Toxicity induced by Solanapyrone A in Chickpea shoots and its metabolism through Glutathione/Glutathione-S-Transferase system

Solanapyrone A and C were isolated from a Pakistani isolate of Ascochyta rabiei, Pk-1. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the phytotoxic effects of the most potent toxin, solanapyrone A on chickpea cultivars and its subsequent detoxification through glutathion/glutathion-s-transferase(GST) system. When the shoots of cultivars were fed solanapyrone A, symptoms mimicking to Ascochyta blight appeared and extent of manifestation of symptoms varied with the cultivar. In the first experiment, the effect of three different plant ages of 2 cultivars with different levels of resistance to toxin was determined in terms of GST activity unit. GST activity in Balkasar-2000 (a resistant cultivar) increased 1.92 times, 1.72 and 1.65 times in two-week-old seedling, eight-week-old and adult plants (all treated) respectively as compared to their respective controls. In the highly susceptible cultivar, AUG-424, a slight increase (1.14 times) over control was noticed in GST activity at all the three ages. In the second experiment, where shoots of three cultivars were tested against 2 doses of the toxin, an increase in GST activity in Noor-91 (a moderately susceptible cultivar) and AUG-424 was significantly less than resistant cultivar, Balkasar-2000 showing direct relationship between resistance and activity of the enzyme. It may be concluded that it is a reason for difference in response of cultivars to the disease

Determination of the inhibitory effects of microdiets used in routine commercial feeding protocols on protease activities of Argyrosomus regius (Asso, 1801) larva

The aim of this study was to determine the inhibitory effects of feed ingredients on protease activities of Argyrosomus regius larvae using in vitro techniques. A. regius larvae fed on a commercial feeding procedure were sampled thirteen times, during the sampling period (from 3 to 32 days after hatching (DAH)). The differences observed in protease activities of meagre larvae during the sampling period were statistically significant (p<0.05). The lowest and highest protease activities of meagre larvae were 5.95±0.6 U/mg protein (15 DAH) and 211.21±12.56 U/mg protein (7 DAH), respectively. The fluctuations observed in protease activities of A. regius larvae were between 10 DAH and 32 DAH. Commercial diets such as Orange Start-S (100-200µ), Orange Start-L (200-300µ), Orange Nurse-XS (300-500µ), Orange Grow-S (300-500µ) and Orange Grow-L (500-800µ) caused the inhibitions on protease activities in meagre larvae to range from 16 to 32 DAH. The results point to the inadequacy of commercial diets such as Orange Grow-S, Orange Grow-L and suitability of Orange Start-S, Orange Start-L, Orange Nurse-XS for feeding meagre larvae during the weaning stage. For the mass production of quality juveniles, future studies should take into account the inhibitory effects of commercial diets and feed ingredients before the manufacturing process. A similar approach may be used to determine the most suitable commercial diets for use during the weaning stages of marine fish larvae to obtain the best growth performance and survival

Existence of Wormholes in f(G)f(\mathcal{G}) Gravity using Symmetries

The current study examines the geometry of static wormholes with anisotropic matter distribution in context of modified $f(\mathcal{G})$ gravity. We consider the well known Noether and conformal symmetries, which help in investigating wormholes in $f(\mathcal{G})$ gravity. For this purpose, we develop symmetry generators associated with conserved quantities by taking into consideration the $f(\mathcal{G})$ gravity model. Moreover, we use the conservation relationship gained from the classical Noether method and conformal Killing symmetries to develop the metric potential. These symmetries provide a strong mathematical background to investigate wormhole solutions by incorporating some suitable initial conditions. The obtained conserved quantity performs a significant role in defining the essential physical characteristics of the shape-function and energy conditions. Further, we also describe the stability of obtained wormholes solutions by employing the equilibrium condition in modified $f(\mathcal{G})$ gravity. It is observed from graphical representation of obtained wormhole solutions that Noether and conformal Killing symmetries provide the results with physically accepted patterns.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Lights, Camera, Action! Exploring Effects of Visual Distractions on Completion of Security Tasks

Human errors in performing security-critical tasks are typically blamed on the complexity of those tasks. However, such errors can also occur because of (possibly unexpected) sensory distractions. A sensory distraction that produces negative effects can be abused by the adversary that controls the environment. Meanwhile, a distraction with positive effects can be artificially introduced to improve user performance. The goal of this work is to explore the effects of visual stimuli on the performance of security-critical tasks. To this end, we experimented with a large number of subjects who were exposed to a range of unexpected visual stimuli while attempting to perform Bluetooth Pairing. Our results clearly demonstrate substantially increased task completion times and markedly lower task success rates. These negative effects are noteworthy, especially, when contrasted with prior results on audio distractions which had positive effects on performance of similar tasks. Experiments were conducted in a novel (fully automated and completely unattended) experimental environment. This yielded more uniform experiments, better scalability and significantly lower financial and logistical burdens. We discuss this experience, including benefits and limitations of the unattended automated experiment paradigm

Teacher’s Questioning Effects on Students Communication in Classroom Performance

Classroom questioning has been more of a puzzle regarding its role in learning output among school students. Research studies point to its significance in affecting students’ performance and achievement. The purpose of this study is to investigate how students perceive teachers’ questions in the classroom and relate them to their academic participation. The study also inquires question-types that are more or less favorably received and their consequences. The study is conducted in three schools (Grade V to VIII), and a sample of 50 students was purposively selected and interviewed through semi-structured interviews. A qualitative method is used to analyze the data; where the primary data is supported by secondary information and previous scholarly arguments. The discussion reveals that questioning in the classroom is positively associated. The study recommends that training sessions and workshops should be organized for teachers along with induction of practical courses on how to use effective questions in the classroom. Furthermore, developmental questions can be used by developmental managers in the workplace as they encourage their employees to think for themselves when taking care of customers and increasing productivity. Keywords: Teachers, classroom, questioning, high-order question, low-order question, wait time

Refining Parkinson’s neurological disorder identification through deep transfer learning

© 2019, Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature. Parkinson’s disease (PD), a multi-system neurodegenerative disorder which affects the brain slowly, is characterized by symptoms such as muscle stiffness, tremor in the limbs and impaired balance, all of which tend to worsen with the passage of time. Available treatments target its symptoms, aiming to improve the quality of life. However, automatic diagnosis at early stages is still a challenging medicine-related task to date, since a patient may have an identical behavior to that of a healthy individual at the very early stage of the disease. Parkinson’s disease detection through handwriting data is a significant classification problem for identification of PD at the infancy stage. In this paper, a PD identification is realized with help of handwriting images that help as one of the earliest indicators for PD. For this purpose, we proposed a deep convolutional neural network classifier with transfer learning and data augmentation techniques to improve the identification. Two approaches like freeze and fine-tuning of transfer learning are investigated using ImageNet and MNIST dataset as source task independently. A trained network achieved 98.28% accuracy using fine-tuning-based approach using ImageNet and PaHaW dataset. Experimental results on benchmark dataset reveal that the proposed approach provides better detection of Parkinson’s disease as compared to state-of-the-art work