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This paper aims to examine the key determinants and efficiency of China’s agricultural exports with its 114 importing countries by applying the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) on an augmented gravity model for the period of 2000–2019. The Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) and the fixed effect models were also estimated simultaneously to confirm the robustness of our findings. The results reveal that China’s economic size (GDP) and its importing countries, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), common border, and the Chinese language positively determine China’s agricultural export flows. The results, on the other hand, also reveal that China’s agricultural export is adversely influenced by the income (per capita GDP) of China and its trade partners, currency depreciation, distance, and landlocked. On an average account, China has untapped the potential of 51% in its agriculture export with the countries used in this study. We provide policy suggestions as part of our study.

One of the major challenges to the survival of life on earth is the increasingly evolving climate change. The key source of environmental pollution is global warming. With the combustion of fossil fuels, greenhouse gas (GHG), which is generated in the external environment, is increased and air pollutant as well. The present analysis key intention was to examine the CO 2 emission and climatic effects on major agricultural crop production and land use in Pakistan. The study used time span annual data varies from 1970 to 2019, and data stationarity was rectify by utilizing the unit root tests. A generalized method of moments with two-stage least squares technique was applied to expose the variables’ association with CO 2 emission. The study consequences uncover that the wheat, maize, sugarcane, cotton, bajra, gram, sesamum crops, and land use have constructive association with CO 2 emission having positive coefficients with probability values (0.3762), (0.0435), (0.2287), (0.2303), (0.2272), (0.0192), (0.4535), and (0.0017) correspondingly, while rainfall, temperature, rice, jowar, and barley uncovered an adversative linkage to CO 2 emission in Pakistan. As Pakistan is an emerging country, potential constructive measures must be introduced in directive to reduce CO 2 emissions to improve the agricultural productivity.

Abiotic stresses are the prime coercion to sustainable crop production in changing climate scenario. Heat and drought stresses at reproductive as well as vegetative stages of rice cause extensive reduction in its yield. Being a multifunctional amino acid, proline is being used to diminish numerous biotic and abiotic stresses of plants. A pot experiment was conducted in summer season 2018, to check the effectiveness of foliar applied proline in mitigating the concurrent effects of heat and drought stresses on rice, at greenhouse/screenhouse of Faculty of Agriculture, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan. Experiment was carried out under completely randomized design with split arrangement having three replications. Stress was imposed at anthesis with treatments viz. drought stress, heat stress and heat plus drought stress as a main factor, and various levels of exogenously applied proline viz. no proline/water spray, 10, 20 and 30 mM concentrations were maintained as subfactor. A control (no stress imposed) was upheld for comparison. Stress treatments: drought, heat and heat plus drought stress at anthesis stage depressed the production of antioxidants, osmoprotectants and chlorophyll contents while causing overproduction of malondialdehyde content. Exogenous proline application upregulated activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT), total soluble proteins (TSP), leaf proline and glycine betaine contents and diminution in lipid peroxidation resulting into improvement in chlorophyll contents and eventually yield per plant. Concurrent heat and drought stresses were more perilous as compared to individually applied heat or drought stress and 30 mM proline application gave maximum alleviation against stress.

An eight-element MIMO antenna with a neutralization line was utilized for future 5G mm-wave applications. The MIMO configuration was designed for two ports, four ports and eight ports to validate the desired impedance and radiation characteristics. The measured results in terms of MIMO and scattering parameters correlate well with the simulated one. The printed eight-port antenna was a miniaturized size of 44 × 70 × 0.8 mm3. Roger RT/duroid 5880 substrate was used to print antennas. The presented antenna produced a vast bandwidth of 18 GHz, varying from 28 to 46 GHz, and achieved a reduced mutual coupling of 30 dB with 6.8–8.5 dBi gain. The eight-port antenna is compared with contemporary antennas considering size, isolation, impedance bandwidth, diversity characteristics and radiation properties, confirming that the presented antenna is a promising candidate for future 5G mm-wave applications.

In agriculture based economies like Pakistan, farmers often shift from farming to off-farm activities as part of an apparent livelihood transition strategy, despite the fact that most of the workforce depends upon farming. In this paper, we try to uncover insights into how livelihood assets, such as human capital, natural capital, economic capital, and locational characteristics, affect a household’s exit decision from on-farm to off-farm activities as a livelihood transition strategy in rural Pakistan. We analyzed data from 335 farming households from the second largest agricultural producing province in the country, Sindh. Our findings show that more than 19% of households have completely shifted from farming to off-farm activities. Furthermore, we identified that the ‘crop input credit’ is one of the major constraints to farmers converting their previous input-driven small loans into larger loans, where large markups may be imposed if they fail to pay when the harvest is made. The empirical findings from Binary Logistic Regression provide strong evidence for family labor characteristics, particularly for working-age males, working-age females, and working-age children. Surprisingly, the cultivated land size significantly and positively influences farm exit rather than a continuation of farming. Off-farm employment, exogenous shocks, and urbanization also significantly and positively influenced the decision to transition into off-farm work. In contrast, the age of the household head, livestock ownership, and distance to a commercial zone significantly inhibited the decision to exit farming. However, government assistance, including subsidies, strongly encouraged farmers to continue farming. These findings provide new insights into the factors affecting the drivers of both exit and continuation in the farming sector as part of a long-term livelihood transition strategy.

The mixed crop–livestock system is a primary source of livelihood in developing countries. Erratic climate changes are severely affecting the livelihoods of people who depend upon mixed crop–livestock production. By employing the livelihood vulnerability index (LVI), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change LVI (LVIIPCC), and the livelihood effect index (LEI), this study evaluated livelihood vulnerability in southern Punjab, Pakistan. The study provides a range of indicators for national and local policy makers to improve resilience in the face of livelihood vulnerability. By incorporating more major components and subcomponents, this study identifies more specific challenges of livelihood vulnerability for future policy directions. It is interesting to find that credit and cash used for crop inputs are critical financial constraints for farmers. From the estimated indicators, this study also provides some specific policy recommendations for the four study districts of Punjab Province. These results are helpful in identifying and highlighting vulnerability determinants and indicators. Initiating and promoting better adaptive capacity and starting resilience projects for households are urgent actions required by donors and governments to reduce the livelihood vulnerability of mixed crop–livestock households in arid and semiarid areas.

Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) plays an important role in plant microbe interactions. Current study explored the role of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) as a signalling molecule for chemical dialogue between endophytic fungus and host plant roots. The endophytic fungus was isolated from the leaves of drought stressed Withenia somnifera and was identified as Aspergillus awamori Wl1 through ITS region of 18 S rDNA sequence. The isolated Wl1 strain was capable of producing important secondary metabolites, including IAA, phenols and sugars. Culture filtrate of the strain contained 24.2, 275.4 and 127.4 μg/mL of IAA, phenols and sugars, respectively. The strain has efficiently colonized the maize roots and enhanced the growth of host plant. In order to determine the role of IAA in root colonization by endophyte, we inhibited the biosynthesis of IAA. Inhibition of IAA production by foliar application of yucasin effectively reduced the colonization of endophyte in maize roots by 52%, whereas root application of yucasin has decreased the colonization frequency by 66%. However, the application of IAA restored the ability of Aspergillus awamori to colonize maize roots and significantly improved various growth parameters. From these observations, it is concluded that IAA plays a vital role in initiating a crosstalk between the two partners.

Acid rain (AR) is a serious global environmental issue causing physio-morphological changes in plants. Melatonin, as an indoleamine molecule, has been known to mediate many physiological processes in plants under different kinds of environmental stress. However, the role of melatonin in acid rain stress tolerance remains inexpressible. This study investigated the possible role of melatonin on different physiological responses involving reactive oxygen species (ROS) metabolism in tomato plants under simulated acid rain (SAR) stress. SAR stress caused the inhibition of growth, damaged the grana lamella of the chloroplast, photosynthesis, and increased accumulation of ROS and lipid peroxidation in tomato plants. To cope the detrimental effect of SAR stress, plants under SAR condition had increased both enzymatic and nonenzymatic antioxidant substances compared with control plants. But such an increase in the antioxidant activities were incapable of inhibiting the destructive effect of SAR stress. Meanwhile, melatonin treatment increased SAR-stress tolerance by repairing the grana lamella of the chloroplast, improving photosynthesis and antioxidant activities compared with those in SAR-stressed plants. However, these possible effects of melatonin are dependent on concentration. Moreover, our study suggests that 100-μM melatonin treatment improved the SAR-stress tolerance by increasing photosynthesis and ROS scavenging antioxidant activities in tomato plants.

Adoption of a health information system is always a challenge for hospitals. It is because most of the medical staff do not have enough skills to use the new technology and due to the sensitivity of medical data. These factors pose a challenge for the successful adoption of health information system in hospitals. The aim of this research is to find out the factors which influence the adoption of information systems in hospitals. The study investigated the impact of the Financial status of the Hospital; Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use on the adoption of health information systems through a questionnaire survey. Data was collected from 602 healthcare workers from 20 hospitals through close-ended questionnaire in Pakistan, where the adoption of health information systems is very slow. PLS-SEM was used for the analysis. The findings show that the Financial status of the Hospital; Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use have positive and significant role in the adoption of Health Information Systems. The finding also shows that hospital size moderates the relationship of Perceived ease of use and the adoption of health information systems and interestingly it does not moderate the relationship among perceived usefulness and financial strength toward the adoption of health information systems. The study concludes that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and financial strength are the main factors, necessary for the adoption of health information systems. The findings of the study have useful implications for policy makers, medical professionals to successfully adopt health information systems in hospitals. It also provides new avenues for researchers to explore other factors and test this framework in other countries.

Calcium (Ca) is a macronutrient and works as a modulator to mitigate oxidative stress induced by heavy metals. In this study, we investigated the role of Ca to ameliorate the Cd toxicity in Zea mays L. by modulating the growth, physio-biochemical traits, and cellular antioxidant defense system. Maize genotype Sahiwal-2002 was grown under a controlled glasshouse environment with a day/night temperature of 24 ± 4°C/14 ± 2°C in a complete randomized design with three replications and two Cd levels as (0 and 150 μM) and six regimes of Ca (0, 0.5, 1, 2.5, 5, and 10 mM). Maize seedlings exposed to Cd at 150 μM concentration showed a notable decrease in growth, biomass, anthocyanins, chlorophylls, and antioxidant enzymes activities. A higher level of Cd (150 μM) also caused an upsurge in oxidative damage observed as higher electrolyte leakage (increased membrane permeability), H 2 O 2 production, and MDA accumulation. Supplementation of Ca notably improved growth traits, photosynthetic pigments, cellular antioxidants (APX, POD, and ascorbic acid), anthocyanins, and levels of osmolytes. The significant improvement in the osmolytes (proteins and amino acids), and enzymatic antioxidative defense system enhanced the membrane stability and mitigated the damaging effects of Cd. The present results concluded that exogenously applied Ca potentially improve growth by regulating antioxidants and enabling maize plants to withstand the Cd toxicity.