Estimation of genetic effects controlling different plant traits in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) under CLCuV epidemic condition

Nine cotton genotypes, comprised of four non Bt males (CIM-1100, CIM-506, FH-942 and FH-900), five Bt female genotypes (FH-113, FH-114, MNH- 886, AA-703 and IR-3701) and their 20 crosses were screened in order to evaluate their response to Cotton leaf curl virus symptoms through epidemiology in the field and greenhouse. The 20 crosses among their nine parents were sown in two replications under randomized complete block design, during 2013 and 2014. The mean squares were significant for all traits indicating that both additive and non-additive genes control the characters, but non-additive genes were more important because, variance of dominant genes were higher than additive genes. In our test, FH-900 showed the best performance against CLCuV, number of lobes per boll and seed yield. The CIM- 1100 genotype performed well in boll weight, fiber strength and fiber fineness, whereas CIM-506 was good for plant height, number of sympodial branches and ginning. Maximum boll number, seed index and fiber length were shown by FH-942. Among lines, MNH886, FH-113, IR-3701 and FH-114 exhibited the best general combination for many traits. Hence, parents were preferred for hybridization program to improve the majority of characters. Hybrids FH-113 × FH-942, MNH-886 × CIM-1100, MNH-886 × FH-942, IR-3701 × CIM-506, AA-703 × CIM-1100, FH-114 × FH-942, FH-114 × CIM-1100 and MNH-886 × FH- 900 was best in specific combinations for different traits, especially against CLCuV. The results indicated that to increase resistance against CLCuV, hybrids should be exploited to develop CLCuV resistance

Physio-biochemical responses and expressional profiling analysis of drought tolerant genes in new promising rice genotype

Rice cultivation in Egypt is limited by the scarcity of water resources. The main strategy of rice breeders to overcome this problem is to develop new high-yielding varieties that are tolerant to drought stress. In this study, an drought-tolerant (IR60080-46A) variety was crossed with commercial Egyptian varieties using the back-cross method and marker-assisted selection (MAS) approach. The advanced lines of these crosses were selected under drought stress conditions. The best-performing candidate line, RBL-112, and its parental genotypes, were evaluated under drought stress and control conditions. The RBL-112 line showed superior its root system, which in turn produced higher grain yield under drought-stress conditions than its parental and check genotypes. Furthermore, physiological and biochemical studies showed that the RBL-112 line maintained higher relative water content (RWC), maximum quantum efficiency of photosystem II (Fv/Fm) values, proline content, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, and lower malondialdehyde (MDA) content compared to its parents and the check. The functional expression profiles of 22 drought tolerance-related genes were studied, out of which the genes OsAHL1, OsLEA3, OsCATA, OsP5CS, OsSNAC1, Os1g64660, OsRab21, OsAPX2, OsDREB2A, OsSKIPa, and OsLG3 were strongly induced in the newly developed RBL-112 line under drought-stress conditions. It could be concluded that the new line has a higher capacity to modulate physiological activities and expression levels of several drought-induced genes to withstand drought stress with high yielding ability. This finding suggests that the RBL-112 line presents a promising new addition to enable sustainable rice cultivation under water-limited conditions, and confirms the efficiency of the approach implemented in the current study

Swim-Training Changes the Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Skeletogenesis in Zebrafish Larvae (Danio rerio)

Fish larvae experience many environmental challenges during development such as variation in water velocity, food availability and predation. The rapid development of structures involved in feeding, respiration and swimming increases the chance of survival. It has been hypothesized that mechanical loading induced by muscle forces plays a role in prioritizing the development of these structures. Mechanical loading by muscle forces has been shown to affect larval and embryonic bone development in vertebrates, but these investigations were limited to the appendicular skeleton. To explore the role of mechanical load during chondrogenesis and osteogenesis of the cranial, axial and appendicular skeleton, we subjected zebrafish larvae to swim-training, which increases physical exercise levels and presumably also mechanical loads, from 5 until 14 days post fertilization. Here we show that an increased swimming activity accelerated growth, chondrogenesis and osteogenesis during larval development in zebrafish. Interestingly, swim-training accelerated both perichondral and intramembranous ossification. Furthermore, swim-training prioritized the formation of cartilage and bone structures in the head and tail region as well as the formation of elements in the anal and dorsal fins. This suggests that an increased swimming activity prioritized the development of structures which play an important role in swimming and thereby increasing the chance of survival in an environment where water velocity increases. Our study is the first to show that already during early zebrafish larval development, skeletal tissue in the cranial, axial and appendicular skeleton is competent to respond to swim-training due to increased water velocities. It demonstrates that changes in water flow conditions can result into significant spatio-temporal changes in skeletogenesis

Impact of organic and inorganic sources of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers on growth, yield and quality of forage oat (Avena sativa L.)

A field trial was carried out to examine the comparative efficacy of organic and inorganic sources of nitrogen and phosphorous fertilizers alone and in different combinations to find the yield and quality contributing factors of oat (Avena sativa L.) during 2008-09 at Agronomic Research Area, University of Agriculture Faisalabad. The treatments were tested under randomized complete block design using three replications. Significant result were found in respect of plant height (146.3 cm), number of leaves per plant (6.87), number of tillers per plant (8.02), number of tillers m-2 (336), leaf area per plant (128 cm2), fresh weight per tiller (30.10g), dry weight per tiller (5.01g) and green fodder yield (74.67 t ha-1) in contrast to organic manures and its combination with inorganic fertilizer (inorganic sources of manures). From the present study it can be concluded to meet the needs of fodder; it is better to use inorganic sources that are more effective and quick in response while organic sources are more environmental friendly than inorganic sources

Recent Advances in the Cylindrical-Wave Approach for Electromagnetic Scattering by Subsurface Targets

"The Cylindrical-Wave Approach (CWA) rigorously solves, in the spectral domain,. the electromagnetic forward scattering by a finite set of buried two-dimensional. perfectly-conducting or dielectric objects. In this technique, the field scattered by. underground objects is represented in terms of a superposition of cylindrical. waves. Use is made of the plane-wave spectrum to take into account the. interaction of such waves with the planar interface between air and soil, and. between different layers eventually present in the ground.. In this work we present the progress we recently made to improve the method. In. particular, we introduced rough perturbations in the interfaces between different. media, in order to model the typical unevenness of real surfaces. Moreover, we. faced the fundamental problem of losses in the ground: this improvement is of. significant importance in remote sensing applications, since real soils have often. complex permittivity and conductivity, and sometimes also a complex. permeability.. The rough deviations on the interface between air and soil have been dealt with. by means of the Small Perturbation Method. Reflection and transmission. coefficients have been evaluated in a first order approximation, and the fields. involved in the scattering problem have been expressed as the sum of a zeroorder. (unperturbed) solution, relevant to the basic case of flat surface, and firstorder. perturbation terms, associated to the surface roughness. Numerical results. for a circular, perfectly-conducting or dielectric, cylinder buried under an. interface with sinusoidal profile, are presented. They have been obtained through. an exact evaluation of the spectral integrals, giving results both in near- and farfield. regions.. As far as the ground losses are concerned, a convergent closed-form. representation of the angular spectrum of a cylindrical wave in a generic lossy. medium is presented. To obtain this spectrum, the canonical Sommerfeld. representation of the first-kind Hankel function of integer order has been used;. its integration path has been modified to ensure the convergence of the integral. for complex values of the wavenumber. Some numerical examples are reported. and the limits of the representation are derived in terms of complex spatial. frequency.

Estimation of Genetic Effects Controlling Different Plant Traits in Cotton (Gossypium Hirsutum L.) Under Clcuv Epidemic Condition

Nine cotton genotypes, comprised of four non Bt males (CIM-1100, CIM-506, FH-942 and FH-900), five Bt female genotypes (FH-113, FH-114, MNH- 886, AA-703 and IR-3701) and their 20 crosses were screened in order to evaluate their response to Cotton leaf curl virus symptoms through epidemiology in the field and greenhouse. The 20 crosses among their nine parents were sown in two replications under randomized complete block design, during 2013 and 2014. The mean squares were significant for all traits indicating that both additive and non-additive genes control the characters, but non-additive genes were more important because, variance of dominant genes were higher than additive genes. In our test, FH-900 showed the best performance against CLCuV, number of lobes per boll and seed yield. The CIM- 1100 genotype performed well in boll weight, fiber strength and fiber fineness, whereas CIM-506 was good for plant height, number of sympodial branches and ginning. Maximum boll number, seed index and fiber length were shown by FH-942. Among lines, MNH886, FH-113, IR-3701 and FH-114 exhibited the best general combination for many traits. Hence, parents were preferred for hybridization program to improve the majority of characters. Hybrids FH-113 × FH-942, MNH-886 × CIM-1100, MNH-886 × FH-942, IR-3701 × CIM-506, AA-703 × CIM-1100, FH-114 × FH-942, FH-114 × CIM-1100 and MNH-886 × FH- 900 was best in specific combinations for different traits, especially against CLCuV. The results indicated that to increase resistance against CLCuV, hybrids should be exploited to develop CLCuV resistance

The value of arterial spin-labeled perfusion imaging in acute ischemic stroke: Comparison with dynamic susceptibility contrast-enhanced MRI

Background and Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential clinical value of arterial spin-labeled (ASL) perfusion MRI in acute ischemic stroke (AIS) through comparison with dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) enhanced perfusion MRI. Methods: Pseudocontinuous ASL with 3-dimensional background-suppressed gradient and spin echo readout was applied with DSC perfusion MRI on 26 patients with AIS. ASL cerebral blood flow and multiparametric DSC perfusion maps were rated for image quality and lesion severity/conspicuity. Mean ASL cerebral blood flow and DSC perfusion values were obtained in main vascular territories. Kendall coefficient of concordance was calculated to evaluate the reliability of ratings. Spearman correlation coefficients were calculated to compare ratings and quantitative perfusion values between ASL and DSC perfusion maps. Results: ASL cerebral blood flow and DSC perfusion maps provided largely consistent results in delineating hypoperfused brain regions in AIS. Hyperemic lesions, which also appeared frequently in the AIS cases studied, were more conspicuous on ASL cerebral blood flow than on DSC cerebral blood flow, mean transit time and time to the maximum of the tissue residual function maps. Conclusions: As a rapid, noninvasive, and quantitative technique, ASL has clinical use in detecting blood flow abnormalities in patients with AIS