Acclimatization physiology in tissue cultured plants

Physiological and morphological aspects of acclimatization were studied in cultured tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.), banana (Musa accuminata L.) and date palm (Phoenix dactyli/era ). The nutrient availability from agar solidified culture medium was determined to establish the nutrient status of the cultured plandets before transfer to ex vitro conditions. Analysis of the plant tissues demonstrated decreasing tissue concentrations of the major elements nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium with decreasing concentration of basal salts in the medium. The effects of agar and increasing sodium concentration in the culture medium was studied in cultured banana plants. Plandets grown on agar solidified medium with increased levels of sodium, exhibited reduced growth and stomatal movement. The use of agar as a solidifying agent was shown to reduce root growth, development and stomatal functioning in these plants. The efficiency of ion and water uptake, and translocation in in vitro and acclimatized tomato plants was assessed using [32P]-orthophosphate and [3H]_ tritiated water. The functional capacity of the root system fOlmed in vitro was established, and assessed following acclimatization treatments at 40% and 80% relative humidity. Comparative studies with tomato seedlings demonstrated reduced efficiency of ion translocation to the shoot in plandets growing in vitro. However, transport to the shoot improved during acclimatization. Ion absorption studies on in vitro and acclimatized palm plants demonstrated phosphate uptake and translocation in both plant types. A detailed examination of the tissue structure through the root/shoot junction and roots of · cultured, acclimatized and seedling tomato plants illustrated differences in the vascular development between the three plant types. However, no major abnormalities were observed which could have accounted for the reduced translocation efficiency in the cultured plants. Increased vascularization present in the root/shoot junction of the cultured plants may increase resistance to the transpiration flow through the region. The type of root system produced in vitro and the root/shoot ratio was manipulated using varying IAA and sucrose treatments. Improved root development and plantlet survival rates were achieved by reduced exposure to IAA during the root initiation phase followed by root elongation on IAA free medium supplemented with sucrose. Acclimatization at low relative humidity (40%) was achieved by producing plandets with balanced root/shoot ratios and a well developed root system

Women in enterprise : a different perspective

According to this detailed study of UK women and entrepreneurship produced for RBS by Aston Business School, women do not have any individual or collective entrepreneurial deficit. Instead, this report finds that it is a combination of challenge and choice. Whilst there is clearly a cultural challenge, women also choose to use entrepreneurship differently

Understanding Opportunities in Social Entrepreneurship: A Critical Realist Abstraction

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This paper extends social entrepreneurship (SE) research by drawing upon a critical realist perspective to analyse dynamic structure/agency relations in SE opportunity emergence, illustrated by empirical evidence. Our findings demonstrate an agential aspect (opportunity actualisation following a path-dependent seeding-growing-shaping process) and a structural aspect (institutional, cognitive and embedded structures necessary for SE opportunity emergence) related to SE opportunities. These structures provide three boundary conditions for SE agency: institutional discrimination, an SE belief system and social feasibility. Within this paper, we develop a novel theoretical framework to analyse SE opportunities plus, an applicable tool to advance related empirical research

Developing a critical realist positional approach to intersectionality

This article identifies philosophical tensions and limitations within contemporary intersectionality theory which, it will be argued, have hindered its ability to explain how positioning in multiple social categories can affect life chances and influence the reproduction of inequality. We draw upon critical realism to propose an augmented conceptual framework and novel methodological approach that offers the potential to move beyond these debates, so as to better enable intersectionality to provide causal explanatory accounts of the ‘lived experiences’ of social privilege and disadvantage

Women entrepreneurs and their ventures: complicating categories and contextualising gender

Women entrepreneurs and their ventures: complicating categories and contextualising gende

Emancipation through digital entrepreneurship: a critical realist analysis

Digital entrepreneurship is presented in popular discourse as a means to empowerment and greater economic participation for under-resourced and socially marginalised people. However, this emancipatory rhetoric relies on a flat ontology that does not sufficiently consider the enabling conditions needed for successful digital enterprise activity. To empirically illustrate this argument, we examine three paired cases of UK women digital entrepreneurs, operating in similar sectors but occupying contrasting social positionalities. The cases are comparatively analysed through an intersectional feminist lens using a critical realist methodological framework. By examining the relationships between digital entrepreneurship, social positionality, and structural and agential enabling conditions, we interrogate the notion of digital entrepreneurship as an emancipatory phenomenon producing liberated workers

Households as a site of entrepreneurial activity

Entrepreneurial households have a central role in determining entrepreneurial choices, actions and outcomes. In this monograph we focus on the role of households in new venture creation and growth, arguing that our understanding of individual actions and firm level decisions becomes clearer if they are considered from the perspective of the household. A household perspective implies that the entrepreneur is viewed outwards from the context of their immediate family unit, and implicitly recognizes the blurred boundaries between the business sphere and the private sphere; business strategies and household strategies are interwoven, and business decisions are often made within the household. We review theoretical constructs of the household and examine the ways in which the household has been considered within entrepreneurship research. Not only is the household a vital component in fully understanding entrepreneurial actions, research attention should also be afforded to understanding the effects of entrepreneurship on business-owning households