Seed priming with sodium nitroprusside enhances the growth of peanuts (Arachis hypogaea L.) under drought stress

Peanuts are a nutrient-dense legume with high lipid, protein, vitamin and mineral content. Peanut development is harmed by drought stress, particularly during the germination and seedling stages. Finding ways to mitigate the impacts of drought stress will have positive effects on peanut production. Seed priming, a short-gun strategy for modulating the impact of abiotic stressors on agricultural plants, has lately piqued the attention of researchers to instill drought tolerance in important crops. In this study, peanut seeds (VD01-2 cultivar) were used as material to investigate the role of priming with sodium nitroprusside at different concentrations (10, 15, 20 and 25 mg L-1) in preventing the damage of peanuts triggered by drought stress. Morphological, physiological and biochemical changes during the development of peanuts in the drought stress condition were analyzed. The results show that moderate drought stress (60% of field capacity) reduced germination and seedling growth. Drought stress reduced relative water content, photosynthesis, and the content of chlorophyll and starch significantly over the control. Seed priming with 20 mg L-1 sodium nitroprusside was effective in increasing these above mentioned growth parameters. Further, the priming of 20 mg L-1 sodium nitroprusside enhanced respiration rate and carotenoid, soluble sugar and proline content compared to the control

High throughput profiling of transcription factors involved in soybean root growth under water deficit

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on February 22, 2011).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Thesis advisor: Dr. Henry T. Nguyen.M. S. University of Missouri--Columbia 2010.Drought is the major abiotic stress factor limiting crop productivity worldwide. Plant root and shoot systems respond to environmental changes by altering the expression of complex gene networks through sensing environmental stresses and modifying signaling and metabolic pathways. Previous work (Yamaguchi et al., 2009) showed that the soybean primary root adapts to low water potential (-1.6 MPa) by maintaining longitudinal expansion in the apical 4 mm (region 1), whereas in the adjacent 4 mm (region 2), longitudinal expansion reaches a maximum in well-watered roots but is progressively inhibited at low water potential. To identify the key transcription factors (TFs) that determine these responses to low water potential, we have conducted high-throughput profiling of root-related TF expression in regions 1 and 2 of water-stressed and well-watered roots using quantitative real-time PCR. 186 root- and stress-related TFs were selected to identify their specific expression patterns in root regions 1 and 2 of well-watered and water-stressed soybean seedlings at four time points (5h, 12h, 24h, and 48h) after transplanting. Several stress-specific and root-region-specific transcripts were identified which may contribute to root responses to water deficits. Among these were zinc-finger protein, MYB-related protein, GmNAC3, GmNAC4, and bZIP transcription factors. These TFs were differentially expressed in distinct root regions, and therefore they can be targeted for functional characterization and further genetic engineering for enhanced drought resistance in soybean.Includes bibliographical references

Effect of Hydrolysis on Tannin and Carotenoid Contents, and Antioxidant Activity of Pouteria campechiana

The medicinal properties of Pouteria campechiana fruit in Vietnam currently have not been studied much. This study was conducted to evaluate hydrolysis's effect on the carotenoid, tannin, and antioxidant activity through the correlation between IC50 and TPC values of Pouteria campechiana extract. This study examined hydrolysis conditions, such as enzyme type, enzyme concentration, temperature, and hydrolysis time. Experimental results showed that at pectinase enzyme concentration of 0.6 wt%, cellulase enzyme concentration of 0.6 wt%, at hydrolysis temperature of 600C, and 65 minutes for hydrolysis, the study found carotenoid of 115.14±4.14 (µg/g) and tannin of 45.88±2.37 (mgTAE/g)in the extract. IC50 value (7.82±0.21 mg/mL) and TPC content were highly correlated (R2=0.98). This study's results contributed to the provision of valuable scientific data on Pouteria campechiana fruit, especially for the food industr

Professional development for ESL lecturers – a struggle to integrate ICT into teaching

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) plays a crucial role in our daily life. In fact, students are considered digital citizens and have become accustomed to being always connected to their devices and the Internet. Given the importance ICT plays in our lives, education institutions nowadays have a duty to incorporate ICT into teaching and learning in order to better prepare students for 21st Century skills and careers. Although certain technological equipment may be available in classrooms, there are several external and internal factors that affect the proper implementation of ICT in classrooms. In preparing students to be career-ready, ICT integration is imperative. This paper will discuss factors affecting ESL lecturers’ professional development in terms of ICT application in the classroom. A total of 61 lecturers from 12 non-English-majored universities in Vietnam voluntarily completed this quantitative study’s survey questionnaire. The findings show that although ESL lecturers are aware of the significance of some factors affecting ICT implementation in classrooms, they are struggling to learn, to adapt, and to integrate ICT into their classrooms

Professional development for ESL lecturers – a struggle to integrate ICT into teaching

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) plays a crucial role in our daily life. In fact, students are considered digital citizens and have become accustomed to being always connected to their devices and the Internet. Given the importance ICT plays in our lives, education institutions nowadays have a duty to incorporate ICT into teaching and learning in order to better prepare students for 21st Century skills and careers. Although certain technological equipment may be available in classrooms, there are several external and internal factors that affect the proper implementation of ICT in classrooms. In preparing students to be career-ready, ICT integration is imperative. This paper will discuss factors affecting ESL lecturers’ professional development in terms of ICT application in the classroom. A total of 61 lecturers from 12 non-English-majored universities in Vietnam voluntarily completed this quantitative study’s survey questionnaire. The findings show that although ESL lecturers are aware of the significance of some factors affecting ICT implementation in classrooms, they are struggling to learn, to adapt, and to integrate ICT into their classrooms

Factors affecting the flipped classroom in the educational context of Vietnam

In the context of the implementation of the 2018 General Education Program, teachers are required to implement a teaching model oriented to the development of students’ quality and competence. Teachers are encouraged to adapt the flipped classroom model of teaching in schools as its advantages are suitable for novel teaching strategies. This study focuses on analyzing factors affecting the application of this model in the teaching and learning process by collecting feedback from 351 teachers from various cities in Vietnam. The questionnaire included Likert-type questions analyzed by IBM SPSS Statistics version 20 for quantitative analysis and an open question for qualitative analysis with context and personal information. The research-oriented factors focus on the group of potential internal factors (perception, proficiency, desire and readiness of teachers) and the group of external factors (infrastructure, facilities and support resources, training programs). The results showed that those factors include the school’s infrastructure and information communication technology (ICT) condition, the teacher’s ICT competence as well as competence-related teaching and assessment methodologies and the students’ internet access conditions. Finally, the study offers suggestions on how to apply this model in teaching practice to meet the requirements of educational innovation in Vietnam

Review of Literature of Faculty Motivation for Doing Research in Universities

Faculty research in the universities plays a very important role in the education and development of every country in the world. The purpose of this research is to review studies in this field, different approaches in studies, and fundamental theories used for studies. The results obtained from the literature review show that many scholars have conducted researches on the determinants influencing the faculty productivity to do research. Most of studies apply the theories of working motivation. However, not many scholars conduct research on the faculty motivation to do research. The final result of this research provides follow-up suggestions for studies of the motivation for conducting research on the side of lecturers, thereby guiding managers to enhance faculty motivation to do research. Keywords: Motivation, productivity, research, lecturer/faculty. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/11-20-10 Publication date:July 31st 201

A Study of the Strategic Alliance for EMS Industry: The Application of a Hybrid DEA and GM (1, 1) Approach

Choosing a partner is a critical factor for success in international strategic alliances, although criteria for partner selection vary between developed and transitional markets. This study aims to develop effective methods to assist enterprise to measure the firms’ operation efficiency, find out the candidate priority under several different inputs and outputs, and forecast the values of those variables in the future. The methodologies are constructed by the concepts of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and grey model (GM). Realistic data in four consecutive years (2009–2012) a total of 20 companies of the Electronic Manufacturing Service (EMS) industry that went public are completely collected. This paper tries to help target company—DMU1—to find the right alliance partners. By our proposed approach, the results show the priority in the recent years. The research study is hopefully of interest to managers who are in manufacturing industry in general and EMS enterprises in particular

Religiosity and life satisfaction among old people: Evidence from a transitional country

Using data from the 2011 Vietnam National Aging Survey, we examined whether religion is associated with subjective well-being (i.e. happiness or life satisfaction) among old people in Vietnam. Our regression analysis provided the first evidence that some religious affiliations are negatively related to happiness. Buddhists and Caodaists are less happy than their non-religious counterparts, even after controlling for several household and individual attributes. However, this negative association does not hold for Christians. This finding is robust to the choice of key covariates and specification of econometric models. Our finding supports the hypothesis that religiosity tends to be linked with unhappiness in transitional countries because in these countries those who are religious often consist disproportionately of new, relatively unhappy recruits

Religiosity and life satisfaction among old people: Evidence from a transitional country

Using data from the 2011 Vietnam National Aging Survey, we examined whether religion is associated with subjective well-being (i.e. happiness or life satisfaction) among old people in Vietnam. Our regression analysis provided the first evidence that some religious affiliations are negatively related to happiness. Buddhists and Caodaists are less happy than their non-religious counterparts, even after controlling for several household and individual attributes. However, this negative association does not hold for Christians. This finding is robust to the choice of key covariates and specification of econometric models. Our finding supports the hypothesis that religiosity tends to be linked with unhappiness in transitional countries because in these countries those who are religious often consist disproportionately of new, relatively unhappy recruits