GRAS genes belong to the plant-specific transcription factors (TF's) family that are known to be involved in plant growth and development. In this study, we have identified 37 genes from the bottle gourd genome that encodes for GRAS TF's. Except for the SCLA, we were able to identify at least one gene from each of the 17 subfamilies. Gene structure and chromosomal analysis showed that maximum seven genes are present on Chr7 followed by six genes on Chr1. The subcellular location analysis revealed that most of the genes were localized in the nucleus, except for a few in chloroplast and mitochondria. Additionally, we have identified one tandem gene duplication event on Chr7 and three major motifs that were present in all the GRAS genes. Furthermore, the protein-protein interaction prediction and gene expression analysis showed five candidate hub-genes interact with various other genes and thus probably control the expression of interacting partners in different plant tissues. Overall, this study provides a comprehensive analysis of GRAS transcription factors in bottle gourd genome which could be further extended to other vegetable crops. Transcription factors (TFs) are the class of proteins that control the functioning of various genes by binding with their promoters and thus involved in the gene regulation process 1. Previously, more than 320K TFs belonging to 58 transcription factor families have been reported from 165 different plant species. Out of these, GRAS represents one of the major families that are involved in plant growth, development, cell signaling, and stress tolerance 2. GRAS family was first reported in bacteria and characterized by the three TFs i.e. (i) GAI (gibberellicacid insensitive); (ii) RGA (repressor of GAI), and (iii) SCR (scarecrow) with the size range from 400 to 770 amino acids 3,4. It was observed that GAI and RGA are the part of DELLA proteins that take part in gibberellin (GA) and Jasmonate (JA) response as well as light signaling. Likewise, SCR and Short Root (SHR) played a key role in the radial organization of root by forming the SCR/SHR complex 5. Previously, it has also been reported that the C-terminal region of GRAS members is highly conserved, while the N-terminal is highly divergent that might provide the specificity to each protein 6. Furthermore, the evolutionary analysis suggested the phenomenon of horizontal gene transfer (HGT) from bacteria to plants. GRAS gene family is further categorized into different subfamilies such as eight in Arabidopsis and rice 7 , while 8 to 13 in tomato, popular, castor beans, etc 8-10. Recently, Cenci et al. classified the GRAS family into 17 subfamilies such as DELLA, Lateral suppressor (LS), Hairy meristem (HAM), and SCR 11. Previous studies showed that it is one of the widely explored transcription factor family in the various plant species including tomato, potato, buckwheat, and sweet orange 12-14. Bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), a member of the Cucurbitaceae family is commonly cultivated in the tropical and subtropical regions an...

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The management and collection of household waste often represents a demanding task for elderly or impaired people. In particular, the increasing generation of plastic waste at home may pose a problem for these groups, as this type of waste accumulates very rapidly and occupies a considerable amount of space. This paper proposes a collaborative infrastructure to monitor household plastic waste. It consists of simple smart bins using a weight scale and a smart application that forecasts the amount of plastic generated for each bin at different time horizons out of the data provided by the smart bins. The application generates optimal routes for the waste-pickers collaborating in the system through a route-planning algorithm. This algorithm takes into account the predicted amount of plastic of each bin and the waste-picker’s location and means of transport. This proposal has been evaluated by means of a simulated scenario in Quezon City, Philippines, where severe problems with plastic waste have been identified. A set of 176 experiments have been performed to collect data that allow representing different user behaviors when generating plastic waste. The results show that our proposal enables waste-pickers to collect more than the 80% of the household plastic-waste bins before they are completely full.