Genetic Studies and Backcross Breeding for Shelf Life and Yield in Long Bean (Vigna Sesquipedalis (L.) Fruw)

A study was conducted on genetics of shelf life and yield characters of long bean. Four parental lines namely, L30, KU7, KU8 and CSL 1 9 were used in the study. Genetic component analysis for shelf life and yield characters were done following generation mean analysis from four cross combinations namely Cross 1 (L30 X KU7), Cross 2 (L30 X KU8), Cross 3 (KU7 X KU8) and Cross 4 (L30 X CSL1 9). F1, F2 and backcross generations were developed. A study was also conducted to transfer genes for long shelf life from a donor parent (L30) to the genetic background of recurrent parent (KU7, KU8, CSL 19) using backcross breeding method. Results of scaling test showed that the additive-dominance model was adequate in explaining the genetic control of seeds per pod, seed weight, pod protein and seed protein in Cross 1; pod protein, seed protein and pod protein yield per plant in Cross 2; and shelf life in Cross 4. This study revealed the importance of dominance gene effects, followed by dominance X dominance (I) interaction effects for shelf life and yield characters. The additive gene effect was proportionately small . Duplicate type of epistasis was observed in most of the characters including shelf l ife. Exploitation of heterosis breeding is suggested for the improvement of these traits having involved with non-additive gene effects. For characters which are under the control of additive (d) and additive X additive (i) gene interactions, simple selection procedu re like pedigree method in the early generation is recommended . The varied estimates of narrow-sense heritability among the crosses for different characters were due to genotype X environment interactions. Estimates of narrow-sense heritability for pod yield per plant and shelf life were high in Crosses 1 and 2, respectively. Shelf life and pod yield manifested high estimates of narrow-sense heritability in Cross 4. The degree of heterosis varied with characters among the crosses, because of diverse geographical origin of the parental lines and the contributions of background genotypes through its interaction with segregating loci. Heterosis estimates were moderately h igh for shelf life and pod yield per plant in Cross 1, and low in Crosses 2, 3 and 4. Days to flower, days to harvest, moisture content and pod length showed negative heterosis among the crosses, indicating earliness of the hybrids, having less moisture content and reduced pod length

Sustainable Polymers and Antimicrobial Biomaterials from Multicyclic Natural Products

In this dissertation, the development of sustainable polymers and antimicrobial biomaterials from multicyclic natural products is illustrated. In Chapter 1, an overall background and recent development of sustainable polymers from natural product-based renewable biomass, antimicrobial biomaterials, and polymerization methods are introduced. Afterward, the primary research objectives of my doctoral research work are illustrated. In chapter 2, designing block copolymer architectures toward tough bioplastics from renewable natural rosin was described. One of the most abundant natural biomasses is resin acids, however, most of the polymers derived from resin acids are brittle because of their bulky hydrophenanthrene pendant group. To overcome the brittleness, rosin containing pentablock and triblock copolymers were synthesized through living sequential ring opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP). Their thermal and mechanical properties were investigated. The phase behaviors were also studied for the microphase-separated pentablock and triblock copolymers using small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) and atomic force microscopy. A new class of true facial amphiphilic cationic antimicrobial polymers was illustrated in chapter 3. Facially amphiphilic antimicrobial polymers were prepared from multicyclic natural products (e.g. bile acids) via reversible-addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization. The antimicrobial activity against a range of bacteria and hemolysis activity with mammalian cells is investigated. In addition, the antimicrobial mechanistic aspects of facially amphiphilic polymers were also illustrated. Chapter 4 is explained about the facial amphiphilicity-induced self-assembly (FAISA) of multicyclic natural product-based cationic copolymers. The detail self-assembly behavior of copolymers with different polyethylene glycol was explained. The self-assembly of these copolymers to form antimicrobial nanoparticles was investigated in Chapter 5. The nanoaggregates exhibited strong antimicrobial activity against Gram-negative bacteria and showed minimal toxicity against mammalian cell. Finally, a summary and future directions of this dissertation research are provided in chapter 6. In future work, some suggestions about future directions involving renewable biomass for sustainable development are given

An Efficient Concurrency Control Technique for Mobile Database Environment

Day by day wireless networking technology and mobile computing devices are becoming more popular for their mobility as well as great functionality Now it is an extremely growing demand to process mobile transactions in mobile databases that allow mobile users to access and operate data anytime and anywhere irrespective of their physical positions Information is shared among multiple clients and can be modified by each client independently However for the assurance of timely access and correct results in concurrent mobile transactions concurrency control techniques CCT happen to be very difficult Due to the properties of Mobile databases e g inadequate bandwidth small processing capability unreliable communication mobility etc existing mobile database CCTs cannot employ effectively With the client-server model applying common classic pessimistic techniques of concurrency control like 2PL in mobile database leads to long duration Blocking and increasing waiting time of transactions Because of high rate of aborting transactions optimistic techniques aren t appropriate in mobile database as well This paper discusses the issues that need to be addressed when designing a CCT technique for Mobile databases analyses the existing scheme of CCT and justify their performance limitations A modified optimistic concurrency control scheme is proposed which is based on the number of data items cached amount of execution time and current load of the database server Experimental results show performance benefits such as increase in average response time and decrease in waiting time of the transaction

A Comprehensive Concurrency Control Technique for Real-Time Database System

Real-time database must maintain the Temporal Consistency of the data which cannot be achieved with the conventional concurrency control techniques as they focus only on the consistency of the data. Different protocols exhibit good performance on different situations. But a single technique is inadequate to meet the demand of real-time database. To improve the concurrency control technique for real-time transactions, this paper will present a comprehensive technique that coordinates multi-version, OCC Sacrifice, Speculative Concurrency Control and 2PL-HP protocols. The presented technique uses best suited protocol based on the contention of transactions. Thus it can significantly improve the concurrency of transactions as well as increase the number of transactions

Defect-rich Titanium (IV) Oxide and Zirconium (IV) Oxide Nanostructures for Ultra-efficient Photocatalyst and High-Tc Dilute Ferromagnetic Semiconductor Applications

In transparent conductive oxide nanostructures, oxygen vacancy defects (neutral, singly charged, and doubly charged defects) are found to be one of the most important and prevalent defects due to the enhancement of light absorption and charge transport properties, improved performance in photoelectrochemical water splitting reaction driven by visible light, and the introduction of ferromagnetism. However, the traditional methods of creating of oxygen vacancies, including hydrogen thermal treatment, high energy particle bombardment, and thermal annealing under oxygen depletion condition, generate oxygen vacancies mostly at the surface of the nanostructures. The performance of these nanostructures is therefore limited to surface oxygen vacancies. More importantly, the surface oxygen vacancies are found to be highly susceptible to oxidation upon long-term exposure to air. In addition, the dependence of optical, photoelectrochemical, and magnetic properties on the surface morphology and oxygen vacancy defect composition of the one-dimensional transparent conductive oxide nanostructures are not well understood. For these reasons, there is a great interest in the development of a novel method to create oxygen vacancies both at the surface and in the bulk of transparent conductive oxide nanostructures. As two of the most important functional transparent conductive oxides, TiO2 and ZrO2 are specially preferred catalysts for photoelectrochemical water splitting reaction because of their suitable band edge positions for hydrogen evolution and exceptional stability against photocorrosion upon optical excitation. In the present work, highly oxygen-deficient TiO2 and ZrO2 nanostructures including nanobricks, nanopopcorns, nanowires and nanosheets are prepared on Si substrates by a one-step catalyst-assisted pulsed laser deposition method. The use of a high vacuum system and Ar flow, and precise control of the gold-nanoisland catalyst size, interfacial SiO2 layer thickness, and growth temperature have enabled us to produce oxygen-deficient single-crystalline nanostructured films with different morphologies and different composition of oxygen vacancy defects. The oxygen-deficient TiO2 nanostructures have been chosen as the starting point of the present study. For TiO2 nanowires reported to date, the oxygen vacancies have been found to form just within a few tens of nanometers at the outer surface of these nanowires, and the photocurrent density is significantly reduced by two to three orders of magnitude when ultraviolet light (<430 nm) is filtered out from the AM 1.5G simulated sunlight. Here, we demonstrate, for the first time, that by manipulating the thickness of the SiO2 buffer layer, together with appropriately optimized growth temperature and growth environment, it is possible to synthesize TiO2 nanobelts, and corrugated nanowires, straight nanowires, and tapered TiO2 nanowires decorated with TiO2-nanocrystallites using a one-step catalyst-assisted pulsed laser deposition method. We further show that the amount of oxygen vacancy defects depends on the growth temperature, while our electrochemical impedance measurement confirms the lower charge transfer resistances at the depletion layer of the decorated nanowires. Photoelectrochemical measurement under simulated sunlight (100 mW/cm2) shows that the photocurrent density measured at 0.5 V (vs Ag/AgCl) for the decorated nanowires (1.5 mA/cm2) is found to be significantly higher than those of nanobelts (0.18 mA/cm2), nanobricks (0.25 mA/cm2), straight nanowires (0.6 mA/cm2), and corrugated nanowires (0.94 mA/cm2). More importantly, the photocurrent density of defect-rich decorated nanowires is reduced only slightly from 1.5 mA/cm2 to 1.4 mA/cm2 when the ultraviolet light (<430 nm) is filtered out, which represents 87% of the overall photocurrent. The high activity in the visible region can be attributed to a larger amount of oxygen vacancy defects in decorated nanowires, and to the enhanced charge transfer from the nanocrystallites to the cores of the decorated nanowires. To extend the aforementioned method to other transparent conductive oxides, ZrO2 nanowires with different morphologies and compositions of oxygen vacancy defects have been prepared by tuning the gold-nanoisland catalyst size and growth temperature. The as-grown hierarchical ZrO2 nanowires (12.1 mA/cm2), consisting of individual ZrO2 nanowires decorated with ZrO2 nanoplates, have shown 1.9 times more photocurrent density than that of as-grown regular nanowires (6.4 mA/cm2). The photoelectrochemical performance of as-grown nanostructures has been further improved by partial delamination or flaking of the as-grown nanostructured film by a simple hydrofluoric acid treatment. The photocurrent density of the partially delaminated hierarchical nanowires, obtained after the HF treatment, is found to increase remarkably to 42.4 mA/cm2, i.e. nearly 3.5 times that of the as-grown hierarchical nanowires due to improvement of the composition of oxygen vacancy defects, charge carrier transport resistance, and specific surface area of the as-grown single-crystalline hierarchical nanowires. More importantly, the HF-treated partially delaminated hierarchical nanowire film electrode provides the highest cathodic photocurrent of 32.2 mA/cm2 (at −0.8 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode) in the visible light (>400 nm) region reported to date. The variation of the pulsed deposition growth temperature also produces ZrO2 nanostructures with different specific surface areas and amounts of oxygen vacancy defects, including nanobricks, nanopopcorns, nanospikes, and nanowires. The presence of different types of oxygen vacancies (neutral, singly charged, and doubly charged defects) and their correlation to the Zrx+ oxidation states (4>x>1) are found to affect the exchange interactions and the ferromagnetic properties of these nanostructures. The saturation magnetization measured at 2000 Oe for the nanowires (5.9 emu/g) is found to be significantly greater than those of nanospikes (2.9 emu/g), nanopopcorns (1.2 emu/g), and nanobricks (0.6 emu/g), while the coercivity for the nanowires (99 Oe) is approximately twice that of the nanobricks (50 Oe). More importantly, a Curie temperature (Tc) considerably above room temperature has also been observed for these ZrO2 nanostructures, including nanowires (700 K), nanospikes (650 K), nanopopcorns (550 K), and nanobricks (400 K). We also provide the first experimental evidence that it is the amount of defects in and not the phase of ZrO2 that controls the ferromagnetic order in undoped ZrO2 nanostructures. The present work therefore provides, for the first time, a direct correlation between the surface morphology and the composition of oxygen vacancy defects with the photoelectrochemical and ferromagnetic properties of the TiO2 and ZrO2 nanostructures

Challenges for international students in using electronic resources in the Learning Centre : a case study of Oslo University College

The purpose of this study is to find out the challenges facing by international students in using electronic resources in the OUC learning center. This research has used a qualitative approach and purposive, a non-probability techniques used for sampling of this study. A semi-structured face-to-face interviews method is used for the collection of data. The interview questions were open ended and the discourse analysis method has been used for analysing data. In the data analysis section the researcher has chosen to quote the most significant utterances in unedited form and other utterances have been included in edited form as supporting evidence. The study identified a number of the challenges faced by international students in using electronic resources in the OUC learning center. It also discovered some general problems in relation to international students’ use of the libraries in general for instance, different classification system; different library location; closed shelves; no experience using automated library before; problems related to login and using FRONTER. These barriers were problematic to the informants for a while, but through asking for help from the library staff or their friends, they resolved them. So, these were not serious problems that need any intervention from the learning center. But of course some substantial problems which were particularly problematic to international students in connection with using the electronic resources in the OUC learning center, including: Cultural differences; Language barrier; Lack of training; Problems in user Interface; Unfamiliar teaching or learning style. These are the problems uncovered, demand intervention from the learning center. Furthermore, in this study it is found that students from countries closely culturally related to Norway are more familiar or apt with library environment and teaching style than students from countries culturally distant from Norway. It is significant that library anxiety or barriers with staff, judging from the results of the interviews, were absent. The students overwhelmingly confirmed that they were happy with the assistance of library staff and that they were comfortable with using the 24/7 computer availability, printing and drop box facilities for return the borrowed items. Suggestions for actions to increase the usefulness of the library resources for international students, include: to arrange cultural diversity workshops; both Norwegian and English compatible web page; to make available all kind of forms are in English; to arrange web based training program; to provide online instruction for searching e-resources; to arrange practical training; to provide training program for 2/3 times; to replace the icon “book” with a suitable link like “library”; online chat with a librarian 24/7. It is recommended that the learning center needs to be proactive in addressing the problems of these students in order to provide the learning center support required for them to successfully pursue their studies.Joint Master Degree in Digital Library Learning (DILL

Inheritance of protein content in long bean (Vigna sesquipedalis Fruw.)

The components of gene effects for protein content were studied following a six parameter model of Hayman and three parameter model of Jinks and Jones, using the means of the six basic populations (P1, P2, F1, F2, BC1P1 and BC1P2) from four crosses derived from four diverse genotypes of long bean. The scaling tests indicated the presence of non-allelic interactions for pod protein and seed protein in two crosses. Additive effects are more important than dominance effects for pod protein. The interaction effects contributed more than the main genetic component for seed protein. Among the digenic epistatic interactions, dominance × dominance (1) contributed the most followed by additive × additive (i) and additive × dorninance (h) effects. Pedigree, bulk or single seed descent methods are suggested for developing elite populations. Duplicate epistasis was noticed for the two interacting crosses

Job Satisfaction of Home Appliance Showroom Salespersons in Khulna City, Bangladesh

The main objective of the study is to present the job satisfaction level of salespersons working for various home appliance showrooms in Khulna City and to identify the factors impacting job satisfaction. In this study, job satisfaction for showroom salespersons was measured with 8 independent factors. The main finding of the study is that almost three-fourth of the salespersons working for various home appliance showrooms in Khulna City are satisfied with their job, taking everything into account. Another important finding of the study is that top three ranked factors are directly/indirectly financial related, while the bottom three ranked factors are directly non-financial. However, the showroom salespersons are very satisfied for “relation with and support from colleagues” with the highest mean value of 4.28, while the lowest mean value (2.33) for “benefit for overtime/extra work hours”. Therefore, organizations and showroom managers need to turn their attention to provide different kinds of facilities to their employees, if they want to enhance their businesses. Keywords: Job satisfaction, home appliance showroom, salesperson, Khulna city. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/11-30-04 Publication date:October 31st 201