The effects of free amino acids profiles on seeds germination/dormancy and seedlings development of two genetically different cultivars of Yemeni Pomegranates

Plant seeds used rely on a wide range of internal mechanisms and physio-chemical factors to ensure their germination under favorable environmental conditions. Most plant seeds have complex process of germination, including water, oxygen, temperature availability, genome-wide gene expression, signal transduction, hormones stimulations, inhibitors removal and catalytic protein synthesis. In addition, influences of seeds nutrient values such as, protein, lipids, sugars and free amino acids have a special importance. Regarding, seeds free amino acids. Discussion of these individual factors needs to be put in context of their role in germination processes. Regarding, free amino acids seed storage, there is limited information about their relevant functions in activation and/or deactivation of required metabolic mechanisms and interactive compounds involved in this process in commercial plant cultivars. Therefore, current study was aimed to determine the probable influence of free amino acid compositions of seeds on germination process of two different (Punica granatum L.) pomegranate cultivars including wild type Automi cultivar and edible Khazemi cultivar. In particular, we focused on the impact of amino acids contents variations on germination process and associated AAs compositional changes during various stages of germination and seedlings establishment. Amino acid analysis using HPLC detected all the essential and non-essential amino acids in the raw seeds of the studied cultivars, Automi and Khazemi along with AAs compositional changes occurred during different stages of seed germination. These AAs have been extensively analyzed in the context of their role in dormancy breaking capacities in plants species. Automi raw seeds are rich in Phe, that, is strongly related to ABA synthesis and hence might be responsible for the dormancy of Automi seeds, Khazemi raw seeds have sufficient levels of Arg, Glu and Met that have been reported to enhance seeds germination in plant, therefore Khazemi germination capacity was assumed to be regulated more or less by these AAs. In addition, changes in amino acid composition in the germinated Khazemi cultivar during various stages of seeds germination including imbibition, germination, and sprouts stages have been noticed to change in response with germination demands. This suggests that amino acids reserves in dry seeds are major determinant for germination capacity and germination behavior in the following steps of germination. The noticed particular AAs increase/decrease along the time course of Khazemi pomegranate germination till establishment of heterotrophic seedlings were used as cornerstones for elucidation and deduction of putative function and relevant biochemical pathways controlling initiation of seeds germination and seedlings developments. Based on publicly available databases of model plants and literatures surveys, we established correlations between prevailing AAs factors as biochemical parameters actively involved in seeds dormancy-breaking and germination process

Seasonal Variation of Surface Radio Refractivity and Water Vapour Density for 48 Stations in Nigeria

The monthly and seasonal variation of surface refractivity and water vapour density were studied using thirtynine years meteorological data for forty-eight stations in Nigeria. The factors which influence the transmission of radio signals operating within the troposphere are water vapour and refractivity. The results show that the surface refractivity and water vapour density generally have higher values during the rainy season than dry season at all station studied. Furthermore the results show that the value of surface refractivity and water vapour density varies from about 263 N-units and 3 g/m3 in arid region of Nigeria (North East) to about 393 N-units and 23 g/m3 in the coastal area of Nigeria (South West) respectively. For optimal performance of terrestrial radio link across Nigeria it is required to account for the variability of these parameters for optimal systems design

Influence of different concentrations of nitric oxide on fruit quality of sweet pepper and mango under mixed loading conditions

In this study, mango fruits (Mangifera indica L.) were stored together with sweet peppers to simulate mixed load shipping conditions. Sheets of Nitric oxide with different concentrations (40, 60 and 80 ml/l) were placed in mango packages. Sets with different treatments of treated and or untreated (control) mango fruits were placed together with sweet peppers, then each of treatments was kept separated in cold-storage rooms at 10 °C + 90% RH, for 35 days. Samples from mangos and sweet peppers were examined at 7 days’ intervals for physical and chemical quality parameters.  For both mango fruits and sweet peppers nitric oxide at 60 ml/l treatment showed a significant reduction of weight loss and decay percentages, and maintained general appearance, fruit firmness, total soluble solids (TSS), ascorbic acid content, and total sugars. Total chlorophyll also was steadily maintained. Hence nitric oxide at 60 ml/l significantly proved to be a potential treatment to delay ripening and keeping better overall quality attributes of both mango and sweet peppers fruits stored together as compared to other treatments and control under cold storage conditions

Evaluation of Clustering and Multi-hop Routing Protocols in Mobile Ad-hoc Sensor Networks

Mobile ad-hoc sensor networks (MASNETs) have promised a wide variety of applications such as military sensor networks to detect and gain as much as possible about enemy movements and explosions. Most of these applications can be deployed either in static or mobile environment. In static WSNs, the change of sensor nodes topology is normally caused by node failure which is due to energy depletion. However, in MASNETs, the main reason of the topology change is caused by the node movement. Since the sensor nodes are limited in power supply and have a low radio frequency coverage, they are easily losing their connection with neighbours and difficult to transmit their packets towards sink node. The reconnection process from one node to another node consumes more energy that related to control packets. One of the techniques to conserve more energy is through topology management using clustering network. A HEED (Hybrid, Energy-Efficient, Distributed) is one of the clustering algorithm for sensor networks. In HEED, a node is elected to become a cluster head based on its residual energy and its communication cost in its neighbourhood. HEED clusters the network in a constant number of iterations, elects cluster heads that are well-distributed in the network, and incurs low message and communication overhead. In this research work, through extensive simulation we evaluated the capability of HEED on how far it can react to network topology change in MASNETs by comparing its performance with Surge multihop routing protocol in both static and mobile environment. We investigated the performance of both HEED and Surge in terms of the average percentage of packet loss and the average total energy consumption with various simulation times. From the detailed simulation results and analysis, HEED performs better than Surge in term of energy consumption in static network, but not performs as expected in mobile environment

Review of Rain Attenuation Measurements On Earth - Space Links in Nigeria

Due to the prevailing impact of rain on microwave and millimetre wave propagation in tropical climates, fade margins derived from experimental campaigns would provide more practical estimates for planning. In this paper, the extent of work done on the experimental assessment of the attenuation induced by rain on practical earth-space links in Nigeria is presented. The cumulative rain rate distributions derived from the instantaneous precipitation indices for propagation modelling and the estimation of fade margin is presented for Ile-Ife, Akure, Ilorin, Ota, Osogbo and Ogbomoso. Results reveals the spatial variability of the point rainfall rate across these stations. Although the stations engaged with measurement on rain attenuation are limited in number, preliminary results from new stations are presented, while addition data from ongoing campaigns will provide a robust indices for modelling the digital DTH links and for evaluating the performance of pre-existing models over Nigeria

Balanced dual-segment cylindrical dielectric resonator antennas for ultra-wideband applications.

yesIn this paper, balanced dual segment cylindrical dielectric antennas (CDRA) with ultra wide-band operation are reported. First a T-shaped slot and L-shaped microstrip feeding line are suggested to furnish a balanced coupling mechanism for feeding two DRAs. Performance of the proposed antenna was analyzed and optimized against the target frequency band. The proposed antenna was then modified by adding a C-shaped strip to increase the gain. The performances of both balanced antennas were characterized and optimized in terms of antenna reflection coefficient, radiation pattern, and gain. The antennas cover the frequency range from 6.4 GHz to 11.736 GHz, which is 58.7% bandwidth. A maximum gain of 2.66 dB was achieved at a frequency of 7 GHz with the first antenna, with a further 2.25 dB increase in maximum gain attained by adding the C-shaped strip. For validation, prototypes of the two antennas were fabricated and tested. The predicted and measured results showed reasonable agreement and the results confirmed good impedance bandwidth characteristics for ultra-wideband operation from both proposed balanced antennas

PCR assembly of synthetic human erythropoietin gene

Human erythropoietin (huEPO) is a glycoprotein with important physiological functions, such as erythropoiesis, angiogenesis, and wound healing. A therapeutic protein, huEPO is commonly used to treat patients suffering from renal and non-renal anemia. Recombinant human erythropoietin (rhuEPO) and endogenous huEPO are similar with respect to their biological and chemical properties. In this study, we describe the construction of synthetic huEPO gene to produce rhuEPO. The synthetic huEPO gene was constructed by overlapping oligonucleotides assembly and amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Twenty oligonucleotide sets, covering the huEPO gene sequence and two newly introduced restriction enzyme sites, were pulled together and amplified using Pfu DNA polymerase to produce the expected DNA products with sizes of ~500bp and ~600bp. The PCR products were ligated into pGEM-T plasmid vector to facilitate DNA sequencing process of the constructed huEPO gene and downstream cloning manipulation. DNA sequence analysis showed correctly assembled oligonucleotide sets, representing the huEPO gene sequence albeit with minor base mutations. Hence, oligonucleotides assembly and PCR amplification provide a convenient and speedy method for the synthesis of huEPO gene without depending on mRNA isolation and reverse transcription or the need to have a genomic library

INTEGRATION OF SIMULATION TECHNOLOGIES WITH PHYSICAL SYSTEM OF RECONFIGURABLE MATERIAL HANDLING

The rapid-changing manufacturing environment requires a manufacturing system that is easily upgradeable to match new technologies and new functions such as Reconfigurable Manufacturing System (RMS). RMS is distinctive from the conventional manufacturing system, where the RMS can be accomplished by using reconfigurable hardware and software, such that its capability and functionality are changeable over time. The reconfigurable components of a RMS include mechanisms, material handling system, sensors control algorithms, machines and modules for the whole production system. The objective of this project is to verify the integration between a simulation with a physical system of a reconfigurable material handling, in order to allow the simulation software controls the physical system directly. The methodology of this project starts with modelling of the physical system. Then, the control logic of the physical system model is constructed in simulation software in line with the behavior of the real physical system. Next, PLC as the controller of reconfigurable material handling connects a computer through OPC server. The PLC communication tags are extracted from OPC server. These tags are used to build the communication between simulation and OPC server. As a result, the integration capabilities are verified by using data comparison over time between simulation and reconfigurable conveyor system

Measurement of (anti)deuteron and (anti)proton production in DIS at HERA

The first observation of (anti)deuterons in deep inelastic scattering at HERA has been made with the ZEUS detector at a centre-of-mass energy of 300--318 GeV using an integrated luminosity of 120 pb-1. The measurement was performed in the central rapidity region for transverse momentum per unit of mass in the range 0.3<p_T/M<0.7. The particle rates have been extracted and interpreted in terms of the coalescence model. The (anti)deuteron production yield is smaller than the (anti)proton yield by approximately three orders of magnitude, consistent with the world measurements.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, 5 tables, submitted to Nucl. Phys.