Increasing the sunflower seed oil content as well as improving its quality makes it compatible for industrial demands. This is an important breeding objective of sunflower which increases its market value and ensures high returns for the producers. The present review focuses on determining the progress of improving sunflower seed oil content and modifying its quality by empirical and advanced molecular breeding methods. It is known that the sunflower oil content and quality have been altered through empirical selection methods and mutation breeding programmes in various parts of the world. Further improvement in seed oil content and its components (such as phytosterols, tocopherols and modified fatty acid profile) has been slowed down due to low genetic variation in elite germplasm and complex of hereditary traits. Introgression from wild species can be carried out to modify the fatty acids profile and tocopherol contents with linkage drags. Different transgenes introduced through biotechnological methods may produce novel long-chain fatty acids within sunflower oil. Bio-engineering of sunflower oil could allow it to be used in diverse industrial products such as bio-diesel or bio-plastics. These results showed that past and current trends of modifying sunflower oil quality are essential for its further expansion as an oilseed crop. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.

Discipline of urban planning only developed around a century back with the first academic school at the University of Liverpool in 1909. However, the theory of this discipline is relatively older and might date to varying timelines around various parts of the world. However, modern urban planning discipline has got birth in the US and Western Europe. Early development in the theory of urban planning develops challenges for the cities. In response to such challenges, the planning approaches seem to adapt to the needs of emerging regimes evident from the high-scale urban renovation of Paris by Haussmann. This is called the Progressive Model of Planning wherein planners of the time struggled to deal with the challenges imparted by the Industrial Revolution through scientific and engineering-based knowledge. Early urban planning efforts were mostly anarchist movements that reacted to the social issues of the time and include Garden City, Radiant City, Broadacre, etc. This study sought to present these theoretical considerations with respect to certain development classifications in urban planning. Accordingly, the methodology of the research study comprises the following sections/segments for a better understanding of urban planning at different times: i. Pre-History of Urban Planning ii. Foundational Years iii. Modernism (Rational Planning) iv. Post Modernism (Post war suburbia) v. Current Era In short, it is concluded that cities have emerged as a result of conscious decisions. Accordingly, looking into the planning theory requires due consideration of the planning approaches utilized over time. This perceives that planning theory is essentially the study of the decisions made from intuition and that is equally right because planning theory and practice development are in parallel.

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Abiotic stresses including drought are major crop production constraints. However, specific functional phenotypic markers induce resistance against these stresses. Therefore, a study was initiated to study the variability, inheritance and selection of epicuticular waxes (EW) and leaf hairiness (LH) along with low cell membrane injuries (CMI) within F2 populations derived by crossing H. annuus×H. argophyllus lines. These traits have been shown to be associated with drought tolerance of Helianthus argophyllus and thus study aims to introgress these traits in Helinathus annuus. The studied parent populations showed contrasting values of the traits. The drought susceptible line CMS-14 and CMS-20 showed lower epicuticular waxes (0.79, 0.69 mg g−1), leaf hairiness (0.75, 1.53) and higher cell membrane injury (40.90, 55.76 %) respectively while drought resistant line Argo 1802 and 1806 showed higher epicuticular waxes (2.28, 3.18), leaf hairiness (3.71, 3.80) and lower cell membrane injury (14.22, 21.54 %) respectively. The F1 hybrids had mean values of the three studied parameters i. e. epicuticular waxes (1.50 mg g−1), cell membrance injury (32.54 %) and leaf hairiness (2.74) in the range of parent lines, but some of F2 individuals extend beyond this range (Parents and F1s). The two-step selections maintained high variability especially of LH for set of F2 individuals (H. annuus CMS-20×H. argophyllus 1806). Simultaneous selection of F2 individuals with high values of LH or EW with low CMI was possible. The selected plants were further studied for narrow leaf, high fertility and silver canopy color. Selected material was promoted as the candidate of inbred line. Plant (F4) having introgressed traits (silver canopy) showed lower yield (19 %) than green leafed plants (53 %) and commercial hybrids under drought stress (63 % and 53 %). The study could help to increase the abiotic stress tolerance, minimize the yield losses under drought stress and increase functional diversity within sunflower.

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