Search Results (109)

Freshwater mussels play a vital ecological role in aquatic ecosystems, serving as effective natural filters that enhance water quality by removing suspended particles and excess nutrients, thereby preventing eutrophication. Their filtration activity supports overall ecosystem stability and promotes biodiversity by providing habitat structure for various aquatic species. Additionally, mussels are valuable bioindicators of environmental health, reflecting water quality changes and accumulating pollutants, including pharmaceuticals and heavy metals, which can offer insights into pollution trends. Freshwater mussels offer considerable economic potential through sustainable aquaculture, particularly in pearl production and jewelry applications, while also contributing nutritionally in controlled and culturally appropriate contexts. Despite these benefits, freshwater mussels face significant threats, including habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, and overexploitation. These pressures have resulted in drastic population declines and extinctions across various species. Effective conservation and management strategies are essential to protect freshwater mussels, focusing on habitat protection and restoration, ongoing research, and stakeholder engagement to ensure the sustainability of these crucial organisms. This review highlights the multifaceted ecological and economic values of freshwater mussels, the challenges they face, and the importance of comprehensive conservation efforts to maintain their populations and the health of aquatic ecosystems. Full article

Safflower is a multipurpose, underutilized annual crop that could be an alternate oilseed crop for normal and marginal lands around the world. Zinc as a nutrient plays a critical role in enzyme activity and nutrient absorption, leading to improved productivity and quality of oilseeds. However, imbalances between NPK and Zn can result in antagonistic interactions, leading to nutrient deficiencies. Therefore, this field experiment at the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan, was conducted to explore the synergistic effects of NPK and Zn on safflower growth, yield, and oil content. Safflower accession (UAF-SAFF-100) was treated with ten different combinations of zinc and NPK having different concentrations, i.e., T₀ = control, T₁ = NPK at 40:40:40 kg ha⁻¹, T₂ = NPK at 50:50:40 kg ha⁻¹, T₃ = NPK at 60:60:40 kg ha⁻¹, T₄ = NPK at 70:70:40 kg ha⁻¹, T₅ = NPK at 80:80:40 kg ha⁻¹, T₆ = T₁ + zinc at 7.5 kg ha⁻¹, T₇ = T₂ + zinc at 7.5 kg ha⁻¹, T₈ = T₃ + zinc at 7.5 kg ha⁻¹, T₉ = T₄ + zinc at 7.5 kg ha⁻¹, and T₁₀ = T₅ + zinc at 7.5 kg ha⁻¹. The results indicated that the application of T₉ (NPK @ 70:70:40 kg/ha⁻¹ + zinc @ 7.5 kg/ha⁻¹) showed the most promising results in terms of growth and yield attributes. This treatment significantly improved key metrics such as capitulum diameter, the number of capitula per plant, seed yield, petal yield, and oil content. Thus, this treatment (T₉) is proposed as an effective strategy for enhancing safflower growth and productivity, particularly in semi-arid regions. This study underscores the importance of optimizing nutrient management to achieve superior crop performance and suggests that tailored NPK and Zn applications can be a promising approach to maximizing safflower yield and oil quality. Full article

The abscisic acid (ABA) signaling pathway is crucial for regulating downstream ABA-responsive genes, which influence plant responses to ABA and abiotic stresses. However, many ABA-responsive genes remain poorly characterized. This study reports on the identification and characterization of ABA up-regulated EAR motif-containing proteins (AtAUEs), a novel family of EAR motif-containing proteins in Arabidopsis thaliana. From a previous transcriptome dataset, AtAUEs were identified as a family of unknown-function ABA-response genes with only five members, and the up-regulation of AtAUEs by ABA was further confirmed by quantitative RT-PCR (qRT PCR). All AtAUEs contain at least one LxLxL EAR motif and can repress reporter gene expression in Arabidopsis protoplasts. We generated CRISPR/Cas9 gene-edited ataue1, ataue2 and ataue3 single, ataue1 ataue2 (ataue12) double, and ataue1 ataue2 ataue3 (ataue123) triple mutants, as well as transgenic plants overexpressing AtAUE1, and examined their ABA sensitivity. We found that the single and double mutants displayed wild-type responses to ABA treatment, while the ataue123 triple mutants showed increased sensitivity in seed germination and cotyledon greening assays but decreased sensitivity to ABA treatment in root elongation assays. Conversely, the 35S:AtAUE1 showed decreased sensitivity in seed germination and cotyledon greening assays but increased sensitivity to ABA treatment in root elongation assays. The qRT PCR results show that the expression level of ABI5 was increased in the ataue123 mutants and decreased in the 35S:AtAUE1 plants. These findings suggest that AtAUEs function redundantly to regulate ABA responses in Arabidopsis, likely by modulating the expression of key regulatory genes in ABA-signaling pathway. Full article

Due to its outstanding optical and electronic properties, molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe₂) has become a highly regarded material for next-generation optoelectronics. This study presents a comprehensive, comparative analysis of thin (8 nm) and thick (30 nm) MoTe₂-based photodetectors to elucidate the impact of thickness on device performance. A few layers of MoTe₂ were exfoliated on a silicon dioxide (SiO₂) dielectric substrate, and electrical contacts were constructed via EBL and thermal evaporation. The thin MoTe₂-based device presented a maximum photoresponsivity of 1.2 A/W and detectivity of 4.32 × 10⁸ Jones, compared to 1.0 A/W and 3.6 × 10⁸ Jones for the thick MoTe₂ device at 520 nm. Moreover, at 1064 nm, the thick MoTe₂ device outperformed the thin device with a responsivity of 8.8 A/W and specific detectivity of 3.19 × 10⁹ Jones. Both devices demonstrated n-type behavior, with linear output curves representing decent ohmic contact amongst the MoTe₂ and Au/Cr electrodes. The enhanced performance of the thin MoTe₂ device at 520 nm is attributed to improved carrier dynamics resulting from effective electric field penetration. In comparison, the superior performance of the thick device at 1064 nm is due to sufficient absorption in the near-infrared range. These findings highlight the importance of thickness control in designing high-performance MoTe₂-based photodetectors and position MoTe₂ as a highly suitable material for next-generation optoelectronics. Full article

This study assessed the past changes in extreme precipitation and temperature events across the Himalayan Mountains of Pakistan. This cold and mountainous environmental region has witnessed a significant increase in climate-related disasters over the past few decades. Spatiotemporal changes in extreme temperature and precipitation events were analyzed using 24 indices developed by the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices (ETCCDI). For this study, in situ data of 16 national meteorological stations were obtained from the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) for the past three decades (1991–2020). The significance of the trends was assessed using the modified Mann–Kendall (MMK) test, and the Theil–Sen (TS) slope estimator was used to estimate the slope of the trend. The results showed that there has been a consistent decline in the total precipitation amount across the Himalayan Mountains of Pakistan. The trend exhibited a decrease in the annual average precipitation at a rate of −6.56 mm/year. Simultaneously, there was an increasing trend in the annual average minimum and maximum temperatures at rates of 0.02 °C/year and 0.07 °C/year, respectively. The frequencies of consecutive wet days (CWDs) and maximum 5-day precipitation (RX5day) have decreased significantly, with decreasing rates of −0.40 days/year and −1.18 mm/year, respectively. The amount of precipitation during very wet days (R95p) and extremely wet days was decreased by −19.20 and −13.60 mm/decade, respectively. The warm spell duration (WSDI) and the frequency of warm days (TX90p) across the Himalayan Range both increased by 1.5 and 1.4 days/decade. The number of cold days (TX10p) and cold nights (TN10p) decreased by 2.9 and 3.4 days/decade. The average temperature of the hottest nights (TXn) and the diurnal temperature range (DTR) were increased by 0.10 and 0.30 °C/decade. The results indicated an increasing tendency of dry and warm weather in the Himalayan region of Pakistan, which could have adverse consequences for water resources, agriculture, and disaster management in the country. Therefore, it is essential to prioritize the implementation of localized adaptation techniques in order to enhance sustainable climate resilience and effectively address the emerging climate challenges faced by these mountainous regions. Full article

Exogenous application of sodium nitroprusside (SNP) has previously been reported to trigger plant tolerance against a variety of environmental stresses. The present study was planned to investigate the possible role/s of exogenously applied SNP (50 or 100 μM) in alleviating cadmium (Cd)-induced effects on physio-biochemical processes, yield attributes, and grain quality traits of three fragrant rice cultivars, viz., Meixiangzhan-2 (MXZ), Guixiangzhan (GXZ), and Xiangyaxiangzhan (XYXZ) under 50 mg Cd kg⁻¹ of soil. The results revealed that foliar spray of SNP (50 or 100 μM) on Cd-stressed rice plants reduced oxidative stress (lower hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂), malondialdehyde (MDA), and electrolyte leakage (EL)) and improved the photosynthetic apparatus through higher chlorophyll contents, gas exchange attributes, and intact chloroplast configurations, and reduced Cd concentration in the leaves and grains of aromatic rice cultivars. The reduced levels of cellular ROS, MDA, and EL were related to the endogenous NO-mediated improvement in the activity of anti-oxidative enzymes and those involved during the ascorbate–glutathione cycle. However, among the different SNP levels, the foliar spraying of 50 μM of SNP was recorded to be the best treatment for fragrant rice growth, which increased grain yield by 42.06%, 46.03%, and 31.21%, and the quality trait of 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (2-AP) content by 43.12%, 55.84%, and 35.72% in MXZ, GXZ, and XYXZ respectively, suggesting that GXZ is more responsive to SNP than MXZ and XYXZ fragrant rice cultivars. Collectively, our results deduced that cultivating the GXZ fragrant rice cultivar along with foliar application of 50 μM of SNP could sustain the grain yield and quality features of aromatic rice cultivation in heavy metal (especially Cd)-polluted soils. Full article

Brain tumor classification is essential for clinical diagnosis and treatment planning. Deep learning models have shown great promise in this task, but they are often challenged by the complex and diverse nature of brain tumors. To address this challenge, we propose a novel deep residual and region-based convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture, called Res-BRNet, for brain tumor classification using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. Res-BRNet employs a systematic combination of regional and boundary-based operations within modified spatial and residual blocks. The spatial blocks extract homogeneity, heterogeneity, and boundary-related features of brain tumors, while the residual blocks significantly capture local and global texture variations. We evaluated the performance of Res-BRNet on a challenging dataset collected from Kaggle repositories, Br35H, and figshare, containing various tumor categories, including meningioma, glioma, pituitary, and healthy images. Res-BRNet outperformed standard CNN models, achieving excellent accuracy (98.22%), sensitivity (0.9811), F1-score (0.9841), and precision (0.9822). Our results suggest that Res-BRNet is a promising tool for brain tumor classification, with the potential to improve the accuracy and efficiency of clinical diagnosis and treatment planning. Full article

In developing countries like Pakistan, the preservation of the environment, as well as people’s economies, agriculture, and way of life, are believed to be hampered by climate change. Understanding how people perceive climate change and its signs is essential for creating a variety of adaptation solutions. In this study, we aim to bridge the gap in current research within this area, which predominantly relies on satellite data, by integrating qualitative assessments of people’s perceptions of climate change, thereby providing valuable ground-based observations of climate variability and its impacts on local communities. Field-based data were collected at different altitudes (upstream (US), midstream (MS), and downstream (DS)) of the Upper Indus Basin using both quantitative and qualitative assessments in 2017. The result shows that these altitudes are highly variable in many contexts: socioeconomic indicators of education, agriculture, income, women empowerment, health, access to basic resources, and livelihood diversifications are highly variable in the Indus Basin. The inhabitants of the Indus Basin perceive the climate changing around them and report impacts of this change as increase in overall temperatures (US 96.9%, MS 97%, DS 93.6%) and erratic rainfall patterns (US 44.1%, MS 73.3%, DS 51.0%) resulting in increased water availability for crops (US 38.6%, MS 39.7%, DS 54.8%) but also increasing number of dry days (US 56.7%, MS 85.5%, DS 67.1%). Communities at these altitudes said that agriculture was their primary source of income, making them particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and the dangers that go along with it. The insights are useful for determining what information and actions are required to support local climate-related hazard management in subtropical climate regions. Moreover, it is vital to launch a campaign to raise awareness of potential hazards, as well as to provide training and an early warning system. Full article

Sentiment analysis holds great importance within the domain of natural language processing as it examines both the expressed and underlying emotions conveyed through review content. Furthermore, researchers have discovered that relying solely on the overall sentiment derived from the textual content is inadequate. Consequently, sentiment analysis was developed to extract nuanced expressions from textual information. One of the challenges in this field is effectively extracting emotional elements using multi-label data that covers various aspects. This article presents a novel approach called the Ensemble of DenseNet based on Aquila Optimizer (EDAO). EDAO is specifically designed to enhance the precision and diversity of multi-label learners. Unlike traditional multi-label methods, EDAO strongly emphasizes improving model diversity and accuracy in multi-label scenarios. To evaluate the effectiveness of our approach, we conducted experiments on seven distinct datasets, including emotions, hotels, movies, proteins, automobiles, medical, news, and birds. Our initial strategy involves establishing a preprocessing mechanism to obtain precise and refined data. Subsequently, we used the Vader tool with Bag of Words (BoW) for feature extraction. In the third stage, we created word associations using the word2vec method. The improved data were also used to train and test the DenseNet model, which was fine-tuned using the Aquila Optimizer (AO). On the news, emotion, auto, bird, movie, hotel, protein, and medical datasets, utilizing the aspect-based multi-labeling technique, we achieved accuracy rates of 95%, 97%, and 96%, respectively, with DenseNet-AO. Our proposed model demonstrates that EDAO outperforms other standard methods across various multi-label datasets with different dimensions. The implemented strategy has been rigorously validated through experimental results, showcasing its effectiveness compared to existing benchmark approaches. Full article

Promotion of research and development in advanced technology must be implemented in agriculture to increase production in the current challenging environment where the demand for manual farming is decreasing due to the unavailability of skilled labor, high cost, and shortage of labor. In the last two decades, the demand for fruit harvester technologies, i.e., mechanized harvesting, manned and unmanned aerial systems, and robotics, has increased. However, several industries are working on the development of industrial-scale production of advanced harvesting technologies at low cost, but to date, no commercial robotic arm has been developed for selective harvesting of valuable fruits and vegetables, especially within controlled strictures, i.e., greenhouse and hydroponic contexts. This research article focused on all the parameters that are responsible for the development of automated robotic arms. A broad review of the related research works from the past two decades (2000 to 2022) is discussed, including their limitations and performance. In this study, data are obtained from various sources depending on the topic and scope of the review. Some common sources of data for writing this review paper are peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings from Google Scholar. The entire requirement for a fruit harvester contains a manipulator for mechanical movement, a vision system for localizing and recognizing fruit, and an end-effector for detachment purposes. Performance, in terms of harvesting time, harvesting accuracy, and detection efficiency of several developments, has been summarized in this work. It is observed that improvement in harvesting efficiency and custom design of end-effectors is the main area of interest for researchers. The harvesting efficiency of the system is increased by the implementation of optimal techniques in its vision system that can acquire low recognition error rates. Full article

This paper presents the design of microstrip-based multiplexers using stub-loaded coupled-line resonators. The proposed multiplexers consist of a diplexer and a triplexer, meticulously engineered to operate at specific frequency bands relevant to IoT systems: 2.55 GHz, 3.94 GHz, and 5.75 GHz. To enhance isolation and selectivity between the two passband regions, the diplexer incorporates five transmission poles (TPs) within its design. Similarly, the triplexer filter employs seven transmission poles to attain the desired performance across all three passbands. A comprehensive comparison was conducted against previously reported designs, considering crucial parameters such as size, insertion loss, return loss, and isolation between the two frequency bands. The fabrication of the diplexer and triplexer was carried out on a compact Rogers Duroid 5880 substrate. The experimental results demonstrate an exceptional performance, with the diplexer exhibiting a low insertion loss of 0.3 dB at 2.55 GHz and 0.4 dB at 3.94 GHz. The triplexer exhibits an insertion loss of 0.3 dB at 2.55 GHz, 0.37 dB at 3.94 GHz, and 0.2 dB at 5.75 GHz. The measured performance of the fabricated diplexer and triplexer aligns well with the simulated results, validating their effectiveness in meeting the desired specifications. Full article

The plant hormone ABA (abscisic acid) regulates plant responses to abiotic stresses by regulating the expression of ABA response genes. However, the functions of a large portion of ABA response genes have remained unclear. We report in this study the identification of ASDs (ABA-inducible signal peptide-containing DUF538 proteins), a subgroup of DUF538 proteins with a signal peptide, as the regulators of plant responses to ABA in Arabidopsis. ASDs are encoded by four closely related DUF538 genes, with ASD1/ASD2 and ASD3/ASD4 being two pairs of duplicated tandemly repeated genes. The quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) results showed that the expression levels of ASDs increased significantly in response to ABA as well as NaCl and mannitol treatments, with the exception that the expression level of ASD2 remained largely unchanged in response to NaCl treatment. The results of Arabidopsis protoplast transient transfection assays showed that ASDs were localized on the plasma membrane and in the cytosol and nucleus. When recruited to the promoter of the reporter gene via a fused GD domain, ASDs were able to slightly repress the expression of the co-transfected reporter gene. Seed germination and cotyledon greening assays showed that ABA sensitivity was increased in the transgenic plants that were over-expressing ASD1 or ASD3 but decreased in the transgenic plants that were over-expressing ASD2 or ASD4. On the other hand, ABA sensitivity was increased in the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-edited asd2 single mutants but decreased in the asd3 single mutants. A transcriptome analysis showed that differentially expressed genes in the 35S:ASD2 transgenic plant seedlings were enriched in several different processes, including in plant growth and development, the secondary metabolism, and plant hormone signaling. In summary, our results show that ASDs are ABA response genes and that ASDs are involved in the regulation of plant responses to ABA in Arabidopsis; however, ASD1/ASD3 and ASD2/ASD4 have opposite functions. Full article

The plant hormone ABA (abscisic acid) is able to regulate plant responses to abiotic stresses via regulating the expression of ABA response genes. BIC1 (Blue-light Inhibitor of Cryptochromes 1) and BIC2 have been identified as the inhibitors of plant cryptochrome functions, and are involved in the regulation of plant development and metabolism in Arabidopsis . In this study, we report the identification of BIC2 as a regulator of ABA responses in Arabidopsis . RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction) results show that the expression level of BIC1 remained largely unchanged, but that of BIC2 increased significantly in response to ABA treatment. Transfection assays in Arabidopsis protoplasts show that both BIC1 and BIC2 were mainly localized in the nucleus, and were able to activate the expression of the co-transfected reporter gene. Results in seed germination and seedling greening assays show that ABA sensitivity was increased in the transgenic plants overexpressing BIC2, but increased slightly, if any, in the transgenic plants overexpressing BIC1. ABA sensitivity was also increased in the bic2 single mutants in seedling greening assays, but no further increase was observed in the bic1 bic2 double mutants. On the other hand, in root elongation assays, ABA sensitivity was decreased in the transgenic plants overexpressing BIC2, as well as the bic2 single mutants, but no further decrease was observed in the bic1 bic2 double mutants. By using qRT-PCR (quantitative RT-PCR), we further examined how BIC2 may regulate ABA responses in Arabidopsis , and found that inhibition of ABA on the expression of the ABA receptor genes PYL4 (PYR1-Like 4) and PYL5 were decreased, but promotion of ABA on the expression of the protein kinase gene SnRK2.6 (SNF1-Related Protein Kinases 2.6) was enhanced in both the bic1 bic2 double mutants and 35S:BIC2 overexpression transgenic plants. Taken together, our results suggest that BIC2 regulates ABA responses in Arabidopsis possibly by affecting the expression of ABA signaling key regulator genes. Full article

Polymeric micelles are promising carriers for the delivery of poorly water-soluble drugs, providing enhanced drug solubility, blood circulation times, and bioavailability. Nevertheless, the storage and long-term stability of micelles in solution present challenges requiring the lyophilization and storage of formulations in the solid state, with reconstitution immediately prior to application. Therefore, it is important to understand the effects of lyophilization/reconstitution on micelles, particularly their drug-loaded counterparts. Herein, we investigated the use of β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) as a cryoprotectant for the lyophilization/reconstitution of a library of poly(ethylene glycol-b-ε-caprolactone) (PEG-b-PCL) copolymer micelles and their drug-loaded counterparts, as well as the effect of the physiochemical properties of different drugs (phloretin and gossypol). The critical aggregation concentration (CAC) of the copolymers decreased with increasing weight fraction of the PCL block (f_PCL), plateauing at ~1 mg/L when the f_PCL was >0.45. The blank (empty) and drug-loaded micelles were lyophilized/reconstituted in the absence and presence of β-CD (9% w/w) and analyzed via dynamic light scattering (DLS) and synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) to assess for changes in aggregate size (hydrodynamic diameter, D_h) and morphology, respectively. Regardless of the PEG-b-PCL copolymer or the use of β-CD, the blank micelles displayed poor redispersibility (<10% relative to the initial concentration), while the fraction that redispersed displayed similar D_h to the as-prepared micelles, increasing in D_h as the f_PCL of the PEG-b-PCL copolymer increased. While most blank micelles displayed discrete morphologies, the addition of β-CD or lyophilization/reconstitution generally resulted in the formation of poorly defined aggregates. Similar results were also obtained for drug-loaded micelles, with the exception of several that retained their primary morphology following lyophilization/reconstitution, although no obvious trends were noted between the microstructure of the copolymers or the physicochemical properties of the drugs and their successful redispersion. Full article