Introducing Team Coordination Framework to Support Globally Distributed Teams for Pakistani Software Industry

Collaborative effort is required in DSD (Distributed Software Development) in order to develop software in manageable components. Immense effort is taking place due to the cultural, geographical and temporal distances among project teams in Pakistani Software Industry to this end. The purpose of this study is to propose a solution during DSD that will help the distributed teams in coordinating their activities. Our solution enhances the management associated activities and assists in optimal usage of team coordination in dispersed settings. The method that we used is single case study type, which involved distributed software business to assess the usefulness and efficiency related to Pakistan’s DSD industries, and has shown strong tendency of participants towards the effectiveness of proposed team coordination framework. Results indicate that the predictable solution will look up the group management, which is considered as a vigorous issue of Pakistani DSD industry. Furthermore, it will assist in resolving the problems of team coordination in distributed situation. One of the most significant current discussion about the proposed solution suggested that it helps in human communication methods team coordination in a distributed environment

Speed breeding in growth chambers and glasshouses for crop breeding and model plant research

‘Speed breeding’ (SB) shortens the breeding cycle and accelerates crop research through rapid generation advancement. SB can be carried out in numerous ways, one of which involves extending the duration of plants’ daily exposure to light, combined with early seed harvest, to cycle quickly from seed to seed, thereby reducing the generation times for some long-day (LD) or day-neutral crops. In this protocol, we present glasshouse and growth chamber–based SB approaches with supporting data from experimentation with several crops. We describe the conditions that promote the rapid growth of bread wheat, durum wheat, barley, oat, various Brassica species, chickpea, pea, grass pea, quinoa and Brachypodium distachyon. Points of flexibility within the protocols are highlighted, including how plant density can be increased to efficiently scale up plant numbers for single-seed descent (SSD). In addition, instructions are provided on how to perform SB on a small scale in a benchtop growth cabinet, enabling optimization of parameters at a low cost

EXPLORING THE GENETIC DIVERSITY IN WHEAT FOR RESISTANCE TO SEPTORIA TRITICI BLOTCH

Septoria tritici blotch (STB) is a foliar disease of wheat caused by the fungal pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici and is the third-most impactful wheat disease worldwide, due in part to the pathogen’s widespread resistance to fungicides. It is therefore vital that more sources of host resistance are characterised and deployed. Wild species contain multitudes of unexploited genetic variation, without the genetic bottlenecks and artificial selection pressures imposed upon crops. The D-genome progenitor of bread wheat, Aegilops tauschii, has shown near immunity to STB, yet this interaction is scarcely studied and little understood. Landraces are another valuable resource from which resistances that have been lost on the road to developing elite cultivars could be rediscovered. An example is the highly genetically and geographically diverse Watkins collection of pre-Green Revolution wheat landraces. Association genetics was employed to investigate the genetic basis of resistance to Z. tritici in Watkins landraces by using whole-genome shotgun sequences for a set of 300 accessions. This led to the rediscovery of Stb6 conferring resistance to the Z. tritici isolate IPO323. Subsequently, a candidate gene conferring resistance to IPO88004 and encoding a serine/threonine protein kinase was discovered on chromosome 6A, likely the previously-designated gene Stb15. The haplotype diversity of these genes in the panel was explored. A region on chromosome 4D associated with damage responses to IPO90012 was also investigated. Additionally, these methods were applied to an Aegilops tauschii diversity panel. Although the high prevalence of incompatible interactions limited the efficacy of this approach, several loci associated with necrosis responses were identified. The identification of the third gene in the Stb canon, Stb15, provides valuable insights into the functional genetic architecture of Z. tritici resistance in wheat. Together, these results form a case study demonstrating both the power and limitations of association genetics for STB resistance gene discovery

A Feminist Stylistic Analysis of The Domestic Crusaders by Wajahat Ali

There is a general perception that a male member of the society projects only male perception of life and generally ignores female perception of life. As a result, women are discriminated and subordinated to men which is projected in the literature as it reflects the true picture of society. In the present study, the researcher has tried to find out the stylistic features that represent the gender discrimination in the play of Wajahat Ali. The present research has been conducted to decode the text of The Domestic Crusader stylistically by applying 'Sara Mills' model of Feminist Stylistics.  The data have been analyzed at the level of words, sentences and discourse. This research has been conducted by qualitative approach. The present research concludes that the writer has used negative words and sentences to represent women and men and used body parts to describe a woman while man is described overall either positive or negative. Furthermore, the writer has used generic noun, woman as marked form, naming and androcentrism, semantic derogation of women at the level of words, readymade phrases, metaphors, jokes and humor and presupposition and inferences at the level of sentences while fragmentation has used at the level of discourse. Moreover, the writer has portrayed male character opposite to female characters for instance when female has defined as sex object, weak and helpless, the writer has used male as pleasure seeker, terrorist and extremist

A Review of Novel Antidepressants: A Guide for Clinicians

This review article aims to provide insight into the mechanisms of action, pharmacokinetics, clinical efficacy, safety and tolerability of four novel antidepressants including desvenlafaxine, vortioxetine, vilazodone, and levomilnacipran. Following keywords are used in PubMed and Scopus to search for relevant articles: (depression) AND (psychopharmacology OR desvenlafaxine OR levomilnacipran OR vortioxetine OR vilazodone). Patients with a lack of effectiveness or tolerability to certain antidepressants may get benefit from selecting a new antidepressant with different mechanism of action. These medications can be an option in the selection of newer antidepressants. Depression may not be caused by the simple deficiency of serotonin in the brain, but rather a complex interplay of various neurotransmitters including serotonin, norepinephrine, glutamate, and histamine at certain brain areas. The above-mentioned novel antidepressants exert their therapeutic benefits by acting on multiple neurotransmitters. The complexity of underlying the neurobiological mechanism should be considered while formulating a plan of care

Breeding crops to feed 10 billion

Crop improvements can help us to meet the challenge of feeding a population of 10 billion, but can we breed better varieties fast enough? Technologies such as genotyping, marker-assisted selection, high-throughput phenotyping, genome editing, genomic selection and de novo domestication could be galvanized by using speed breeding to enable plant breeders to keep pace with a changing environment and ever-increasing human population

Population genomic analysis of Aegilops tauschii identifies targets for bread wheat improvement.

Aegilops tauschii, the diploid wild progenitor of the D subgenome of bread wheat, is a reservoir of genetic diversity for improving bread wheat performance and environmental resilience. Here we sequenced 242 Ae. tauschii accessions and compared them to the wheat D subgenome to characterize genomic diversity. We found that a rare lineage of Ae. tauschii geographically restricted to present-day Georgia contributed to the wheat D subgenome in the independent hybridizations that gave rise to modern bread wheat. Through k-mer-based association mapping, we identified discrete genomic regions with candidate genes for disease and pest resistance and demonstrated their functional transfer into wheat by transgenesis and wide crossing, including the generation of a library of hexaploids incorporating diverse Ae. tauschii genomes. Exploiting the genomic diversity of the Ae. tauschii ancestral diploid genome permits rapid trait discovery and functional genetic validation in a hexaploid background amenable to breeding

Population genomic analysis of Aegilops tauschii identifies targets for bread wheat improvement

Aegilops tauschii, the diploid wild progenitor of the D subgenome of bread wheat, is a reservoir of genetic diversity for improving bread wheat performance and environmental resilience. Here we sequenced 242 Ae. tauschii accessions and compared them to the wheat D subgenome to characterize genomic diversity. We found that a rare lineage of Ae. tauschii geographically restricted to present-day Georgia contributed to the wheat D subgenome in the independent hybridizations that gave rise to modern bread wheat. Through k-mer-based association mapping, we identified discrete genomic regions with candidate genes for disease and pest resistance and demonstrated their functional transfer into wheat by transgenesis and wide crossing, including the generation of a library of hexaploids incorporating diverse Ae. tauschii genomes. Exploiting the genomic diversity of the Ae. tauschii ancestral diploid genome permits rapid trait discovery and functional genetic validation in a hexaploid background amenable to breeding