In vitro plantlet regeneration from nodal segments and shoot tips of Capsicum chinense Jacq. cv. Naga King Chili

An in vitro regeneration protocol was developed for Capsicum chinense Jacq. cv. Naga King Chili, a very pungent chili cultivar and an important horticultural crop of Nagaland (Northeast India). Maximum number of shoot (13 ± 0.70) was induced with bud-forming capacity (BFC) index of 10.8, by culturing nodal segments in Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 18.16 μM Thidiazuron (TDZ) followed by 35.52 μM 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP). Using shoot tips as explants, multiple shoot (10 ± 0.37) (BFC 8.3) was also induced in MS medium fortified with either 18.16 μM TDZ or 35.52 μM BAP. Elongated shoots were best rooted in MS medium containing 5.70 μM indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). Rooted plantlets thus developed were hardened in 2–3 weeks time in plastic cups containing potting mixture of a 1:1 mix of soil and cow dung manure and then subsequently transferred to earthen pots. The regenerated plants did not show any variation in the morphology and growth as compared to the parent plant

Electric-field control of magnetic domain wall motion and local magnetization reversal

Spintronic devices currently rely on magnetic switching or controlled motion of domain walls by an external magnetic field or spin-polarized current. Achieving the same degree of magnetic controllability using an electric field has potential advantages including enhanced functionality and low power consumption. Here, we report on an approach to electrically control local magnetic properties, including the writing and erasure of regular ferromagnetic domain patterns and the motion of magnetic domain walls, in multiferroic CoFe-BaTiO3 heterostructures. Our method is based on recurrent strain transfer from ferroelastic domains in ferroelectric media to continuous magnetostrictive films with negligible magnetocrystalline anisotropy. Optical polarization microscopy of both ferromagnetic and ferroelectric domain structures reveals that domain correlations and strong inter-ferroic domain wall pinning persist in an applied electric field. This leads to an unprecedented electric controllability over the ferromagnetic microstructure, an accomplishment that produces giant magnetoelectric coupling effects and opens the way to multiferroic spintronic devices.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Harmful and beneficial aspects of Parthenium hysterophorus: an update

Parthenium hysterophorus is a noxious weed in America, Asia, Africa and Australia. This weed is considered to be a cause of allergic respiratory problems, contact dermatitis, mutagenicity in human and livestock. Crop production is drastically reduced owing to its allelopathy. Also aggressive dominance of this weed threatens biodiversity. Eradication of P. hysterophorus by burning, chemical herbicides, eucalyptus oil and biological control by leaf-feeding beetle, stem-galling moth, stem-boring weevil and fungi have been carried out with variable degrees of success. Recently many innovative uses of this hitherto notorious plant have been discovered. Parthenium hysterophorus confers many health benefits, viz remedy for skin inflammation, rheumatic pain, diarrhoea, urinary tract infections, dysentery, malaria and neuralgia. Its prospect as nano-medicine is being carried out with some preliminary success so far. Removal of heavy metals and dye from the environment, eradication of aquatic weeds, use as substrate for commercial enzyme production, additives in cattle manure for biogas production, as biopesticide, as green manure and compost are to name a few of some other potentials. The active compounds responsible for hazardous properties have been summarized. The aim of this review article is to explore the problem P. hysterophorus poses as a weed, the effective control measures that can be implemented as well as to unravel the latent beneficial prospects of this weed

Reduction of Ash Content in Raw Coal Using Acids and Alkali

Ash, an inorganic matter present in coal is amenable for dissolution using suitable reagents. Thus the dissolution of ash and its subsequent removal reduces the release of many toxic elements into the environment by coal based industries. Removal of ash also enhances the calorific value. In the present investigation an attempt has been made to reduce the ash content of raw coal obtained from nearest thermal power by using hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide. A series of leaching experiments were conducted on coal of different size fractions by varying the parameters like concentration, temperature and time of leaching. The results indicate that it is possible to remove nearly 75% of ash from coal sample by leaching

Ternary copper(II) complexes containing imidazole as a primary ligand & amino acids as secondary ligands

325-327The formation constants of ternary complexes CuLA and CuL2A (where L=imidazole and A=valine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, methionine, ethionine and histidine) are reported at 35.0°C and μ = 0.2 M (KNO3). Stacking and hydrophobic interactions in these and analogous ternary complexes, are found to increase in the order: Cu-[imidazole]2A < Cu-[bis(imidazol-2-yl)methane] A < Cu-[Bipyridyl]A. The biological relevance of these model ternary complexes is discussed

Equilibrium studies on ternary Cu(U) complexes containing tripolyphosphate, pyrophophate or adenosine-5' -triphosphate and a series of secondary ligands

407-411Ternary metal complexes of the type MLA where M = Cu(II); L= tripolyphosphate (TPP), pyrophosphate (PP) or adenosine-5'-triphosphate (ATP) and A= alanine, serine, methionine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, histidine, aspartic acid, ethylenediamine, 2,2'-bipyridyl, 1,10-phenanthroline, malonic acid and pyrocatechol have been investigated potentiometrically at 35°C and I=0.2 mol dm-3 (KNO3). The stabilities of the ternary metal complexes have been quantitatively compared with the stabilities of the corresponding binary metal complexes(MA) determined under identical experimental conditions Ternary complexes containing PP or ATP are found to be more stable than the corresponding complexes containing TPP. Various factors leading to differences in the relative stabilities of the ternary complexes are discussed

Somatic embryogenesis and plantlet regeneration from cotyledon and leaf explants of <i style="">Solanum surattense</i>

414-418Somatic embryogenesis and plant regeneration from the cotyledon and leaf explants of Indian Solanum (Solanum surattense Burm. f.), a medicinally important plant, is reported. Embryogenic callus was induced from cotyledon and leaf explants on Murashige and Skoog’s medium fortified with 0.5-8.0 mg/L -naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) + 0.5 mg/L N6-benzylaminopurine (BAP). High frequency of somatic embryo formation was found at 6.0 mg/L NAA + 0.5 mg/L BAP and 4.0 mg/L NAA+ 0.5 mg/L BAP in cotyledon and leaf explants, respectively. Secondary somatic embryogenesis was also observed when primary somatic embryos were subcultured on the same somatic embryo induction medium. Well-developed cotyledonary stage embryos were germinated on MS medium supplemented with 0.5 mg/L indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) +1.0-8.0 mg/L BAP. Maximum percentage (71.2%) of somatic embryo germination and plantlet formation was found at 0.5 mg/L IAA+2.0 mg/L BAP, but they didn’t germinate on ½ MSO and MSO media. The post transplantation survival rate of plants was 65-70%. Plants and flowers formed were morphologically similar to mother plants. The present protocol can be used for genetic transformation experiments in S. surattense.</i

Small-Molecule Effectors of Hepatitis B Virus Capsid Assembly Give Insight into Virus Life Cycle▿

The relationship between the physical chemistry and biology of self-assembly is poorly understood, but it will be critical to quantitatively understand infection and for the design of antivirals that target virus genesis. Here we take advantage of heteroaryldihydropyrimidines (HAPs), which affect hepatitis B virus (HBV) assembly, to gain insight and correlate in vitro assembly with HBV replication in culture. Based on a low-resolution crystal structure of a capsid-HAP complex, a closely related series of HAPs were designed and synthesized. These differentially strengthen the association between neighboring capsid proteins, alter the kinetics of assembly, and give rise to aberrant structures incompatible with a functional capsid. The chemical nature of the HAP variants correlated well with the structure of the HAP binding pocket. The thermodynamics and kinetics of in vitro assembly had strong and predictable effects on product morphology. However, only the kinetics of in vitro assembly had a strong correlation with inhibition of HBV replication in HepG2.2.15 cells; there was at best a weak correlation between assembly thermodynamics and replication. The correlation between assembly kinetics and virus suppression implies a competition between successful assembly and misassembly, small molecule induced or otherwise. This is a predictive and testable model for the mechanism of action of assembly effectors

Performance analysis of Ternary Adder and Ternary Multiplier without using Encoders and Decoders

This work presents comparison of ternary combinational digital circuits that reduce energy consumption in low-power VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) design. CNTFET and GNRFET-based ternary half adder (THA) and multiplier (TMUL) circuits has been designed using ternary unary operator circuits at 32nm technology node and implement two power supplies Vdd and Vdd/2 without using any ternary decoders, basic logic gates, or encoders to minimize the number of used transistors and improve the energy efficiency. The effect of CNTFET and GNRFET parametric variation with threshold voltage on performance metrics namely delay and power has been analyzed. Dependence of threshold voltage on the geometry of carbon nanotube and graphene nanoribbon makes it feasible to be used for ternary logic design. It is analyzed that CNTFET based circuits are energy efficient than the GNRFET- based circuits. It is also concluded that the CNTFET-based circuitshas less power-delay product (PDP) when compared to GNRFET- based circuits. CNTFET-based THA is 23.5% more efficient than GNRFET-based THA and CNTFET-based Tmul is97.8% more efficient than GNRFET-based Tmul.All the digital circuits have been simulated using HSPICE tool