Search results for "VARIATION"

Genome wide Copy Number Variation (CNV) detection in Cinisara cattle breed

2017

Copy Number Variations (CNVs) are classes of polymorphic genomic regions including deletions, duplications and insertions of DNA fragments from at least 0.5 kb up to several Mb. CNV represents an important source of genetic variability that provides genomics structural information complementary to the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. Some CNVs have been shown to be important in both normal phenotypic variability and disease susceptibility in livestock. Several approaches to identify CNVs including FISH, aCGH, SNP array or NGS, were proposed and among these SNP genotyping is relatively low cost, high-throughput and high coverage method. The aim of this study was to identify the CNV…

Analysis of microbiological variation in PDO Vastedda della valle del Belìce cheese during the storage period

2011

The PDO “Vastedda della valle del Belìce” is a Sicilian pasta filata sheep cheese, made from raw milk without starter addition. It is a small round cheese without rind, weighing about 500-700 g. It is cheese is marketed also out of Sicily to allow its marketing and to prolong its shelf-life. The aim of this work was to evaluate the variation of microbiological parameters during the shelf-life period. Then 162 Vastedda cheeses from 18 cheese-making processes in 7 farms have been analysed at different times of storage at 4°C (0, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 105, 120 days). Coliforms and E. coli were detected into 7/18 cheese-making processes and their count decreased during the storage period. Ent…

Temporal and spatial variation of the algal community in a southern Mediterranean shallow system

2010

The algal community of a shallow system located in Western Sicily (Mediterranean Sea) has been investigated over 1 year in eight ponds (fredde). The spatio-temporal variation in total algal coverage, species richness and coverage in relation to environmental variables has been analysed. The algal community was very species-poor. A total of 50 taxa, mainly detached algae, were identified. A dominance of filamentous and foliose taxa was observed. Significant spatio-temporal differences in total algal coverage, species richness and coverage between the ponds of group A and those of group B were found. The separation into groups A and B was made a priori on the basis of different levels of prox…

Artificial environmental conditions can affect allozyme genetic structure of the marine gastropod Patella caerulea

2001

Samples of the Mediterranean limpet Patella caerulea collected from 10 sites were examined for genetic population structure. Six of the 20 identified enzymatic loci were polymorphic. The AAT* locus was polymorphic only in two samples from an artificial environment (TI2 and PE). The proportion of polymorphic loci ranged from 0.20 to 0.30, and the observed and expected mean heterozygosity varied between 0.098 and 0.076 and between 0.109 and 0.086, respectively. Mean Fis values were significantly positive in AAT*, ESTD*, PEPC-2*, and PEPD*, showing heterozygosity deficiency. In all, mean Fst value of 0.007 indicated high genetic homogeneity between the samples analyzed, whereas single-locus Fs…

Dynamic Energy Budget model parameter estimation for the bivalve Mytilus californianus: Application of the covariation method

2014

Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) models serve as a powerful tool for describing the flow of energy through organisms from assimilation of food to utilization for maintenance, growth and reproduction. The DEB theory has been successfully applied to several bivalve species to compare bioenergetic and physiological strategies for the utilization of energy. In particular, mussels within the Mytilus edulis complex (M. edulis, M. galloprovincialis, and M. trossulus) have been the focus of many studies due to their economic and ecological importance, and their worldwide distribution. However, DEB parameter values have never been estimated for Mytilus californianus, a species that is an ecological domin…

Do island plant populations really have lower genetic variation than mainland populations? Effects of selection and distribution range on genetic div…

2015

Ecological and evolutionary studies largely assume that island populations display low levels of neutral genetic variation. However, this notion has only been formally tested in a few cases involving plant taxa, and the confounding effect of selection on genetic diversity (GD) estimates based on putatively neutral markers has typically been overlooked. Here, we generated nuclear microsatellite and plastid DNA sequence data in Periploca laevigata, a plant taxon with an island–mainland distribution area, to (i) investigate whether selection affects GD estimates of populations across contrasting habitats; and (ii) test the long-standing idea that island populations have lower GD than their mai…

Exploitation of food sources by ichthyofauna in the Acquatina coastal system (Apulia, Italy)

2010

PPARa GENE VARIATION AND PHISYCAL PERFORMANCE IN ITALIAN SOCCER PLAYERS

2012

PURPOSE: One of the genes of the health-related fitness phenotype is a PPARα coding for peroxisome proliferator activator receptor alpha, a central regulator of expression of genes involved in fatty acid metabolism. The aim of our research was to study the role of polymorphism of PPARα gene in performance enhancing in Italian soccer players. METHODS: Sixty professional soccer players and thirty sedentary volunteers were enrolled in the study. Samples of venous blood were obtained at rest in the morning by conventional clinical procedures. Serum was collected and lipid profile was measured by using a commercial kit. An aliquote of anticoagulant-treated blood was used to prepare genomic DNA f…

3D structural modeling and restoration in fold-and-thrust belts: examples from the Kumeta and Busambra Mts., NW Sicily (Italy)

2018

The Sicilian Fold and Thrust belt (SFTB) is a structurally complex area where along-strike variations of structural styles, shortening amounts, exhumation rates and amounts of syn-tectonic sedimentation frequently occur. Moreover strong differential clockwise rotations around vertical axes affected the different tectonic units during their emplacement. This complexity, coupled with debatable or incomplete subsurface dataset (e.g., available 2D onshore seismic lines) allowed previous authors to propose different interpretations for the tectonic evolution of the SFTB since Cenozoic time. The study area, located in the Western sector of the SFTB comprises the Kumeta and Busambra ridges (derive…

Using Temporal Texture for Content-Based Video Retrieval

2000

Textures evolving over time are called temporal textures and are very common in everyday life. Examples are the smoke flowing or the wavy water of a river. The idea explored in this paper is that image features based on temporal texture could allow a better performance of current content-based video retrieval systems that are mainly based on static characteristics of representative frames, like color and texture. To this aim we analyze the spatio-temporal nature of texture and its application in content-based access to video databases. In particular, we represent temporal texture using the spatio-temporal autoregressive (STAR) model and a variation of self-organizing maps (SOM) where each n…