Name of the Head of Department: Dr. M. S. Kulshreshtha

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Brief information of the department:

The Department of Basic Sciences and Humanities, B A College of Agriculture, Anand Agricultural University, Anand is formed on 15^th March 2019 to strengthen the disciplines of Mathematics, Physics and English. These disciplines are energetically occupied with Teaching, Research and Extensions.

 

1 Mathematics :

Teaching:

Two numbers of Faculties of Mathematics One Professor and one assistant professor are highly engaged in teaching different courses of Mathematics at Under Graduate and Post Graduate level in various colleges of Agricultural, Food Processing & Technology and Agricultural Information Technology College of Anand Agricultural University.

At P G level in the course no AGM 607, Mathematics in Agriculture and Biology (2+1) to make the student competitive in the recent era department has started Practical of Mathematics using MATLAB. Here, Use of MATLAB (matrix laboratory) gives student practice on Matrix  manipulations, plotting of function  and data, implementation of algorithms, and interfacing

with programs written in other languages like C++,Java, Fortran, Python etc.

 

A-1 Courses Teach by Faculty of Mathematics at U G level:

Sr. No.	Subject tile with code	Credit hours	Semester
1	Elementary Mathematics(Maths1.1) B.Sc.(Agri.)	2+0	I B sc
2	Engineering Mathematics-I (MATH111), Food Processing and Technology	2+0	I B Tech
3	Engineering Mathematics-II (MATH121), Food Processing and Technology	2+0	II B Tech
4	Engineering Mathematics-I (MATH111), Agricultural Information technology College	2+1	I B Tech
5	Engineering Mathematics-II (MATH121),( Agricultural Information technology College	2+1	II B Tech
6	Biomathematics (Maths2.1) Polytechnic(Agri.)	2+0	II Diploma (Agriculture)
7	Applied Mathematics (SC121), Polytechnic (FPT)	2+1	II Diploma(Food Science and Home Economics)

 

B-1 Research work

 

• Developed the William & Logan model for Anand station and also used Double Fourier Series and Artificial Neural Networks to predict hourly air temperatures, Monthly and Annual Rainfall.

 

• Used Fourier series for one variable & two variables and new technique artificial neural network (ANN) to predict the Soil temperatures at different depths & monthly and annual rainfall.

 

• Applied Harmonic Analysis for prediction & counting Variability in the soil temperature data at different depths.

 

• Developed Incomplete Gamma distribution and ANN models for Anand station for Rainfall

probability Analysis and Predicted weekly rainfall with probability.

 

• Applied Extreme Value Distributions namely, Gumbel & Fisher Tippett Type-II for Rainfall Probability analysis of 58 number of stations of Gujarat state of India .

 

• Used Principal Component Analysis for Effect of Weather Parameters on Yield of Indian Goose Berry (AONLA) and mango.

 

• Completed the Collaborative project of Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad & Anand Agricultural University, Anand on “Modelling for estimation of Incident Photosynthetically Active Radiation (IPAR) using INSAT 3D data” during September 2011 to March 2015 . Here, PARcalc model is developed for clear and cloudy sky to predict the Photosynthetically Active Radiation which was based on a simplification of the general radiative transfer equations.

 

• Used two non linear models namely , Double Fourier Series and Artificial Neural Networks to predict the monthly rainfall and recommendation given to the scientific community:

 

“To predict the monthly rainfall with greater accuracy from June to September in middle Gujarat it is recommended to use Artificial Neural Networks with

four inputs namely, Maximum air temperature of May, monthly mean Relative .humidity, monthly rainfall and monthly wind speed of previous year ,

ten number of hidden neurons,

training function : Leven berg-Marquardt Back Propagation,

Adaption Learning function: Gradient Descant with Bias Learning ,

Performance function: Mean Square Error ,

Transfer Function: TANSIG.”

 

• Did Frequency analysis of Rainfall for middle Gujarat.

 

• Did extension work

“Study of exposure, perception and advantages realized about weather based agro-advisory services by selected farmers of Anand district”

C-1 Awards:

1. Year 2008 Best Poster Award At Anand Agricultural University, Anand ,Gujarat

By Association of Agro meteorologists for the research paper entitled “Prediction of weekly soil temperatures by artificial neural networks and harmonic analysis”

2. Year 2008 Certificate of Special Best Poster Presentation Award

At Central research Institute of Dry land Agriculture (CRIDA),

Hyderabad, A. P, India by Association of Agro meteorologists

for the research paper entitled “Applications of Double variable Fourier series and Artificial Neural Network in annual rainfall prediction.”

3 Year 1995 Certificate of Merit award At New Delhi by Central Board of

Irrigation & Power in International Conference." Water & Energy

2001 for the research paper entitled “Extreme Value Analysis of

Rainfall of the Krishna- Godavari Basin" Andhra Pradesh, India.

 

2 Physics:

Physics - the study of matter, energy and their interactions - is an international enterprise, which plays a key role in the future progress of humankind. The relevance and support of Physics education and research in all other disciplines utilizing its basic concepts is remarkable. At present one faculty of Physics designated as Assistant Professor in this department.

 

Teaching:

This faculty is engaged with teaching at U G & P G level, Collaborative research work with Indian Space Science Research Organization, Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad and extension activities in the field of Basic Physics and Remote Sensing & GIS applications in agriculture.

 

A-2 Courses Teach by Faculty of Physics at U G level:

Sr. No.	Subject Title with code	Credit hours	Semester
	SC-112 Basic Physics (FPT Polytechnic)	2+1=4	I Diploma
	Agron 5.7 Geoinformatics and Precision Agriculture BSC (Agri)	1+1= 3	V B Sc(Agril.)

B-2 Research: List of Ongoing Research Projects (Other Agency)

Sr. No.	Title	Period			Funding Agency
		From	To
	Calibration and validation of SMAP Soil Moisture over Semi-Arid agricultural patches in Gujarat.	2015	2019	SAC, ISRO, Ahmedabad
	Development of Decision Support System (DSS) for planning storage infrastructures and supply chain logistics.	2017	2019	SAC, ISRO, Ahmedabad
	Crop discrimination and soil fertility assessment using AVIRIS-NG data.	2017	Cont.	ISRO, Department of Space, GOI
	Evaluating L & S band SAR data for estimation of crop biophysical parameters and soil moisture. (NISAR)	2017	Cont.	ISRO, Department of Space, GOI
	Forecasting sugarcane production at mill catchment in Bharuch, Gujarat with Remote Sensing and ancillary information.	2017	Cont.	SAC, ISRO, Ahmedabad , GOI
	SCATSAT-1 utilization project on Rice productivity from SCATSAT-1 data.	2017	Cont.	SAC, ISRO, Ahmedabad, GOI
	Development of Active-Passive Algorithm for High Resolution Soil Moisture over Bare and Vegetation Covered Soil	2019	Cont.	SAC, ISRO, Ahmedabad, GOI
	Spectral Library Development and Spectral Sensitivity Analysis for Multi Crops and Growth Stages	2019	Cont.	SAC, ISRO, Ahmedabad, GOI

B-2.1 Facilities available:

• Department is equipped with hot air oven for drying soil and plant samples under various research projects.

• Department is monitoring and maintaining Soil moisture Hydraprobe and COSMOS sensors installed by ISRO at RRS farm and Agronomy farm respectively.

C-2 Awards :

Awarded first prize for best oral paper presentation for “Estimation of cotton crop in Gujarat using multidate RISAT-1 SAR data” at International Symposium held at G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand during 16-18 October, 2014

3 English :

Since the beginning of this college, English exists as a supporting discipline to help the students communicate in the Agricultural academia. Here, mandate of English language is to make the students competitive, competent, communicative and proficient to deal with international language in their personal and professional life. Faculty of English is an integral part of B. A. College of Agriculture, providing a platform to the students of Anand Agricultural University to learn and practice English language, besides their respective technical trainings. We equip our students through English Lab to achieve an effective competency in this competitive world. Our courses offer an opportunity to nourish overall development of the students with special reference to language skills.

A-3 Courses Teach by Faculty of English at U G & P G level:

Sr. No.	Subject Title with code	Credit hours	Semester
	English 1.1 Comprehension and Communication Skills (at BACA, Anand & COA, Jabugam)	1+1=2	I B.Sc.-Agri.
	SSC 2.5 Communication Skills and Personality Development (At College of Horticulture, Anand)	1+1=2	II B.Sc.-Horti.
	Eng. 1.1 Comprehension and Communication Skills (At Polytechnic, Vadodara)	1+1=2	I (Diploma-Agri.)
	Eng. 1.1 Comprehension and Communication Skills (At Polytechnic, Anand)	1+1=2	I (Diploma-Horti.)
	HVE 2.1 Human Values and Ethics (At BACA, Anand & COA, Jabugam)	1+0=1	IB.Sc.-Agri.
	HVE__ Human Values and Ethics (At Polytechnic, Anand)	1+0=1	I B.Sc.-Agri.
	PGS 502 Technical Writing & Communication Skills	1+0=1	Post Graduate

B -3 Facilities available:

Language Lab

Department of English has a Language Lab very well equipped with Audio-Visual gadgets. It facilitates our students to enhance their language proficiency through the practice of four components of Communication Skills, namely, Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. This lab contains one teacher console Computer System along with 28 Student Computers. Moreover, Projector, Sound Systems and Headphones are also installed in the lab.

B-3.1 Professioal Responsibilities 

1. Assisting and editing other publications of BACA

2. Updating Face book page of AAU

3. Assisting and editing AAU Newsletter

4. Assisting and editing Annual Report of AAU

5. New Literacy – an initiative

6. Helping and coordinating the coaching of the competitive exams like TOEFL, GRE, IELTS, JRF and NET etc . Counseling the students (as Student Counselor)

Faculty members of the department are also involved in Student Ready programme and its related activities (RAWE village phase).