Birds in the Ohio River Valley: Possible Indicators of Environmental Quality

Author Institution: Division of Math/Science, Shawnee State UniversityThe 1987 Boatload of Knowledge provided a unique opportunity to census the birds along the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to Louisville. A daily species count and determinations of species diversity on three sections of the River were done. While some difficulties were experienced during the censusing along the River, the overall results, field work plus a literature and information search, point to differences in bird species diversity along the Ohio River. The diversity of birds species corresponds to differences observed in the habitat along the sampled sections of the Ohio River

Comparative transcriptomics enlarges the toolkit of known developmental genes in mollusks

Data used for the phylogenetic analysis of Hox and ParaHox genes, including the respective GenBank accession numbers. (DOC 31 kb

Identification of structurally re-engineered rocaglates as inhibitors against hepatitis E virus replication

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infections are a leading cause of acute viral hepatitis in humans and pose a considerable threat to public health. Current standard of care treatment is limited to the off-label use of nucleoside-analog ribavirin (RBV) and PEGylated interferon-α, both of which are associated with significant side effects and provide limited efficacy. In the past few years, a promising natural product compound class of eukaryotic initiation factor 4A (eIF4A) inhibitors (translation initiation inhibitors), called rocaglates, were identified as antiviral agents against RNA virus infections. In the present study, we evaluated a total of 205 synthetic rocaglate derivatives from the BU-CMD compound library for their antiviral properties against HEV. At least eleven compounds showed inhibitory activities against the HEV genotype 3 (HEV-3) subgenomic replicon below 30 nM (EC50 value) as determined by Gaussia luciferase assay. Three amidino-rocaglates (ADRs) (CMLD012073, CMLD012118, and CMLD012612) possessed antiviral activity against HEV with EC50 values between 1 and 9 nM. In addition, these three selected compounds inhibited subgenomic replicons of different genotypes (HEV-1 [Sar55], wild boar HEV-3 [83-2] and human HEV-3 [p6]) in a dose-dependent manner and at low nanomolar concentrations. Furthermore, tested ADRs tend to be better tolerated in primary hepatocytes than hepatoma cancer cell lines and combination treatment of CMLD012118 with RBV and interferon-α (IFN-α) showed that CMLD012118 acts additive to RBV and IFN-α treatment. In conclusion, our results indicate that ADRs, especially CMLD012073, CMLD012118, and CMLD012612 may prove to be potential therapeutic candidates for the treatment of HEV infections and may contribute to the discovery of pan-genotypic inhibitors in the future. © 2022 The Author(s

A compact statistical model of the song syntax in Bengalese finch

Songs of many songbird species consist of variable sequences of a finite number of syllables. A common approach for characterizing the syntax of these complex syllable sequences is to use transition probabilities between the syllables. This is equivalent to the Markov model, in which each syllable is associated with one state, and the transition probabilities between the states do not depend on the state transition history. Here we analyze the song syntax in a Bengalese finch. We show that the Markov model fails to capture the statistical properties of the syllable sequences. Instead, a state transition model that accurately describes the statistics of the syllable sequences includes adaptation of the self-transition probabilities when states are repeatedly revisited, and allows associations of more than one state to the same syllable. Such a model does not increase the model complexity significantly. Mathematically, the model is a partially observable Markov model with adaptation (POMMA). The success of the POMMA supports the branching chain network hypothesis of how syntax is controlled within the premotor song nucleus HVC, and suggests that adaptation and many-to-one mapping from neural substrates to syllables are important features of the neural control of complex song syntax