Unique flowers produced from West Indian lemongrass, Cymbopogon citratus (DC.) Stapf. through induced mutation

West Indian Lemongrass, Cymbopogon citratus, is hardly seen to flower which contributes the major obstacle for hybridization. Induced mutation with gamma irradiation has been suggested as the solution to this problem. The objective of this study is to analyse the effect of gamma irradiation dosage on the survival rate of lemongrass prior to mutation. Vegetative stalks of lemongrass were exposed to different doses of gamma rays at doses of 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120 Gy. Results showed that the practical ranges for induced mutation were 40, 60 and 80 Gy with mutation rates were 25.8%, 36.4% and 69.2% respectively. Dose 80 Gy was identified as the dose for LD50. Irradiation caused plants to produce long above ground stem 50 (not stalk) with obvious appearance of nodes and internodes together with unique production of flowers. This phenomenon has created an astonishing opportunity for future studies in this flower of West Indian Lemongrass mutant as another potential source of Halal traditional medicine

Kaedah Kolorimetri untuk Analisis Kuantitatif Kapsaisin Secara Pencaman Corak Menggunakan Jaringan Neural Tiruan

A quantitative study for capsaicin based on the use of 2,6-dichloro-pbenzoquinone- 4-chlorimide (Gibbs reagent) and artificial neural network (ANN) has been carried out. The characterization include pH optimization, effect of reagent concentration, dynamic range of capsaicin concentration, photo stability, limit of detection and reproducibility. The optimum response was obtained at pH 11.0 and Gibbs reagent concentration of 2.96 x 104 M. The reproducibility of the method was very satisfactory with RSD values of 3.55%, 2.44% and 4.52% for capsaicin concentration of 200 ppm, 500 ppm and 800 ppm, respectively. Photostability test showed that the reagent was very stable with RSD value of 0.013% for the duration of 38 hours. A three layer feed-forward neural network was used and network training was performed by using back propagation algorithm. For the determination of capsaicin, a neural network with 20 hidden neurons, 0.00001% learning rate and trained over 47,738 cycles produced the best result. This network was able to extend the narrow dynamic range of capsaicin from 0 - 200 ppm to 0-600 ppm. The average interpolation error produced by this network was approximately 0.06

Resistance in rice to multiplication of the two tungro viruses + (Kerintangan pokok padi terhadap penggandaan dua virus penyakit merah)

Abstrak Penggandaan virus basiliform penyakit merah padi (RTBV) dan virus sfera penyakit merah padi (RTSV) dalam 14 varieti padi telah dikaji. Sap daripada setiap pokok telah dinilai untuk kehadiran virus melalui kaedah cerakinan imunopengerap rangkaian enzim (ELISA) pada 21 hari selepas semaian diinokulat. Nilai purata keserapan bagi RTBV yang menggambarkan kepekatan kandungannya berbeza antara varieti. Nilai yang besar pada TN1, IR42, MR 106 dan MR 81 menunjukkan kerentanan varieti ini terhadap penggandaan RTBV. Nilai keserapan adalah sederhana pada Latisail, Basmati 370, MR 84, Habiganj DW8 serta Y1036 dan kecil pada Utri Merah, Utri Rajapan dan Balimau Putih. Apabila contoh sap Utri Merah dan Balimau Putih dinilai pada minggu yang berlainan selepas penginokulatan, nilai keserapan ELISA mereka yang kecil dan tekal menunjukkan rendahnya tahap penggandaan RTBV dalam varieti yang berkenaan. Pokok-pokok Basmati 370, Habiganj DW8, Kataribhog, MR 81, Pankhari 203, Utri Merah, Utri Rajapan dan Y1036 yang diinokulat memberikan nilai purata keserapan terhadap RTSV yang amat kecil, tidak dijangkiti secara kualitatifnya, dan tidak berfungsi sebagai sumber inokulum. Ini menunjukkan kerintangan mereka terhadap jangkitan RTSV. Balimau Putih yang mempunyai kadar penggandaan RTBV dan RTSV yang sederhana rendah boleh berfungsi sebagai sumber inokulum PMV yang sederhana cekap. Abstrac

Pancreatic surgery outcomes: multicentre prospective snapshot study in 67 countries

Background: Pancreatic surgery remains associated with high morbidity rates. Although postoperative mortality appears to have improved with specialization, the outcomes reported in the literature reflect the activity of highly specialized centres. The aim of this study was to evaluate the outcomes following pancreatic surgery worldwide.Methods: This was an international, prospective, multicentre, cross-sectional snapshot study of consecutive patients undergoing pancreatic operations worldwide in a 3-month interval in 2021. The primary outcome was postoperative mortality within 90 days of surgery. Multivariable logistic regression was used to explore relationships with Human Development Index (HDI) and other parameters.Results: A total of 4223 patients from 67 countries were analysed. A complication of any severity was detected in 68.7 percent of patients (2901 of 4223). Major complication rates (Clavien-Dindo grade at least IIIa) were 24, 18, and 27 percent, and mortality rates were 10, 5, and 5 per cent in low-to-middle-, high-, and very high-HDI countries respectively. The 90-day postoperative mortality rate was 5.4 per cent (229 of 4223) overall, but was significantly higher in the low-to-middle-HDI group (adjusted OR 2.88, 95 per cent c.i. 1.80 to 4.48). The overall failure-to-rescue rate was 21 percent; however, it was 41 per cent in low-to-middle-compared with 19 per cent in very high-HDI countries.Conclusion: Excess mortality in low-to-middle-HDI countries could be attributable to failure to rescue of patients from severe complications. The authors call for a collaborative response from international and regional associations of pancreatic surgeons to address management related to death from postoperative complications to tackle the global disparities in the outcomes of pancreatic surgery (NCT04652271; ISRCTN95140761)