Exploring the potential of end-capping acceptor engineering on indolo[3,2-b]indole-based small molecules for efficient organic and perovskite solar cells.

Photovoltaic (PV) materials, especially organic and perovskite solar cells are effective candidates for meeting the rising global energy demand. Herein, we have designed indolo[3,2-b]indole-based six molecules (IDF1-IDF6) as hole-transporting materials (HTMs) for perovskite solar cells (PSCs) and donor materials for organic solar cells (OSCs). The results demonstrated that IDF1-IDF6 molecules have tight π-π stacking, more negative HOMO levels (-5.50 to -5.31 eV), low bandgaps (1.91 to 2.41 eV), high absorption coefficients, large Stokes shifts, high open-circuit photovoltages (1.31 to 1.50 V), and superior solubility with comparable stability compared with the reference (IDFR) and Spiro-OMeTAD molecules. The high light-harvesting efficiency and low exciton binding energy indicated that IDF1-IDF6 molecules have a higher photocurrent flow ability. The electronic excitation analyses of studied molecules showed that the IDF1-IDF6 molecules show stronger exciton dissociation, low charge coupling, and high intrinsic charge transfer with sharper charge flow than IDFR and Spiro-OMeTAD. Moreover, the high hole hopping rate, high total amount of charge transfer, and low reorganization energy with comparable charge transfer integral demonstrated that the designed molecules have effective hole transport ability for solar cells. Our remarkable results demonstrated that IDF1-IDF6 are advantageous molecules for the manufacturing of efficient PSCs and OSCs, and may have future commercial applications in the solar industry.

Multi-Walled CNTs/BiVO4 Heterostructures for Solar-Driven Evaporation System and Efficient Photocatalytic Activity against Oxytetracycline.

Developing a sustainable environment requires addressing primitive water scarcity and water contamination. Antibiotics such as oxytetracycline (OTC) may accumulate in the environment and in the human body, increasing the risks to the ecosystem. The treatment of polluted water and the production of potable water can be achieved in a variety of ways, including photodegradation, solar distillation, and filtration. Freshwater supplies can be increased by implementing energy-efficient technologies for the production of clean water. Solar water evaporation combined with photocatalytic degradation and sterilization offers a promising avenue for integration into the clean water and energy production fields. The present study reports the synthesis of a 3D solar steam generator comprised of BiVO4 and carbon nanotubes (CNT) nanocomposite decorated over a cigarette filter as the light-to-heat conversion layer for solar steam generation. The BiVO4@CNT-based 3D solar evaporator over the hydrophilic cellulosic fibers of the cigarette filter endowed excellent evaporation rates (2.36 kg m-2 h-1) under 1 kW m-2 solar irradiation, owing to its superior hydrophilicity and broadband solar absorption (96%) equipped with localized heating at microscale thermal confinement optimized by the minimum thermal conductivity of the overall system. Furthermore, the BiVO4@CNT composite exhibited a heightened photo activity up to 83% of the photodegradation of oxytetracycline (OTC) antibiotic due to the inhibition of charge recombination from the industrial effluents. This approach transforms the water-energy nexus into a synergistic bond that offers opportunities to meet expected demand, rather than being competitive.

Designing of fluorine-substituted benzodithiophene-based small molecules with efficient photovoltaic parameters.

In this study, four hole-transporting materials (JY-M1, JY-M2, JY-M3, and JY-M4) are designed by modifying benzothiadiazole-based core with diphenylamine-based carbazole via acceptors through thiophene linkers. The designed molecules exhibited deeper HOMO energy with smaller energy gaps than the reference JY molecule which enhance their hole mobility. The absorption spectra of the JY-M1, JY-M2, JY-M3, and JY-M4 molecules are located at 380 nm to 407 nm in the gaseous phase and 397 nm to 433 nm in the solvent phase, which is red-shifted and higher than the reference molecule, demonstrating that designed molecules possess improved light absorption properties and enhanced effective hole transfer. The dipole moments of the designed molecules (14.74 D to 26.12 D) indicate a greater ability for charge separation, solubility and will be beneficial to produce multilayer films. Moreover, the results of hole reorganization energy (0.38198 eV to 0.45304 eV) and charge transfer integral (0.14315 eV to 0.14665 eV) of designing molecules show improved hole mobility and lower recombination losses compared to the JY molecule. Overall, we suggested that the structural modifications in the designed molecules contributed to their enhanced efficiency in converting light energy into electrical energy and have the potential for utilization in solar devices, paving the way for future advancements in the field of photovoltaics.

Comparative analysis of experimental and numerical investigation on multiple projectile impact of AA5083 friction stir welded targets.

This research aims to investigate the ballistic resistance of base material (BM)and "Friction Stir Welded (FSW)", AA5083 aluminum alloy. The primary objective was to build a finite element model to predict kinetic energy absorption and target deformation under single and multiple projectile impact conditions. This study employed 7.62mm Hard Steel Core (HSC) projectiles produced from Steel 4340. The target was analyzed using commercially available Abaqus Explicit software for Finite Element Analysis. It was noticed that the generation of kinetic energy and surface residual velocity increases as the number of projectile strikes increases. In addition, the experimental ballistic test was conducted to validate the numerical results. Using the analytical Recht-Ipson model, each target's experimental residual velocity was determined. It was determined that weldments perform less well (30%) as compared to BM targets. Occurrence of plastic deformation during welding causes reduction in ballistic performance of weldments. For both the computational and experimental approaches, a correlation between residual velocities was found. The plastic deformations with ductile hole formation were observed in all the cases.

Mixed convection and activation energy impacts on MHD bioconvective flow of nanofluid with irreversibility assessment.

In this communication irreversibility minimization in bio convective Walter's-B nanofluid flow by stretching sheet is studied. Suspended nanoparticles in Walter's-B fluid are stabilized by utilizing microorganisms. Total irreversibility is obtained via thermodynamics second law. The influences of applied magnetic field, radiation, Joule heating and activation energy are accounted in momentum, temperature and concentration equations. Furthermore thermophoresis and Brownian movement impacts are also accounted in concentration and temperature expressions. The flow governing dimensional equations are altered into dimensionless ones adopting transformation procedure. Homotopy Analysis Method (HAM) code in Mathematica is implemented to get the convergent series solution. The influences of important flow variables on temperature, velocity, motile density, irreversibility, mass concentration, Bejan number and physical quantities are analyzed graphically. The obtained results revel that the velocity profile decreases for escalating magnetic parameter and Forchheimer number. Entropy generation is increased for higher Brinkman variable while Bejan number declines versus Brinkman variable. The important observations are given at the end.

Insight into the structural, optoelectronic, and thermoelectric properties of Fe2HfSi Heusler by DFT investigation.

At high pressure, the pressure dependencies of the structural, electronic, optical, and thermoelectric properties of Fe2HfSi Heusler were calculated using the FP-LAPW method within the framework of the density functional theory. The calculations were carried out using the modified Becke-Johnson (mBJ) scheme. Our calculations showed that the Born mechanical stability criteria confirmed the mechanical stability in the cubic phase. Further, through Poisson and Pugh's ratios critical limits, the findings of the ductile strength were computed. At a pressure of 0 GPa, the indirect nature of the material may be deduced from the electronic band structures of Fe2HfSi as well as the estimations for its density of states. Under pressure, the real and imaginary dielectric function responses, optical conductivity, absorption coefficient, energy loss function, refractive index, reflectivity, and extinction coefficient were computed in the 0-12 eV range. Using semi-classical Boltzmann theory, a thermal response is also studied. As the pressure rises, the Seebeck coefficient decreases, while the electrical conductivity rises. The figure of merit (ZT) and Seebeck coefficients were determined at temperatures of 300 K, 600 K, 900 K, and 1200 K in order to better understand the thermoelectric properties of a material at these different temperatures. Despite the fact that the ideal Seebeck coefficient for Fe2HfSi was discovered at 300 K and was determined to be superior to that reported previously. Materials with a thermoelectric reaction has been shown to be suitable for reusing waste heat in systems. As a result, Fe2HfSi functional material may aid in the development of new energy harvesting and optoelectronic technologies.

Adsorption of NO x (x = 1, 2) Molecules on the CoFeMnSi(001) Surface: First-Principles Insights.

In this article, the adsorption of NO x (x = 1, 2) gas molecules on the (001) surface of CoFeMnSi quaternary Heusler alloys has been investigated theoretically with density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The adsorption strength was estimated with adsorption energy (E a), magnitude of charge transfer (ΔQ), charge density difference (CDD), minimum distance between molecule and surface (d), and adsorption mechanism was analyzed with density of states. The results showed that unlike half-metallic nature of the bulk phase, the pristine CoFeMnSi(001) surface exhibited metallic character caused by the emergence of electronic states of the atoms in the top-most layer of the surface. It was found that both NO and NO2 molecules undergo chemical adsorption and strongly interact with the surface evidenced by the large value of E a and ΔQ. In particular, the NO x molecule dissociates into N and O atoms for some adsorption configurations. Bader charge analysis reveals that NO x molecules act as charge acceptors by drawing charge from the surface atoms through p-d hybridization. Such findings might be useful in the development of Heusler alloys based gas sensors.

Ultrasonic-assisted extraction of fenugreek flavonoids and its geographical-based comparative evaluation using green UHPLC-DAD analysis.

BACKGROUND: This study, for the first time, reports a simultaneous determination of flavonoids; rutin (RT), quercetin (QT), luteolin (LT), and kaempferol (KF) in different origins of fenugreek seeds samples (N = 45) using a green UHPLC-DAD analysis METHODOLOGY: Ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) was employed to extract fenugreek flavonoids using different polarity solvents of n-hexane (n-hex), dichloromethane (DCM), and methanol (MeOH) RESULTS: The extract yield on an individual basis was observed in the range of 1.03-17.29 mg, with the highest yield (mg/sample) for the Egyptian sample (17.29 mg). The highest total extract yield (mg/origin) was observed for the Iranian sample (82.28 ±â€¯5.38). The solvent with the highest extract yield (mg) was n-hex 169.35 ±â€¯13.47, followed by MeOH 114.39 ±â€¯12.27. The validated green UHPLC-DAD method resulted in a short runtime (9 min) with an accuracy of 97.86(±12.32)-101.37(±5.91), r2-values = 0.993-0.999, LOD = 2.09-4.48 ppm, and LOQ = 6.33-13.57 ppm for flavonoids analysis within the linearity range of 1-500 ppm. The general yield for flavonoids exhibited a descending order (ppm): RT (2924.55 ±â€¯143.84) > QT (457.05 ±â€¯34.07) > LT (82.37 ±â€¯3.27) > KF (4.54 ±â€¯0.00). The yield (ppm) for the flavonoids was more in MeOH solvent (3424.81 ±â€¯235.44) constructing a descending order of MeOH > n-hex > DCM. For an individual flavonoid yield; MeOH was seen with an order of RT > QT > LT, n-hex (LT > QT), and DCM (RT > LT > QT). The statistical analysis of PCA (principle component analysis) revealed a widespread distribution of flavonoids in fenugreek seeds with a variance of 35.93% (PC1). Moreover, flavonoids extraction was prone to the nature and specificity of the solvent used (PC2: 33.34%) rather than the amount of the extract yield (P = 0.00). The K-mean cluster analysis showed the origins with higher flavonoids yield in appropriate solvent as I3M (Indian accession # 3 MeOH extract) with more QT amount, IR2M (Iranian accession # 2 MeOH extract) with more LT amount along with I2M (Indian accession # 2 MeOH extract) and Q2M (Qassim Saudi Arabia accession # 2 MeOH extract) containing high amount of RT. The outcomes are supported by KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) and Bartlett's test value of 0.56 with X2-value of 191.87 (P = 0.00) CONCLUSION: The samples were effectively evaluated and standardized in terms of flavonoid amount suggesting a significant variation in fenugreek quality.

Designing of anthracene-arylamine hole transporting materials for organic and perovskite solar cells.

This study focuses on the creation of 5 small donor molecules (A102W1-A102W5) by substituting the one-sided methoxy group of model (A102R) with different thiophene bridged acceptor moieties. B3LYP/6-31**G (d,p) model has been employed for computational analysis. The best miscibility was found for A102W3 in dichloromethane (DCM) solvent, where its λmax was also found to be at 753 nm, its Eg was found to be 1.55 eV as well as dipole moment in DCM was 21.47 D. The percentage of PCE among all the variants was greatest for A102W2 (25.31%). The electron reorganization energy shown by A102W4 was 0.00470 eV, whereas the hole reorganization energy investigated in A102W2 was 0.00586 eV representing their maximum electron and hole mobility respectively amongst all. Results validate the value of specified techniques, opening a new door to create efficient small donors for OSCs and HTMs for PSCs.

Designing of phenothiazine-based hole-transport materials with excellent photovoltaic properties for high-efficiency perovskite solar cells (PSCs).

In this study, a series of highly efficient organic hole-transporting materials (HTMs) were designed using Schiff base chemistry by modifying a phenothiazine-based core with triphenylamine through end-capped acceptor engineering via thiophene linkers. The designed HTMs (AZO1-AZO5) exhibited superior planarity and greater attractive forces, making them ideal for accelerated hole mobility. They also showed deeper HOMO energy levels (-5.41 eV to -5.28 eV) and smaller energy band gaps (2.22 eV to 2.72 eV), which improved charge transport behavior, open-circuit current, fill factor, and power conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). The dipole moments and solvation energies of the HTMs revealed their high solubility, making them suitable for the fabrication of multilayered films. The designed HTMs showed tremendous enhancements in power conversion efficiency (26.19 % to 28.76 %) and open-circuit voltage (1.43 V to 1.56 V), with higher absorption wavelength than the reference molecule (14.43 %). Overall, the Schiff base chemistry-driven design of thiophene-bridged end-capped acceptor HTMs is highly effective in enhancing the optical and electronic properties of perovskite solar cells.

Methoxy triphenylamine hexaazatrinaphthylene based small molecules as donor material for photovoltaic applications.

Organic solar cells (OSCs) are capturing huge interest because of their numerous benefits, which include transparency, flexibility, and solution processability. In current project, five new donor molecules (J1-J5) were designed by employing the strategy of end capped alteration of the acceptor moieties on the two sides of the reference molecule. The Methoxy Triphenylamine hexaazatrinaphthylene (MeO-TPA-HATNA) have been used as a reference molecule in this study. DFT and TD-DFT methods employing B3LYP/6-31G (d, p) functional has been applied to perform different analysis. Geometrical, and opto-electronic features of all tailored chromophores were investigated, and comparison was made with the reference J. Among all tailored molecules, J5 shows highest λmax (862 nm) with the least band gap of 1.28 eV. TDM and DOS analysis revealed the high rate of charge transfer. Further, reorganization energy calculations are also executed to examine the charge transfer features of the designed molecules. The results shows that J5 among all these molecules has the highest rate of charge carrier (electron and hole) mobility with least RE values and this molecule can be used as a promising donor material for OSCs with remarkable charge transferring properties. Furthermore, the designed materials showed a suitable HOMO along with higher LUMO energy levels with respect to PC61BM molecule and coupling the PC61BM acceptor with investigated donor molecules gives highly increased Voc (0.66-0.76 V) than reference molecule (0.49 V) and also the power conversion efficiency (PCE) is elevated to 15.09%. The outcomes of current theoretical research have demonstrated that the end capped alteration of different acceptor groups is an excellent strategy to get OSCs with desirable photovoltaic performance. As, all the newly created molecules (J1-J5) have exhibited outstanding electronic and optical properties therefore, these can be expectedly prove excellent material for creating high efficiency future organic photovoltaic devices.

Development of a Rice Plant Disease Classification Model in Big Data Environment.

More than the half of the global population consume rice as their primary energy source. Therefore, this work focused on the development of a prediction model to minimize agricultural loss in the paddy field. Initially, rice plant diseases, along with their images, were captured. Then, a big data framework was used to encounter a large dataset. In this work, at first, feature extraction process is applied on the data and after that feature selection is also applied to obtain the reduced data with important features which is used as the input to the classification model. For the rice disease datasets, features based on color, shape, position, and texture are extracted from the infected rice plant images and a rough set theory-based feature selection method is used for the feature selection job. For the classification task, ensemble classification methods have been implemented in a map reduce framework for the development of the efficient disease prediction model. The results on the collected disease data show the efficiency of the proposed model.

Polyaniline inside the pores of high surface area mesoporous silicon as composite electrode material for supercapacitors.

Mesoporous silicon (mSi) obtained by the magnesiothermic reduction of mesoporous silica was used to deposit polyaniline (PANI) in its pores, the composite was tested for its charge storage application for high performance supercapacitor electrodes. The mesoporous silica as confirmed by Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) has a Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area of 724 m2g-1 and mean pore size of 5 nm. After magnesiothermic reduction to mSi, the BET surface area is reduced to 348 m2g-1 but the mesoporousity is retained with a mean pore size of 10 nm. The BET surface area of mesoporous silicon is among the highest for porous silicon prepared/reduced from silica. In situ polymerization of PANI inside the pores of mSi was achieved by controlling the polymerization conditions. As a supercapacitor electrode, the mSi-PANI composite exhibits better charge storage performance as compared to pure PANI and mesoporous silica-PANI composite electrodes. Enhanced electrochemical performance of the mSi-PANI composite is attributed to the high surface mesoporous morphology of mSi with a network structure containing abundant mesopores enwrapped by an electrochemically permeable polyaniline matrix.

Insight into the exemplary structural, elastic, electronic and optical nature of GaBeCl3 and InBeCl3: a DFT study.

In the scheme of density functional theory (DFT), Structural, elastic, electronic, and optical properties calculations of GaBeCl3 and InBeCl3 are carried out using Tran-Blaha modified Becke-Johnson exchange potential approximation (TB-mBJ) installed in Wein2k software. Structurally the compounds of interest are found to be stable. Both compounds possess elastic stability, anisotropy, and ductility determined by the elastic studies. The electronic-band structure analysis shows the semiconductor nature of GaBeCl3 and InBeCl3 compounds with indirect band gaps of ∼3.08 eV for GaBeCl3 and ∼2.04 eV for InBeCl3 along with the symmetrical points from (X-Γ). The calculated total density of states (TDOS) and partial density of states (PDOS) of these compounds reveal that for the GaBeCl3 compound, the contribution of Ga (4p) and Cl (3p) orbital states in the valence, as well as the conduction band, is dominant. While for InBeCl3, the contribution of Cl (3p) states as well as In (5s) is large in the valence band and in that of Cl (3p-states) states in the conduction band. The type of chemical bonding is found to be ionic in both compounds. The optical properties i.e., the real (ε 1(ω)) and imaginary (ε 2(ω)) parts of dielectric function, refractive index n(ω), optical reflectivity R(ω), optical conductivity σ(ω), absorption coefficient α(ω), energy loss L(ω) and electron extinction coefficient k(ω) are also discussed in terms of optical spectra. It is reported that n(ω) and k(ω) exhibit the same characteristics as ε 1(ω) and ε 2(ω) respectively. Efficient application of these materials can be seen in semiconducting industries and many modern electronic devices.

Correction: Insight into the exemplary structural, elastic, electronic and optical nature of GaBeCl3 and InBeCl3: a DFT study.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1039/D2RA00943A.].

Biodegradation of gelatin stabilized tetragonal zirconia synthesized by microwave assisted sol-gel method.

The purpose of current work of is to organize stabilized tetragonal zirconia (t-ZrO2) nano-particles with microwave abetted sol-gel technique. To increase the stability and shrink the crystal size, both microwave (MW) and gelatin components are used as structure guiding methods. Gelatin was used with the aim of bone implantations, as raw materials used in gelatin production are cattle bones. It contains purified collagen protein (a main protein that in the extracellular matrix found in the body's various connective tissues) that also helps in implantations and repairing. Moreover, MW heating provides a uniform heating and control of microstructures. Zirconium oxychloride was used as precursor of zirconium Effect of gelatin contents (1g, 2g, 3g, 4g and 5g) was observed. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis attributes the presence of phase pure t-ZrO2 at low gelatin content 3g with crystallite size ∼6.68296 nm. Formation of phase pure t-ZrO2 without post heat treatment is due to sufficient amount of gelatin to coat the zirconia crystals. Relatively higher x-ray density has been observed in case of phase pure t-ZrO2 at 5g of gelatin content. Value of the hardness is increasing from 1263 to 1443 HV with gelatin content due to phase strengthening. Raman shift presents characteristic peak at 148 cm-1 of tetragonal zirconia. Phase fraction calculated from Raman spectra is in good agreement with XRD data. At 3g of gelatin content porous structure has been observed in scanning electron microscope images. This porosity decreases with gelatin content and the distribution of particles is more uniform, and dispersion is better. The porosity of the samples decreases and reaching a minimum value at 5g of gelatin content, at which the sample was the densest. The size of nanoparticles is in the range of 500-600 nm. Optimized t-ZrO2 is soaked in stimulated body fluid (SBF) for 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 18 and 24 weeks. Slight variation in weight and hardness has been observed even after 24 weeks of soaking.

De-novo Domestication for Improving Salt Tolerance in Crops.

Global agriculture production is under serious threat from rapidly increasing population and adverse climate changes. Food security is currently a huge challenge to feed 10 billion people by 2050. Crop domestication through conventional approaches is not good enough to meet the food demands and unable to fast-track the crop yields. Also, intensive breeding and rigorous selection of superior traits causes genetic erosion and eliminates stress-responsive genes, which makes crops more prone to abiotic stresses. Salt stress is one of the most prevailing abiotic stresses that poses severe damages to crop yield around the globe. Recent innovations in state-of-the-art genomics and transcriptomics technologies have paved the way to develop salinity tolerant crops. De novo domestication is one of the promising strategies to produce superior new crop genotypes through exploiting the genetic diversity of crop wild relatives (CWRs). Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies open new avenues to identifying the unique salt-tolerant genes from the CWRs. It has also led to the assembly of highly annotated crop pan-genomes to snapshot the full landscape of genetic diversity and recapture the huge gene repertoire of a species. The identification of novel genes alongside the emergence of cutting-edge genome editing tools for targeted manipulation renders de novo domestication a way forward for developing salt-tolerance crops. However, some risk associated with gene-edited crops causes hurdles for its adoption worldwide. Halophytes-led breeding for salinity tolerance provides an alternative strategy to identify extremely salt tolerant varieties that can be used to develop new crops to mitigate salinity stress.

Application of homobrassinolide enhances growth, yield and quality of tomato.

Brassinosteroids (BRs) have emerged as pleiotropic phytohormone owing to their wide function in crop growth and metabolism. Homobrassinolide (HBR) being an analogue of BRs is known to improve the growth, yield and quality parameters in many crop plants. Thus, an evaluation study was conducted for two years (2018 and 2019) to elucidate the performance of tomato plants (Solanum lycopersicum L.) to a novel group of phytohormone,HBR. The field experiment comprised of seven treatments with homobrassinolide 0.04% (Emulsifiable Concentrate) EC at four different concentrations (0.06, 0.08, 0.10 and 0.12 g active ingredient (a.i.) ha-1) and two well-known growth promoters viz., Gibberellic acid (GA), Naphthalene Acetic Acid (NAA) along with the untreated control. Plant height and chlorophyll concentration were found significantly different in both years of experiment as well as among the different treatments. HBR at 0.12 g a.i. ha-1 was found better with maximum number of fruits (77.36 plant-1), fruit length (6.72 cm), fruit breadth (6.45 cm) and fruit weight (80.52 g) over other concentrations and treatments. Fruit yield was more pronounced in the plots treated with plant growth regulators compared to untreated control. However, significantly higher fruit yield of 91.07 t ha-1 (62.58 t ha-1 with untreated control) along with improved quality traits viz., fruit firmness (4.11 kg cm-2), ascorbic acid content (24.09 mg 100 g-1), total soluble solids (4.43°Brix) and keeping quality (12.50 days) was recorded in 0.12 g a.i. ha-1 HBR treated plots. Thus, it can be inferred that HBRapplication would be a better option to enhance growth, yield as well as quality traits in tomato.

Crosstalk of Multi-Omics Platforms with Plants of Therapeutic Importance.

From time immemorial, humans have exploited plants as a source of food and medicines. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded 21,000 plants with medicinal value out of 300,000 species available worldwide. The promising modern "multi-omics" platforms and tools have been proven as functional platforms able to endow us with comprehensive knowledge of the proteome, genome, transcriptome, and metabolome of medicinal plant systems so as to reveal the novel connected genetic (gene) pathways, proteins, regulator sequences and secondary metabolite (molecule) biosynthetic pathways of various drug and protein molecules from a variety of plants with therapeutic significance. This review paper endeavors to abridge the contemporary advancements in research areas of multi-omics and the information involved in decoding its prospective relevance to the utilization of plants with medicinal value in the present global scenario. The crosstalk of medicinal plants with genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics approaches will be discussed.

Assessment of Planting Method and Deficit Irrigation Impacts on Physio-Morphology, Grain Yield and Water Use Efficiency of Maize (Zea mays L.) on Vertisols of Semi-Arid Tropics.

Agriculture in a water-limited environment is critically important for today and for the future. This research evaluates the impact of deficit irrigation in different planting methods on the physio-morphological traits, grain yield and WUE of maize (Zea mays L.). The experiment was carried out in 2015 and 2016, consisting of three planting methods (i.e., BBF, SNF, and DWF) and four irrigation levels (i.e., I10D: irrigation once in ten days, I40: irrigation at 40% DASM, I50: irrigation at 50% DASM, and I60: irrigation at 60% DASM). The results reveal that varying degrees of water stress due to planting methods and irrigation levels greatly influenced the maize physio-morphological traits and yield attributes. The combined effect of DWF + I50 benefited the maize in terms of higher leaf area, RWC, SPAD values, CGR, and LAD, followed by the SNF method at 60 DAS. As a result, DWF + I50 and SNF + I50 had higher 100 grain weight (30.5 to 31.8 g), cob weight (181.4 to 189.6 g cob-1) and grain yield (35.3% to 36.4%) compared to other treatments. However, the reduction in the number of irrigations (24.0%) under SNF + I50 resulted in a 34% water saving. Thus, under a water-limited situation in semi-arid tropics, the practice of the SNF method + I50 could be an alternative way to explore the physio-morphological benefits in maize.