Search results for "Systematic"
showing 10 items of 7608 documents
Fungal biodiversity and in situ conservation in Italy
2011
A remarkable increase in knowledge of fungal biodiversity in Italy has occurred in the last five years. The authors report up-to-date numbers of fungi (Basidiomycota and Ascomycota) by regions together with distributional and ecological data on hypogeous fungi. Specific case studies such as alpine fungi, orchid mycorrhizas symbionts, invasive species, and the use of macrofungi as food by red squirrels are analyzed. In situ conservation strategies carried out on target species and/or taxonomic groups are also indicated.
Algorithms for the Automated Analysis of Age-Related Macular Degeneration Biomarkers on Optical Coherence Tomography: A Systematic Review
2017
PURPOSE To assess the quality of optical coherence tomography (OCT) grading algorithms for retinal biomarkers of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). METHODS Following a systematic review of the literature data on detection and quantification of AMD retinal biomarkers by available algorithms were extracted and descriptively synthesized. Algorithm quality was assessed using a modified version of the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies 2 checklist with a focus on accuracy against established reference standards and risk of bias. RESULTS Thirty five studies reporting computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) tools for qualitative analysis or algorithms for quantitative analysis were iden…
The Role of Autophagy in Eye Diseases
2021
Autophagy is a catabolic process that ensures homeostasis in the cells of our organism. It plays a crucial role in protecting eye cells against oxidative damage and external stress factors. Ocular pathologies of high incidence, such as age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy are of multifactorial origin and are associated with genetic, environmental factors, age, and oxidative stress, among others; the latter factor is one of the most influential in ocular diseases, directly affecting the processes of autophagy activity. Alteration of the normal functioning of autophagy processes can interrupt organelle turnover, leading to the accumulation of cellula…
Welcome aboard: are birds migrating across the Mediterranean Sea using ships as stopovers during adverse weather conditions?
2022
Birds use stopovers during migration to interrupt endurance flight in order to minimize immediate and/or future fitness costs. Stopovers on ships is considered an exceptional and anecdotal event in the ornithological literature. This does not match the experience we had in the summer of 2021, during an oceanographic campaign in the Central Mediterranean, when we regularly observed on average 2.8 birds, of at least 13 species, stopping on board during the 25 days of the campaign. The median stopping time was 42 min, ranging from a few minutes to overnight stays on board. The probability of finding a bird stopping aboard increased with wind force and cloud cover. Birds also stopped more often…
Distinct bhaplotype structure at the innate immune receptor Toll-like receptor 2 across bank vole populations and lineages in Europe
2015
Abstract: Parasite-mediated selection may contribute to the maintenance of genetic variation at host immune genes over long time scales. To date, the best evidence for the long-term maintenance of immunogenetic variation in natural populations comes from studies on the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes, whereas evidence for such processes from other immune genes remains scarce. In the present study, we show that, despite pronounced population differentiation and the occurrence of numerous private alleles within populations, the innate immune gene Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) displays a distinct haplotype structure in 21 bank vole (Myodes glareolus) populations across Europe. Haplo…
Copulation duration, but not paternity share, potentially mediates inbreeding avoidance in Drosophila montana
2014
Studying the incidence of inbreeding avoidance is important for understanding the evolution of mating systems, especially in the context of mate choice for genetic compatibility. We investigated whether inbreeding avoidance mechanisms have evolved in the malt fly, Drosophila montana, by measuring mating latency (a measure of male attractiveness), copulation duration, days to remating, offspring production, and the proportion of offspring sired by the first (P1) and second (P2) male to mate in full-sibling and unrelated pairs. SNP markers were used for paternity analysis and for calculating pairwise relatedness values (genotype sharing) between mating pairs. We found 18 % inbreeding depressi…
Shaping the antipredator strategy: flexibility, consistency, and behavioral correlations under varying predation threat
2014
9 pages; International audience; Recent ecological and evolutionary research emphasizes the importance of adaptive trait integration. For instance, antipredator defenses are built up of several morphological and behavioral components in many species, yet their functional relationships are still poorly documented. Using field-collected freshwater crustaceans Gammarus fossarum in a within-subject design, we investigated the flexibility and consistency of refuge use, photophobia, and exploration behavior as well as their associations, quantified both when predation risk was absent or artificially simulated. In agreement with the "threat-sensitivity" hypothesis, both refuge use and photophobia …
Essential oil from the aerial parts of Centaurea cuneifolia Sibth. & Sm. and C. euxina Velen., two species growing wild in Bulgaria
2009
Abstract The volatile constituents of the aerial parts of Centaurea cuneifolia Sibth. & Sm. and Centaurea euxina Velen. from Bulgaria were extracted by hydrodistillation and were analyzed. The main components in C. cuneifolia were β-eudesmol (26.5%) and hexadecanoic acid (17.6%). The main components in C. euxina were hexadecanoic acid (20.3%), spathulenol (10.8%) and caryophyllene oxide (6.2%). The chemotaxonomic significances with respect to other previously studied species of the same sections ( Achrolopus and Phalolepis , respectively) are discussed.
Domain‐specific neural networks improve automated bird sound recognition already with small amount of local data
2022
1. An automatic bird sound recognition system is a useful tool for collecting data of different bird species for ecological analysis. Together with autonomous recording units (ARUs), such a system provides a possibility to collect bird observations on a scale that no human observer could ever match. During the last decades, progress has been made in the field of automatic bird sound recognition, but recognizing bird species from untargeted soundscape recordings remains a challenge. 2. In this article, we demonstrate the workflow for building a global identification model and adjusting it to perform well on the data of autonomous recorders from a specific region. We show how data augmentatio…
Antioxidation, Anti-Inflammation, and Regulation of SRD5A Gene Expression of Oryza sativa cv. Bue Bang 3 CMU Husk and Bran Extracts as Androgenetic A…
2022
Acknowledgments: The authors are grateful to the NRCT for supporting research facilities (grant no. NRCT5-RRI63004-P05), Chiang Mai University for the Fundamental Fund 2022, and the partially support grant. We would like to thank Lanna Rice Research Center, Chiang Mai University, and Saleekam Trading Co., Ltd., Thailand, for providing the rice bran and husk samples.