University of Calcutta

About: University of Calcutta is a education organization based out in Kolkata, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Catalysis. The organization has 8900 authors who have published 19712 publications receiving 259067 citations. The organization is also known as: Calcutta University & CU.

The influence of personality traits on information seeking behaviour of students

Abstract: The present study was undertaken with the objective to explore the influence of the five personality dimensions on the information seeking behaviour of the students in higher educational institutions. Information seeking behaviour is defined as the sum total of all those activities that are usually undertaken by the students of higher education to collect, utilize and process any kind of information needed for their studies. Data has been collected from 600 university students of the three broad disciplines of studies from the Universities of Eastern part of India (West Bengal). The tools used for the study were General Information schedule (GIS), Information Seeking Behaviour Inventory (ISBI) and NEO-FFI Personality Inventory. Product moment correlation has been worked out between the scores in ISBI and those in NEO-FFI Personality Inventory. The findings indicated that the five personality traits are significantly correlated to all the dimensions of information seeking behaviour of the university students.

Evolution of karyotypes in snakes.

Abstract: Karyotype analysis and morphometric measurement of the chromosomes of 17 species of snakes have been done. Chromosomes of different species so far worked out in each family have been compared using quantitative methods to derive chromosomal affinities between species of different taxonomic categories. The following conclusions have been drawn: (i) It is suggested that the retention of Xenopeltidae as a separate family is unnecessary and the only species Xenopeltis unicolor referred to in that group should be included in the family Boidae. (ii) The subfamilies, Boinae and Pythoninae cannot be distinguished chromosomally. (iii) On the basis of chromosomal similarities, the cytologically known species of Colubridae. have been put into 13 different groupings which do not always correspond to the views of the present day colubrid taxonomists. (iv) In Hydrophiidae, speciation seems to have occurred through changes in the 4th pair of autosomes and sex chromosomes in general and the W chromosome in particular. Evidences are presented to show that fission and inversion have played an important role in bringing about the structural rearrangements in this group. (v) Family Viperidae according to taxonomists is divided into two subfamilies. Both the subfamilies are chromosomally very similar.

The chaos and control of a food chain model supplying additional food to top-predator

Abstract: The control and management of chaotic population is one of the main objectives for constructing mathematical model in ecology today. In this paper, we apply a technique of controlling chaotic predator–prey population dynamics by supplying additional food to top-predator. We formulate a three species predator–prey model supplying additional food to top-predator. Existence conditions and local stability criteria of equilibrium points are determined analytically. Persistence conditions for the system are derived. Global stability conditions of interior equilibrium point is calculated. Theoretical results are verified through numerical simulations. Phase diagram is presented for various quality and quantity of additional food. One parameter bifurcation analysis is done with respect to quality and quantity of additional food separately keeping one of them fixed. Using MATCONT package, we derive the bifurcation scenarios when both the parameters quality and quantity of additional food vary together. We predict the existence of Hopf point (H), limit point (LP) and branch point (BP) in the model for suitable supply of additional food. We have computed the regions of different dynamical behaviour in the quantity–quality parametric plane. From our study we conclude that chaotic population dynamics of predator prey system can be controlled to obtain regular population dynamics only by supplying additional food to top predator. This study is aimed to introduce a new non-chemical chaos control mechanism in a predator–prey system with the applications in fishery management and biological conservation of prey predator species.