Genetics And Interrelationship of Yield and Yield Related Attributes in Some Genotypes of Safflower (Carthamus Tinctorius L.) Under Rainfed Conditions

In order to estimate variability, heritability, genetic advance and relationship of grain yield with other yield related attributes, the experiments were carried out in field research Area of Barani Agricultural Research Institute, Chakwal, Pakistan during two rabi growing seasons 2011-12 and 2012-13. The experimental materials were comprised of 40 genotypes of safflower and were sown in randomized complete block design with three replications each year. The analysis of variance showed that all the safflower genotypes were significantly different for all the traits studied except days to physiological maturity. Among the attributes studied the estimates of phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) were generally higher than the genetic coefficient of variation (GCV).  Highest GCV was found in grain filing rate plant-1 (49.34 & 48.25) followed by seed yield plant-1 (49.09 & 48.18) during 2011-12 & 2012-13 respectively. Grain filing rate plant-1 showed maximum PCV (49.78 & 48.96) followed by seed yield plant-1 (49.64 & 49.44) during both years (2011-12 & 2012-13) respectively. The high heritability coupled with high genetic advance was measured in biological yield plant-1, harvest index (%), number of heads plant-1, and seed yield plant-1. These results revealed that high estimates of heritability and genetic advance for these traits would be helpful for the plant breeders to select the suitable combination and to achieve the enviable level of seed yield potential in safflower under arid environment conditions. The correlation results of two year studies revealed that seed yield plant-1 had significant and positive relationship with days to maturity, plant height, biological yield plant-1, number of seeds head-1, 1000-grain weight, grain filing rate plant-1, effective head weight, number of primary branches  plant-1 and plant height. On the other hand, days to 50% flowering, days to physiological maturity, number of seeds head-1, seed weight head-1 and 1000- grain weight showed low heritability with low genetic advance. Key words: Safflower, Rainfed, Variability, Heritability, Genetic Advance, Correlatio

Performance Based Evaluation and Selection of Different Promising Lines of Rapeseed (Brassica Napus L.) for the Shattering Tolerance

To evaluate the ten promising lines of Brassica napus against the shattering tolerance, the experiments were carried out in split plot design in the research area of Barani Agricultural Research Institute; Chakwal, Pakistan during two rabi growing season 2011-12 & 2012-13 under rainfed conditions. The main plot was harvested in five different harvesting dates including: HarD1 = Harvesting at physiological maturity of crop, HarD2= 7 days after the first harvesting of each promising line, HarD3= 15 days after the first harvesting of each promising line, HarD4= 21 days after the first harvesting of each promising line, HarD5= 30 days after the first harvesting of each promising line. The difference of grain yield (kg/ha) of each promising line in different harvesting dates with compare to its grain yield (kg/ha) in first harvesting date (HarD1-HarDi) were measured as indices of shattering. The combine analysis of variance of two year revealed that all the promising lines were significant different for harvesting date, harvesting date x promising lines interaction effect and also year and its interaction effects to each study factors. In the present experiment, the promising line 12CBN008 & 10CBN004 had grain yield 1089 kg/ha & 897 kg/ha respectively. The significant difference of genotypes x harvesting dates confirmed different level of shattering of all promising lines in different harvesting dates. The magnitude of grain yield shattering loss was increased in 4th and 5th harvesting dates. On the basis of shattering tolerance among all the promising lines the 11CBN010 was more tolerant to shattering and 11CBN005 were relatively more susceptible to shattering. Keywords: Rapeseed, Harvesting date, Shattering toleranc

Skin Lesion Segmentation Using an Ensemble of Different Image Processing Methods

In recent times, there has been a huge increase in the average number of cases of skin cancer per year, which sometimes become life threatening for humans. Early detection of various skin diseases through automated detection techniques plays a crucial role. However, the presence of numerous artefacts makes this task challenging. Dermoscopic images exhibit various variations, including hair artefacts, markers, and ill-defined boundaries. These artefacts make automatic analysis of skin lesion quite a difficult task. To address these issues, it is essential to have an accurate and efficient automated method which will delineate a skin lesion from the rest of the image. Unfortunately, due to the presence of several types of skin artefacts, there is no such thresholding method that can provide a sufficient segmentation result for every type of skin lesion. To overcome this limitation, an ensemble-based method is proposed that selects the optimal thresholding based on an objective function. A group of state-of-the-art different thresholding methods such as Otsu, Kapur, Harris hawk, and grey level are used. The proposed method obtained superior results (dice score = 0.89 with p-value ≤ 0.05) as compared to other state-of-the-art methods (Otsu = 0.79, Kapur = 0.80, Harris hawk = 0.60, grey level = 0.69, active contour model = 0.72). The experiments conducted in this study utilize the ISIC 2016 dataset, which is publicly available and specifically designed for skin-related research. Accurate segmentation will help in the early detection of many skin diseases

MHD boundary layer thermal slip flow by nonlinearly stretching cylinder with suction/blowing and radiation

A mathematical model has been developed to study the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow of viscous fluid due to a nonlinear stretching cylinder. The flow is discussed in the presence of velocity and thermal slip conditions. Effects of viscous dissipation and Joule heating are also examined. Suitable transformations are utilized to reduce the governing PDEs into a set of nonlinear ODEs. These equations are solved using Range-Kutta Fehlberg Scheme. Influence of pertinent variables on velocity, temperature, concentration, surface drag force and heat transfer rate are computed and analyzed. Graphical and tabulated results are given to deliberate the physical nature of problem. Finally comparison with previously available limiting results in the literature are made and an excellent agreement is noted. As expected the velocity is decreased by suction. Nusselt number enhances for larger thermal radiation. Keywords: Viscous fluid, Non-linear stretching cylinder, Viscous dissipation, MHD, Range-Kutta Fehlberg Schem

Numerical simulation for nonlinear radiative flow by convective cylinder

Present study explores the effect of nonlinear thermal radiation and magnetic field in boundary layer flow of viscous fluid due to nonlinear stretching cylinder. An incompressible fluid occupies the porous medium. Nonlinear differential systems are obtained after invoking appropriate transformations. The problems in hand are solved numerically. Effects of flow controlling parameters on velocity, temperature, local skin friction coefficient and local Nusselt numbers are discussed. It is found that the dimensionless velocity decreases and temperature increases when magnetic parameter is enhanced. Temperature profile is also increasing function of thermal radiation. Keywords: Nonlinear thermal radiation, Nonlinear stretching, Porous medium, Convective boundary conditio

Bio-inspired Machine Learning for Distributed Confidential Multi-Portfolio Selection Problem

The recently emerging multi-portfolio selection problem lacks a proper framework to ensure that client privacy and database secrecy remain intact. Since privacy is of major concern these days, in this paper, we propose a variant of Beetle Antennae Search (BAS) known as Distributed Beetle Antennae Search (DBAS) to optimize multi-portfolio selection problems without violating the privacy of individual portfolios. DBAS is a swarm-based optimization algorithm that solely shares the gradients of portfolios among the swarm without sharing private data or portfolio stock information. DBAS is a hybrid framework, and it inherits the swarm-like nature of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm with the BAS updating criteria. It ensures a robust and fast optimization of the multi-portfolio selection problem whilst keeping the privacy and secrecy of each portfolio intact. Since multi-portfolio selection problems are a recent direction for the field, no work has been done concerning the privacy of the database nor the privacy of stock information of individual portfolios. To test the robustness of DBAS, simulations were conducted consisting of four categories of multi-portfolio problems, where in each category, three portfolios were selected. To achieve this, 200 days worth of real-world stock data were utilized from 25 NASDAQ stock companies. The simulation results prove that DBAS not only ensures portfolio privacy but is also efficient and robust in selecting optimal portfolios