An adaptive pig face recognition approach using convolutional neural networks

The evolution of agriculture towards intensive farming leads to an increasing demand for animal identification associated with high traceability, driven by the need for quality control and welfare management in agricultural animals. Automatic identification of individual animals is an important step to achieve individualised care in terms of disease detection and control, and improvement of the food quality. For example, as feeding patterns can differ amongst pigs in the same pen, even in homogenous groups, automatic registration shows the most potential when applied to an individual pig. In the EU for instance, this capability is required for certification purposes. Although the RFID technology has been gradually developed and widely applied for this task, chip implanting might still be time-consuming and costly for current practical applications. In this paper, a novel framework composed of computer vision algorithms, machine learning and deep learning techniques is proposed to offer a relatively low-cost and scalable solution of pig recognition. Firstly, pig faces and eyes are detected automatically by two Haar feature-based cascade classifiers and one shallow convolutional neural network to extra high-quality images. Secondly, face recognition is performed by employing a deep convolutional neural network. Additionally, class activation maps generated by grad-CAM and saliency maps are utilised to visually understand how the discriminating parameters have been learned by the neural network. By applying the proposed approach on 10 randomly selected pigs filmed in farm condition, the proposed method demonstrates the superior performance against the state-of-art method with an accuracy of 83% over 320 testing images. The outcome of this study will facilitate the real-application of AI-based animal identification in swine production

Single-nucleus RNA sequencing of plant tissues using a nanowell‐based system

Single-cell genomics provides unprecedented potential for research on plant development and environmental responses. Here, we introduce a generic procedure for plant nucleus isolation combined with nanowell-based library preparation. Our method enables the transcriptome analysis of thousands of individual plant nuclei. It serves as an alternative to the use of protoplast isolation, which is currently a standard methodology for plant single-cell genomics, although it can be challenging for some plant tissues. We show the applicability of our nucleus isolation method by using different plant materials from different species. The potential of our single-nucleus RNA sequencing method is shown through the characterization of transcriptomes of seedlings and developing flowers from Arabidopsis thaliana. We evaluated the transcriptome dynamics during the early stages of anther development, identified stage-specific activities of transcription factors regulating this process, and predicted potential target genes of these transcription factors. Our nucleus isolation procedure can be applied in different plant species and tissues, thus expanding the toolkit for plant single-cell genomics experiments.Peer Reviewe

Demographics, behaviours, and preferences of birdwatchers and their implications for avitourism and avian conservation: A case study of birding in Nonggang, Southern China

Birding, a sustainable ecotourism, capitalizes on the community's rich bird resources to attract an increasing number of birdwatchers. However, the influence of the preferences and behaviour of birdwatchers during birding is unclear. Here, we explore the demographics, behaviours, and preferences of birdwatchers using a case study of birding in Nonggang, southern China. The data was collected from a survey of 201 birdwatchers between April 2017 and April 2018. Results demonstrated that respondents were mainly male, middle-aged, middle-to-high income, and higher-educated. When birding, 96.0% of respondents would photograph birds, and 45.3% prefer photography at fixed-points (i.e., bird-pond photography). Respondents' primary photographic subjects were more likely to be birds with narrower distribution ranges, lower encounter rates, or more feather colors. The majority of the respondents had a strong sense of protection, although the level of awareness against injuring birds was average. Our findings suggest that bird-pond photography has become the dominant form of birding. Solving the relationship between bird photographers' preferences and the conservation of unique species requires an understanding of the rare species and the value of wildlife viewing recreation by humans

A clean and efficient method for purifying crude selenium based on a selective leaching - directed decomposition purification process

The rare element selenium is a key material in supporting the development of high-tech and new products. This research has led to the development of a method of purifying crude selenium based on a selective leaching-directed decomposition purification process. The influence of factors such as the concentration of the leaching solution, leaching temperature, solid-liquid ratio, and leaching time on the leaching rate of Se were investigated in detail. The experimental results show that the optimal conditions for selective leaching of selenium were as follows: the concentration of leaching solution (solute: Na _2 SO _3 ) was 260 g l ^−1 , the stirring speed was 300 rpm, the ratio of liquid to solid was 0.10 g ml ^−1 , the reaction temperature was 90 °C, the reaction time was 180 min, and the leaching rate of selenium on one run was >95%. The products of selenium after two runs meet the requirements of Se99.9 in YS/223–2007, the Chinese nonferrous metal industry standard. The direct yield of Se is greater than 90%, and precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum are enriched in the residue. No waste is produced during the whole purification process, and all products can be recycled. This study provides an efficient and environmentally friendly method for the purification of crude selenium, which has important industrial applications

Cooperative Cross-Talk between Neuroblastoma Subtypes Confers Resistance to Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase Inhibition

Neuroblastoma is a pediatric solid tumor that can be stratified into stroma-rich and stroma-poor histological subgroups. The stromal compartment of neuroblastoma is composed mostly of Schwann cells, and they play critical roles in the differentiation, survival, and angiogenic responses of tumor cells. In certain neuroblastoma cell lines, the coexistence of neuroblastic N-type and substrate-adherent S-type is frequently observed. One such cell line, SK-N-SH, harbors a F1174L oncogenic mutation in the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene. Treatment of SK-N-SH with an ALK chemical inhibitor, TAE684, resulted in the outgrowth of S-type cells that expressed the Schwann cell marker, S100α6. Nucleotide sequencing analysis of these TAE684-resistant (TR) sublines revealed the presence of the ALK F1174L mutation, suggesting their tumor origin, although ALK protein was not detected. Consistent with these findings, TR cells displayed approximately 9-fold higher IC50 values than N-type cells. Also, unlike N-type cells, TR cells have readily detectable phosphorylated STAT3 but weaker phosphorylated AKT. Under coculture conditions, TR cells conferred survival to N-type cells against the apoptotic effect of TAE684. Cocultivation also greatly enhanced the overall phosphorylation of STAT3 and its transcriptional activity in N-type cells. Finally, conditioned medium from TR clones enhanced cell viability of N-type cells, and this effect was phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase dependent. Taken together, these results demonstrate the ability of tumor-derived S-type cells in protecting N-type cells against the apoptotic effect of an ALK kinase inhibitor through upregulating prosurvival signaling

Association between ε2/3/4, Promoter Polymorphism (−491A/T, −427T/C, and −219T/G) at the Apolipoprotein E Gene, and Mental Retardation in Children from an Iodine Deficiency Area, China

Background. Several common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at apolipoprotein E (ApoE) have been linked with late onset sporadic Alzheimer’s disease and declining normative cognitive ability in elder people, but we are unclear about their relationship with cognition in children. Results. We studied -491A/T, -427T/C, and -219G/T promoter polymorphisms and ε2/ε3/ε4 at ApoE among children with mental retardation (MR, n=130), borderline MR (n=124), and controls (n=334) from an iodine deficiency area in China. The allelic and genotypic distribution of individual locus did not significantly differ among three groups with Mantel-Haenszel χ2 test (P>0.05). However, frequencies of haplotype of -491A/-427T/-219T/ε4 were distributed as MR > borderline MR > controls (P uncorrected = 0.004), indicating that the presence of this haplotype may increase the risk of disease. Conclusions. In this large population-based study in children, we did not find any significant association between single locus of the four common ApoE polymorphisms (-491A/T, -427T/C, -219T/G, and ε2/3/4) and MR or borderline MR. However, we found that the presence of ATTε4 haplotype was associated with an increased risk of MR and borderline MR. Our present work may help enlarge our knowledge of the cognitive role of ApoE across the lifespan and the mechanisms of human cognition