The Grape Gene Reference Catalogue as a Standard Resource for Gene Selection and Genetic Improvement

Effective crop improvement, whether through selective breeding or biotech strategies, is largely dependent on the cumulative knowledge of a species’ pangenome and its containing genes. Acquiring this knowledge is specially challenging in grapevine, one of the oldest fruit crops grown worldwide, which is known to have more than 30,000 genes. Well-established research communities studying model organisms have created and maintained, through public and private funds, a diverse range of online tools and databases serving as repositories of genomes and gene function data. The lack of such resources for the non-model, but economically important, Vitis vinifera species has driven the need for a standardised collection of genes within the grapevine community. In an effort led by the Integrape COST Action CA17111, we have recently developed the first grape gene reference catalogue, where genes are ascribed to functional data, including their accession identifiers from different genome-annotation versions (https://integrape.eu/resources/genes-genomes/). We present and discuss this gene repository together with a validation-level scheme based on varied supporting evidence found in current literature. The catalogue structure and online submission form provided permits community curation. Finally, we present the Gene Cards tool, developed within the Vitis Visualization (VitViz) platform, to visualize the data collected in the catalogue and link gene function with tissue-specific expression derived from public transcriptomic data. This perspective article aims to present these resources to the community as well as highlight their potential use, in particular for plant-breeding applications.

Hydra collecting for citizen scientists v2

The freshwater cnidarian Hydra has been a model system for regeneration and developmental biology for over 250 years, but much remains unknown about their biodiversity and global distribution. As a citizen scientist, you can contribute to our understanding of Hydra in the wild by becoming a "Hydra Hunter". All it takes is a few simple materials and a little patience. Collecting Hydra in the wild can be challenging. You will certainly not find them everywhere you look. Keep in mind that NOT finding Hydra is still useful information because this will help us understand the environmental factors that effect their distribution. Metadata submission form: https://forms.gle/cAZCiiRCyE922G5t5 Please contact [email protected] for more information or to receive a Hydra collecting kit. Hydra collecting kits were purchased with a grant to Kimberly Sladek from the University of San Diego Associated Students Government. Thank you to Rob Steele for helpful feedback on this protocol. References: Campbell, R. D. (1983). Hydra Collecting. In H. M. Lenhoff (Ed.). Hydra: Research Methods. New York: Springer Science + Business Media. Martínez, D. E., et al. (2010). Phylogeny and biogeography of Hydra (Cnidaria: Hydridae) using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 57, 403-410. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2010.06.016

Hydra collecting for citizen scientists v2

The freshwater cnidarian Hydra has been a model system for regeneration and developmental biology for over 250 years, but much remains unknown about their biodiversity and global distribution. As a citizen scientist, you can contribute to our understanding of Hydra in the wild by becoming a "Hydra Hunter". All it takes is a few simple materials and a little patience. Collecting Hydra in the wild can be challenging. You will certainly not find them everywhere you look. Keep in mind that NOT finding Hydra is still useful information because this will help us understand the environmental factors that effect their distribution. Metadata submission form: https://forms.gle/cAZCiiRCyE922G5t5 Please contact [email protected] for more information or to receive a Hydra collecting kit. Hydra collecting kits were purchased with a grant to Kimberly Sladek from the University of San Diego Associated Students Government. Thank you to Rob Steele for helpful feedback on this protocol. References: Campbell, R. D. (1983). Hydra Collecting. In H. M. Lenhoff (Ed.). Hydra: Research Methods. New York: Springer Science + Business Media. Martínez, D. E., et al. (2010). Phylogeny and biogeography of Hydra (Cnidaria: Hydridae) using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 57, 403-410. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2010.06.016

Prevalence of pathological lesions diagnosed by cytology in cats, with association of diagnosis to age, breed and gender

Cytology is the diagnostic procedure of the microscopic evaluation of cells. It is becoming increasingly important and more frequently used in veterinary diagnostics, having many advantages including simplicity, speed and low cost. To determine the pathological changes diagnosed by cytology in cats, as well as the distribution of age, breed and gender in the diagnosed changes, we performed a retrospective study on slides submitted to the Department of Veterinary Pathology for routine cytological examination. The archive was searched for all feline cytology slides submitted from 2009 to 2018. All the slides were re-evaluated and classified into one of the four pathological processes: ‘neoplasia’, ‘inflammation’, ‘other condition’ or ‘non-diagnostic sample’. Breed, age, gender and the tissue from which the lesion was sampled were noted from the submission form, and statistically analyzed. The most frequent type of pathological process diagnosed was neoplasia, which reflects the high prevalence of neoplastic diseases in cats reported in literature data. Pathological changes were mostly diagnosed in domestic shorthaired cats of both sexes, with an average age of 8.4 years, but no breed, age or gender predisposition was found. The most evaluated tissue was skin, probably due to its accessibility and the ease of obtaining a sample from skin lesions. The most frequent neoplasia were malignant and the most frequent diagnosis was round cell neoplasia. Cats affected with round cell neoplasia had a significantly lower average age (7.3 years) than cats diagnosed with epithelial and mesenchymal neoplasia (9.9 and 10.3 years, respectively), probably reflecting the common retroviral infection in Croatian cats.

Perancangan Arsitektur Sistem Informasi Tugas Akhir dan Skripsi Berbasis Website di Universitas Ma’soem

One of the activities at Ma'soem University is the Registration of Final Projects for Diploma Three (D3) students and Thesis for Undergraduate students (S1). Currently, the registration process for the Final Project and Thesis is still done manually, where students must come directly to the campus to register, pay and fill out the title submission form. Meanwhile, for the preparation of seminar schedules, honoraria and final and thesis report, data processing is still using Ms. Excel. From these activities, several obstacles were found regarding information on Final Projects and Thesis, including: 1. Limited payment and registration services for Final Projects and Thesis, which can only be served on campus during working hours and days from Monday to Saturday 07.30 to 21.30 WIB. 2. Filling in the Final Project and Thesis forms manually, there is a risk of damage and loss of data. 3. Do not have a database yet, so that it is difficult to validate data on the same Final Project Title and Thesis submitted by students. 4. The process of making seminar and final project honorarium reports and thesis sessions takes a long time, and cannot be generated automatically. In this study, the system development method used is the OOAD (Object Oriented Analysis and Design) method with the RUP (Rational Unified Process) model, which consists of several stages, namely: Business Modeling, Requirments, Analysis and Design, Implementation, Test, Deployment. As for the system development tools using UML (Unified Modeling Language) which consists of: Use Case Diagrams, Activity Diagrams and Class Diagrams. With the design of the information system architecture of this Final Project and Thesis, it produces a blueprint that can: Provide payment and registration services for Final Projects and Theses that are not limited by space and time, minimize the occurrence of damage and data loss, make it easier to validate submissions for the title of Final Project the same and can facilitate the process of making seminar and final project honorarium reports and thesis reports so that they can be generated automatically.

Graduate Projects Submission Form

A Qualtrics survey provided by Drexel University Libraries to allow graduate students to submit non-thesis/dissertation projects to be published in DU's IR.