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Seaweeds are a natural marine resource containing many bioactive compounds such as amino acids, lipids, carbohydrates, proteins, phytohormones, and antimicrobial compounds. Since ancient times, seaweeds have been used in various sectors, including medicine, food, and the cosmetic industry. Currently, seaweeds are a promising alternative to reduce the application of harmful chemicals in agriculture. Seaweed and its derived products have been utilized for plant growth promotion, immunity enhancement, and the reduction of biotic and abiotic stresses. In the current global scenario, synthetic fertilizers and chemical pesticides are commonly used to increase agricultural crop production to meet the growing demands of the world population. However, these chemicals pose significant threats to the health of people, livestock, plants, soil, and the entire environment. In contrast, seaweed-based products are emerging as a newer option for stress mitigation and reduction, offering an alternative to synthetic chemicals. This article explains the use of seaweed extracts to increase the tolerance of plants to biotic and abiotic stresses. We also address the functions of various bioactive compounds present in seaweed extracts and the mechanisms by which they promote plant growth and induce defense against different stresses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, micro-liquid flow measurement has become increasingly important, particularly in India, where devices like syringe pumps, infusion pumps, and infusion device analyzers are critical in hospitals and research laboratories. These devices are essential for precise drug dosing in applications such as chemotherapy, pain management, insulin therapy, and other vital treatments, making accurate calibration crucial. To meet this need, the Fluid Flow Metrology Section at the CSIR-National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL) in New Delhi has developed a state-of-the-art calibration facility for micro-liquid flow, capable of measuring flow rates from 10 mL/h to 1500 mL/h. The facility employs a static weighing method, utilizing a dual-range analytical balance with a capacity of 220 g/82 g and a digital timer as reference standards. This setup achieves an expanded uncertainty of 0.30% (at k=2) for both totalized volume and volume flow rate measurements, thereby ensuring the facility's status as a National Metrology Institute (NMI) in micro-liquid flow measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A vast amount of time-series data is generated from multiple fields. Mining these data can uncover hidden patterns and behavior characteristics. The analysis of such data is complex because they are voluminous and have high dimensions. Clustering can provide a preprocessing step to extract insights. However, clustering such data poses challenges, as many existing algorithms are not efficient enough to handle them. In addition, many traditional and modern clustering algorithms need help with parameter-tuning problems. Ensemble clustering, an amalgamation of clustering algorithms, has emerged as a promising method for improving the accuracy, stability, and robustness of clustering solutions. This study presents Ensemble clustering using Affinity Propagation (ECAP). AP is efficient because it does not require the number of clusters to be specified a priori, allowing the data to reveal its structure. When used in an ensemble framework, the inherent strengths of AP are amplified by integrating multiple clustering results. This aggregation mitigates the influence of any single, potentially suboptimal clustering outcome, leading to more stable and reliable clusters. Extensive experiments were performed on four real-world datasets for rand index, homogeneity, completeness, and V-measure to determine the efficacy of the proposed approach. The results show that the proposed method outperforms AP, Kmeans, and spectral clustering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chili peppers (Capsicum annuum L.) are an economically important crop worldwide. Pepper yellow leaf curl Thailand virus (PepYLCTHV), a Begomovirus causing yellow leaf mosaic disease of chili pepper, has been reported to incur 95% economic loss under epiphytotic conditions. Thirty-one chili genotypes were screened for resistance to PepYLCTHV disease through inoculation using 10–15 viruliferous whiteflies per plant. We purified two resistant lines (PEP6 and PEP12) through four generations of selfing and selection. At 28 days after inoculations, two chili genotypes (PEP6 and PEP12) had low disease severity and percentage of disease incidence (DI) compared to four susceptible checks, viz., Yodsonkeam80, Homsupan, Huareau12, and Pong Charian, which had a disease severity score of 5 with 100% DI. Thirty initial plants of PEP6 showed an average disease severity of 3.64 with 69.33% DI, and PEP12 showed an average disease severity of 3.83 with 77.67% DI. From these populations, we selected nine highly resistant plant of PEP6 and seven plants of PEP12 having a disease severity of 0 through pure-line selection for four selfing generations. The ratio of resistance (R) to susceptibility (S) consequently decreased. In PEP6, the ratio decreased from 1R:2S to 1R:1S, while in PEP12 the ratio decreased from 1R:3S to 1R:1S. These lines have potential for release as resistant lines for improving chili pepper resistance to PepYLCTHV and for developing makers associated with the resistant trait. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]