Cercidiphyllum japonicum (Katsura Tree) ID# Unknown

Location: In front of library Height: 2.82 m Diameter at Breast Height: 15 cm Radius of Crown: 1.60 m Condition: Unknown Age Class: Unknownhttps://digitalcommons.salve.edu/bio140_arboretum/1001/thumbnail.jp

Methods of isolation and identification of pathogenic and potential pathogenic bacteria from skins and tannery effluents

Currently there is no standard protocol available within the leather industry to isolate and identify pathogenic bacteria from hides, skins or tannery effluent. This study was therefore carried out to identify simple but effective methods for isolation and identification of bacterial pathogens from the effluent and skins during leather processing. Identification methods based on both phenotypic and genotypic characteristics were investigated. Bacillus cereus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were used as indicator bacteria to evaluate the isolation and identification methods. Decontaminated calfskins were inoculated with a pure culture of the above mentioned bacterial species followed by a pre-tanning and chromium tanning processes. Effluent samples were collected and skins were swabbed at the end of each processing stage. Bacterial identification was carried out based on the phenotypic characteristics; such as colony appearance on selective solid media, cell morphology following a standard Gram-staining and spore staining techniques, and biochemical reactions, e.g., the ability of a bacterial species to ferment particular sugars and ability to produce certain enzymes. Additionally, an identification system based on bacterial phenotypic characteristics, known as Biolog® system was applied. A pulsed-filed gel electrophoresis (PFGE) method for bacterial DNA fingerprinting was also evaluated and used for the identification of the inoculated bacteria. The methods described in the study were found to be effective for the identification of pathogenic bacteria from skins and effluent

Prompting LLMs with content plans to enhance the summarization of scientific articles

This paper presents novel prompting techniques to improve the performance of automatic summarization systems for scientific articles. Scientific article summarization is highly challenging due to the length and complexity of these documents. We conceive, implement, and evaluate prompting techniques that provide additional contextual information to guide summarization systems. Specifically, we feed summarizers with lists of key terms extracted from articles, such as author keywords or automatically generated keywords. Our techniques are tested with various summarization models and input texts. Results show performance gains, especially for smaller models summarizing sections separately. This evidences that prompting is a promising approach to overcoming the limitations of less powerful systems. Our findings introduce a new research direction of using prompts to aid smaller models.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Evaluación de portafolio de inversionistas institucionales: fondos mutuos y fondos de pensionistas

Clasificación JEL:

Gradual Drift Detection in Process Models Using Conformance Metrics

Changes, planned or unexpected, are common during the execution of real-life processes. Detecting these changes is a must for optimizing the performance of organizations running such processes. Most of the algorithms present in the state-of-the-art focus on the detection of sudden changes, leaving aside other types of changes. In this paper, we will focus on the automatic detection of gradual drifts, a special type of change, in which the cases of two models overlap during a period of time. The proposed algorithm relies on conformance checking metrics to carry out the automatic detection of the changes, performing also a fully automatic classification of these changes into sudden or gradual. The approach has been validated with a synthetic dataset consisting of 120 logs with different distributions of changes, getting better results in terms of detection and classification accuracy, delay and change region overlapping than the main state-of-the-art algorithms

Behavioural biology of South American domestic camelids: An overview from a welfare perspective

South American domestic camelids (SADC) have played a key role in the culture, economy, food security and livelihoods of ancient and contemporary societies in Andean countries. This is especially due to the capacity of alpacas and llamas to produce fibre and meat under extreme geographic and climatic conditions. In addition, the breeding and use of SADC as fibre, meat, pet and sheep herding animals has become popular in Europe, North America and Oceania. However, research and scientific literature concerning the behaviour and welfare of both species is scarce, dispersed, and with little visibility compared to other species. Therefore, the objective of this literature review is to compile the international scientific literature on the most relevant aspects of the behaviour of llamas and alpacas, especially in terms of practical aspects which could be used to improve their welfare in the many production systems in which they are raised

Meat consumption and consumer attitudes in México: Can persistence lead to change?

Meat is an essential element of contemporary Mexican culture. Its consumption is linked to ancestral elements as well as to agri-food globalization. Currently, the three types of meat most consumed by Mexicans are chicken (35 kg/person/year), pork (20 kg/person/year) and beef (15 kg/person/year). The consumption of these types of meats is highly influenced by price, regional preferences and emerging trends related to health, environmental and animal welfare concerns. The Mexican diet also includes other types of meats such as turkey, horse, sheep, goat and rabbit; their consumption is related to factors associated with health, tradition and availability. Mexico is the Latin American country with the highest number of people who follow plant-based diets, with 19% being vegetarian, 15% flexitarian and 9% vegan. This overview shows that the persistence of meat consumption in the country is not a uniform phenomenon, where deep-rooted culinary traditions coexist with changes in the horizon influenced by globalization, health and environmental concerns, animal welfare and household income

On the survivability and detectability of terrestrial meteorites on the moon

Materials blasted into space from the surface of early Earth may preserve a unique record of our planet's early surface environment. Armstrong et al. (2002) pointed out that such materials, in the form of terrestrial meteorites, may exist on the Moon and be of considerable astrobiological interest if biomarkers from early Earth are preserved within them. Here, we report results obtained via the AUTODYN hydrocode to calculate the peak pressures within terrestrial meteorites on the lunar surface to assess their likelihood of surviving the impact. Our results confirm the order-of-magnitude estimates of Armstrong et al. (2002) that substantial survivability is to be expected, especially in the case of relatively low velocity (ca. 2.5 km/s) or oblique (≤45°) impacts, or both. We outline possible mechanisms for locating such materials on the Moon and conclude that searching for them would be a scientifically valuable activity for future lunar exploration

PCR Based Genotyping of Lulu Cattle of Nepal for A1, A2 Type Beta-caseins

Lulu is an indigenous breed of cattle (Bos taurus) found in high altitude regions of western Nepal. Population of Lulu cattle has been declining due to introgression with other exotic breeds to increase milk productivity. Here we aimed at finding potential approach for conserving Lulu cattle and its assets by studying the milk contents and investigating which variant of beta-casein protein is present in this breed. Beta caseins are an abundant protein in cow milk with A1 and A2 being the most common genetic variants of this protein. Consumption of A1 type of milk has numerous health-related complications whereas A2 type of milk has numerous human health promoting factors. We used restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) for determining the A1 and A2 variant of beta casein in Lulu cattle. For performing DNA extraction, we collected (n = 18) blood samples of Lulu from Mustang and (n=17) Nepal Agriculture research council farm. The amplified fragments in 3% agarose at 251bp and 213bp respectively confirmed the presence of both A1 and A2 gene in Lulu; however, A2 was of greater abundance. Our study indicated that Lulu has A2 variant of beta-casein predominantly. The gene frequency of A1A1 is 0, A1A2 is 0.06 and A2A2 is 0.94. We further found that the allele frequency of A1 and A2 is 0.03 and 0.97 respectively. We designed special primer for sequencing CSN2 genes since A2 type beta casein gene was predominantly seen on Lulu. The sequencing result further supports our RFLP result as most of our samples have “C” nucleotide SNP in amplified CSN2 gene sequence. The Chi-square value of the current study is 0.04 which supports Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium inferring that Lulu cattle are still in the pure state, where there is no genetic introgression with the exotic breed for the sake of improvement of productivity