A greenhouse experiment was conducted on four crop plants in the western region of Gujarat State, India to assess their responses to increasing levels of soil salinity. Of the four crop plants tested (Hordeum vulgare, barley; Triticum aestivum, wheat; Cicer arietinum, gram and Brassica juncea, mustard), barley appeared to be the most tolerant to salinity with regard to seed germination and early growth of the plants. Wheat, gram and mustard were tolerant only to low soil salinity. However, high salt concentrations in the soil reduced the absorption of nitrogen and phosphorus by the young plants. The imbalance of mineral nutrients resulted in a reduction or an inhibition of plant growth. High salinity also caused burning symptoms on the leaves and shoot apices of barley.

Effect of supplemental manganese (Mn) on the growth of saltstressed barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) was assessed to determine if a salinity-induced Mn deficiency was limiting plant growth. Sodium chloride (NaCl) was added to the black-cotton soil and salinity was maintained at 0.3, 4, 8, 12, and 16 dS m À1 . A negative relationship between percent seed germination and increasing salt concentration was obtained, however, results suggested that barley is salt tolerant at seed germination stage. Increasing concentration of NaCl significantly reduced plant growth. Also, salinity induced a Mn deficiency in shoots of plants. Manganese was added to the soil at control and at 8 dS m À1 salinity. Supplemental Mn improved the growth of saltstressed plants to a limited extent, but it did not improve the growth of control plants. Further, supplemental Mn increased the relative growth rate of salt-stressed plants and this increase was attributed to ORDER REPRINTS an increase in the net assimilation rate of salt-stressed plants and not to leaf area ratio. Salt concentration adversely affected the uptake of nitrogen and phosphorus by plants, which resulted in imbalance of nutrients in salt-stressed plants. It appears that factors other than Mn, such as ionic, water-and nutrient-stresses can limit the growth of salt-stressed plants and supplemental Mn has only a limited role in mitigation of adverse effect of salinity. 1362Pandya et al.

A series of 3-arylspiro[oxirane-2,3'-thiochroman]-4'-one derivatives were synthesized and characterized by spectroscopy like 1H NMR, 13C NMR, mass spectrometry and elemental analysis. They were evaluated for their anti-lung cancer activity on human lung cancer cell line A-549 in DMSO. Compounds under study were found to be potent anti-lung cancer agents with GI50 values less than 10 with respect to positive control adriamycin.

A series of novel 5H-Thiochromeno[4,3-d]pyrimidine derivatives were synthesized, purified and characterized by different spectroscopy techniques such as 1H NMR, 13C NMR, Mass and Elemental Analysis. The new compounds were evaluated for their anti-cervical cancer activity on Human Cervical Cell Line HeLa. They were found to be potent anti-cervical cancer agents with GI50 values less than 10 μg/mL with respect to positive control drug Adriamycin.

We report a novel methodology for the efficient and rapid synthesis of core intermediate 2-(2H-1,2,3- triazol-2-yl)benzoic acid using trans-N,N’-dimethylcyclohexane-1,2-diamine as a catalyst and copper iodide as co-catalyst under microwave irradiations and a series of novel N-phenyl-2-(2H-1,2,3-triazol- 2-yl)benzamide derivatives via acid-amine coupling reaction using DCC as a dehydrating agent and DMAP as a base. In comparison to the conventional heating procedure and performing the reaction using different combinations of catalysts and bases, the time of synthesis and efforts are significantly reduced in the present method, which also gave excellent yield. The scaffold and all novel amides were characterized by spectroscopic techniques.