First record in Upper Egypt of vascular wilt on pomegranate caused by Fusarium oxysporum,its molecular identification and artificial pathogenicity

Journal of Plant Diseases and Protection - A severe vascular pomegranate wilt (Punica granatum L.) has recently been discovered and reported for the first time in Upper Egypt. Diseased samples were...     

Alleviation of salinity stress in red cabbage plants by urea and sulfur applications

Environmental stresses, such as salinity, are becoming critical constraints to plant production especially in arid and semi-arid regions, one of the main targets of agricultural studies is to combat the environmental stresses on plants. An open field experiment was carried out to study the influence of sulfur (S) and urea on red cabbage plants under salt stress. The experiment was arranged as a split-plot design with three replications, the main plots included sulfur levels (0, 350, and 700 kg ha^?1), while subplots included urea levels (0, 1, 2, and 4 g L^?1). Results showed that urea spraying and sulfur soil additions resulted in improvement of growth and yield, and raised the level of potassium and nitrogen while lowering sodium content in plant leaves under salt stress conditions. Generally, larger and heavier heads were found with the application of 700 kg ha^?1 sulfur and 2 g L^?1 urea.     

Symmetrized characterization of noisy quantum processes

A major goal of developing high-precision control of many-body quantum systems is to realize their potential as quantum computers. A substantial obstacle to this is the extreme fragility of quantum systems to "decoherence" from environmental noise and other control limitations. Although quantum computation is possible if the noise affecting the quantum system satisfies certain conditions, existing methods for noise characterization are intractable for present multibody systems. We introduce a technique based on symmetrization that enables direct experimental measurement of some key properties of the decoherence affecting a quantum system. Our method reduces the number of experiments required from exponential to polynomial in the number of subsystems. The technique is demonstrated for the optimization of control over nuclear spins in the solid state.     

Isolation,identification and differentiation of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Campylobacter</Emphasis> spp. using multiplex PCR assay from goats in Khartoum State,Sudan

The aim of this study was to identify and characterize thermophilic Campylobacter species in faecal samples from goats in Khartoum State, Sudan, by application of multiplex polymerase chain reaction. Campylobacteriosis is a zoonotic disease of global concern, and the organisms can be transmitted to human via food, water and through contact with farm animals and pets. There are five clinically related Campylobacter species: Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni). Campylobacter coli, Campylobacter lari, Campylobacter upsaliensis and Campylobacter fetus. Conventional cultural methods to diagnose campylobacteriosis are tedious and time consuming. Wide ranges of genes have been reported to be used for PCR-based identification of Campylobacter spp. We used a multiplex PCR assay to simultaneously detect genes from the major five clinically significant Campylobacter spp. The genes selected were hipO (hippuricase) and 23S rRNA from glyA (serine hydroxymethyl transferase) from each of C. jejuni. C. coli, C. lari, and C. upsaliensis; and sapB2 (surface layer protein) from C. fetus subsp. fetus. The assay was used to identify Campylobacter isolates recovered from 336 cultured faecal samples from goats in three localities in Khartoum State. C. coli was the most predominant isolate (234; 69.6%), followed by C. jejuni (19; 5.7%), C. upsaliensis (13; 3.9%), C. fetus subsp. fetus (7; 2.1%) and C. lari (6; 1.8%). Twenty-nine goats showed mixed infection with Campylobacter spp., 21 of which harbored two Campylobacter spp., while eight animals were infected with three species. Ten out of twelve goats that displayed diarrhea harbored C. coli only. C. coli, C. jejuni and C. upsaliensis showed significant variation with localities. The prevalence of C. coli was significantly higher (87; 25.9%) in goats from Omdurman, whereas C. jejuni and C. upsaliensis were significantly higher (11; 3.3%, 9; 2.7%) in goats from Khartoum. The multiplex PCR assay was found to be rapid and easy to perform and had a high sensitivity and specificity for characterizing the isolates, even in mixed cultures. The study demonstrated the significance of goats as reservoirs in the dissemination of Campylobacter spp. which could be considered as potential agent of caprine enteritis and abortion as well as contamination of the wider environment posing serious public health concern in Khartoum State.