CaDHN3, a Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) Dehydrin Gene Enhances the Tolerance against Salt and Drought Stresses by Reducing ROS Accumulation

Dehydrins (DHNs) play an important role in abiotic stress tolerance in a large number of plants, but very little is known about the function of DHNs in pepper plants. Here, we isolated a Y₁SK₂-type DHN gene “CaDHN3” from pepper. To authenticate the function of CaDHN3 in salt and drought stresses, it was overexpressed in Arabidopsis and silenced in pepper through virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS). Sub-cellular localization showed that CaDHN3 was located in the nucleus and cell membrane. It was found that CaDHN3-overexpressed (OE) in Arabidopsis plants showed salt and drought tolerance phenotypic characteristics, i.e., increased the initial rooting length and germination rate, enhanced chlorophyll content, lowered the relative electrolyte leakage (REL) and malondialdehyde (MDA) content than the wild-type (WT) plants. Moreover, a substantial increase in the activities of antioxidant enzymes; including the superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and lower hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) contents and higher O₂^•− contents in the transgenic Arabidopsis plants. Silencing of CaDHN3 in pepper decreased the salt- and drought-stress tolerance, through a higher REL and MDA content, and there was more accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the CaDHN3-silenced pepper plants than the control plants. Based on the yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) screening and Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation (BiFC) results, we found that CaDHN3 interacts with CaHIRD11 protein in the plasma membrane. Correspondingly, the expressions of four osmotic-related genes were significantly up-regulated in the CaDHN3-overexpressed lines. In brief, our results manifested that CaDHN3 may play an important role in regulating the relative osmotic stress responses in plants through the ROS signaling pathway. The results of this study will provide a basis for further analyses of the function of DHN genes in pepper.     

Synthesis,characterization and charge transport properties of Pr–Ni Co-doped SrFe2O4 spinel for high frequency devices applications

Ferrites are materials of interest due to their broad applications in high technological devices and a lot of research has been focused to synthesize new ferrites. In this regard, an effort has been devoted to synthesize spinel Pr–Ni co-substituted strontium ferrites with a nominal formula of Sr_1-xPr_xFe_2-yNi_yO₄ (0.0 ≤ x ≤ 0.1, 0.0 ≤ y ≤ 1.0). The cubic structure of pure and Pr–Ni co-substituted strontium ferrite samples calcinated at 1073 K for 3 h has been confirmed through X-ray diffraction (XRD). Average sizes of crystallites (18–25 nm) have been estimated from XRD analysis and nanometer particle sizes of synthesized ferrites have been further verified by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). SEM results have also shown that particles are mostly agglomerated and all the samples possess porosity. It has been observed that at 298 K, the values of resistivity (ρ) increase, while that of AC conductivity, dielectric loss, and dielectric constants decrease with increasing amounts of Pr³⁺ and Ni²⁺ ions. The values of dielectric parameters initially decrease with frequency and later become constant and can be explained on the basis of dielectric polarization. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) studies show that the charge transport phenomenon in ferrite materials is mainly controlled via grain boundaries. Overall, synthesized ferrite materials own enhanced resistivity values in the range of 1.38 × 10⁹–1.94 × 10⁹ Ω cm and minimum dielectric losses, which makes them suitable candidates for high frequency devices applications.     

CuxNi1-xO nanostructures and their nanocomposites with reduced graphene oxide: Synthesis,characterization, and photocatalytic applications

NiO nanostructure was synthesized using a simple co-precipitation method and was embedded on reduced graphene oxide surface via ultrasonication. Structural investigations were made through X-ray diffraction (XRD) and functional groups were confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). XRD analysis revealed the grain size reduction with doping. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy confirmed the presence of metal-oxygen bond in pristine and doped NiO nanostructure as well as the presence of carbon containing groups. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) indicated that the particle size decreased when NiO nanostructure was doped with copper. BET surface area was found to increase almost up to 43 m²/g for Cu doped NiO nanostructure/rGO composite. Current-voltage measurements were performed using two probe method. UV–Visible spectroscopic profiles showed the blue and red shift for Cu doped NiO nanostructure and Cu doped NiO Nanostructure/rGO composite respectively. Rate constant for Cu doped NiO nanostructure/rGO composite found to increase 4.4 times than pristine NiO nanostructure.     

Comparative study of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis of natural fibres treated with chemical,physical and biological methods

Polymer Bulletin - Kenaf and luffa fibres are hydrophilic due to the presence of water sensitive constituents, which tend to form a poor compatibility when binding with polymers. Thus, the surface...     

Surface Integrity Assessment Upon Electric Discharge Machining of Die Steel Using Non-Destructive Magnetic Barkhausen Noise Technique

Surface integrity characterization of manufactured component is very important as it significantly affects the in-service performance of the component. Till now, surface integrity was evaluated using conventional measurement technique like microhardness tester, X-ray diffraction, optical microscopy and surface roughness tester. But, this technique being laboratory based cannot be used for in-service monitoring of the surface integrity. The present study focuses on the characterization of surface integrity upon electric discharge machined sample using non-destructive magnetic Barkhausen noise technique. Electric discharge machining was performed in die-sinking mode on die steel using copper–tungsten electrode (negative polarity). Experiment was performed by selecting different levels of peak current, gap voltage and pulse on time. Surface integrity characteristics like microhardness change, residual stress, microstructural alteration and surface roughness were analysed using microhardness tester, X-ray diffraction, optical microscopy and surface roughness tester, respectively, and were then correlated with magnetic parameter like root mean square value and peak value obtained from Barkhausen noise signal. The results show a good correlation between magnetic parameter (RMS and Peak value) of Barkhausen noise with the microhardness and surface roughness of the machined sample.

     

A study on harvesting of PKL electricity

The efficiency of any electric cell or battery is very important. To keep it in mind it has been studied the columbic efficiency, voltaic efficiency and energy efficiency of a PKL (Pathor Kuchi Leaf) Quasi Voltaic Cell or Modified Voltaic Cell. It was found that the columbic efficiency data illustrated that this efficiency was lower comparing to other efficiencies may be the absence of salt bridge or separator between the electrodes. Because, our designed and fabricated PKL cell does not have any salt bridge. So that the internal resistance is lower than the traditional voltaic cell and as a result more current was found. The voltage and current changes with time and I–V characteristics for PKL unit cell, module, panel and array have also been studied. It is shown that the voltaic and energy efficiency have been studied. However, the highest efficiency was obtained for 40% PKL sap with 5% secondary salt in 55% aqueous solution, which implies that the concentration of PKL juice can play an important role regarding efficiency. It was also found that the average energy efficiency was 97.43% and it was also found that the average voltaic efficiency was 57.29%. Finally, morphological study FESEM (Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy) has also been performed. It is seen that the results confirmed that Zn was deposited on the Cu surface during the electro deposition process in PKL solution. Using AAS, it has been measured the concentration of [Cu²⁺] as a reactant ion and the concentration of [Zn²⁺] as a product ion those have been tabulated and graphically discussed. The variation of pH has also been studied with time and which was also tabulated and graphically discussed.

     

A hybrid knowledge and ensemble classification approach for prediction of venous thromboembolism

Clinical narratives such as progress summaries, lab reports, surgical reports, and other narrative texts contain key biomarkers about a patient's health. Evidence-based preventive medicine needs accurate semantic and sentiment analysis to extract and classify medical features as the input to appropriate machine learning classifiers. However, the traditional approach of using single classifiers is limited by the need for dimensionality reduction techniques, statistical feature correlation, a faster learning rate, and the lack of consideration of the semantic relations among features. Hence, extracting semantic and sentiment-based features from clinical text and combining multiple classifiers to create an ensemble intelligent system overcomes many limitations and provides a more robust prediction outcome. The selection of an appropriate approach and its interparameter dependency becomes key for the success of the ensemble method. This paper proposes a hybrid knowledge and ensemble learning framework for prediction of venous thromboembolism (VTE) diagnosis consisting of the following components: a VTE ontology, semantic extraction and sentiment assessment of risk factor framework, and an ensemble classifier. Therefore, a component-based analysis approach was adopted for evaluation using a data set of 250 clinical narratives where knowledge and ensemble achieved the following results with and without semantic extraction and sentiment assessment of risk factor, respectively: a precision of 81.8% and 62.9%, a recall of 81.8% and 57.6%, an F measure of 81.8% and 53.8%, and a receiving operating characteristic of 80.1% and 58.5% in identifying cases of VTE.     

Deliberately Losing Control of C−H Activation Processes in the Design of Small-Molecule-Fragment Arrays Targeting Peroxisomal Metabolism

Combined photochemical arylation, “nuisance effect” (S_NAr) reaction sequences have been employed in the design of small arrays for immediate deployment in medium-throughput X-ray protein–ligand structure determination. Reactions were deliberately allowed to run “out of control” in terms of selectivity; for example the ortho-arylation of 2-phenylpyridine gave five products resulting from mono- and bisarylations combined with S_NAr processes. As a result, a number of crystallographic hits against NUDT7, a key peroxisomal CoA ester hydrolase, have been identified.