FlyMine: an integrated database for Drosophila and Anopheles genomics.

FlyMine is a data warehouse that addresses one of the important challenges of modern biology: how to integrate and make use of the diversity and volume of current biological data. Its main focus is genomic and proteomics data for Drosophila and other insects. It provides web access to integrated data at a number of different levels, from simple browsing to construction of complex queries, which can be executed on either single items or lists

Carbon sequestration potential, challenges, and strategies towards climate action in smallholder agricultural systems of South Asia

South Asia is a global hotspot for climate change with enormous pressure on land and water resources for feeding the burgeoning population. The agricultural production systems are highly vulnerable in the region and is primarily dominated by small and marginal farmers with intensive farming practices that had favored the loss of carbon (C) from soil. This review discusses the potential of soil and crop management practices such as minimum/reduced/no-tillage, use of organic manure, balanced and integrated plant nutrient application, precision land levelling, precision water and pest management, residue management, and cropping system optimization to maintain the C-equilibrium between soil and atmosphere and to enhance the C-sequestration in the long run. Results of meta-analysis show a potential 36% increase in soil organic C stock in the top 0–15 cm layer in this region which amounts to ∼18 Mg C stocks ha−1. Improved management practices across crops and environment may reduce methane em0ission by 12% resulting in an 8% reduction in global warming potential (GWP), while non-submerged condition led to a 51% GWP reduction in rice. Conservation agriculture and precision fertilization also reduced GWP by 11 and 14%, respectively. Although several innovative climate resilient technologies having significant potential for C-sequestration have been developed, there is an urgent need for their scaling and accelerated adoption to increase soil C-sequestration. Policies and programs need to be devised for incentivizing farmers to adopt more C-neutral or C-positive agricultural practices. The national governments and other agencies should work towards C farming together with global initiatives such as the “4 per 1000” Initiative and Global Soil Partnership, and regional public-private partnership initiatives on carbon credits for Regenerative Agriculture such as by Grow Indigo-CIMMYT-ICAR in India, in addition to research and policy changes. This will be vital for the success of soil C sequestration towards climate action in South Asia

Fungal systematics and evolution : FUSE 7

publishedVersio

Spatial Attention-Enhanced EEG Analysis for Profiling Consumer Choices

Over the years, research in neuroscience-driven marketing has progressively delved into the conscious and subconscious behaviors of consumers. Existing Electroencephalography (EEG)-based studies related to consumer preferences toward products are not comprehensive. Due to non-stationarity issues of EEG, a significant variance is observed in inter-trial and inter-session EEG signals of a subject, which leads to challenges in building a universal consumer preference model across diverse subjects, sessions, and tasks. Transfer learning mitigates this challenge by utilizing data or knowledge from similar subjects, sessions, or tasks to improve the learning process for a new subject, session, or task, thereby enhancing overall model performance. Moreover, high-dimensional EEG features often lead to poor classification results. Therefore, selecting meaningful or refined features is of utmost importance for classification. Therefore, we propose a robust EEG-based neuromarketing framework combining deep transfer learning, spatial attention model, and deep neural networks. The proposed framework predicts the consumer choices (in terms of “likes” and “dislikes”) for e-commerce products. Initially, the knowledge distillation is performed from the pre-trained network to the proposed model, and the model is trained on the connectivity features of EEG. Next, the attention-based features are extracted from high-level connectivity features using the spatial attention model (Convolutional Block Attention Module: CBAM). CBAM extracts the attention feature maps along channel and spatial dimensions for adaptive feature refinement. The refined features improve the classification accuracy. Finally, the attention-based features are passed to the 2D CNN-based deep learning model to evaluate consumer choices. The proposed model achieves 95.60% classification accuracy with the experimental dataset. The proposed model achieves a significant improvement of 2.60% over the existing neuromarketing-based studies.Validerad;2024;Nivå 2;2024-03-18 (hanlid);Full text license: CC BY-NC-ND</p

A global analysis of the impact of zero‐tillage on soil physical condition, organic carbon content, and plant root response

Food security involves the sustainable utilization of soil and land resources. Zero‐tillage (ZT) practice is a proponent of better resource utilization, to improve soil physical condition, and a potential sink to atmospheric carbon. However, the impact varies across climates, over the ZT history, cropping systems, and soil depths. A meta‐analysis was performed, based on 4,131 paired data from 522 studies spread globally, to evaluate the effect of ZT in comparison to conventional tillage, on soil physical condition (bulk density; mean weight diameter of aggregates; field capacity water content; and steady‐state infiltration rate), soil organic carbon (SOC) content, and the root response (root length density). Zero‐tillage significantly improved mean weight diameter of aggregates and field capacity water content at surface and subsurface layers by 19–58% and 6–16%, respectively, and resulted in no change in bulk density in either of the layers, but infiltration rate increased by 66%. Surface 0‐ to 5‐ and 5‐ to 10‐cm layers had significantly higher SOC content under ZT, whereas in other layers, the SOC content either reduced or did not change, resulting in a small and insignificant variation in the SOC stock (~1.1%) in favor of ZT. The root length density improved by ~35% in ZT only at 0‐ to 5‐cm soil depth. Effect of climate, soil type, or cropping system could not be broadly recognized, but the impact of ZT certainly increased over time. Improvements in soil aggregation and hydraulic properties are highly convincing with the adoption of ZT, and therefore, this practice leads to the better and sustainable use of soil resources

Three photon absorbing photocatalyst enabled defluorinative amination of fluoroarenes

We have developed a photocatalytic system that explores the latent potential of a new photocatalyst HATCN. The architecture of this flat molecule is well poised to pose it as a great photooxidant, that can also afford multiple redox states. The excited reduction potential of HATCN is calculated as 2.83 V which corroborates well with its strong oxidizing behavior. A large number of SNAr reactions have been conducted over a wide variety of fluororenes with varying electronic nature. The catalytic efficiency of the photocatalyst has been demonstrated by successful reaction to both electron-neutral and -poor fluoroarenes. Furthermore, the great utility of this developed protocol has been established by applying this method over a large number of building blocks of drugs and pharmaceutically important moieties. An extensive studies delineate the involvement of three photons for one catalytic cycle, that is unprecedented in photocatalysis. Furthermore, the redox modularity of the photocatalyst gives access to the oxidant and reductant behavior of the same molecule at different stages of the catalytic cycle. This discovery of novel mechanistic paradigm will translate in solving challenging photochemical processes

An assessment of capacity building activities for common interest farmer groups in Bangladesh

This study examines how “farmers from the Common Interest Group (CIG)” have changed their capacity levels due to participating in Bangladesh’s National Agricultural Technology Program (NATP). A mixed-method design was used to collect data from 120 rice and vegetable farmers. Results show that most respondents (above 75 per cent) agree that NATP initiatives, particularly group-based extension services, developed their capacity in different cultivation techniques, resource utilisation, farm inputs, communication behaviour, market access, and involvement in farmer organisations (FOs)/community-based organisations (CBOs). This study concludes that the concept of CIGs should be incorporated into the existing extension system following the termination of donor support

Conservation agriculture for sustainable intensification in South Asia

Agriculture’s contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals requires climate-smart and profitable farm innovations. In the past decade, attention has been given to conservation agriculture as a ‘sustainable intensification’ strategy, although a lack of evidence-based consensus on the merits of conservation agriculture prevails in the context of intensive smallholder farming in South Asia. A meta-analysis using 9,686 paired site–year comparisons representing different indicators of cropping-system performance suggest significant (P < 0.05) benefits when conservation-agriculture component practices are implemented either separately or in tandem. For example, zero tillage with residue retention had a mean yield advantage of 5.8%, a water use efficiency increase of 12.6%, an increase in net economic return of 25.9% and a reduction of 12–33% in global warming potential, with more-favourable responses on loamy soils and in maize–wheat systems. Results suggest that there are opportunities to maximize expected benefits, and policymakers and development practitioners should continue to be appraised of the potential of CA for contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals in South Asia

A global analysis of alternative tillage and crop establishment practices for economically and environmentally efficient rice production

Abstract Alternative tillage and rice establishment options should aim at less water and labor to produce similar or improved yields compared with traditional puddled-transplanted rice cultivation. The relative performance of these practices in terms of yield, water input, and economics varies across rice-growing regions. A global meta and mixed model analysis was performed, using a dataset involving 323 on-station and 9 on-farm studies (a total of 3878 paired data), to evaluate the yield, water input, greenhouse gas emissions, and cost and net return with five major tillage/crop establishment options. Shifting from transplanting to direct-seeding was advantageous but the change from conventional to zero or reduced tillage reduced yields. Direct-seeded rice under wet tillage was the best alternative with yield advantages of 1.3–4.7% (p < 0.05) and higher net economic return of 13% (p < 0.05), accompanied by savings of water by 15% (p < 0.05) and a reduction in cost by 2.4–8.8%. Direct-seeding under zero tillage was another potential alternative with high savings in water input and cost of cultivation, with no yield penalty. The alternative practices reduced methane emissions but increased nitrous oxide emissions. Soil texture plays a key role in relative yield advantages, and therefore refinement of the practice to suit a specific agro-ecosystem is needed

A global analysis of alternative tillage and crop establishment practices for economically and environmentally efficient rice production

Alternative tillage and rice establishment options should aim at less water and labor to produce similar or improved yields compared with traditional puddled-transplanted rice cultivation. The relative performance of these practices in terms of yield, water input, and economics varies across rice-growing regions. A global meta&nbsp;and mixed model analysis was performed, using a dataset involving 323 on-station and 9 on-farm studies (a total of 3878 paired data), to evaluate the yield, water input, greenhouse gas emissions, and cost and net return with five major tillage/crop establishment options. Shifting from transplanting to direct-seeding was advantageous but the change from conventional to zero or reduced tillage reduced yields. Direct-seeded rice under wet tillage was the best alternative with yield advantages of 1.3-4.7% (p &lt; 0.05) and higher net economic return of 13% (p &lt; 0.05), accompanied by savings of water by 15% (p &lt; 0.05) and a reduction in cost by 2.4-8.8%.&nbsp;Direct-seeding under zero tillage was another potential alternative with high savings in water input and cost of cultivation, with no yield penalty. The alternative practices reduced methane emissions but increased nitrous oxide emissions. Soil texture plays a key role in relative yield advantages, and therefore refinement of the practice to suit a specific agro-ecosystem is needed