Analysis and Comparison of New-Born Calf Standing and Lying Time Based on Deep Learning.

Standing and lying are the fundamental behaviours of quadrupedal animals, and the ratio of their durations is a significant indicator of calf health. In this study, we proposed a computer vision method for non-invasively monitoring of calves' behaviours. Cameras were deployed at four viewpoints to monitor six calves on six consecutive days.

Confluence: A Robust Non-IoU Alternative to Non-Maxima Suppression in Object Detection.

Confluence is a novel non-Intersection over Union (IoU) alternative to Non-Maxima Suppression (NMS) in bounding box post-processing in object detection. It overcomes the inherent limitations of IoU-based NMS variants to provide a more stable, consistent predictor of bounding box clustering by using a normalized Manhattan Distance inspired proximity metric to represent bounding box clustering. Unlike Greedy and Soft NMS, it does not rely solely on classification confidence scores to select optimal bounding boxes, instead selecting the box which is closest to every other box within a given cluster and removing highly confluent neighboring boxes.

Automated location invariant animal detection in camera trap images using publicly available data sources.

A time-consuming challenge faced by camera trap practitioners is the extraction of meaningful data from images to inform ecological management. An increasingly popular solution is automated image classification software. However, most solutions are not sufficiently robust to be deployed on a large scale due to lack of location invariance when transferring models between sites.

U-Infuse: Democratization of Customizable Deep Learning for Object Detection.

Image data is one of the primary sources of ecological data used in biodiversity conservation and management worldwide. However, classifying and interpreting large numbers of images is time and resource expensive, particularly in the context of camera trapping. Deep learning models have been used to achieve this task but are often not suited to specific applications due to their inability to generalise to new environments and inconsistent performance.

Modelling the potential effects of climate factors on Dubas bug (Ommatissus lybicus) presence/absence and its infestation rate: A case study from Oman.

Background: Ommatissus lybicus de Bergevin (Hemiptera: Tropiduchidae) (Dubas Bug, DB) is an insect pest attacking date palms. It occurs in Arab countries including Oman. In this paper, the logistic, ordinary least square, and geographical weighted regressions were applied to model the absence/presence and density of DB against climate factors.

Predicting the potential geographical distribution of parasitic natural enemies of the Dubas bug ( de Bergevin) using geographic information systems.

The Dubas bug ( de Bergevin) is a pest species whose entire life cycle occurs on date palms, L, causing serious damage and reducing date palm growth and yield. Viggiani nr. and Olmi are very important parasitic natural enemies of in northern Oman.

Remote sensing and spatial statistical techniques for modelling (Hemiptera: Tropiduchidae) habitat and population densities.

In order to understand the distribution and prevalence of (Hemiptera: Tropiduchidae) as well as analyse their current biographical patterns and predict their future spread, comprehensive and detailed information on the environmental, climatic, and agricultural practices are essential. The spatial analytical techniques such as Remote Sensing and Spatial Statistics Tools, can help detect and model spatial links and correlations between the presence, absence and density of in response to climatic, environmental, and human factors. The main objective of this paper is to review remote sensing and relevant analytical techniques that can be applied in mapping and modelling the habitat and population density of .

Impact of environmental variables on Dubas bug infestation rate: A case study from the Sultanate of Oman.

Date palm cultivation is economically important in the Sultanate of Oman, with significant financial investment coming from both the government and from private individuals. However, a global infestation of Dubas bug (Ommatissus lybicus Bergevin) has impacted the Middle East region, and infestations of date palms have been widespread. In this study, spatial analysis and geostatistical techniques were used to model the spatial distribution of Dubas bug infestations to (a) identify correlations between Dubas bug densities and different environmental variables, and (b) predict the locations of future Dubas bug infestations in Oman.

Impacts of human-related practices on Ommatissus lybicus infestations of date palm in Oman.

Date palm cultivation is economically important in the Sultanate of Oman, with significant financial investments coming from both the government and private individuals. However, a widespread Dubas bug (DB) (Ommatissus lybicus Bergevin) infestation has impacted regions including the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Russia, and Spain, resulting in widespread damages to date palms. In this study, techniques in spatial statistics including ordinary least squares (OLS), geographically weighted regression (GRW), and exploratory regression (ER) were applied to (a) model the correlation between DB infestations and human-related practices that include irrigation methods, row spacing, palm tree density, and management of undercover and intercropped vegetation, and (b) predict the locations of future DB infestations in northern Oman.

Genome-wide linkage disequilibrium and genetic diversity in five populations of Australian domestic sheep.

Background: Knowledge of the genetic structure and overall diversity of livestock species is important to maximise the potential of genome-wide association studies and genomic prediction. Commonly used measures such as linkage disequilibrium (LD), effective population size (N e ), heterozygosity, fixation index (F ST) and runs of homozygosity (ROH) are widely used and help to improve our knowledge about genetic diversity in animal populations. The development of high-density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays and the subsequent genotyping of large numbers of animals have greatly increased the accuracy of these population-based estimates.

Genome-wide association study of body weight in Australian Merino sheep reveals an orthologous region on OAR6 to human and bovine genomic regions affecting height and weight.

Background: Body weight (BW) is an important trait for meat production in sheep. Although over the past few years, numerous quantitative trait loci (QTL) have been detected for production traits in cattle, few QTL studies have been reported for sheep, with even fewer on meat production traits. Our objective was to perform a genome-wide association study (GWAS) with the medium-density Illumina Ovine SNP50 BeadChip to identify genomic regions and corresponding haplotypes associated with BW in Australian Merino sheep.

An improved independent component analysis model for 3D chromatogram separation and its solution by multi-areas genetic algorithm.

Background: The 3D chromatogram generated by High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Diode Array Detector (HPLC-DAD) has been researched widely in the field of herbal medicine, grape wine, agriculture, petroleum and so on. Currently, most of the methods used for separating a 3D chromatogram need to know the compounds' number in advance, which could be impossible especially when the compounds are complex or white noise exist. New method which extracts compounds from 3D chromatogram directly is needed.

Long-term vitamin E supplementation reduces atherosclerosis and mortality in Ldlr-/- mice, but not when fed Western style diet.

Objectives: Epidemiological and experimental evidence have indicated potential health benefits of vitamin E supplementation on coronary heart disease (CHD), but several clinical trials have reported no benefit from vitamin E supplementation on CHD. We hypothesized that supplemental intake of vitamin E from an early age may prevent or retard the development and progression of atherosclerosis and CHD mortality.

Methods: To test this hypothesis, 300 Ldlr(-/-) mice were divided into groups receiving Western style high fat/cholesterol (HFHC), moderate fat/cholesterol (MFMC), or low fat/cholesterol (LFLC) diets all containing 50 IU of vitamin E.

A novel approach in discovering significant interactions from TCM patient prescription data.

The efficacy of a traditional Chinese medicine medication derives from the complex interactions of herbs or Chinese Materia Medica in a formula. The aim of this paper is to propose a new approach to systematically generate combinations of interacting herbs that might lead to good outcome. Our approach was tested on a data set of prescriptions for diabetic patients to verify the effectiveness of detected combinations of herbs.

The impact of perineural invasion on biochemical outcome after permanent prostate iodine-125 brachytherapy.

Purpose: Perineural invasion (PNI) in prostate biopsies is associated with increased risk of higher Gleason score and worse pathologic stage. We report the influence of PNI in biochemical no evidence of disease (bNED) survival after (125)I prostate brachytherapy (BT).

Methods And Materials: Pathology reports of 700 men with localized prostate cancer who underwent (125)I prostate BT in 1999-2008 were reviewed.

Sparse kernel learning with LASSO and Bayesian inference algorithm.

Kernelized LASSO (Least Absolute Selection and Shrinkage Operator) has been investigated in two separate recent papers [Gao, J., Antolovich, M., & Kwan, P.

Curcumin inhibits adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 adipocytes and angiogenesis and obesity in C57/BL mice.

Angiogenesis is necessary for the growth of adipose tissue. Dietary polyphenols may suppress growth of adipose tissue through their antiangiogenic activity and by modulating adipocyte metabolism. We investigated the effect of curcumin, the major polyphenol in turmeric spice, on angiogenesis, adipogenesis, differentiation, apoptosis, and gene expression involved in lipid and energy metabolism in 3T3-L1 adipocyte in cell culture systems and on body weight gain and adiposity in mice fed a high-fat diet (22%) supplemented with 500 mg curcumin/kg diet for 12 wk.

Twin kernel embedding.

In most existing dimensionality reduction algorithms, the main objective is to preserve relational structure among objects of the input space in a low dimensional embedding space. This is achieved by minimizing the inconsistency between two similarity/dissimilarity measures, one for the input data and the other for the embedded data, via a separate matching objective function. Based on this idea, a new dimensionality reduction method called Twin Kernel Embedding (TKE) is proposed.

Vitamin E supplementation suppresses macrophage accumulation and endothelial cell expression of adhesion molecules in the aorta of hypercholesterolemic rabbits.

Suppression of cell adhesion molecule expression and macrophage accumulation by the endothelium is believed to play an important role in preventing the development of atherosclerosis. Earlier, we have shown that in vitro supplementation of human aortic endothelial cells with Vitamin E dose-dependently reduced expression of adhesion molecules and monocyte adhesion. Here, we report the in vivo down-regulation of endothelial cell adhesion molecules expression and macrophage accumulation in the aortas of hypercholesterolemic rabbits supplemented with Vitamin E.