The effects of resource availability on territorial behavior of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris).

BirdsRuby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) often migrate to their summer breeding grounds, sometimes before their main food source, nectar from flowers, becomes available. On Douglas Lake at the University of Michigan Biological Station, Pellston, MI, we explored how resource availability affected aggressive behavior in hummingbirds. Eight lakeside sites had either a single or triple set of hummingbird feeders. We predicted that the richness of a resource site would determine the number of aggressive interactions initiated by males, with the more resource-rich sites experiencing higher frequencies of male-initiated territorial behavior. We also hypothesized that males would express more territorial behavior (chases and vocalizations) than females. We counted two types of territorial behavior in both males and females: chasings and vocalizations. Our results showed that more male aggression occurred at the resource-rich triple feeder sites, but there were more instances of female aggression than male aggression, especially at single feeder sites. Resource availability of a given site seems to be a determining factor affecting the distribution of each sex. Ihttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/109734/1/Biswas_Dollison_French_Roos_2014.pd

Boosting the HP Filter for Trending Time Series with Long Range Dependence

This paper extends recent asymptotic theory developed for the Hodrick Prescott (HP) filter and boosted HP (bHP) filter to long range dependent time series that have fractional Brownian motion (fBM) limit processes after suitable standardization. Under general conditions it is shown that the asymptotic form of the HP filter is a smooth curve, analogous to the finding in Phillips and Jin (2021) for integrated time series and series with deterministic drifts. Boosting the filter using the iterative procedure suggested in Phillips and Shi (2021) leads under well defined rate conditions to a consistent estimate of the fBM limit process or the fBM limit process with an accompanying deterministic drift when that is present. A stopping criterion is used to automate the boosting algorithm, giving a data-determined method for practical implementation. The theory is illustrated in simulations and two real data examples that highlight the differences between simple HP filtering and the use of boosting. The analysis is assisted by employing a uniformly and almost surely convergent trigonometric series representation of fBM

Quantitative Assessment of Robotic Swarm Coverage

This paper studies a generally applicable, sensitive, and intuitive error metric for the assessment of robotic swarm density controller performance. Inspired by vortex blob numerical methods, it overcomes the shortcomings of a common strategy based on discretization, and unifies other continuous notions of coverage. We present two benchmarks against which to compare the error metric value of a given swarm configuration: non-trivial bounds on the error metric, and the probability density function of the error metric when robot positions are sampled at random from the target swarm distribution. We give rigorous results that this probability density function of the error metric obeys a central limit theorem, allowing for more efficient numerical approximation. For both of these benchmarks, we present supporting theory, computation methodology, examples, and MATLAB implementation code.Comment: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO), Porto, Portugal, 29--31 July 2018. 11 pages, 4 figure

Early Clinical Features of Dengue Virus Infection in Nicaraguan Children: A Longitudinal Analysis

Dengue virus causes an estimated 50 million dengue cases and approximately 500,000 life-threatening complications annually. New tools are needed to distinguish dengue from other febrile illnesses. In addition, the natural history of pediatric dengue early in illness in a community-based setting has not been well-defined. Here, we describe the clinical spectrum of pediatric dengue over the course of illness in a community setting by using five years of data from an ongoing prospective cohort study of children in Managua, Nicaragua. Day-by-day analysis of clinical signs and symptoms together with longitudinal statistical analysis showed significant associations with testing dengue-positive and important differences during the early phase of illness compared to the entire course of illness. These findings are important for clinical practice since outside of the hospital setting, clinicians may see dengue patients toward the beginning of their illness and utilize that information to decide whether their patient has dengue or another febrile illness. The results of these models should be extended for the development of prediction algorithms to aid clinicians in diagnosing suspected dengue

Molecular enneanuclear CuII phosphates containing planar hexanuclear and trinuclear sub-units: syntheses, structures, and magnetism

Highly symmetric enneanuclear copper(II) phosphates [Cu9(Pz)6(μ-OH)3(μ3-OH)(ArOPO3)4(DMF)3] (PzH =pyrazole, Ar = 2,6-(CHPh2)2-4-R-C6H2; R = Me, 2MeAr; Et, 2EtAr; iPr, 2iPrAr; and Ar = 2,6-iPr2C6H3, 2Dip) comprising nine copper(II) centers and pyrazole, hydroxide and DMF as ancillary ligands were synthesized by a reaction involving the arylphosphate monoester, 1, copper(I)chloride, pyrazole, and triethylamine in a 4 : 9 : 6 : 14 ratio. All four complexes were characterized by single crystal structural analysis. The complexes contain two distinct structural motifs within the multinuclear copper scaffold: a hexanuclear unit and a trinuclear unit. In the latter, the three Cu(II) centres are bridged by a µ3-OH. Each pair of Cu(II) centers in the trinuclear unit are bridged by a pyrazole ligand. The hexanuclear unit is made up of three dinuclear Cu(II) motifs where the two Cu(II) centres are bridged by an -OH and a pyrazole ligand. The three dinuclear units are connected to each other by phosphate ligands. The latter also aid the fusion of the trinuclear and the hexanuclear motifs. Magnetic studies reveal a strong antiferromagnetic exchange between the Cu(II) centres of the dinuclear units in the hexanuclear part and a strong spin frustration in the trinuclear part leading to a degenerate ground state

Intra- and inter-individual genetic differences in gene expression

Genetic variation is known to influence the amount of mRNA produced by a gene. Given that the molecular machines control mRNA levels of multiple genes, we expect genetic variation in the components of these machines would influence multiple genes in a similar fashion. In this study we show that this assumption is correct by using correlation of mRNA levels measured independently in the brain, kidney or liver of multiple, genetically typed, mice strains to detect shared genetic influences. These correlating groups of genes (CGG) have collective properties that account for 40-90% of the variability of their constituent genes and in some cases, but not all, contain genes encoding functionally related proteins. Critically, we show that the genetic influences are essentially tissue specific and consequently the same genetic variations in the one animal may up-regulate a CGG in one tissue but down-regulate the same CGG in a second tissue. We further show similarly paradoxical behaviour of CGGs within the same tissues of different individuals. The implication of this study is that this class of genetic variation can result in complex inter- and intra-individual and tissue differences and that this will create substantial challenges to the investigation of phenotypic outcomes, particularly in humans where multiple tissues are not readily available.

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Overcoming roadblocks for in vitro nurseries in plants: induction of meiosis

Efforts to increase genetic gains in breeding programs of flowering plants depend on making genetic crosses. Time to flowering, which can take months to decades depending on the species, can be a limiting factor in such breeding programs. It has been proposed that the rate of genetic gain can be increased by reducing the time between generations by circumventing flowering through the in vitro induction of meiosis. In this review, we assess technologies and approaches that may offer a path towards meiosis induction, the largest current bottleneck for in vitro plant breeding. Studies in non-plant, eukaryotic organisms indicate that the in vitro switch from mitotic cell division to meiosis is inefficient and occurs at very low rates. Yet, this has been achieved with mammalian cells by the manipulation of a limited number of genes. Therefore, to experimentally identify factors that switch mitosis to meiosis in plants, it is necessary to develop a high-throughput system to evaluate a large number of candidate genes and treatments, each using large numbers of cells, few of which may gain the ability to induce meiosis

Analysis of the Promoters Involved in Enterocin AS-48 Expression

The enterocin AS-48 is the best characterized antibacterial circular protein in prokaryotes. It is a hydrophobic and cationic bacteriocin, which is ribosomally synthesized by enterococcal cells and post-translationally cyclized by a head-to-tail peptide bond. The production of and immunity towards AS-48 depend upon the coordinated expression of ten genes organized in two operons, as-48ABC (where genes encoding enzymes with processing, secretion, and immunity functions are adjacent to the structural as-48A gene) and as-48C1DD1EFGH. The current study describes the identification of the promoters involved in AS-48 expression. Seven putative promoters have been here amplified, and separately inserted into the promoter-probe vector pTLR1, to create transcriptional fusions with the mCherry gene used as a reporter. The activity of these promoter regions was assessed measuring the expression of the fluorescent mCherry protein using the constitutive pneumococcal promoter PX as a reference. Our results revealed that only three promoters PA, P2(2) and PD1 were recognized in Enterococcus faecalis, Lactococcus lactis and Escherichia coli, in the conditions tested. The maximal fluorescence was obtained with PX in all the strains, followed by the P2(2) promoter, which level of fluorescence was 2-fold compared to PA and 4-fold compared to PD1. Analysis of putative factors influencing the promoter activity in single and double transformants in E. faecalis JH2-2 demonstrated that, in general, a better expression was achieved in presence of pAM401-81. In addition, the P2(2) promoter could be regulated in a negative fashion by genes existing in the native pMB-2 plasmid other than those of the as-48 cluster, while the pH seems to affect differently the as-48 promoter expression.This work was supported in part by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación project BIO2008-01708, the Plan Propio from the University of Granada (Spain) and by the Research Plan Group (BIO 160)

Clinical utility of genetic testing in 201 preschool children with inherited eye disorders

From Springer Nature via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2019-09-23, registration 2019-11-25, accepted 2019-11-25, pub-electronic 2019-12-18, online 2019-12-18, pub-print 2020-04-01Publication status: PublishedAbstract: Purpose: A key property to consider in all genetic tests is clinical utility, the ability of the test to influence patient management and health outcomes. Here we assess the current clinical utility of genetic testing in diverse pediatric inherited eye disorders (IEDs). Methods: Two hundred one unrelated children (0–5 years old) with IEDs were ascertained through the database of the North West Genomic Laboratory Hub, Manchester, UK. The cohort was collected over a 7-year period (2011–2018) and included 74 children with bilateral cataracts, 8 with bilateral ectopia lentis, 28 with bilateral anterior segment dysgenesis, 32 with albinism, and 59 with inherited retinal disorders. All participants underwent panel-based genetic testing. Results: The diagnostic yield of genetic testing for the cohort was 64% (ranging from 39% to 91% depending on the condition). The test result led to altered management (including preventing additional investigations or resulting in the introduction of personalized surveillance measures) in 33% of probands (75% for ectopia lentis, 50% for cataracts, 33% for inherited retinal disorders, 7% for anterior segment dysgenesis, 3% for albinism). Conclusion: Genetic testing helped identify an etiological diagnosis in the majority of preschool children with IEDs. This prevented additional unnecessary testing and provided the opportunity for anticipatory guidance in significant subsets of patients

Specific Receptor Usage in Plasmodium falciparum Cytoadherence Is Associated with Disease Outcome

Our understanding of the basis of severe disease in malaria is incomplete. It is clear that pathology is in part related to the pro-inflammatory nature of the host response but a number of other factors are also thought to be involved, including the interaction between infected erythrocytes and endothelium. This is a complex system involving several host receptors and a major parasite-derived variant antigen (PfEMP1) expressed on the surface of the infected erythrocyte membrane. Previous studies have suggested a role for ICAM-1 in the pathology of cerebral malaria, although these have been inconclusive. In this study we have examined the cytoadherence patterns of 101 patient isolates from varying clinical syndromes to CD36 and ICAM-1, and have used variant ICAM-1 proteins to further characterise this adhesive phenotype. Our results show that increased binding to CD36 is associated with uncomplicated malaria while ICAM-1 adhesion is raised in parasites from cerebral malaria cases