马尾松和苦槠林根际土壤矿化和根系分解CO2释放的温度敏感性

以中亚热带马尾松林和苦槠林为对象,原位收集根际和非根际土壤、树木不同生态功能的根系,开展15℃、25℃、35℃和45℃恒温培养模拟试验,采用密闭气室碱液吸收法测定53 d内CO2释放的动态变化.结果表明:两种森林类型不同温度下土壤矿化CO2释放速率的根际效应介于1.12 ～3.09,且培养前期高于培养后期;15℃下马尾松林和苦槠林差异不显著,25℃和35℃下前者低于后者,45℃下则相反.不同培养温度下两树种吸收根分解的CO2释放速率均高于过渡根和贮存根,且马尾松均低于苦槠.两种森林类型CO2释放的Q10值均为土壤(1.21 ～1.83)显著高于根系(0.96 ～1.36).两种森林类型土壤矿化CO2释放的Q10值差异不显著,而马尾松根系分解CO2释放的Q10值高于苦槠.推断全球变暖导致的土壤矿化CO2释放的增量将远远高于根系分解,且马尾松林高于苦槠林;地带性顶极群落应对气候变化的抵抗力强于先锋树种群落.     

Follow‐up of atypia and follicular lesions of undetermined significance in thyroid fine needle aspiration cytology

N. Dincer, S. Balci, A. Yazgan, G. Guney, R. Ersoy, B. Cakir and G. Guler
Follow‐up of atypia and follicular lesions of undetermined significance in thyroid fine needle aspiration cytology Objective: To report our experience of atypia of undetermined significance (AUS)/follicular lesion of undetermined significance (FLUS) rate and outcome. Methods: Among 7658 patients with 19 569 nodules, 524 (2.7%) nodules were diagnosed as AUS/FLUS on fine needle aspiration (FNA). After exclusion of patients with simultaneous nodules that were suspicious for follicular neoplasm or malignancy or that were malignant, 368 (4.8%) patients were diagnosed as AUS/FLUS. The outcome of 146 patients who had undergone surgery or repeated fine needle aspirate at the time of preparation of this study was evaluated. The original FNAs were matched to repeated FNAs and thyroidectomy or diagnostic lobectomy specimens. Results: Seventy‐two (19.6%) of the 368 patients had directly undergone surgery, either a lobectomy or a thyroidectomy: of these, 27 (37.5%) had neoplastic nodules (21 were malignant). Seventy‐four (20.1%) of the 368 patients had repeat FNA. On second FNA, 47 of 74 (63.5%) were benign, three were suspicious for follicular neoplasm, one was malignant and 23 (31.1%) were non‐diagnostic. Four patients had a third FNA: two were AUS/FLUS, one was malignant and one non‐diagnostic. One patient had a fourth FNA, which was diagnosed as AUS/FLUS. Sixteen (21.6%) of 74 patients with repeat FNA had surgery: three of these had neoplastic nodules (two were malignant). Overall, 88 of the 368 (23.9%) patients had a thyroidectomy of which 30 (34.1%) were neoplastic and 23 (26.1%) malignant. The neoplastic rate for patients who were once diagnosed with AUS/FLUS was 8.2% and the malignancy rate 6.3%. The malignancy rate for patients on follow‐up at the time we prepared the study was 15.7% (23/146); 222 remained on follow‐up without surgery or repeat FNA or were managed elsewhere. Conclusions: Although in this category repeat FNA is expected rather than excision, we suggest evaluation of all AUS/FLUS patients in multidisciplinary meetings to decide management and recommend follow‐up of all patients with this diagnosis.     

Hagfish phylogeny and taxonomy,with description of the new genus Rubicundus (Craniata,Myxinidae)

A recent phylogenetic analysis of the Myxinidae based on the 16S rRNA gene resulted in synonymization of Paramyxine with Eptatretus. This created homonymy of Paramyxine fernholmi with Eptatretus fernholmi and Paramyxine wisneri with Eptatretus wisneri. In order to resolve this nomenclatural dilemma, we made a more extensive phylogenetic assessment of the Myxinidae and examined the nomenclature of the family. We used 75 sequences (37 of which new for this study) of a 561 bp fragment of the 16S rRNA gene, representing 33 species, and 72 sequences (37 of which new for this study) of a 687 bp fragment of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene, representing 23 species, to reconstruct the phylogeny of Myxinidae. The monophyly of the subfamily Myxininae, traditionally characterized by having a single pair of external gill openings, was rejected (0.50 Bayesian posterior probability) by the 16S analysis, but supported by the COI and combined COI+16S analyses (0.99 and 0.81 Bpp, respectively). The monophyly of the subfamily Eptatretinae, characterized by having several pairs of external gill openings, was not supported by the 16S analysis and rejected by the COI and combined COI+16S analysis due to the placement of Eptatretus lopheliae as the earliest branch of Myxinidae (0.71 and 0.57 Bpp, respectively). Eptatretus lopheliae and Eptatretus rubicundus formed a monophyletic group and were allocated to a new genus, Rubicundus, characterized by the presence of an elongated tubular nostril and reddish coloration. A new monotypic subfamily, Rubicundinae, was proposed for Rubicundus. The synonymy of the genera Paramyxine and Quadratus with Eptatretus was confirmed. E. fernholmi is renamed Eptatretus luzonicus. Eptatretus wisneri was renamed Eptatretus bobwisneri. Petromyzon cirrhatus Forster, 1801, Homea banksii Fleming, 1822, and Bdellostoma forsteri Müller, 1836 are synonyms, but no type specimens are known to exist. Petromyzon cirrhatus was designated as type species of Eptatretus, conserving present usage. Gastrobranchus dombeyi Shaw, 1804 has priority over other names for Chilean myxinids. Bdellostoma stoutii was designated as type species of Polistotrema Gill. The validity of the Western Atlantic Myxine limosa as distinct from the Eastern Atlantic Myxine glutinosa was confirmed.     

AUTOMATIC FEATURE EXTRACTION AND CLASSIFICATION OF CROSSBILL (LOXIA SPP.) FLIGHT CALLS

ABSTRACT

In this paper a new method for the automatic classification of bird sounds is presented. Our method is based on acoustic parameters (features) taken from the first harmonic component computed from the sound spectrogram. The features are based on a line segment approximation of the first harmonic component. The final feature vectors, consisting of 16 real numbers, are then classified using a self-organizing map (SOM) neural network. Flight calls of four crossbill species (Loxia spp.) are used as a test example. In the first phase, an unsupervised network was trained and tested using common crossbill L. curvirostra flight calls recorded mainly in the Netherlands. The network was tested using two-barred L. leucoptera, Scottish L. scotica and parrot L. pytyopsittacus crossbill flight calls in the second phase. Finally, the results were validated applying the same network to flight calls of common crossbills and parrot crossbills recorded in Finland. The method automatically separated common crossbill flight calls from those of parrot crossbills. The classification accuracy of the Dutch recordings was 58% in the first phase and 54% in the second phase. The Finnish recordings were classified with 54% accuracy.     

Application of higher order statistics for atrial arrhythmia classification

Atrial fibrillation (AF) and atrial flutter (AFL) are the two common atrial arrhythmia encountered in the clinical practice. In order to diagnose these abnormalities the electrocardiogram (ECG) is widely used. The conventional linear time and frequency domain methods cannot decipher the hidden complexity present in these signals. The ECG is inherently a non-linear, non-stationary and non-Gaussian signal. The non-linear models can provide improved results and capture minute variations present in the time series. Higher order spectra (HOS) is a non-linear dynamical method which is highly rugged to noise. In the present study, the performances of two methods are compared: (i) 3rd order HOS cumulants and (ii) HOS bispectrum. The 3rd order cumulant and bispectrum coefficients are subjected to dimensionality reduction using independent component analysis (ICA) and classified using classification and regression tree (CART), random forest (RF), artificial neural network (ANN) and k-nearest neighbor (KNN) classifiers to select the best classifier. The ICA components of cumulant coefficients have provided the average accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and positive predictive value of 99.50%, 100%, 99.22% and 99.72% respectively using KNN classifier. Similarly, the ICA components of HOS bispectrum coefficients have yielded the average accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and PPV of 97.65%, 98.16%, 98.75% and 99.53% respectively using KNN. So, the ICA performed on the 3rd order HOS cumulants coupled with KNN classifier performed better than the HOS bispectrum method. The proposed methodology is robust and can be used in mass screening of cardiac patients.     

高敏C-反应蛋白在紫癜性肾炎患儿中的应用

目的：探讨血清高敏C-反应蛋白（hs-CRP）在儿童紫癜性肾炎（HSPN）临床分型与病理分级中的应用价值,为基层医院提供一个可评价HSPN患儿病情严重程度的实验室相关指标。方法：应用免疫比浊法检测210例HSPN患儿不同临床分型与病理分级中的血清hs-CRP的水平,并与住院的70例的正常儿童作对照组进行比较。采用Pearson秩相关分析得出HSPN患儿血清hs-CRP水平临床分型与及病理分级的关系。结果：HSPN患儿血清hs-CRP水平明显高于对照组（HSPN组6.4±3.5 mg/L,对照组0.7±0.1mg/L）,差异有统计学意义（t=1.021,P=0.003）。HSPN患儿的血清hs-CRP水平与其临床分型的严重程度存在正相关（r=0.913,P〈0.05）。而HSPN患儿血清hs-CRP水平与其病理分级的关系也呈正相关（r=0.901,P〈0.05）。结论：随着HSPN患儿临床分型与病理分级的增高,其血清hs-CRP水平显著升高,HSPN患儿血清hs-CRP水平与其临床分型和病理分级之间均呈显著正相关,检测HSPN患儿血清hs-CRP水平可预测其临床分型和病理分级的程度,即HSPN患儿血清hs-CRP水平越高提示其临床分型和病理分级越重,因此检测HSPN患儿血清hs-CRP水平有助于评估HSPN患儿的病情、治疗效果和预后情况。     

云南地方辣椒品种涮辣和雀辣的植物学分类

涮辣和雀辣是我国云南地区有特色的两个地方品种。本文分别基于园艺性状和90份不同类型的辣椒资源利用均匀覆盖12条染色体的29个SSR标记进行聚类分析。研究结果表明,园艺性状以及分子水平上涮辣归属于中国辣椒(C.chinese),雀辣更倾向归属于灌木辣椒(C.frutescens)。     

基于设计模板的BRD-like折叠类型综合分类方法

蛋白质折叠规律研究是生命科学重大前沿课题,折叠类型分类是蛋白质折叠研究的基础。构建BRD-like折叠类型模板数据库,建立了基于多模板的综合分类方法,并用于该折叠类型的分类。对实验集的12 117个样本进行检验,结果的敏感性、特异性分别为0.923和0.997,MCC值为0.72;对独立检验集2 260个样本的检验,结果发现:敏感性、特异性分别为0.941和0.998,MCC值为0.86.结果表明:基于多模板的综合分类方法可用于蛋白质折叠类型分类。     

Evolution of trichomes and its systematic significance in Salvia (Mentheae; Nepetoideae; Lamiaceae)

We have investigated the trichome characteristics in representative species of Salvia and Pleudia in order to evaluate this source of morphological evidence for addressing problems regarding generic delimitation and subgeneric classification. Trichomes of 46 Salvia spp., representing three subgenera in Iran, were investigated using light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. General trichome characteristics were constant among different populations of a certain species, but showed a degree of variability useful in the delimitation of taxa, specifically at lower taxonomic levels. Trichome characters of taxonomic interest are as follows: types of glandular hair; number of composing cells (uni‐, bi‐ or multicellular); size and thickness; branching pattern; and presence of papillae on the surface. Non‐glandular trichomes can be simple and branched. Glandular trichomes can be stalked, subsessile or sessile. Our investigation reveals the usefulness of such characters in providing fundamental taxonomic criteria for taxon delimitation in these genera at various levels, especially at the specific rank. Furthermore, the data presented here indicate the potential applicability of such characters in the determination of evolutionary trends in Salvia and allies. © 2015 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2016, 180 , 241–257.     

Integrative insect taxonomy based on morphology,mitochondrial DNA,and hyperspectral reflectance profiling

Integrative taxonomy is considered a reliable taxonomic approach of closely related and cryptic species by integrating different sources of taxonomic data (genetic, ecological, and morphological characters). In order to infer the boundaries of seven species of the evacanthine leafhopper genus Bundera Distant, 1908 (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae), an integrated analysis based on morphology, mitochondrial DNA, and hyperspectral reflectance profiling (37 spectral bands from 411–870 nm) was conducted. Despite their morphological similarities, the genetic distances of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene among the tested species are relatively large (5.8–17.3%). The species‐specific divergence of five morphologically similar species (Bundera pellucida and Bundera spp. 1–4) was revealed in mitochondrial DNA data and reflectance profiling. A key to identifying males is provided, and their morphological characters are described. Average reflectance profiles from the dorsal side of specimens were classified based on linear discriminant analysis. Cross‐validation of reflectance‐based classification revealed that the seven species could be distinguished with 91.3% classification accuracy. This study verified the feasibility of using hyperspectral imaging data in insect classification, and our work provides a good example of using integrative taxonomy in studies of closely related and cryptic species. © 2015 The Linnean Society of London