Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ultrastructural studies of the mandibular gland of Melipona quadrifasciata Lepeletier, 1836 (Apidae, Meliponini): a comparison between workers and queens

Summary The mandibular glands of workers and queens of Melipona quadrifasciata Lepeletier 1836 were studied in different functional states under transmission electron and light microscopy. In both castes, the glands consisted of a cluster of class III secretory cells and a small, thin-walled reservoir. The glands of queens were smaller than those of workers. The gland of workers were more developed in nurses, in which they consisted of secretory cells rich in smooth endoplasmic reticulum and lipid-like secretion. Among workers, the stored secretion seemed to be used only by foragers. In queens, the gland is more active in virgin than in physogastric queens, being the secretion likely composed mostly of proteins. Our results suggest that the secretion is mainly useful for foragers and virgin queens. Secretion appears to play a role in pheromone activity.
The negative correlation between somatic aneuploidy and growth in the oyster Crassostrea gigas and implications for the effects of induced polyploidization

This study extends previous observations that chromosome loss in somatic cells of juveniles of the pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas is associated with reduced growth rate. All four studies designed to examine this association (two using random population samples and two using full sibs) produced the same result. This consistent effect appears to be unrelated with the commonly, but not consistently, observed correlation between degree of allozyme heterozygosity and growth. We propose that the inverse relationship between aneuploidy and growth is due to the unmasking of deleterious recessive genes caused by 'progressive haploidization' of somatic cells. Because unmasking of deleterious recessive genes by random chromosome loss is unlikely in polyploid cells, this hypothesis may also provide an explanation for the observation that artificially produced polyploid shellfish usually grow at faster rates than normal diploid ones.
A minimalist approach to the effects of density‐dependent competition on insect life‐history traits

Abstract 1. Due to its effects on the phenotypic and genotypic expression of life‐history traits, density‐dependent competition is an important factor regulating the growth of populations. Specifically for insects, density‐dependent competition among juveniles is often associated with increased juvenile mortality, delayed maturity, and reduced adult size.
The comparative behavioural ecology of the Brown Hyaena Hyaena brunnea and the Spotted Hyaena Crocuta crocuta in the Southern Kalahari

The diet, foraging behaviour, social organisation and social behaviour of the brown hyaena Hyaena brunnea and the spotted hyaena Crocuta crocuta, and the interactions between these two species in the southern Kalahari are discussed. The brown hyaena is a scavenger of a wide variety of vertebrate remains, supplementing its diet with wild fruits and insects and is well adapted to this arid region. The spotted hyaena is a hunter-scavenger of large and medium-sized mammals and is not found in such numbers in the southern Kalahari as is the brown hyaena. These differences in diet have led to the evolution of large differences in foraging behaviour, social organisation, denning behaviour and communication patterns in the two species; spotted hyaenas having a more highly developed social system and living in far larger territories than brown hyaenas. Spotted hyaenas are dominant to brown hyaenas, but because of their low density in the southern Kalahari, have little effect on the brown hyaena population there.
Localization of mRNA for the proton pump (H+-ATPase) and exchanger in the rainbow trout gill

In situ hybridization was performed on sections of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) gill tissue using oligonucleotide probes complementary to the mRNA of the 31-kilodalton subunit of the bovine renal V-type H+-ATPase or rat kidney Band 3 anion exchanger ( exchanger). This was conducted in conjunction with measurements of whole-body net acid fluxes and blood acid–base status during imposed conditions of respiratory acidosis (external hypercapnia) or metabolic alkalosis (NaHCO3 infusion). A positive hybridization signal for the H+-ATPase mRNA was localized predominantly in lamellar epithelial cells and was less apparent in cells associated with the filament or interlamellar regions. The H+-ATPase hybridization signal was enhanced during hypercapnic acidosis concurrently with a marked increase in whole-body net acid excretion. A positive hybridization signal for the exchanger mRNA was observed in epithelial cells on both the filament and lamella. During metabolic alkalosis induced by intra-arterial infusi.
The Attempted Clearance of Sargassum muticum from Britain

The Brown Alga Sargassum muticum, a native of Japan but also introduced into the Pacific waters of North America, was first found on the Isle of Wight off southern England in 1973, and has subsequently spread as far west as Plymouth. A large attached population is also present on the Channel coast of France. Marine biologists in England, fearful of its possible effect on indigenous marine organisms and recreational amenities, set up an eradication programme. This was largely unsuccessful, even though an estimated 450 tonnes of wet S. muticum were collected in one year (1976). Some of the possible vectors of dispersal of this Alga are discussed, especially in relation to movement of oysters and shipping. It is thought that the spread of S. muticum will continue along the coast and that it may well extend deeper into the sublittoral than appears to be the case at present. A research programme on the ecology and biology of S. muticum, as well as on possible means of control, is continuing.
Influenza viruses and MAP kinase cascades – Novel targets for an antiviral intervention?

Influenza virus infections still pose a major threat to human and animal health worldwide. On one hand, like any other viral pathogen influenza viruses are strictly dependent on their host cell for efficient replication. On the other hand cells respond to infection by mounting an innate immune program to fight the invader. This constant battle between the virus and the host-cell is also reflected on the level of the intracellular signalling events that are induced upon infection. While these signalling pathways are primarily initiated as a cellular defence program, the virus has acquired the capability to exploit some of these activities to support its replication. This review aims to illustrate this principle with regard to the diverse functions of different MAP kinase cascades during influenza virus infection. Some of these cascades act within cell protective pathways while others are required for efficient viral replication and thus, may serve as novel targets for antiviral intervention.
Purification and Properties of Several Galactanases of Bacillus subtilis var. amylosacchariticus

Two crystalline and one highly purified galactanases were obtained from the culture broth of Bacillus subtilis var. amylosacchariticus (1043) and their chemical and enzymatic properties, especially, their specificities were comparatively studied. Their molecular weights were almost the same, but the isoelectric points were considerably different from each other. The galactanases were sensitive to metal chelators and stabilized by Ca2+. The pH optimum of the enzymes were between 6.0 and 7.0. All the galactanases investigated here attacked soybean arabinogalactan without liberation of arabinose, though they were inactive against coffee bean arabinogalactan. In digestion of soybean arabinogalactan, all the galactanases purified here formed galactose, galactobiose and galactotriose whereas the galactanase previously isolated from Bacillus subtilis K–50 produced galactobiose as the main final product.
Sustainable Soil Management Practices in Small Farms of Southern Nigeria: A Poultry-Food Crop Integrated Farming Approach

ABSTRACT A major reason given for the decline in per capita food production in Nigeria over the last two to three decades is the gradual decline in land productivity. Available information shows that in southern Nigeria, for example, there was recorded a consistent decline in yield per hectare of major food crops between 1995 and 2000. Evidence from the literature suggests that the main reason for this persistent decline in soil productivity is the perpetuation of unsustainable soil management practices by small food crop farmers that dominate the food production landscape in the country. This study therefore sets out to find out whether the adoption of a poultry based integrated food crop production system is economically viable in southern Nigeria. This is predicated by the fact that the environment in the southern part of Nigeria is well adapted for poultry production. Primary data was collected in Edo state, southern Nigeria, through a sample survey using a well structured questionnaire. A total of 94 poultry-based integrating farmers was selected using a combination of stratified and systematic random sampling procedure. A Linear Programming (LP) model was used to analyze and determine the optimal enterprise combination that maximizes the dual objectives subject to the production constraints of the small farms. The result shows that the dual objectives of maximizing Total Gross Margin (TGM) and simultaneously ensuring sustainable soil management practices was possible under full integration of poultry-food crop production. The results of the study suggest that a poultry-based integrated food crop production system, if given more attention by farmers and backed up by policy, may be an acceptable and feasible way of stemming the declining trend in soil productivity in southern Nigeria.
Co-creating finances. A new perspective on designing for the financial world.

Abstract This paper presents a series of solutions and ideas to financial topics developed by design students. The projects are based on human-centered design methodologies and are part of a design course. The course explores participatory design tools to understand the financial topics and find opportunities for innovation. The topics are 4: Money as a technology, Emerging Financial Clusters, Personal Finances, and Financial Inclusion. The design process consists of an exploration the topics, executing participatory sessions, analyzing and communicating results, and presenting the proposals. Students developed 15 projects that can be classified in a 2x2 matrix (digital vs. analog and products vs. strategies). Among the projects, there is an app that allows friends to collect money for drinks and keep a drinking journal, a moody wallet that will persuade people to spend less, and a digital legacy to complement life insurances, and a tree-shaped piggy bank for children, among others.
Down's Syndrome in Middle Age

A 45 year old patient with Down's syndrome was autopsied. The brain, weighing 800 g, was small in size, and serial sections revealed generalized gyral atrophy and ventricular dilatation. In the gray matter, there was diffuse neuronal degeneration characterized by numerous neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), senile plaques and frequent amyloid angiopathy. Histochemical and electron microscopical analyses of these lesions showed no qualitative difference from those in Alzheimer's disease. A topographical study of NFTs showed that they were numerous in the limbic system and cerebral neocortex. Various numbers of NFTs were seen in the olfactory bulb, thalamus, medial geniculate body, innominate substance, putamen, caudate, pallidum, central gray, reticular formation, certain midline nuclei of the brainstem, substantia nigra, red nucleus and dorsal vagal nucleus. This distribution pattern was not different qualitatively from that in Alzheimer's disease, and such a similarity was especially evident in the olfactory bulb, where many tufted and mitral cells as well as anterior olfactory nucleus cells showed NFTs. These common features of brain pathology in Down's syndrome and Alzheimer's disease may be due to a specific gene defect in both diseases. Acta Pathol Jpn 40: 735 743, 1990.
Morphometrics, life history and population biology of the Ponto-Caucasian slave-making ant Myrmoxenus tamarae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

The ant genus Myrmoxenus consists of about ten socially parasitic species including active slave-makers and workerless "degenerate slave-makers". Myrmoxenus tamarae was previously known only from type material, two workers collected at Daba, Georgia and nothing was known about its life history, colony structure or the morphology of its sexuals. An inspection of colonies of M. tamarae near the type locality in 2010 indicates that young queens of M. tamarae invade Temnothorax nests and kill the host queen by throttling. The simultaneous presence of two slave species in a single colony (an undescribed species related to T. nylanderi and a species morphologically resembling T. unifasciatus) indicates that M. tamarae is an active slave-maker. The genetic structure of the colonies matches that expected for a monogynous and monandrous ant, but three of eight colonies inspected appeared to contain work- ers belonging to an additional genetic lineage.
The pathogenesis of pre-invasive lesion development

Educational aims To describe the progression of pre-invasive bronchial lesions. To highlight malignant transformation causes and risks. To explain somatic and epigenetic abnormalities contributing to lesions. Summary The progression of pre-invasive bronchial lesions is a multifocal and multistep process. Morphological malignant transformation is driven by the accumulation of multiple genetic and epigenetic abnormalities, the rate and number of which determines the risk and rate of progression toward cancer. The field effect of mutagenesis in airways is characterised by the multifocality of the lesions. To date, no evidence has been presented for genetic alterations accumulating in a known sequence. No individual alteration is sufficient to predict the occurrence of invasive cancer in the bronchial tree.
Effects of benlate on leatherleaf fern growth, root morphology and rhizosphere bacteria

Abstract Reduced frond production as well as foliar disorders and root damage to leatherleaf fern (Rumohra adiantiformis [Forst.] Ching) coincided with the widespread use of Benlate fungicide in grower operations. These symptoms could not be explained by environmental conditions or the presence of new pathogens. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of Benlate at labeled rates on frond production, root morphology, and soil microbial characteristics of leatherleaf ferns. A separate experiment was conducted by adding Benlate at labeled drench rate to previously untreated soil to evaluate the promotion of soil bacteria. Benlate was applied to leatherleaf fern plants in the greenhouse at labeled foliar and drench rates for 17 months. Fronds were harvested during the last nine months. Roots of the ferns were examined using electron microscopy at termination of the experiment to determine physical and microbial characteristics of the roots. Rhizosphere bacteria were evaluated to determine count.
Effects of temperature and dietary protein on the growth performance and IGF-I mRNA expression of juvenile mirror carp (Cyprinus carpio)

Juvenile mirror carp were fed with five different diets containing 303, 322, 341, 361 and 379 g kg−1 protein and reared at three different water temperatures (18, 23 and 28 °C) for 60 days. We investigated the insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) mRNA expression, growth performance and the relationship between IGF-I mRNA expression and the growth performance. The results indicated that the IGF-I mRNA expression, final body weight, specific growth rate (SGR) and feed efficiency (FE) were enhanced significantly with increasing dietary protein levels (P < 0.05), whereas the protein efficiency ratio, hepatosomatic index (HSI) and viscerosomatic index (VSI) were decreased. Moreover, the IGF-I mRNA expression, final body weight and SGR were increased significantly with temperature, whereas the HSI and VSI indices were decreased significantly with temperature. Correlation analysis showed that the IGF-I mRNA expression levels in the brain and liver were positively related to the SGR and FE growth indices (P < 0.01). Finally, the optimal protein requirements for fish growth in different seasons were determined based on the values of SGR and FE, that is 343–348 g kg−1 protein at 18 °C, 354–352 g kg−1 at 23 °C and 371–362 g kg−1 at 28 °C. In this way, we can adjust the dietary protein levels according to culture temperature to reduce any negative impacts on dietary costs and environmental pollution.
Introduction

The recent success using immunotherapy to cure cancer has considerably renewed the interest for research in tumor immunology. Compared to conventional cancer treatments with radiation therapy and chemotherapy, immunotherapy is far less damaging to the body and has less detrimental side effects. In addition, promoting patients’ own defenses and enhancing tumor immunity is more likely to prevent cancer relapse. Among the current operational immunotherapeutic methods used, one can mention the adoptive cell transfer with engineered T cells transformed in vitro to express chimeric antigen receptors. This type of active treatment is very effective and now increasingly used against blood cancers or leukemia. The development immune stimulating immunotherapy is a more recent type of treatment. It has led to remarkable clinical effects as illustrated by the famous complete cure of metastatic melanoma of former president of United States of America Jimmy Carter. This approach uses humanized antibodies that block the checkpoint inhibitors CTLA-4 and PD1, of two important immune pathways. The blockade of these inhibitory receptors enhances antitumor T cell response by preventing or abrogating suppressive signals. Despite undeniable successes, the clinical application of immunotherapy remains challenging and very expensive. As such, there is a need for improving current strategies as well as for developing novel ones. While this endeavor heavily and almost exclusive relies on murine models, a wider comparative approach using less conventional animal models may be helpful. Indeed, studies over many years have revealed that cancerous diseases are widely found not only in vertebrates but also in invertebrates (reviewed in Aktipis et al. 2015; Robert, 2010). Given the renewed attention for tumor immunology, it seems appropriate and timely to inform and educate the mainstream biomedical community about tumorigenesis and tumor immunity across the whole animal kingdom. This would provide a broader view of unappreciated attractive animal models and comparative approaches alternative to mice. Thus, in this special thematic issue of our journal Immunological Investigations, we present alternative ways either using human cell lines or non-murine animals to gathering further insights into host-tumor interactions. In a first paper, Young Zen (2019) explores the generation of splicing variants of a serine protease homolog known to be important for tumor invasion in an invertebrate arthropod (the Crayfish, Procambarus clarkii). This is followed by two papers (Li et al., 2019; Owen and Siddle, 2019) concerning the interesting case of the Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD) that plague the Tasmanian Devil, a mammalian species of Tasmania. This is a fatal monophyletic clonally transmissible cancer type that spreads between devils by biting during fights for mating. Xinying Li et al. (2019) have investigated whether murine macrophage cell lines can phagocytize Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD1) cancer cells in vitro and if so whether TNF tumor
A Blackmail Hypothesis for the Evolution of Conspicuous Egg Coloration in Birds

— 453 — The Auk, Vol. 127, Number 2, pages 453−459. ISSN 0004-8038, electronic ISSN 1938-4254.  2010 by The American Ornithologists’ Union. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals. com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/auk.2009. 09090 Daniel Hanley,1,2,3 StepHanie M. Doucet,2 anD DonalD c. Dearborn1
Portuguese Fashion Design Emerging Between Dictatorship and Fast Fashion

Abstract Since the 1974 Revolution, all aspects of Portuguese society have gone through profound changes, and fashion and dress are no exception. Fashion design in Portugal took its first steps in the 1970s, conquering slowly yet progressively Portuguese consumers and, in more recent years, obtained a certain degree of international confidence and recognition. The Portuguese fashion industry has for many years been known for its quality and low-cost production, but designers face a larger challenge when it comes to being recognized as a fashion center. This article documents the period from 1974 to 2010 during which Portuguese fashion designers, events, and brands worked together to achieve national and international acknowledgment.
Fatty acid composition of the blubber and dermis of adult male Atlantic walruses (Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus) in Svalbard, and their potential prey

Abstract Blubber biopsies were collected from 18 adult male walruses from Svalbard, Norway. The biopsies were taken vertically through the skin and the entire blubber layer down to, but not including, the muscle layer. Fatty acid (FA) compositions of inner blubber, outer blubber and dermis of the walruses and of potential prey organisms were determined. The three layers differed significantly from one another in FA composition. Generally, the inner blubber contained more long-chained monounsaturated, saturated and polyunsaturated FAs, while the outer blubber and dermis contained more short-chained monounsaturated FAs. This stratification is similar to what has been observed in other marine mammal species. However, differences between layers were less pronounced than in most other species, possibly because the extremely thick overlying dermis of walruses provides an insulating shield, which affects the FA composition of the outer blubber. The FA composition of the potential prey organisms was different from that of the blubber of the walruses, although more similar to the inner blubber than to the outer blubber or dermis. FA composition in the inner blubber was not significantly correlated with age (assessed by tusk volume), while the FA composition of the outer blubber and dermis were significantly correlated with age.
Parasitological survey of the edible cockle Cerastoderma edule (Bivalvia) on the south coast of Ireland

The edible cockle Cerastoderma edule is one of the most common soft sediment bivalves in Europe and of commercial relevance in some areas of its range. Information on the parasite fauna of cockles is available from several North Sea and Atlantic shore locations. However, little is known from the British Isles in this context. This study provides an inventory of the macroparasites of C. edule sampled from fourteen localities along the south coast of Ireland. Altogether, we identified ten taxa of macroparasites belonging to three major groups. The majority of them were digenean trematodes using cockles as second intermediate host. Infection rates and levels were comparatively low, with the exception of the gymnophallid Meiogymnophallus minutus, which was found to be prevalent at all sampling sites and often very abundant. Whilst parasite species composition in Irish cockles was similar to the one found in conspecifics from northern Europe, it showed distinct differences from the macroparasite fauna reported from C. edule collected in southern Europe and northern Africa.