Water stress is the major abiotic factor that limits crop productivity. Among various strategies, seed priming is low cost, easy low risk approach to improve the abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants. The effects of seed priming with varying concentrations of chitosan (0.1, 0.25 and 0.50 %), sodium nitroprusside (SNP) (75, 100 and 125μM) and sodium silicate (20, 40 and 60mM) on physiological and biochemical attributes in seeds, seedlings and wheat plants under non-stress, osmotic stress by poly ethylene glycol (PEG) and drought were appraised in this study. Seed priming with chitosan, SNP and sodium silicate promoted the activities of proteases, soluble proteins, hydrolases, α- amylase, α- naphthyl acetate esterase activities in the seeds. Moreover, tested seed priming treatments induced enhancement in antioxidant enzymes. Hydropriming induced modulations in seed biochemical processes were generally different and less prominent as observed by other tested priming treatments. In general, tested seed priming treatments brings out the production or activation of enzymes in the seeds that are required for the degradation and mobilization of seeds reserves and defense response. In seed germination experiments, osmotic stress induced by 15 % PEG-6000 adversely affected the seed germination attributes while chitosan SNP and sodium silicate seed priming improved the germination (FGM, GE, VI, GR, MGT and GI) and promoted the early seedling growth under non-stress and osmotic stress conditions. In seedling experiments, chitosan, SNP and sodium silicate priming generally resulted in promotion of early seedling establishment and synchronized growth along with better biochemical and physiological attributes. Osmotic stress increased the peroxidase, protease, α-amylase activities, total soluble proteins, malondialdehyde (MDA) contents, reducing and total sugars while dropped the relative water content in the leaves. Chitosan seed priming improved the osmotic stress tolerance of seedlings evident from adjusted antioxidants activities (POD, CAT, SOD) soluble sugars, improved CMS and leaf RWC and reduced lipid peroxidation. Similarly, SNP priming significantly improved the CMS, RWC, TPC, proteins and reducing sugars while reduced the hydrolases (protease, α- amylase) activities and lipid peroxidation in seedlings providing evidence for lesser osmotic stress induced injury and improvement in stress tolerance. Moreover, sodium silicate (60mM) priming enhanced the POD, TPC, CMS, RWC and reducing sugars while decreased the CAT, protease, α-amylase and SOD activities and MDA content in leaves under osmotic stress indicating improvement in stress tolerance. In pot experiments, drought stress adversely affected the biochemical, physiological processes, and yield in wheat plants grown from non-primed seeds. In wheat plants grown from seeds primed with chitosan, SNP or sodium silicate antioxidants (CAT, POD, SOD and TPC), osmoprotectants (GB, proline and sugars), CMS, leaf water relations (WP, OP, TP and RWC) and pigments generally improved while hydrolyzing enzymes and lipid peroxidation decreased under drought stress. Chitosan SNP and sodium silicate priming improved the grain yield, 100 grain weight and plant biomass grown under drought stress. In conclusion, tested seed priming treatments successfully improved the seed germination and performance and alleviated the adverse effects of osmotic and drought stress in wheat seedling and plants respectively.
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.
To maintain and enhance social peace and mutual interaction among people it is mandatory to resolve their mutual conflicts. The eradication of mutual conflicts and working for reconciliation is obligatory on the Muslims. Al-mighty Allah has declared reconciliation and resolution of conflicts among all the Muslims as legitimate action. There are numerous verses of the Holy Quran and Hadith of the Prophet where Muslims have been ordered for reconciliation aiming to promote brotherhood and peace in society. The main rationale behind this is to bring harmony and peace in the social order of life. What are the pre-requisites of reconciliation from Sharia’s perspective, in which conflict reconciliation is permissible and in which cases it is not allowed. This study emphasizes to answer the above mentioned question. Furthermore, efforts have been made to provide a sharia’s foundation for those who are involved in the process of reconciliation in the form of Taḥkīm. This will not only encourage them, but will help in the maintenance of peace in the society. Similarly, a comparison will also be made between the merits and demerits of Pakhtūn’s traditional reconciliation process, and important suggestions will be made to make the Pakhtūn’s traditional reconciliation process more productive and valuable.
Strontium hexaferrite nano material with nominal composition SrFe12O19 is prepared by wet chemical methods. The effect of variation in synthesis parameters such as molar ratio of cations (Fe/Sr), volume rate of addition of precipitating agent and the pH of the solution on the phase purity and particle size is studied to optimize them for the synthesis by co- precipitation method. The effect of molar ratio of cations (Fe/Sr) on phase purity is studied by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns. It is observed from indexed XRD patterns that molar ratio of cations does not affect the phase purity of strontium hexaferrites as there is no impurity peak present in any sample and all patterns are almost similar. The effect of volume rate of addition of precipitating agent on phase purity and surface morphology are analyzed by using XRD diffraction patterns and scanning electron micrographs (SEM). The indexed XRD patterns show that the increase in the volume rate of addition of precipitating agent improves the phase purity and SEM micrographs show that the size of the particles also decrease with the increase in the volume rate of addition of precipitating agent. The effect of pH variation on structural and electrical properties of strontium hexaferrite is analyzed by using X-ray diffractometer, scanning electron microscope, temperature dependent dc resistivity measurement system and precision component analyzer. Indexed XRD patterns show that the secondary phases are decreased with the increase in pH of the solution and single phase strontium hexaferrite is obtained for pH=13. The pH of the solution also imparts a significant effect on structural morphology of prepared hexaferrite samples. The SEM micrographs with varying pH samples clearly indicate that most of the particles are of hexagonal shape. It can also be seen that the particle size and their distribution also decrease with the increase in the pH of the solution. The dc resistivity is also increased by increasing pH and this may be due to increase in the grain boundaries. The composition SrFe12-xCrxO19 (X=0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8) is prepared in order to increase the coercivity of strontium hexaferrites. Results obtained indicate that Cr doping causes the formation of secondary phases. It is also observed that for X ≤ 0.6, both dielectric constant and coercivity is increased while saturation magnetization is decreased. The increase in coercivity was due to variation in particle size and impurity phases which acted as pinning centers. The decrease in saturation magnetization is because of the replacement of cation (Fe3+) having high magnetic moment (5μB) on octahedral sites with cation (Cr3+) having smaller magnetic moment (3μB). Another composition SrFe12-2xCrxZnxO19 with (X=0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8) is prepared with co-precipitation method in order to reduce the dielectric loss tangent. The results show that Cr-Zn doping causes increase in the particle size and decrease in dielectric loss tangent and make the strontium hexaferrite useful for high frequency applications. The hysteresis loops of the Cr-Zn doped samples reveal that both coercivity and saturation magnetization is decreased with increase in doping concentration. The same composition SrFe12-2xCrxZnxO19 with x=0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 is synthesized with WOWS sol- gel method (WOWS stands for Without Water and Surfactants; a new simplified sol-gel method developed in our lab). The structural and dielectric measurements results obtained from the samples prepared with WOWS sol-gel method are better than the results obtained from the same composition prepared with co-precipitation. In some cases, the materials with high loss as well as high dielectric constant may be desired in applications such as electromagnetic (EM) wave absorbing coatings. To achieve these properties, reduction of oxygen from sintered SrFe12O19 is made. This treatment resulted in the increase in the concentration of Fe2+ ions and free iron atoms and hence in the increase in both dielectric constant and dielectric loss and making the material useful for microwave absorption.