Emerging Trends of Ethics in Higher Educational Institutions: An Analysis of Universities Students’ Perception in Islamic Context

The basic characteristics and moral values of Islamic society include peace, harmony, brotherhood, equality, justice, respect and tolerance. Islam advises humans to spend their life according to the characteristics of Islamic society. The word ‘ethic’ brings harmony in the spiritual and physical attributes of a person. Islamic system preaches good moral values and indicates ways to avoid ill-mannered behavior. An individual with good moral values reflects good faith and blessings of Almighty Allah. But the studies show that Pakistani society and especially the youngsters are growing up without proper training & teachings about ethics and moral values. This research work aims to explain the need for ethical teachings in Islamic society. Quantitative method has been used in this study. Two hundred questionnaires have been filled by the three Universities’ students. The opinion of the students has been presented through SPSS in tabular forms and figures. According to this fieldwork, the majority of students had a lack of training related to ethical values from home to institutions, due to which we are facing ill-mannered behavior in Universities. This research work may be significant for its specific theme and research background; hence it can be used for the benefit of the policy makers, the scholars and the readers at large.

Expression of Bacterial Cellulose Synthase Bcs Gene in Cotton

Cotton fibers serve as the chief raw material for the textile industry. Cost of production and requirement of high-quality products is the main challenge encountered by the textile industry in Pakistan. Fiber quality parameters that have a major impact on the textile processing include fiber length, fiber strength and fiber fineness. Efforts to improve cotton fiber quality have been underway since many years. Out of all the approaches used so far, genetic improvement in cotton through Agrobacterium mediated transformation has proved to be the most feasible and productive technique in enhancing the fiber quality of various cotton cultivars. Cotton fibers are chiefly composed of cellulose therefore, any change in the cellulose synthesis within the fiber can affect the fiber quality to a great extent. Due to this fact, this study was aimed to explore the expression of bacterial cellulose synthase (Bcs) genes, namely acsA and acsB (GenBank ID: X54676.1), under the regulation of fiber-specific promoter (GhSCFP) in a local cotton variety (CEMB-00) of Gossypium hirsutum. In silico studies were conducted to understand the structures of bacterial and cotton fiber cellulose synthase enzymes and to find compatibility and similarities among them. A number of domains were found to be highly conserved among the bacterial and cotton fiber cellulose synthases. These conserved domains were observed to be functionally essential for the process of cellulose synthesis in the bacterial cells of Gluconacetobacter xylinus as well as the cotton fiber. The 6586 bp fragment of Bcs gene cassette was isolated from the synthesized pUC57-Bcs construct through restriction digestion analysis and cloned into pCAMBIA 1301 vector under the regulation of the fiber-specific promoter. The recombinant plant expression vector, pCAMBIA-Bcs, was introduced into the local non-transgenic cotton variety of Gossypium hirsutum via shoot apex method of Agrobacterium-mediated transformation which resulted in the transformation efficiency of 1.27%. Four out of ten putative transgenic plants, which were PCR positive for both acsA and acsB genes, were selected on the basis of improved fiber quality and better growth potential to be further analyzed through the molecular and biochemical analysis in the advanced generations. Quantitative expression of the acsA and acsB genes in the T1 generation transgenic plant lines was many folds higher at 35 DPA (during the secondary cell wall synthesis phase of fiber) as compared to expression at 10 DPA (during the elongation phase of fiber). Fiber analysis of the transgenic cotton plant lines showed up to 17.52% increase in fiber length, up to 26.45% increase in fiber strength and up to 22.45% increase in the cellulose contents as compared to the control (non-transgenic) plant line. SEM analysis showed that the transgenic fibers had smoother surfaces with more number of twists as compared to the control fibers. Improvement in some of the morphological traits was also observed in the transgenic plant lines showing an increase of 28.06-32.21% in plant height, 28-40% increase in number of bolls per plant and 31.21-44.57% increase in yield per plant. Furthermore, karyotyping results obtained through FISH analysis revealed the presence of single copy number of the transgenes on the chromosome no. 11 in the transgenic plant line S-00-16 and on chromosome no. 13 in the transgenic plant line S-00-11, during the metaphase. In light of the results obtained, it can be concluded that the transformation of the acsA and acsB genes in cotton fiber resulted in enhanced fiber quality on the basis of analyses performed on a small number of T1 plants. In order to meet the high standards of the cotton fiber quality for the national textile industry, replicated experimentation is required on a larger scale before firm conclusions can be made on parameters such as yield and fiber processing quality.