scholarly journals Giving eyespots a shiner: Pharmacologic manipulation of the Io moth wing pattern

F1000Research ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 1319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei Sourakov

Our knowledge of wing pattern formation in Lepidoptera has advanced significantly in recent years due to the careful examination of several groups of butterflies. The eyespot is a prominent feature of Lepidoptera wing pattern, especially in the family Saturniidae. The present study examined how sulfated polysaccharides affected the wing pattern formation of the Io moth, Automeris io (Saturniidae).  Prepupae and pupae of this species were subjected to injections of heparin and cold shock. While the cold shock had little to no effect on wing pattern, the aberrations resulting from heparin injections were moderate to profound and depended on the dose and the stage at which injection was made. The changes consisted of expansion of the black ring around the dorsal hindwing eyespots and distortion of discal spots on both dorsal and ventral sides of forewings, suggesting a possible link between genetic controls of these elements. Several different types of scales form the normal color pattern of Automeris io, and heparin-induced changes correspond to changes in shape of scales. The resulting aberrations are dubbed ‘Black Eye’ and ‘Comet Eye.’ Other known aberrations of Automeris io eyespots are summarized, illustrated, and named.

F1000Research ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 1319
Author(s):  
Andrei Sourakov

Our knowledge of wing pattern formation in Lepidoptera has advanced significantly in recent years due to the careful examination of several groups of butterflies. The eyespot is a prominent feature of Lepidoptera wing pattern, especially in the family Saturniidae. The present study examined how sulfated polysaccharides, which are known to simulate cold shock effect in nymphalid butterflies, affected the wing pattern formation of the Io moth, Automeris io (Saturniidae).  Prepupae and pupae of this species were subjected to injections of heparin and cold shock. While the cold shock had little to no effect on wing pattern, the aberrations resulting from heparin injections consisted of moderate to profound increases in melanism around the eyespots. The resulting aberrations are dubbed ‘Black Eye’ and ‘Comet Eye.’ Most other known aberrations of Automeris io eyespots are summarized, illustrated and named.


2017 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 293
Author(s):  
Edwin Infante-Rivero

Anablepsoides hartii is a non-annual fish of the family Cynolebiidae. Historically, this species has presented some inconsistencies for proper identification, due to a variation in the color pattern. The aim of this study was to describe and illustrate the different types of color patterns found in this species. For this purpose, we examined a total of 336 preserved specimens (19 lots) deposited in the ichthyological collections of the Museo de Biologia de la Universidad Central de Venezuela and the Museo de Ciencias Naturales in Guanare, Venezuela. The specimens were sorted by distinctive characteristics of size, sex and locality. Besides, we took photographs of each individual, vectorized them with detail, separating light and dark colorations and delimited color patterns of the same tone with the program Corel Draw version x7 (Spanish). My analysis showed that A. hartii presented four colors patterns. The color morphs were classified as: 1 male, 2 female, 3 intermediate and 4 montane. The first two color morphs were separated by sexual characters (sexual dimorphism); in turn, the intermediate color morph presented characters of both males and females in the same individual. Finally, the montane color morph differed from the previous ones by presenting a series of incomplete lateral rows, followed by a half-body reticulation to the tail. This analysis allowed the identification of the differences in this morphologically variable species.


2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
RAGNAR K. KINZELBACH

The secretarybird, the only species of the family Sagittariidae (Falconiformes), inhabits all of sub-Saharan Africa except the rain forests. Secretarybird, its vernacular name in many languages, may be derived from the Arabic “saqr at-tair”, “falcon of the hunt”, which found its way into French during the crusades. From the same period are two drawings of a “bistarda deserti” in a codex by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1194–1250). The original sketch obviously, together with other information on birds, came from the court of Sultan al-Kâmil (1180–1238) in Cairo. Careful examination led to an interpretation as Sagittarius serpentarius. Two archaeological sources and one nineteenth century observation strengthened the idea of a former occurrence of the secretarybird in the Egyptian Nile valley. André Thevet (1502–1590), a French cleric and reliable research traveller, described and depicted in 1558 a strange bird, named “Pa” in Persian language, from what he called Madagascar. The woodcut is identified as Sagittarius serpentarius. The text reveals East Africa as the real home of this bird, associated there among others with elephants. From there raises a connection to the tales of the fabulous roc, which feeds its offspring with elephants, ending up in the vernacular name of the extinct Madagascar ostrich as elephantbird.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
Zaidan Ali Jassem

This paper traces the Arabic origins or cognates of the “definite articles” in English and Indo-European languages from a radical linguistic (or lexical root) theory perspective. The data comprises the definite articles in English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, Latin, Greek, Macedonian, Russian, Polish, Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Persian, and Arabic. The results clearly indicate that five different types of such articles emerged in the data, all of which have true Arabic cognates with the same or similar forms and meanings, whose differences are due to natural and plausible causes and different routes of linguistic change, especially lexical, semantic, or morphological shift. Therefore, the results support the adequacy of the radical linguistic theory according to which, unlike the Family Tree Model or Comparative Method, Arabic, English, German, French, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit not only belong to the same language family, renamed Eurabian or Urban family, but also are dialects of the same language, with Arabic being their origin all because only it shares the whole cognates with them all and because it has a huge phonetic, morphological, grammatical, and lexical variety. They also manifest fundamental flaws and grave drawbacks which plague English and Indo-European lexicography for ignoring Arabic as an ultimate ancestor and progenitor not only in the treatment of the topic at hand but in all others in general. On a more general level, they also show that there is a radical language from which all human languages stemmed and which has been preserved almost intact in Arabic, thus being the most conservative and productive language


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
He-Teng Zhang ◽  
Hao Wang ◽  
Hai-Sheng Wu ◽  
Jian Zeng ◽  
Yan Yang

Abstract Background Although some studies have investigated the bacterial community in vaginal tract of pregnant women, there are few reports about the viral community (virome) in this type of microenvironment. Methods To investigate the composition of virome in vaginal secretion samples, 40 vaginal secretion samples from pregnant women with vaginitis and 20 vaginal secretion samples from pregnant women without vaginitis, pooled into 4 and 2 sample pools, respectively, were subjected to viral metagenomic analysis. Results Results indicated virus sequences showing similarity to human papillomavirus (HPV), anellovirus, and norovirus were recovered from this cohort of pregnant women. Further analysis indicated that 15 different defined types and one unclassified type of HPV were detected from pregnant women with vaginitis while only 3 defined types of HPV were detected in pregnant women without vaginitis. Five different groups of viruses from the family Anelloviridae were present in pregnant women with but none of them were detected in pregnant women without vaginitis. Norovirus was detected in 3 out of the 4 sample pools from pregnant women with vaginitis but none in the pregnant women without vaginitis. Twelve complete genomes belonging to 10 different types of HPV, and 5 novel anllovirus genomes belonging 2 different genera in Anelloviridae were acquired from these libraries, based on which phylogenetical analysis and pairwise sequence comparison were performed. Phageome in these samples was also briefly characterized and compared between two groups. Conclusion Our data suggested that virome might play an important role in the progression of vaginitis in pregnant women.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (S1) ◽  
pp. 147-147
Author(s):  
Conceição Balsinha ◽  
Steve Iliffe ◽  
Sónia Dias ◽  
Manuel Gonçalves-Pereira

INTRODUCTION: Primary care visits of persons with dementia involve different types of communication, bringing together the patient, the family carer and the general practitioner (GP). A particular challenge is the necessary involvement of a third person (the carer) in patient-doctor encounters (or the patient in carer-doctor encounters, as dementia advances). These triad dynamics should be better understood, as health outcomes are expected to result from or be mediated by them.OBJECTIVE: Our aim is to explore triadic dynamics in Portuguese primary care consultations with persons with dementia, their family carers and GPs.METHODS: This is the first part of an ongoing project (Dementia in Primary Care: the Patient, the Carer and the Doctor in the Medical Encounter - Bayer Investigation Grant | NOVAsaúde Ageing 2018). Consultations with persons with dementia, their carers and GPs (purposive sampling) are audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed. We report the analysis of interactions of the first six consultations, using NVIVO® software.RESULTS: The most frequent type of interaction was between GPs and carers, followed by interactions involving the whole triad. The patients who had more recent relationships with their GPs tended to participate less, irrespective of the stage of dementia. Carers were the ones most often initiating triadic interactions, and GPs the ones most often terminating them by directly addressing the patients. Doctor-carers interactions were very sparse in some consultations.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: These preliminary findings suggest that doctor-patient interactions may be limited in a number of GPs’ consultations, seemingly compromising patient-centred approaches. Nevertheless, even when GPs were involved in triadic interactions they often tried to address the patient directly. We are looking forward to complete this part of the project: to our knowledge, there is practically no evidence from live-recorded primary care consultations about these triadic dynamics.


Microscopy ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 66 (6) ◽  
pp. 414-423
Author(s):  
Monalisa Mishra ◽  
Ashutosh Choudhury ◽  
P Sagar Achary ◽  
Harekrushna Sahoo

Abstract Butterflies wings possess different types of scales to perform diverse functions. Each scale has many nano and microstructures, which interferes with light, resulting in unique coloration for each butterfly. Besides coloration, the arrangement of scales further helps in giving better survivability. Thus, analysis of wing pattern provides an overall idea about adaptation and activity of the animal. The current study deciphers the structure and composition of a wing of a pierid butterfly Catopsilia pomona, which remains active at 42°C at which temperature all other butterflies face a tougher task for existence. In order to know the relation between survivability and adaptation in the wing, we have investigated the structural and physical composition of the wing of C. pomona under optical spectroscopy (absorption, reflectance and transmittance) along with microscopy techniques (optical and scanning electron microscopy), which are not described in earlier studies. The current findings reveal unique structural arrangement within scales to provide the best fit to the animal in variable temperature.


2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (S1) ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
J. Wancata ◽  
M. Freidl ◽  
F. Friedrich ◽  
T. Matschnig ◽  
A. Unger ◽  
...  

Aims:The purpose of this study was to investigate disability among patients suffering from schizophrenia and to identify predictors of disability.Methods:101 patients from different types of psychiatric services in Vienna and diagnosed with schizophrenia according to ICD-10 were included. They were investigates by means of 36-Item self-administered version of the WHO Disability Assessment Schedule II (WHO-DAS-II) and the PANSS-scale. Patients’ mothers and fathers were asked to fill in the Family Problem Questionnaire.Results:The mean total score of the WHO-DAS-II was 74.1 (SD 21.9). When using weighted sub-scores the highest disability scores were found for social contacts, participation in society and household (means 2.58, 2.57 and 2.51 respectively). Using logistic regression, overall disability was positively associated with patient's age, overall severity of symptoms (PANSS) and number of previous hospital admissions. Overall disability was not associated with duration of illness and or patient's gender. The subjective burden experienced by patients’ fathers and mothers were increased by reduced social contacts and impaired participation in society, while we could not find an association with other domains of patient's disability (understanding, mobility, self-care, household).Conclusions:This study shows that schizophrenia results in disability in several domains. Family caregivers’ burden was predominantly increased by social consequences of schizophrenia.


1978 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilary Land

ABSTRACTAlthough Britain has never had a set of policies explicitly labelled ‘family policies’, most if not all social policies are implicitly family policies because they are based on certain assumptions about the nature of relationships between the sexes and the generations. By careful examination of the detail of the legislation and administrative rules, together with the way in which services are allocated and used, it is possible to expose these assumptions and show that they are not only consistent between policies but very persistent over time. This paper first examines the assumptions concerning the division of unpaid labour within the family whereby women care for the young, the sick and the old and for able-bodied adult men (their husbands). The examples are selected from a variety of income maintenance systems and services for children, the old and the disabled. Particular attention is focused on the extent to which it is recognized that women are at the same time workers in the labour market and unpaid domestic workers in the home. The second part of the paper analyses the impact on their participation and opportunities in the labour market of the ideology which accords to women the primary responsibilities for caring for other members of their family. The perpetuation of such an ideology favours the interests of men and frequently the interests of the economically powerful, but it is not assumed that these interests always coincide.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1952 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 597-601
Author(s):  
HOWARD L. KANTOR

A case of Salmonella bredeney meningitis with recovery in a 19 day old infant is reported. This is the youngest patient with Salmonella meningitis known to have recovered. This is the second known case of Salmonella meningitis with recovery in a patient less than one month of age. Treatment with multiple antibiotics and chemotherapy both parenterally and intrathecally produced rapid improvement. An equally effective supportive blood transfusion may have aided this recovery. The use of chloromycetin after discontinuance of all other antibiotics was effective in producing a clinical recovery without relapse. No sequelae were noted at the end of a three month observation period. Attempts at discovering the carrier state of the infesting organism by careful examination of the family revealed no source of infection.


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