In vitro response from cotyledon and hypocotyls explants in tomato by inducing 6-benzylaminopurine

Differential response of tomato was evaluated by hypocotyls and cotyledon explants on 6- benzylaminopurine (BAP) containing MS media. Among the four levels (0, 1, 2 and 4 mg/l) of BAP employed in Murashige and Skoog (MS) media, 2.0 mg/l BAP was found superior in growth traits (number of shoots/explants and shoot length) and cultivars. No significant difference was noticed between cotyledon and hypocotyls explants on media having 2.0 mg/l BAP. In the same treatment, shoot length was significantly different between cotyledon and hypocotyls derived explants. No adventitious shoots was noted in the control and higher concentration of BAP containing media but theexplants turned into callus on media having 4.0 mg/l BAP

In vitro performances of hypocotyl and cotyledon explants of tomato cultivars under sodium chloride stress

A plant tissue culture technique is a good method for the evaluation and screening of plant genotypes for salt tolerance. In vitro evaluations of sodium chloride (NaCl) effects on two tomato cultivars (Pearl and Beril) were investigated with four NaCl levels (0, 25, 50 and 75 mM) using hypocotyl and cotyledon explants. The explants were cultured in MS media having 2.0 mg/l BAP along with different concentrations of NaCl. Sodium chloride stress negatively affected the growth traits and chlorophyll content. Significant differences were noticed between the cultivars followed by different NaCl levels, where the Beril responded superior than that of Pearl. The type of explant showed a difference in their response to shoots regeneration under NaCl stress, where the cotyledon explants achieved best results than hypocotyl explants.Key words: Cotyledons, hypocotyls, In vitro, salt stress, tomato

Electron beam crosslinked natural rubber/multiwalled carbon nanotube nanocomposite

The physical properties of the rubber blends are influenced by vulcanization and filler distribution. Normally, rubbers are vulcanized by systems based on sulfur or peroxide with the most common filler carbon black. Radiation can also produce crosslink densities like those obtained by sulphur curing, but the net effects, are similar, though not identical. The type of crosslink formed in this method (–C–C–) give rise to better mechanical properties at higher temperature. This work reports on the investigations carried out on natural rubber (SMR) filled with the multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). This system of SMR/MWCNTs was subjected to different radiation dosages and compared with nonradiated samples in order to determine the improvement in mechanical properties of the rubber system in the presence of MWCNTs and irradiation dosages. The amount of MWCNTs in this study was varied from 1 to 7 Phr and the irradiation doses were varied from 50 to 200 KGy. Mechanical properties, especially, tensile strength (TS), elongation at break had been studied as a function of irradiation dose and degree of loading with MWCNTs. Gel fraction indicated an increase in the degree of crosslink with the increase in the MWCT and radiation dosage. XRD was carried out to check the increase in the crytallinty of the nanocomposite system. The overall results obtained indicate significant improvement in the mechanical and thermal properties by radiation crosslinking in presence of MWCNTs. These results were further supported by TEM micrograph and nanoindentation

Acute Toxicity Study and Hepatocurative Effect of Aqueous Stem Bark Extract of Parkia Biglobosa in Wister albino Rats

Parkia biglobosa plant is widely is used in folk medicinal practices to treat and/or manage various diseases including diabetes, malaria, diarrhea and pains. The current research seek to establish the toxicity profile and hepatocurative ability of aqueous stem bark extract of the plant. Twelve (12) rats were used for Oral LD50 determination, and were grouped into four (4) groups of three rats (3) each. The first three groups were administered with 10 mg/kg, 100 mg/kg and 1000 mg/kg body weight of the extract respectively, while the last group was subdivided into three groups of one rat each and were administered with 2500mg/kg, 3500mg/kg and 5000mg/kg body weight of the extract respectively. For the hepatocurative studies, twenty five (25) experimental rats were divided into five groups of five (5) rats each. Group I served as normal rats, Group II served as test Control while Groups III to V were induced with liver damage and administered with 50mg/kg, 100mg/kg and 150mg/kg of the extract respectively. The LD50 was found to be greater than 5000mg/kg, while phytochemical screening revealed the presence of Flavanoids, Glycosides, Tanins, Saponins, Steroids and Phenols, with the absence of Anthraquinones. For the hepatocurative study, a significant (p<0.0.5) increase in serum albumin and liver enzymes (AST, ALT and ALP) was observed in test control compared to normal control. Upon administration of the extract, a significant (p<0.0.5) fall in Albumin, AST, ALT and ALP was recorded in a dose dependent pattern. No significant difference (p>0.05) was observed between groups in total protein, direct and total bilirubin. The research concludes that the extract is practically non-toxic and possess strong hepatocurative ability which might be due to the phytochemicals present. Keywords: Acute toxiicity; CCl4; Liver; P. biglobosa; Phytochemical and wistar rats. DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/13-16-04 Publication date:September 30th 202

“Are Machines Better Than Humans in Image Tagging?” - A User Study Adds to the Puzzle

“Do machines perform better than humans in visual recognition tasks?” Not so long ago, this question would have been considered even somewhat provoking and the answer would have been clear: “No”. In this paper, we present a comparison of human and machine performance with respect to annotation for multimedia retrieval tasks. Going beyond recent crowdsourcing studies in this respect, we also report results of two extensive user studies. In total, 23 participants were asked to annotate more than 1000 images of a benchmark dataset, which is the most comprehensive study in the field so far. Krippendorff’s α is used to measure inter-coder agreement among several coders and the results are compared with the best machine results. The study is preceded by a summary of studies which compared human and machine performance in different visual and auditory recognition tasks. We discuss the results and derive a methodology in order to compare machine performance in multimedia annotation tasks at human level. This allows us to formally answer the question whether a recognition problem can be considered as solved. Finally, we are going to answer the initial question

High Proportion of Inflammatory Breast Cancer in the Population-Based Cancer Registry of Gharbiah, Egypt

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72192/1/j.1524-4741.2009.00755.x.pd

DESCONTMARKS: scale development and validation

In order to attract more tourists to visit a particular place, destination content marketing plays an important role. Tourism research has recently shown an interest in destination content marketing; especially when tourism destination is advertised. Currently, there is no scale available to measure content marketing for promoting tourism destination. The present study has two primary objectives. First, to investigate the dimension of destination content marketing in destination related context. Second, to develop and validate a multiple-item scale for measuring content marketing towards tourism destination. This study uses a rigorous scale development technique which involves three stages of scale development using 3 separate studies. The study confirms that destination content marketing scale (DESCONTMARKS) comprises of three dimensions, measured with 10 items. The implications of the destination content marketing scale for practitioners, as well as suggestions for future research are provided

Gender and age differences in choice of holiday destination: case of Langkawi, Malaysia

While gender and age are considered as important demographic factors in tourism segmentation, lack of attention has been given by tourism researchers. Moreover, gender and age analysis within tourism studies are still limited, particularly in the context of choice of destination. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of gender and age in determining the destination choice. Langkawi has been chosen as a location for the study due to its popularity among the local and international tourist. Survey questionnaire is used as a tool for data collection. A total of 529 Langkawi holidaymakers participated in the study. T-test and ANOVA has been employed to analyse the data. The findings indicate that gender and age both influence Langkawi being chosen as a holiday destination. Male and female consumers place different emphasis on the selection of Langkawi as a destination of choice. These findings suggest that tourism advertisers and destination promoters need to be aware of different needs and wants of both males and females. However, tourists of different ages evaluate Langkawi similarly, which marketers can use a variety of promotion packages for all age group. The study's practical implications and limitations are discussed

Benchmarking of T cell receptor repertoire profiling methods reveals large systematic biases

Monitoring the T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire in health and disease can provide key insights into adaptive immune responses, but the accuracy of current TCR sequencing (TCRseq) methods is unclear. In this study, we systematically compared the results of nine commercial and academic TCRseq methods, including six rapid amplification of complementary DNA ends (RACE)-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and three multiplex-PCR approaches, when applied to the same T cell sample. We found marked differences in accuracy and intra- and inter-method reproducibility for T cell receptor α (TRA) and T cell receptor β (TRB) TCR chains. Most methods showed a lower ability to capture TRA than TRB diversity. Low RNA input generated non-representative repertoires. Results from the 5' RACE-PCR methods were consistent among themselves but differed from the RNA-based multiplex-PCR results. Using an in silico meta-repertoire generated from 108 replicates, we found that one genomic DNA-based method and two non-unique molecular identifier (UMI) RNA-based methods were more sensitive than UMI methods in detecting rare clonotypes, despite the better clonotype quantification accuracy of the latter

Effect of rice husk ash properties on the early age and long term strength of mortar

This paper presents an experimental study on the effect of chemical composition and physical properties of rice husk ash (RHA) on the strength of mortar. The aim of this investigation was to establish the optimal RHA replacement levels as blending component in cement. Four different types of RHA (A, B, C and D) were used of which RHA-C and D had the highest content of amorphous silica. Compressive and tensile strength and workability of the mixes were compared with control OPC samples. Results show that the early age (7days) strength of RHA blended mortar samples was lower than the compressive and tensile strength of the OPC control samples. However, the 28 day strength of samples with up to 20% RHA-C and RHA- D was higher than that of the control samples. The 90 day strength of all blended samples with up to 40% RHA was higher than that of the control samples. RHA-D performed best in the experiments with a compressive strength increase of 16% at 20% RHA replacement and an increase of compressive strength of 8.6% at 40% RHA replacement. The results at 90 days show that cement could be replaced with up to 50% RHA with only a small reduction in strength compared to OPC mortar. From the results it was found that the content of amorphous silica has the biggest influence on the strength of the mortar samples while the workability was higher for samples with finer grained RHA