Individual Applications Research Articles

The Use of Scoring Rubrics in University

This study examines the application of scoring rubrics as an evaluative instrument in higher education environments. Specifically, it explores the advantages, validity, and reliability associated with their use. Scoring rubrics provide a systematic and unbiased methodology for assessing various academic assignments, assisting educators in delivering constructive feedback and promoting student development. The study delves into the benefits associated with the utilization of rubrics, which encompass improved levels of transparency, uniformity, and fairness in the grading process. Furthermore, it investigates the validity and reliability of rubrics, ensuring the precision and consistency of evaluation outcomes. Moreover, this study explores the utilization of holistic and analytic rubrics within Malaysian universities, providing an analysis of their individual applications and advantages in the evaluation procedure. In the pursuit of improving assessment methods, institutions are increasingly recognizing the significance of including scoring rubrics as a valuable instrument to facilitate high-quality education and foster student achievement.

Assessing Theory of Mind in Children: A Tablet-Based Adaptation of a Classic Picture Sequencing Task.

Correctly assessing children's theory of mind (TOM) is essential to clinical practice. Yet, most tasks heavily rely on language, which is an obstacle for several populations. Langdon and Coltheart's (Cognition 71(1):43-71, 1999) Picture Sequencing Task (PST), developed for research purposes, avoids this limitation through a minimally-verbal procedure. We thus developed a tablet adaptation of this task for individual application, engaging children's motivation and allowing response times collection. To assess this tablet-PST, we first tested a large sample of neurotypical children (6-11 years-old, N = 248), whose results confirmed the task's structural and content validity, and permitted the construction of three standardized clinical indices. In a second experiment, we applied those to previously diagnosed autistic children (N = 23), who were expected to show atypical TOM performance. Children's outcomes were consistent with what was hypothesized and confirmed the task's external validity and moderate clinical sensitivity. The tablet-PST thus appears as a suitable tool, providing detailed profiles to inform clinical decisions.

The utilization of video laryngoscopy in nasotracheal intubation for oral and maxillofacial surgical procedures: a narrative review.

The video laryngoscope is a novel instrument for intubation that enables indirect visualization of the upper airway. It is recognized for its ability to enhance Cormack-Lehane grades in the management of difficult airways. Notably, video laryngoscopy is associated with equal or higher rates of intubation success within a shorter time frame than direct laryngoscopy. Video laryngoscopy facilitates faster and easier visualization of the glottis and reduces the need for Magill forceps, thereby shortening the intubation time. Despite the advanced glottic visualization afforded by video laryngoscopy, nasotracheal tube insertion and advancement occasionally fail. This is particularly evident during nasotracheal intubation, where oropharyngeal blood or secretions may obstruct the visual field on the monitor, thereby complicating video laryngoscopy. Moreover, the use of Magill forceps is markedly challenging or nearly unfeasible in this context, especially in pediatric cases. Furthermore, the substantial blade size of video laryngoscopes may restrict their applicability in individuals with limited oral apertures. This study aimed to review the literature on video laryngoscopy, discuss its clinical role in nasotracheal intubation, and address the challenges that anesthesiologists may encounter during the intubation process.

3D printing applications on textiles: Measurement of air permeability for potential use in stab-proof vests

The most important piece of safety equipment is developed as a reinforced piece of body armor to resist attacks to the upper parts of the body so as to save the lives of its wearers to offer protection against stabbing with sharp-tipped objects. The majority of commercial stab resistant armors are not comfortable for users to wear during their whole duty shift. The three-dimensional (3D) printing has given great opportunity to develop equipment for a particular and individual application with the incorporation of performance and comfort. Stab protective armor has been developed by 3D printing without compromising the protection performance for a particular energy level to improve the comfort of the armor vest so that users are willing to wear during their whole duty shift. In this study, air permeability is used to measure the comfort tendency of the protective armor as a safety gear without reducing the protection performance. In this study the effect of textile materials and structures, shapes of 3D prints as the segmentation of scales, size of scales, parts of the full vest, attachments, and air exposure sides of the panel are investigated. The result revealed that the air permeability of the 3D printed protective armor vest improved the comfort as compared to the commercially available armor vests of both from a single plate and large sized segmented scales.

A micro-scale humanized ventilator-on-a-chip to examine the injurious effects of mechanical ventilation.

Patients with compromised respiratory function frequently require mechanical ventilation to survive. Unfortunately, non-uniform ventilation of injured lungs generates complex mechanical forces that lead to ventilator induced lung injury (VILI). Although investigators have developed lung-on-a-chip systems to simulate normal respiration, modeling the complex mechanics of VILI as well as the subsequent recovery phase is a challenge. Here we present a novel humanized in vitro ventilator-on-a-chip (VOC) model of the lung microenvironment that simulates the different types of injurious forces generated in the lung during mechanical ventilation. We used transepithelial/endothelial electrical impedance measurements to investigate how individual and simultaneous application of mechanical forces alters real-time changes in barrier integrity during and after injury. We find that compressive stress (i.e. barotrauma) does not significantly alter barrier integrity while over-distention (20% cyclic radial strain, volutrauma) results in decreased barrier integrity that quickly recovers upon removal of mechanical stress. Conversely, surface tension forces generated during airway reopening (atelectrauma), result in a rapid loss of barrier integrity with a delayed recovery relative to volutrauma. Simultaneous application of cyclic stretching (volutrauma) and airway reopening (atelectrauma), indicates that the surface tension forces associated with reopening fluid-occluded lung regions are the primary driver of barrier disruption. Thus, our novel VOC system can monitor the effects of different types of injurious forces on barrier disruption and recovery in real-time and can be used to interogate the biomechanical mechanisms of VILI.

In vivo studies could not confirm in vitro prophylactic synergism between Moringa essential oil and Lactobacillus reuteri (MT180537).

Aerobic vaginitis (AV) is a recently defined vaginal recurring infection, which is treated with antibiotics. However, excessive and prolonged use of antibiotics disrupts healthy vaginal microflora and leads to the emergence of antibiotic resistance among pathogens. This situation has directed researchers to explore alternative antimicrobials. The current study describes in vitro and in vivo antimicrobial efficacy and pharmaceutical interactions between plant essential oils (EOs) and five lactic acid bacteria (LABs), isolated from the healthy vagina, against E. faecalis, one of the major etiological agents of AV. In vitro experiments confirm good antimicrobial activity of both plant EOs and cell free supernatant (CFS) from LABs. Based on high antimicrobial efficacy, Moringa essential oil (MO) was selected to determine its nature of interaction with CFS of five LAB strains. Synergism was recorded between MO and CFS of L. reuteri (MT180537). To validate in vitro findings, prophylactic responses of individual and synergistic application of MO and L. reuteri (MT180537) were evaluated in an E. faecalis (MW051601) induced AV murine model. The prophylactic efficacy was evidenced by a reduction in intensity of clinical symptoms, E. faecalis (MW051601) count per vaginal tissue along with a reduction in AV associated changes in histological markers of infection in animals receiving Moringa essential oil and L. reuteri (MT180537) alone or in combination. However, significant synergism between Moringa essential oil and L. reuteri (MT180537) could not be observed. Our data confirms the importance of in vivo experiments in deducing pharmacological interactions.

De-intensification of postoperative radiotherapy in head and neck cancer irrespective of human papillomavirus status-results of a prospective multicenter phase II trial (DIREKHT Trial).

Current standard treatment concepts in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) are based on former studies using 2D and 3D treatment plans. However, modern radiation techniques allow for a more precise and individual dose application. Therefore, in a clearly defined patient population, de-intensified risk-adapted radiation is investigated. Patients with newly diagnosed HNSCC after surgery (with resection margins ≥1 mm and cM0) with the following tumor stages (TNM 7th Edition) were eligible for the study: oral cavity, oropharynx, or larynx: pT1-3, pN0-pN2b; hypopharynx: pT1-2, pN1. The patients should have either a low risk of local recurrence [≤pT2, resection margin ≥5 mm, no peritumoral lymphangiosis (L0), and no perineural invasion] or contralateral lymph node metastasis (≤3 ipsilateral lymph node metastases, in case of well-lateralized oropharyngeal or oral cavity cancer contralateral cN0, otherwise pN0). Patients were assigned to three different treatment regimes with reduction of the treated volume, radiation dose, or both, according to tumor stage and results of surgery performed. The primary objective was to show an LRR of <10% after 2 years. A total of 150 patients were enrolled. Tumor localizations were as follows: n = 53 (35.3%), oral cavity; n = 94 (62.7%), oropharynx (82% HPV-positive); n = 2 (1.3%), hypopharynx; and n = 1 (0.7%), larynx. A total of 61 patients (41.0%) were stage IVA, 81 (54.0%) were stage III, and 8 (5.3%) were stage II. Median follow-up was 36 months. Cumulative incidence of 2y-LRR was 5.6% (95% CI: 1.7%-9.2%) in the whole study population and 14.1% (95% CI: 3.8%-23.2%) in patients with oral cavity cancer. Cumulative incidence of 2y-LRR in non-irradiated or dose-reduced regions was 3.5% (95% CI: 0.4%-6.5%). After 2 years, disease-free survival was 92% (95% CI: 87%-96%) and overall survival was 94% (95% CI: 90%-98%) for the complete study cohort. Acute III° toxicity was as follows: dysphagia, 30%; xerostomia, 7%; mucositis, 19%; and dermatitis, 4%. Dysphagia and xerostomia decrease over time. After 27 months, late dysphagia III° and xerostomia II° were 1% and 9%, respectively. The study met its primary objective. De-intensification of postoperative radiotherapy irrespective of HPV status in a predefined patient population is associated with a favorable toxicity profile without compromising LRR. In an unplanned subgroup analysis, a significantly increased risk of LRR was observed in patients with oral cavity cancer. In these patients, de-intensified radiotherapy should be applied with caution.

User-Controlled Privacy: Taint, Track, and Control

We develop the first language-based, Privacy by Design approach that provides support for a rich class of privacy policies. The policies are user-defined, rather than programmer-defined, and support fine-grained information flow restrictions (considering individual application inputs and outputs) with temporal constraints. Our approach, called Taint, Track, and Control (TTC), combines dynamic information-flow control and runtime verification to enforce these policies in the presence of malicious users and developers. We provide TTC's semantics and proofs of its correct enforcement, formalized in the Isabelle/HOL proof assistant. We also implement our approach in a web development framework and port three baseline applications from previous work into this framework for evaluation. Overall, our approach enforces expressive user-defined privacy policies with practical runtime performance.

The application of biochar improves the nutrient supply efficiency of organic fertilizer, sustains soil quality and promotes sustainable crop production

AbstractRapeseed meal, a nutritious organic fertilizer (OF), contributes to improving soil environment and crop productivity. However, there are also problems, namely slow fertilizer efficiency and low nutrient utilization during the growing season. This 2‐year field trial was conducted to explore the effect of biochar addition on improving the nutrient availability of OF through a comparative study of various biochar application rates under rice‐rapeseed rotation conditions. The findings revealed that, compared to the individual application of chemical fertilizers (CF), OF alone decreased rice yield (2%/2%) and rapeseed yield (6%/10%) in 2019/2020. Compared with OF, combining biochar (15 t ha−1) with OF (OF + B15) significantly increased rice yield (17%/10%) and rapeseed yield (25%/20%) in the first/second year. Additionally, OF + B15 still increased rice yield (14%/7%) and rapeseed yield (12%/13%) for two consecutive years compared to CF. The co‐application of biochar and OF had positive impacts on soil physicochemical properties and enzymes. Compared to OF, OF + B15 elevated soil organic carbon (SOC) by 57%–81%, soil catalase 19%, invertase 14%–20%, urease 17%–19%, and phosphatase 13%–17% during rice season, and similarly increased SOC by 77%–90%, soil catalase 14%–16%, invertase 14%–20%, urease 18%–24%, and phosphatase 16%–17% in rapeseed season. Biochar addition improved soil conditions and enzymatic activities, and the available nutrient supply of OF. Also, the co‐application of biochar and rapeseed meal surpassed the effect of chemical fertilizer alone on the growth and yield of crops. Therefore, biochar coupling with organic fertilizer is an effective fertilization strategy based on resource recycling, which promotes both crop yield and sustainable agriculture.

Predictive value of Caprini risk assessment model, D-dimer, and fibrinogen levels on lower extremity deep vein thrombosis in patients with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage.

Research indicates that individuals experiencing hemorrhagic stroke face a greater likelihood of developing lower extremity deep vein thrombosis (DVT) compared to those with ischemic stroke. This study aimed to assess the predictive capacity of the Caprini risk assessment model (RAM), D-dimer (D-D) levels, and fibrinogen (FIB) levels for lower extremity DVT in patients with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (sICH). This study involved a retrospective analysis of medical records from all sICH patients admitted to Shanghai General Hospital between June 2020 and June 2023. Within 48 h of admission, patients underwent routine screening via color Doppler ultrasonography (CDUS). Patients were categorized into the DVT and control groups based on the occurrence of lower extremity DVT during hospitalization. Differences in Caprini RAM, D-dimer, and FIB levels between the two groups were compared. The sensitivity and specificity of combined Caprini RAM, peripheral blood D-dimer, and FIB levels in predicting lower extremity DVT in sICH patients were analyzed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves assessed the overall predictive accuracy of Caprini RAM, D-D, and FIB levels. The study involving 842 sICH patients revealed 225 patients with DVT and 617 patients without DVT. Caprini RAM, D-D, and FIB levels were significantly higher in the DVT group compared to the control group (P < 0.05). Sensitivity values for Caprini RAM, D-D, and FIB levels in predicting lower extremity DVT in sICH patients were 0.920, 0.893, and 0.680, respectively, while specificities were 0.840, 0.680, and 0.747, respectively. The ROC curve analysis demonstrated an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.947 for combined DVT prediction, with 97.33% sensitivity and 92.00% specificity, indicating superior predictive value compared to individual applications of Caprini RAM, D-D, and FIB levels. The combined utilization of Caprini RAM, D-D, and FIB levels holds significant clinical relevance in predicting lower extremity DVT in sICH patients.

Multi-material additive manufacturing through electrostatic metal powder attraction and laser-induced forward transfer

The possibility to produce multi-materials and functionally graded materials opens new opportunities within material development, not only to explore new possibilities for combinations of different materials, but also to develop entirely new materials. Materials that are customized for individual applications and purposes down to the level of a single product. Here a process is described, where applied voltage onto a machine element results in an electrostatic attraction of powder. The machine element has certain electrical abilities and is transparent to certain wavelengths of light. The powder attraction is relatively uncomplex using a high DC voltage source with low amperage. The attracted powder on the machine element is selectively transferred to the workpiece by using laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT). The final goal is to melt the transferred powder onto the workpiece with the laser from LIFT. This part of the process and its developments are discussed in detail. Thereby, the powder is selectively added to the workpiece surface, making it possible to apply a combination of different materials without contaminating the powder stock.

Türkiye İnsan Hakları Ve Eşitlik Kurumuna Yapılan Şikayet Başvurularında Kabul Edilebilirlik Koşulları

Ulusal insan hakları kurumları (UİHK), insanların temel haklarının ulusal düzeyde korunması ve geliştirilmesi için önemli mekanizmalar olarak kabul edilmektedir. 2016 yılında 6701 sayılı Kanun ile kurulan Türkiye İnsan Hakları ve Eşitlik Kurumu (TİHEK) 24.11.2017 tarihinden itibaren bazı konularda şikâyet başvurusu almaya başlamıştır. TİHEK’e ayrımcılığa maruz kalan kişiler ile ulusal önleme mekanizması çerçevesinde özgürlüklerinden yoksun bırakılan kişiler başvuru yapabilmektedir. TİHEK, insan hakları ihlallerine karşı resen araştırma yapmak, suç niteliği taşıyan eylem varsa ilgililer hakkında suç duyurusunda bulunmak, bu ihlallerin sona erdirilmesi için gerekli girişimlerde bulunmak yetkisine de sahiptir. Bu makale, TİHEK’e yapılan bireysel başvurularda kişi yönünden yetki (ratione personae), konu yönünden yetki (ratione materiae), zaman bakımından yetki (ratione temporis) ve yer bakımından yetkiye (ratione loci) ilişkin kabul edilebilirlik koşullarına odaklanmaktadır. Kabul edilirlik koşulları TİHEK kararları ışığı altında incelenmiş ve TİHEK’e başvurunun niteliği ile Kamu Denetçiliği Kurumu ve Anayasa Mahkemesinin temel hakların korunması hakkındaki başvuruların niteliği bakımından karşılaştırma yapılmıştır.

The Turkish Constitutional Court During the State of Emergency Between 2016 and 2018

This article investigates the judicial approach of the Turkish Constitutional Court (TCC) during the period of state of emergency between 2016 and 2018 in Türkiye. Like its counterparts facing similar challenges, the TCC has endeavored to strike a balance between defeating grave threats to the constitutional system and defending fundamental rights in a time of public emergency. While constitutional courts should try to protect constitutional rights from executive abuse of emergency powers, they should do so without jeopardizing the effectiveness of these measures in countering threats to the nation. During the period of state of emergency, the TCC adopted a deferential stance in its constitutionality review cases arising from its textualist interpretation of the constitution, which explicitly prohibits the review of emergency decrees. However, the Court embraced a posture of rights protection in its individual applications procedure, which requires the TCC to follow case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

From research to practice: an evidence-based and participatory approach to suicide prevention.

Introduction: Suicide is a major public health concern, and its prevention is complex, challenging multiple stakeholders from research, policy, and practice to work together in order to develop multi-level interventions. Since 2006, an extensive Suicide Prevention Strategy has been implemented in Flanders, Belgium, aiming to decrease the suicide rates and support everyone affected by it. Using evidence-based methods and involving multiple stakeholders are the key strengths of this strategy.&#x0D; Method: The Suicide Prevention Strategy in Flanders is developed with the support of the Flemish government and in cooperation with various stakeholders, including researchers, policymakers, healthcare workers, and people with lived experience. Key criteria for the development and implementation processes of new interventions in the Strategy are: tailored to the target group’s needs, evidence-based, innovative, monitored and evaluated in terms of their outreach, usability and effectiveness. &#x0D; Results: The Strategy includes various interventions. In this presentation, the development process of two innovative evidence-based interventions will be presented, as well as their impact on clinical practice. &#x0D; 1)The development and implementation of clinical guidelines and an e-learning course for health professionals on the detection and treatment of suicidal behaviour;&#x0D; 2)The development and implementation of online tools, such as an online self-help course and smartphone application for suicidal individuals.&#x0D; Conclusion: In order to build solid suicide prevention strategies and interventions, cooperation between various stakeholders is essential. Implementing evidence-based and innovative tools in clinical practice, tailored to the needs of clinicians and people with lived experience, is a key strategy which can enhance the quality of care in suicide prevention.

Salicylic acid and chitosan mitigate high temperature stress of rice via growth improvement, physio-biochemical adjustments and enhanced antioxidant activity

Sustainably increasing rice (Oryza sativa L.) becomes more challenging due to environmental stresses. High temperature stress resulting from global warming impact of climate change is highly damaging as it can cause growth and yield reduction of rice via cellular and physio-biochemical impairments. Application of either salicylic acid or chitosan can possibly increase plant's tolerance to different abiotic stresses; however, their combined mitigation effects remained inadequately explored. Thus, the objective of the current study was to evaluate the mitigation potential of combined salicylic acid and chitosan against high temperature stress of rice. The experiment was conducted in a factorial combination of two temperature regimes (optimum temperature [control] and high temperature); two salicylic acid levels (−SA: 0 mg L−1 and +SA: 140 mg L−1); and two chitosan levels (−Ch: 0 mg L−1, +Ch: 100 mg L−1) following a completely randomized design. High temperature impaired rice growth and productivity by negatively influencing all tested parameters; however, salicylic acid and chitosan could significantly mitigate those impairments. The mitigation on growth and yield contributing parameters was recorded at best 11 %, 21 %, 12 %, 75 %, 61 %, 46 %, 27 %, and 43 % for plant height, leaf area, shoot dry matter, pollen viability, effective tiller percentage, filled grain percentage, 1000-grain weight, and grain yield respectively. Highest alleviation in physio-biochemical parameters was also found at best 35 %, 68 %, and 67 % for leaf greenness, net photosynthetic rate, and stomatal conductance respectively with 28 % and 60 % respective increase in transpiration rate and proline concentration. Superoxide dismutase, catalase, ascorbate peroxidase and peroxidase activity were also boosted as high as 1.6-folds, 1.4-folds, 1.9-folds, and 2.6-folds respectively with subsequent reduction of 32 % lipid peroxidation and 34 % hydrogen peroxide concentration. For all tested parameters, the best positive effects were observed under combined salicylic acid and chitosan treatment. Individually, salicylic acid was found more effective than chitosan; however, their combined application resulted in significantly better alleviation responses over their individual application for most studied parameters. Our findings would contribute in present understanding of high temperature stress and would also help in strategizing better-suited management practices toward sustainable rice productivity.

Ultrasound radiomics based XGBoost model to differential diagnosis thyroid nodules and unnecessary biopsy rate: Individual application of SHapley additive exPlanations.

Radiomics-based eXtreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) model was developed to differentiate benign thyroid nodules from malignant thyroid nodules and to prevent unnecessary thyroid biopsies, including positive and negative effects. The study evaluated a data set of ultrasound images of thyroid nodules in patients retrospectively, who initially received ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) for diagnostic purposes. According to ACR TI-RADS, a total of five ultrasound feature categories and the maximum size of the nodule were determined by four radiologists. A radiomics score was developed by the LASSO algorithm from the ultrasound-based radiomics features. An interpretative method based on Shapley additive explanation (SHAP) was developed. XGBoost was compared with ACR TI-RADS for its diagnostic performance and FNAB rate and was compared with six other machine learning models to evaluate the model performance. Finally, 191 thyroid nodules were examined from 177 patients. The radiomics score were calculated using 8 features, which were selected among 789 candidate features generated from the ultrasound images. The model yielded an AUC of 93% in the training cohort and 92% in the test cohort. It outperformed traditional machine learning models in assessing the nature of thyroid nodules. Compared with ACR TI-RADS, the FNAB rate decreased from 34% to 30% in training and from 35% to 41% in test. The radiomics-based XGBoost model proposed could distinguish benign and malignant thyroid nodules, thereby reduced significantly the number of unnecessary FNAB. It was effective in making preoperative decisions and managing selected patients using the SHAP visual interpretation tools.

Enhancement of mangrove growth performance using fish emulsion and halotolerant plant growth-promoting actinobacteria for sustainable management in the UAE

The combination of fish emulsion (FE) and the actinobacterial isolate, Streptomyces griseorubens UAE1 (Sg) capable of producing plant growth regulators (PGRs) and 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) deaminase, was evaluated on mangrove (Avicennia marina) in the United Arab Emirates. Under greenhouse and field conditions, sediments amended with the biostimulant FE effectively enhanced mangrove growth compared to those inoculated with Sg only. Plant growth promotion by Sg was more pronounced in the presence of FE (+FE/+Sg) than in individual applications. Our data showed that Sg appeared to use FE as a source of nutrients and precursors for plant growth promotion. Thus, in planta PGR levels following the combined +FE/+Sg were significantly induced. This is the first report in the field of marine agriculture that uses FE as a nutrient base for soil microorganisms to promote mangrove growth. This study will support mangrove restoration along the Arabian Gulf coastline as a nature-based solution to changing climate and economic activities.

A Deep Learning Model for Identical National Flag Recognition in Selected African Countries

The national flags are among the symbolic representations of a country. They make us understand the country of interest in a particular issue. Therefore, they are commonly used in both private and government organizations. It has been discovered in recent times that the younger generation mostly and idly spend its time online; hence, knowing little about national flags. Additionally, some national flags (particularly in West Africa) are identical in nature. The likeness is in terms of layout, colours, shapes and objects on the national flags. Hence, there is a need to have a model for flag recognition. In this paper, national flag images of some West African countries were gathered to form a dataset. After this, the images were preprocessed by cropping out the irrelevant parts of the images. VGG-16 was used to extract necessary features and to develop the deep learning model. This contrasted with the existing handcrafted feature extraction and traditional machine learning techniques used on this subject matter. It was observed from this study that the proposed approach performed excellently well in predicting national flags; with an Accuracy of 98.20%, and an F1 score of 98.16%. In the future, it would be interesting to incorporate the national flag recognition into Human-Computer Interaction System. For instance, it could be used as flag recognition in some mobile and web applications for individuals with colour blindness. This research work presents a robust model because of nature of the dataset used in this work compared to previous works.

Integrated application of metal tolerant P. fluorescens and press mud for conferring heavy metal tolerance to aloe vera (Aloe barbadensis)

Soil pollution due to heavy metal (HM) contamination has emerged as a global issue worldwide owing to their adverse impacts on plant growth. Bioremediation approaches employing living organisms for HM alleviation have gained considerable attention among scientific community. Biological agents such as plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) offer a sustainable way to restore soil health, and their combination with different organic amendments such as press mud (PM) can serve as potential approach for immobilizing HMs in soil. We performed a pot experiment to evaluate the role of individual and combined application of press mud and PGPR strain ‘FQ6’ (identified as Pseudomonas fluorescens) in the phytoremediation of different HMs (Pb, Ni and Cd) and growth promotion of aloe vera. Combined application of FQ6 strain and PM yielded more significant outcomes in terms of all the growth and yield attributes such as leaf length (123 %), plant height (57 %), number of leaves (115 %), fresh and dry weights of gel (246 and 280 %), gel contents (96 %), root length (164 %), root diameter (220 %), no. of root tips (138 %) and root area (315 %), as compared to control. Combined application of FQ6 and PM also led to a significant improvement in different antioxidant activities i.e., CAT (129 %), SOD (48 %), APX (17 %) and POD (83 %) as compared to control. Contrastingly, mobility of these HMs was reduced under combined application of Pseudomonas strain ‘FQ6’ and PM, as there existed a considerable difference between HMs concentrations in soil and plant body. We concluded that joint application of HM-tolerant Pseudomonas FQ6 strain and PM could be an ideal option to alleviate the HM induced adverse impacts on aloe vera by immobilizing them in soil, and subsequently, improving plant growth.

Effectiveness of Integrated Management on Fusarium-Nematode wilt Complex Disease of Banana cv. Ney Poovan (AB): Insights from a Field Study

Banana (Musa spp.) belongs to the family Musaceae is the most important fruit crop in the world, serving as a staple food and source of income in many developing countries. There are several diseases recorded on Banana causing serious losses. Wilt complex disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense and Radopholus similis is considered as a serious threat Banana cultivation. A field experiment was conducted in a randomised complete block design with susceptible Banana variety Nay Poovan (AB) to manage the fungal-nematode wilt complex using treatments of bioagents, organic amendments and chemicals in individual as well as in integrated approach. The experiment results revealed that, Carbendazim (262.73 cm) treated plants had good plant height and it was on par with combined treatments. Among combination treatments, T11 (Neem cake + FYM +T. viride + + P. fluorescens +P. lilacinus + Carbofuran + stem injection of Carbendazim at 5,7,9 months) gave maximum plant height (118.00, 195.27 and 262.60 cm). The least plant height was recorded in control 89.60 cm, 140.00 cm and 188.00 cm at 90, 180 days after planting and at harvest respectively. The final population of R. similis in soil was lowest in T11 (Neem cake + FYM, T. viride+P. fluorescens+P. lilacinus + Carbofuran + stem injection of Carbendazim at 5,7,9 months) (6.33 /200 cc soil), followed by T6 (T. viride + P. lilacinus) (26.33 /200 cc soil), whereas control treatment has maximum (1382.00 /200 cc soil). Regarding wilt incidence, the plants treated with Neem cake + FYM, T. viride+P. fluorescens+P. lilacinus + Carbofuran + stem injection of Carbendazimat 5, 7, 9 months (T11) recorded less incidence (11.12%) as compared to the maximum wilt incidence of 88.89 per cent in control treatment. The next best treatment was T10 (Carbendazim 17.67 %). Individual application the maximum number of hands per bunch, bunch weight and total yield per hectare was recorded in T10(Carbendazim) 13.80, 12.75 kg and 45.75 t/ha), T2(P. Fluorescens) (9.67, 9.73 kg and 36.05 t/ha) and least was recorded in T9 (Carbofuron) (8.75, 8.25 kg and 32.50 t/ha) compare to control. Among the combined treatments, the maximum number of hands per bunch (19.75), bunch weight (16.80 kg) and total yield per hectare (26.33 t/ha) was recorded in treatment T11 (Neem cake + FYM, T. viride+P. fluorescens+P. lilacinus + Carbofuran + stem injection of Carbendazim at 5, 7, 9 months). The economic analysis revealed that, the T11 had recorded a maximum benefit cost ratio of 4.26 followed by T10 – Carbendazim (3.96) percent incidence and the least benefit cost ratio was recorded by control (1.23).