Prevalence, intensity, and effect of a nematode (Philometra saltatrix) in the ovaries of bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix)

Examination of 203 adult bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) from Long Island, New York, in 2002 and 2003 and 66 from the Outer Banks, North Carolina, in 2003 revealed the presence of dracunculoid nematodes (Philometra saltatrix) in the ovaries of female fish. Percent prevalence reached 88% in July and then decreased after the peak of the spawning season. Bluefish contained up to 100 parasites per fish. Infection was associated with a range of disorders, including hemorrhage, inf lammation, edema, prenecrotic and necrotic changes, and follicular atresia, that may prevent proper development of oocytes and probably affect bluefish fecundity. Historical occurrences, life cycle, and geographical distribution of this nematode remain largely unknown, but may play important roles in recruitment processes of bluefish

Compression and R-wave detection of ECG/VCG data

Application of information theory to eliminate redundant part of electrocardiogram or vectorcardiogram is described. Operation of medical equipment to obtain three dimensional study of patient is discussed. Use of fast Fourier transform to accomplish data compression is explained

Earth science data study

The research proposed in this contract concerning investigations of existing and planned Earth Science and Applications Division (ESAD) data management systems and research into utilities for the access and display of scientific data products was completed. A summary of this work is provided

A Linear Classifier Based on Entity Recognition Tools and a Statistical Approach to Method Extraction in the Protein-Protein Interaction Literature

We participated, in the Article Classification and the Interaction Method subtasks (ACT and IMT, respectively) of the Protein-Protein Interaction task of the BioCreative III Challenge. For the ACT, we pursued an extensive testing of available Named Entity Recognition and dictionary tools, and used the most promising ones to extend our Variable Trigonometric Threshold linear classifier. For the IMT, we experimented with a primarily statistical approach, as opposed to employing a deeper natural language processing strategy. Finally, we also studied the benefits of integrating the method extraction approach that we have used for the IMT into the ACT pipeline. For the ACT, our linear article classifier leads to a ranking and classification performance significantly higher than all the reported submissions. For the IMT, our results are comparable to those of other systems, which took very different approaches. For the ACT, we show that the use of named entity recognition tools leads to a substantial improvement in the ranking and classification of articles relevant to protein-protein interaction. Thus, we show that our substantially expanded linear classifier is a very competitive classifier in this domain. Moreover, this classifier produces interpretable surfaces that can be understood as "rules" for human understanding of the classification. In terms of the IMT task, in contrast to other participants, our approach focused on identifying sentences that are likely to bear evidence for the application of a PPI detection method, rather than on classifying a document as relevant to a method. As BioCreative III did not perform an evaluation of the evidence provided by the system, we have conducted a separate assessment; the evaluators agree that our tool is indeed effective in detecting relevant evidence for PPI detection methods.Comment: BMC Bioinformatics. In Pres

Survival of Juvenile Ferruginous Hawks in Utah

We examined the reproduction of Ferruginous Hawks (Buteo regalis) in Utah\u27s West Desert from 1997–99. We found 100 occupied territories during the study; 80 of them contained an active nest (i.e., evidence of eggs laid). Most active nests (91%) were successful in producing at least one hatchling, and 67% of nests with hatchlings produced at least one fledgling. We followed the fate of 202 Ferruginous Hawk hatchlings; 58% survived to fledging. We radio-tagged 46 of these fledglings; 72% survived the fledgling period and dispersed from their natal territories. Most juveniles that died were killed during the late nestling (58%) and fledgling (24%) period; mortality was lowest early in the nestling period (18%). Across all years, 42% of hatchlings did not survive long enough to disperse from their natal territory. Lagomorph abundance increased each year of our study and during 1999 was over 100 times higher than during 1997. Concomitantly, there was a significant difference among years in the proportion of nests that produced a hatchling and in the survival rate of hatchlings and fledglings. For all of these dependent variables, reproduction was lowest during 1997 when lagomorph densities were low and highest during 1999 when lagomorph densities were high. Yet, most juvenile mortalities were from depredation and not starvation. Most depredated juveniles were apparently killed by avian predators. We also found no relationship between the probability of juvenile depredation and either an index of parental nest attendance or an index of intensity of nest defense

Optimization of Tick Attachment and Detection of B. Burgdorferi Transmission into In Vitro Generated Skin Rafts

Borrelia burgdorferi (B. burgdorferi) is a Lyme Disease causing pathogen that is transmitted via tick-bite by blacklegged (deer) ticks (Ixodes scapularis). These ticks tend choose hosts such as rabbits and mice to feed on, sometimes transmitting harmful pathogens to these animals such as B. burgdorferi, which cycles between rodents and large animals to complete its enzootic cycle. Humans are accidental dead-end hosts for B. burgdorferi. Those infected with B. burgdorferi can develop Lyme Disease, which includes symptoms such as neurological, cardiac, and joint-related complications which are exacerbated by increased feeding time on the host1. Due to the many negative affects Lyme Disease can have on humans, there is a need for medicinal options that could prevent the accumulation of the bacteria at the tick bite site or inhibit the ability of ticks to feed on the human host. We rationalize that a human skin model to study tick-human skin interactions and possible therapeutic screening is needed as there are currently no cost-effective or high-throughput options. Our in vitro generated skin rafts will enable us to study tick feeding habits and B. burgdorferi transmission comparable to use of in vivo animal models, but more applicable to human infection. We hypothesize that, as B. burgdorferi-positive ticks feed on the rafts, they will transmit the bacteria into the epidermal layer which can later be extracted and quantified. Once these skin rafts have been optimized for maximal tick feeding and B. burgdorferi transmission, they can then be used in high-throughput experiments to find therapies that could modify the bacteria or tick interactions with the host and prevent development of Lyme Disease.https://digitalcommons.unmc.edu/surp2022/1013/thumbnail.jp

High connectivity among locally adapted populations of a marine fish (Menidia menidia)

Author Posting. © Ecological Society of America, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of Ecological Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Ecology 91 (2010): 3526–3537, doi:10.1890/09-0548.1.Patterns of connectivity are important in understanding the geographic scale of local adaptation in marine populations. While natural selection can lead to local adaptation, high connectivity can diminish the potential for such adaptation to occur. Connectivity, defined as the exchange of individuals among subpopulations, is presumed to be significant in most marine species due to life histories that include widely dispersive stages. However, evidence of local adaptation in marine species, such the Atlantic silverside, Menidia menidia, raises questions concerning the degree of connectivity. We examined geochemical signatures in the otoliths, or ear bones, of adult Atlantic silversides collected in 11 locations along the northeastern coast of the United States from New Jersey to Maine in 2004 and eight locations in 2005 using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and isotope ratio monitoring mass spectrometry (irm-MS). These signatures were then compared to baseline signatures of juvenile fish of known origin to determine natal origin of these adult fish. We then estimated migration distances and the degree of mixing from these data. In both years, fish generally had the highest probability of originating from the same location in which they were captured (0.01–0.80), but evidence of mixing throughout the sample area was present. Furthermore, adult M. menidia exhibit highly dispersive behavior with some fish migrating over 700 km. The probability of adult fish returning to natal areas differed between years, with the probability being, on average, 0.2 higher in the second year. These findings demonstrate that marine species with largely open populations are capable of local adaptation despite apparently high gene flow.This work was funded by the National Science Foundation (grant OCE-0425830 to D. O. Conover and grant OCE- 0134998 to S. R. Thorrold) and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

The topology of a discussion: the #occupy case

We analyse a large sample of the Twitter activity developed around the social movement 'Occupy Wall Street' to study the complex interactions between the human communication activity and the semantic content of a discussion. We use a network approach based on the analysis of the bipartite graph @Users-#Hashtags and of its projections: the 'semantic network', whose nodes are hashtags, and the 'users interest network', whose nodes are users In the first instance, we find out that discussion topics (#hashtags) present a high heterogeneity, with the distinct role of the communication hubs where most the 'opinion traffic' passes through. In the second case, the self-organization process of users activity leads to the emergence of two classes of communicators: the 'professionals' and the 'amateurs'. Moreover the network presents a strong community structure, based on the differentiation of the semantic topics, and a high level of structural robustness when a certain set of topics are censored and/or accounts are removed. Analysing the characteristics the @Users-#Hashtags network we can distinguish three phases of the discussion about the movement. Each phase corresponds to specific moment of the movement: from declaration of intent, organisation and development and the final phase of political reactions. Each phase is characterised by the presence of specific #hashtags in the discussion. Keywords: Twitter, Network analysisComment: 13 pages, 9 figure

Raccoons: Wildlife Damage Management Series

Raccoons (Procyon lotor) are found across the United States largely due to their excellent ability to adapt and take advantage of new habitats. Raccoons, although not native to Utah, are abundant throughout much of the state. They are most commonly found in wooded areas along rivers, marshes or lakes. In urban areas, raccoons will make dens in attics, chimneys, under houses, in abandoned buildings, and in woodpiles