Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Soil fertility management for productivity enhancement of jute under some constrained acidic soils of West Bengal

Jute crop plays a pivotal role in the farming economy of number of eastern Indian states like West Bengal (Paschimbanga), Asom, Bihar and Odisha. In spite of available sound production technology, the main concern in jute fibre production system in India is the non-uniform productivity over 87 jute-growing districts located in varying agro- climatic regions of the country including 17 jute-growing districts of West Bengal having relatively higher productivity in South Bengal than in North Bengal. The major reasons of technical nature for low productivity in North Bengal are initially identified as soil acidity. The participatory farmers’ field experiments were conducted at Balurghat (pH 5.06, EC 0.024 dS/m, OC 0.59%, available N, P, K= 246, 29, 90 kg/ha) and Kumarganj (pH 4.45, EC 0.002 dSm-1, OC 0.51%, available N, P, K= 314, 15, 98 kg/ha) blocks of Dakshin Dinajpur district of North Bengal with an aim to enhance the productivity of jute through proper soil fertility management. The results of the field experiment revealed that application of lime (based on LR value) coupled with soil test-based balanced fertilization enhanced the productivity of olitorius jute [over farmers’ practice Balurghat [(2.42 tonnes/ha) and Kumarganj (1.52 tonnes/ha)] by 29.1% and 45.7% in the constrained acidic block of Balurghat and Kumarganj (of Dakshin Dinajpur district) respectively. The same treatments also improves the B:C ratio and reduced insect pests and disease incidence.
Effect of synthetic and plant‐extracted aphid pheromones on the behaviour of Aphidius colemani

Parasitoid females use several chemical cues to locate hosts. A better knowledge of how they respond to a complex of these cues in a small range may help us to understand how to manipulate the parasitoids in the field. Here, the response of the aphid parasitoid Aphidius colemani to a mixture of odours of synthetic and plant‐extracted nepetalactone (a component of aphid sex pheromone) and to (E)‐β‐farnesene (aphid alarm pheromone) was investigated. The behavioural responses of A. colemani to three semiochemical groups with different concentrations were studied in a square arena. Parasitoid females were significantly attracted by the semiochemicals, when their concentrations were high, in which case the females spent more time in squares with semiochemicals. The majority of females preferred plant‐extracted nepetalactone, when it was in high concentration, but they consistently did not respond to (E)‐β‐farnesene.
Análise morfométrica do endotélio corneano de coelhos à microscopia

O endotelio, constituido de uma monocamada de celulas poligonais, constitui-se na estrutura mais posterior da cornea. Objetivou-se examinar a superficie posterior do endotelio corneano e realizar analise morfometrica das celulas endoteliais da cornea de coelhos valendo-se da microscopia eletronica de varredura. Avaliaram-se o numero de lados, a area celular media, a densidade celular e o coeficiente de variacao da area celular. O endotelio corneano de coelhos constitui-se de celulas poligonais uniformes em tamanho e forma, e com interdigitacoes das bordas celulares. Vizibilizaram-se microvilosidades na superficie celular. Relativamente a forma celular encontraram-se celulas na maioria hexagonais (75%) com celulas pentagonais (14%) e heptagonais (11%) constituindo o restante do endotelio corneano. A area celular media foi de 174 ± 32 ? m 2 e a densidade celular foi de 5747 ± 238 celulas por milimetro quadrado. O coeficiente de variacao foi de 0.21. Nao foram observadas diferencas significativas entre os parâmetros avaliados entre os olhos esquerdo e direito. Este estudo demonstrou que o endotelio corneano de coelhos e semelhante ao descrito em outros vertebrados.
Study on the possibility of using the native Popielno White rabbit breed in commercial farming

the aim of the study was to analyse reproductive and meat performance of popielno White (pW) rabbits (the only native breed of rabbits in poland that easily adapts to adverse environmental conditions and is recommended for backyard farming) and new Zealand White (nZW) rabbits (a typical meat breed recommended for farm use). the results obtained allow a conclusion that in terms of productivity, pW rabbits are comparable with nZW rabbits, which are a typical meat breed. pW rabbits are characterized by high prolificacy and fertility but despite larger litters, which is associated with lower weaning weight, these animals have body weights that are comparable to those of nZW rabbits during the growth period between 35 and 90 days of age (when fed complete diets). The carcasses from PW rabbits have a lower fat content (P≤0.01). Highly significant differences were found between the breeds in the composition of some fatty acids in meat and in water holding capacity. these differences may be due to the fact that the meat of rabbits reaches full maturity at different times, because the breeds differ in time to sexual maturity, litter size and rate of growth.
Insect Infection and Immunity: Evolution Ecology and Mechanisms

1. Introducing Insect Infection and Immunity A. IMMUNE MECHANISMS AND INTEGRATION 2. Recognition and Response to Microbial Infection of Drosophila 3. Roles of Hemolymph Proteins in Antimicrobial Defences of Manduca sexta 4. Drosophila as a Model for Studying Antiviral Defenses 5. Specificity of the Innate Immune System: A Closer Look at the Mosquito Pattern Recognition Receptor Repertoire 6. Comparative Genomics of Insect Immunity 7. Physiological Integration of Innate Immunity B. IMMUNE INTERACTIONS AND EVOLUTION 8. The Inherited Microbiota of Arthropods, and their Importance in Understanding Resistance and Immunity 9. Insect Viruses, Parasitoids and their Interactions with the Insect Immune System: Polydnaviruses as Tools to Deliver Wasp Virulence Factors to Impair Lepidopteran Host Immunity 10. Immune Responses and the Evolution of Resistance 11. The Impact of Physiological State on Immune Function in Insects 12. Costs and Genomic Aspects of Drosophila Immunity to Parasites and Pathogens 13. Population Genetics of Insect Immune Responses 14. Ecological and Evolutionary Implications of Specific Immune Responses 15. Reproductive Immunity Index
Compressive Online Robust Principal Component Analysis via <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\ell_1$ </tex-math></inline-formula> Minimization

This paper considers online robust principal component analysis (RPCA) in time-varying decomposition problems such as video foreground-background separation. We propose a compressive online RPCA algorithm that decomposes recursively a sequence of data vectors (e.g., frames) into sparse and low-rank components. Different from conventional batch RPCA, which processes all the data directly, our approach considers a small set of measurements taken per data vector (frame). Moreover, our algorithm can incorporate multiple prior information from previous decomposed vectors via proposing an <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\ell _{1}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> minimization method. At each time instance, the algorithm recovers the sparse vector by solving the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\ell _{1}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> minimization problem—which promotes not only the sparsity of the vector but also its correlation with multiple previously recovered sparse vectors—and, subsequently, updates the low-rank component using incremental singular value decomposition. We also establish theoretical bounds on the number of measurements required to guarantee successful compressive separation under the assumptions of static or slowly changing low-rank components. We evaluate the proposed algorithm using numerical experiments and online video foreground-background separation experiments. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the existing methods.
Mountain Lake Revisited: Impacts of Invasion on Native Symbiotic Systems

Organismal invasions have repeatedly been cited as both a driving force behind global change and beneficiaries of that change. Although many drivers of these invasions have been well studied, few studies have addressed invasions through the perspective of native symbiont communities. Conceptually, we know that the introduction of invasive hosts presents a potential opportunity to native symbionts. Invasive hosts could benefit native symbionts through providing a novel host environment that supports them or invasive hosts could be intolerant of native symbionts resulting in negative impacts on native symbiont communities. In the Mountain Lake region of Virginia, crayfish host diverse assemblages of obligate cleaning symbionts known as branchiobdellida. In this region, an invasive crayfish host has been introduced and is interacting with the native hostsymbiont system. Previous studies suggest that this invasive host may be less tolerant of symbionts than native hosts. To determine what impacts invasion is having on the native host-symbiont system, I carried out an extensive regional survey to determine impacts of invasion under natural conditions, and carried out a complementary host displacement study in controlled settings to determine mechanisms contributing to observed impacts. Findings suggest that invasion results in significantly reduced native symbiont community abundance and species richness, with impacts increasing as the proportion of invasive hosts at a site increases. These impacts appear to be driven by invasive hosts that are intolerant of symbiont activity. Due to this intolerance, both symbiont dispersal and survival are reduced as invasive hosts progressively displace native hosts. Results strongly suggest that negative impacts from invasion imperil the integrity of native host-symbiont systems. Given that many native hosts accrue significant fitness benefits from their relationships with native symbionts, loss of symbiosis may produce a positive feedback loop that decreases invasion resistance of native species, exacerbates the effects of invasions, and presents a major conservation issue in invaded systems.
Enhanced expression of pgdS gene for high production of poly-γ-glutamic aicd with lower molecular weight in Bacillus licheniformis WX-02

BACKGROUND The poly-γ-glutamic acid (γ-PGA) hydrolase of PgdS affects the molecular weight and yield of γ-PGA in Bacillus subtilis, while the effects of PgdS on the γ-PGA synthesis in Bacillus licheniformis have not been investigated. RESULTS By heterologous expression in Escherichia coli, the PgdS was characterized. The purified PgdS had an optimal γ-PGA degradation activity from pH 5.5 to 6.5, with an appropriate reaction temperature from 37 °C to 45 °C. The enzyme activity could be enhanced by Zn2+, Mn2+, Ca2+ and SDS, while inhibited by Hg2+ or Cu2+. By enhanced expression of pgdS gene in vivo, the enzyme activity, protein concentration and gene transcriptional level of PgdS were improved, and γ-PGA molecular weight decreased from 1000–1200 kDa to 600–800 kDa. Moreover, the γ-PGA yield reached 20.16 g L-1, increased by 54% than the native strain (13.11 g L−1). Gene transcript levels of glutamate transporters and poly-γ-glutamate synthetase were confirmed to be improved, which might be the reason for the increased γ-PGA production. CONCLUSION Enhanced expression of pgdS gene in B. licheniformis WX-02 helped to reduce the molecular weight and improve the yield of γ-PGA. This study provided a novel strategy to regulate the molecular weight and yield of γ-PGA. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry
Aluminium (Al) tolerance variability in seven wheat cultivars : an assessment of Al toxicity in wheat

A petri dish and hydrophonic culture experiment was conducted at Crop Physiology Laboratory, Department of Crop Botany, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh to investigate the effect of aluminum on seed germination, morphological characters and growth of wheat seedlings. The experiment comprised two levels of aluminum concentrations viz., 0 (control) and 250 ppm and seven wheat varieties viz., B1064, Sonalika, B20, B1059, Kanchan, B21 and B19. The experiment was laid out in two factors completely randomized design with three replications. Application of 250ppm aluminum had a profound influence on hypocotyl and epicotyl length, germination percentages, root and shoot length and fresh and dry mass production in wheat. Results indicated that germination percentage, hypocotyl and epicotyl length, root and shoot length, leaf length, fresh and dry mass plant -1 were greater in control than that of aluminum treatment indicating wheat seedlings are susceptible to aluminum stress. However, among the studied varieties, the reduction of dry mass due to aluminum was minimum in Sonalika (3.31% reduction over control) followed by B1059 (6.19% reduction over control) indicating that Sonalika was more tolerant to aluminum toxicity than the other varieties while the varieties, B20 and B21 were more susceptible to aluminum stress.
Effects of Weed Control and Irrigation on the Growth of Young Pecans

The effect of irrigation and weed control by various mechanical and chemical means was evaluated over a 4-yr period on newly planted pecans [Carya illinoensis (Wang.) K. Koch]. Weed control effect on tree growth became evident in the second growing season, and became more pronounced after the third and fourth season. After the fourth season, the maximum increase in tree diameter (384%) was achieved with comprehensive, herbicide-based weed control. Mowing provided a 224% increase, which was equivalent to the untreated (229%). Disking and selective chemical control of grass weeds resulted in 339 and 292% increase, respectively. Cumulative increase in tree diameter was 316 and 271% with and without irrigation, respectively.
Comparative evaluation of three buffalo populations using microsatellite markers

Data generated on 24 microsatellite loci from 3 buffalo populations viz. Bhadawari, Tarai and Kerala buffaloes was subjected to analysis for estimation of genetic distances. The genetic distances calculated were Nei's minimum, Nei's standard, Latter's Fst, Reynolds' distances (IAM). The genetic distances based on SMM were also estimated. These were average squared distance (ASD), delta mu square [()'], Shrivers' Dsw and similarity index (D,). The dendrograms were prepared using both UPGMA and NJ algorithms. The Tarai and Bhadawari populations were close to one another and this was expected because of the contiguity of their breeding tract resulting in increased gene flow. The results of all the genetic distances were similar except ASD which is not the right method for closely related populations of a species. The inter-individual distances were also estimated and clustering of individuals was done utilizing UPGMA and NJ methods.
Pollination of Greenhouse Tomatoes by the Mexican bumblebee Bombus ephippiatus (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

The Mexican native bumblebee Bombus ephippiatus Say was evaluated as a potential pollinator of greenhouse tomatoes ( Solanum lycopersicon L.). The experiments were performed at San Andres Cholula, Puebla, Mexico, from June to December 2004 in two 1 000 m2 greenhouses planted with tomatoes of the cultivar Mallory (Hazera ®). For the experiments, we used two colonies of Bombus ephippiatus , reared in the laboratory from queens captured in the field. Four treatments were applied to 20 study plants: pollination by bumble bees, manual pollination, pollination by mechanical vibration and no pollination (bagged flowers, no vibration). We measured percentage of flowers visited by bumble bees, number of seeds per fruit, maturing time, sugar content, fruit weight and fruit shape. All available flowers were visited by bumblebees, as measured by the degree of anther cone bruising. The number of seeds per fruit was higher for bumble bee-pollinated plants as compared with plants pollinated mechanically or not pollinated and was not significantly different between hand-pollinated and bumble bee-pollinated plants. Maturation time was significantly longer and sugar content, fresh weight and seed count were significantly higher for bumblebee pollinated flowers than for flowers pollinated manually or with no supplemental pollination, but did not differ with flowers pollinated mechanically.
Déjections des herbivores domestiques au pâturage: caractéristiques et rôle dans le fonctionnement des prairies

Three main factors underlie the physico-chemical characteristics of domestic grazing animal dung: the species of animal, the physiological state of the animal and quality of ingested herbage (driven by plant community composition and climatic conditions). Given that animals use only a small proportion of the nutrients they ingest, dung represents significant transfers of organic matter and nutrients to the pasture, promoting spatial heterogeneity in soil nutrients and nutrient cycling via uneven returns. This heterogeneity has cascading effects on both plant and animal diversity at the local scale. Dung degradation and time to disappearance depends on both climatic factors and coprophagous invertebrate activity. These invertebrates play a key role in modifying the properties of both animal dung and soil (aeration, water porosity), which in turn promotes microbial activities. In general, large dung patches have an adverse effect on vegetation immediately below the dung, and lead to local rejection of herbage by grazing animals. In the longer term, dung has a positive effect on surrounding pasture growth which may last up to two years after dung disappearance. Whilst the chemical transformations of dung and effects on flora and fauna are relatively well-described, further work is needed to assess the importance of coprophagous insects for ecosystem services.
Milk, Mleko, Leche: Variation in human milk bioactives across populations

Human milk not only provides nutrition and passive immune protection to the infant during early life, but also contains a variety of bioactive components that actively shape the infant’s developing microbiota, metabolism, and immune system. Milk composition varies among mothers and is thought to be shaped by natural selection and ecological inputs from the mother’s environment in order to prepare the infant for the environment it is most likely to encounter during early life. Despite the wide variety of physical and cultural environments humans inhabit around the globe today, the majority of research on human milk composition has been conducted in urban, industrialized settings. As a result, relatively little is known about milk composition in diverse populations. This dissertation utilizes collaborative studies to explore how the composition of human milk varies among mothers from diverse geographic locations and with varying cultural and subsistence practices. First, the composition of innate and acquired immune proteins was compared across seven populations. Acquired immune protein composition was found to be more variable than innate immune protein composition across populations and subsistence strategies. This finding supports the idea that the immune protection provided by milk is shaped by the mother’s immunological exposures throughout her lifetime. Next, the concentrations of seven trace elements were compared in milk from four populations. Calcium was the most variable element investigated, while zinc concentrations did not differ among populations. Cultural practices contributed to higher milk iron concentrations in one population.
THE INFLUENCE OF PREDATOR-PREY RELATIONSHIPS ON WILDLIFE PASSAGE EVALUATION

The influence of predator-prey systems and interactions on wildlife passage use by mammals has received little attention to date. Predator-prey systems vary throughout the world and across regions. Europe and North America are characterised largely by predator-prey systems in which predator and prey have co-evolved. However, large predators are absent from many areas, enabling prey species (e.g., ungulates) to range in predator-free environments. In mainland Australia, the main predator species are evolutionary novel and have not co-evolved with native prey. These fundamental differences in predator-prey systems potentially influence species’ behavior and, it is argued, species’ response to passage environments. Predator-prey systems also operate at different spatial scales. The spatial distribution of large mammals is influenced by regional scale predator-prey interactions that potentially influence the species encountering passages. Medium-sized and small mammals tend to operate at more refined geographical scales and passage avoidance or acceptance may be more influenced by localised predator-prey interactions and in response to the passage structure. Biotic interactions at passage approaches and within passage confines potentially influence the successful transit of the passage. This paper examines the documented and potential influence of predator-prey interactions on wildlife passage use by mammals, and passage effects on predator and prey interactions. It considers predator-prey relationships relative to various spatial scales and takes into account biotic interactions that may occur at passage sites. The potential influences of relaxed selection and co-evolution of predator and prey on predator-prey systems and mammalian responses to passage environments are particularly addressed. It is concluded that extrapolation of management recommendations resulting from passage studies under different predator-prey systems need to be treated cautiously. The influence of predator-prey interactions on passage response by mammalian fauna appears to have been underestimated in passage studies to date and warrants further scientific investigation.