Evaluation of Deep Learning-Based Monitoring of Frog Reproductive Phenology

カエルの鳴き声をAIで識別する --繁殖活動の高効率なモニタリング調査に向けて--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2023-11-20.To evaluate the utility of a deep-learning approach for monitoring amphibian reproduction, we examined the classification accuracy of a trained model and tested correlations between calling intensity and frog abundance. Field recording and count surveys were conducted at two sites in Kyoto City, Japan. A convolutional neural network (CNN) model was trained to classify the calls of five anuran species. The model achieved 91–100% precision and 75–98% recall per species, with relatively lower performance on less abundant species. Computational experiments investigating the effects of the number and seasonality of the training samples showed that models trained on larger datasets from broader recording seasons performed better. Calling activity was high when males were abundant (Pearson's r = 0.45–0.66), although correlations between the calling activity and the number of pairs in amplexus were generally weaker. Our results suggest that deep learning is an effective tool for reconstructing the reproductive phenology of male anurans from field recordings. However, caution is required when applying to rare species and when inferring female reproductive activity

多重反射型飛行時間式質量分折器を用いたＡ～60-80 領域中性子欠乏核の精密質量測定

筑波大学 (University of Tsukuba)201

Mitochondrial differentiation, introgression and phylogeny of species in the Tegenaria atrica group (Araneae, Agelenidae)

The relationships between the three members of the Tegenaria atrica group (T. atrica, T. saeva and T. gigantea) were examined with DNA sequence data from mitochondrial CO1, 16S rRNA, tRNAleu(CUN) and ND1 genes. Members of this group of large house spiders have overlapping distributions in western Europe and hybridize with each other to a variable degree. The close relatedness of all three species was supported by all analyses. T. saeva and T. gigantea are more closely affiliated than either is to T. atrica. Haplotypes clearly assignable to T. gigantea were also present in many specimens of T. saeva suggesting asymmetrical introgression of mtDNA from T. gigantea into T. saeva. Molecular clock calibrations (CO1) suggest that deeper divisions within the genus Tegenaria may be in excess of 10 million years old, and that the evolutionary history of the T. atrica group has been moulded by Quaternary glacial-interglacial cycles

Design report of the KISS-II facility for exploring the origin of uranium

One of the critical longstanding issues in nuclear physics is the origin of the heavy elements such as platinum and uranium. The r-process hypothesis is generally supported as the process through which heavy elements are formed via explosive rapid neutron capture. Many of the nuclei involved in heavy-element synthesis are unidentified, short-lived, neutron-rich nuclei, and experimental data on their masses, half-lives, excited states, decay modes, and reaction rates with neutron etc., are incredibly scarce. The ultimate goal is to understand the origin of uranium. The nuclei along the pathway to uranium in the r-process are in "Terra Incognita". In principle, as many of these nuclides have more neutrons than 238U, this region is inaccessible via the in-flight fragmentation reactions and in-flight fission reactions used at the present major facilities worldwide. Therefore, the multi-nucleon transfer (MNT) reaction, which has been studied at the KEK Isotope Separation System (KISS), is attracting attention. However, in contrast to in-flight fission and fragmentation, the nuclei produced by the MNT reaction have characteristic kinematics with broad angular distribution and relatively low energies which makes them non-amenable to in-flight separation techniques. KISS-II would be the first facility to effectively connect production, separation, and analysis of nuclides along the r-process path leading to uranium. This will be accomplished by the use of a large solenoid to collect MNT products while rejecting the intense primary beam, a large helium gas catcher to thermalize the MNT products, and an MRTOF mass spectrograph to perform mass analysis and isobaric purification of subsequent spectroscopic studies. The facility will finally allow us to explore the neutron-rich nuclides in this Terra Incognita.Comment: Editors: Yutaka Watanabe and Yoshikazu Hirayam

地域と連携した基礎看護実習の成果

島根県立看護短期大学看護学科では、初めての看護実習となる基礎看護実習Iにおいて地域の家庭を訪問する実習を行なっている。本研究では1998年以降の5年間に学生及び訪問対象者に対して行なったアンケート調査をもとに、本実習の成果を明らかにした。その結果、1.学生、訪問対象者共に実習への満足度は高かった。2.学生は実習目標に加え、人生観、生活の知恵、社会生活上の常識などを学び、以後の学習の動機づけになっていた。3.訪問対象者は看護教育へ参加することを通して、社会貢献の喜び、生活への刺激、若者への親近感や理解への助けを得ていた。4.実習報告会は、学生、訪問対象者ともに実習の成果を促進させていた、ということが明らかになり、基礎看護実習における地域の教育力の活用の有効性が示唆された

Differences in Ocular Complications Between Candida albicans and Non-albicans Candida Infection Analyzed by Epidemiology and a Mouse Ocular Candidiasis Model

Objectives:Candida species are a major cause of hospital infections, including ocular candidiasis, but few studies have examined the propensities of specific species to invade the eye or the unique immunological responses induced. This study examined the frequency and characteristics of species-specific Candida eye infections by epidemiology and experiments using a mouse ocular candidiasis model.Methods: We reviewed medical records of candidemia patients from January 2012 to March 2017. We also evaluated ocular fungal burden, inflammatory cytokine and chemokine profiles, and inflammatory cell profiles in mice infected with Candida albicans, Candida glabrata, or Candida parapsilosis.Results: During the study period, 20 ocular candidiasis cases were diagnosed among 99 candidemia patients examined by ophthalmologists. Although C. parapsilosis was the most frequent candidemia pathogen, only C. albicans infection was significantly associated with ocular candidiasis by multivariate analysis. In mice, ocular fungal burden and inflammatory mediators were significantly higher during C. albicans infection, and histopathological analysis revealed invading C. albicans surrounded by inflammatory cells. Ocular neutrophil and inflammatory monocyte numbers were significantly greater during C. albicans infection.Conclusion:Candida albicans is strongly associated with ocular candidiasis due to greater capacity for invasion, induction of inflammatory mediators, and recruitment of neutrophils and inflammatory monocytes

Deciphering the demographic history of allochronic differentiation in the pine processionary moth <i>Thaumetopoea pityocampa</i>

International audienceUnderstanding the processes of adaptive divergence, which may ultimately lead to speciation, is a major question in evolutionary biology. Allochronic differentiation refers to a particular situation where gene flow is primarily impeded by temporal isolation between early and late reproducers. This process has been suggested to occur in a large array of organisms, even though it is still overlooked in the literature. We here focused on a well-documented case of incipient allochronic speciation in the winter pine processionary moth Thaumetopoea pityocampa. This species typically reproduces in summer and larval development occurs throughout autumn and winter. A unique, phenologically shifted population (SP) was discovered in 1997 in Portugal. It was proved to be strongly differentiated from the sympatric "winter population" (WP), but its evolutionary history could only now be explored. We took advantage of the recent assembly of a draft genome and of the development of pan-genomic RAD-seq markers to decipher the demographic history of the differentiating populations and develop genome scans of adaptive differentiation. We showed that the SP diverged relatively recently, that is, few hundred years ago, and went through two successive bottlenecks followed by population size expansions, while the sympatric WP is currently experiencing a population decline. We identified outlier SNPs that were mapped onto the genome, but none were associated with the phenological shift or with subsequent adaptations. The strong genetic drift that occurred along the SP lineage certainly challenged our capacity to reveal functionally important loci