Inoculation of heavy metal resistant bacteria alleviated heavy metal-induced oxidative stress biomarkers in spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.).

Most vegetable crops are severely affected by the uptake of heavy metals from the soil. Heavy metals in vegetable bodies generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) that unbalance the antioxidant defense system. This study was initiated to determine the physiological and biochemical characteristics of spinach plants grown on soil contaminated with heavy metals and responding to Bacillus cereus and Bacillus aerius were isolated from soil contaminated with heavy metals. Heavy metal contamination led to a significant reduction in seed germination, seedling biomass, protein, and total nitrogen content of spinach plants grown in contaminated soils compared to control soils. In contrast, a significant increase in the content of metallothioneins and antioxidant enzymes was observed. Plants inoculated with B. cereus and B. aerius significantly reduced the oxidative stress induced by heavy metals by improving seed germination (%), seedling growth, nitrogen, and protein content. The content of metallothioneins and the activities of antioxidant enzymes were reduced in spinach plants grown from seeds inoculated with bacterial strains. In addition, plants inoculated with, B. cereus and B. aerius showed greater stomata opening than plants grown on soil contaminated with heavy metals, whose stomata were almost closed. These results suggested that both bacterial strains enhanced plant growth by reducing oxidative stress caused by metals.

Bayesian-Edge system for classification and segmentation of skin lesions in Internet of Medical Things.

BACKGROUND: Skin diseases are severe diseases. Identification of these severe diseases depends upon the abstraction of atypical skin regions. The segmentation of these skin diseases is essential to rheumatologists in risk impost and for valuable and vital decision-making. Skin lesion segmentation from images is a crucial step toward achieving this goal-timely exposure of malignancy in psoriasis expressively intensifies the persistence ratio. Defies occur when people presume skin diseases they have without accurately and precisely incepted. However, analyzing malignancy at runtime is a big challenge due to the truncated distinction of the visual similarity between malignance and non-malignance lesions. However, images' different shapes, contrast, and vibrations make skin lesion segmentation challenging. Recently, various researchers have explored the applicability of deep learning models to skin lesion segmentation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This paper introduces a skin lesions segmentation model that integrates two intelligent methodologies: Bayesian inference and edge intelligence. In the segmentation model, we deal with edge intelligence to utilize the texture features for the segmentation of skin lesions. In contrast, Bayesian inference enhances skin lesion segmentation's accuracy and efficiency. RESULTS: We analyze our work along several dimensions, including input data (datasets, preprocessing, and synthetic data generation), model design (architecture, modules), and evaluation aspects (data annotation requirements and segmentation performance). We discuss these dimensions from seminal works and a systematic viewpoint and examine how these dimensions have influenced current trends. CONCLUSION: We summarize our work with previously used techniques in a comprehensive table to facilitate comparisons. Our experimental results show that Bayesian-Edge networks can boost the diagnostic performance of skin lesions by up to 87.80% without incurring additional parameters of heavy computation.

Clinical utility of CLL-IPI scoring system in Pakistani Chronic Lymphocytic Patients: A single center experience.

Objectives: To determine validity of the CLL International prognostic index (IPI) scoring system in Pakistani chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients, as the validity and universal applicability of various prognostic scoring systems such as the CLL-IPI remains a challenge, particularly in under-developed countries like Pakistan. Methods: This prospective single center study was conducted at Department of Hematology, University of Health Sciences, Lahore and included sixty patients with CLL diagnosed between July, 2019 to July, 2022. Patients were followed for a period of two years and 02 year overall survival (OS) was noted. Risk stratification was conducted according to CLL-IPI prognostic model. Results: Among 60 patients, the mean age was 60±11years. Advanced Binet stage B+C and elevated ß2-microglobulin >3.5mg/L was observed in 73.3% and 38.3% patients respectively. The estimated median 02 years OS was 16.5 months (95% CI: 10-20 months). In total, 40 of 60 CLL patients (67%) were accessible for follow-up analyses. For the present CLL cohort, 25% patients (n = 10) were classified as CLL-IPI low risk and intermediate risk group, 35% (n = 14) as high risk and 15% (n = 06) as very high-risk group. However, this classification of patients according to CLL-IPI did not yield significant differences in terms of OS (p = 0.24), although the median OS of CLL-IPI very high-risk group was noted as only six months and was not reached for low and intermediate risk groups. Conclusion: To conclude, clinical validation of CLL-IPI scoring system could not be established for the present CLL cohort and needs to be evaluated in further studies with larger sample size.

Moringa oleifera smoke induced positive changes in biochemical, metabolic, and antioxidant profile of rice seedling under cadmium stress.

Cadmium as a heavy metal contaminates the agricultural soil and effect plant growth due to rapid increases in industrialization and anthropogenic activities. Smoke water of Moringa oleifera was used in the current study to alleviate the effect of cadmium on the physiological, biochemical, metabolic, and antioxidant profile of Basmati 385 and Shaheen Basmati seedling. Cadmium stress of 100, 200, and 400 µM were given to 28 days-old seedlings along with smoke water (1:1,000) for one week in hydroponic culture. As a result, Cd+2 toxicity negatively affects the seedling length, fresh and dry weight, photosynthetic pigment, and electrolytes leakage, while the application of smoke water alleviated those effects. Furthermore, Cd+2 content, cell injury, metabolic parameters (proline, total soluble sugar), and antioxidants (peroxidase, catalase) were increased with increasing Cd+2 concentration while smoke water-treated seedlings showed reduction at high concentration. From present study, it can be concluded that smoke water had some regulatory compound which could reduce the Cd+2 stress level in rice seedlings and improve plant growth.

Moringa (Moringa oleifera) is a famous medicinal plant. Its fruits, roots, leaves, and flowers are used as vegetables in different part of the world. Moringa leaves are rich source of vitamin A, C riboflavin, beta carotenoid, iron, and phenolic acid and also reported for antioxidant properties. The unique aspect of current study is use to M. oliferia leaves for the preparation of smoke water, because of its nutritional and antioxidant properties and further its effects was observed on rice seedling under cadmium stress, which has not been evaluated or reported earlier.

The NWRD Dataset: An Open-Source Annotated Segmentation Dataset of Diseased Wheat Crop.

Wheat stripe rust disease (WRD) is extremely detrimental to wheat crop health, and it severely affects the crop yield, increasing the risk of food insecurity. Manual inspection by trained personnel is carried out to inspect the disease spread and extent of damage to wheat fields. However, this is quite inefficient, time-consuming, and laborious, owing to the large area of wheat plantations. Artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning (DL) offer efficient and accurate solutions to such real-world problems. By analyzing large amounts of data, AI algorithms can identify patterns that are difficult for humans to detect, enabling early disease detection and prevention. However, deep learning models are data-driven, and scarcity of data related to specific crop diseases is one major hindrance in developing models. To overcome this limitation, in this work, we introduce an annotated real-world semantic segmentation dataset named the NUST Wheat Rust Disease (NWRD) dataset. Multileaf images from wheat fields under various illumination conditions with complex backgrounds were collected, preprocessed, and manually annotated to construct a segmentation dataset specific to wheat stripe rust disease. Classification of WRD into different types and categories is a task that has been solved in the literature; however, semantic segmentation of wheat crops to identify the specific areas of plants and leaves affected by the disease remains a challenge. For this reason, in this work, we target semantic segmentation of WRD to estimate the extent of disease spread in wheat fields. Sections of fields where the disease is prevalent need to be segmented to ensure that the sick plants are quarantined and remedial actions are taken. This will consequently limit the use of harmful fungicides only on the targeted disease area instead of the majority of wheat fields, promoting environmentally friendly and sustainable farming solutions. Owing to the complexity of the proposed NWRD segmentation dataset, in our experiments, promising results were obtained using the UNet semantic segmentation model and the proposed adaptive patching with feedback (APF) technique, which produced a precision of 0.506, recall of 0.624, and F1 score of 0.557 for the rust class.

Kisspeptin-10 in cryodiluent improves the post-thaw quality of Nili-Ravi buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) bull spermatozoa.

Effects of kisspeptin-10 as antioxidant in cryodiluent were evaluated on post-thaw quality of buffalo spermatozoa. Qualified semen samples from five bulls were pooled, divided into five aliquots and extended in Tris-citric acid cryodiluent containing differential doses of kisspeptin-10 (5, 10, 15, and 20 µmol L-1 and negative control. Extended sperm suspension was cooled to 4°C, packaged in 0.54 ml straws and cryopreserved. At post-thawing, catalase (unit mg-1 ), peroxidase (unit mg-1 ) and reduced glutathione (µmol L-1 ) levels were highest (p < 0.05) with 20 µmol L-1 of kisspeptin-10 as compared to negative control. Moreover, lipid peroxidation (nmol L-1  min-1  mg protein-1 ) level was lowest (p < 0.05) with 20 µmol L-1 of kisspeptin-10. Sperm progressive motility (%), rapid velocity (%) and kinematics were higher (p < 0.05) with 15 and 20 µmol L-1 of kisspeptin-10 as compared to negative control. Supra-vital plasma membrane integrity (%), viable sperm with intact acrosome (%) and DNA integrity (%) were improved (p < 0.05) with all doses of kisspeptin-10 as compared to negative control. It was concluded that the addition of 15 and 20 µmol L-1 kisspeptin-10 in cryodiluent ameliorated the overall frozen-thawed quality parameters of Nili-Ravi buffalo spermatozoa.

Validation of double freezing protocol for Beetal buck (Capra hircus) spermatozoa.

The study aimed to validate the double versus single freezing protocol for Beetal buck (Capra hircus) spermatozoa in tris-citric acid (TCA) based extender both in terms of quality and fertilization potential. Computer-assisted sperm motion and kinematic (CASA) variables, i.e. total (%), and progressive motilities (TM and PM, %) and rapid velocity (RV, %), average path (VAP, µm/s), straight line (VSL, µm/s) and curved line velocities (VCL, µm/s), straightness, (VSL/VAP, %) and linearity, (VSL/VCL, %) as well as supra-vital plasma membrane integrity (SV-PMI, %), mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP, %), viable/intact acrosome (V-IACR, %) and DNA integrity (DNA-I, %) had significantly greater values (p < .05) during single freeze-thawing as compared with the double freeze-thawing at 0, 30, 90, 150 and 210 days, respectively. All CASA and other assays alone did not show significant differences (p > .05) between both freeze-thaw cycles at all treatment durations, respectively. No statistical significance (p > .05) was observed for the in vivo fertility between single (n = 84/141 = 59.72%) and double freeze-thawing (n = 72/136 = 52.9%) cycles, respectively. In conclusion, sperm motion, kinematics, plasma membrane, acrosome, mitochondria and DNA integrities and in vivo fertility are acceptable after the double freezing protocol despite being lower than after one freeze cycle in Beetal buck.

Combined application of two Bacillus species enhance phytoremediation potential of Brassica napus in an industrial metal-contaminated soil.

This study aimed to assess the impact of individual as well as combined application of Lysinibacillus macroides and Bacillus safensis in phytoremediation potential of Brassica napus grown in soil contaminated by industrial effluents. In response to five metals; copper, chromium, nickel, lead, and cadmium, results revealed that germination percentage, fresh and dry weights, and photosynthetic pigments of B. napus decreased under contaminated soil. On the other hand, electrolyte leakage due to cellular injury, metabolites (proline and glycine betaine), antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase, catalase, peroxidase, ascorbate peroxidase), accumulation of hydrogen peroxide and metals in plant's roots, shoots and leaves increased. Inoculation significantly reduced these effects as proved by the enhancement of germination percentage, fresh and dry biomass, and photosynthetic pigments. Simultaneously, the antioxidant enzymes, metabolites contents (proline and glycine betaine) and metal concentrations in plant's roots, shoots and leaves decreased. Combined application of both Bacilli strains was found more effective as compared to individual inoculation. It was concluded that metal resistant Bacillus species in combination had growth effects on B. napus and enhanced its phytoremediation efficiency in contaminated soil.Novelty statementBrassica napus; a hyper-accumulator of metals, loses phytoremediation potential with the passage of growth. Two Bacillus species (Lysinibacillus macroides and Bacillus safensis) having known bioremediation abilities were employed individually as well as in combination under metals contaminated soil to increase phytoremediation efficiency of B. napus. The metals containing soil used is a unique aspect in this study because selected soil, contaminated by industrial effluents, has not been evaluated or reported earlier. Combined application of Bacilli improved phytoremediation potential of B. napus more as compared to application of individual Bacillus strain which is yet another unique aspect of this investigation.

Multivariate geo-statistical perspective: evaluation of agricultural soil contaminated by industrial estate's effluents.

Present study was carried out to explore heavy metals pollution and potential ecological risk factors associated with agriculture soil irrigated with industrial effluents of Hayatabad industrial estate, Peshawar (HIEP) and Gadoon industrial estate, Sawabi (GIES) of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan through multivariate geo-statistical tools. Diverse statistical tools like cluster analysis (HC) and principal component analysis (PCA), along with geo-statistical approaches were applied to highlight the geogenic and anthropogenic sources of pollution. The results indicated that concentration of heavy metals in target areas was significantly higher than control. Both soils had significant to moderate enrichment of heavy metals, while Gadoon soil had moderate to considerable ecological risk factor. The geo accumulation indices (Igeo) tendency for heavy metals in both target soil (Gadoon and Hayatabad) were the same. The Pb concentration of both target areas falls in the extremely severely polluted category because of the excessive presence of industries producing lead-containing products. Hence, this study indicated that the majority of toxic heavy metals contributed to soil pollution in the studied areas are coming from industrial and commercial activities.

Neural tube defects, their implications and solutions in Muslim society.

Neural Tube Defects (NTDs) are serious congenital abnormalities and most of them are incompatible with life. The extremely debilitating quality of life, if one survives, calls for actions to prevent such sufferings. Experts agree on the role of Folic Acid in primary prevention of NTDs, yet, despite best efforts, the use of Folic Acid has reduced NTDs by only 50%. These cases too can be prevented by employing secondary preventive measures. These involve timely interruption of pregnancy -- a decision which, in addition to a medical judgment, is based on ethics, social, cultural and Muslim religious value systems in Pakistan. Indeed, it is a complex issue but empathic understanding and strong co-ordination, once established between different disciplines, can help parents to decide and opt for necessary secondary prevention by interruption of malformed foetus within the given time frame mandated by medical and religious authorities.

Application of Fluorescence Spectroscopy in Wheat Crop: Early Disease Detection and Associated Molecular Changes.

The application of fluorescence spectroscopy combined with chemometrics was explored in the current study for the detection of stripe rust in wheat. The healthy and stripe rust leaves were collected from the disease screening nursery. The variations in the blue-green region and chlorophyll fluorescence intensity in leaves provides the basis for the detection of stripe rust infection. With the progress of disease, the variations in the synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy (SFS) spectrum was witnessed. SFS is an excellent tool for the simultaneous measurement of multiple compound samples, in case of plants it generates evidence regarding the occurrence of leaf fluorophore bands thus revealing the biochemical variations going on at different infection stages. Based on the results of the current study, it is inferred that p-coumaric acid has the highest intensity in healthy samples followed by the asymptomatic leaf samples, whereas the band intensity of α-tocopherol, sinapic acid, chlorogenic acid, ferulic acid, tannins, flavonoid, carotenoids and anthocyanins increases in the diseased and the asymptomatic samples accordingly to the rust infection. Principal component analysis (PCA) beautifully differentiated the healthy and the infected leaf samples. It is evident that the asymptomatic samples are grouped with the diseased samples or independently; indicating the start of disease infection, the decision that is hard to make with the visual assessments. The results of the current study suggest that the fluorescence emission and the SFS spectral signatures acquired for stripe rust could be utilized as fingerprints for early disease detection.

The role of polyphenols in poultry nutrition.

In the last two decades, poultry and animal industries became increasingly interested in using plant-based feed supplements, herbs and their derivatives to retain or enhance their health and productivity. These health benefits for the host mainly attributed to the secondary plant metabolites, namely polyphenols. Polyphenols are renowned for their antioxidant, immunomodulatory, anti-mutagenic and anti-inflammatory properties. However, despite these advantages of polyphenols, they have been characterized by poor absorption in the gut and low concentration in target cells that compromise their role as effective antioxidants. The low bioavailability of polyphenols necessitates the need for further investigations to harness their full potential in poultry farms. This review is existing evidence about the bioavailability of polyphenols and their antioxidant, immunomodulatory, antimicrobial, detoxification properties and their impacts on poultry performance.

Social Media and Ethos of Medical Practice.

Social media is an undeniable reality in our lives. The professional use of social media is increasing with every passing day. It has provided new avenues of service delivery in individual and hospital practices. But the operational structure of most social media platforms can create problems for its professional use in healthcare, as the controls that exists in physical environment under regulatory frameworks, aren't available there. Indeed, it's a daunting task to maintain, for example, confidentiality and ownership of health data, which once shared staysforever in cyberspace. Healthcare providers especially Physicians and all other stakeholders should focus on this changing face of healthcare and try to develop guidelines which can lessen fears, promote optimal use, and can help maintain ethos of practice of medicine on social media.

FREQUENCY OF HEPATITIS B AND C IN PATIENTS SEEKING TREATMENT AT THE DENTAL SECTION OF A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL.

BACKGROUND: Hepatitis B and C are serious health problems and a major cause of liver disease worldwide. Like medical patients, dental patients are at increased risk of getting hepatitis B and C viral infection during various procedures. Keeping in view the rising incidence of hepatitis B and C in Pakistan, it was considered important to know about the frequency and distribution of HBV and HCV in patients undergoing various procedures during treatment in dentistry section. METHODS: This study was based on the review of the records of the patients visiting the dental section of Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad between April to December 2014. The,Secondary data of 3549 patients who visited the dental section for treatment during this period was used for this study. RESULTS: Male patients constituted 53.9% (1914) and female patients were 46.1% (1635) of total screened patients. Total infection with hepatitis B and C were found in 4.1% (147) of the screened patients. Out of these infections, hepatitis C was found in 66% (97) patients and hepatitis B in 32.7% (48), whereas 1.3% (2) of the patients had both the infections. Infection with hepatitis B and C viruses was detected in 39.5% (58) male patients and 60.5% (89) female patients. Alarmingly. high proportions of new 75.5% (111) cases of both the infections were detected during the nine month period. CONCLUSION: Due to high prevalence of HBV and HCV among patients coming for dental treatment, it is recommended that regular screening for HBV and HCV be performed on every patient before carrying out any procedure upon.

Quality evaluation and in vitro interaction studies between levofloxacin 250mg and diclofenac sodium 50mg tablets.

Fluoroquinolones are broad-spectrum antibiotics, work against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and are a clinically proven option for many resistant infections. Among fluoroquinolones Levofloxacin works best against acute sinusitis, inflammation of the lower airways, acute exacerbation of chronic bronchitis, community acquired pneumonia, complicated urinary tract infection including Pyelonephritis, chronic bacterial prostatitis and skin and soft tissue infection. Levofloxacin is a frequently prescribed antibacterial agent with Diclofenac Sodium for pain management in infectious conditions. The objective of the present work is to evaluate the level of interaction between Levofloxacin and Diclofenac Sodium. In this work market available brands of both drugs were also evaluated for quality.The physiochemical parameters like weight variation, thickness variation, and mechanical strength were determined. Similarly the percentage drug release and content uniformity test were also analyzed; the tested quality attributes were found within the recommended pharmacopeia ranges except brand L(6) that had high drug content 124.629±3.614 while brand L(4) and L(5) were not found similar in pH 1.2. When subjected to model dependent analysis Levofloxacin showed compliance with (first order, Higuchi, Hixson Crowell and Weibull) at pH (1.2, 4.5 and 6.8). However Diclofenac Sodium showed adherence with (first order, Hixson Crowell and Weibull) at pH (1.2, 4.5 and 6.8) but following Higuchi at pH 1.2 and 4.5 only. The interaction studies were also performed spectrophotometrically and simultaneous equation was used to estimate the percentage availability of both the drugs at pH 4.5, 6.8, FaSSGF and FaSSIF. The studies showed that the percent availability of Levofloxacin was increased significantly in FaSSIF i.e. 129.173±0.323 at 45 minutes in the presence of Diclofenac Sodium.

Quercetin in semen extender improves frozen-thawed spermatozoa quality and in-vivo fertility in crossbred Kamori goats.

This study investigated the antioxidant effect of quercetin-treated semen on frozen-thawed spermatozoa quality and in-vivo fertility in crossbred Kamori goats. In total, 32 ejaculates from four fertile bucks were diluted in Tris-based egg yolk extender with varying levels of quercetin (0, 1, 5, 10, and 15 µM). Qualified semen samples were pooled and frozen in French straws. The results revealed that the addition of quercetin in the semen extender increased (p < 0.05) frozen-thawed sperm total motility (TM), progressive motility (PM), rapid velocity (RV), average path velocity (VAP), straight line velocity (VSL), curvilinear velocity (VCL), and amplitude of lateral head (ALH) displacement in contrast to the control group. Quercetin supplementation had no effect on beat cross frequency (BCF), straightness (STR), and linearity (LIN) (p > 0.05). Quercetin showed significantly higher (p < 0.05) plasma membrane and acrosome integrity and viability (p < 0.05) of spermatozoa in contrast to the control group. Quercetin in the semen extender significantly increased (p < 0.05) superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) levels while reduced (p < 0.05) the contents of total oxidant status (TOS) and malondialdehyde (MDA), which were in contrast to the control group. Ultrasound results revealed that 24 out of 30 (80%) goats were found pregnant when semen was treated with 5 µM quercetin while the control group showed 18 out of 30 (60%) animals were pregnant. Thus, the study concluded that 5 µM quercetin-treated semen was found to be efficient, showed increased antioxidant status, and reduced oxidant production, leading to improved spermatozoa quality and in-vivo fertility in goats.

Diagnostic Accuracy Of Contrast Enhanced Ct For Detection Of Renal Cell Carcinoma Taking Histopathology As Gold Standard.

BACKGROUND: Renal cell carcinoma being the commonest primary renal malignancy of adulthood accounts for approximately 80-90% renal malignant lesions. The purpose of radiological imaging modalities when devising the treatment options for renal masses is crucial as it significantly influence the clinical outcome and prognosis of the disease. Subjective impression by a radiologist for diagnosing a mass lesion is known to be critical and its precision is improved by contrast enhanced CT as demonstrated by certain retrospective analyses. We aimed to ascertain the diagnostic accuracy of contrast enhanced computed tomography to diagnose renal cell cancers by verifying through histopathology reported diagnoses. METHODS: This Cross-sectional (validation) study was carried out in Radiology and Urology departments of Ayub Teaching Hospital; Abbottabad, from 1st November 2020 to 30th April 2022. The study population included all admitted symptomatic patients with age range 18-70 years of either gender. The patients were subjected to detailed clinical examination and history and an ultrasound and contrast enhanced CT abdomen and pelvis. CT scans were reported under supervision of single consultant radiologist. Data was analysed in SPSS version 20.0. RESULTS: Mean age of the patients was 38.88±11.62 years ranging from 18-70 years and mean duration of symptoms was 54.64±49.171 ranging from 3-180 days. All of the total 113 patients underwent contrast enhanced CT scan and later operated to confirm the diagnoses by histopathology. The comparison yielded true positive (TP) cases to be 67, True Negative (TN) 16, False Positive (FP) 26, and 4 False Negative (FN) as per CT scan diagnoses. CT scan had a diagnostic Accuracy of 73.45% with 94.37% sensitivity and 38.10% specificity. CONCLUSIONS: Contrast-enhanced CT has a high sensitivity for making the diagnosis of renal cell carcinoma; however, its specificity is low. A multidisciplinary approach is necessary to overcome the low specificity. Therefore, collaboration between radiologists and urologic oncologists should be considered while devising treatment plan for patients.

Blockchain enabled data security in vehicular networks.

Recently, researchers have applied blockchain technology in vehicular networks to take benefit of its security features, such as confidentiality, authenticity, immutability, integrity, and non-repudiation. The resource-intensive nature of the blockchain consensus algorithm makes it a challenge to integrate it with vehicular networks due to the time-sensitive message dissemination requirements. Moreover, most of the researchers have used the Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm, or its variant to add a block to a blockchain, which is a highly resource-intensive process with greater latency. In this paper, we propose a consensus algorithm for vehicular networks named as Vehicular network Based Consensus Algorithm (VBCA) to ensure data security across the network using blockchain that maintains a secured pool of confirmed messages exchanged in the network. The proposed scheme, based on a consortium blockchain, reduces average transaction latency, and increases the number of confirmed transactions in a decentralized manner, without compromising the integrity and security of data. The simulation results show improved performance in terms of confirmed transactions, transaction latency, number of blocks, and block creation time.

RNAseq of diverse spring wheat cultivars released during last 110 years.

Here, we performed RNA-seq based expression analysis of root and leaf tissues of a set of 24 historical spring wheat cultivars representing 110 years of temporal genetic variations. This huge 130 tissues RNAseq dataset was initially used to study expression pattern of 97 genes regulating root growth and development in wheat. Root system architecture (RSA) is an important target for breeding stress-resilient and high-yielding wheat cultivars under climatic fluctuations. However, root transcriptome analysis is usually obscured due to challenges in root research due to their below ground presence. We also validated the dataset by performing correlation analysis between expression of RSA related genes in roots and leaves with 25 root traits analyzed under varying moisture conditions and 10 yield-related traits. The Pearson's correlation coefficients between root phenotypes and expression of root-specific genes varied from -0.72 to 0.78, and strong correlations with genes such as DRO1, TaMOR, ARF4, PIN1 was observed. The presented datasets have multiple uses such as a) studying the change in expression pattern of genes during time, b) differential expression of genes in two very important tissues of wheat i.e., leaf and roots, and c) studying customized expression of genes associated with important phenotypes in diverse wheat cultivars. The initial findings presented here provided key insights into understanding the transcriptomic basis of phenotypic variability of RSA in wheat cultivars.