Ebook: New Aspects of Mesozoic Biodiversity

The Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) was established on 17th December, 1931 by a great visionary Prof. Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis to promote research in the theory and applications of statistics as a new scienti c discipline in India. In 1959, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India introduced the ISI Act in the parliament and designated it as an Institution of National Importance because of its remarkable achievements in statistical work as well as its contribution to economic planning. Today, the Indian Statistical Institute occupies a prestigious position in the a- demic rmament. It has been a haven for bright and talented academics working in a number of disciplines. Its research faculty has done India proud in the arenas of Statistics, Mathematics, Economics, Computer Science, among others. Over s- enty ve years, it has grown into a massive banyan tree, like the institute emblem. The Institute now serves the nation as a uni ed and monolithic organization from different places, namely Kolkata, the Headquarters, Delhi, Bangalore, and Chennai, three centers, a network of ve SQC-OR Units located at Mumbai, Pune, Baroda, Hyderabad and Coimbatore, and a branch ( eld station) at Giridih. The platinum jubilee celebrations of ISI have been launched by Honorable Prime Minister Prof. Manmohan Singh on December 24, 2006, and the Govt. of India has declared 29th June as the “Statistics Day” to commemorate the birthday of Prof. Mahalanobis nationally.

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The proposed book is an edited volume which contains a thematic set of seven novel papers on contemporary issues of fossil vertebrates that includes new insights of tetrapod evolution during Palaeozoic and Mesozoic eras, discovery of new vertebrate fossils including dinosaur from different continents, new information on palaeo-osteohistology and palaeobiogeography of the Indian plate during the end Mesozoic. All the seven papers of the proposed book are extremely significant in the present milieu of interdisciplinary research in areas covering vertebrate palaeontology, palaeobiology, palaeoecology and palaeobiogeography. This book will give a glimpse of the present day state of the art knowledge of these branches of science. The papers of the proposed book are the results of pioneering researches of the concerned scientists who have excellently presented their ideas/views and new discoveries in their contributions making this book intellectually attractive to the researchers in these fields all over the world. The problems and issues addressed in these papers are of general interest, so this book will not only attract the vertebrate palaeontologists but will also arouse interest of the researchers and professionals dealing with evolutionary biology and biodiversity.