A self-medicating scale and questionnaire based drug use survey and the effect of educational intervention among healthcare professional students

Background: Due to an array of reasons like easy accessibility and awareness about the available drugs, self-medication has steeply increased the already existent drug misuse. As the health professional students are exposed to all the information of drugs, it would be worthwhile to survey if this knowledge is misused to self-medicate. The present study was aimed at determining the impact of educational intervention on the prevalent attitudes and pattern of self-medication among medical, dental and nursing students as they constitute a vulnerable group for such practices.Methods: A total of 360 health professional students participated in the study. A validated questionnaire and self-medication scale (SMS) were used for the survey, before and after the educational workshop.Results: Of the 360 students 70% were females. 93.89% reported practicing self-medication, which reduced to 78.63% after the educational workshops. Average number of self-medication encounters before the workshop was 4.03±0.30. Analgesics were most commonly used. The modified SMS scores were significantly reduced (p<0.0001) after interventional workshops indicating that the enhanced knowledge, increased the reluctance to self-medicate and make students think twice before self-medicating so as to reduce such harmful, casual drug use habits.  Educational workshops statistically (p<0.0001) enhanced the participants knowledge of ADRs, OTC drugs, expiry date, package inserts etc. 77.78% nursing students were habituated to at least one drug which was significantly higher (χ2=20.45, p<0.0001) than that of medical and dental students taken together.Conclusions: Educational intervention reduces the evil of self-medication and enhances safe drug use habits among healthcare professional students

Detection of epistasis through triple test cross (TTC) analysis in maize (Zea mays L.)

The present study was carried out to detect the epistasis present in two cross of maize through triple test cross (TTC) analysis. The mean squares due to total epistasis was highly significant at P?0.01 for all the characters in both C-I and C-II, except for ear length in C-I. The i type of epistasis was highly significant for the traits such as days totasseling, days to silking, earlength, ear circumference, kernels row-1,100 grain weight and shelling percentage in C-I and in C-II, ‘i’ type was non-significant for ASI, ear length, kernels row-1and grain yield plot-1. Both j type and l type of epistasis were significant for all characters in both C-I and C-II, except for ear length in C-I and days to silking in C-II. The estimate of additive genetic component (D) was highly significant for all characters in both C-I and C-II. Epistasis played a significant role in the inheritance of all the characters in both C-I and C-II except for ear length in C-I. Both additive and dominance components of genetic variance with a predominance of dominance genetic variance played an important role in the inheritance of all the quantitative traits except ear length in C-I and kernel rows ear-1 in C-II

Production and evaluation of doubled haploid lines of barley via detached-tiller culture method

This research was conducted to compare the classic (C) and detached-tiller methods (a: sterile by clip and scissors D1; b: sterile by hot water D2) for producing haploids in barley. The parental materials used in this research were F1 four genotypes of Hordeum vulgare: B1: Reihane × Legia; B2: Reihan × Igri; B3: Kavir × Igri; B4: Kavir × Legia, and the Hordeum bulbosum was PB1 genotype (Plant Breeding Institute). The traits such as seed set percentage, embryo development, haploid seedling development and produced doubled haploid lines were analyzed statically using χ2 test. The comparison was made among arable barley B1, B2, B3, B4 crossing wild barley of H. bulbosum. In C approach, there was no significant difference concerning the percent of forming seed, embryo and haploid production. While in D1 approach, there was a significant difference in embryo forming percent but no significant difference was observed for haploid plant and seed set percent. Moreover, in D2 approach, there was a significant difference for seed set percent. However, for haploid production and embryo development percent, the approach D1 in regards with the percent of forming embryo and production of haploids was superior to the other two approaches, C and D2.Key words: Detached-tiller culture, haploid, doubled haploid, Hordeum bulbosum, Hordeum vulgare

Relationship between morphological and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) marker based genetic distance with heterosis in hot pepper (Capsicum annuum L.)

Identification of potential parents that produce the hybrids with superior yield is the most important step in developing hybrids to save the substantial resources. The present study was carried out to assess the morphological and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) marker based genetic diversity, to estimate mid parent heterosis and to correlate the estimated parental genetic diversity with heterosis chilli. Five CMS B - lines and 30 testers were used for morphological and AFLP marker genetic divergence analysis. 150 hybrids were synthesized through Line × Tester (5 × 30) mating design and were used to estimate the mid-parent heterosis for nine characters at two locations. 35 parents were examined for nine morphological traits and were grouped in to six clusters. These parents were also examined for eight AFLP primers combinations and were grouped into seven clusters. More than 50% of hybrids showed significant mid-parent heterosis for both green and red fruit yield plant-1. Hence, there is a much potential for development of good yielding hybrids. The positive significant correlation was found between morphological and AFLP marker distance of the parents with heterosis for plant height (r = 0.17 and 0.38), green fruit yield plant-1 (r = 0.19 and 0.25) and red fruit yield plant-1 (r = 0.20 and 0.34); however, the correlation coefficients were not strong in these traits. Genetic distance between parents was not strong enough to predict the performance of the hybrids and proved to be of no predictive value.Keywords: Correlation, molecular markers, genetic diversity, chill

Drought yield index to select high yielding rice lines under different drought stress severities

BACKGROUND Drought is the most severe abiotic stress reducing rice yield in rainfed drought prone ecosystems. Variation in intensity and severity of drought from season to season and place to place requires cultivation of rice varieties with different level of drought tolerance in different areas. Multi environment evaluation of breeding lines helps breeder to identify appropriate genotypes for areas prone to similar level of drought stress. From a set of 129 advanced rice (Oryza sativa L.) breeding lines evaluated under rainfed drought-prone situations at three locations in eastern India from 2005 to 2007, a subset of 39 genotypes that were tested for two or more years was selected to develop a drought yield index (DYI) and mean yield index (MYI) based on yield under irrigated, moderate and severe reproductive-stage drought stress to help breeders select appropriate genotypes for different environments. RESULTS ARB 8 and IR55419-04 recorded the highest drought yield index (DYI) and are identified as the best drought-tolerant lines. The proposed DYI provides a more effective assessment as it is calculated after accounting for a significant genotype x stress-level interaction across environments. For rainfed areas with variable frequency of drought occurrence, Mean yield index (MYI) along with deviation in performance of genotypes from currently cultivated popular varieties in all situations helps to select genotypes with a superior performance across irrigated, moderate and severe reproductive-stage drought situations. IR74371-70-1-1 and DGI 75 are the two genotypes identified to have shown a superior performance over IR64 and MTU1010 under all situations. CONCLUSION For highly drought-prone areas, a combination of DYI with deviation in performance of genotypes under irrigated situations can enable breeders to select genotypes with no reduction in yield under favorable environments compared with currently cultivated varieties. For rainfed areas with variable frequency of drought stress, use of MYI together with deviation in performance of genotypes under different situations as compared to presently cultivated varieties will help breeders to select genotypes with superior performance under all situations.Anitha Raman, Satish Verulkar B, Nimai Mandal P, Mukund Variar, V Shukla D, J Dwivedi L, B Singh N, O Singh N, Padmini Swain, Ashutosh Mall K, S Robin, R Chandrababu, Abhinav Jain, Tilatoo Ram, Shailaja Hittalmani, Stephan Haefele, Hans-Peter Piepho, and Arvind Kuma

Uncovering of major genetic factors generating naturally occurring variation in heading date among Asian rice cultivars

To dissect the genetic factors controlling naturally occurring variation of heading date in Asian rice cultivars, we performed QTL analyses using F2 populations derived from crosses between a japonica cultivar, Koshihikari, and each of 12 cultivars originating from various regions in Asia. These 12 diverse cultivars varied in heading date under natural field conditions in Tsukuba, Japan. Transgressive segregation was observed in 10 F2 combinations. QTL analyses using multiple crosses revealed a comprehensive series of loci involved in natural variation in flowering time. One to four QTLs were detected in each cross combination, and some QTLs were shared among combinations. The chromosomal locations of these QTLs corresponded well with those detected in other studies. The allelic effects of the QTLs varied among the cross combinations. Sequence analysis of several previously cloned genes controlling heading date, including Hd1, Hd3a, Hd6, RFT1, and Ghd7, identified several functional polymorphisms, indicating that allelic variation at these loci probably contributes to variation in heading date. Taken together, the QTL and sequencing results indicate that a large portion of the phenotypic variation in heading date in Asian rice cultivars could be generated by combinations of different alleles (possibly both loss- and gain-of-function) of the QTLs detected in this study