An Expert System is a system that employs human knowledge captured in a computer to solve problems that ordinarily require human expertise. In agriculture, expert systems unite the accumulated expertise of individual disciplines, such as plant pathology, entomology, horticulture and agricultural meteorology and Animal Sciences; into a framework that best addresses the specific, on-site needs of...

OBJECTIVE The availability of suicide methods affects the risk of suicide attempts. This study examined the patterns of substances ingested by suicide attempters (SAs) and the characteristics of SAs using psychotropic overdoses. METHODS Data for 384 of the 462 eligible SAs who used self-poisoning were analyzed. Demographic variables, clinical characteristics, and factors related to the suicid...

Deformed wing virus (DWV) in western honey bees (Apis mellifera) often remains asymptomatic in workers and drones, and symptoms have never been described from queens. However, intense infections linked to parasitism by the mite Varroa destructor can cause worker wing deformity and death within 67 h of emergence. Ten workers (eight with deformed wings and two with normal wings) and three drones ...

OBJECTIVE To describe circumstances surrounding injuries involving nail guns among carpenters, calculate injury rates, identify high risk groups and preventive measures. METHODS and setting: Active injury surveillance was used to identify causes of injury among a large cohort of union residential and drywall carpenters. Injured carpenters were interviewed by experienced journeymen; enumeratio...

OBJECTIVE To study the epidemiology of injuries among children (<14 years) in a rural population. METHODS The present Cross Sectional Study was undertaken in rural Pondicherry. The trained second year medical undergraduate students paid house visits to all houses in five feasibly selected villages. The students interviewed the mother of children aged < 14 years and obtained information on inj...

The changing climatic conditions are expected to increase the atmospheric CO2 concentration, temperatures and alter the precipitation pattern. Atmospheric CO2 concentration is predicted to reach 550ppm by 2050, and probably exceed 700ppm by the end of this century [1]. These changes are anticipated to affect the production and productivity of agricultural crops and influence the future food sec...

Ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation and elevated tropospheric ozone may cause reductions in the productivity and quality of important agricultural crops. However, research regarding their interactive effect is still scarce, especially on the belowground processes. Using the open top chambers experimental setup, we monitored the response of soil nematodes to the elevated O3 and UV-B radiation individ...

Climate change is one of the most serious problems facing the world today. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports confirmed that climate change will have a significant impact on global surface temperature. The projections of IPCC are that the rise of the mean temperature will be as high as 6.4oC by 2100, while the concentration of CO2 will be 1.3 times higher than it was 2...