Evolutionary study on two closed Gammarus (Crustacea, Amphipoda) species from Zagros Mountains (Iran) using molecular methods

Mitochondrial Cytochrome Oxidase Subunit I DNA sequences are a good discriminative marker for phylogenetic studies in crustaceans and especially in amphipoda. In the present study, molecular and morphological data were analyzed to test whether Gammarus lobifer authority and Gammarus balutchi authority which [sic] one or two geographically separated but morphologically similar species. The analyses proved that there are two species and that uplift of the Zagros Mountains was probably the most important cause of Allopatric speciation in this region during the Miocene period

ApplianceNet: a neural network based framework to recognize daily life activities and behavior in smart home using smart plugs

A smart plug can transform the typical electrical appliance into a smart multi-functional device, which can communicate over the Internet. It has the ability to report the energy consumption pattern of the attached appliance which offer the further analysis. Inside the home, smart plugs can be utilized to recognize daily life activities and behavior. These are the key elements to provide human-centered applications including healthcare services, power consumption footprints, and household appliance identification. In this research, we propose a novel framework ApplianceNet that is based on energy consumption patterns of home appliances attached to smart plugs. Our framework can process the collected univariate time-series data intelligently and classifies them using a multi-layer, feed-forward neural network. The performance of this approach is evaluated on publicly available real homes collected dataset. The experimental results have shown the ApplianceNet as an effective and practical solution for recognizing daily life activities and behavior. We measure the performance in terms of precision, recall, and F1-score, and the obtained score is 87%, 88%, 88%, respectively, which is 11% higher than the existing method in terms of F1-score. Furthermore, our scheme is simple and easy to adopt in the existing home infrastructure

Composition, repellent and fumigant toxicity of Mentha longifolia essential oil on Tetranychus urticae and three predatory mites of the family phytoseiidae (Acari: Tetranychidae: Phytoseiidae)

The chemical composition of essential oil extracted from leaves of the medicinal plant Mentha longifolia (L.) Huds growing in Egypt, were determined through Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry ( GC/MS). The analyses revealed that the major component of M. longifolia was Monterpene ketone (piperitone oxide). Mentha longifolia was potent for the pest Tetranychus urticae Koch with a significant increase in repellency. In addition, it exhibited strong oviposition deterrence to the pest based on a 99.4% reduction of the total number of eggs on leaf discs treated with the oil. The LC50 values of M. longifolia against eggs, nymphs and females of T. urticae by fumigant application, were 2.95, 3.47, 3.74 μL / L, while the LC90 values were 8.99, 9.41, 11.01 μL/ L, respectively. The toxicity of M. longifolia oil by fumigant application to females and eggs of 3 predatory phytoseiid mites was tested. Neoseiulus californicus (McGregor) is extremely insusceptible to M. longifolia oil than the pest T. urticae and both phytoseiid mites, Neoseiuls barkeri (Hughes) and Typhlodromips swirskii (Athias Henriot) under laboratory conditions. When both stages of tested predatory mites, exposed to fumigant of LC50 and LC90 μL/L values reported on T. urticae, female’s mortality of N. californicus was lesser than that reported on N. barkeri and T. swirskii. These show that the fumigant toxicity of M. longifolia oil has the highest lethal activity to the pest T. urticae and the least to the predatory mite N. californicus. Results indicated that the mode of delivery of the essential oil was largely a result of action in the vapor phase via respiratory system. Data was suggested that M. longifolia oil have the potential agent to be used in the maintainable management of T. urticae combined with N. californicus

HRFNet: High-Resolution Forgery Network for Localizing Satellite Image Manipulation

Existing high-resolution satellite image forgery localization methods rely on patch-based or downsampling-based training. Both of these training methods have major drawbacks, such as inaccurate boundaries between pristine and forged regions, the generation of unwanted artifacts, etc. To tackle the aforementioned challenges, inspired by the high-resolution image segmentation literature, we propose a novel model called HRFNet to enable satellite image forgery localization effectively. Specifically, equipped with shallow and deep branches, our model can successfully integrate RGB and resampling features in both global and local manners to localize forgery more accurately. We perform various experiments to demonstrate that our method achieves the best performance, while the memory requirement and processing speed are not compromised compared to existing methods.Comment: ICIP 202

A phylogeny analysis on six mullet species (Teleosti: Mugillidae) using PCR-sequencing method

In this study, genetic differences and phylogenic relationships among six Mugillidae species (Mugil cephalus, M. capito, Liza subviridis, L. saliens, L. aurata, Valamugil buchanani) were determined using PCR-sequencing. M. cephalus, L. subviridis, and V. buchanani from the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea, and L. aurata and L. saliens from the Caspian Sea were collected. Samples of an imported, Egyptian species M. capito were obtained from the Gomishan Research Center in Gorgan. Total DNA from the samples were extracted according to phenol-chloroform procedure. The extracted total DNAs were amplified using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and then sequenced. The number of bases in the mitochondrial 16s rRNA genome used in this study approximated 600 base pairs. The size of the bands was identical in all the studied species and no heteroplasmia was observed. In addition, the numbers of variable, preserved, and Pi sites were about 114/624, 488/624, and 110/624, respectively. Analysis of the sequences showed great differences between Mugil species and the other studied species. The phylogenetic tree obtained through Neighbor-Joining method revealed that L. saliens and L. aurata were in the same branch while L. subviridis was in a separate branch. In contrast, Maximum Parsimony tree located L. subviridis and L. aurata in a single branch and assigned L. saliens to a distinct branch. This result brings in the question of monophyletic origin of the genus Liza

Association between Pus Cells and Semen Parameters in Infertile Pakistani Males

Objectives: This study evaluated the association between pus cells and semen parameters in infertile Pakistani males. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in the Department of Reproductive Physiology/Health, National Institute of Health, Islamabad, Pakistan, from 2004 to 2009. A total of 1,521 subjects were analysed, along with 97 proven fathers as controls. Results: The mean of pus cells was 7.43 ± 0.43, 4.35 ± 0.34, and 4.26 ± 0.17 per high field in teratozoospermic, oligoasthenozoospermic, and asthenozoospermic groups, respectively, while it was 3.25 ± 0.26, 3.10 ± 0.19, and 2.98 ± 0.04 per high field in azoospermic, oligozoospermic and the proven father groups, respectively. The fewest pus cells were observed among proven fathers, which varied non-significantly (P >0.05) with all cases, except with teratozoospermic, oligozoospermic, and oligoasthenozoospermic cases. Pus cells showed an inverse relationship to sperm motility and count, except in azoospemia cases. Similarly, the fewest pus cells were observed among groups where normal forms where significantly more frequent (P <0.05). More pus cells were observed in cases where motility, and concentration or morphology was compromised. Similarly, low pus cell counts were seen in cases where sperm had the fewest head and neck defects. All kinds of sperm defects varied non-significantly (P >0.05) between proven fathers and normal concentration cases. Conclusion: High pus cell counts were observed in various subclasses of infertile patients. Ignorance of this pyospermic factor will make pyospermic patients to be misdiagnosed as normozoospermic. Therefore, the presence of pyospermia must be considered by physicians as a male infertility factor

Effect of Graphene and Fullerene Nanofillers on Controlling the Pore Size and Physicochemical Properties of Chitosan Nanocomposite Mesoporous Membranes

Chitosan (CS) nanocomposite mesoporous membranes were fabricated by mixing CS with graphene (G) and fullerene (F) nanofillers, and the diffusion properties through CS membranes were studied. In addition, in order to enhance the binding between the internal CS chains, physical cross-linking of CS by sodium tripolyphosphate (TPP) was carried out. F and G with different weight percentages (0.1, 0.5, and 1 wt.%) were added on physically cross-linked chitosan (CLCS) and non-cross-linked chitosan (NCLCS) membranes by wet mixing. Permeability and diffusion time of CLCS and NCLCS membranes at different temperatures were investigated. The results revealed that the pore size of all fabricated CS membranes is in the mesoporous range (i.e., 2–50 nm). Moreover, the addition of G and F nanofillers to CLCS and NCLCS solutions aided in controlling the CS membranes’ pore size and was found to enhance the barrier effect of the CS membranes either by blocking the internal pores or decreasing the pore size. These results illustrate the significant possibility of controlling the pore size of CS membranes by cross-linking and more importantly the careful selection of nanofillers and their percentage within the CS membranes. Controlling the pore size of CS membranes is a fundamental factor in packaging applications and membrane technology

Effect of planting method on onion (Allium cepa L.) bulb production in Faridpur region of Bangladesh

The present study was undertaken to evaluate the effective planting method for onion production for motivating onion producing farmers in Faridpur region of Bangladesh during rabi season 2014-15 and 2015-16 at spices Research Sub-centre, Faridpur. The number of treatment was four viz., Raised bed + Spices Research Centre (SRC) recommended practice, Raised bed + Farmer’s practice, Flat method + Spices Research Centre (SRC) recommended practice and Flat method + Farmer’s practice. The onion variety BARI Piaz-1 used as planting material. The SRC recommended practice consist of seed sowing at 2nd week of November + seedlings transplanting at the end of December + Spacing (10cm × 10cm) + Irrigation (4times) + weeding (four at 15, 25, 45 and 60 DAT) + Fungi-cide application with Rovral and Ridomil gold (four spray when disease appears) + Insecticide application (2-3 spray when/before thrips / insect appears) + Fertilizer doses (cow dung 5 ton ha-1, N120, P54, k75 and S20 kg ha-1. On the other hand farmer’s practice consist of seed sowing at last week of November in flat seed bed + seedling transplanting at 3rd week of January + Spacing (10cm × 7cm) + Irrigation (2-3 times) + Weeding (2times) + Fungicide application with Rovral, Score and other type of ineffective fungicide at 5-7 days interval + insecticide application with Confidor after thrips / insect appears + Fertilizer doses (N46, P45, k30 and S16 kg ha-1. The results of the study revealed that planting method and management practices had significant impact on yield and yield attributes of onion and among the treatments the highest yield was found from Raised bed + SRC recommended practice. Significantly highest yield 14.42 t ha-1 in 2014-15 and 12.57 t ha-1 in 2015-16 was recorded from SRC recommended practice. The lowest yield 8.05 t ha-1 in 2014-15 and 7.66 t ha-1 in 2015-16 was recorded from Flat method + Farmer’s practice. Therefore, the farmers of Faridpur region of Bangladesh are advised to adopt SRC recommended practice with raised bed method for increasing their annual average onion productio