Effects of micronutrients on bulb growth, yield and quality of local and high yielding onion (Allium cepa L.) cultivars in Bangladesh

Micronutrients have important functions on onion production. An experiment was conducted at the Landscape section and Laboratory of the Department of Horticulture, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh during the period from October, 2017 to March, 2018 to investigate the effects of micronutrients on bulb growth, yield and quality of local and high yielding (HY) onion cultivars in Bangladesh. The experiment comprised three onion cultivars viz., Taherpuri (local), BARI Piaz 1 (HY) and BARI Piaz 4 (HY), and five micronutrients viz., Control (no micronutrient), Boron (B) @ 0.2 g/plot, Zinc (Zn) @ 0.5 g/plot, Copper (Cu) @ 0.2 g/plot and B+Zn+Cu @ (0.2+0.5+0.2 g/plot). The two-factor experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with three replications. Results revealed that onion cultivars and micronutrients had significant influence on the parameters studied. BARI Piaz 4 along with the application of B+Zn+Cu @ 0.2+0.5+0.2 g/plot produced the highest bulb size, increased plant height, number of leaves, fresh weight of bulb, per cent dry matter content of bulbs and bulb yield compared to other onion cultivars and micronutrient treatments. The highest bulb yield (16.07 t/ha) was recorded in B+Zn+Cu, while the lowest bulb yield (8.92 t/ha) was found from control. Highest gross yield of onion (20.67 t/ha) was recorded from BARI Piaz 4 with B+Zn+Cu @ 0.2+0.5+0.2 g/plot. Therefore, it can be concluded that combined treatment of BARI Piaz 4 and B+Zn+Cu @ @ 0.2+0.5+0.2 g/plot was found to be better in respect of bulb growth and yield, and Taherpuri for quality of onion

Temporal and spatial expression of Arabidopsis gene homologs control daylength adaptation and bulb formation in onion (Allium cepa L.)

Genetic studies aimed at onion improvement have been limited because of high heterozygosity, a very large genome size with a high level of repetitive DNA and a biennial life cycle. Onion bulb initiation is daylength-dependent, which places a significant barrier to adapting new varieties for growth at different latitudes. Compared to the photoperiodic regulation of flowering, relatively little is known about genetic regulation of the bulbing process. This study aims to identify the role of gene sequences involved in daylength-regulated bulb formation and tissue specific expression of onion. A comprehensive set of developmental and spatial quantitative mRNA expression experiments were carried out to investigate expression of onion FLOWERING LOCUS T (AcFT), LEAFY (AcLFY) and GIBBERELLIN-3 OXIDASE (GA3ox1) during the bulbing response. Bulbing ratios were used to measure the response of onion plants under long day (LD) and short day (SD) conditions. AcFT1 was expressed in LD, which induces bulb formation, while AcFT4 was expressed in SD, which inhibits bulb formation. AcFT5 and AcFT6 were expressed in LD and might also be involved in bulb formation itself. All AcFT, AcLFY and GA3ox1 genes showed distinctive patterns of tissue specific expression in onion, with AcFT genes found primarily in the sites of perception in the leaf and LFY in the basal tissues, the site of response. The results are consistent with AcFT1 expression being the signal for LD-induced bulb initiation and AcFT4, being involved in suppressing bulbing in SD

Genetic regulation of daylength adaptation and bulb formation in onion (Allium cepa L.).

Genetic studies aimed at onion improvement have been limited because of outcrossing, high heterozygosity and a very large genome size with a high level of repetitive DNA. Onion bulb initiation is photoperiod-dependent, which places a significant barrier to adapting new varieties for growth at different latitudes. In comparison to photoperiodic regulation of flowering, relatively little is known about genetic regulation of the bulbing process. This project aims to test the hypothesis that the genetic regulation of bulb formation in response to daylength is analogous to the daylength regulation of flowering and to identify genes involved in daylength adaptation in onion. A comprehensive set of developmental, diurnal and spatial mRNA and quantitative expression experiments were carried out to investigate the bulbing response. Bulbing ratios were used to measure the bulbing response of onion plants and the reversibility of the bulbing process under long day (LD) and short day (SD) conditions. RNA-Seq analysis provided a large number of differentially expressed transcripts in onion in response to daylength. Five FT and three COL genes were identified in onion including two novel COL sequences. AcFT1 was expressed in LD, which might induce bulb formation, while AcFT4 was expressed in SD, which might inhibit bulb formation. AcFT5 and AcFT6 were expressed in LD and might also be involved in bulb formation itself. FKF1, GI and COL2 showed good diurnal expression patterns consistent with photoperiod sensing and regulation of FT1. All FT genes exhibited different diurnal expression patterns peaking at different times of the day. FKF1, COL2, COL3, FT1, FT4, LFY and GA3ox1 genes showed distinctive patterns of tissue specific expression in onion. FT genes did not show any variation in expression that would account for the difference in critical daylength between the LD and SD varieties of onio

Low energy K-meson-nucleon scattering and elastic scattering and the elastic scattering of pions by alpha-particles

The first part of the Thesis (Parts 1 and 2) describes a theoretical investigation on the S-wave K-nucleon scattering. Although the K-meson-nucleon interaction has received considerable theoretical study, the details of the mechanism remain obscure. In an interaction like this where absorptive processes are known to be quite strong, the requirements of unitarity imply a close relationship between the various channels in the reaction. It is therefore important in any consideration of K-meson-nucleon scattering to take into account virtual processes involving pions and hyperons. This investigation studies the possible importance of one particular virtual process namely scattering via the elementary virtual production of pairs. This is achieved by using a reduced Hamiltonian for which the processes [diagram] are allowed and the only Feynman diagram for K + N elastic scattering is that shown in the figure below [diagram]. The state vector contains terms in the configurations (K + N) , (N + N + ?) and (? + ?) and the problem can be solved exactly to obtain the S-matrix for the reactions [diagram]. Another version of the model in which ? ? B + B (where B is a baryon) is also allowed is investigated but clearly higher configurations can now occur and the model is not exactly soluble. Apart from its application to K + N scattering, the model is of interest in itself as it contains three open channels and an application of Tamm-Dancoff approximation leads to a system of coupled singular integral equations which have to be solved numerically. This was done on the electronic computer of the Glasgow University and both the models were studied for various combinations of coupling constants in the theory. Because a reduced model Hamiltonian has been used, the coupling constants are not directly comparable with those employed in calculations using the full Hamiltonian. However it has been found that for reasonable values of the coupling constants, a substantial fraction of the observed cross-sections can be obtained with this process. The model also correctly predicts the sign of the real part of the scattering amplitude for certain values of the coupling constants. The conclusion from this investigation is therefore that in S-states, pair production by K-mesons and pions must be taken into account in a future relativistic theory. The second part (Part 3) of the thesis describes a calculation on the elastic scattering of pions by alpha-particles. The interaction of pions with alpha particles has not been investigated theoretically so far and in the present study, a variational method which has been found quite successful in the pion-deuteron scattering has been applied to this problem. This method takes into account effects of multiple scattering quite simply and is an improvement over pure impulse approximation. The results of the calculations show that multiple scattering corrections are small and agreement with experimental results without such corrections is reasonably good

Morphological and Morphometrical Study of Umbilical Cord of Newborn Babies

out during January to December 1998 at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka to expand the knowledge of gross anatomy of the umbilical cord of Bangladesh. The length of the cords were irrespective of sex ranged from 28 to 93 cm with a mean (±SD) of 55.6 (±10.78). The length of the umbilical cords of males were significantly longer than female (P\u3c0.001). The diameter of the cords irrespective of sex were varied from 1 to 1.9 cm with a mean (±SD) of 1.45±0.31 cm. The mean circumference length percentage ratio index of umbilical cord was 8.31. Thirty-three (66%) cords were inserted eccentrically, all being paracentral in position. The rest were inserted centrally. False knots were more frequent (47; 94%). Only one (2%) showed a true knot in addition of false knot. In 2(4%) cases cord had not any true or false knot. It is concluded that the gross morphological and morphometrical features of the umbilical cord in Bangladesh appear to be similar to those described in western literature

Histomorphological Study of Umbilical Cord on 50 Bangladeshi

Microscopic study was done on 50 human umbilical cords in the Department of Anatomy, during January to December 1998 at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka. The basic structure of the umbilical cord was observed. The covering of umbilical cord varied on two sides. The side overlying the umbilical vein was covered by simple epithelium and that overlying the umbilical arteries was covered by multilayer epithelium. Presence of internal elastic lamina of umbilical arteries was found in 18% and in the veins was in 70% cases. Remnant of allantois was found in 28% cases

Changes in Lipid Profile of Rat Plasma after Chronic Administration of Laghobanondo Rosh (LNR)—An Ayurvedic Formulation

Abstract In this study, the lipid profile of rats' plasma was measured after chronic administration of LNR usually used in the treatment of pandu (anaemia).The animal used for this research work was albino rats (Rattus novergicus: Sprague-Dawley strains) and LNR was administered per oral route at a dose of 100mg/kg body weight, once daily, up to 45 days for all the experiments. Forty rats, equally of both sexes, were randomly grouped into four where one male and one female group were used as control and other groups were used as test. LNR remarkably decreased plasma triglycerides in both male and female rats and it was statistically very highly significant (p=0.001***). Similar trend of result was noticed incase of total cholesterol in both sexes of the animal but it was not statistically significant (male, p=0.296, female, p=0.511). On the other hand, a reverse trend in the result was observed in case of VLDL, LDL and HDL. In case of LDL, the increase in male rats was statistically significant (p=0.047*) but in female rats it was statistically insignificant (p=0.506). The increase in VLDL and HDL was statistically insignificant in the both male and female rats

Effects of non-chemical treatments on postharvest diseases, shelf life and quality of papaya under two different maturity stages

Papaya is a climacteric fruit and highly perishable in nature, which trigger ethylene production and hence, its consumption period is very short after harvesting. The experiment was conducted at the Laboratories of the Departments of Horticulture and Agricultural Chemistry, Bangladesh Agricultural University; and Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA), Mymensingh during the period from March to June 2018 to study the effect of non-chemical treatments on postharvest diseases, shelf life and quality of papaya under two different maturity stages. The two-factor experiment consisted of two maturity stages viz. (i) Maturity stage 1 (M1: mature green colour) and (ii) Maturity stage 2 (M2: 0-10% yellowing); and six non-chemical treatments viz. (i) Control (T0), (ii) Hot water treatment @ 50�C for 10 minutes (T1), (iii) Gamma irradiation @ 0.08 kGy for 10 minutes (T2), (iv) Chitosan coating @ 2% (T3), (iv) Hot water + gamma irradiation (T4), and (vi) Hot water + chitosan coating (T5). The experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design (CRD) with 3 replications. The combined effect of maturity stages and non-chemical treatments were significant on all the parameters studied viz. external colour, weight loss, pulp to peel ratio, pulp pH, total soluble solids (TSS), disease incidence and severity, and shelf life of papaya. The papaya fruits under combined treatment of hot water plus gamma irradiation showed better appearance and external colour than the others at both maturity stages. The maximum weight loss was recorded in M1T0 (17.96%) followed by M2T0 (16.58%) while the minimum was found in M1T5 (3.69) followed by M2T5 (3.91). The highest pulp to peel ratio was observed in M1T4 (3.82) followed by M1T5 (3.78), while the lowest (3.00) was recorded in control under both maturity stages. The highest pulp pH was observed in M2T4 (6.15) followed by M2T5 (6.07) while the lowest was found in M2T0 (4.83) followed by M1T0 (5.05). The maximum disease incidence and severity were recorded (100%) in M1T0 and M2T0, whereas the minimum disease incidence (81%) and severity (12.36%) was found in M1T4. The longest shelf life (16.50 days) was obtained in M1T4 followed by M2T4 (15.25 days) and the shortest shelf life (8.65 days) was observed in M2T0 followed by M1T0 (9.25 days). Thus, hot water plus gamma irradiation followed by hot water plus chitosan coating under both maturity stages could be used to significantly reduce postharvest fungal infection, extend shelf life and improve quality of papaya

A systematic review of economic evaluations of health and health-related interventions in Bangladesh

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Economic evaluation is used for effective resource allocation in health sector. Accumulated knowledge about economic evaluation of health programs in Bangladesh is not currently available. While a number of economic evaluation studies have been performed in Bangladesh, no systematic investigation of the studies has been done to our knowledge. The aim of this current study is to systematically review the published articles in peer-reviewed journals on economic evaluation of health and health-related interventions in Bangladesh.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Literature searches was carried out during November-December 2008 with a combination of key words, MeSH terms and other free text terms as suitable for the purpose. A comprehensive search strategy was developed to search Medline by the PubMed interface. The first specific interest was mapping the articles considering the areas of exploration by economic evaluation and the second interest was to scrutiny the methodological quality of studies. The methodological quality of economic evaluation of all articles has been scrutinized against the checklist developed by Evers Silvia and associates.</p> <p>Result</p> <p>Of 1784 potential articles 12 were accepted for inclusion. Ten studies described the competing alternatives clearly and only two articles stated the perspective of their articles clearly. All studies included direct cost, incurred by the providers. Only one study included the cost of community donated resources and volunteer costs. Two studies calculated the incremental cost effectiveness ratio (ICER). Six of the studies applied some sort of sensitivity analysis. Two of the studies discussed financial affordability of expected implementers and four studies discussed the issue of generalizability for application in different context.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Very few economic evaluation studies in Bangladesh are found in different areas of health and health-related interventions, which does not provide a strong basis of knowledge in the area. The most frequently applied economic evaluation is cost-effectiveness analysis. The majority of the studies did not follow the scientific method of economic evaluation process, which consequently resulted into lack of robustness of the analyses. Capacity building on economic evaluation of health and health-related programs should be enhanced.</p