Loading...
Theses
Browse
4 results
Search Results
ThesisItem Open Access EFFECT OF COLOUR ON ATTENTION AND MEMORY OF YOUNG CHILDREN(AAU, Jorhat, 2015-07) Dutta, Ankita; Baruah, JuriMost of the child psychologists pay greater attention to the pre-school age because it is the time when children undergo the greatest development. Learning in this period is critical to their subsequent development throughout their lives. Coloured presentation of information is considered by many studies as an important and stimulating cue for learning in children. Colour has the potential to increase the chances of environmental stimuli to be encoded, stored and retrieved successfully. With this background the present study entitled, “Effect of colour on attention and memory of young children” was undertaken in Jorhat district during 2014-2016 with the objectives: 1. To analyze the frequently used colours in existing instructional materials of young children. 2. Preparation of instructional materials using different colours. 3. To identify the colours which facilitate attention and memory of young children. 4. To develop guidelines for using colours in instructional materials of children. A total of 30 children aged 4 to 5 years, with average intelligence level and without any chronic illness, signs of inattention and impulsivity were selected for the study. The sample was selected from 180 respondents from six preschools of Jorhat district. Data was collected from the respondents using a questionnaire and a tool with subtests Prose Memory and Test Card to assess the health status of the respondents and identify the colours which facilitate attention and memory of young children respectively. Culture Fair Intelligence Test was also used to screen out the children with average intelligence. The books of four preschools were analyzed to find out the frequently used colours in existing instructional materials of young children. Upon completion of data collection, the results indicated that the most frequently used colour in the existing preschool books is yellow, followed by red, green, blue, light blue, natural, black brown, purple, pink, orange and lastly grey. The results of the responses to colours in the Prose Memory sub-test reveal that natural colour may facilitate most attention and memory in young children, followed by red, green, blue, light blue, yellow and black. Test Card results also reveal that natural colour may facilitate most attention and memory in young children, but followed by red, green, yellow, blue, light blue and black. Females responded more to colours of red and yellow than male respondents. And males responded more to green, blue, light blue and natural colours than females. There was no gender difference in response to black colour. On the basis of the findings of the study, few guidelines were recommended in the area of use of colour in instructional material for children.ThesisItem Open Access OCCURRENCE AND DISTRIBUTION OF ROOT-KNOT NEMATODE Meloidogyne incognita IN PATCHOULI Pogostemon cablin(AAU, Jorhat, 2016-07) Buragohain, Pallab; Gogoi, B.B.Patchouli [Pogostemon cablin (Blanco)] is an important aromatic plant belonging to family Lamiaceae, is a native of Philippines (Arpana et al., 2008). It is grown wild in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and few other countries. Owing to high demand of its essential oil many countries have domesticated this crop. It has multiple uses, it is used in cosmetics, breath fresheners, flavouring baked foods, meat, sausages, etc. Patchouli is very susceptible to root -knot nematode and wilt causing pathogens. In moist and wet weather condition root knot infestation is high in plants which may lead to wilting of plant and kill the plant within 2-3 days due to secondary infection by fungal and bacterial pathogens. The study on “Occurrence and distribution of root-knot nematode Meloidogyne incognita in patchouli Pogostemon cablin” was carried out in the year 2014 -2016, in Golaghat, Nagaon, Jorhat and Sonitpur districts by conducting a survey programme. A total of 123 samples were collected randomly from the four districts. Root-knot infestation was recorded in most of the fields covering the four districts. Root and soil samples were found to be heavily infested by root-knot nematode. The maximum frequency was recorded in Nagaon districts i.e. 38.88 per cent whereas minimum frequency of 21.87 per cent was recorded in Golaghat district. Many fungal pathogens were found to be associated with most of the root-knot infested plants. In the present investigation, three fungal pathogens were found to be associated with root-knot infested plants. They are Fusarium sp., Rhizoctonia solani and Cercospora sp. It has been observed that the patchouli plants are also infested by different insect pests like leaf roller and grass hopper. These insect pests are voracious eater and almost eat up the green foliage leading to defoliation and heavy yield loss.ThesisItem Open Access Characterization and Identification of Potential Probiotic Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) Isolated from Fermented Dairy Product of Assam (Doi)(AAU, Jorhat, 2016-07) FATMA, JAIBA; Barooah, M.Probiotics are the health promoting viable microorganisms that exhibit a beneficial effect on the health of human being by improving the intestinal microbial balance. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are important and well known agents. Fermented milk products like Dahi are known source of probiotic organisms. In the present study, LAB was isolated from 25 different ‘Doi’ samples collected from 8 different districts of Assam viz, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Sivsagar, Jorhat, Lakhimpur, Udalguri, Morigaon and Bongaigaon. A total of 30 bacteria were isolated initially but only 20 bacteria isolated from Doi meet the classification of LAB as Gram-positive and catalase negative (Salminen et al., 1993). These 20 LAB isolates were characterized based on their phenotypic, biochemical and molecular characteristics. Further, the isolates were screened for their potential probiotic properties based on conditions simulating human gastrointestinal tract (GI). These isolates were able to survive at low pH 2.5 which is similar to the pH of the human GI tract and able to convert lactose into lactic acid. Further studies revealed that these isolates were able to grow in a temperature ranging from 15-40ºC and grow at 9 % NaCl concentration. The antimicrobial activity of these isolates were tested against six pathogenic bacteria viz, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas putida, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Salmonella enterica and Bacillus cereus. Four isolates (ABT-Z2, ABT-Z3, ABT-Z4 and ABT-Z22) were able to inhibit the growth of all the tested six pathogenic bacteria. All the isolates produced Exopolysaccharide (EPS) whose production was maximum at pH-6. Seven best LAB isolates were characterized by 16S rRNA gene sequencing and sequence analysis using nBLAST revealed that five of the seven isolates belonged to Lactobacillus plantarum and two belonged to L. brevis. The results of the present analysis revealed that strain L. plantarum is the predominant species of LAB found in Assamese Doi. The strain also displayed the best probiotic potential among the tested isolates. In future, this strain of bacteria can be used in preparing probiotic milk based fermented product and can be developed as an efficient starter culture to make Doi.ThesisItem Open Access Mapping of Carbon Stock in different Agro-Ecosystems of Jorhat District using Remote-sensing(AAU, 2015) Baruah, Rashmi; Medhi, B.K.Soil organic carbon mapping at larger scale to assess the carbon stock using remote-sensing is useful in predicting the need based strategies to be adopted in the context with land use change and different land management scenarios. The present study aims to develop data base for mapping carbon stock in different agro-ecosystem (AESs) for forest and agricultural lands of Jorhat district and to study the effectiveness of contiguously spaced spectral bands vis-a-vis other multispectral remote-sensing in carbon stock assessment. This study revealed that forest ecosystem had higher potential to sequester carbon than agricultural land. Among different agro-ecosystems (AESs), Humid Alluvial Flood Free (HAFF) situation have the highest biomass C stock followed by High Land (HL), Humid Alluvial Flood Prone (HAFP) and lowest in Char Area (CA). Soils of Jorhat district have high amount of organic carbon, especially in forest area of HL and CA. Among physical properties, bulk density ranged from 1.0-1.48 g/cc in HAFF, 1.19-1.61 g/cc in HAFP, 1.08-1.43 g/cc in HL and 1.15 g/cc to 1.51 g/cc in CA with increasing trend down the profile. In all the profiles under study, limit of variability in BD was within 11% of observed value with respect to mean. Sand content was dominant in all AESs followed by clay and silts content, baring for HL and CA. The extent of variability in relation to mean was found to be highest in silt fraction followed by clay and sand in HAFF and HL situations, while, highest variability was observed in case of clay followed by silt and sand fractions in HAFP and CA. Among different chemical properties, soil pH ranged 4.19-6.39 in HAFF, 5.26-7.22 in HAFP, 5.06-6.14 in HL and 5.35-6.88 in CA. Soil organic carbon ranged 0.90-20.40 g/kg in HAFF, 1.50-14.70 g/kg in HAFP, 1.20-17.40 g/kg in HL and 0.30 g/kg to 16.50 g/kg in CA. Cation exchange capacity (CEC) ranged from 1.80-9.80 cmol (p+) kg-1 in HAFF, 0.13-10.20 cmol (p+) kg-1 in HAFP, 5.0-17.40 cmol (p+) kg-1 in HL and 0.60-13.0 cmol (p+) kg-1 in CA. The maximum variations with respect to mean was found in case of EC followed by CEC and then pH in all AESs but in CA, soils showed highest variations in case of organic carbon (OC) followed by TN. Profiles under forest land use system exhibited relatively higher SOCD than paddy irrespective of AESs with an exception in one location of HAFF where land use under paddy showed higher value than forest land use system. Highest SOCD was recorded in HL followed by HAFF, HAFP and lowest in CA. Soil carbon stock (SCS) was highest for HAFF (56.24Tg) followed by HAFP (35.61 Tg), HL (12.29Tg) and lowest was recorded in CA (4.36Tg). Variations in SOCD of 94.20 per cent were found to be predictable from OC, depths, TN and clay content in forest soils, whereas, 89.40 per cent variations in SOCD were predicated from OC, depth and BD in case of paddy soil. Soil OC had signifiCAnt negative correlations with pH (r= -0.496**) and BD(r= -0.594**) while, it was correlated positively with Clay (r=0.447**), CEC(r=0.454**) and TN (r=0.496**). Similarly, SOCD showed negative and significant correlation with pH (r= -0.395**) and BD(r= -0.353**) and positive significant correlation with clay (r=0.443**), CEC (r=0.291**) and TN (r= 0.256*). Maximum efficiency to remove tones equivalent of CO2 from atmosphere as stable carbon was worked out to be highest in HAFF (2145.70 Tg) followed by HL (899.59 Tg), HAFP (616.85 Tg) and Char (16.0 Tg) which indicate potential efficiency of these zone in carbon sequestration and therefore, it is important in strategizing zones to plan for increasing efficiency accordingly in putting much thrust to conserve such situation in climate resilient perspective point of view. Moreover, spatial map prepared by kriging was found to be accurate with minimum error. Semivariogram generated by kriging showed higher autocorrelation of samples with minimum sampling error (Nugget value <1.0). Soil carbon stock could easily be calculated using krig map and could be recommended for precise data estimation. Considering total geographical area of Jorhat district (2852 sq.km), total potential for CO2 removal from atmosphere was worked to be 30.41 Tg as stable carbon over the Agro-Ecosystem.
