Aziz Ullah

A facile, single-step hydrothermal route is followed to prepare ZnS nanowires with large aspect ratios. The obtained ZnS nanowires deposited on nickel foam (ZnS/Ni-foam) exhibit a specific capacitance of 781 F/g at a current density of 0.5 A/g. An asymmetric supercapacitor fabricated from ZnS/Ni-foam as a positive electrode and jute derived activated carbon coated on Ni-foam (JAC/Ni-foam) as a negative electrode attains a high specific capacitance of 573 F/g at a current density of 0.5 A/g, with an accompanying high energy density of 51 Wh/kg at a power density of 200 W/kg in an extensive operating potential window of 1.2 V. In addition, the ZnS//JAC asymmetric supercapacitor reveals long-term cyclic stability, after 10,000 GCD cycles the device sustain around ∼87 % of the initial specific capacitance. These results shed enlighten a new opportunity for promising electrode materials in supercapacitors.

The decrease in water resources due to the excessive use of water for irrigation purpose and climatic changes represents a serious world-wide threat to food security. In this regards, 50 wheat accessions were analyzed, using completely random factorial design at the seedlings stage under normal and drought stress conditions. Significant variation was detected among all accessions under both conditions. All characters studied showed variations in the mean values in water deficit environments in studied gemplasm at seedling stage. As seedling fresh weight, dry weight, relative water content, cell membrane thermo-stability, chlorophyll a & b were positively associated among themselves under drought conditions which showed the significance of these attribute for water deficit areas in future wheat breeding programs. Based on their performance, five accessions namely Aas-11, Chakwal-86, Pasban-90, Chakwal-97 and Kohistan-97 were selected as drought tolerant and three accessions namely Mairaj-08, Lasani-2008 and Gomal-2008 were selected as drought susceptible genotypes. The choice of wheat accessions based on the characteristics of the seedlings is informal, low-priced and less hassle. Likewise, the seedlings attributes exhibit moderate to high variation with an additive genetics effects on the environments. Best performance accessions under water deficit environment will be beneficial in future wheat breeding schemes and early screening for the attributes suggested in current experiment will be useful for producing best-yielded and drought-tolerance wheat genotypes to sustainable food security.

Wheat is the most widely grown and consumed crop because of its economic and social benefits. This crop is more important globally for food and feed, and its productivity is particularly vulnerable to abiotic factors. In this study, 40 wheat genotypes were studied to access the drought tolerance level using completely randomized design (CRD) in 250 ml disposable cups through morpho–physiological attributes at seedling stage. The wheat germplasm was tested under normal and two drought stress level D1 (50% field capacity) and D2 (75% field capacity) for different seedling attributes such as germination percentage (GP), chlorophyll content (CC), shoot length (SL), root length (RL), shoot fresh weight (SFW), root fresh weight (RFW), seedling fresh weight (SDFW), shoot dry weight (SDW), root dry weight (RDW), relative water content (RWC), root/shoot ratio (RS), and seedling dry weight (SeDW). The results of analysis of variance (ANOVA) and spider analysis indicate that significant amount of genetic variation was present and behavior of studied germplasm showed different behavior in different environment. The correlation analysis showed that root length has significantly positive association with root/shoot ratio, dry weight, and fresh weight while negatively correlated with shoot length and relative water content. Based on the positively associated traits, the studied genetic material would improve genetic gain for drought tolerance. The multivariate analysis showed that out 13 principal components only five PCs were significant and has eigenvalue > 1, cumulatively showed 82.33, 83.07, and 97.34% of total variation under normal, D1 and D2 conditions, respectively. Significantly, the result of spider graph and multivariate analysis showed that genotypes G47, G48, G65, G68, and G80 performed well in all drought stress conditions and considered as drought-tolerant genotypes. The best performing genotypes can be used in future breeding programs. The selection on the bases of studied attributes is effective for development of drought-tolerant and high-yielding varieties for sustainable food security.

Insulin assays are utilized in various clinical scenarios, including the assessment of insulin therapy compliance or of suspected insulin overdose. In an interpretative exercise carried out by UK National External Quality Assessment Service (NEQAS), serum sent to the participating laboratories was spiked with 30 pmol/L of the short-acting insulin analogue Human Actrapid. Only two out of 24 participant laboratories had sufficient assay cross-reactivity with Actrapid to interpret the results as suggestive of insulin administration. The development of specific insulin assays has led to deterioration in the ability to detect non-compliance or overdose with recombinant insulin treatment. Clinicians should be aware of this significant limitation, which could lead to misdiagnosis.