Informatics Publishing Limited

M. Sivaram , P. S. Easa , Saju K. Abraham

Abstract

The Nilgiri tahr, Hemitragus hylocrius Ogilby, is an endangered mountain goat distributed in southern Western Ghats of Peninsular India. Monitoring tahr habitats and selection of sites for management interventions and reintroduction of the tahr in their natural environment require an understanding of habitat suitability and hence this study was undertaken. The estimated tahr population in Kerala was around 1,000 individuals on 11 sites. The Eravikulam National Park (ENP) was chosen for developing the Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) model since it has the sole viable population of about 700 individuals. Based on the habitat utilization, the ENP was divided into different blocks. The relational trends between block-wise tahr density and the critical habitat variables viz., altitude, extent of cliff and availability of principal food species were examined through correlation analysis for evolving habitat suitability criteria. This formed the basis for deriving suitability indices, ranging from 0 to 1, which were subsequently used for developing the HSI models. In order to find out how well the HSI models captured variation in tahr density, they were subjected to regression analysis. The analyses indicate that the HSI models were satisfactory considering the limited number of factors involved. However, the models should be evaluated in other habitat conditions especially in fragmented habitats considering their degradation factors such as human disturbance, grazing pressure.

Full Text

     

K. R. Sasidharan , R. V. Varma , M. Sivaram

Abstract

Several insect pests are associated with Casuarina equisetifolia L. in India. Among them, the bark eating caterpillar, Indarbela quadrinotata Walker (Metarbelidae: Lepidoptera) has attained serious pest proportions in Tamil Nadu State, which is located in the southern part of the country. The impact of I. quadrinotata on the growth of C. equisetifolia was studied in selected plantations of this species, located in three agro-climatic zones of the State. The data generated suggest that I. quadrinotata has the potential to reduce the growth of the trees significantly.

Keywords

Casuarina equisetifolia, Caterpillar, Indarbela quadrinotata, Insect Pests, Tamil Nadu

Full Text

     

S. Sandeep ¹, M. Sivaram ², H. Matieu ³, B. Luca ³, G. Rini ⁴

Affiliations
1 Soil Science Department, Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi, Thrissur, Kerala, IN
2 Statistics Department, National Diary Research Institute, Banglore, IN
3 Forest Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Vialedelle Terme di Caracalla, Rome, IT
4 Statistics Department, Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi, IN

Abstract

Estimation of volume, biomass and carbon stocks support several applications from the commercial exploitation of timber to global carbon cycle. Especially in the latter context the estimation of tree biomass with sufficient accuracy is essential to determine annual changes of carbon stored in particular ecosystems. Under the aegis of UN - REDD programme an extensive database on tree allometry in South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) was prepared by extensive and exhaustive literature collected from the region by institutional visits, bibliographic databases and FAO reports. An evaluation of this data on tree allometry in South Asia shows that there exists a total of 4456 equations on volume, biomass, BEF, carbon and other growth variables for 375 species belonging to 96 families and 275 genera. Proportionate allocation of allometric models for different species in the collected documents is not homogenous with commercially important ones capturing more percentage share of equations. Vague description of tree components and output terms reduces the quality of allometric equations developed in the region. Also the geographical distribution of these allometric equations is highly skewed and conscious efforts should be taken to unearth documents on allometry in the neglected life zones.

Keywords

Tree Allometric Equation, Estimation of Volume, Biomass, Carbon Stock, South Asia.

Full Text

     

M. Sivaram ¹, S. Sandeep ², H. Matieu ³

Affiliations
1 Southern Regional Station, National Dairy Research Institute, Bangalore (Karnataka), IN
2 Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi, IN
3 Food and Agricultural Organization, Rome, IT

Abstract

Forest biomass is the basis for the estimation of carbon storage and emission due to forestry sector. Though the total forest biomass includes aboveground and belowground biomass, this paper deals with the issues related to aboveground biomass. The total aboveground biomass is estimated through a number of variables measured across various components of trees using non-destructive methods. The techniques employed range from simple measuring tape to regression models to satellite imageries. The total error in biomass estimates is the sum of errors in the variables propagated in a hierarchical fashion. The knowledge of prediction errors helps to know the quality of biomass and subsequently bio-energy and carbon estimates. In this paper, various sources of error in biomass estimation, error quantification and error propagation are discussed. The sources of error include tree measurements, sampling strategy, choice of an allometric model and satellite imageries.In South Asia, the standard errors of co-efficient of biomass equations and R² are often depicted as indicators for the quality of volumeand biomass equations. The Studies on error propagation in biomass estimates are scarce. Monte Carlo analysis, Pseudo-meta-analysis and Bayesian model averaging have been investigated to address the issues of error propagation in biomass estimation. Among these Bayesian model averaging appears to be a promising technique.

Keywords

Biomass, Error Propagation, Allometric Equation, Monte Carlo Analysis, Pseudo-Meta-Analysis and Bayesian Model.

Full Text

     

M. Sivaram ¹, S. Sandeep ², H. Matieu ³

Affiliations
1 Southern Regional Station, National Dairy Research Institute, Bangalore, IN
2 Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi, Kerala, IN
3 Food and Agricultural Organization, Rome, IT

Abstract

In this paper, the status of forest biomass and carbon stock assessment in South Asia has been reviewed based on the reports of Forest Resource Assessment (FRA) -2010 published by FAO. The quality of the data reported to FAO is medium to high. The countries heavily depend on growing stock volume from National Forest Inventory reports for biomass and carbon estimation. While the National Forest Inventory is being carried out in India at regular intervals, other countries are attempting or in the process of undertaking periodic forest inventory. Besides updating the existing database of volume and biomass allometric equations, the regional/country specific biomass and carbon conversion factors are required to improve the present biomass and carbon estimates.

Keywords

Forest Biomass, Carbon Stock, South Asia.

Full Text

     

M. Sivaram ¹, S. Sandeep ², S. Jinesh ², K. S. Sujith ², G. Rini ²

Affiliations
1 Southern Regional Station,ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Bangalore, IN
2 Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi, IN

Abstract

The timber market in developing countries is unorganized and there is no proper system available to track the timber market trends. The aim of the study was to develop a computer based decision support system to monitor the timber prices. This system is called as Timber Market Intelligence System (TMIS). In order to monitor the prices of various timber species, timber price indices were constructed using three approaches viz., Laspeyre's, Pasche's and Fisher's Price Index and implemented in TMIS. The price forecast models were also incorporated. The TMIS was demonstrated using the timber price data of Timber Sales Depots of Kerala Forests and Wildlife Department for the period 2005 to 2009. The results indicated that one of the three price index approaches is sufficient to track the teak prices. A simple aggregate price index was found useful in the case of other species Artocarpus hirsutus, Grewia tiliifolia, Xylia xlocarpa, Terminelia paniculata, Terminelia bellirica, Terminelia tomentosa and Largerstroemia microcarpa. The maximum growth in teak prices was observed during the period 2006 to 2007 and only a marginal increase was observed from the year 2008 onwards. The annual growth rate in the prices of teak was lower as compared to other timber species.

Keywords

Timber Market Intelligence, Timber Price Index, Timber Depots.

Full Text

     

M. Sivaram ¹, K. K. Ramachandran ², E. A. Jayson ², P. V. Nair ²

Affiliations
1 Southern Regional Station, National Dairy Research Institute, Bangalore, IN
2 Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi, Thrissur District 680 653 Kerala, IN

Abstract

Line transect sampling technique is widely applied for estimating the biological population in forests. Recently, this technique has been in use for the estimation of elephant abundance using dung survey. The method of transforming dung count into elephant density requires dung density, which is corrected by defecation and decay rate. In this paper, the performance of the line transect sampling technique (LTS) in dung surveys with particular reference to variation in the number of detections of dung piles caused by annual rainfall variability was evaluated. The data set for this purpose was from the estimation of elephant population in the State of Kerala during the years 2005, 2007 and 2010, covering about 9000 km2. The study showed that the presence of dung piles and its detection probability were dependent on the level of rainfall in the two months preceding the date of dung survey. However, the LTS could provide comparable dung density estimates under the highly varying number of dung piles present in the area due to differences in the annual rainfall pattern.

Keywords

Distance Sampling, Detection Probability, Elephant Density, Rainfall Variability.

Full Text

     

Narender Kumar ¹, A. Manimaran ¹, M. Sivaram ², A. Kumaresan ³, S. Jeyakumar ¹, L. Sreela ⁴, P. Mooventhan ⁵, D. Rajendran ⁶

Affiliations
1 Livestock Research Centre, Southern Regional Station, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Adugodi, Bengaluru-560030, Karnataka, IN
2 Dairy Economics and Statistics Section, Southern Regional Station, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Adugodi, Bengaluru-560030, Karnataka, IN
3 Theriogenology Laboratory, Animal Reproduction, Gynaecology & Obstetrics, Southern Regional Station, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Adugodi, Bengaluru-560030, Karnataka, IN
4 Livestock Production and Management Section, ICAR National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal-132001, Haryana, IN
5 ICAR-National Institute of Biotic Stress Management, Baronda, Raipur-493225, Chhattisgarh, IN
6 Division of Animal Nutrition, ICAR-National Institute of Animal Nutrition and Physiology, Adugodi, Bengaluru-560030, Karnataka, IN

Abstract

Aim: Evaluation of the effect of clinical mastitis (CM) and its treatment outcome on the reproductive performance in crossbred cows retrospectively.
Materials and Methods: Datasets of 835 lactating cows affected with CM during a period of 12 years (2001-2012) were considered for this study. Mastitis treatment related data and reproductive parameters such as days to first detected heat (DTFDH), days to first insemination (DTFI), days open (DO), and number of services per conception (SC) were collected from mastitis treatment and artificial insemination registers, respectively. Data were analyzed by ANOVA using SPSS 20 software. The means were compared with the Duncan’s multiple comparison post-hoc test.
Results: CM affected cows had significantly (p<0.05) higher DTFDH, DTFI, DO and SC compared to clinically healthy cows. Cows diagnosed with a single episode of CM had significantly (p<0.05) delayed DTFDH while, DO and SC were significantly higher (p<0.05) in cows diagnosed by multiple episodes of CM. SC was significantly (p<0.05) higher in cows diagnosed with both relapse and recurrence. Severe CM affected cows had significantly (p<0.05) altered reproductive parameters. The reproductive parameters were altered to high extent when CM occurred during the breeding period.
Conclusion: CM-affected cows had higher DTFDH, DTFI, DO and SC compared to clinically healthy cows. The negative effects of CM on reproduction parameters were higher when CM occurred during the breeding period.

Keywords

Clinical Mastitis, Crossbred Cows, Reproductive Parameters, Retrospective Study.

Full Text

   

N. V. Kousik ¹, M. Sivaram ², S. Kalidass ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Computing Science and Engineering, Galgotias University, IN
2 Department of Information Technology, Lebanese French University, IQ

Abstract

Routing is challenging issue in WSN: Cryptography and key management schemes seem good, but they are too expensive in WSN. Prevention-based and detection based are the two approaches that are used in MANET. In prevention-based approaches a centralized key management is required, These applications require a good Quality of Service (QoS) from sensor networks, such as, minimum percentage of sensor coverage in the required area, continuous service during required time slot with minimum (or limited) resources (like sensor energy and channel bandwidth) and minimum outside intervention. The whole network may be affected if the infrastructure is destroyed. So this approach is used to prevent misbehavior, but not detect malicious based routes Detection based approaches are used to detect selfish node along with route that helps to identify malicious misbehavior route. Detection based approaches are based on trust in MANETs. Hence this approach is used to calculate the trust value in trust management schemes. The proposed scheme differentiates, routes, data packets and control packets, and also excludes the other causes that results in dropping packets, such as unreliable wireless connections and buffer overflows. The proposed scheme in a MANET routing protocol, evaluation of the AODV (Adhoc on demand on distance vector) and Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) protocol with the NS2 simulator.

Keywords

MANET, WSN, Routing, Quality of Service, AODV.

Full Text

     

V. Manikandan ¹, V. Porkodi ¹, Amin Salih Mohammed ¹, M. Sivaram ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Information Technology, Lebanese French University, Erbil, IQ

Abstract

Privacy preserving is critical in the field of where data mining is transformed into cooperative task among individuals. In data mining, clustering algorithms are most skilled and frequently used frameworks. In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving threshold clustering that uses code based technique with threshold estimation for sharing of secret data in privacy-preserving mechanism. The process includes code based methodology which enables the information to be partitioned into numerous shares and handled independently at various servers. The proposed method takes less number of iterations in comparison with existing methods that does not require any trust among the clients or servers. The paper additionally provides experimental results on security and computational efficiency of proposed method.

Keywords

Privacy Preserving, Data Mining, Threshold Cryptography, Fuzzy C-Means Clustering, Vandermonde Matrix, Secure Multiparty Computation.

Full Text

     

M. Sivaram ¹, V. Porkodi ¹, Amin Salih Mohammed ¹, V. Manikandan ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Information Technology, Lebanese French University, IQ

Abstract

Facial Landmark discovery is an imperative issue in numerous PC vision applications about appearances. It is extremely testing as human faces in wild conditions regularly present expansive varieties fit as a fiddle because of various stances, impediments or demeanors. Profound neural systems have been connected to take in the guide from face pictures to confront shapes. To the best of our insight, Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) has not been utilized in this issue yet. In this paper, we propose a technique which uses RNN and Deep Neural Network (DNN) to take in the face shape. To start with, we design a system utilizing Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to get the underlying Landmark estimation of appearances. At that point, we utilize feed-forward neural systems for neighborhood look where a segment based seeking technique is investigated. By utilizing LSTM- CNN-RNN, the underlying estimation is more dependable which makes the accompanying segment based pursuit doable and exact. Tests demonstrate that the worldwide system utilizing CNN-LSTM-RNN shows signs of improvement results than past systems in the two recordings and single picture. Our technique beats the cutting edge calculations particularly regarding fine estimation of Landmark spots.

Keywords

Facial landmark, Deep Neural Network, Recurrent Neural Network, Convolutional Neural Network.

Full Text

     

M. Sivaram ¹, K. Batri ², Amin Salih Mohammed ¹, V. Porkodi ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Information Technology, Lebanese French University, Erbil, Kurdistan Region, IQ
2 Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, PSNA College of Engineering and Technology, Kothandaraman Nagar, Dindigul – 624622, Tamil Nadu, IN

Abstract

Objectives: To explores the process of selecting retrieval schemes along with their weights, and fusion function for data fusion in information retrieval. Methods/Statistical Analysis: This has been carried out using the hybrid Genetic Algorithm. The fusion function, retrieval schemes and their weights lead to a tremendous combination. Finding an optimal solution from this great combination is entirely based on the exploration. Findings: We used, odd and even point crossover as an exploration tool. This exploration tool suffers a setback of slow convergence. The convergence rate can be improved by merging Tabu search, a best local search, with the genetic algorithm. This Tabu GA is used to select the retrieval schemes, weights and fusion function. The outcome of the experiments conducted over the test data sets namely: 1. adi, 2. cisi, and 3. cranlooks promising. We achieved 6.89% of improvement in performance, and the significance of the result is tested statistically. The convergence rate is also improved. Application/Improvements: We achieved 6.89% of improvement in performance, and the significance of the result is tested statistically. The convergence rate is also improved.

Keywords

Genetic Algorithm, Information Retrieval, Odd and Even Point Crossover, Tabu GA, Tabu Search

Full Text

   

V. Porkodi ¹, Juveriya Khan ², Amin Salih Mohammed ¹, J. Bhuvana ³, M. Sivaram ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Computer Engineering, Lebanese French University, IQ
2 Department of Information Technology, Emirates College for Management and Information Technology, AE
3 Department of Master of Computer Application, Jain University, IN

Abstract

The link failure is considered in this paper in order to guarantee reliable and continuous transmission of data. And to ensure that cooperative routing is done faster response and effective packet transmission. Cooperative communications are the most recent fields of research; they combine wireless channels’ link quality and broadcasting nature. So communication in ad hoc mobile networks only works properly if the participating nodes work together in routing and transmission. A flow is divided into batches of data packets. When they leave the source node every packet in the same batch has the same forwarder list. The underlying routing protocol used in this work is Proactive Source Routing (PSR), which provides each node with all other nodes on the network. The forwarder list therefore contains the identity of the path nodes from the source node to the location. Once packets progress through the network, forwarding nodes can amend the forwarder list when any changes in the network topology have been observed. In addition, some other nodes not listed as transmitting data may also be transmitted, which is called as small-scale retransmission.

Keywords

Link-Quality, QOS, Proactive Source Routing, Multipath Routing Protocol.

Full Text