A Short Review on the Development of Salt Tolerant Cultivars in Rice

Rice is staple food for half of the world. With a population of almost 9.6 billion by the year 2050, there is a dire need of developing techniques to improve the crop plants, not only in terms of better yield but also to withstand harsh environmental conditions and stresses like drought, temperature, flood and salinity. Salinity is second to drought stress and hence it is very important to develop crops tolerant to salinity stress. This review discusses the mechanisms of salt tolerance and the recent developments in understanding the complex tolerance phenomena. One way to address the salinity issue is to develop tolerant rice varieties using conventional and modern breeding techniques for which screening the rice germplasm for the varieties with desired traits is critical. Conventional methods to develop tolerant rice varieties are discussed along with modern biotechnology techniques are also discussed. Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) and Marker Assisted Selection (MAS) are promising techniques. In addition to these modern techniques, some recent developments in the fields of transgenic plants, haploid breeding and Somaclonal variations have also been discussed. The limited knowledge about molecular and genetic mechanisms to tolerate abiotic stresses, however is a barrier to efficiently develop tolerant cultivars. A combination of conventional and modern biotechnology techniques could possibly open up the new ways

Toxicity of Nutmeg (Myristicin): A Review

In this paper a detailed review of myristicin is reported. Numerous literatures report that myristicin is responsible for hallucinogenic effects, which induced by the consumption of nutmeg due to its metabolism structure of 3-methoxy-4,5-methylendioxyamphetamine (MMDA). Minimum dosage of nutmeg that can cause psychogenic effect is 5 g (ground nutmeg) with 1 to 2 mg myristicin content and this dosage is considered as ‘toxic dose’. At higher dosage of myristicin death may occur. Additionally, Myristicin poisoning can lead to many health problems that related to brain problem. Those symptoms usually occur 3 to 6 hours after ingestion of myristicin or foodstuffs containing it, and effects may persist up to 72 hours. California Poison Control System (CPCS) electronic database 72.3% exposures between 1997 and 2008 that were intentional for recreational purposes (between ages 13 and 20 years old). The remaining considered as unintentionally exposed. Between 1998 to 2008, Texas Poison Center Network (TPCN) received seventeen nutmeg poisoning and 64.7% from that cases involved abuse, and the rest was unintentional exposure. Most of the nutmeg exposures were via the oral route and minor cases of nutmeg exposure occurred through insufflated nutmeg, unintentional dermal and ocular exposures. Nutmeg also has been misused by mixing it with other drugs in order to get “high”. For intoxication cases, treatments like decontamination (cathartic, charcoal, dilution, fresh air, IV fluids) and supportive care (benzodiazepines) will be provided to reduce the effects

Fabrication and characterization of a pH-sensitive intelligent film incorporating dragon fruit skin extract

A novel intelligent pH-sensing indicator based on gelatin film and anthocyanin extracted from dragon fruit skin (Hylocereus polyrhizus) (DFSE) as a natural dye was developed to monitor food freshness by the casting method. Anthocyanin content of DFSE was 15.66 ± 1.59 mg/L. Dragon fruit bovine gelatin films were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and observed by a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Moisture content, mechanical properties, water solubility, water vapor permeability (WVP), light transmittance, color, and pH-sensing evaluations were evaluated for potential application. FTIR spectroscopy revealed that the extracted anthocyanin could interact with the other film components through hydrogen bonds. When the extract was added, films showed a smooth and clear surface as observed by SEM. The addition of anthocyanin increased the moisture content, thickness, and water solubility of the films, but decreased the WVP and light transmittance of films. Also, the incorporation of 15% v/v DFSE decreased the tensile strength from 17.04 to 12.91 MPa, increasing the elongation at break from 91.19% to 107.86%. The films showed higher ΔE with increasing DFSE content, which indicated that the film had good color variability. A significant difference in the color of the films was observed with exposure to different pH buffer solutions. The findings demonstrated that gelatin film incorporated with DFSE could be used as a visual indicator of pH variations to monitor the freshness of foods during storage time

Design and performance of a power generating manual treadmill

Treadmills are one of the most popular training equipment in the gym and at home. The working principle of treadmills is by moving the belt with the human knee bending, which creates mechanical energy to turn the belt. A gear or pulley and belt system connects to the generator along the axel line of the rolling bars. The power generated by the DC generator is stored in a battery pack and could be used to charge phones or other equipment. It has been found that treadmills can provide an efficiency of 95% when the DC motor is used and 92% when the AC motor is used. The main objective of this study is to design and fabricate a powder-generating manual treadmill and to analyze the performance of the system under different operation conditions

Auto indoor hydroponics plant growth chamber

The objective of this project is to build an auto indoor hydroponics plant growing chamber that has an auto monitoring and controlling system. A ESP32 based hydroponics electrical system is built with the attachment of hardware components such as temperature and humidity sensor, light intensity sensor, water level sensor, and water flow rate sensor. The software development of the system is through Arduino IoT Cloud platform, which has an overall suitability in terms of features, cost, and user intuitiveness for starters. Results have shown that ESP32 can ensure stable power supply. After testing and validation, all of the electrical components are stored in a power enclosure box to prevent contact with liquid. In short, the developed auto indoor hydroponics plant growth chamber has effectively demonstrated the ability in easing the plant cultivation procedure for agricultural community

A Virological Study of Enterovirus Infections in Peninsular Malaysia

Background: Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is a common illness in infants and children. It can be caused by many different human enteroviruses. Of these human enteroviruses, human enterovirus 71 (EV71) infection is more frequently associated with serious neurological complications and fatalities. The emergence of this virus emphasized the need for surveillance study and identification of EV71 to provide early warning of potential EV71 encephalitis outbreaks and assist in directing public health interventions as well as inform clinical decisions. This surveillance study was aimed to examine the prevalence of enteroviruses and EV71 in suspected clinical specimens. Methods: Samples preparation: Specimens with the clinical and epidemiological data were received from various hospitals in West Malaysia from January to December 2007. The samples were analyzed immediately upon arrival in our laboratory otherwise stored at −80 ◦C. RNA extraction: The RNA from the specimens were extracted using High Pure Viral Nucleic Acid Kit. PCR analysis and primer sequences: One step RT-PCR was employed with primers EVPCR1 (5�-ACA-CGG-ACA-CCCAAA-GTA-GTC-GGT-TCC-3�) and EVPCR2 (5�-TCC-GGC-CCCTGA-ATG-CGG-CTA-ATC-C-3�) for enteroviruses and MAS01S (5�-ATA-ATA-GCA-YTR-GCG-GCA-GCC-CA-3�) and MAS02A (5�-AGA-GGG-AGR-TCT-ATC-TCY-CC-3�) for EV71. Results: A total number of 2,381 clinical specimens were analyzed for the presence of enteroviruses and EV71 by RTPCR analysis. Out of all of the specimens analyzed, 531 (22.3%) were positive for enteroviruses and 21 (0.04%) of these were positive for EV71. These results showed that EV71 is less prevalent than other enteroviruses in the clinical specimens analyzed. Conclusion: The outcomes of the present surveillance study suggested that the EV71 which is more frequently associated with serious neurological and complications and fatalities is less prevalent than other enteroviruses. The results obtained also confirmed the usefulness of the PCR as a simple and rapid method for the detection of enteroviruses and discrimination of EV71 from other enteroviruses in clinical specimens

A Flexible and Compact Metamaterial UHF RFID Tag for Remote Sensing in Human Health

This paper presents a miniaturized UHF RFID tag antenna with increased gain using meander line techniques and metamaterial (MTM). The designed tag operates in the UHF RFID frequency band ranging from 860 to 960 MHz. It comprises of meandered lines with two hexagonal split ring resonators (H-SRRs) MTM cells. It is designed on a photo paper as its substrate which is 0.27 mm thick, with a dielectric constant of 3.2 and loss tangent of 0.05. Next, an RFID tag (NXP SL381213 UCODE G2iL chip) with an impedance of 23-j224 Ω is integrated with the proposed antenna to assess its performance in terms of reflection coefficient, antenna gain and maximum reading range. The overall size of the tag is 92 mm x26 mm

Parenting and community engagement factors as predictors of religiosity among muslim adolescents from Malaysia.

Despite the plethora of research on correlates of adolescent religiosity, few studies have examined the contribution of social context to religiosity among non-Western Muslim samples using multidimensional religiosity measures. To address this gap, the current study investigated the influence of community engagement and parenting factors on religiosity among 596 Malaysian Muslim secondary school students (M age = 16.10, SD = .29). After controlling for gender, family structure, family income, and social desirability, the results showed that parental monitoring, mosque involvement, and school engagement significantly predicted religious worldview, whereas parental religious socialization, parental monitoring, mosque involvement, school engagement, and youth organization involvement accounted for a significant amount of the variance in religious personality. Implications for further research on socialization influences on religious development among adolescents are discussed