First Report of Krymsk® 5 (cv. VSL 2) Cherry Rootstock In Vitro Propagation: Studying the Effect of Cytokinins, Auxins and Endogenous Sugars

Krymsk® 5 (VSL-2) is a semi-dwarf cherry rootstock adaptable to a range of climates. The present study aimed to establish the first efficient in vitro propagation protocol for this rootstock. Therefore, six cytokinines, four adenine type (6-benzyladenine, 2-isopentenyladenine, kinetin and meta-topolin) and two phenylureas (thidiazuron and forchlorfenuron) at three (2.4 μΜ, 4.8 μΜ and 9.6 μΜ) concentrations plus three (0.24 μΜ, 0.48 μΜ, 0.96 μΜ) for thidiazuron only were tested during the multiplication stage. 6-Benzyladenine was the most efficient cytokinin, based on the number of shoots produced (3.5 shoots at 9.6 μΜ) and the number of nodes per explant (10 nodes at 9.6 μΜ) whereas the other aromatic adenine tested, i.e. meta-topolin, presented the highest number of nodes per cm and node per shoot. During the rooting stage the synthetic auxins 1-naphthaleneacetic acid (1-NAA) and indolebutyric acid (IBA) were tested at concentrations of 0, 2.5, 5, 10 and 20 μΜ both separately and in all possible combinations. The percentage of successfully rooted explants reached 95% under the combination of 20 μΜ IBA plus 5 μΜ 1-NAA, whereas the highest number of roots recorded was 8.5 roots for the treatment 20 μΜ ΙΒΑ plus 2.5 μΜ 1-NAA. Furthermore, two different carbon sources were compared, the widely used sucrose and the endogenous sugar ratio of mother plant softwood shoot, sampled during late of May. Endogenous sugar ratio proved to be the preferable carbon source, since it increased the number of shoots produced and almost doubled the number of produced nodes per explant

Morphological variation, population genetics and genetric relatedness in three species of Callopora.

The genus Callopora is typical of a very large number of encrusting neocheilostomate genera and can be used to demonstrate the range of autozooid morphology seen in the group. Morphometric analyses of zooid length (ZL), zooid width (ZW), ovicell length (OL) and ovicell width (OW) were conducted in order to study morphological variation in different populations of Callopora dumerilii, Callopora lineata and CaUopora rylandi and to partition the morphological variation within and between sites and colonies for each species using a nested analysis of variance and a principal component analysis approach. In addition, the genetic structure in populations of these three Callopora species using the mitochondrial DNA COI gene was examined to test hypotheses concerning levels of population differentiation and intrapopulation variation. The relationships of mtDNA lineages within and between species was also investigated to clarify the phylogenetic relationships of the three species and to search for possible phylogenetic subdivisions within species. The morphological characters zooid length and zooid width were significantly different between different sites for Callopora lineata and Callopora dumerilii, but not for Callopora rylandi. However, major differences for these two morphological variables appeared in all three species in between colony within site comparisons. When comparing the ovicell length variable between different sites, noteworthy differences appeared only for Callopora rylandi, whereas considerable differences appeared in all three sites for between colonies within site comparisons. On the other hand, non-significant differences appeared for all three species when comparing ovicell width between different sites whereas highly significant differences appeared for between colony within site comparisons. The results of principal component analysis together with the results from nested ANOVA revealed that for factor 1, which defines aspects of the overall size of the zooid, there were significant differences between sites, as well as between colonies within sites for Callopora rylandi. For Callopora dumerilii and Callopora lineata, it appeared that there were no significant differences between different sites whereas there were notable differences between different colonies within sites. For factor 2, which defines aspects of the shape of the organism, there were significant differences between sites as well as between colonies within sites for both Callopora rylandi and Callopora dumerilii, while for Callopora lineata it emerged that there were no significant differences between sites, but there were important differences between colonies within sites. Analysis of the mitochondrial DNA population structure in these three species based on either haplotype frequencies or sequence divergence showed a large percentage of genetic variation within populations and a much smaller percentage of genetic variation among populations. However, for haplotype frequencies the among populations P values were significant for all species whereas when sequence divergence was taken into account only the P value for Callopora rylandi was significant. Overall nucleotide diversity was similar for Callopora dumerilii and Callopora lineata and higher than that of Callopora rylandi, whereas overall haplotype diversity was similar in all three species. Tajima's D and Fu's Fs test statistic appeared more negative in Callopora rylandi than the other species suggesting greater purifying selection or a recent population expansion. Comparisons based on dn/ds ratio suggested purifying selection as well. Reconstruction of phylogenetic relationships showed three major lineages which are mixed in all three species. Tests of neutrality in these lineages, which do not correspond to species, also suggested the existence of purifying selection

Visual Speech-Aware Perceptual 3D Facial Expression Reconstruction from Videos

The recent state of the art on monocular 3D face reconstruction from image data has made some impressive advancements, thanks to the advent of Deep Learning. However, it has mostly focused on input coming from a single RGB image, overlooking the following important factors: a) Nowadays, the vast majority of facial image data of interest do not originate from single images but rather from videos, which contain rich dynamic information. b) Furthermore, these videos typically capture individuals in some form of verbal communication (public talks, teleconferences, audiovisual human-computer interactions, interviews, monologues/dialogues in movies, etc). When existing 3D face reconstruction methods are applied in such videos, the artifacts in the reconstruction of the shape and motion of the mouth area are often severe, since they do not match well with the speech audio. To overcome the aforementioned limitations, we present the first method for visual speech-aware perceptual reconstruction of 3D mouth expressions. We do this by proposing a "lipread" loss, which guides the fitting process so that the elicited perception from the 3D reconstructed talking head resembles that of the original video footage. We demonstrate that, interestingly, the lipread loss is better suited for 3D reconstruction of mouth movements compared to traditional landmark losses, and even direct 3D supervision. Furthermore, the devised method does not rely on any text transcriptions or corresponding audio, rendering it ideal for training in unlabeled datasets. We verify the efficiency of our method through exhaustive objective evaluations on three large-scale datasets, as well as subjective evaluation with two web-based user studies

Analysis of shared heritability in common disorders of the brain

ience, this issue p. eaap8757 Structured Abstract INTRODUCTION Brain disorders may exhibit shared symptoms and substantial epidemiological comorbidity, inciting debate about their etiologic overlap. However, detailed study of phenotypes with different ages of onset, severity, and presentation poses a considerable challenge. Recently developed heritability methods allow us to accurately measure correlation of genome-wide common variant risk between two phenotypes from pools of different individuals and assess how connected they, or at least their genetic risks, are on the genomic level. We used genome-wide association data for 265,218 patients and 784,643 control participants, as well as 17 phenotypes from a total of 1,191,588 individuals, to quantify the degree of overlap for genetic risk factors of 25 common brain disorders. RATIONALE Over the past century, the classification of brain disorders has evolved to reflect the medical and scientific communities' assessments of the presumed root causes of clinical phenomena such as behavioral change, loss of motor function, or alterations of consciousness. Directly observable phenomena (such as the presence of emboli, protein tangles, or unusual electrical activity patterns) generally define and separate neurological disorders from psychiatric disorders. Understanding the genetic underpinnings and categorical distinctions for brain disorders and related phenotypes may inform the search for their biological mechanisms. RESULTS Common variant risk for psychiatric disorders was shown to correlate significantly, especially among attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder (MDD), and schizophrenia. By contrast, neurological disorders appear more distinct from one another and from the psychiatric disorders, except for migraine, which was significantly correlated to ADHD, MDD, and Tourette syndrome. We demonstrate that, in the general population, the personality trait neuroticism is significantly correlated with almost every psychiatric disorder and migraine. We also identify significant genetic sharing between disorders and early life cognitive measures (e.g., years of education and college attainment) in the general population, demonstrating positive correlation with several psychiatric disorders (e.g., anorexia nervosa and bipolar disorder) and negative correlation with several neurological phenotypes (e.g., Alzheimer's disease and ischemic stroke), even though the latter are considered to result from specific processes that occur later in life. Extensive simulations were also performed to inform how statistical power, diagnostic misclassification, and phenotypic heterogeneity influence genetic correlations. CONCLUSION The high degree of genetic correlation among many of the psychiatric disorders adds further evidence that their current clinical boundaries do not reflect distinct underlying pathogenic processes, at least on the genetic level. This suggests a deeply interconnected nature for psychiatric disorders, in contrast to neurological disorders, and underscores the need to refine psychiatric diagnostics. Genetically informed analyses may provide important "scaffolding" to support such restructuring of psychiatric nosology, which likely requires incorporating many levels of information. By contrast, we find limited evidence for widespread common genetic risk sharing among neurological disorders or across neurological and psychiatric disorders. We show that both psychiatric and neurological disorders have robust correlations with cognitive and personality measures. Further study is needed to evaluate whether overlapping genetic contributions to psychiatric pathology may influence treatment choices. Ultimately, such developments may pave the way toward reduced heterogeneity and improved diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders

Dopamine, Chlorogenic Acid, and Quinones as Possible Cofactors of Increasing Adventitious Rooting Potential of In Vitro Krymsk 5 Cherry Rootstock Explants

In the present study, the effect of some not commonly used phenolic compounds was evaluated during the in vitro rooting stage of the cherry rootstock ‘Krymsk 5′ (P. fruticosa × P. lannesiana), in the absence or presence of auxin. Two sets of experiments were conducted. In the first set, the following substances were tested: the o-diphenol chlorogenic acid, in five concentrations (0 μΜ, 0.5 μΜ, 1 μΜ, 5 μΜ, and 50 μΜ) in the presence of a suboptimal indolebutyric acid (IBA) concentration (5 μΜ), the catecholamine dopamine in five concentrations (0 μΜ, 0.5 μΜ, 1 μΜ, 5 μΜ, and 50 μΜ), and the quinone 5-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone in four concentrations (0 μΜ, 0.25 μΜ, 1 μΜ, and 5 μΜ) in the absence or presence of 5 μΜ IBA. In the second experiment, the quinones p-benzoquinone; 1,4-napthoquinone; and 2-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone were tested in four concentrations (0 μΜ, 5 μΜ, 50 μΜ, and 100 μΜ) in the presence of 5 μΜ IBA. An application of 5 μΜ of 5-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone in the auxin-free medium increased rooting potential almost 1.7 times. Rooting percentage was also enhanced up to 4.2 times by dopamine; chlorogenic acid; 5-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone; p-benzoquinone; and 1,4 napthoquinone in the presence of IBA. The present results indicate a possible promotive role of quinones and dopamine during in vitro rooting, at least for Prunus species, and their potential use as rooting cofactors. Moreover, a possible mode of action of the compounds studied related to IAA-oxidase is discussed

Perception and Text Comprehension. It’s a Matter of Perception!

This study is a comprehensive attempt to assess the impact of the cognitive skill of perception in the ability to comprehend a text. More specifically, it investigates the function of perception as a primary structure of the human brain to contact the world and examines the certain cognitive processes of perception that affect text comprehension. It is also presented the relation between cognitive perception and the linguistic approach of pragmatics in order the subject to comprehend the text. Perception is the organization, identification and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the environment. Pragmatics is the linguistic field that studies how people comprehend and produce speech or a text as a communicative act. Furthermore, it features the current scientific achievements on the ICTs processes and tools, which exploit the assessment of perception in text comprehension

Screening Tools for Kindergarten Children

The current paper review gives a brief and representative description of some of the most used screening tools for kindergarten education. The significant role that early education plays in every child’s academic life is underlined by the importance of tools that give his learning profiles.  Therefore many researchers note that screening tools paly a notable role for the kindergarten teachers, the family and of course for the child in order to offer the appropriate intervention program, the proper support and draw the most suitable teaching method for the child and the class. Thus, the research team of this paper gives the description of some screening tools that are used by kindergarten teachers and specialist’s worldwide-with focus in Greek kindergarten- scoping to underlie strengths and weaknesses of preschoolers. Finally, it is thought worthwhile to say that the screening tools that are presented are used with the traditional way while some of them with the support of new technology.</em

Screening Tools for Kindergarten Children

The current paper review gives a brief and representative description of some of the most used screening tools for kindergarten education. The significant role that early education plays in every child’s academic life is underlined by the importance of tools that give his learning profiles.  Therefore many researchers note that screening tools paly a notable role for the kindergarten teachers, the family and of course for the child in order to offer the appropriate intervention program, the proper support and draw the most suitable teaching method for the child and the class. Thus, the research team of this paper gives the description of some screening tools that are used by kindergarten teachers and specialist’s worldwide-with focus in Greek kindergarten- scoping to underlie strengths and weaknesses of preschoolers. Finally, it is thought worthwhile to say that the screening tools that are presented are used with the traditional way while some of them with the support of new technology