THE EFFECTS OF SEED SOAKING WITH PLANT GROWTH REGULATORS ON SEEDLING VIGOR OF WHEAT UNDER SALINITY STRESS

Effects of seed soaking with plant growth regulators (IAA, GA3, kinetin or prostart) on wheat (Triticum aestivum cv. Auqab-2000) emergence and seedling growth under normal (4 dS/cm) and saline (15 dS/cm) conditions were studied to determine their usefulness in increasing relative salt-tolerance. During emergence test, emergence percentage and mean emergence time (MET) were significantly affected by most of priming treatments, however, root and shoot length, fresh and dry weight of seedlings were significantly increased by 25 ppm kinetin followed by 1% prostart for 2 h treatments under both normal and saline conditions. All pre-sowing seed treatments decreased the electrolyte leakage of steep water as compared to that of non-primed seeds even after 12 h of soaking. Seed soaking with 25 ppm kinetin induced maximum decrease in electrolyte leakage while an increase in electrolyte leakage was observed by 25, 50 or 100 ppm IAA treatments. It is concluded that priming has reduced the severity of the effect of salinity but the amelioration was better due to 25 ppm kinetin and 1% prostart (2 h) treatments as these showed best results on seedling growth, fresh and dry weights under non-saline and saline conditions whereas seed soaking with IAA and GA3 were not effective in inducing salt tolerance under present experimental material and conditions

Fragmentation of very high energy heavy ions

A stack of CR39 (C12H18O7)n nuclear track detectors with a Cu target was exposed to a 158 A GeV lead ion beam at the CERN-SPS, in order to study the fragmentation properties of lead nuclei. Measurements of the total, break-up and pick-up charge-changing cross sections of ultrarelativistic Pb ions on Cu and CR39 targets are presented and discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 EPS figures included with epsf, uses article.sty Talk presented by M. Giorgini at the Int. Conf. on Structure of the Nucleus at the Dawn of the Century, Bologna (Italy), May 29-June 3, 200

Effect of maternal yeast feeding on dam performance and serum health biomarkers of Beetal goat kids

Supplementation with dietary yeast has improved digestibility and productive performance in ruminants. In this research the primary objective was to appraise the effects of dietary yeast supplementation of female goats during the transition period on milk composition and yield and on production and serum health biomarkers of their kids. Twenty-four Beetal goats (4 ± 1.2 years) were randomly assigned to three groups, which received 0, 5, and 10 grams/animal/day of live dried yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae for 60 days (30 days pre- and post-partum). All goats were fed 500 grams of concentrate with water and green fodder ad libitum. Milk samples were collected at 7, 14, 21, and 28 days post kidding. Kids were weighed on days 0, 7, 15, 22, and 30, and blood samples were collected on days 15 and 30 for serum metabolites (glucose, urea, cholesterol, non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), serum total proteins, albumin, globulin, albumin to globulin ratio, serum oxidant and antioxidant activity (malondialdehyde) (MDA) and catalase), and liver enzymes aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine transaminase (ALT) assessment. Milk yield was significantly (P =0.02) higher during the post-partum period in yeast-fed goats. Yeast-fed goats also produced milk containing more fat (P <0.001) and protein (P <0.001) compared with control goats. Birth weight, average daily gain, and serum health biomarkers of the kids were not influenced by the treatments. In conclusion, dietary yeast supplementation resulted in increased production performance of the dams without significant impact on their offspring.Keywords: average daily gain, catalase activity, hepatic enzymes, milk production, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, transition perio

An empirical investigation of tourism-led growth hypothesis in the European countries: evidence from augmented mean group estimator

Due to urbanization and the need for people to go from one country to another either for commercial purpose or tourism, it is therefore important to determine the extent to which tourism contributes to growth. This article aims to investigate the tourism-led growth hypothesis in a sample of 34 European countries utilizing the yearly data from 1995 to 2015. The research work makes use of 8 tourism indicators, which cover different dimensions of tourism sector development such as foreign visitors' spending, and international tourist arrival. For empirical analysis, the study accounts key determinants of growth such as capital, labor and energy (renewable and non-renewable) consumption. The results from common correlated effects (CCE) augmented mean group (AMG) and groped-mean estimators confirms that there is a positive relationship between tourism, labour, capital and GDP insinuating the presence of tourism-led growth hypothesis in the European countries. Also, findings from the FMOLS show that changes in the variables leads to a proportional change in GDP. Specifically, the evidence shows that the tourism indicators play an indispensable role in promoting economic development, along with energy consumption, capital, and labor. Sustainable Combating environmental issues associated with foreign arrivals, renewable energy consumption should be encouraged to reduce environmental externalities to ensure sustainable environments for businesses and tourists’ arrivals

Immunity and amyloid beta, total tau and neurofilament light chain: Findings from a community-based cohort study

Introduction: We investigated how components of immunity relate to biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in plasma and explored the influence of AD genetic risk factors in the population-based Rotterdam Study. Methods: In 7397 persons, we calculated the granulocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (GLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and systemic immune-inflammation index (SII). In 3615 of these persons, plasma amyloid-beta (Aβ)42 and Aβ40 were measured. Next, we constructed an overall genetic risk score (GRS) based on genome-wide significant variants, both including and excluding APOE ε4. Results: All innate immunity phenotypes were related to higher Aβ, most strongly with a doubling in GLR leading to a 1.9% higher Aβ42 (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 0.4 to 3.3%) and 3.2% higher Aβ40 (95% CI 2.0 to 4.3%). Higher AD GRS including APOE ε4 was associated with higher immunity markers. Discussion: Higher levels of immunity markers were associated with higher Aβ in plasma. Participants with a higher genetic predisposition to AD had higher immunity markers, where these effects were mainly driven by APOE ε4

Hidden attractors in fundamental problems and engineering models

Recently a concept of self-excited and hidden attractors was suggested: an attractor is called a self-excited attractor if its basin of attraction overlaps with neighborhood of an equilibrium, otherwise it is called a hidden attractor. For example, hidden attractors are attractors in systems with no equilibria or with only one stable equilibrium (a special case of multistability and coexistence of attractors). While coexisting self-excited attractors can be found using the standard computational procedure, there is no standard way of predicting the existence or coexistence of hidden attractors in a system. In this plenary survey lecture the concept of self-excited and hidden attractors is discussed, and various corresponding examples of self-excited and hidden attractors are considered

Search for magnetic monopoles at the Chacaltaya cosmic ray laboratory

The new large area (400 m2) experiment—SLIM—to search for magnetic monopoles and other exotic massive particles is presented. It uses of nuclear track detectors and is being deployed at the Chacaltaya cosmic ray laboratory for at least 4 years. The detection capability of the experiment is discussed

Binding Energy of Charged Excitons in ZnSe-based Quantum Wells

Excitons and charged excitons (trions) are investigated in ZnSe-based quantum well structures with (Zn,Be,Mg)Se and (Zn,Mg)(S,Se) barriers by means of magneto-optical spectroscopy. Binding energies of negatively () and positively (X+) charged excitons are measured as functions of quantum well width, free carrier density and in external magnetic fields up to 47 T. The binding energy of shows a strong increase from 1.4 to 8.9 meV with decreasing quantum well width from 190 to 29 A. The binding energies of X+ are about 25% smaller than the binding energy in the same structures. The magnetic field behavior of and X+ binding energies differ qualitatively. With growing magnetic field strength, increases its binding energy by 35-150%, while for X+ it decreases by 25%. Zeeman spin splittings and oscillator strengths of excitons and trions are measured and discussed

Exome Sequencing Analysis Identifies Rare Variants in ATM and RPL8 That Are Associated With Shorter Telomere Length

Telomeres are important for maintaining genomic stability. Telomere length has been associated with aging, disease, and mortality and is highly heritable (∼82%). In this study, we aimed to identify rare genetic variants associated with telomere length using whole-exome sequence data. We studied 1,303 participants of the Erasmus Rucphen Family (ERF) study, 1,259 of the Rotterdam Study (RS), and 674 of the British Heart Foundation Family Heart Study (BHF-FHS). We conducted two analyses, first we analyzed the family-based ERF study and used the RS and BHF-FHS for replication. Second, we combined the summary data of the three studies in a meta-analysis. Telomere length was measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction in blood. We identified nine rare variants significantly associated with telomere length (p-value < 1.42 × 10–7, minor allele frequency of 0.2–0.5%) in the ERF study. Eight of these variants (in C11orf65, ACAT1, NPAT, ATM, KDELC2, and EXPH5) were located on chromosome 11q22.3 that contains ATM, a gene involved in telomere maintenance. Although we were unable to replicate the variants in the RS and BHF-FHS (p-value ≥ 0.21), segregation analysis showed that all variants segregate with shorter telomere length in a family. In the meta-analysis of all studies, a nominally significant association with LTL was observed with a rare variant in RPL8 (p-value = 1.48 × 10−6), which has previously been associated with age. Additionally, a novel rare variant in the known RTEL1 locus showed suggestive evidence for association (p-value = 1.18 × 10–4) with LTL. To conclude, we identified novel rare variants associated with telomere length. Larger samples size are needed to confirm these findings and to identify additional variants