Soil salinity and drought are major abiotic stresses that affect plant morpho-physiology and lead to decreased yield. The deleterious effect of salinity and drought on morpho-physiological attributes in tomato (Lycopersicon esculetum var. Rio Grande) and its amelioration by supplemental potash application was investigated. The growth, yield and physiological responses of tomato plant were investigated under different salinity levels and drought regime at Centre of Plant Biodiversity and Botanical Garden, University of Peshawar during 2011-12. Tomato plants were subjected to five salt treatments i.e. 0 (control), 50, 100, 150 and 200 mM NaCl and four drought regimes i.e. 0 (Control), 2 days, 4 days and 6 days drought stress at 4-5 true leaves stage to the harvesting stage. The root length (8.17 cm), shoot length (21.04), root fresh weight (10.57 g), shoot fresh weight (126 g), root dry weight (17.43%), shoot dry weight (19%), number of branches per plant (11.5), leaf area (9.47 cm2), chlorophyll content (62.63 spade reading) in control treatment declined with increasing salinity levels to the minimum 6.67 cm, 13.17 cm, 5.45 g, 34.0 g, 13.92%, 8.5%, 8.83, 6.99 cm2, 34.56 accordingly with the highest salt concentration of 200 mM. Similarly, droughts stress decreased root fresh weight (10.07 g), shoot fresh weight (117 g), root dry weight (25.19%), shoot dry weight (16.4%), number of branches per plant (10.67), leaf area (11.87 cm2), chlorophyll content (52.97 spade reading) in control treatment to the minimum 5.97 g, 43.0 g, 15.69%, 10.9%, 8.8, 4.54 cm2, 41.47 accordingly with the maximum drought stress. The number of flowers cluster (4.17), fruits per cluster (3.75) and number of fruits per plant (18.50), average fruit weight (83.60 g), yield (5.38 t.ha-1) in control treatment decreased to 3, 1.92, 5.50, 35.96 g and 1.30 t.ha-1 with 200 mM stress. By contrast, root moisture content (72.57%), shoot moisture content (80.90%), root fresh/dry weight ratio (3.74) and shoot fresh/dry weight ratio (5.29) in control plants increased to 86.07%, 91.50%, 7.36 and 12.16 respectively with increasing salinity stress to 6 days. The drought stress also significantly decline the number of flowers cluster (4.20), fruits per cluster (3.20) and number of fruits per plant (14.33), average fruit weight (74.28 g), yield (4.63 t.ha-1) in control treatment decreased to 3.33, 1.93, 6.60, 47.53 g and 1.55 t.ha-1 accordingly. The root moisture content (74.18%), shoot moisture content (83.60%), root fresh/dry weight ratio (4.70) and shoot fresh/dry weight ratio (6.88) increased to 84.31%, 89.0%, 6.60 and 10.71 accordingly with increasing drought stress to 6 days. The salinity and drought stress, however, improved the fruit firmness 3.66 kg.cm-2 and 3.99 kg.cm-2 and TSS content 4.31 and 3.94% enhanced to 5.01 and 4.76 kg.cm-2, and 5.18 and 5.45% with 200 mM and 6 days drought stress respectively. The shoot Na+ (3870 μM/g D.wt.) and root Na+ (2337 μM/g D.wt.) in control plants increased with increasing salinity levels to the maximum of 4955 and 3577 μM/g D.wt. at 200 mM stress. By contrast the K+ content of the shoot (8906 μM/g D.wt.) and root (5639 μM/g D.wt.) decreased to 5149 in shoot and 3826 μM/g D.wt. in the root resulting in increased Na+/K+ ratio so that it increased from 0439 to 0.992 in shoot and 0416 to 0930 in root with increasing salinity levels from 0 to 200 mM. By contrast, the Na+ content in control plant (4293 μM/g D.wt.) increased to the maximum of 5241 μM/g D.wt. with 4 days drought stress but then declined to 4421 μM/g D.wt. with increasing drought stress to 6days. The Na+ content of the root, however, continued to decline with increasing drought stress so that it declined from 3748 μM/g D.wt. to 2450 μM/g D.wt. with 6 days drought stress. The maximum K+ content of the shoot (7779 13 μM/g D.wt.) in control plant decreased to 6599 μM/g D.wt. but thereafter non significantly with increasing drought stress to 6 days. The K+ content of the root in control plants (4925 μM/g D.wt.) was not significant with 2 days drought stress but decreased significantly to 4588 and 4333 when drought stress was increased to 4 and 6 days. As a result the Na+/K+ ratio in shoot increased from 0.572 in control to the maximum of 0.879 with 4 days drought, while it declined from 0.804 in control to 0.597 with 6 days drought stress in roots. Both the salinity and drought stress increased proline content of the root and shoot. The proline content of the root (2.010 μM/g F.wt.) and shoot (3.713μM/g F.wt.) in control plants increased to 9.530 in the roots and 22.867 μM/g F.wt. in the shoot with 200 mM NaCl stress. Drought stress also resulted in significant increase in proline content so that root (3.526 μM/g F.wt.) and shoot proline content (8.833 μM/g F.wt.) increased to 5.935 with 4 days drought stress and 14.415 μM/g F.wt. with 6 days drought stress in root and shoot respectively. The interaction of salinity and drought stress significantly increased the Na+ content, Na+/K+ ratio and proline content of root and shoot, while decreased the K+ content of the root and shoot. The experiment on supplemental potash (220 kg ha-1) and its sources (MOP & SOP) on alleviation of salinity stress responses of tomato that fresh weight of roots (8.968 g) and shoot (217.4 g) in control plants decreased with increasing salinity levels and finally to the minimum of 3.632 and 69.71 g in root and shoot respectively with 200 mM NaCl. The dry weight of the roots (3.110 g) and shoot (46.35 g) in control plants decreased to 0.757 and 11.55 g respectively. The shoot/root ratio in control plants (24.56) and yield (7.32 t. h-1) decreased to 18.46 and 1.15 t. h-1 with the highest salinity (200 mM NaCl). The sodium (Na+) content of the shoot increased from 2193 to 4707 μM/g D.wt., while potassium (K+) content of the shoot decreased from 5695 to 2396 μM/g D.wt. resulting in increasing Na+/K+ ratio from 0.4006 to 2.200 with increasing NaCl treatment from 0 to 200 mM. The leaf proline content and ion leakage from leaf discs increased from 0.6320 μM/g F.wt. and 17.67% in control to 3.6020 μM/g F.wt and 29.56% in plants exposed to 0 and 200 mM NaCl stress respectively. While, potash application significantly affected the salinity induced changes in tomato plants, but the potash sources effect was variable on different parameters. The potassium source SOP was superior for fresh weight of root (6.737 g) and shoot (158.5 g), dry weight of root (2.171 g) and shoot (32.11 g), shoot root ratio (23.23), Na+/K+ ratio (0.822) and yield 4.61 than 4.932 g, 113.1 g, 1.316 g, 21.56 g, 21.58, 1.796 and 3.72 t. ha-1 in control treatment respectively. By contrast MOP was more effective in decreasing Na+ (3332 μM/g D.wt), increasing K+ (4384 μM/g D.wt) and retaining better Na+/K+ ratio (0.875) as well proline content (2.466 μM/g F.wt) but caused higher ion leakage (27%) as compared to 3955 μM/g D.wt, 2717 μM/g D.wt, 1.796, 2.006 μM/g F.wt. and 23.80% in control (No Potash supplement) treatment respectively. The interaction of salinity levels and potash application had no significant effect on root and shoot fresh weight, root and shoot dry weight, root/ shoot ratio and yield ha.-1 but significantly decreased the shoot Na content while increased the shoot K content and Na+/K+ ratio. The proline content of the shoot and ion leakage was higher than control with MOP source but lower than control with SOP application.
The Immensely Merciful to all, The Infinitely Compassionate to everyone.
21:01 The time of their reckoning draws ever closer to the people as it starts while experiencing their death, and yet in their heedlessness of its coming, they keep turning away.
21:02 Whenever a new Message comes to them from their Rabb - The Lord, they listen to it playfully.
21:03 Their hearts are preoccupied with trivial things. Yet, concealing their inner thoughts, the unjust/wrongdoers say in their private conversations: ‘Is this Muhammad not a human being like you? Will you, then, submit to his magic, with your eyes wide open?’
21:04 He - The Prophet – said: ‘My Rabb - The Lord Knows whatever you confer and conspire and, in fact, every word spoken within the celestial realm and the terrestrial world. For HE is the All-Listening, the All-Knowing.’
21:05 No way! ‘Instead, they allege: The Qur’an is just a collection of his jumbled false dreams. Perhaps he has fabricated it. Rather he is a poet!’ If this is not the case, then let him bring us a miraculous Sign, as were the former Messengers assigned with Signs.
21:06 Not one of the habitation(s) which WE destroyed in punishment before they had believed. So, will they, then, be willing to believe or get destroyed?
21:07 And WE have not assigned any Messenger before you except for those men on to whom WE revealed - so just ask scholars of the Former Divine Scriptures, if you do not know.
Of all the leaders who came to rule Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto has been only second to the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah in terms of receiving attention from authors of different types—biographers, journalists, researchers, and professional historians. While many prime ministers of the country have remained in oblivion even though some of them deserved to be studied seriously given their contribution to the country’s political development, Bhutto was regularly made the subject of studies both within the country and abroad. A number of Ph.D theses have been done on him and his rule. The number of books written by various authors expressing different shades of opinion are simply uncountable. Being the founder of the nation, Jinnah was treated by and large, over an extended period of the country’s history, and by a majority of writers, as a national hero whose role in history was highlighted in the manner in which the nationalist historians write about the national heroes. It was much later that Pakistani historians took to writing more professionally about the Father of the Nation. Quite interestingly, the Jinnah that emerged from these objective histories proved to be a more original and powerful historical figure as compared with his previous representation as a straightjacketed national hero. As compared to him, Bhutto became the subject of objective historical works right from the beginning. Of course, there have been books of hagiography written in his honor, but these are mainly from the pen of people belonging to his own political party or the ones who were overly inspired by his charisma. Then there are numerous books written by his diehard opponents, who leave no stone unturned in demolishing his image. Despite the diverse writings about him, ranging from one extreme to another, it is good, from the point of view of historical political writings on Pakistan, that with the
Social networking websites have gained popularity and prominence in almost all fields of life during the recent decades. Although, the extent of research is available on social media technology but that research is missing its strength in the relationship of social networking websites and employee recruitment. The review of data revealed that only few studies have focused the description of implementation of technology for the purpose of human resource management especially in the case of employee recruitment. It is a matter of fact that use of social media technologies in recruitment process is gradually increasing but the academic researchers have not well described this method. In the context of Pakistan, it is important to understand the acceptance process to get an overview of the gaps existing in the diffusion of these technologies in organizations as compared to other developed countries. This study fills the gap theoretically and empirically by extending Social Media Recruiting Technology (SMART) acceptance model through investigation of important technological factors and personality characteristics that help in accepting this technology, and also through exploring the impact of social media recruiting technology acceptance on social media recruiting technology outcomes to meet the recruitment objectives. This study further examines the role of management support as moderator between the relationship of intention to adopt SMART and SMART acceptance. In developing conceptual model and explaining relationships among variables, following are the underpinning theories: theory of reasoned action, theory of diffusion of innovations, theory of planned behaviour, decomposed theory of planned behaviour, technology acceptance model, technology acceptance model 2, technology acceptance model 3, unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and task technology fit. In this study, the research design has determined as mixed methods sequential exploratory study (qual-à QUAN). For qualitative portion of the study, data were collected through interviews by following purposive sampling technique. Thirteen interviewees provided appointment and interviews were scheduled according to the convenience and ease of interviewees regarding date, time and venue. For quantitative data collection, online link of web based survey was forwarded through companies‘ / managers‘ email addresses and a hard copy of survey form was also posted on companies‘ physical addresses. Based on analysis techniques adopted in SEM related studies and suggestions of different researchers the sample size set for this study was 340-395. The sampling frame was set 4418 and the lists of Pakistani companies presenting different domains were acquired from Karachi Stock Exchange and Lahore Chamber of Commerce. However, 589 entries were found correct and utilized for data entry and response rate of the study was 30.1 percent. Results showed that factors of Extended UTAUT, TTF and recruiter‘s characteristics have significant impact on intention to adopt SMART except agreeableness, extroversion, neuroticism and conscientiousness, also intention to adopt SMART has significant impact on SMART acceptance and SMART acceptance has significant impact on SMART outcomes. This is the first ever mixed method study in the field of SMART which represented Extended Social Media Recruiting Technology (eSMART) acceptance model for Pakistani organizations. However, results also indicated that management support itself has significant impact as a predictor of SMART acceptance but as a moderator it was not found positively significant over the relationship of intention to adopt SMART and SMART acceptance. This study has made considerable and substantial contribution in the field of human resource management and information technology in both theoretical and practical manners. This study has opened new doors for improvement and extension in recruitment strategy and process, instead of straightforward recruitment practices. At the same time, it is a positive move towards the progressive expansion of use of information technology. Due to the prescribed scope of the study, eSMART acceptance model is evaluated in terms of pre-hire outcomes and the evaluation of post-hire outcomes is recommended for future research.