Morphological and physiological response of maize seedlings to chilling stress

Although accompanied with adverse low temperatures, early maize sowing could be used to avoid drought during flowering and diminish yield losses. Herein, a small-scale experiment of low temperature stress (LTS) on maize lines L1 (tolerant), L2 (medium tolerant) and L3 (susceptible) is presented. Plants were grown in pots exposed to exterior suboptimal (March) and optimal (late April) temperatures until three leaf stage. Chlorophyll (CH), flavonoids (FL), anthocyanins (AN) and nitrogen balance (NBI) indices were measured using Dualex Scientific optical device. Growth parameters were also determined. Under LTS, number of plants was unchanged for L1 and halved for L2 and L3. Compared to L2 and L3, L1 had significantly higher (p<0.05) shoot fresh weight (0.649 g vs. 0.406 g and 0.303 g), AN (0.17 vs. 0.13) and FL (1.47 vs. 1.38 and 1.36). For recovery evaluation, plants were transplanted into the field. Transplanted stressed L1 plants showed the highest grain yield per plant (55g) in the field. Due to high correlations (p<0.01) between FL in three leaf stage and grain yield per plant, FL could be used as an indicator of plant recovery of maize genotypes exposed to LTS during early sowing.

From EMI to ICLHE

Sensitive to the demands expressed by society concerning the need to boost foreign language competences in schools, The Faculty of Education of a university based in Catalonia, Spain, set up an English-Medium Teacher Education Bachelor's Degree (EMI-TED) based on the “Internationalisation at Home” model formulated by Nilsson. Basing itself on ethnographic and documentary data collected in the course of years 1 to 4 of the pilot project, this chapter reports on the process followed by the team of EMI instructors in their attempts to plan and deliver their subjects while remaining responsive to the unique challenges posed by the use of an additional language as the vehicle for learning. More specifically, it reports on their attempts to collaboratively design a planning tool that would help them to organise their teaching and cater for the simultaneous development of both the students' professional competences and their language and discourse competences in English. The chapter ends with a set of recommendations for L2-medium teachers and teacher educators.

Effect of spacing and corm size on growth and spike production of gladiolus

Gladiolus is high demandable and popular flower all over the world. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of plant spacing and corm size on growth and spike production of gladiolus. The two factor experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD). Three plant spacing like S1= 25×20 cm, S2= 20×30 cm and S3= 25×30 cm and corm size like L1=Small corm, (30±2 g), L2=Medium corm (35±2 g), L3=Large corm (>40g) were maintained to investigate the study. Plant spacing and corm size had significant effect on days to 80% emergence, plant height, number of leaves, days required for first spike initiation, spike length, rachis length, number of florets per spike and weight of spike. The highest number of plant height (74.61 cm), maximum number of leaves (7.98), top most length of spike (70.00), utmost rachis length (48.77 cm), largest number of florets per spike (14.33) and maximum weight of spike (35.60) were obtained from the plant spacing 25x30cm and largest corm size > 40g. Therefore, the results of the present study revealed that widest plant spacing 25×30 cm and large corm (>40g) were found to be the best for growth of spike production of gladiolus. Asian J. Med. Biol. Res. June 2019, 5(3): 226-230

A Support Analysis Framework for mass movement damage assessment: applications to case studies in Calabria (Italy)

The analysis of data describing damage caused by mass movements in Calabria (Italy) allowed the organisation of the Support Analysis Framework (SAF), a spreadsheet that converts damage descriptions into numerical indices expressing direct, indirect, and intangible damage. The SAF assesses damage indices of past mass movements and the potential outcomes of dormant phenomena re-activations. It is based on the effects on damaged elements and is independent of both physical and geometric phenomenon characteristics. SAF sections that assess direct damage encompass several lines, each describing an element characterised by a value fixed on a relative arbitrary scale. The levels of loss are classified as: L4: complete; L3: high; L2: medium; or L1: low. For a generic line l, the SAF multiplies the value of a damaged element by its level of loss, obtaining dl, the contribution of the line to the damage. Indirect damage is appraised by two sections accounting for: (a) actions aiming to overcome emergency situations and (b) actions aiming to restore pre-movement conditions. The level of loss depends on the number of people involved (a) or the cost of actions (b). For intangible damage, the level of loss depends on the number of people involved. We examined three phenomena, assessing damage using the SAF and SAFL, customised versions of SAF based on the elements actually present in the analysed municipalities that consider the values of elements in the community framework. We show that in less populated, inland, and affluent municipalities, the impact of mass movements is greater than in coastal areas. The SAF can be useful to sort groups of phenomena according to their probable future damage, supplying results significant either for insurance companies or for local authorities involved in both disaster management and planning of defensive measures.

Chromosome 5D instability in cell lines of Triticum tauschii and morphological variation in regenerated plants

Immature embryos of Triticum tauschii cultured on L2 medium with 30 g∙L−1maltose gave rise to compact and highly structured callus that readily regenerated shoots when transferred to MS medium supplemented with zeatin and indole-3-acetic acid. Two cell suspensions were initiated from the callus induced on L2 medium. An analysis of chromosome number in these cell suspensions after 3 months of culture showed that 95 and 75% of the cells had a normal complement. After 5 months, in both lines the majority of cells had chromosome complements of 2n = 13 and many of these aneuploid cells possessed a dicentric chromosome. C-banding indicated that the dicentric was often formed from chromosomes 2D and 5D. Fifty-six plants regenerated from callus were grown to maturity. Variation was observed in tiller number, flowering time, and seed-set; in two cases, the variation in early flowering was shown to be heritable. All the regenerants analysed had normal chromosome counts (2n = 2x = 14) and meiotic analyses of 35 plants revealed no obvious structural rearrangements.Key words: immature embryo culture, regeneration, chromosome, cell suspension, Triticum tauschii.