The first epiphytic macrolichen and its implication to the interacting with Mesozoic forest ecosystem

Lichens are well known as pioneer organisms or stress-tolerant extremophiles playing a core role in the early formation of terrestrial ecosystems, of which epiphytic lichens make a distinct contribution to the water-cycle and nutrient cycling in forest ecosystem. But due to the scarcity of relevant fossil records, the evolutionary history of epiphytic lichens is poorly documented. Herein, based on the new material of Daohugouthallus ciliiferus, we demonstrated that the hitherto oldest macrolichen inhabited a gymnosperm branch, representing the first unambiguous Jurassic epiphytic lichen. Combing the fossil and extant macrolichen representatives, we performed the geometric morphometric analysis and comprehensive comparison to infer the systematic status of this rare Jurassic macrolichen. The results declared that D. ciliiferus cannot be assigned to any known macrolichen lineages for its elder age and particular habits, and therefore a new family, Daohugouthallaceae was proposed. This work updated the current knowledge to the historical evolution of epiphytic lichens, implying the macrolichens may have diversified much earlier than the generally accepted K–Pg boundary. In addition, our new finding also provided direct evidence for tracing the continuing joint development of epiphytic lichens and forest ecosystem since the Jurassic of 165 Mya.

Evaluation of Hospital Supply Chain Performance During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The pandemic has an impact on almost all sectors of people's lives, in the economic, political, and socio-cultural sectors. The government has implemented large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) as an effort to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus. With the PSBB, it causes disruption to the hospital supply chain management. As a step to anticipate the hospital's impact on the PSBB, the hospital needs to evaluate the performance of supply chain management. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the performance evaluation of hospital supply chain management using a balanced scorecard approach. A new finding from this study is to measure the performance of hospitals experiencing various disruptions in their supply chain management caused by the COVID-19 pandemic with a balanced scorecard. The author concludes that measurements with the balanced scorecard approach can provide information about the performance of hospital supply chain management broadly in areas experiencing disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results for Chaos Synchronization with New Multi-Fractional Order of Neural Networks by Multi-Time Delay

A new finding is proposed for multi-fractional order of neural networks by multi-time delay (MFNNMD) to obtain stable chaotic synchronization. Moreover, our new result proved that chaos synchronization of two MFNNMDs could occur with fixed parameters and initial conditions with the proposed control scheme called sliding mode control (SMC) based on the time-delay chaotic systems. In comparison, the fractional-order Lyapunov direct method (FLDM) is proposed and is implemented to SMC to maintain the systems’ sturdiness and assure the global convergence of the error dynamics. An extensive literature survey has been conducted, and we found that many researchers focus only on fractional order of neural networks (FNNs) without delay in different systems. Furthermore, the proposed method has been tested with different multi-fractional orders and time-delay values to find the most stable MFNNMD. Finally, numerical simulations are presented by taking two MFNNMDs as an example to confirm the effectiveness of our control scheme.

A NEW FINDING OF A RARE FUNGUS PISOLITHUS ARHIZUS (BOLETALES, BASIDIOMYCOTA) ON THE TERRITORY OF ODESA REGION

Problem. The distribution of species from the Red Book of Ukraine has been studied insufficiently. This also applies to the rare fungus Pisolithus arhizus (Scop.) Rauschert. Therefore, the discovery of new habitats of rare species is relevant. Aim. The aim of the work is to characterize the new locality of P. arhizus from Odesa region, found on September 12, 2021. Methods. The site was found during a survey of the coast of the Tyligul estuary by a route method. The determination of the fungus was carried out according to the Determinant of fungi of Ukraine. Results. A new locality of P. arhizus was discovered on the bank of the Tyligul estuary in the vicinity of the village of Liubopol, Lyman district, Odesa region. This finding complements the information on the mycobiota of the regional landscape park "Tyligulskyi" (Odesa region). One carpophore was found, the morphometric parameters of which were known in the literature. It is possible that Pisolithus arhizus is a symbiont of cultured Juniperus sabina L.

Hominin Femur finding from Banjarejo: Its morphological character and taxonomical position

Recently, Banjarejo became an important prehistoric site for Quaternary research because of its significant faunal and hominin remains. This study aims to describe a new finding of the hominin femur specimen from the site and its taxonomical position in human evolution. The specimen was identified by morphological and metric descriptions of the external feature of the femur. Then, comparative study to Homo erectus (n=2), Homo neanderthalensis (n=8), Homo heidelbergensis (n=1), prehistoric Homo sapiens (n=44), Australopithecus africanus (n=1), Paranthropus robustus (n=2), also non-human primate including Pongo (n=1), Macaca (n=1) and Gibbon (n=1) using bivariate and multivariate statistical analysis presented the specimen in the evolutionary perspective. This study shows the morphological and metric character of Banjarejo specimen located between Homo erectus and prehistoric Homo sapiens population sample. Further study should be addressed to investigate the cultural and chronological context of the hominin specimen.

A surprising finding of Ecclisopteryx asterix Malicky, 1979 (Insecta, Trichoptera) in Croatia with notes to DNA barcoding and new distributional data of the subfamily Drusinae

The subfamily Drusinae (Trichoptera, Limnephilidae) is represented in Croatia with eight (8) species, including Ecclisopteryx asterix Malicky, 1979 recorded for the first time in Croatian fauna. The species was collected on two occasions: March 10th 2015 and March 6th 2021 in the Šumi Spring, at the Ivanščica Mt. in Hrvatsko Zagorje (North Croatia). This new finding considerably extends the distribution of this species, previously considered a microendemic of the Alps. The distribution of the two species, Drusus schmidi Botosaneanu, 1960 and D. croaticus Marinković-Gospodnetić, 1971 has been also enlarged with new findings. Within this study, nine specimens of the aforementioned species have been DNA barcoded and sequences were entered into the BOLD database. The results of this paper contribute to the ecological and faunistic knowledge of caddisflies in Croatia, with an emphasis on the subfamily Drusinae.

Stanisław Majerski – autor projektów zakopiańskiej Księżówki

Abstrakt: Autor prezentuje nowe ustalenia dotyczące autorstwa budynku Księżówki w Zakopanem. W Żołyni, niewielkiej miejscowości w województwie podkarpackim, znajduje się Zbiór Dąbrowskich z Żołyni liczący kilka tysięcy projektów. Wśród nich autor odnalazł dzieła architekta Stanisława Majerskiego, m.in. projekty dla Księżówki w Zakopanem. Projekty dla tego obiektu, sygnowane także przez Majerskiego, odszukał również w Archiwum Narodowym w Krakowie. Analiza projektów wykazała, że wspomniany architekt był autorem murowanej części Księżówki. Jest to nowe ustalenie, ponieważ dotychczas budynek przypisywany był Eugeniuszowi Wesołowskiemu. Autor przedstawia także hipotezę, że powstała w okresie międzywojennym na miejscu dawnej Adasiówki drewniana część budynku również mogła zostać zrealizowana według projektu Stanisława Majerskiego. Summary: The Author presents new findings regarding the authorship of the ‘Księżówka’ building in Zakopane. Żołynia, a small town in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship, seats the Żołynia Dąbrowski Collection with several thousand projects, among which the author found the works of the architect Stanisław Majerski, including the projects of the ‘Księżówka’ in Zakopane. What is more, he found this object’s designs in the National Archives in Krakow, signed by Majerski as well. The analysis performed indicated the authorship of the above-mentioned architect pertaining to the brick part of the ‘Księżówka’, which is a new finding in this matter, because the building was previously attributed to Eugeniusz Wesołowski. The Author also presents a hypothesis stating that the wooden part of the building, erected during the interwar period on the site of the former ‘Adasiówka’, could also had been erected based on Stanisław Majerski’s design.

Improving replicability using interaction with laboratories: a multi-lab experimental assessment

Phenotyping inbred and genetically-engineered mouse lines has become a central strategy for discovering mammalian gene function and evaluating pharmacological treatment. Yet the utility of any findings critically depends on their replicability in other laboratories. In previous publications we proposed a statistical approach for estimating the inter-laboratory replicability of novel discoveries in a single laboratory, and demonstrated that previous phenotyping results from multi-lab databases can be used to derive a Genotype-by-Lab (GxL) adjustment factor to ensure the replicability of single-lab results, for similarly measured phenotypes, even before making the effort of replicating the new finding in additional laboratories.The demonstration above, however, still raised several important questions that could only be answered by an additional large-scale prospective experiment: Does GxL-adjustment works in single-lab experiments that were not intended to be standardized across laboratories? With genotypes that were not included in the previous experiments? And can it be used to adjust the results of pharmacological treatment experiments? We replicated results from five studies in the Mouse Phenome Database (MPD), in three behavioral tests, across three laboratories, offering 212 comparisons including 60 involving a pharmacological treatment: 18 mg/kg/day fluoxetine. In addition, we define and use a dimensionless GxL factor, derived from dividing the GxL variance by the standard deviation between animals within groups, as the more robust vehicle to transfer the adjustment from the multi-lab analysis to very different labs and genotypes.For genotype comparisons, GxL-adjustment reduced the rate of non-replicable discoveries from 60% to 12%, for the price of reducing the power to make replicable discoveries from 87% to 66%. Another way to look at these results is noting that the adjustment could have prevented 23 failures to replicate, for the price of missing only three replicated ones. The tools and data needed for deployment of this method across other mouse experiments are publicly available in the Mouse Phenome Database.Our results further point at some phenotypes as more prone to produce non-replicable results, while others, known to be more difficult to measure, are as likely to produce replicable results (once adjusted) as the physiological body weight is.

SMAW: The Effects of Currents and Welding Rod Diameters on Welded Joint Ultimate Tensile Strength Using the Full Factorial DOE

This research was significant as it extensively studies the effects of current and rod diameter on SMAW welded join. The Mild Steel (AISI 1018) was used as the base material to be welded using the E-6013 welding rod. The experiment was constructed according to the full factorial design of experiment (DOE). This project found that the current and rod diameter are the significant factors in affecting the ultimate tensile strength (UTS). New contribution from this research was that the rod diameter is more significant than the current in affecting the UTS of a welded joint. In addition, this research also contributed new finding by showing that the interaction between current and rod diameter as significant in affecting the UTS. This interaction was also found to be more significant that current but less significant than rod diameter in affecting the UTS of welded joint. In addition, this research showed that the tensile strength increases when the current is increased from 80A to 100A. However, the tensile strength decreased as the current is set between 110A to 130A. At the same time, the welding rod diameter of 2.5mm produced the highest tensile strength compared to 3.2mm and 4.0mm rod diameter. This research also optimised the experiment and found that the highest tensile strength obtained is 342.39 MPa, which is produced using 80A of welding current with 2.5mm rod diameter.