Grantham Baldwin (supplyside4)

The olfactory system of insects is important for behavioral activities as it recognizes internal and external volatile stimuli in the environment. Insect odorant degrading enzymes (ODEs), including antennal-specific carboxylesterases (CXEs), are known to degrade redundant odorant molecules or to hydrolyze important olfactory sex pheromone components and plant volatiles. Compared to many well-studied Type-I sex pheromone-producing lepidopteran species, the molecular mechanisms of the olfactory system of Type-II sex pheromone-producing Hyphantria cunea (Drury) remain poorly understood. In the current study, we first identified a total of ten CXE genes based on our previous H. unea antennal transcriptomic data. We constructed a phylogenetic tree to evaluate the relationship of HcunCXEs with other insects' CXEs, and used quantitative PCR to investigate the gene expression of H. cunea CXEs (HcunCXEs). Our results indicate that HcunCXEs are highly expressed in antennae, legs and wings, suggesting a potential function in degrading sex pheromone components, host plant volatiles, and other xenobiotics. This study not only provides a theoretical basis for subsequent olfactory mechanism studies on H. cunea, but also offers some new insights into functions and evolutionary characteristics of CXEs in lepidopteran insects. From a practical point of view, these HcunCXEs might represent meaningful targets for developing behavioral interference control strategies against H. cunea. Estimation of prevalence of feeding practices during diarrhea using conventional imputation methods may be biased as these methods apply to observed factors and in this study, feeding practice status was unobserved for those without diarrhea. The study aimed at re-estimating the prevalence of feeding practices using the bivariate sample selection model. The study used 2015-2016 Malawi demographic health survey (MDHS) data which had 16,246 children records who had diarrhea or not. click here A bivariate Joe copula regression model with 90 degrees rotation was fitted to either drinking or eating more, with diarrhea as a sample selection outcome in the bivariate models. The prevalence of drinking more than usual and prevalence of eating more than usual were then estimated based on the fitted bivariate model. These prevalences were then compared to the prevalences estimated using the conventional imputation method. There was a substantial increase in the re-estimated national prevalence of drinking more fluids (40.0%,ion of prevalence of drinking more fluids or eating more food during diarrhea should use bivariate modelling to model sample selection variable so as to minimize bias. The observed negative correlation between diarrhea presence and feeding practices implies that mothers should be encouraged to let their children drink more fluids or eat more food during diarrhea episode to avoid dehydration and malnutrition. Madagascar is famous for its extremely rich biodiversity; the island harbors predominantly endemic and threatened communities meriting special attention from biodiversity scientists. Continuing ongoing efforts to inventory the Malagasy ant fauna, we revise the species currently placed in the myrmicine genus Mayr. One species described from Madagascar, Forel, is synonymized with the Palearctic Latreille This species is considered neither native to Madagascar nor established in the region. This revision focuses on the balance of species in the group which are all endemic to Madagascar. The diversity of the Malagasy fauna was assessed via application of multiple lines of evidence involving quantitative morphometric, qualitative morphological, and DNA sequence data. (1) Morphometric investigation was based on hypothesis-free (NC-clustering) combined with (PART) to estimate the number of morphological clusters and determine the most probable boundaries