A comprehensive analysis of the genetic diversity and environmental adaptability in worldwide Merino and Merino-derived sheep breeds

BACKGROUND: To enhance and extend the knowledge about the global historical and phylogenetic relationships between Merino and Merino-derived breeds, 19 populations were genotyped with the OvineSNP50 BeadChip specifically for this study, while an additional 23 populations from the publicly available genotypes were retrieved. Three complementary statistical tests, Rsb (extended haplotype homozygosity between-populations), XP-EHH (cross-population extended haplotype homozygosity), and runs of homozygosity (ROH) islands were applied to identify genomic variants with potential impact on the adaptability of Merino genetic type in two contrasting climate zones. RESULTS: The results indicate that a large part of the Merino's genetic relatedness and admixture patterns are explained by their genetic background and/or geographic origin, followed by local admixture. Multi-dimensional scaling, Neighbor-Net, Admixture, and TREEMIX analyses consistently provided evidence of the role of Australian, Rambouillet and German strains in the extensive gene introgression into the other Merino and Merino-derived breeds. The close relationship between Iberian Merinos and other South-western European breeds is consistent with the Iberian origin of the Merino genetic type, with traces from previous contributions of other Mediterranean stocks. Using Rsb and XP-EHH approaches, signatures of selection were detected spanning four genomic regions located on Ovis aries chromosomes (OAR) 1, 6 and 16, whereas two genomic regions on OAR6, that partially overlapped with the previous ones, were highlighted by ROH islands. Overall, the three approaches identified 106 candidate genes putatively under selection. Among them, genes related to immune response were identified via the gene interaction network. In addition, several candidate genes were found, such as LEKR1, LCORL, GHR, RBPJ, BMPR1B, PPARGC1A, and PRKAA1, related to morphological, growth and reproductive traits, adaptive thermogenesis, and hypoxia responses. CONCLUSIONS: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive dataset that includes most of the Merino and Merino-derived sheep breeds raised in different regions of the world. The results provide an in-depth picture of the genetic makeup of the current Merino and Merino-derived breeds, highlighting the possible selection pressures associated with the combined effect of anthropic and environmental factors. The study underlines the importance of Merino genetic types as invaluable resources of possible adaptive diversity in the context of the occurring climate changes

SaintEtiQ: a fuzzy set-based approach to database summarization

In this paper, a new approach to database summarization is introduced through our model named SAINTETIQ. Base

Manipulating Fuzzy Summaries of Databases: Unary Operators and Their Properties

In this paper we propose a general framework to explore and analyse database summaries built from massive data sets. Summaries are multidimensional vague concepts, represented by a set of fuzzy terms provided on each attribute as domain knowledge. We define a logical data model called summary partition, as cubes do in OLAP systems. We then propose a set of unary operators over this data model. We also study their properties

Image Database Summarization with the SaintEtiQ System

In this paper, a new approach for the summarization of image database is described. A linguistic description of images is first generated from its low level features such as color

Mining a Commercial Banking Data Set: The SaintEtiQ Approach

In this paper, an original approach to database summarization is applied to a massive data set provided by a bank marketing department. The overall summarization process is concerned with the knowledge discovery paradigm, even if purposes of the approach are quite different from those of KDD. The summarization process is intended to find general representations of data overall the database, whereas KDD processes deal with knowledge nugget extraction from data, without prioritizing the cover property

Prototyping and Browsing Image Databases Using Linguistic Summaries

In this paper, a new approach for the summarization of image databases is described. A linguistic description of image is first generated from its low level features such as color. An original incremental summary process, called SAINTETIQ is then applied to the images, leading to a comprehensive set of summaries of parts of the database, hierarchically organized. The summary process is driven by data and relies on background knowledge represented by a fuzzy relational thesaurus. It provides both a proximity measure between terms of color domain, and a way to produce generalized descriptions of summaries. Finally, this article points out usages of the produced summaries. A new method to browse image databases is then presented as well as a way to produce relevant prototypes from groups of images. Those tasks benefit from the linguistic descriptions of summaries provided by SAINTETIQ

Querying the SaintEtiQ Summaries – Dealing with Null Answers

Abstract — The data summarization techniques are usually not provided with tools for end-users to efficiently use the produced summaries. In a previous work, a querying tool for the SAINTETIQ summarization model has been outlined. It takes advantage of the hierarchical structure of those summaries to efficiently describe tuples that satisfy some selection criteria. This querying mechanism can be seen both as a boolean one over the summaries, and as a flexible one over the underlying relational tuples. This paper mainly investigates the case of null answers. It is shown how, in this case, alternative queries with non-null answers can be proposed to the user. I

A Fuzzy Linguistic Summarization Technique for TV Recommender Systems

is resulting in a soaring number of broadcast programs available to viewers. To alleviate this problem, Personal Video Recorders (multimedia platforms which record TV programs on a hard disk) should integrate a recommender system, which purpose is to filter programs according to their relevance. These systems are based on a user profile, acting as a representative for the user's interests. An important research issue resides in going beyond explicitly userdefined profiles