Establishment Of Tissue Culture And Hairy Root Production Systems For Solenostemon Scutellarioides (L.) Codd

In vim propagation of S. scutellarioEdes was canied out by culturing shoot tip explants onto LS, MS and 65 basal medium supplemented with different concentrations of BAP. Comparative analysis of the different types of basal media showed that the LS basal medium supplemented with 8.88 pM BAP was suitable for multiple shoots formation on S. scutellarioides (- 13 shoots/explant). Addition of higher concentrations of BAP (35.5 pM) inhibited multiple shoots and induced abnormal plantlet formation in this species. Culturing shoot tip explants on 65 medium supplemented with 4.52 pM BAP and 2.26 pM 2,4-D produced pink friable callus. On the other hand, culturing leaf explants on MS and 65 media both supplemented with 4.52 pM 2,4-D and 0.46 pM 2,4-D, produced yellowish and grayish friable calli, respectively. Following calli induction, cell suspension culture of S. scu2eIlarirw'des was successfully initiated on MS medium supplemented with 2.26 pM 2,4-D and 0.47 pM kinetin. The cell suspension required only half the amount of 2,443 iii required for calli induction on solid medium (MS + 4.52 pM 2,4-D + 0.46 pM kinetin). In an effort towards achieving genetically stable plant tissue culture material, for the future indudion of valuable secondary metabolite, adventitious roots and hairy roots were induced from S. scufellarioides explants. Quantitative and qualitative assessments of the biomass producing from each of the culture method were analyzed. Adventitious root cultutes in S. sartellarioides leaves were induced by placing explants onto MS basal medium supplemented with different concentrations of auxins (NAA, IBA, IAA) and cytokinin (kinetin). Comparative analysis of the mots enhanced showed that MS medium supplemented with 5.0 pM IBA produced rapidly growing adventitious roots. The presence of cytokinin (kinetin) was inhibiting to adventitious root formation in S. SCUfellarioides. Supplementing MS medium with auxin either IBA or NAA was enough to induce adventitious root formation. Hairy roots of S. scutellarioides were induced by inoculation of leaf explants with A. fiizogenes strains TR 105, LBA 9402,8196 and ATCC 15834. These strains showed different abilities to induce hairy root formation in the leaf explants. Assessment of the plant susceptibility to the different A. rhizogenes strains showed that the strains ATCC 15834, TR 105, LBA 9402, and 81 96 produced 56.3%, 25.5%, 21.5%, and 13.8% transformation efficiencies, respectively. Acetosyringone was found to be useful for enhancement of hairy root production in S. s c u t d I 8

Molecular Characterization and Functional Analysis of Selected Expressed Sequence Tags from Oil Palm Cell Suspension Culture

A large quantity of Expressed sequence tags (ESTs) are available from various cDNA libraries of oil palm. The information from oil palm EST databases has been utilized to identify several interesting transcripts that are upregulated in cell suspension culture for molecular characterization and functional analysis. The first part of this study was to carry out the molecular characterization of selected ESTs of oil palm cell suspension culture which were Eg583 (Accession number: EU795363), Eg707 (Accession number: FJ196136) and EgHAD (Accession number: FJ196137). The Eg583 sequence is highly similar to an unknown protein from rice. This predicted protein might be a transcription factor due to the presence of SIN3 domain and motifs of casein kinase II phosphorylation. The expression of this gene was not detectable in all tested tissues. This gene might be a member of a multigene family in the oil palm genome. The Eg707 sequence is highly similar to an unknown protein from Arabidopsis and might be a putative nuclear protein. Its amino acid sequence contains a Ald-Xan-dh-C2 domain that may be involved in ABA biosynthesis. Eg707 might be present as a single copy gene in the oil palm genome and its transcripts were highly expressed in tissue cultured materials compared to vegetative tissues. Eg707 might have a role during oil palm somatic embryogenesis or at very early stage of embryo development. The EgHAD sequence is similar to a putative haloacid dehalogenase (HAD) superfamily hydrolase from monocots and phosphate hydrolase from dicots. However, the phylogenetic relationship of EgHAD is closer to monocots than dicots. EgHAD might be a member of a multigene family gene in the oil palm genome. It was highly expressed in leaves and meristem but lower expression was found in roots, female flowers, non-embryogenic and embryogenic calli in comparison to the oil palm cell suspension culture. Functional analysis was carried out in rice by over-expressing Eg707 and EgHAD, driven by a constitutive double Cauliflower Mosaic Virus 35S promoter. The constructs were made using the gateway technology with clonase (Invitrogen, USA). Transgenic plants over-expressing Eg707 protein had small sized, rolled and erect leaves, less tillers, empty seeds and higher total chlorophyll content. The phonotypes of these and the presence of Xan-dh-C2 domain in Eg707 protein, strongly suggest its involvement in ABA biosynthesis, particularly during somatic embryogenesis. Functional analysis of Eg707 through RNAi-mediated gene silencing was unsuccessful since the T1 seeds failed to germinate. Over-expression of EgHAD gene in rice produced more lateral roots and tillers than the wild type plants. However, it also reduced plant size, produced empty seeds and many tiny seeds which were not found in wild type plants. The suppression of the EgHAD orthologues in rice did not show any changes in the phenotype. EgHAD might be a metabolic protein involved in phosphate starvation mechanism and its expression might be necessary for seed germination

Technological innovation persistence: Literature survey and exploration of the role of organizational innovation

In this paper, we will review the literature on technological innovation persistence and provide a general theoretical framework to analyze the main determinants of this innovative behavior. Moreover, no previous empirical study has taken into account organizational innovation practices as possible determinants of innovation persistence. We will therefore include them, as previous studies have shown the interaction effects between the two types of innovation, and produce empirical results on technical innovation persistence. A multinomial probit model was used to estimate the likelihood of belonging to each of the three longitudinal innovation profiles. Results confirm the differentiated impact of determinants on process and technological innovation persistence, and the effect of R&D intensity, R&D cooperation and competition intensity. As hypothesized, we also found that organizational innovation is a determinant factor for innovation persistence and, more generally speaking, for technological innovation, in particular organizational practices such as knowledge management and external partnerships.Persistence; Innovation; Technological innovation; Organizational innovation; R&D

Design of Multi-Antenna System for UMTS Clamshell Mobile Phones with Ground Plane Effects Considerations

In this paper, the influence of the ground plane dimensions on the port-to-port isolation of two closely-spaced Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Planar Inverted-F Antennas (PIFAs) with and without neutralization line is first presented. Parametric studies show the existence of an optimal size of the ground plane allowing optimizing the isolation and the efficiency of the considered antenna-system. The results obtained with this study are used in the second part to develop an efficient neutralized multi-antenna system for clamshell-type mobile phones. The obtained results, in terms of isolation, matching and diversity for the two possible configurations of the clamshell system in use namely the open and the closed states, show that good performance are obtained in the open state and preserved in the closed state. Prototypes of these two configurations are realized and measurement results are in good agreement with the simulations

Early-Childhood Growth Faltering, Post-Infancy Recovery and Educational Outcomes in Late Childhood: Evidence from Vietnam

We use longitudinal data on over 1,500 children born in 2001 in Vietnam to study the impact of early childhood stunting on height, lagging in schooling progression and cognitive outcomes in late childhood (age 8-10 years). Our preferred estimates utilize 2SLS estimators to control for the endogenous determination of early childhood stunting and also include control for child sex and birth order, mother’s height and BMI, household socioeconomic status, and community characteristics. These estimates indicate that deficits in height-for-age at age 12 months have negative impacts on height in late childhood but not on schooling and cognitive outcomes in late childhood. The children who were stunted or moderately stunted at age 12 months display significant catch-up growth, recovering half of their deficits in height-for-age by age 8 years. Socioeconomic status in infancy has negative effects on both stunting in infancy and poor subsequent educational outcomes in late childhood, which result in significant associations between stunting in infancy and some subsequent educational outcomes in late childhood – but not causal effects once there is control for the endogenous determination of early childhood height deficits