In vitro propagation of some promising genotypes of jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis)

Nodal segments (1.5 - 3.0 cm long) of six promising jojoba genotypes were cultured in vitro on solidified MS medium supplemented with BA in combination with different concentrations of NAA, IAA or IBA forshoot formation. The plant growth regulators combination of 5.55 ìM BA + 7.1 ìM IAA proved the best for shoot initiation and subsequent growth. Some explants of the jojoba genotypes, PKJ-3 and PKJ-6,developed thick rootlets when BA (5.55 ìM) was used in combination with IBA (6.1 ìM) or NAA (6.7 ìM). Many explants developed callus on the medium containing BA (11.1 ìM) in combination with NAA (13.4ìM), IAA (14.3 ìM) or IBA (12.2 ìM). In vitro derived shoots were rooted by culturing on solidified MS medium containing IBA (6.1 ìM), IAA (7.1 ìM) or NAA (6.7 ìM). The plantlets which developed roots inresponse to IBA had the maximum survival percentage (63.33) during acclimatization in greenhouse. However, survival of the plantlets in field conditions was independent of the genotypes and the time ofplanting. Among the genotypes, PKJ-3 performed the best in all the parameters studied

Characterization of indigenous Pyrus germplasm of Azad Jammu and Kashmir revealed by SDS-PAGE analysis

Soluble proteins of sixty pear genotypes/varieties were extracted from their leaves, separated by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and distinguished by protein banding pattern. Seven types of protein with 12 to 20 bands were observed. SD45 (Kashmiri nakh) showed the maximum (20) and KT60 (Keiffer) the minimum (12) number of bands. Remaining accessions exhibited less variability having 15 to 19 bands. The accessions were classified into 12 groups and individual accessions varied from 0.71to 0.97 similarity level. Moreover, the highest similarity was expressed among groups 1 to 7. UPGMA cluster analysis distributed the accessions into three clusters, seven sub-clusters along with 11 identical groups, one independent group and two independent accessions. There were 37 accessions in cluster I, 16 in II, 3 in III, 2 in independent group 12 and 2 accessions existed independently. The most variable accession, KT60 (Keiffer) fell independently, had the highest genetic diversity. The findings show that the pear accessions have different protein profile irrespective of their geographic locations and climatic conditions

Tissue culture and frost tolerance studies in Solanum

In vitro shoot cultures of two commercial cultivars of Solanum tuberosum, Desireeand Mans Piper, and of two wild species S. commersonil and S. acaule, wereestablished from single nodal explants and seedling tissues respectively. Calluscultures were initiated from potato stem, leaf and tuber explants. Cell suspensioncultures were obtained from tuber and stem-derived calluses of S. tuberosum.Protoplasts were isolated from leaves of greenhouse-grown plants and fromsuspension-cultured cells of S. tuberosum, and in vitro shoot cultures of S. tube rosumand S. commersonii. Plantlets were regenerated from tuber discs, internodal explants,growing calluses, suspension-cultured cells and protoplast-derived calluses.Microtubers were induced from nodal explants of these Solanum species.Attempts were made to select frost-tolerant cell lines through resistance tohydroxyproline, by direct transfer of axillary buds, callus cultures and suspensionculturedcells to media containing different concentrations of hydroxyproline.Selection was also made after exposure of suspension-cultured cells to a freezingtemperature (-6° C), and to gamma-irradiation (20 Gy). Several hyp-resistant celllines were established from callus cultures and suspension-cultured cells but not fromaxillary buds. Most of these selected cell lines were found to show increasedtolerance to frost. Plants were regenerated from one of the hyp-tolerant, frosttolerantcell lines. The cellular damage to S. tuberosum cv. Desiree callus cells dueto freezing temperatures was examined, and the cellular structure of the callus ofthree Solanum species and one frost-tolerant cell line was compared by electronmicroscopy

Role of plant growth regulators in preservation of Pyrus germplasm in vitro

In vitro established shoots of nine pear genotypes namely; Khurolli, Bagugosha, Pathar nakh, Desi nakh, Kotharnul, Btangi, Frashishi, Kashmiri nakh, and Raj btung, were preserved by lowering concentration of growth regulators [(0.00, 0.25 or 0.50mg l-1 6-benzyaminopurine (BAP) or adding growth retardants, 10 mg L-1 Alar (diaminazide or B-9), or abscisic acid (ABA)] in the culture medium. The cultures were assessed for their survival and regenerability percentages after 3, 6, 9 and 12 months of storage. The genotypes differed significantly for survival and regeneration percentage. The culture medium supplemented with 0.50 mg L-1 BAP was comparatively more effective and resulted in higher survival rate and re-growth after transferring onto the fresh medium. Storage for short duration (3 months) resulted in significantly higher survival and regeneration rates than other storage periods. As storage period was prolonged, survival and regenerability of shoots progressively decreased. Overall results indicated that the shoots of Desi nakh had the highest survival (73.33 %) and Pathar nakh showed the maximum regenerability (67.66 %) when cultured on the medium supplemented with 0.50 mg L-1 BAP and stored for 3 months. However, no shoots of Kotharnul survived when cultured on the medium without any growth regulator and kept for 12 months.Key words: Growth retardants, in vitro preservation, pear genotypes, slow growth

Characterizations of hemirings by their hh-ideals

In this paper we characterize hemirings in which all $h$-ideals or all fuzzy $h$-ideals are idempotent. It is proved, among other results, that every $h$-ideal of a hemiring $R$ is idempotent if and only if the lattice of fuzzy $h$-ideals of $R$ is distributive under the sum and $h$-intrinsic product of fuzzy $h$-ideals or, equivalently, if and only if each fuzzy $h$-ideal of $R$ is intersection of those prime fuzzy $h$-ideals of $R$ which contain it. We also define two types of prime fuzzy $h$-ideals of $R$ and prove that, a non-constant $h$-ideal of $R$ is prime in the second sense if and only if each of its proper level set is a prime $h$-ideal of $R$

Edge intelligence-enabled cyber-physical systems

With the advent of the Internet of everything era, people's demand for intelligent Internet of Things (IoT) devices is steadily increasing. A more intelligent cyber-physical system (CPS) is needed to meet the diverse business requirements of users, such as ultra-reliable low-latency communication, high quality of services (QoS), and quality of experience (QoE). Edge intelligence (EI) is recognized by academia and industry as one of the key emerging technologies for the CPS, which provides the ability to analyze data at the edge rather than sending it to the cloud for analysis, and will be a key enabler to realize a world of a trillion hyperconnected smart sensing devices.As a distributed intelligent computing paradigm in which computation is largely or completely performed at distributed nodes, EI provides for the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and edge computing resources to support real-time insight and analysis for applications in CPS, which brings memory, computing power and processing ability closer to the location where it is needed, reduces the volumes of data that must be moved, the consequent traffic, and the distance the data must travel. As an emerging intelligent computing paradigm, EI can accelerate content delivery and improve the QoS of applications, which is attracting more and more research attentions from academia and industry because of its advantages in throughput, delay, network scalability and intelligence in CPS.The guest editors would like to thank all the authors and the reviewers for their hard work and contributions in helping to organize this special issue. They also would like to express their heartfelt gratitude to the Editor-in-Chief, Prof. David W. Walker, for giving us this great opportunity, and the members of the Editorial Staff for their support during the process.Scopu

Fostering Employee’s Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction: Evidence from Emerging Pakistan

Providing quality services is a key condition for the stable functioning of companies in a changing environment. Given the fact that delivering exceptional quality services deemed to foster firm competitiveness, worldwide service quality and customer satisfaction captivate serious considerations from across the globe. An analysis of literary sources allows us to conclude that customer satisfaction and service quality have long-term predictors to enhance firms’ values