Cooking and Eating Quality Profiling of Some Popular Rice Cultivars In Bangladesh

Eating and cooking quality of rice plays major role in consumer’s preference for any cultivar. In the present investigation 21 popular rice cultivars were analyzed for their cooking and eating quality traits. Moderate variations were observed for all the traits studied except solid in cooking water. Among the cultivars, cooking time ranged from 14.02 to 21.37 minutes, water uptake ratio from 2.24 to 3.324 %, solid in cooking water from 1.027 to 1.049 gm, volume expansion ratio from 2.8 to 4.28 %, % amylose content from 17.367 (low) to 27.387(intermediate), protein content from 6.28 to 8.96 (%), and most of the cultivars were found with intermediate gelatinization temperature. Solid in cooking water was found positively correlated with cooking time, but negatively with water uptake ratio.  Considering the preferences for cooked rice, high amylose content and low to intermediate gelatinization temperature of BRRI rice29, BRRI rice49 and Binarice-11 justified their popularity among the farmers and consumers

Differential role of spermine and thermospermine in Arabidopsis thaliana in response to abiotic stresses

Polyamines (PA) are small organic polycations found in all living organisms. Putrescine (Put), spermidine (Spd), spermine (Spm) and thermospermine (T-Spm) are the most abundant PAs in plants. Of the polyamines (PAs) plant contains at least two types of tetraamines; spermine (Spm) and thermospermine (T-Spm) and they seem to have different functions in plants. The experiment was conducted to eludicate the stress responsive roles of Spm and T-Spm using wild ecotype (Col-0) and three different knockout mutants (spms, acl5 and spms/acl5) of Arabidopsis, differing in the amount of spermine and thermospermine content. First exogenous pretreatment of both tetraamines showed their different effects on plant phenotype including root and shoot length, cholorophyll content both under normal and salt stressed condition. The effect of exogenous T-Spm was more effective than Spm in plant growth and stress tolerance. The mutants varying in endogenous tetraamines content were also found to be different in response to stress (salt, osmotic and ionic) condition. Growth inhibition of spms mutant seedlings was minimum in compare to other mutants and wild type, probably due to higher amount of T-Spm content. Further to differentiate the tissue specific expression of tetraamines, histochemical GUS assay was performed using SPMS and ACL5 promoter:: GUS transgenic plants and the results indicate that the two tetraamines; spermine and thermospermine may play some different and specific role in respect to tissue specificity and stress responses

The local economic development processes in low-income countries: the case of the metropolis of Chegutu in Zimbabwe

Local authorities are widely regarded as catalysts accelerating localised processes of economic development in industrialised countries but in low-income countries they are perceived as dysfunctional, inefficient and ineffective in meeting and addressing societal demands. This abstract view is however, not grounded in empirical research. As such, utilising the case of the metropolis of Chegutu a survey was designed to empirically explicate the economic processes militating its economic development. The findings are useful to policy-makers, local government authorities and management scholars. The study's unique contribution lies in its examination of the processes of local economic development in a low-income country

Stability Constraints on Classical de Sitter Vacua

We present further no-go theorems for classical de Sitter vacua in Type II string theory, i.e., de Sitter constructions that do not invoke non-perturbative effects or explicit supersymmetry breaking localized sources. By analyzing the stability of the 4D potential arising from compactification on manfiolds with curvature, fluxes, and orientifold planes, we found that additional ingredients, beyond the minimal ones presented so far, are necessary to avoid the presence of unstable modes. We enumerate the minimal setups for (meta)stable de Sitter vacua to arise in this context.Comment: 18 pages; v2: argument improved, references adde

The problematic backreaction of SUSY-breaking branes

In this paper we investigate the localisation of SUSY-breaking branes which, in the smeared approximation, support specific non-BPS vacua. We show, for a wide class of boundary conditions, that there is no flux vacuum when the branes are described by a genuine delta-function. Even more, we find that the smeared solution is the unique solution with a regular brane profile. Our setup consists of a non-BPS AdS_7 solution in massive IIA supergravity with smeared anti-D6-branes and fluxes T-dual to ISD fluxes in IIB supergravity.Comment: 27 pages, Latex2e, 5 figure

Fructose transport-deficient Staphylococcus aureus reveals important role of epithelial glucose transporters in limiting sugar-driven bacterial growth in airway surface liquid.

Hyperglycaemia as a result of diabetes mellitus or acute illness is associated with increased susceptibility to respiratory infection with Staphylococcus aureus. Hyperglycaemia increases the concentration of glucose in airway surface liquid (ASL) and promotes the growth of S. aureus in vitro and in vivo. Whether elevation of other sugars in the blood, such as fructose, also results in increased concentrations in ASL is unknown and whether sugars in ASL are directly utilised by S. aureus for growth has not been investigated. We obtained mutant S. aureus JE2 strains with transposon disrupted sugar transport genes. NE768(fruA) exhibited restricted growth in 10 mM fructose. In H441 airway epithelial-bacterial co-culture, elevation of basolateral sugar concentration (5-20 mM) increased the apical growth of JE2. However, sugar-induced growth of NE768(fruA) was significantly less when basolateral fructose rather than glucose was elevated. This is the first experimental evidence to show that S. aureus directly utilises sugars present in the ASL for growth. Interestingly, JE2 growth was promoted less by glucose than fructose. Net transepithelial flux of D-glucose was lower than D-fructose. However, uptake of D-glucose was higher than D-fructose across both apical and basolateral membranes consistent with the presence of GLUT1/10 in the airway epithelium. Therefore, we propose that the preferential uptake of glucose (compared to fructose) limits its accumulation in ASL. Pre-treatment with metformin increased transepithelial resistance and reduced the sugar-dependent growth of S. aureus. Thus, epithelial paracellular permeability and glucose transport mechanisms are vital to maintain low glucose concentration in ASL and limit bacterial nutrient sources as a defence against infection

Charting the landscape of N=4 flux compactifications

We analyse the vacuum structure of isotropic Z_2 x Z_2 flux compactifications, allowing for a single set of sources. Combining algebraic geometry with supergravity techniques, we are able to classify all vacua for both type IIA and IIB backgrounds with arbitrary gauge and geometric fluxes. Surprisingly, geometric IIA compactifications lead to a unique theory with four different vacua. In this case we also perform the general analysis allowing for sources compatible with minimal supersymmetry. Moreover, some relevant examples of type IIB non-geometric compactifications are studied. The computation of the full N=4 mass spectrum reveals the presence of a number of non-supersymmetric and nevertheless stable AdS_4 vacua. In addition we find a novel dS_4 solution based on a non-semisimple gauging.Comment: Minor corrections and references added. Version published in JHE

Removal of cationic pollutants from water by xanthated corn cob: optimization, kinetics, thermodynamics, and prediction of purification process

The removal of Cr(III) ions and methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solutions by xanthated corn cob (xCC) in batch conditions was investigated. The sorption capacity of xCC strongly depended of the pH, and increase when the pH rises. The kinetics was well fitted by pseudo-second order and Chrastil’s model. Sorption of Cr(III) ions and MB on xCC was rapid during the first 20 min of contact time and, thereafter, the biosorption rate decrease gradually until reaching equilibrium. The maximum sorption capacity of 17.13 and 83.89 mg g-1 for Cr(III) ions and MB, respectively was obtained at 40 °C, pH 5 and sorbent dose 4 g dm-3 for removal of Cr(III) ions and 1 g dm-3 for removal of MB. The prediction of purification process was successfully carried out and the verification of theoretically calculated amounts of sorbent was confirmed by using packed-bed column laboratory system with recirculation of the aqueous phase. The wastewater from chrome plating industry was successfully purified, i.e. after 40 min concentration of Cr(III) ions was decreased lower than 0.1 mg dm-3. Also, removal of MB from the river water was successfully carried out and after 40 min removal efficiency was about 94 %