The blockchain technology gained immense popularity after the release of white paper under the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto. The technology has brought revolutionary changes in the field of economics and finance but the appeal of blockchain is far above the financial arena and finds itself relevant in many other fields as well. This paper explores the establishment of a network using the blockchain technology to bring systematic and exhaustive growth in agricultural and subtler aspects of agriculture business making it to more economical for the small and mid-scale farmers and discuss the prospect of a peer to peer independent network among the farmers and agriculturally dependent counterparts.

This study aims to examine the causal effects of linkage models for rice production and distribution conducted between farmers and enterprises on farmers’ outcome perforamces, such as farm income, yield and output price. The study employed a propensity score matching approach to measure the impact of participation in the linkage model on the crop outcomes by using a cross-sectional data gathered from 360 rice growers residing in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. The findings of the study reveal that participation in the linkage models has positive impacts on rice incomes and output prices, which may help raise farm income. This paper significantly contributes to fill a considerable gap in effect estimation of rice production and distribution through a contract.

The objective of the research is an attempt to apply MLG and MLM to the institutional analysis of the Baltic Sea States Subregional Cooperation (BSSSC). Such an attempt can help understand the essence institutional BSSSC specifics, which seems to be unique.\nInside a multi-level governance system (MLG), on one hand, a specific conglomerate of governance levels can be observed, but on the other, a set of vertical processes occurring between these levels and horizontal processes observed at these levels, as well as a set of actors operating at these levels (inside MLG).\nAn element of multi-level governance is Multi-level Membership (MLM), which assumes the participation of non-state actors in many institutions operating simultaneously at several levels of governance.

Developing simplify estimation method without compromising the performance of the distribution is germane to forest modelling. Few estimation methods exist for the Log-Logistic distribution and are relatively complex. A simplified estimator for the Log-Logistic parameters will increase its application in diameter distribution yield systems. Therefore, in this study, a percentile-based estimator was applied for the Log-Logistic distribution. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Anderson-Darling and Cramer-von Mises statistics were used to evaluate the method on two natural forest stands and two monospecific plantations of Gmelina arborea Roxb and Tectona grandis Linn f. in Nigeria. Parameter recovery model (PRM) and parameter prediction model (PPM) were used to predict the diameter distributions of independent stands of G. arborea and T. grandis. The results showed that the percentile estimator did not compromise the quality of fits of the Log-Logistic function across the four forest stands and are comparable to the maximum likelihood estimator. The 25th and 75th, and 40th and 80th were the best sample percentiles for the estimator. The predicted diameter distributions of G. arborea and T. grandis stands from the PRM and PPM were reasonable and compare well with the observed distribution. Thus, either of the models can be incorporated into the growth and yield system in the management of the forest stands.

This study describes a simple method for the large-scale isolation of pure Toxoplasma gondii tachyzoites and bradyzoites. T. gondii tachyzoites were obtained from infected human foreskin fibroblasts (HFFs) and peritoneal exudates of mice, while tissue cysts containing bradyzoites were collected from chronically infected mice. Harvested cells and brain tissues were incubated in Hanks balanced salt solution (HBSS), containing 0.25% trypsin and 0.5% taurodeoxycholic acid (TDC) for five min. Subsequent washes in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) were conducted, and the viability of the preparations was normal, as determined by flow cytometry and ability to re-infect HFF cells and propagate in mice. The purification procedure allowed for a rapid preparation of pure T. gondii tachyzoites and bradyzoites in sufficient quantity that can be used for downstream procedures. The advantages of the new method are that it is convenient and inexpensive.

Leaves of Ocimum sanctum has been used in Indian traditional medicinal system since ancient\ntimes for its preventive and curative properties. The aim of our study was to investigate the effect\nof Hydroalcoholic extract of Ocimum sanctum (OLE) on Calcium oxalate crystallization process.\nPhytochemical profiling of extract through GC MS analysis was done to confirm the presence of\ndifferent therapeutically important classes of phytocompounds. Calcium oxalate crystallization\nwas induced in vitro and effect of different concentrations of extract (1-8 mg/ml) was studied on\nnucleation, aggregation and growth of crystals. Up to 40.32% inhibition of calcium oxalate\nnucleation was observed with maximum concentration (8 mg/ml) of extract used in the study.\nMicroscopic observation revealed that the extract decreased the number and size of crystal nuclei\nwith increase in concentration. Maximum inhibition of aggregation (33.9%) was observed at 1\nmg/ml concentration. Significant inhibition of crystal growth was observed at 1 mg/ml and 2\nmg/ml of the extract to 94.59% and 97.21% respectively. These results suggest that Ocimum\nsanctum leaf extract possess the potential to inhibit all the three phases of calcium oxalate\ncrystallization and can be investigated further for the treatment and prevention of urolithiasis.