Zinc and nitrogen mediate the regulation of growth, leading to the upregulation of antioxidant aptitude, physio-biochemical traits, and yield in wheat plants.

An ample amount of water and soil nutrients is required for economic wheat production to meet the current food demands. Nitrogen (N) and zinc (Zn) fertigation in soils can produce a substantial wheat yield for a rapidly increasing population and bring a limelight to researchers. The present study was designed to ascertain N and Zn's synergistic role in wheat growth, yield, and physio-biochemical traits. A pot experiment was laid out under a complete randomized design with four N levels (N1-0, N2-60, N3- 120, and N4-180 kg ha-1), Zn (T1-0, T2-5, T3-10, and T4-15 kg ha-1) with four replications. After the emergence of the plants, N and Zn fertigation was applied in the soil. The growth traits were considerably increased by combined applications as compared to the sole applications of the N and Zn. The photosynthetic pigments were found maximum due to combined applications of N and Zn, which were positively associated with biomass, growth, yield, and wheat grain quality. The combined application also substantially enhances the antioxidant enzyme activities to scavenge the ROS as H2O2 and reduce lipid peroxidation to protect the permeability of the biologic membranes. The combined higher applications of N and Zn were more responsive to ionic balance in a shoot by maintaining the Na+ for osmotic adjustments, accumulating more Ca2+ for cellular signaling; but, combined applications resulted in K+ reduction. Our present results suggest that appropriate sole or combined applications of N and Zn improve wheat's growth, yield, and antioxidant mechanisms. Previous studies lack sufficient information on N and Zn combined fertigation. We intend to investigate both the sole and combined roles of N and Zn to exploit their potential synergistic effects on wheat.

Probing the functional and therapeutic properties of postbiotics in relation to their industrial application.

Functional foods are gaining significant research attention of researchers due to their health-endorsing properties due to their bioactive components either living cells (probiotics) or nonviable cells (prebiotics). The term "postbiotic" specifies the soluble substances, such as enzymes, peptides, teichoic acids, muropeptides derived from peptidoglycans, polysaccharides, cell surface proteins, and organic acids, that are secreted by living bacteria or released after bacterial lysis. Due to various signaling molecules which may have antioxidant, immunomodulatory, antiinflammatory, antihypertensive, and antiproliferative activities, postbiotics offer great potential to be used in pharmaceutical, food, and nutraceutical industries, to promote health and ailment prevention. This recent review is a landmark of information relevant to the production of postbiotics along with salient features to use in various fields ranging from food to immunomodulation and selective and effective therapy. It also puts forward the concept that postbiotics are way more effective than probiotics in the veterinary, food as well as medical field which ultimately helps in reducing the disease burden along with human health.

Virtual class room as a learning format in a family medicine residency program: Lessons learned in Palestine.

PURPOSE: Due to geopolitical and socioeconomic challenges, the Family Medicine (FM) speciality in Palestine is in early stages of development. Volunteer British General Practitioner (BGP) trainers worked with FM faculty to develop an online tutorial program (OTP) and a novel evaluation framework E-QUaL (Evaluation-Quality, Utilization and Learning) to enhance residents' patient-centered communication and clinical skills. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Three OTP cycles were facilitated and evaluated at An Najah National University (ANNU) in Palestine between 2017-2020. Qualitative data were collected during focus groups and online chats and analysed. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The development and joint facilitation of the OTP developed faculty skills and enhanced clinically oriented education. The collaborative (BGPs and ANNU faculty) approach and the use of the EQUaL framework helped to identify and address strengths and opportunities as well as the challenges and threats of the educational content and the virtual learning format with each iteration. The COVID pandemic provided a new and inexpensive platform which improved training quality. Issues such as the volunteer nature of BGPs, internet instability, and differing cultural approaches and expectations between physicians and patients were addressed in a continuous quality improvement approach and continues today. This may be a useful model in other low resourced settings.