Assessing the response of indigenous loquat cultivar Mardan to phytohormones for in vitro shoot proliferation and rooting

In vitro cultures of loquat cultivar Mardan were established using shoot apices after treating with NaOCl (5%, 7%, 10%, 12%, 14% (v/v)) for 12 min and HgCl₂ (0.01%, 0.05%, 0.10%, 0.20%, 0.25% (w/v)) for 2 min. A maximum survival rate of 70% was recorded after surface sterilization with 10% NaOCl. Caulogenic response was assessed on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium fortified with assorted combinations of the cytokinins, benzylaminopurine (BAP), kinetin, and N6-(2-isopentyl)adenine (2iP). Treatment of BAP 1.5 mg/L combined with 2iP 9.0 mg/L and kinetin 1.5 mg/L was found to be optimum for shoot morphogenesis in terms of the number and subsequent growth of shoots, while the highest shoot length was yielded by the combination of BAP 0.5 mg/L, kinetin 0.5 mg/L, and 2iP 3 mg/L. Higher levels of cytokinins induced callogenesis, vitrification and stunted growth to some extent. For rhizogenesis, uniform sized micro-shoots were excised and transferred to half-strength MS medium containing auxins. The best rooting expression was observed with naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) 1 mg/L combined with indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) 2 mg/L and paclobutrazol (PBZ) 1 mg/L.     

Green contents in English language textbooks in Pakistan: An ecolinguistic and ecopedagogical appraisal

The belief that English language teaching (ELT), for its global scope, should not only focus on furnishing learners’ language skills but also on raising their awareness about critical global issues, like environmental crises, led to the ‘greening’ of ELT textbooks. However, the ecopedagogical import of the green contents in ELT textbooks has a bearing on the linguistic/discursive representation of nature and the human–nature relationship in them as it conditions the way we humans perceive and treat the natural environment. Ecolinguistics, an emerging paradigm in linguistic research, offers the premise to analyse the construction of ecology in texts. This study conducted an ecolinguistic and ecopedagogical appraisal of the environmental texts in English language textbooks used in Pakistani schools at primary level, adapting Gaard’s ecopedagogical framework for children’s texts and Halliday’s transitivity analysis model. The study found that the construction of nature and the human–nature relationship in the selected textbooks principally propagated an anthropocentric worldview, thus lacking in ecopedagogical import.     

Novel extension of the UTAUT model to understand continued usage intention of learning management systems: the role of learning tradition

Education and Information Technologies - The key objective of this study was to reveal the key factors that impact university students’ continued usage intentions with respect to Learning...