Paratrichodorus divergens sp. n., a new potential virus vector of tobacco rattle virus and additional observations on P. hispanus Roca & Arias, 1986 from Portugal (Nematoda: Trichodoridae)

During a survey of trichodorids in Continental Portugal, a new trichodorid species, Paratrichodorus divergens sp. n., was found. It is described and illustrated with specimens from the type locality and additional morphometric data and photographs of specimens obtained from soil samples collected in seven other localities are also included. The species is characterised in female by distinct drop-like to triangular oblique vaginal sclerotisations diverging outwards, sperm cells usually distributed all through the uteri, and in male by thin, almost straight, striated spicules, the two posteriormost pre-cloacal supplements relatively close to one another and usually opposite the distal third of retracted spicules, a slightly bilobed cloacal lip and sperm cells with sausage-shaped nucleus. Paratrichodorus divergens sp. n. most closely resembles P. hispanus Roca & Arias, 1986 with which it often occurs in mixed populations. Additional information is also provided for P. hispanus. For the new species, coding of the features are added following Decraemer and Baujard’s identification key.Centro de Biologia da Universidade do Minho (CB)

Can diet niche partitioning enhance sexual dimorphism?

Classic evolutionary theory suggests that sexual dimorphism evolves primarily via sexual and fecundity selection. However, theory and evidence are beginning to accumulate suggesting that resource competition can drive the evolution of sexual dimorphism, via ecological character displacement between sexes. A key prediction of this hypothesis is that the extent of ecological divergence between sexes will be associated with the extent of sexual dimorphism. As the stable isotope ratios of animal tissues provide a quantitative measure of various aspects of ecology, we carried out a meta-analysis examining associations between the extent of isotopic divergence between sexes and the extent of body size dimorphism. Our models demonstrate that large amounts of between-study variation in isotopic (ecological) divergence between sexes is nonrandom and may be associated with the traits of study subjects. We, therefore, completed meta-regressions to examine whether the extent of isotopic divergence between sexes is associated with the extent of sexual size dimorphism. We found modest but significantly positive associations across species between size dimorphism and ecological differences between sexes, that increased in strength when the ecological opportunity for dietary divergence between sexes was greatest. Our results, therefore, provide further evidence that ecologically mediated selection, not directly related to reproduction, can contribute to the evolution of sexual dimorphism

Fine-tuning pre-trained neural networks for medical image classification in small clinical datasets

Funding We would like to acknowledge eurekaSD: Enhancing University Research and Education in Areas Useful for Sustainable Development - grants EK14AC0037 and EK15AC0264. We thank Araucária Foundation for the Support of the Scientific and Technological Development of Paraná through a Research and Technological Productivity Scholarship for H. D. Lee (grant 028/2019). We also thank the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) through the grant number 142050/2019-9 for A. R. S. Parmezan. The Portuguese team was partially supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT). R. Fonseca-Pinto was financed by the projects UIDB/50008/2020, UIDP/50008/2020, UIDB/05704/2020 and UIDP/05704/2020 and C. V. Nogueira was financed by the projects UIDB/00013/2020 and UIDP/00013/2020. The funding agencies did not have any further involvement in this paper.Convolutional neural networks have been effective in several applications, arising as a promising supporting tool in a relevant Dermatology problem: skin cancer diagnosis. However, generalizing well can be difficult when little training data is available. The fine-tuning transfer learning strategy has been employed to differentiate properly malignant from non-malignant lesions in dermoscopic images. Fine-tuning a pre-trained network allows one to classify data in the target domain, occasionally with few images, using knowledge acquired in another domain. This work proposes eight fine-tuning settings based on convolutional networks previously trained on ImageNet that can be employed mainly in limited data samples to reduce overfitting risk. They differ on the architecture, the learning rate and the number of unfrozen layer blocks. We evaluated the settings in two public datasets with 104 and 200 dermoscopic images. By finding competitive configurations in small datasets, this paper illustrates that deep learning can be effective if one has only a few dozen malignant and non-malignant lesion images to study and differentiate in Dermatology. The proposal is also flexible and potentially useful for other domains. In fact, it performed satisfactorily in an assessment conducted in a larger dataset with 746 computerized tomographic images associated with the coronavirus disease.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Repeat Random Survey of the Prevalence of Falsified and Substandard Antimalarials in the Lao PDR: A Change for the Better.

In 2003, a stratified random sample survey was conducted in the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Laos) to study the availability and quality of antimalarials in the private sector. In 2012, this survey was repeated to allow a statistically valid analysis of change through time. The counterfeit detection device 3 (CD-3) was used to assess packaging quality in the field and HPLC and mass spectroscopy analysis chemical analysis performed. The availability of oral artesunate monotherapies had significantly decreased from 22.9% (22) of 96 outlets in southern Laos in 2003 to 4.8% (7) of 144 outlets in 2012 (P < 0.0001). All the samples collected in the 2012 survey contained the correct active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in contrast to the 21 (84%) falsified artesunate samples found in the 2003 survey. Although none of the medicines found in 2012 survey had evidence for falsification, 25.4% (37) of the samples were outside the 90-110% pharmacopeial limits of the label claim, suggesting that they were substandard or degraded. Results obtained from this survey show that patients are still exposed to poorly manufactured drugs or to ineffective medicines such as chloroquine. The quality of artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) used in Laos needs to be monitored, since falsified ACTs would have devastating consequences in public health

Comparison of the protein-coding genomes of three deep-sea, sulfur-oxidising bacteria: “Candidatus Ruthia magnifica”, “Candidatus Vesicomyosocius okutanii” and Thiomicrospira crunogena

Abstract Objective “ Candidatus Ruthia magnifica”, “Candidatus Vesicomyosocius okutanii” and Thiomicrospira crunogena are all sulfur-oxidising bacteria found in deep-sea vent environments. Recent research suggests that the two symbiotic organisms, “Candidatus R. magnifica” and “Candidatus V. okutanii”, may share common ancestry with the autonomously living species T. crunogena. We used comparative genomics to examine the genome-wide protein-coding content of all three species to explore their similarities. In particular, we used the OrthoMCL algorithm to sort proteins into groups of putative orthologs on the basis of sequence similarity. Results The OrthoMCL inflation parameter was tuned using biological criteria. Using the tuned value, OrthoMCL delimited 1070 protein groups. 63.5% of these groups contained one protein from each species. Two groups contained duplicate protein copies from all three species. 123 groups were unique to T. crunogena and ten groups included multiple copies of T. crunogena proteins but only single copies from the other species. “Candidatus R. magnifica” had one unique group, and had multiple copies in one group where the other species had a single copy. There were no groups unique to “Candidatus V. okutanii”, and no groups in which there were multiple “Candidatus V. okutanii” proteins but only single proteins from the other species. Results align with previous suggestions that all three species share a common ancestor. However this is not definitive evidence to make taxonomic conclusions and the possibility of horizontal gene transfer was not investigated. Methodologically, the tuning of the OrthoMCL inflation parameter using biological criteria provides further methods to refine the OrthoMCL procedure

Unrevealing the interactive effects of climate change and oil contamination on lab-simulated estuarine benthic communities

There is growing concern that modifications to the global environment such as ocean acidification and increased ultraviolet radiation may interact with anthropogenic pollutants to adversely affect the future marine environment. Despite this, little is known about the nature of the potential risks posed by such interactions. Here, we performed a multifactorial microcosm experiment to assess the impact of ocean acidification, ultraviolet radiation B (UV-B) and oil hydrocarbon contamination on sediment chemistry, the microbial community (composition and function) and biochemical marker response of selected indicator species. We found that increased ocean acidification and oil contamination in the absence of UV-B will significantly alter bacterial composition by, among other changes, greatly reducing the relative abundance of Desulfobacterales, known to be important oil hydrocarbon degraders. Along with changes in bacterial composition, we identified concomitant shifts in the composition of aromatic hydrocarbons in the sediment and an increase in oxidative stress effects on our indicator species. Interestingly, our study identifies UV-B as a critical component in the interaction between these factors, since its presence alleviates harmful effects caused by the combination of reduced pH and oil pollution. The model system used here shows that the interactive effect of reduced pH and oil contamination can adversely affect the structure and functioning of sediment benthic communities, with the potential to exacerbate the toxicity of oil hydrocarbons in marine ecosystems

Poor quality vital anti-malarials in Africa - an urgent neglected public health priority

BACKGROUND: Plasmodium falciparum malaria remains a major public health problem. A vital component of malaria control rests on the availability of good quality artemisinin-derivative based combination therapy (ACT) at the correct dose. However, there are increasing reports of poor quality anti-malarials in Africa. METHODS: Seven collections of artemisinin derivative monotherapies, ACT and halofantrine anti-malarials of suspicious quality were collected in 2002/10 in eleven African countries and in Asia en route to Africa. Packaging, chemical composition (high performance liquid chromatography, direct ionization mass spectrometry, X-ray diffractometry, stable isotope analysis) and botanical investigations were performed. RESULTS: Counterfeit artesunate containing chloroquine, counterfeit dihydroartemisinin (DHA) containing paracetamol (acetaminophen), counterfeit DHA-piperaquine containing sildenafil, counterfeit artemether-lumefantrine containing pyrimethamine, counterfeit halofantrine containing artemisinin, and substandard/counterfeit or degraded artesunate and artesunate+amodiaquine in eight countries are described. Pollen analysis was consistent with manufacture of counterfeits in eastern Asia. These data do not allow estimation of the frequency of poor quality anti-malarials in Africa. CONCLUSIONS: Criminals are producing diverse harmful anti-malarial counterfeits with important public health consequences. The presence of artesunate monotherapy, substandard and/or degraded and counterfeit medicines containing sub-therapeutic amounts of unexpected anti-malarials will engender drug resistance. With the threatening spread of artemisinin resistance to Africa, much greater investment is required to ensure the quality of ACTs and removal of artemisinin monotherapies. The International Health Regulations may need to be invoked to counter these serious public health problems

Análise do N-terminal da proteína capsidial de SCMV infectando milho e sorgo no Brasil

Os objetivos do presente estudo foram (i) identificar por meio do sequenciamento da proteína capsidial a espécie de potyvírus causando sintomas de mosaico em milho e sorgo no Brasil, e (ii) analisar a sequência de aminoácidos (aa) do N-terminal do gene da proteína capsidial.Fil: Souza, Isabel Regina Prazeres de. Embrapa Milho e Sorgo, Sete Lagoas; BrasilFil: Carneiro, Newton Portilho. Embrapa Milho e Sorgo, Sete Lagoas; BrasilFil: Giolitti, Fabian. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Patología Vegetal; ArgentinaFil: Lenardon, Sergio Luis. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Patología Vegetal; ArgentinaFil: Oliveira Sabato, Elizabeth de. Embrapa Milho e Sorgo, Sete Lagoas; BrasilFil: Gomes, Eliane Aparecida. Embrapa Milho e Sorgo, Sete Lagoas; BrasilFil: Noda, Roberto Willians. Embrapa Milho e Sorgo, Sete Lagoas; BrasilFil: Souza, Francisco Adriano de. Embrapa Milho e Sorgo, Sete Lagoas; Brasi