The study evaluated climate smart adaptive measure of yellow cassava, linkages and implications in Southeast Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was deployed for sample selection which brought about 399 respondents. Data were collected using structured questionnaire and were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, percentage, mean scores and beta regression technique. Results showed that yellow cassava farmers were more of males (60.2%), married (80.0%), and relatively educated (60.4%). Major climate change hazards experienced by yellow cassava farmers include increased disease of crop (69.4%), reduced soil fertility (76.7%), and increased insect infestations (51.4%). Assets deployed in yellow cassava production were tractors, mechanized harvesters, and family labour. Again, land tenure systems, family rules, funding agency guidelines, and extension agents were among the social institutions that influenced resource control of the cassava farmers. Alternative to agriculture (75.4%), empowerment programs (77.2%), engagement strategies, and crop variety diversifications (97.0%), were climate smart adaptive measures utilized in the area. Again, earthening up of cassava plot, change in spacing between plant stands, and change in farming systems were some of the new technologies and skills employed to enhance yellow cassava production. Majority of the farmers, (97.7%) accessed climate information on radio and public places. Further, greater percentage of the farmers (89.0%) had low adaptive capacity to climate change. Age, education, household size, and extension contacts influenced climate smart adaptive measures of yellow cassava. The study recommends farmers to cultivate more of yellow cassava because of its calorie content capacity and seek for early warning information on climate change to avert possible negative consequences.

The plant growth regulators (PGRs) including gibberellic acid (GA3) and methyl jasmonate (MeJA) can assist plants in coping with abiotic stresses. This study aimed to investigate the influence of MeJA and GA3 at different doses on the early stage of wheat growth. For this study, first eighty-seven wheat cultivars were assessed under varying salinity stresses, i.e., 0, 70, 140, 210 and 280 mM NaCl for best tolerant cultivars selection. Afterwards, through assessment, two wheat cultivars (Ning-14 and Yangmai-23) selected for comparison, and two adequate salt concentrations were decided for the seeds priming experiment. Both cultivars were pre-treated with 75 and 150M MeJA and GA3 after soaking for 12 hours and exposed to two separate NaCl treatments and control (Ck) (0, 140, and 210 mM). The result showed that the high salinity treatments increased Na+ content by 80.38 and 72.2 % while decreasing growth rates by 44.72 and 47.33% in both cultivars. Meanwhile, the MeJA and GA3 treated seeds significantly increased germination, fresh seedling weight, root and shoot length, seedling vigour index, and decreased Na+ absorption in Ning-14 and Yangmai-23 (by 11.7 % and 12.3 % at 210 mM NaCl). In addition, we observed that the high concentration of MeJA and GA3 had no positive impact on sensitive wheat cultivars like Ning-14. According to this study, treatment with MeJA and GA3 may help in alleviating the adverse effects of salt by increasing germination percentage and root/shoot length. As a result, investigations into MeJA and GA3 reflect the relevance of changes in other traits of rice germination and seedlings growth.

Green-synthesized nanoparticles are a promising field against drug resistant bacteria in modern scientific era of nanotechnology. Plant extracts are mostly preferred for the green synthesis of nanoparticles. Current investigation is based on the production of green silver nanoparticles using Arisaema dracontium root aqueous extract. The prepared nanoparticles were characterized via various methods e.g. UV–Vis spectroscopy, SEM, EDX, FT-IR and XRD. The antioxidant and insecticidal potentials of the nanoparticles were explored. Furthermore, antibacterial potentials of biosynthesized silver nanoparticles were also examined against various bacterial pathogens. The extract possesses potent antioxidant activity. The A. dracontium extract showed its potential to synthesize AgNPs at room temperature. The UV-Visible spectroscopy gave an absorption peak at 450 nm which confirmed the synthesis of AgNPs. The SEM micrograph demonstrated a clear determination of round-shaped morphology of prepared AgNPs. Furthermore, FTIR analysis explicitly depicted about capping of the AgNPs and evaluated the reduction done by Alkene Sulfoxide Sulfonamide, Cyclic, Alkene, Alkane, and alcohol, while stabilization components of AgNPs were amide linkage and amino acid. The prepared nanoparticles had good antioxidant and insecticidal activities, whereas the synthesized AgNPs showed improved antibacterial potentials as compared to root extract of A. dracontium alone. From the current study, it is recommended that such nanoparticles may be further investigated to treat various bacterial infections.

Financial education is the process of building knowledge, skills and attitudes to become financially literate. It is meant to educate people on good money management practices with respect to earning, spending, saving, borrowing, and investing. Financial education is meant to enable people to shift from reactive to proactive decision-making and work towards fulfilling their financial goals. By broadening people’s understanding of financial options and principles, financial education builds skills to use financial products and services, and promotes attitudes and behaviors that support more effective use of scarce financial resources. Financial education builds skills to use financial products and services, and promotes attitudes and behaviors that support more effective use of scarce financial resources and financial inclusion. The results of this work show that low levels of financial inclusion are associated with lower levels of financial literacy. Recent research permitted to identify various ways in which policy makers are developing financial education policies for financial inclusion.

Thin object detection from stationary or moving images is a challenging computer vision task because it not only involves the detection and recognition of the objects but also requires an accurate localization of these objects. The detection and localization of thin objects is practically difficult owing to the slenderer and compact nature of these objects. The detection and localization of thin objects is critical in a variety of research areas including but not limited to electrical transmission systems, medicine, mooring systems, autonomous vehicles, and so on. In this paper, we identify and validate the problems in the detection and localization of thin image objects using Deep Learning models. The deep learning models are focused because they have been declared as state-of-the-art in the object detection domain and yield remarkable performances as compared to their machine learning (ML) based shallow counterparts. In this paper, we validate the stated problem as a significant issue via not only literature references but also via our empirical findings of the experiments conducted.

This study aims to understand the major effects of Copper oxide nanoparticles on toxic and fish pathogens by using a green method. Safer methods like the usage of microorganisms prove to be eco-friendly and extremely practical than the regular physical and chemical methods. The characters and features of the CuO particles were understood by using analytical techniques like XRD, UV-vis spectroscopy, FTIR, SEM-EDX, TEM and AFM. Further analysis showed that the spherical particle size was around 100 nm. When prepared in pure water to zebrafish, with a 96 h LC50 concentration of 67.61 mg/L. The possibility to evaluate hatching time in the 96 h acute embryo toxicity test seems to be an advantage against that of the 96-hour toxicity since this toxicity was a life stage-dependent.

Estimation of heritability and genetic advance plays a pivotal role in selection. An experiment was conducted at The University of Agriculture-Peshawar during 2013-14 by evaluating 19 genotypes including seven parents and 12 F2 populations using a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. Data were recorded on days to 50% heading, days to maturity, plant height, flag leaf area, productive tillers plant-1, spike length, biological yield plant-1, spikelet spike-1, grains spike-1, grain yield plant-1 and harvest index. Analysis of variance showed significant differences among genotypes, parents and F2 populations for all the studied traits while parent vs F2 population also showed significant differences, thus indicated the usefulness of selection of these studied traits. Low to high broad sense heritability was observed for all most all the traits studied. Low genetic advance was observed for all the traits studied. Among Parents, Janbaz was the highest in productive tillers plant-1, spikelet spike-1, grains spike-1 and grain yield plant-1. Among F2 population, Saleem-2000 × Barsat had the earliest 50% heading and maturity, Saleem-2000 × Watan, Tatara × Barsat, AUP-5008 × Fakhre Sarhad and Janbaz × Barsat showed the shortest plant, large flag leaf area, long spikes, more productive tillers plant-1, grain yield plant-1, harvest index, biological yield plant-1 and spikelet spike-1. Saleem-2000 × Watan, Tatara × Barsat, AUP-5008 × Fakhre Sarhad and Janbaz × Barsat having better performance for most of the traits and hence could be utilized in future wheat breeding programs.

Organic amendments of soil has the ability to enhance crop production and influence soil health by altering its physical and chemical properties. However, studies are limited regarding field evaluation of biochar and compost influence on crop yield and soil health. Therefore, the present study was planned to evaluate the beneficial impact of biochar together with compost on nutritional profile of soil and maize productivity. Cow manure was used as a biomass to prepare biochar and compost. For biochar production the pyrolysis temperature was kept at 480 ⁰C. The experiment comprised of four treatments: (1) Control (2) Biochar (3) Compost (4) Biochar + Compost, at the rate of 5 tons ha-1, each. There was an increase of 46.29% and 13.4% in grain yield and biological yield, respectively, in treatment containing biochar and compost over untreated control. Similarly, the soil organic carbon has also shown an increase of 80.52% due to the synergistic effect of biochar and compost. However, there was a decline in soil pH by combined application of biochar and compost. Conclusively, biochar and compost have the potential to increase crop productivity with better management of soil nutrients and properties.

Effects of water and nitrogen management were investigated in this study. In an attempt to determine the water use efficiency and nitrogen use efficiency for various water management scenarios over a range of nitrogen levels, two water management treatments (free surface drainage system and controlled drainage with sub-irrigation) were employed. Also, three nitrogen treatments (low N, medium N and high N) were employed. The experiment was laid out in split plot design where the two water management treatments are the main plots, while the three nitrogen treatments are the sub-plots during 2018 and 2019 planting seasons. The differences among the treatments with regard to plant heights from 2 to 8 WAP in early 2018 were not significant irrespective of the planting seasons. The grain yield on controlled drainage with sub-irrigation and medium N plot was the highest in both early and late 2018 and 2019 respectively. The average grain yields for the four cropping seasons showed that controlled drainage with sub-irrigation and medium N treatment had significant influence on the grain yield than other treatments. NUE decreased with the increased rate of nitrogen application. With increased competition of water, water use efficiency data provides a tool for selection of crops depending on climatic, economic and environmental requirements. It is advantageous to have CD systems in dry years and FD systems in wet years for optimum crop yields.

Background: Vascular injuries caused by irradiation include acute vasculitis with neutrophil invasion, endothelial cell (EC) swelling, capillary loss, and activation of coagulator mechanisms, along with local ischemia and fibrosis. The circulating endothelial cells (CECs), increase dramatically in diseases with vascular damageAim: The aim of this study is to provide data on the endothelial dysfunction due to the occupational exposure to low dose ionizing radiation versus high dose exposure. \nPatients and Methods: In this study we investigated the expression of CD146 on peripheral-blood cells of 100 subjects by Flow cytometry plus measuring plasma thrombomodulin (TM) level by ELISA.\nResults: A significant increase in CD 146 in cancer breast patients before and after radiotherapy, radiation workers compared to control. Moreover, a significant increase in CD 146 observed after radiotherapy. Thrombomodulin (TM) value was increased in cancer patients after radiotherapy and radiation workers compared to control group, with no significant difference between cancer patients before radiotherapy and control. \nConclusion: Our results showed that Circulating endothelial cells and Circulating thrombomodulin level are increased in both radiation workers (low radiation dose) and patients treated with radiotherapy (high radiation dose), they constitute a valuable marker of endothelial injury.