Application of unsupervised weighting algorithms for identifying important attributes and factors contributing to grain and biological yields of wheat

To identify important attributes/factors that contribute to grain and biological yields of wheat, 9912 sets of diverse data from field studies were extracted, and supervised attribute-weighting models were employed. Results showed that when biological yield was the output, grain yield, nitrogen applied, rainfall, irrigation regime, and organic content were the most important factors/attributes, highlighted by 9, 7, 5, 3 and 3 weighting models, respectively. In contrast, when grain yield was the output, biological yield, location, and genotype were identified by 8, 6, and 5 weighting models, respectively. Also, five other features (cropping system, organic content, 1000-grain weight, spike number m-2 and soil texture) were selected by three models as the most important factors/attributes. Field water status, such as the irrigation regime or the amount of rainfall, was another important factor related to the biological or grain yield of wheat (weight ≥ 0.5). Our results showed that attribute/factor classification by unsupervised attribute-weighting models can provide a comprehensive view of the important distinguishing attributes/factors that contribute to wheat grain or biological yield. This is the first report on identifying the most important factors/attributes contributing to wheat grain and biological yields-using attribute-weighting algorithms. This study opened a new horizon in wheat production using data mining.E. Bijanzadeh, Y. Emam, E. Ebrahimi, and M. Ebrahim

Association study of rs10768683 and rs968857 polymorphisms with transfusion-dependent thalassemia (TDT) in a southern Iranian population

Previous studies reported that detection of polymorphisms inherited through paternal model could be potential markers for the Non-Invasive Prenatal Diagnosis (NIPD) of β-thalassemia. The aim of the current study was to find out the associations of rs10768683 and rs968857 with transfusion-dependent thalassemia (TDT) in a southern Iranian population. A total of 175 subjects were investigated, divided into patients with TDT as case group (n = 75) and healthy people as control group (n = 100). Genomic DNAs were extracted from peripheral blood using salting out procedure. Genotyping rs10768683 and rs968857 was carried out by ARMS-PCR, then statistical analyses were assessed using SPSS, and Medcalc ver. 18 software. Data showed that rs10768683 was statistically significant in co-dominant model of inheritance (P = 0.025, OR = 2.11 [1.08-4.15]) and genotype frequencies of CG among controls and cases were 0.68 and 0.80, respectively. However, according to genotype frequencies, there was no association between rs968857 and TDT among cases and healthy controls in any models of inheritance. In conclusion, the present study showed the association of rs10768683 with major β-thalassemia through ARMS-PCR techniqu

Distinct laminar processing of local and global context in primate primary visual cortex

Visual perception is affected by spatial context. In visual cortex, neuronal responses to stimuli inside the receptive field (RF) are suppressed by stimuli in the RF surround. To understand the circuits and cortical layers processing spatial context, we simultaneously recorded across all layers of macaque primary visual cortex while presenting stimuli at increasing distances from the recorded cells' RF. We find that near versus far-surround stimuli activate distinct layers, thus revealing unique laminar contributions to the processing of local and global spatial context. Stimuli in the near-surround evoke the earliest subthreshold responses in superficial and upper-deep layers, and earliest suppression of spiking responses in superficial layers. Conversely, far-surround stimuli evoke the earliest subthreshold responses in feedback-recipient layer 1 and lower-deep layers, and earliest suppression of spiking responses almost simultaneously in all layers, except 4C, where suppression emerges last. Our results suggest distinct circuits for local and global signal integration

Lack of association between asthma and ABO blood group

ABO is the most important blood group system in transfusion and transplantation practices. Glycosyltransferases are controlled by the ABO system which is helpful in building oligosaccharide structures on the cell surface of erythrocytes and vascular endothelium and in the exocrine secretion system, including the respiratory tract. We analyzed the ABO blood group of 200 children and adults with asthma as well as that of 2000 healthy subjects as controls. The most common blood group among the patients and controls was ``O'' (43.5% and 43.6%, respectively), followed by B, A, and AB. In the distribution of different blood groups, nonsignificant difference between patients and controls was observed (p = 0.931). We conclude that ABO blood group status has a nonsignificant association with asthma among the population of Mysore, Karnataka, South India