Growth and development of transgenic peanut (Arachis hypogaea) lines containing chitinase 42 kDa gene from Trichoderma asperellum SH16

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is vulnerable to many diseases. Vietnam and other regions where peanut is widely cultivated have a high threat of fungal and other plant diseases. Various fungicides are available to control the fungal disease but these have various harmful effects on the natural flora, fauna, and environment. Transgenic peanut lines which possess antifungal activity provide a possible solution in managing fungal diseases apart from the traditional resistance and fungicide usage. Therefore, this study evaluated the probable growth and development of chitinase transgenic peanut lines against Sclerotium rolfsii, a pathogen that causes “southern blight” in plants, under greenhouse conditions. This study provided evidence that through Agrobacterium itumefaciens mediated transformation, 42 kDa chitinase genes from Trichoderma asperellum, which is under the regulation of 35S promoter, were successfully incorporated into the peanut’s (A. hypogaea L.) genome and expressed in their plants. This evidence also demonstrated that transgenic peanut lines were suitable for growing and developing in the greenhouse. Further, it was reported that transgenic peanut lines took approximately 133 to 145 days from planting to maturity. These results also revealed that various growth characteristics of transgenic peanut lines having two synthetic genes (syncod Chi42-2 i.e. S2-2, S2-4, S2-6, and syncod Chi42-1 i.e. S1-1, S1-2, S1-3) were greater than that from the wild-type Chi42 (WT-1, WT-2, and WT-3). In addition, yield-related parameters including the number of mature pods, 100 pods weight and 100 seeds weight for all the transgenic peanut lines were higher than that of the non-transformed plant. Among the transgenic lines, line S2-4 exhibited significantly higher growth and yield than the other transgenic lines. These results demonstrated that 42 kDa chitinase genes overexpressing peanut lines could be a candidate for improvement against plants to phytopathogenic fungus S. rolfsii and high yield.

TextANIMAR: Text-based 3D Animal Fine-Grained Retrieval

3D object retrieval is an important yet challenging task, which has drawn more and more attention in recent years. While existing approaches have made strides in addressing this issue, they are often limited to restricted settings such as image and sketch queries, which are often unfriendly interactions for common users. In order to overcome these limitations, this paper presents a novel SHREC challenge track focusing on text-based fine-grained retrieval of 3D animal models. Unlike previous SHREC challenge tracks, the proposed task is considerably more challenging, requiring participants to develop innovative approaches to tackle the problem of text-based retrieval. Despite the increased difficulty, we believe that this task has the potential to drive useful applications in practice and facilitate more intuitive interactions with 3D objects. Five groups participated in our competition, submitting a total of 114 runs. While the results obtained in our competition are satisfactory, we note that the challenges presented by this task are far from being fully solved. As such, we provide insights into potential areas for future research and improvements. We believe that we can help push the boundaries of 3D object retrieval and facilitate more user-friendly interactions via vision-language technologies.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2304.0573

Effect of surgical experience and spine subspecialty on the reliability of the {AO} Spine Upper Cervical Injury Classification System

OBJECTIVE The objective of this paper was to determine the interobserver reliability and intraobserver reproducibility of the AO Spine Upper Cervical Injury Classification System based on surgeon experience (< 5 years, 5–10 years, 10–20 years, and > 20 years) and surgical subspecialty (orthopedic spine surgery, neurosurgery, and "other" surgery). METHODS A total of 11,601 assessments of upper cervical spine injuries were evaluated based on the AO Spine Upper Cervical Injury Classification System. Reliability and reproducibility scores were obtained twice, with a 3-week time interval. Descriptive statistics were utilized to examine the percentage of accurately classified injuries, and Pearson’s chi-square or Fisher’s exact test was used to screen for potentially relevant differences between study participants. Kappa coefficients (κ) determined the interobserver reliability and intraobserver reproducibility. RESULTS The intraobserver reproducibility was substantial for surgeon experience level (< 5 years: 0.74 vs 5–10 years: 0.69 vs 10–20 years: 0.69 vs > 20 years: 0.70) and surgical subspecialty (orthopedic spine: 0.71 vs neurosurgery: 0.69 vs other: 0.68). Furthermore, the interobserver reliability was substantial for all surgical experience groups on assessment 1 (< 5 years: 0.67 vs 5–10 years: 0.62 vs 10–20 years: 0.61 vs > 20 years: 0.62), and only surgeons with > 20 years of experience did not have substantial reliability on assessment 2 (< 5 years: 0.62 vs 5–10 years: 0.61 vs 10–20 years: 0.61 vs > 20 years: 0.59). Orthopedic spine surgeons and neurosurgeons had substantial intraobserver reproducibility on both assessment 1 (0.64 vs 0.63) and assessment 2 (0.62 vs 0.63), while other surgeons had moderate reliability on assessment 1 (0.43) and fair reliability on assessment 2 (0.36). CONCLUSIONS The international reliability and reproducibility scores for the AO Spine Upper Cervical Injury Classification System demonstrated substantial intraobserver reproducibility and interobserver reliability regardless of surgical experience and spine subspecialty. These results support the global application of this classification system

Imaging neurophysiology of human sexuality using positron emission tomography

Neurofysiologie is een combinatie van de fysiologie en neurologie die zich richt op het functioneren van de verschillende delen van het zenuwstelsel. Het doel van dit proefschrift is om ons begrip van de neurofysiologie van de menselijke seksualiteit te verbeteren door middel van het gebruik van functionele beeldvorming en dan met name Positron Emissie Tomografie (PET). In hoofdstuk 1 wordt een korte introductie gegeven van de neurofysiologie van de seksualiteit, PET-beeldvorming en de gebruikte methoden voor analyse van de gegevens in dit proefschrift. In hoofdstuk 2 wordt een meer gedetailleerde beschrijving gegeven van de menselijke hersenactiviteit tijdens seksuele stimulatie, ejaculatie en orgasme. Tevens wordt een verband gelegd met de hersenencircuits die betrokken zijn bij het paargedrag van katten. In hoofdstuk 3 wordt de belangrijkste bevinding gemeld en besproken; de deactivering van de visuele cortex bij vrouwen tijdens het kijken naar hoog erotische films, maar niet bij het kijken naar laag erotische en neutrale films. In hoofdstuk 4 staat beschreven dat voor het eerst is aangetoond dat beeldvormingstechnieken een activatie van de hypofyse kon identificeren in 11 gezonde vrouwen tijdens een echt orgasme kon herkennen, maar niet bij 11 gezonde mannen tijdens ejaculatie. In hoofdstuk 5 wordt beschreven dat het dorsolaterale pons-tegmentum en de ventrolaterale pons geactiveerd zijn bij zowel ejaculatie en orgasme als bij urinelozing. Wij stellen voor om deze regio’s respectievelijk het bekkenorgaanstimulerend centrum (POSC) en het bekkenbodemstimulerend centrum (PFSC) te noemen. Beide centra fungeren als de regulerende centra van de spieractiviteit in het zenuwstelsel, betrokken bij mictie, ejaculatie en orgasme. Neurophysiology is a branch of physiology and neuroscience that focuses on the functioning of the different parts of the nervous system. The aim of this thesis is to improve our understanding of the neurophysiology of human sexuality by using functional neuroimaging, in particular Positron Emission Tomography (PET). In chapter 1, a short introduction is given to neurophysiology of sexuality as well as PET imaging and the data analysis methods employed in this thesis. In chapter 2, a more detailed description of the human brain activations during sexual stimulation, ejaculation and orgasm is given and linked to brain circuits involved in the mating behavior of cats. In chapter 3, the important finding of the deactivation of the visual cortex in women during high erotic movies, but not low erotic and neutral movies, is reported and discussed. Chapter 4, we demonstrated for the first time that neuroimaging techniques could identify increases in pituitary activation in 11 healthy women during real orgasm but not in 11 healthy men during ejaculation. In chapter 5, the dorsolateral pontine tegmentum and the ventrolateral pons that we found to be activated in ejaculation and orgasm are also involved in micturition. We propose to name these regions respectively the pelvic organ stimulating center (POSC) and the pelvic floor stimulating center (PFSC) which both act as the final brain output for muscle activity involved in micturition, ejaculation and orgasm.

Female orgasm but not male ejaculation activates the pituitary. A PET-neuro-imaging study

<p>The pituitary gland plays an important role in basic survival mechanisms by releasing fluctuating amounts of hormones into the bloodstream, depending on the circumstances the individual finds itself. However, despite these changes in pituitary hormonal production, neuroimaging studies have never been able to demonstrate changes in the activation level of the pituitary. The most apparent reason is the much higher blood flow rate in the pituitary than in the brain. However, the present PET-scanning study demonstrates for the first time that neuroimaging techniques can identify increased pituitary activity. In a study with 11 healthy women sexual orgasm compared to rest caused an increased blood supply to the pituitary. We assume that this increase signifies elevated pituitary activation in order to produce higher plasma concentrations of oxytocin and prolactin. These hormones induce vaginal and uterus movements, ovulation and enhancement of sperm and egg transport. No increased blood supply was observed comparing clitoral stimulation, orgasm attempt, and faked orgasm with rest. In a study with 11 healthy men comparing ejaculation with rest did not reveal increased pituitary activation, probably because ejaculation causes a much lower increase of oxytocin and prolactin plasma concentration than female orgasm. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.</p>

Integrative 3D Geological Modeling Derived from SWIR Hyperspectral Imaging Techniques and UAV-Based 3D Model for Carbonate Rocks

This paper demonstrates an integrative 3D model of short-wave infrared (SWIR) hyperspectral mapping and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based digital elevation model (DEM) for a carbonate rock outcrop including limestone and dolostone in a field condition. The spectral characteristics in the target outcrop showed the limestone well coincided with the reference spectra, while the dolostone did not show clear absorption features compared to the reference spectra, indicating a mixture of clay minerals. The spectral indices based on SWIR hyperspectral images were derived for limestone and dolostone using aluminum hydroxide (AlOH), hydroxide (OH), iron hydroxide (FeOH), magnesium hydroxide (MgOH) and carbonate ion (CO32−) absorption features based on random forest and logistic regression models with an accuracy over 87%. Given that the indices were derived from field data with consideration of commonly occurring geological units, the indices have better applicability for real world cases. The integrative 3D geological model developed by co-registration between hyperspectral map and UAV-based DEM using best matching SIFT descriptor pairs showed the 3D rock formations between limestone and dolostone. Moreover, additional geological information of the outcrop was extracted including thickness, slope, rock classification, strike, and dip