A spring barley collection of 192 genotypes from a wide geographical range was used to identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for salt tolerance traits by means of an association mapping approach using a thousand SNP marker set. Linkage disequilibrium (LD) decay was found with marker distances spanning 2-8 cM depending on the methods used to account for population structure and genetic relatedness between genotypes. The association panel showed large variation for traits that were highly heritable under salt stress, including biomass production, chlorophyll content, plant height, tiller number, leaf senescence and shoot Na(+), shoot Cl(-) and shoot, root Na(+)/K(+) contents. The significant correlations between these traits and salt tolerance (defined as the biomass produced under salt stress relative to the biomass produced under control conditions) indicate that these traits contribute to (components of) salt tolerance. Association mapping was performed using several methods to account for population structure and minimize false-positive associations. This resulted in the identification of a number of genomic regions that strongly influenced salt tolerance and ion homeostasis, with a major QTL controlling salt tolerance on chromosome 6H, and a strong QTL for ion contents on chromosome 4H.

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For maize (Zea mays L.), early planting date could be of advantage to high yields but a review of planting date effect on high-yielding data is not yet available. Following this rationale, a synthesis-analysis was conducted from the farmer annual maize contest-winner data (n = 16171 data points; 2011–2016 period); cordially provided by the National Corn Growers Association and a scientific literature dataset collected from research publications since the last three decades. The main objectives of this study were to: (i) identify spatial yield variability within the high-yielding maize dataset; (ii) understand the impacts of planting date on yield variability; (iii) explore the effect of management practices on maize yield-planting date relationship, and (iv) utilize the yield-planting date dataset collected via farmer contest-winner as a benchmarking data to be compared to the compendium of scientific literature available for yield-planting date relationship for the primary US maize producing regions. Major findings of this study are: (i) significant correlation between planting date and latitude, (ii) maize yield was maximized when planting window was 89–106 day of the year (DOY) for the 30–35°N, 107–118 DOY for the 35–40°N, <119 DOY for 40–45°N, and <129 DOY for 45–50°N, and (iii) both, yield contest and literature datasets portrayed that planting date becomes a more relevant factor when planting late, presenting a relatively smaller planting window in high-compared to low-latitudes.

Since the initial discovery of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) in the 1970s, it has exhibited a huge potential application in many fields due to its outstanding advantages. Since the ultra-sensitive noble metallic nanostructures have increasingly exposed themselves as having some problems during application, semiconductors have been gradually exploited as one of the critical SERS substrate materials due to their distinctive advantages when compared with noble metals. ZnO is one of the most representative metallic oxide semiconductors with an abundant reserve, various and cost-effective fabrication techniques, as well as special physical and chemical properties. Thanks to the varied morphologies, size-dependent exciton, good chemical stability, a tunable band gap, carrier concentration, and stoichiometry, ZnO nanostructures have the potential to be exploited as SERS substrates. Moreover, other distinctive properties possessed by ZnO such as biocompatibility, photocatcalysis and self-cleaning, and gas- and chemo-sensitivity can be synergistically integrated and exerted with SERS activity to realize the multifunctional potential of ZnO substrates. In this review, we discuss the inevitable development trend of exploiting the potential semiconductor ZnO as a SERS substrate. After clarifying the root cause of the great disparity between the enhancement factor (EF) of noble metals and that of ZnO nanostructures, two specific methods are put forward to improve the SERS activity of ZnO, namely: elemental doping and combination of ZnO with noble metals. Then, we introduce a distinctive advantage of ZnO as SERS substrate and illustrate the necessity of reporting a meaningful average EF. We also summarize some fabrication methods for ZnO nanostructures with varied dimensions (0–3 dimensions). Finally, we present an overview of ZnO nanostructures for the versatile SERS application.

In this review, we have presented the latest results and highlights on biomedical applications of a class of noble metal nanoparticles, such as gold, silver and platinum, and a class of magnetic nanoparticles, such as cobalt, nickel and iron. Their most important related compounds are also discussed for biomedical applications for treating various diseases, typically as cancers. At present, both physical and chemical methods have been proved very successful to synthesize, shape, control, and produce metal- and oxide-based homogeneous particle systems, e.g., nanoparticles and microparticles. Therefore, we have mainly focused on functional magnetic nanoparticles for nanomedicine because of their high bioadaptability to the organs inside human body. Here, bioconjugation techniques are very crucial to link nanoparticles with conventional drugs, nanodrugs, biomolecules or polymers for biomedical applications. Biofunctionalization of engineered nanoparticles for biomedicine is shown respective to in vitro and in vivo analysis protocols that typically include drug delivery, hyperthermia therapy, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and recent outstanding progress in sweep imaging technique with Fourier transformation (SWIFT) MRI. The latter can be especially applied using magnetic nanoparticles, such as Co-, Fe-, Ni-based nanoparticles, α-Fe2O3, and Fe3O4 oxide nanoparticles for analysis and treatment of malignancies. Therefore, this review focuses on recent results of scientists, and related research on diagnosis and treatment methods of common and dangerous diseases by biomedical engineered nanoparticles. Importantly, nanosysems (nanoparticles) or microsystems (microparticles) or hybrid micronano systems are shortly introduced into nanomedicine. Here, Fe oxide nanoparticles ultimately enable potential and applicable technologies for tumor-targeted imaging and therapy. Finally, we have shown the latest aspects of the most important Fe-based particle systems, such as Fe, α-Fe2O3, Fe3O4, Fe-Fe(x)O(y) oxide core-shell nanoparticles, and CoFe2O4-MnFe2O4 core-shell nanoparticles for nanomedicine in the efficient treatment of large tumors at low cost in near future.

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In this review, we have presented the controlled synthesis of Fe-based metal and oxide nanoparticles with large size by chemical methods. The issues of the size, shape and morphology of Fe nanoparticles are discussed in the certain ranges of practical applications in biology and medicine. The homogeneous nanosystems of Fe-based metal and oxide nanoparticles with various sizes and shapes from the nano-to-micro ranges can be used in order to meet the demands of the treatments of dangerous tumors and cancers through magnetic hyperthermia and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In this context, the polyhedral Fe-based metal and oxide nanoparticles having large size in the ranges from 1000 nm to 5000 nm can be potentially used in magnetic hyperthermia and MRI in the innovative drug delivery, diagnosis, treatment, and therapy of tumor and cancer diseases because of their very high bio-adaptability. We have suggested that high stability and durability of Fe-based metal and oxide nanoparticles are very crucial to recent magnetic hyperthermia and MRI technology. The roles of various Fe-based nanostructures are focused in biomedical applications of tumors and cancers diagnostics, targeted drug delivery, and magnetic hyperthermia. Finally, Fe-based, α-, β- and γ-Fe2O3, and Fe3O4-based nanoparticles are shortly discussed in various potential applications in catalysis, biology, and medicine.