Morphological and biochemical variation in Sea buckthorn Hippophae rhamnoides ssp. turkestanica, a multipurpose plant for fragile mountains of Pakistan

Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides ssp. turkestanica) a member of family Elaeagnaceae, is a very important multipurpose plant in the northern areas of Pakistan. It is an ideal plant for preventing soil erosion and land reclamation, can withstand extremes of temperature ranging from −43°C to 55°C and grows well under drought conditions and variable soil pH. The fruit is rich in nutrients and medicinal compounds such as vitamins, carotene, flavonoids, essential oil, carbohydrates, organic acids, amino acids, and soluble sugars. The plants are also important as fuel wood, fencing, fodder, soil erosion control, to make soil fertile by nitrogen fixation in roots and for the purpose of shelterbelts. In order to compare various populations of Sea buckthorn for morphological and biochemical composition, ten populations from different areas of northern Pakistan were compared using plant and fruit characters. The purpose of the investigation was to identify the variable populations for different valuable characteristics to develop improved varieties for commercial cultivation and easy fruit harvesting. The comparison indicated a significant amount of variability on morphological and biochemical basis. The variability will be utilised to develop commercial varieties of the plant utilising the conventional techniques of selection and hybridisation for economic activities on degraded land of mountainous regions of Pakistan

Water resources development in relation to irrigation in Nigeria

Water resources development in relation to irrigation in Nigeri

Training needs for successful development of irrigation scheme

This paper recommends some strategies towards development of a functional manpower training program for irrigation schemes in Nigeria

The Impact of Technological and Marketing Innovations on Retailing Industry: Evidence of India

Innovation is usually linked with technology-based change. Retailers form a significant sector in the developed economies and also are picking up in the developing economies. There have been few studies in the area of innovation in the retail industry in both conceptual as well as empirical points of view. The objective of this study is to study the impact of marketing and technological innovations on the retail industry. The sample of the study was drawn from the customers who live in the city of Aligarh in India. The study is conclusive, descriptive and is based on a single cross-sectional research design. Quantitative data was generated on the basis of the research instrument (a questionnaire). The study concluded that technological innovation is more important than marketing innovation with respect to World of Mouth (WOM) referral and satisfaction. Furthermore, the study revealed that technological innovation has an impact on store image, customer value, brand store equity, satisfaction, WOM referral, and WOM activity. The study also recommended that a retailer can take some advantages of introducing new technologies. This means investing in technologies would help in increasing market share and competitiveness of the retail sector in the long-run

Androgenic profiles in HIV-infected male patients on highly active anti-retroviral therapy: could this be a threat to fertility?

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the Serum Androgenic Profiles of HIV-infected Male Patients on Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy and those not on Active Antiretroviral Therapy in Specialist Hospital Sokoto, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: One hundred and thirty-five HIV-infected male patients were evaluated in the Department of Medicine, Specialist Hospital Sokoto Nigeria from July 2017 to March 2018 using history, baseline investigations, and CD4counts. Free testosterone, luteinizing hormone (LH), and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) were measured using an overnight fasting serum sample. Patients were divided into three groups (n=45); Group A= HIV-infected male patients on HAART, Group B = HIV-infected male treatment naive patients, and Group C= HIV-negative control subjects. Data were analysed using ANOVA and Chi-square tests and p≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant Results: The serum testosterone and CD4 counts were reduced in HIV-infected male patients on HAART and HAART naive compared to the negative control. The reduced testicular functions were substantiated by raised serum LH and FSH in HIV-infected male patients on HAART (p < 0.05) compared to the negative control. Conclusions: HIV-infections associated with low CD4 counts even among patients on Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy may pose threat to male fertility. Keywords: HIV-infected Males; Hypogonadisms; Sokoto Nigeri

Polarized deep inelastic scattering at high energies and parity violating structure functions

A comprehensive analysis of deep inelastic scattering of polarized charged leptons on polarized nucleons is presented; weak interaction contributions, both in neutral and charged current processes, are taken into account and the parity violating polarized nucleon structure functions are studied. Possible ways of their measurements and their interpretations in the parton model are discussed.Comment: (slightly modified version, includes a few new references and corrects few misprints for publication), 14 pages in TeX (needs harvmac) no figure, DFTT 80/9

Effect of welding energy on microstructure and strength of ultrasonic spot welded dissimilar joints of aluminum to steel sheets

Two dissimilar ultrasonic spot welded joints of aluminum to commercial steel sheets at different levels of welding energy were investigated. The tensile lap shear tests were conducted to evaluate the failure strength in relation to microstructural changes. The main intermetallics at the weld interface in both joints was θ (FeAl3), along with ɳ (Fe2Al5) phase in Al-to-AISI 304 stainless steel joint and Fe3Al phase in Al-to-ASTM A36 steel joint, respectively. The welding strength of Al-to-AISI 304 stainless steel weld samples was slightly higher than Al-to-ASTM A36 steel weld samples, whereas the fracture energies of Al-to-AISI 304 stainless steel weld samples were significantly higher as compared with Al-to-ASTM A36 steel weld samples. The welding strength of both Al-to-Steel welds were higher than other reported dissimilar USW joints in literature. The fracture surfaces of both weld joints exhibits the growth of IMC layer with increasing welding energy or time, whose inherent brittleness compromises the integrity of joints. In both cases, the lap shear tensile fracture occurred from the Al/Fe interface at lower energy inputs and the failure mode at higher welding energy inputs became the “transverse through-thickness crack growth” at the edge of the nugget zone on the softer Al side

POPULATION STRUCTURE AND GENOME-WIDE ASSOCIATION ANALYSIS FOR SALINITY TOLERANCE IN BREAD WHEAT USING SNP, SSR AND SCOT MARKER ASSAYS

Wheat is an essential staple food in the developing world, where demand is projected to grow exponentially in the future; simultaneously, climate changes are projected to reduce supply in the near future. One of the main consequences of climate change is salinity, which negatively impacts the world's cultivated area and therefore affects the global wheat production. Our objectives are to study the population structure of several Egyptian and international wheat accessions and to identify the genetic factors controlling the salinity stress response of bread wheat. In addition, we have attempt to identify genes that control some important agronomic parameters of wheat under salinity stress were identified. The wheat germplasm panel consisted of 70 accessions obtained from Egypt, Syria and Iran. The assessment of salinity tolerance was conducted over the years of 2018 and 2019 in the field and in the greenhouse. The genome association analysis (GWAS) and population structure analysis was conducted using six SCoT, five SSR and 93 SNP markers. Analysis of the population structure using allele frequency and phylogenetic analysis indicated that the studied wheat accessions were belong to four population groups. Where, for the most portion, Egyptian, Syrian and Iranian accessions are clustered depending on their country of origin. The GWAS analysis revealed 13 SNP markers that were significantly associated with morpho-agronomic wheat traits during salinity stress. These markers were closely related to genes that are known to have a direct link to wheat response to salinity stress such as CYP709B2, MDIS2, STAYGREEN, PIP5K9, and MSSP2 genes. This study revealed the genetic structure of adapted and imported wheat accessions, which could be used to select potential wheat accessions for local breeding programs. In addition, the SNP genotyping assay is a very potential technology that could be efficiently applied to detect genes that control bread wheat response to salinity stress

Microstructure, tensile and fatigue properties of ultrasonic spot welded aluminum to galvanized high-strength-low-alloy and low-carbon steel sheets

The microstructure evolution, tensile lap shear strength and fatigue properties of dissimilar ultrasonic spot welded (USWed) joints of aluminum to two commercial steel sheets at different welding energies were investigated. The main intermetallics at the weld interface were θ (FeAl3) in both joints along with eutectic Al-Zn in Al-to-galvanized high-strength-low-alloy (HSLA) steel joints and Fe3Al in Al-to-ASTM A36 steel joints. The welding strengths of both joints were higher than those of other dissimilar joints reported in the literature. With increasing welding energy, the maximum tensile lap shear strength increased in the Al-to-galvanized HSLA steel joints, while the lap shear strength increased up to a peak value and then decreased in the Al-to-ASTM A36 steel joints. Both the average peak welding strength and fracture energy of the Al-to-galvanized HSLA steel joints were higher than those of the Al-to-ASTM A36 steel joints. The fatigue lives of both welded joints were in agreement with or somewhat longer than other Al-to-steel USWed joints in the literature. The fatigue fracture mode changed with increasing cyclic loads in both welded joints. Fatigue crack growth was mainly characterized by the formation of fatigue striations perpendicular to the fatigue crack propagation direction

Systematics of Leading Particle Production

Using a QCD inspired model developed by our group for particle production, the Interacting Gluon Model (IGM), we have made a systematic analysis of all available data on leading particle spectra. These data include diffractive collisions and photoproduction at HERA. With a small number of parameters (essentially only the non-perturbative gluon-gluon cross section and the fraction of diffractive events) good agreement with data is found. We show that the difference between pion and proton leading spectra is due to their different gluon distributions. We predict a universality in the diffractive leading particle spectra in the large momentum region, which turns out to be independent of the incident energy and of the projectile type.Comment: 13 pages, Latex, 4 ps figures. To appear in Phys. Rev.