The presence of phytoplasmas and their associated diseases is an emerging threat to vegetable production which leads to severe yield losses worldwide. Phytoplasmas are phloem-limited pleomorphic bacteria lacking the cell wall, mainly transmitted through leafhoppers but also by plant propagation materials and seeds. Phytoplasma diseases of vegetable crops are characterized by symptoms such as little leaves, phyllody, flower virescence, big buds, and witches’ brooms. Phytoplasmas enclosed in at least sixteen different ribosomal groups infecting vegetable crops have been reported thus far across the world. The aster yellows phytoplasma group (16SrI) is presently the prevalent, followed by the peanut witches’ broom (16SrII). Wide and overlapping crop and non-crop host ranges of phytoplasmas, polyphagous insect vectors, limited availability of resistance sources and unavailability of environmentally safe chemical control measures lead to an arduous effort in the management of these diseases. The most feasible control of vegetable phytoplasma diseases is a consequence of the development and implementation of integrated disease management programs. The availability of molecular tools for phytoplasma identification at the strain level greatly facilitated this kind of approach. It is moreover essential to understand the molecular basis of phytoplasma-vector interaction, epidemiology and other factors involved in disease development in order to reduce the disease outbreaks. Information on the knowledge about the most widespread phytoplasma diseases in vegetable crops is reviewed here in a comprehensive manner.

No abstract

The numerical evaluation of certain integral transforms is required for the interpretation of some geophysical exploration data. Digital linear filter operators are widely used for carrying out such numerical integration.It is known that the method of Wiener-Hopf minimization of the error can be used to design very efficient, short digital linear filter operators for this purpose. We have found that, with appropriate modifications, this method can also be used to design longer filters. Two filters for the Hankel J 0 transform (61-point and 120-point operators), and two for the Hankel J 1 transform (47-point and 140-point operators) have been designed. For these transforms, the new filters give much lower errors compared to all other known filters of comparable, or somewhat longer, size. The new filter operators and some results of comparative performance tests with known integral transforms are presented.These filters would find widespread application in many numerical evaluation problems in geophysics. Figure 2. Relative errors of the new 61-point and 120-point J 0 filters, compared with errors of the 61-point J 0 filter given by Koefoed et al. (1972), marked Koef 61, the 283-point, singleprecision J 0 filter given by Anderson (1979), marked Ander 283, and the 801-point, double precision J 0 filter given by Anderson (1982), marked Ander 801, for the transform (4). Digital linear filters 755

This paper contains a fixed point theorem for six self maps in Menger space. Our result generalizes and extends many known results in Menger spaces and metric spaces.  2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Horticultural crops are an important part of agriculture for food as well as nutritional security. However, several pests and diseases along with adverse abiotic environmental factors pose a severe threat to these crops by affecting their quality and productivity. This warrants the effective and accelerated breeding programs by utilizing innovative biotechnological tools that can tackle aforementioned issues. The recent technique of genome editing by Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats/CRISPR associated 9 (CRISPR/Cas9) has greatly advanced the breeding for crop improvement due to its simplicity and high efficiency over other nucleases such as Zinc Finger Nucleases and Transcription Activator Like Effector Nucleases. CRISPR/Cas9 tool contains a non-specific Cas9 nuclease and a single guide RNA that directs Cas9 to the specific genomic location creating double-strand breaks and subsequent repair process creates insertion or deletion mutations. This is currently the widely adopted tool for reverse genetics, and crop improvement in large number of agricultural crops. The use of CRISPR/Cas9 in horticultural crops is limited to few crops due to lack of availability of regeneration protocols and sufficient sequence information in many horticultural crops. In this review, the present status of applicability of CRISPR/Cas9 in horticultural crops was discussed along with the challenges and future potential for possible improvement of these crops for their yield, quality, and resistance to biotic and abiotic stress.