Covering a wide array of topics on the status and challenges of organic farming, including production, nutrient management, plant protection, processing methods, organic production, policy issues, etc., in food crops, vegetable crops, and sugarcane, this new volume addresses how organic farming is an attractive option toward the reduction of toxic emissions produced from traditional agriculture and how it can help mitigate the deleterious effects on crops from climate change. With a focus primarily on India but with application elsewhere in the agricultural world, the volume looks at organic crop production in conjunction with ensuring rural livelihood security, maintaining and enhancing soil health, sugarcane productivity and sugar industry by-products, nutritional management in system-based organic farming, the management of pests in organic farming, the use of vermiculture as an important method for organic farming, and much more. The volume also looks at the issues and challenges in the marketing of organic produce.

This edited book is a compilation of tangible research findings and actual experiences on various salt tolerant rice breeding programmes, that have been successfully practiced and continuing to do so by research centres in South East Asia, with major emphasis in India, Bangladesh and Philippines. Rice being one of the most important staple crops of the world, its production and productivity have to be kept on increasing so as to feed the burgeoning population. This is a very challenging task in the midst of shrinking resource base and arable lands in the face of climate change. Salt stress is the second major abiotic stress, next only to drought, which greatly affects rice production. To overcome this problem, development of improved salt tolerant rice cultivars coupled with appropriate package of practices, an ecologically sound and socially acceptable strategy should be developed which is well within the reach of marginal farmers. With rapid advances in molecular biology, mechanisms underlying the complexity of the trait are better understood now than before. Selection of appropriate parents, desired mapping populations, precise phenotyping are the key components to underpin the mapping and utilization of reliable QTLs. Understanding genetics of salt tolerance, identifying the robust molecular markers and targeted utilization of available molecular markers form the sound basis to develop the commercial products with more precision and speed. This book covers entire range of topics: starting from biophysical characterization of salt stressed areas in different rice ecologies, conventional and molecular breeding approaches for mapping salt tolerance and subsequent development of improved rice varieties for commercial cultivation and their societal impacts. This book is of interest to scientists, faculty, policy makers and administrators. It also serves as a resource guide to graduate students of agriculture particularly plant breeding, plant physiology, molecular biology and soil science.

While the use of database technology is ubiquitous throughout IT (and health IT in particular), it is not generally appreciated that, as a database increases in scope, certain designs are far superior to others. In biomedical domains, new knowledge is being generated continually, and the databases that must support areas such as clinical care and research must also be able to evolve while requiring minimal or no logical / physical redesign. Appropriately designed metadata, and software designed to utilize it effectively, can provide significant insulation against change. Many of the larger EMR or clinical research database vendors have realized this, but their designs are proprietary and not described in the literature. Consequently, numerous misconceptions abound among individuals who have not had to work with large-scale biomedical systems, and graduates of a health or bioinformatics program may find that they need to unlearn what they were taught in database and software design classes in order to work productively with such systems. A working knowledge of such systems is also important for individuals who are not primarily software developers, such as health informaticians, medical information officers and data analysts. This book is, in a sense, intended to prepare all of the above individuals for the real world.

While the use of database technology is ubiquitous throughout IT (and health IT in particular), it is not generally appreciated that, as a database increases in scope, certain designs are far superior to others. In biomedical domains, new knowledge is being generated continually, and the databases that must support areas such as clinical care and research must also be able to evolve while requiring minimal or no logical / physical redesign. Appropriately designed metadata, and software designed to utilize it effectively, can provide significant insulation against change. Many of the larger EMR or clinical research database vendors have realized this, but their designs are proprietary and not described in the literature. Consequently, numerous misconceptions abound among individuals who have not had to work with large-scale biomedical systems, and graduates of a health or bioinformatics program may find that they need to unlearn what they were taught in database and software design classes in order to work productively with such systems. A working knowledge of such systems is also important for individuals who are not primarily software developers, such as health informaticians, medical information officers and data analysts. This book is, in a sense, intended to prepare all of the above individuals for the real world.

Cowpea is an important warm-season grain legume. Cowpea has received relatively little attention from a research standpoint. Apart from improvement of specific traits, breaking the yield plateau is the major task. Towards this direction, pooling of yield contributing alleles has reached already saturation and hence requires alternative approach. Recently, it has been realized that morpho-physiological approach as an alternative to address such tasks. The present book highlights the importance of physiological traits such as photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, transpiration rate and chlorophyll content in determining the yield indirectly by manipulated sink and source relationship and further, the scope of introgressive hybridization in development of new plant type through transgressive segregants. And also gives highlights regarding breeding approach by selection of parents, generation of transgressive segregants based on heterosis of the population and the selection parameters. This information is of great useful to the researchers and breeders who are willing to work on genetic improvement of crop species through conventional breeding approach.

Meditation has emerged as a science in past couple of decades as evidenced by hundreds of articles published in recent years. This book takes this scientific exploration to the next level by targeting a specific state of a meditation-inner light perception(ILP). This book is about the studies conducted on the meditators of Vihangam Yoga in various countries.Our interest in this meditation began when we found that ILP of the meditators in this sect far out-numbered meditators of other techniques. Our first study, a qualitative study on this technique revealed several mystical experiences of the meditators. To obtain an objective marker for this experiene, we conducted the next study with 192 channel Electroenchephalogram (EEG)whose results not only provided it's evidence but sparked interest in several scientists around the globe leading to the use of a series of highly sophisticated techniques like neuropsychology, neural networks and quantum mechanics by investigators of different nations. All these collaborative approaches have revealed unbelievable aspects of Vihangam Yoga meditation and have been compiled here as chapters.