM around Original RPM value.

3. Use of 16x2 LCD display is suggested as then we can program the controller to also

display the Mean RPM value and the deviations from original value simultaneously.

4. The Vibration of the Motor also affects the data as the IR Sensor is kept highly sensitive

and close to the motor for better accuracy. Use of Solid Base and Support for the motor

is absolute necessity.

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5. The Weight of 3D printed Saddle on the Motor Shaft also affects the ability of the PWM

speed controller to rotate at lower speeds as motor draws more power from the circuit.

Hence high power MOSFET like IRF540 could have been used instead of TIP 122

transistors for faster switching and ability to handle high power operations.

6. Also, for better accuracy and more adjusting abilities, we could have used 8051 along

with L298N motor driver IC for Pulse Width Modulation.

DISCUSSION AND FUTURE WORK

1. To examine how deviation from the expected critical frequency depends on the

dimensions of the saddle.

2. Use Mathematica to graph theoretical trajectories of the ball on the saddle as well as to

study the effect of friction and initial conditions.

3. Using a High Speed Camera to track motion of ball on the saddle and plot experimental

trajectories.

4. Additionally, in order to achieve a more accurate comparison of experimental and

theoretical trajectories, it would be useful to develop a method of experimentally

quantifying the value of the coefficient of sliding friction.

5. An experiment testing the trapping lifetimes of balls of the same mass and material but

with differing radii would be particularly interesting.

REFERENCES

1. Paul, W. (1989). Electromagnetic traps for charged and neutral particles. Nobel Lecture.

601-622.

2. Thompson, R.I., Harmon, T.J., and Ball, M.G. (2002). The rotating saddle trap: a

mechanical analogy to RF-electric-quadrupole ion trapping? Can. J. Phys., 80(12): 1433-

1448.

3. Wolfram Research, Inc., Mathematica, Version 11.2, Champaign, IL (2018).

4. Administrator (2017). Contactless digital tachometer

https://www.electronicshub.org/contactless-digital-tachometer-using-8051-

microcontroller/

5. Dejan (n.d.). PWM speed control using 555 Timer: https://howtomechatronics.com/how-

it-works/electronics/how-to-make-pwm-dc-motor-speed-controller-using-555-timer-ic/

6. Earlier Research done at Cornell university in 2015

https://www.cornellcollege.edu/physics-and-engineering/pdfs/phy-312/2015-

2016/Motion-Ball-Spinning-Saddle.pdf

https://www.electronicshub.org/contactless-digital-tachometer-using-8051-microcontroller/

https://www.electronicshub.org/contactless-digital-tachometer-using-8051-microcontroller/

https://howtomechatronics.com/how-it-works/electronics/how-to-make-pwm-dc-motor-speed-controller-using-555-timer-ic/

https://howtomechatronics.com/how-it-works/electronics/how-to-make-pwm-dc-motor-speed-controller-using-555-timer-ic/

https://www.cornellcollege.edu/physics-and-engineering/pdfs/phy-312/2015-2016/Motion-Ball-Spinning-Saddle.pdf

https://www.cornellcollege.edu/physics-and-engineering/pdfs/phy-312/2015-2016/Motion-Ball-Spinning-Saddle.pdf

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COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF DRYING METHODS ON

VITAMIN C AND PROTEIN CONTENT OF MORINGA OLEIFERA

LEAVES

Sandeep S. Kahandal1, Pratibha S. Kadam, Ayesha Khan, Dhanashree Ahire, Urma

Shaikh, Shikha Singh, Preeti Mishra, Priyanka Varma2 and Moitreyee Saha

2

1Department of Chemistry and

2Department of Botany, V.P.M‟s B. N. Bandodkar College of Science,

Thane (W)-400 601

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Moringa oleifera is a source of abundant proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals.

Proteins and vitamin C are important for human growth, survival, development and it

participates in various biological processes.The body can store proteins, whereas the body

doesn't store vitamin C. Since vitamin C is eliminated in the urine and proteins are mainly

used by the muscles, our diet requires an uninterrupted daily supply of both proteins and

Vitamin C. Malnutrition is more prominent in poor masses caused by a dietary protein

deficiency that is characterized by muscle loss, tiredness, depression, fluid retention or

edema. In the present investigation, comparative study was carried out for the air, oven and

microwave dried leaves for estimation of Vitamin C and protein. The amount of vitamin C

and protein in dry air method was observed to be higher compared to dried samples in the

oven and microwave.Therefore, due to the increased preservation of vitamin C and the

protein content of the dried samples, it is recommended that Moringa oleifera leaves be dried

at ambient conditions.

Keywords: Moringa oleifera leaves, Drying methods, Vitamin C, Protein quantification

INTRODUCTION

Moringa oleifera is the most widely grown species in the genus Moringa, the only genus in

the Moringaceae plant family, a fast-growing, multipurpose, drought-resistant tree, high-

economic crop (Paliwal and Sharma, 2011), native to India, now widely grown throughout

the world's tropical and subtropical regions. Moringa oleifera, common names includes

Moringa, in English language Drumstick (from the long, slender, triangular seed-pods),

horseradish tree (from the taste of the roots, which resembles horseradish) and ben oil tree or

benzoil tree (from the oil which is derived from the seeds). Moringa leaf extract, being rich in

K, Ca, Fe, amino acids, carotenoids, phenols, ascorbate (ascorbic acid mineral salt), growth

regulating hormone and ideal enhancer of plant growth (Makkar and Becker, 1996). M.

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oleifera displayed essential medicinal properties such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant,

antimicrobial, cardiovascular, antihyperlipidemic, CNS depressant, antifertility, anticancer,

anti-hepatotoxic, and antiulcer (Goyal et al., 2007) that enabled humans to avoid and treat

diseases. Therefore, the Moringa oleifera is popularly known as „The Miracle Tree‟ (Fuglie,

1999). Ayurvedic traditional medicine states that Moringa oleifera will resist 300 diseases,

and its leaves have been used for both preventive and cultivation purposes (Ganguly, 2013).

Ascorbic acid and glutathione act as oxidants which are found in chloroplasts of Moringa and

other cellular compartments at high concentrations.Those oxidants are vital to the defence of

plants against oxidative stress. Moringa plant species can be used either as a food or food

supplement providing nutrients and biochemicals like carbohydrates, fats and proteins which

play vital roles in satisfying human needs for energy and living processes.

Two different types of vitamins are the fat soluble and water soluble. Fat-soluble vitamins are

vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K and water-soluble vitamins that include the

vitamin B complex group and vitamin C (Li and Schell, 2007; Carr and Frei, 1999).Vitamin

C is used in cure of certain diseases such as scurvy, common cold (Hemila, 1992) anaemia

and even infertility. Due to mutation in the enzyme-coding pseudogene (L-gulonolactone

oxidase) required for the biosynthesis of vitamin C via the pathway of glucuronic acid,

humans and other primates have lost their ability to produce vitamin C (Abdalla, 2003). Thus,

vitamin C should be obtained through diet. Besides, Moringa is also a good alternative

protein source. Protein as an essential nutrient should be an inescapable part of a diet to

combat malnutrition. Keeping in view the importance of Moringa plant, vitamin C using

titration method and protein were quantified using Lowry method in leaves.


In the preparation of reagents, chemicals of analytical grade purity and distilled deionised

water were used. Moringa leaves sample was collected from the campus of VPM‟s B.N.

Bandodkar College of Science, Thane (Maharashtra).

Material collection and sample preparation of Moringa leaves: Fresh plant leaves were

collected from the campus of V.P.M‟s B. N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane

(Maharashtra). Moringa leaves were washed with water and rinsed with distilled water.

Leaves were dried using drying methods such as air, oven, and microwave. Microwave

drying was performed in a microwave oven at 180°C for 8 minutes, oven drying at 40 ± 2°

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C for 24 hours and air drying was performed at room temperature in a sterilized laboratory

for 7 days. All dried samples were then homogenized into a powder.

General procedure for determination of following:

1. Vitamin C (Ascorbic acid) in Moringa oleifera leaves by using redox titration

method:

Moringa oleifera leaves (1 g) were ground to fine powder and transferred to 100 cm3 beaker.

Then 20 cm3 distilled water with 2 cm

3 of 2 M HCl solution was added. The mixture was

warmed for 5 minutes. The mixture was then cooled and filtered with whatman filter paper

No. 40. The whole solution was then transferred to the 100 cm3 standard measuring flask and

diluted upto the mark with distilled water. 10 cm3 of the sample aliquot was pipetted out in a

conical flask and 15cm3 of 2 M sulphuric acid was added. The sample was then titrated using

2 percent Ferroin indicator against standardized 0.1 N ceric ammonium sulphate till color

changed from red to pale blue to green colour (Rao and Sastry, 1971). In acidic medium,

ascorbic acid is oxidized by Ce (IV) ion solution to dehydroascorbic acid (Figure 1).

FIGURE 1: Ascorbic acid is oxidised to dehydroascorbic acid by Cerium (IV) ion solution.

2. Estimation of Protein in Moringa oleifera by using Folin-Ciocalteu reagent (Lowry

method):

a. Preparation of standard protein BSA solution: 0.5 mg/ml

b. Preparation of alkaline complex reagent: Added 48 ml 2% Na2CO3 in 0.1 N NaOH,

1 ml of 1% Sodium potassium Tartrate in H2O, 1 ml of 0.5% CuSO4.5H2O in H2O to

prepare alkaline complex reagent. By using a standard solution and alkaline complex

reagent, prepared the calibration curve (Table 1), kept for incubation for 15 minutes

before adding Folin-Ciocalteau reagent. Measured the absorbance at 660 nm on the

spectrophotometer.

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c. Preparation of sample for estimation: The sample powder (0.5 g) was dissolved in 10

cm3 of distilled water and filtered by using Muslin cloth. Filtrate was collected in 100

cm3 standard measuring flask and diluted upto the mark with distilled water. Pipetted

out 50 cm3 of the sample solution and transferred it to 100 cm

3 standard measuring

flask. Prepared sample as per Table 1, measured absorbance values of the standard BSA

protein and sample solution (Table 1).

Table 1: Preparation of calibration curve and sample of Moringa oleifera leaves solution

for protein analysis

S

r

.

.

Standard

protein

Solution

in cm3

Distilled

water

in cm3

Alkaline

complex

reagent in

cm3

Folin-

Ciocalteu

reagent

in cm3

Concen-

tration of BSA

Protein (mg/ml) O.D.

1 0.2 0.8 5.0 0.5 0.1 0.17

2 0.4 0.6 5.0 0.5 0.2 0.29

3 0.6 0.4 5.0 0.5 0.3 0.40

4 0.8 0.2 5.0 0.5 0.4 0.50

5 1.0 0.0 5.0 0.5 0.5 0.62

6 Sample

A(0.4) a

0.6 5.0 0.5 - 0.34

7 Sample

B(0.4) b

0.6 5.0 0.5 - 0.22

8 Sample C(0.4) c

0.6 5.0 0.5 - 0.17

aSample A: Air dried,

bSample B: Oven dried,

cSample C: Microwave dried

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The powder samples obtained from air, oven and microwave drying of Moringa oleifera

leaves were used for the further determination of vitamin C and protein. It was observed that

varying the drying methods altered the amount of vitamin C. Blanching in hot water in fruits

can cause an appreciable loss in thermally labile vitamin C. Ascorbic acid oxidase must be

inactivated during processing; this avoids the enzyme-catalyzed reaction (Abubakar and

Obirinakem, 2015, Igwemmar et al., 2013). The concentration of sample proteins is

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determined by comparing their assay responses with that of a series of standards solutions

whose concentrations are known. The standard responses are used to plot a calibration curve.

The effect of various drying methods in the Moringa oleifera leaves on the vitamin C and

protein content showed varying amounts of vitamin C and protein (Table 2). Air dried sample

shows the largest amount of vitamin C and protein in the three. Excessive heat and water

easily destroyed the vitamin C and protein, as well as exposure to air. It occurred due to the

heat-labile nature of vitamin C and also depends on the irradiation time of microwave ovens

(Khraisheh et al., 2004, Santos and Silva, 2008). For vitamin C preservation in cooked foods,

it is recommended that vegetables be stored at a temperature of 70°C in order to avoid the

loss caused by heat (Clement et al., 2017).

Table 2: Vitamin C and protein amount in Moringa oleifera leaves by using ceric ammonium

sulphate titration and Lowry method

Sr. No. Sample Drying

methods

mg of Vitamin C/ 100 g of

powder

mg of protein /100 g of

powder

1 Air 359 10.2

2 Oven 278 6.6

3 Microwave 269 5.2

CONCLUSIONS

Moringa oleifera is abundantly available, inexpensive leaves that can serve as a pool house of

nutrients and can be used to combat nutrient deficiencies in developing countries. The drying

process of highly seasonal and perishable green leafy vegetables is one of the most possible

strategies.The effect of different drying methods on the content vitamin C and protein in

Moringa oleifera leaves has been studied. In the present investigation the method of redox

titration provides amounts of vitamin C in the leaves of Moringa oleifera. The Folin-

Ciocalteu reagent (Lowry method) was the simplest and most effective method of

determining the protein content in leaves of Moringa. Air dried samples show higher amounts

of vitamin C and protein than dried samples from microwaves and ovens. That is because at

elevated temperatures vitamins and proteins are denatured. It was also observed that air dried

Moringa took longer (7 days) time to dry than oven-dried and microwave methods. Although

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the microwaves and ovens are faster and better methods for drying it is advisable to preserve

material using air drying methods to prevent vitamin C and protein loss.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors are thankful to V.P.M‟s B. N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane for

providing laboratory faculties for research work.

REFERENCES

1. Abdalla, D.S.P. (2003). Encyclopedia of Food Sciences and Nutrition (Second Edition),

1654-1663.

2. Abubakar El-Ishaq and Obirinakem, S. (2015). Effect of Temperature and Storage on

Vitamin C Content in Fruits Juice, Int. J. of Chem. Biomol. Sci., 1(2): 17-21.

3. Carr, A. C. and Frei, B. (1999). Toward a new recommended dietary allowance for

vitamin C based on antioxidant and health effects in humans. Am. J. Clin. Nutr., 6: 1086-

1107.

4. Clement, A., Olatunde, M., Patrick, O. and Joyce, O. (2017). Effect of Drying

Temperature on Nutritional Content of Moringa oleifera Leave, World J. of Food Sci. and

Tech., 1(3): 93-96.

5. Fuglie, L. J. (1999). The miracle tree: Moringa oleifera: Natural nutrition for the tropics.

Church World Service, Dakar, The Miracle Tree: the Multiple Attributes of Moringa.,

172: 68.

6. Ganguly, S. (2013). Indian ayurvedic and traditional medicinal implications of

indigenously available plants, herbs and fruits: a review. Int. J. Res. Ayurveda Pharma.,

4: 623-625.

7. Goyal, B. R, Agrawal, B. B, Goyal, R. K. and Mehta, A. A. (2007). Phytopharmacology

of Moringa oleifera Lam - An overview. Natural Product Radiance, 6(4): 347-53.

8. Hemila, H. (1992). Vitamin C and the common cold. Brit J Nutr, 67: 3-16.

9. Igwemmar, N. C., Kolawole, S. A. and Imran, I. A. (2013). Effect of Heating on Vitamin

C Content of Some Selected Vegetables, Int. J. Of Sci. & Tech. Res., 2(11): 209-212.

10. Khraisheh, M. A. M., McMinn, W. A. M. and Magee, T. R. A. (2004). Quality and

structural changes in starchy foods during microwave and convective drying. Food

Research International, 37: 497–503.

11. Li, Y. and Schell horn, H. E. (2007). New developments and novel therapeutic

perspectives for vitamin C. J Nutr., 137: 2171-2184.

12. Makkar, H. P. S. and Becker, K. (1996). Nutritional value and antinutritional components

of whole and ethanol extracted Moringa oleifera leaves. Anim Feed Sci Technol, 63: 211-

228.

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13. Paliwal, R. and Sharma, V. (2011). A review on horse radish tree (Moringa oleifera): A

multipurpose tree with high economic and commercial importance. Asian J. Biotechnol.,

3: 317–328.

14. Rao, G. G. and Sastry, G. S. (1971). Titrimetric determination of ascorbic acid with

cerium (IV) sulphate, Anal. Chim. Acta., 56: 325-328.

15. Santos P. H. S. and Silva, M. A. (2008). Retention of Vitamin C in Drying Processes of

Fruits and Vegetables-A Review, Drying Techno.: An Inter. J., 26(12): 1421-1437.

RESEARCH ARTICLES


CARBON SEQUESTRATION POTENTIAL OF TREE SPECIES OF

VPM CAMPUS, THANE

Aishwarya Deshmukh, Nada Noor Shaikh, Neelam Soni and Urmila Kumavat

Department of Botany, VPM‟s B.N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane (W) 400601,


[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Since the industrial revolution, there has been a constant increase in global warming effect

due to emission of CO2. Development of green belts in urban areas can act as an effective

sink of CO2 and can help in managing extra carbon in the atmosphere. Thus green belts of

cities are required to assess for carbon sequestration potential. For present work, the green

campus of Vidya Prasarak Mandal (VPM) of Thane (Maharashtra, India) has been selected. It

is situated along the bank of Thane creek. It covers 13.5 acres in heavily polluted

metropolitan city of Thane. It has a thick green cover of 398 trees that can bear considerable

capacity to trap CO2 in the form of biomass. Hence carbon sequestration by trees of VPM

campus is evaluated by a non destructive method. The study indicated considerable potential

of VPM campuses to mitigate carbon of metropolitan cities.

Key words: VPM campus, Carbon sequestration, Wood density

INTRODUCTION

Global warming is one of the most important environmental issues which need to be attended

to on a priority basis. Anthropogenic activities such as burning fossil fuels are one of the

chief factors leading to global temperature rise. Increased amount of carbon dioxide is

responsible for the increase in sea levels, intensifying wild fires and pollution (Kumar et al.,

2012). Since industrialization there has been a constant increase in the amount of atmospheric

carbon which is responsible for degrading human health and environmental conditions.

Excess of carbon in the environment can be alleviated by carbon sequestration. It is the

process of capture and secure storage of carbon in oceans, vegetations, sediments and

geological forms that would otherwise be emitted to or remain in the atmosphere (Carbon

sequestration, 2020).

Carbon sequestration could be a major tool for reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuels

(Jain, 2012). The process of carbon sequestration can be direct or indirect. Further it can be

classified as biological, chemical or physical (Conservation in a changing climate, n.d.).

mailto:[email protected]

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Globally various techniques of carbon sequestration are explored but forests are found to be

most efficient in capturing environmental carbon. Terrestrial forests play a major role in

capturing carbon in the form of biomass. Forests as well as urban lands and green belts are

considered as perfect sites for carbon mitigation. Tree plantation not only helps in combating

environmental issues but also enhances the beauty of the city. It also adds to the economic

benefits in terms of increasing tourism, creating jobs based in the plant industry (Trees: The

Carbon Storage Experts, 2018).

Thane is one such metropolitan city consisting of roughly 18 lakhs of population spread over

147 sq.km (Thane, 2020). Increased number of private vehicles and industrialization is

responsible for worsening air conditions in the city. In spite of conducting tree plantation

awareness camps and mass tree plantations every year in monsoon, the city is facing alarming

rise in air pollution (Fernandes, 2018). To overcome the problem of pollution and global

warming efforts are needed on a local level. It is necessary to preserve and conserve green

belts and urban forests. Vidya Prasarak Mandal (VPM) of Thane (Maharashtra, India) is one

of the prime educational institutes of Thane. It is situated near Thane railway station along

the bank of Thane creek. The area witnesses poor quality air due to vehicle pollution. The

VPM has a big campus spreading across 13.5 acres with thick green cover of 398 trees which

help in reducing carbon dioxide concentration. Hence it felt relevant to evaluate carbon

sequestration of VPM campus by tree species.


The estimation of carbon sequestered by trees can be done by destructive and non destructive

methods. In the current study a non destructive method of carbon sequestration is used

(Nicolas et al., 2013). The method involves allometric equations which use various

parameters, viz., diameter at breast height (dbh), tree height, wood density to calculate the

tree biomass. There are two types of allometric biomass equations: volumetric and direct.

Volumetric equations calculate the above ground volume of a tree using dbh and tree height

for the species. Direct equations yield above ground dry weight of a tree using dbh and tree

height.

The study was carried out by a volumetric equation. First diameter at breast height (dbh) was

measured then approximate measurement the height of tree was taken. From the girth, the

radius of the tree stem was calculated which was further used to calculate the volume of the

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tree trunk. The volume of the tree trunk was multiplied by the wood density to get the value

of carbon sequestered. The amount of carbon sequestered by individual trees in an area was

added to find the total amount of carbon sequestration of VPM campus. The following

equations were used. i) BAH * W, Where, BAH = Biomass above ground * Height, W= Wood density

ii) BAH is calculated as πr2 * H, Where H = Height of plant

RESULTS

VPM campus consists of 398 trees which showed considerable potential of carbon

sequestration. There are more than 100 trees of single plant species, i.e. Cocus nucifera

(Coconut) which contribute immensely in trapping carbon compared to other plants. After

analyses of individual carbon sequestration capacity, top 3 tree species having the high ability

to accumulate the carbon and top 3 species of trees having less carbon sequestration potential

were recognized. They are given in Table 1 and 2.

Table 1: Tree species with high carbon sequestration ability

Sr No. Name of the Plant Total No. of plants Total Carbon Sequestration

value (kg/year)

1. Cocos nucifera 114 115.36

2. Mangifera indica 18 93.279

3. Peltophoram pterocarpum 20 31.446

Table 2: Tree species with low carbon sequestration ability

Sr No. Name of the Plant Total No. of plants Total Carbon Sequestration

value (kg/year)

1. Azadirachta indica 20 3.835

2. Moringa oleifera 14 3.426

3. Pithecellobium dulce 4 3.115

CONCLUSION

Thane city is a developing urbanized area which is located in a highly biodiverse part of

Western Ghats. It has almost lost major wild plants but has few green belts which help in

maintaining air quality. They are also essential for upbringing standard of living in

metropolitan city like Thane. In present work, 13.5 acres of green belt of Vidya Prasarak

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Mandal Campus of Thane had been studied for carbon sequestration potential. Sequestered

carbon had been estimated by a non destructive method without cutting the tree. Cocos

nucifera, Terminalia catapa and Polyalthia longifolia were found to be the dominant species

in VPM campus. Cocos nucifera has the maximum carbon sequestration potential. Total

carbon sequestered by all trees in VPM campus is 544.87014 kg/year. The data obtained

through this study can serve as primary data. It will be useful in future to understand changes

in level of atmospheric carbon dioxide due to developmental changes in VPM campus.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors are thankful to the management of Vidya Prasarak Mandal, Thane for permitting

us to do project work on campus.

REFERENCES

1. Carbon sequestration (2020). Retrieved 23 February 2020 from

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_sequestration

2. Conservation in a changing climate: Carbon Sequestration (n.d.). Retrieved 12 February

2020 from https://climatechange.lta.org/carbon-sequestration/

3. Fernandes, F. (2018). In just a week, air pollution levels rise by 36% in Thane. Retrieved

13 February 2020 from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

4. Jain, R. (2012). Contemporary Issues in Environmental Assessment. Handbook of

Environmental Engineering Assessment

5. Kumar, S., Himanshu, S. K. and Gupta, K. K. (2012). Effect of global warming on

mankind: A review. International journal of Environmental Sciences, 1(4): 56-59.

6. Nicolas., M., Thierry, G., Wadi, B., Valérie, B. M. and Zaoui, El. (2013). A non-

destructive method to estimate the aboveground forest biomass in woodlands. Forest

Ecology and Management. 130: 37-46. 10.1016/S0378-1127(99)00188-7.

7. Thane (2020). Retrieved 13 February 2020 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/thane

8. Trees: The Carbon Storage Experts (2018). Retrieved 10 February from

www.dec.ny.gov/lands/47481.html




https://climatechange.lta.org/carbon-sequestration/

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/



https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780123884442000130

https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780123884442



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/thane

http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/47481.html




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MICROCONTROLLER BASED HEART RATE MONITORING

SYSTEM

Varsha Shinde, Shahina Shekharan and Ashish Koli

Department of Physics, VPM‟s B. N. Bandodkar College, Thane.

University of Mumbai.

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Aim of our work is to monitor the human heart rate of the patient. For a patient who is

already diagnosed with fatal heart disease, their heart rate condition has to be monitored

continuously. This paper proposed an alert system that is able to monitor the heart beat rate

condition of patients. The heart beat rate is detected using photoplethysmograph (PPG)

technique. This signal is processed using an ATMEL 89S52 microcontroller to determine the

heart beat rate per minute. A desired amount of sensor value is set and if it is exceeded

preliminary steps should be taken by the indicated LCD monitor. The HEARTBEAT sensor

information will be transmitted from the patient unit to the main controller unit with the help

of a data communication system which is connected with the microcontrollers in the both

units. Thus, doctors can monitor and diagnose the patient's condition continuously and could

suggest earlier precaution for the patients themselves. This will also alert the family members

to quickly attend the patient. The design method is developed in Embedded C and simulate in

KEIL and implemented on Microcontroller ATMEL 89S52.

Keywords: Heart beat sensor, AT89s52 microcontroller, LCD (16*2), LM358, IR sensor

(Photo diode & receiver), Crystal (11.0592 MHz)

INTRODUCTION

Health is one of the global challenges for humanity. According to the constitutions of the

World Health Organization (WHO) the highest attainable standard of health is a fundamental

right for an individual. Healthy individuals also reduce pressure on the already overwhelmed

hospitals, clinics, and medical professionals and reduce workload on the public safety

networks, charities, and governmental (or non-governmental) organizations. To keep

individuals healthy an effective and readily accessible modern healthcare system is a

prerequisite. A modernized healthcare system should provide better healthcare services to

people at any time and from anywhere in an economic and patient friendly manner.

The heart rate monitor is a personal monitoring device that allows one to measure his or her

heart rate in real time or record the heart rate for later study. It's largely used by performers of

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various types of physical exercise. It's widely used in hospitals for checking the health of

patients. These monitors are very useful in realizing the health conditions of the person

according to the age group. The following table shows the average heart rate of the people

from different age groups.

AGE AVERAGE HEART RATE

Newborn 140

7-years 85-90

14-years 80-85

Adult 70-80

There is no doubt about the usefulness of a heart rate monitor. Every time someone visits a

doctor, one of the first things the doctor checks is the patient‟s heart rate or say pulse rate. In

medical terms the heart rate of the patient is useful in determining many of his /her medical

conditions.

There are many heart rate monitoring systems already present. But our monitoring system has

certain advantages over the already present systems. The stethoscope which is the most basic

device used by doctors is not very accurate. Another way is to use an electrocardiogram, but

it is supposed to be very costly and not user friendly. The heart rate monitor that we have

setup does not need any expert advice, since it directly shows the value of heart rate on LCD.

Also, it is portable, so can be carried along to places that one travels to. Its cost effectiveness

is also an advantage.

WORKING

Photoplethysmography is the process of optically estimating the volumetric measurement of

an organ. Pulse oximetry, cardiovascular monitoring, heart rate monitoring etc are few

common applications of photoplethysmography. Let us have a look at the application of

photoplethysmography in heart rate monitoring from the fingertip. When the heart expands

(diastole) the volume of blood inside the fingertip increases and when the heart contracts

(systole) the volume of blood inside the fingertip decreases. The resultant pulsing of blood

volume inside the fingertip is directly proportional to the heart rate and if you could somehow

count the number of pulses in one minute, that‟s the heart rate in beats per minute (bpm). For

this an IR transmitter/receiver pair is placed in close contact with the fingertip. When the

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heart beats, the volume of blood cells under the sensor increases and this reflects more IR

waves to the sensor and when there is no beat the intensity of the reflected beam decreases.

The pulsating reflection is converted to a suitable current or voltage pulse by the sensor. The

sensor output is processed by suitable electronic circuits to obtain a visible indication.

The system majorly consists of three components like heart rate sensor circuit, let us see the

brief explanation of circuitry (Ch Subudhi and Sivanandam, 2014).

Fig.1 Block diagram

HEART BEAT SENSOR: The Heart Beat signal is obtained by LED & photodiode

combination. Pulses form hands interrupt the light reaching the Photodiode and this signal is

read by microcontroller, a logical zero is represented by a pulse in the first half of the bit.

Fig. 2 Heart beat sensor

https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/Ch-Sandeep-Kumar-Subudhi/72877818

https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/S-Sivanandam/47472522

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Fig. 3 Circuit diagram

Fig. 4 Flow chart

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Heartbeat is measured with the help of fingertip sensor which consists of an infra-red (IR)

light emitting diode transmitter and an IR photo detecting receiver. The IR light passes

through the tissues and variations in the volume of blood within the finger determine the

amount of light that is incident on the IR detector.

The signal produced from photodiodes is very weak and small which is required to be

increased in magnitude. This signal is so weak that it cannot be detected by the

microcontroller directly. Thus, the signal is amplified using an operational amplifier. The

operational amplifier used for this purpose is LM358.

Finally, a red LED is placed at the output of the amplifier stage to show that the device is

working for the measurement of heartbeat. The output is connected to a microcontroller that

by using the program shows output on LCD (Sali et al., 2016; Parihar, et al., 2017).

CONCLUSION

We introduce the Heartbeat sensor in the embedded C programming to access LM358 & IR

sensors. It communicates with ATMEL 89S52. We proposed & experimentally demonstrate

the heart rate monitor. The instrument has simple structure, stable and reliable operation, high

Accuracy, low power consumption, good portability, full featured function, and extensive

application occasion. It can be easily used by patients and keep the patient's moment intact

because it is miniature and portable. In future this can be implemented with multiple sensors

& communication systems to build it as a wireless health monitoring system.

REFERENCES

1. Ch Subudhi, S. K. and Sivanandam, S.(2014). Intelligent wireless patient Monitoring

and Tracking system (Using sensor network and wireless Communication).

International Journal of Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Studies, 1(3): 97-104.

2. Sali, S., Durge, P., Pokar, M. and Kasge, N. (2016). Microcontroller Based Heart

Rate Monitor. International Journal of Science and research, 5(5): 1169-1172.

3. Parihar, V. R., Tonge, A. Y. and Ganorkar, P. D. (2017). Heartbeat and Temperature

Monitoring System for Remote Patients using Arduino. International Journal of

Advanced Engineering and research and Science, 4(5): 55-58.





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EVALUATION OF ANTIDANDRUFF ACTIVITY OF TWIG POWDER

FROM LAWSONIA INERMIS L.

Snehal N. Bhangale and Moitreyee Saha

Department of Botany, VPM‟s B. N. Bandodkar College of Science, Thane 400 601


[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Dandruff is the major problem in today's world. One of the causes is a fungus Malassezia

furfur. Medicinal plants are used by many ethnic groups as a source of medicine for the

treatment of various ailments in humans. Lawsonia inermis or henna is used as a medicinal

plant because it is attributed with strong medicinal properties. To check the antidandruff

activity, aqueous and methanol extract of twig powder of Lawsonia inermis L. (Kalyan and

Jodhpur) were tested against Malassezia furfur using agar well method. Different

concentrations of Lawsonia inermis L. were used to check the Minimum Inhibitory

Concentration (MIC).

Key word: Lawsonia inermis L., Malassezia furfur, Antidandruff, MIC

INTRODUCTION

Dandruff is a common scalp condition that occurs when dead skin is shed, producing

irritating white flakes. Dandruff is a result of drying of skin (Vyjayanthi et al., 2004). It is

usually caused by frequent exposure to extreme heat and cold. It is a common problem faced

by all age groups of people. Yeast like lipophilic basidiomycetous fungus Malassezia furfur

(Pityrosporum ovale) is the causative organism for dandruff (Arora et al., 2011). The itching

and flaking due to dandruff can be controlled. There are several medicated soaps and

shampoos available in the market. They are mostly recommended to treat dandruff. These

synthetic products have some limitations which may be due to poor efficacy or compliance

issues. Sometimes they also show side effects like rashes, itching of skin, etc. Recent trends

show an inclination to treat dandruff using natural products. Synthetic formulations are

effective but herbal remedies are the most sought after alternative to combat this.

Attention has been paid to plant derived antifungal compounds based on the knowledge that

plants have their own defense systems against fungal pathogens. Lawsonia inermis Linn.,

commonly known as henna (Lythraceae) is a traditional plant widely used over centuries for

medication and cosmetics in some regions of the world especially in the Middle East, Africa


https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/henna

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and Asia (Al-Tufail et al., 1999). Henna leaves are used as a remedy in skin diseases in the

form of a paste or decoction against bruns, bruises and skin inflammation (Bhuvaneswari et

al., 2002). Thus in the present study, antidandruff activity of different extracts of Lawsonia

inermis was evaluated.


Collection of plant material: Twigs of Lawsonia inermis L. were collected from Kalyan

(Maharashtra) and Jodhpur (Rajasthan). Authentication of the plant (S.H.-1533) was done at

Blatter Herbarium, St. Xavier‟s College, Mumbai.

Collection of micro-organism: Malassezia furfur (MTCC No. 1374) was procured from

Microbial Type Culture Collection and Gene Bank (MTCC), Chandigarh.

Media: Sterile Sabouraud‟s dextrose broth and media supplemented with olive oil (1%) was

used.

Preparation of crude extract: 3 gm twig powders of Lawsonia inermis L. (Kalyan and

Jodhpur) was extracted in 50 ml of distilled-water and methanol overnight separately. The

extracts were filtered through Whatman filter paper No. 1. The filtrate was evaporated in a

boiling water bath until dry. The evaporated solvent so obtained was weighed. Both crude

extracts were dissolved in sterile distilled water at a concentration of 100 mg/ml and extracts

were stored at 4°C in airtight bottles until further use.

Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) assay: Various concentration of aqueous and

methanol extract of twig powders from Lawsonia inermis L. (Kalyan and Jodhpur) ranging

between 10 and 100 mg/ml were introduced into different test tubes. Each tube was

inoculated with an overnight culture of Malassezia furfur diluted to give a final concentration

of approximately 107/ml. Tubes were incubated at 37°C for 24 h. The concentration of the

plant extract that did not show any visible growth of the inoculated microorganism in the tube

was recorded as the MIC.

Agar well diffusion method: Sterile Sabouraud‟s dextrose agar supplemented with olive oil

plates were prepared for all extracts, 1 ml inoculum of Malassezia furfur was mixed in sterile

Sabouraud‟s dextrose agar butts and pour it on sterile petri plates. After solidifying the plates

four wells approximately 5 mm diameter were prepared with the help of sterile borer. 50μl of

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/13880209.2012.715166




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aqueous and methanol extract of twig powder (Kalyan and Jodhpur) were poured into the

wells. Sterile distilled water was used as a control. The plates were incubated at 37°C for 24

hrs and a zone of inhibition was observed.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The aqueous of twig powder from field grown plant of Lawsonia inermis L. (Kalyan and

Jodhpur) showed minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) at 70 mg/ml whereas and

methanol extract showed MIC at 60 mg/ml (Table 1).

Table 1: Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of twig powder of Lawsonia inermis L.

against Malassezia furfur

Sr. No. Samples Concentration (mg/ml) Aqueous extract

1. Twig powder (Kalyan) 70 mg/ml 2. Twig powder (Jodhpur) 70 mg/ml

Methanol extract 3. Twig powder (Kalyan) 60 mg/ml 4. Twig powder (Jodhpur) 60 mg/ml

Values are mean of three replicates

The zone of inhibition for aqueous extracts of twig powder from Lawsonia inermis L.

(Kalyan and Jodhpur) was found to be 13.33 mm and 14.67 mm respectively, however for

methanol extract 14.67 mm and 17.66 mm against Malassezia furfur respectively (Table 2,

Figure 1 and Plate 1). Lemon juice and henna extract; lemon and amla in combination

showed best activity against Malassezia furfur (Pingili et al., 2016). Aqueous and methanol

extract of twig powder of Lawsonia inermis L. (Kalyan and Jodhpur) at different

concentrations suppressed the growth of the tested bacteria. Methanol extract of these

samples showed more inhibition towards Malassezia furfur as compared to that of water.

CONCLUSION

Aqueous and methanol extracts of twig powder of Lawsonia inermis L. (Kalyan and Jodhpur)

showed antidandruff activity (Malassezia furfur) when screened using agar well method. The

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antidandruff activity was found to be more in methanol extract as compared to aqueous

extract

Table 2: Antidandruff activity for aqueous and methanol extracts of twig powder from

Lawsonia inermis L. (Kalyan and Jodhpur) against Malassezia furfur by agar well

method

Sr. No. Samples Concentration (mg/ml) Aqueous extract

1. Twig powder (Kalyan) 13.33 ± 0.55 2. Twig powder (Jodhpur) 14.67 ± 0.40

Methanol extract 3. Twig powder (Kalyan) 14.67 ± 0.10 4. Twig powder (Jodhpur) 17.66 ± 0.55

Values are mean of three replicates. Mean ± SE

Figure 1: Antidandruff activity for aqueous and methanol extracts of twig powder from

Lawsonia inermis L. (Kalyan and Jodhpur) against Malassezia furfur

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a b

Plate 1: Zone of inhibition of against Malassezia furfur

a) Methanol extract of twig (Kalyan) of Lawsonia inermis L.

b) Methanol extract of twig (Jodhpur) of Lawsonia inermis L.

Lawsonia inermis L. (Kalyan and Jodhpur). Dandruff is a common scalp disease caused by

three factors: fungal infection, sebaceous secretions and individual sensitivity. Dandruff is

one of the leading causes of hair fall and alopecia in the world. Thus pharmaceutical

industries are searching for new products of herbal origin which showed less toxic effect as

compared to synthetic products available in the market. The use of plant extracts with known

anti dandruff properties can be of great advantage in therapeutic treatments.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Authors are thankful to the Botany Department, VPM‟s B. N. Bandodkar College of Science,

Thane for providing the laboratory facilities.

REFERENCES

1. Al-Tufail, M., Krahn, P., Hassan, H., Mahier, T., Al-Sedairy, S. T. and Huq, A.

(1999). Rapid identification of phenylenediamine isomers in L. inermis hair dye

products by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Toxicol Environ

Chem, 71: 241–246

2. Arora, P., Nanda, A. and Karan, M. (2011). Plants used in management of Dandruff.

The Indian Pharmacist, 28-31.

3. Bhuvaneswari, K., Poongothai, S. G., Kuruvilla, A. and Raju B. A. (2002). Inhibitory

concentrations of Lawsonia inermis dry powder for urinary pathogens. Indian

Journal of Pharmacology, 34: 260-263.

4. Pingili, M., Vanga, S. and Raparla, R. (2016). Antifungal activity of plant extracts

against dandruff causing organism Malassezia furfur. International Journal of

Bioassays, 5(11): 5047-5049.

5. Vyjayanthi, G., Kulkarni, C., Abraham, A. and Kolhapure, S. A. (2004). Evaluation

of antidandruff activity and safety of polyherbal hair oil: An open pilot clinical trial.

The Antiseptic, 101(9): 368-372.

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SMART MIRROR USING 8052 MICROCONTROLLERS

Mayuri Shinde, Vidula Joshi and Ashish Koli

Department of Physics, B.N. Bandodkar College, Thane.

University of Mumbai.

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

The basic purpose of a Mirror is „to reflect‟; it gives an image of whatever lies in front of it.

The implementations of Science and Technology in our day-to-day activities make life more

productive, efficient and raise our standard of living. We here have made an attempt to

implement technology in a simple, plain yet widely used object, a Mirror. In our Smart

Mirror Project, we have tried to upgrade the functions of a Mirror by displaying User defined

information and Real Time and Date only when the mirror detects a presence in front of it.

Thus, the Smart Mirror is an informative mirror which displays the data when it is triggered.

The Smart Mirror shows Real Time and Date, this was achieved by interfacing AT89S52

Microcontroller with Real Time Clock (RTC Module with DS1307) and a 16 x 2 LCD.

Communication between the Microcontroller and RTC was done using I2C Protocol.

Polarized glass in place of regular glass was used in order to display information on the

mirror. An IR Sensor is placed at the top side of the mirror which triggers the Mirror ON.

Keywords: Smart mirror, AT89s52 microcontroller, LCD (16*2), LM358, IR sensor (Photo

diode & receiver), Crystal (11.0592 MHz)

INTRODUCTION

The Smart Mirror is a novel concept that aims to bring efficiency and productivity to the

users. This Project is built using the low power, high-performance 8-bit Microcontroller the

AT89S52 by Atmel. As an 8-bit Microcontroller is used the product is cost efficient and is

available at a feasible rate. The Project consists of two parts first is the IR sensor detection

and the second is reading the information from RTC and displaying it on the mirror.

IR SENSOR (Elprocus, n.d.)

An IR sensor is used to detect the presence of a person and even can detect motion. Every

object emits radiation when observed in the infrared spectrum. The IR sensors detect this

radiation and they work only in the infrared range. An IR sensor consists of two parts, the

transmitter circuit and the receiver circuit. This is collectively known as a photo-coupler or an

opto-coupler. The transmitter is an IR LED and the receiver is an IR photodiode. The IR

photodiode is sensitive to

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Fig.1 Working of IR Sensor

the IR light emitted by an IR LED. The photo-diode‟s resistance and output voltage change in

proportion to the IR light received. This is the underlying working principle of the IR sensor.

This circuit comprises of the following components

LM358IC

IR transmitter and receiver pair

Resistors of the range of 10 kilo-ohms to 100 ohms.

Variable resistors.

LED (Light Emitting Diode)

Fig.2 Circuitry for IR Sensor using IC LM 358

When the IR receiver does not receive a signal, the potential at the inverting input goes

higher than that non-inverting input of the comparator IC (LM358). Thus, the output of the

comparator goes low, but the LED does not glow. When the IR receiver module receives

signal to the potential at the inverting input goes low. Thus, the output of the comparator (LM

358) goes high and the LED starts glowing. Resistor R1 (100), R2 (10k) and R3 (330) are

RESEARCH ARTICLES


used to ensure that minimum 10 mA current passes through the IR LED Devices like

Photodiode and normal LEDs respectively. Resistor VR2 (pre-set=5k) is used to adjust the

output terminals. Resistor VR1 (pre-set=10k) is used to set the sensitivity of the circuit. The

type of incidence can be direct incidence or indirect incidence. In direct incidence, the IR

LED is placed in front of a photodiode with no obstacle in between. In indirect incidence,

both the diodes are placed side by side with an opaque object in front of the sensor. The light

from the IR LED hits the opaque surface and reflects on the photodiode. We have used the

indirect incidence. IR sensors find a wide variety of applications in various fields. Proximity

Sensors, Line Follower Robots, Item Counter, Burglar Alarmed, etc.

RTC (Real Time Clock) (datasheet of RTC DS 1307)

The purpose of an RTC or a real time clock is to provide precise time and date which can be

used for various applications. RTC is an electronic device in the form of an Integrated Chip

(IC) available in various packaging options. It is powered by an internal lithium (CMOS)

battery. As a result of which even if the power of the system is turned off, the RTC clock

keeps running. An RTC maintains its clock by counting the cycles of an oscillator – usually

an external 32.768kHz crystal oscillator circuit, an internal capacitor-based oscillator, or even

an embedded quartz crystal

FEATURES OF RTC DS1307:

This chip is capable of operating in either 24 hour or 12-hour format and can be changed

by the user.

The end of the month is automatically adjusted with fewer 31 months including the leap

year corrections.

It is capable of sensing power cut off from external supply and automatically switches to

alternative battery supply connected to it.

Less power consumption and small size makes it to use in all level of applications

It plays a very important role in the real time systems like digital clock, attendance

system, digital camera etc.

RESEARCH ARTICLES


X1 and X2: These pins are used to connect an external crystal oscillator to provide the clock

source for the chip. According to the datasheet, a quartz crystal of 32.768 kHz should be

used along with this chip.

VBAT: This pin is used to connect a +3V lithium battery to provide supply when the external

supply voltage is not available. This pin should be grounded when not in use.

SQW/OUT: This output pin provides pulse ranging from frequency 1 kHz, 4kHz, 8 kHz or 32

kHz and needs a pull up resistor to operate.

SCL and SDA: These two pins are used for carrying data in the I2C bus and must be

connected to the SCL and SDA pins of the Microcontroller.

VCC and GND: These pins are supply and ground pins for the chip.

I2C COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL (Mazidi, et al., 2009; Data sheet of RTCDS1307)

Fig.3 Master – Slave Communication

I2C helps you to connect multiple slaves to a master and you can have multiple masters

controlling single, or multiple slaves. I2C only uses two wires to transmit data between

devices:

SDA 2(Serial Data) – The line for the master and slave to send and receive data.

SCL (Serial Clock) – The line that carries the clock signal.

I2C is a serial communication protocol, so data is transferred bit by bit along a single wire

(the SDA line).

I2C WORKING (Mazidi, et al., 2009; Datasheet of RTCDS1307): With I2C, data is

transferred in messages. Messages are broken up into frames of data. Each message has an

RESEARCH ARTICLES


address frame that contains the binary address of the slave, and one or more data frames that

contain the data being transmitted. The message also includes start and stop conditions,

read/write bits, and ACK/NACK bits between each data frame:

Start Condition: The SDA line switches from a high voltage level to a low voltage level

before the SCL line switches from high to low.

Fig.4 Data Framing for I2C communication with RTC

Stop Condition: The SDA line switches from a low voltage level to a high voltage level after

the SCL line switches from low to high.

Address Frame: A 7 or 10-bit sequence unique to each slave that identifies the slave when the

master wants to talk to it.

Read/Write Bit: A single bit specifying whether the master is sending data to the slave (low

voltage level) or requesting data from it (high voltage level).

ACK/NACK Bit: Each frame in a message is followed by an acknowledge/no-acknowledge

bit. If an address frame or data frame was successfully received, an ACK bit is returned to

the sender from the receiving device.

ADDRESSING: I2C doesn‟t have slave select, so it needs another way to let the slave know

that data is being sent to it, and not another slave. It does this by addressing. The address

frame is always the first frame after the start bit in a new message.

The master sends the address of the slave it wants to communicate with to every slave

connected to it. Each slave then compares the address sent from the master to its own address.

If the address matches, it sends a low voltage ACK bit back to the master. If the address

doesn‟t match, the slave does nothing, and the SDA line remains high.

READ/WRITE BIT: The address frame includes a single bit at the end that informs the

slave whether the master wants to write data to it or receive data from it. If the master wants

to send data to the slave, the read/write bit is a low voltage level. If the master is requesting

data from the slave, the bit is a high voltage level.

RESEARCH ARTICLES


THE DATA FRAME: After the master detects the ACK bit from the slave, the first data

frame is ready to be sent. The data frame is always 8 bits long and sent with the most

significant bit first. Each data frame is immediately followed by an ACK/NACK bit to verify

that the frame has been received successfully. The ACK bit must be received by either the

master or the slave (depending on who is sending the data) before the next data frame can be

sent. After all the data frames have been sent, the master can send a stop condition to the

slave to halt the transmission. The stop condition is a voltage transition from low to high on

the SDA line after a low to high transition on the SCL line, with the SCL line remaining high

e address doesn‟t match, the slave does nothing, and the SDA line remains high.

POLARIZED GLASS: We used the glass usually used for the windows. These glasses are

reflecting from one side and semi partial from the other side. We use this idea for showing

the display information behind the mirror. The polarized glass allows us to give an effect that

the words and information are displayed on the mirror, although the LCD is being attached

behind glass and polarized glass. The LCD is placed behind that side of the polarized glass

which is semi partially transparent. When the LCD‟s black light is ON, the light travels

through the polarized glass, allowing it to appear on the mirror.

WORKING (Deshmukh, 2007; Mazidi, et al., 2009; Data sheet of AT89S52): The first part

is to determine and detect if anyone is standing in front of the mirror or not. And the second

part is that once the person is detected the LCD should be triggered to display the

information. The RTC here is used to maintain the current time and date. The data of the

RTC is continuously sent to the LCD. The two parts of out project are: -

Detection of the person

Display of the information

Fig. 5 Block Diagram

RESEARCH ARTICLES


Fig. 6 Circuit Diagram

Detection of the person

For the first part that is the detection of the person, we have used an IR sensor. A simple code

of IF then Else is used for this. When IR sends a high output, when it detects a person in front

of it. The output is then sent to the microcontroller.

Display of the information: - For the second part the output of IR Pin, which is given as input

to the microcontroller, determines whether the corresponding pin which is given to the LCD‟s

blacklight should be high or low, i.e. where the LCD‟s pin number 15 is connected. If the IR

sensor gives the output high the blacklight pin goes high, which allows us to see the display,

on LCD.

RTC working: - The RTC here is programmed to give the date and time. The RTC keeps on

giving continuous date and time as output. As the RTC has a CMOS battery hence we must

set the RTC only once at the beginning. The data from RTC is displayed on the LCD.

CONCLUSION

Smart mirror was successfully built using Microcontroller 89AT52 using I2C communication

protocol between RTC and Microcontroller.

RESEARCH ARTICLES


Fig. 7 Flow Chart

REFERENCES

1. Deshmukh. A. V. (2007). Microcontrollers: Theory and Applications. Published by

Tata McGraw-Hill Company Ltd., New Delhi.

2. Mazidi, M. A., Mazidi, J. G. and McKinlay, R. (2009). The 8051 Microcontroller and

Embedded Systems: Using Assembly and C. 2nd edition, Published by Dorling

Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd. South Asia.

3. AT89S52: - Data sheet of AT89S52

4. Elprocus, (n.d.) Infrared IR Sensor Circuit Diagram and Working Principle

https://www.elprocus.com/infrared-ir-sensor-circuit-and-working/

5. RTC: - Data Sheet of RTC (DS 1307)

EDITORIAL BOARD

J-BNB: A Multidisciplinary Journal

EDITORIAL

Editorial Director - S. Venkatraman Editor- in-chief - D. R. Ambavadekar

Managing Editor- Moitreyee Saha Consulting Editor - Sudesh. D. Rathod

EDITORIAL BOARD

Vinda Manjramkar

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TECHNICAL TEAM

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NATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD

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India, West Bengal)

INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY BOARD

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Sternberg, R. S. (1988). The psychologist's companion: A guide to scientific writing for

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