Accuracy of selected neurological clinical tests in diagnosing MRI-detectable forebrain lesion in dogs

This retrospective case study aims to evaluate the accuracy of menace response, response to nasal stimulation and proprioceptive placing in diagnosing forebrain lesion in dogs. A total of 145 client-owned dogs investigated by magnetic resonance imaging study of the brain between December 2017 and June 2019 were evaluated. Seventy-one dogs with no magnetic resonance imaging-detectable intracranial and significant cerebrospinal fluid abnormality or recent history of seizure (<48 h) served as controls. Binary regression analysis was performed to determine the sensitivity, specificity and likelihood ratios of each selected test. Older age at presentation was a significant risk factor for the presence of a forebrain lesion. Menace (62.5%) and proprioceptive deficits (40.5%) were common findings in all dogs. They were also significantly associated with the presence of forebrain abnormality. Moreover, they were more sensitive (77.3% and 82.2%, respectively) and specific (50.0% and 62.5%, respectively) when applied to dogs aged 6 years or older. Nonetheless, all of these tests' likelihood ratios, and thus reliability are poor. These neurological tests are commonly employed for diagnosing forebrain disease in dogs, yet are not highly accurate in diagnosing forebrain abnormality. Clinicians should interpret these clinical test results along with the patient history when designing a diagnostic plan.     

Technological Advances to Address Current Issues in Entomology: 2020 Student Debates

The 2020 Student Debates of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) were live-streamed during the Virtual Annual Meeting to debate current, prominent entomological issues of interest to members. The Student Debates Subcommittee of the National ESA Student Affairs Committee coordinated the student efforts throughout the year and hosted the live event. This year, four unbiased introductory speakers provided background for each debate topic while four multi-university teams were each assigned a debate topic under the theme ‘Technological Advances to Address Current Issues in Entomology’. The two debate topics selected were as follows: 1) What is the best taxonomic approach to identify and classify insects? and 2) What is the best current technology to address the locust swarms worldwide? Unbiased introduction speakers and debate teams began preparing approximately six months before the live event. During the live event, teams shared their critical thinking and practiced communication skills by defending their positions on either taxonomical identification and classification of insects or managing the damaging outbreaks of locusts in crops.     

Effects of organic manure and chemical fertilizer on soil fertility and productivity of plant and ratoon crops of sugarcane

A long-term field experiment was initiated in November, 1967 at Research Area of Department of Soil Science to study the response of nitrogen to pearl millet-wheat cropping system at various doses and modes of farmyard manure application. The soil organic carbon increased with farmyard manure application and ranged from 0.68% in control to 1.82% in the plot receiving the highest annual dose (90 Mg ha^?1) of farmyard manure. To study the contribution of farmyard manure on the productivity of pearl millet and wheat crops, the constants (intercept and slope) were determined between the grain yield of pearl millet and wheat crops with increasing dose of fertilizer nitrogen. Another linear regression was fitted between the intercept of the linear model and the soil organic carbon content. It has been observed that with each unit increase in the soil organic carbon, the productivity of pearl millet increased by 273 kg ha^?1 and that of wheat by 1591 kg ha^?1. The regression between the slope and soil organic carbon was linear in case of pearl millet (R² 0.49) but in case of wheat there was no relationship.     

Performance of wheat (Triticum aestivum) to incorporation of organic manure and bioinoculants

A field experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of integrated use of farmyard manure and bio-inoculants on wheat productivity for two years in succession. Increasing levels of farmyard manure (FYM) up to 15 t ha^?1 significantly (p ≤ 0.05) improved the dry matter accumulation, effective tillers per m row length, and grain weight per spike in both the years. Application of 15 t ha^?1 FYM caused significant increase in spikelets per spike and grains per spike over control and 5 t ha^?1 during two consecutive years. Inoculation with MSX-9 strain of Azotobacter chroococcum produced significantly higher dry matter accumulation to 25.63, 13.33, 7.78 and 23.66, 8.35, 5.50% over uninoculation, Azospirillum brasilense (SP-7) and Azospirillum lipoferum (A-5) at harvest during 1999–2000 and 2000–2001, respectively. Incorporation of 15 t ha^?1 FYM significantly (p ≤ 0.05) enhanced grain and straw yield to 62.45 and 38.05%; 56.66 and 36.28%; 59.42 and 37.52% over control in 1999–2000, 2000–2001 and pooled analysis, respectively. The grain and straw yield of wheat significantly (p ≤ 0.05) enhanced to 26.51, 10.10, 7.54 and 14.45, 5.77, 3.16% through A. chroococcum (MSX-9), A. brasilense (SP-7) and A. lipoferum (A-5) over uninoculation.     

Cytokinin induces bacterial pathogen resistance in tomato

Phytohormones are involved in the regulation of plant responses to biotic stress. How a limited number of hormones differentially regulate defence responses and influence the outcome of plant–biotic interactions is not fully understood. In recent years, cytokinin (CK) was shown to induce plant resistance against several pathogens. In the present study, we investigated the effect of CK in inducing tomato resistance against the hemibiotrophic pathogenic bacteria Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria (Xcv) and Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato (Pst). We demonstrate that CK enhances tomato resistance to Xcv and Pst through a process that relies on salicylic acid and ethylene signalling. CK did not directly affect the growth or biofilm formation ability of these pathogens in vitro. Overall, our work provides insight into the underlying mechanisms of CK-induced immune responses against bacterial pathogens in tomato.     

Lipid components of mustard seeds (Brassica juncea L.) as influenced by cadmium levels

In a pot experiment the soil application of different levels of Cd²⁺ (0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 60 µg g^–1 soil) affected the lipid components of mustard seeds (Brassica juncea L. Cv. RH-30) markedly. Total lipids declined with the Cd²⁺ levels regularly while phospho and glycolipids increased only at higher levels. Fatty acids profile of total, neutral and polar lipid fractions were affected considerably. Erucic acid in total and neutral lipids was observed to increase while it decreased in polar lipids with Cd²⁺ as compared to control. On the other hand palmitic, oleic and linoleic acids had reverse trend. Cadmium concentration increased consistently with increasing levels of Cd²⁺. Plant dry weight was also decreased significantly with Cd²⁺ levels.     

Combining ability and inheritance studies for protein content in mungbean

The present investigation was carried on a 8 parent diallel of mungbean involving 28 F₁'s and 28 F₂'s excluding reciprocals grown at three different locations including Meerut, Ludhiana and Hissar. Three different analyses including combining ability, graphical and component analysis were utilized.From the combining ability analysis over different environments it was reported that g.c.a. effects are relatively more consistent over environments than s.c.a. effects. The parents P₃ and P₅ were ranked as the best general combiners and the cross P5 × P7 was the good specific combination in both the diallel sets. The graphical analysis suggested that high protein content is governed by dominant genes. Further all the analyses revealed that non-additive variance was mostly responsible for this character. Thus two methods, including biparental mating system among the selected F₂/F₃ plants from P₅×P₇ cross; and modified diallel selective mating system for the selected parents with good or average general combining ability were suggested. From these populations the desirable combinations with high protein content and other desirable attributes, be selected which can constitute a future variety.     

Performance of improved guayule lines in Australia

Guayule (Parthenium argentatum Gray) is a potential source of commercial natural rubber. Its commercialisation depends mainly on economical plant production. The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of improved lines in Australia. Seeds from five improved lines (AZ-1, AZ-2, AZ-3, AZ-5 and AZ-6) and two previously developed guayule lines (N 565 and 11591) were obtained from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Seedlings from these lines were grown in a glasshouse for 3 months and later transplanted in a field experiment in early September 2001. Plant height and width were monitored from transplanting to 62 weeks at regular intervals. After 62 weeks, plant dry matter production, rubber and resin content, and yields were analysed. Plant height and width of the improved lines were higher than N 565 and 11591. Plant dry matter, rubber and resin yields were significantly different among lines. Of the five lines, AZ-1 and AZ-2 produced rubber yields of 620 and 550 kg/ha, respectively and these yields were significantly greater than for N 565 (371 kg/ha) and 11591 (391 kg/ha). AZ-1 and AZ-2 also produced significantly higher resin yields, 727 and 668 kg/ha, respectively, than those for N 565 (436 kg/ha) and 11591 (325 kg/ha). Rubber and resin yield increase of lines, AZ-1 and AZ-2, were in the range of 41–68% and 53–123%, respectively over N 565 and 11591. AZ-1 tended to produce higher rubber and resin yields than AZ-2 but exhibited highly variable plant height (CV=25%) and width (CV=41%) indicating potential for further genetic improvement. AZ-2 offers the best combination of desirable characters including early vigour, uniformity and comparatively higher rubber and resin yields.     

Protein quality evaluation of sprouted maize

Protein, lysine, tryptophan, crude fibre (CF) and neutral detergent fibre (NDF) of sprouted, normal and hard endosperm opaque-2 (QPM) kernels increased, whereas in vitro protein digestibility (IVPD) decreased substantially up to five days of germination. Following the removal of radicles alone or both radicles and plumules from sprouted kernels, IVPD improved at all the stages of germination. However, the contents of lysine and tryptophan were not affected significantly. For some stages of germination, these amino acids decreased slightly. In sprouted normal kernels, IVPD was higher whereas protein, lysine and tryptophan content was lower than that of sprouted QPM kernels respectively at all the stages of germination. In four days old sprouted normal kernels, after the removal of both radicles and plumules biological value (BV), net protein utilization (NPU) and utilizable protein (UP) increased over non-sprouted kernels whereas true digestibility (TD) reach at par with non-sprouted kernels.     

Development,acceptability and nutritional value of weaning mixtures

Low cost weaning mixtures were prepared by mixing (i) malted pearl millet (Penicitum typhidium L), roasted amaranth (Amaranthus sp.); roasted green gram (Vigna radiata); jaggery and (ii) malted barley (Dehusked barley); roasted amaranth grain; roasted green gram; jaggery in proportion 60204045 wt/wt and were nutritionally evaluated. Both the blends had a nutrient composition within the range prescribed by the Indian Standard Institute (ISI) for processed weaning foods. The processing of grains resulted in lower levels of phytic acid, polyphenols and saponins and higher in vitro protein digestibility than those of the raw grains used for preparing mixtures. Both the mixtures were acceptable to trained panelists and children.