A crazy ants' crazy form of reproduction: Causes and consequences.

The yellow crazy ant, or the long-legged ant, (formerly ) - named so for its meandering movements when disturbed, possibly owing to its long legs and antennae - is globallywidespread and currently classified as one of '100 of the world's worst invasive species' (Lowe 2000). This status is assigned to species that are non-native in a region and cause significant negative ecological and/or socioeconomic impacts, including declines in native biodiversity, changes in native ecosystem structure and function, and the breakdown of native biogeographic realms. Possibly, themost devastating and multipronged impacts of have been observed on island ecosystems, such as on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, where it impacted the entire island ecosystem by reducing arthropod, reptile, bird, and mammalian diversity on the forest floor and canopy, causing an 'invasional meltdown' (O'Dowd 2003).

Association of a novel 27-gene immuno-oncology assay with efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors in advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

Background: Immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapies represent a major advance in treating a variety of advanced-stage malignancies. Nevertheless, only a subset of patients benefit, even when selected based on approved biomarkers such as PD-L1 and tumor mutational burden. New biomarkers are needed to maximize the therapeutic ratio of these therapies.

Usefulness of patient-reported outcomes to assess the effectiveness of topical hormonal therapy for gynecologic symptoms after antihormonal treatment for breast cancer.

The aim of this retrospective study was to assess the efficacy of topical hormonal therapy (THT) to relieve vaginal symptoms resulting from antihormonal therapy in women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. A total of 74 breast cancer patients who received THT for vaginal complaints were retrospectively identified and statistically matched with 74 control breast cancer patients with vaginal complaints with no documented use of THT. Symptom scores were recorded from the center's proprietary patient-reported outcomes database, Patient Care Monitor (ConcertoHealthAI, Boston).

Unusual recurrent metastasizing benign breast papilloma: a case report.

Background: Papillary breast lesions may be benign, atypical, and malignant lesions. Pathological and clinical differentiation of breast papillomas can be a challenge. Unlike malignant lesions, benign breast papillomas are not classically associated with lymph node and distant metastasis.

Two new species and a new record of Bactrocera Macquart (Diptera: Tephritidae: Dacinae: Dacini) from India.

Two new species of Bactrocera Macquart, namely Bactrocera (Calodacus) harrietensis Ramani & David, sp. nov. and Bactrocera (Calodacus) chettalli David & Ranganath, sp.

Administration of ipilimumab to a liver transplant recipient with unresectable metastatic melanoma.

The CTLA-4 immune checkpoint inhibitor ipilimumab improves overall survival in metastatic melanoma. Its use in organ transplant recipients has not been studied and has been reported once in the literature. We report the case of a 59-year-old liver transplant patient who was given ipilimumab after previous treatment for advanced melanoma.

Karyotype instability in the ponerine ant genus Diacamma.

The queenless ponerine ant Diacamma ceylonense and a population of Diacamma from the Nilgiri hills which we refer to as 'nilgiri', exhibit interesting similarities as well as dissimilarities. Molecular phylogenetic study of these morphologically almost similar taxa has shown that D. ceylonense is closely related to 'nilgiri' and indicates that 'nilgiri' is a recent diversion in the Diacamma phylogenetic tree.

The use of mid-trial reviews for design modifications in small scale clinical studies.

Many clinical studies such as those in the areas of toxicology, early phase clinical trials and bioequivalence studies use small samples due to the high cost of experimentation. These studies test hypotheses based on small samples. These small samples result in low power and therefore even if the alternative hypotheses may be true the chance of it being rejected is low.

The complex spatio-temporal regulation of the Drosophila myoblast attractant gene duf/kirre.

A key early player in the regulation of myoblast fusion is the gene dumbfounded (duf, also known as kirre). Duf must be expressed, and function, in founder cells (FCs). A fixed number of FCs are chosen from a pool of equivalent myoblasts and serve to attract fusion-competent myoblasts (FCMs) to fuse with them to form a multinucleate muscle-fibre.

Nanoscale organization of hedgehog is essential for long-range signaling.

Hedgehog (Hh) plays crucial roles in tissue-patterning and activates signaling in Patched (Ptc)-expressing cells. Paracrine signaling requires release and transport over many cell diameters away by a process that requires interaction with heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs). Here, we examine the organization of functional, fluorescently tagged variants in living cells by using optical imaging, FRET microscopy, and mutational studies guided by bioinformatics prediction.

Object detection using pulse coupled neural networks.

This paper describes an object detection system based on pulse coupled neural networks. The system is designed and implemented to illustrate the power, flexibility and potential the pulse coupled neural networks have in real-time image processing. In the preprocessing stage, a pulse coupled neural network suppresses noise by smoothing the input image.

Smart adaptive optic systems using spatial light modulators.

Many factors contribute to the aberrations induced in an optical system. Atmospheric turbulence between the object and the imaging system, physical or thermal perturbations in optical elements degrade the system's point spread function, and misaligned optics are the primary sources of aberrations that affect image quality. The design of a nonconventional real-time adaptive optic system using a micro-mirror device for wavefront correction is presented.

Perfect image segmentation using pulse coupled neural networks.

This paper describes a method for segmenting digital images using pulse coupled neural networks (PCNN's). The pulse coupled neuron (PCN) model used in PCNN is a modification of Eckhorn's cortical neuron model. A single layered laterally connected PCNN is capable of perfectly segmenting digital images even when there is a considerable overlap in the intensity ranges of adjacent regions.

Image segmentation using association rule features.

A new type of texture feature based on association rules is described. Association rules have been used in applications such as market basket analysis to capture relationships present among items in large data sets. It is shown that association rules can be adapted to capture frequently occurring local structures in images.

Molecular differences in the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (mtCOI) gene and development of a species-specific marker for onion thrips, Thrips tabaci Lindeman, and melon thrips, T. palmi Karny (Thysanoptera: Thripidae), vectors of tospoviruses (Bunyaviridae).

A quick and developmental-stage non-limiting method of the identification of vectors of tospoviruses, such as Thrips tabaci and T. palmi, is important in the study of vector transmission, insecticide resistance, biological control, etc. Morphological identification of these thrips vectors is often a stumbling block in the absence of a specialist and limited by polymorphism, sex, stage of development, etc.

Introgressive hybridization and evolution of a novel protein phenotype: glue protein profiles in the nasuta-albomicans complex of Drosophila.

Glue proteins are tissue-specific proteins synthesized by larval salivary gland cells of Drosophila. In Drosophila nasuta nasuta and D. n.

Molecular phylogeny of the nasuta subgroup of Drosophila based on 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA and CoI mitochondrial genes, RAPD and ISSR polymorphisms.

The nasuta subgroup is a cluster of morphologically almost similar forms with a wide range of geographic distribution. During the last three decades nature of inter-relationship among the members has been investigated at different levels of organization. The phylogenetic relationships of the members of the nasuta subgroup of the immigrans species group of Drosophila was made by employing Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD), Inter Simple Sequence Repeats-PCR (ISSR-PCR) polymorphisms, mitochondrial 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA and Cytochrome C Oxidase subunit I (CoI) gene sequences.

Hybridization, transgressive segregation and evolution of new genetic systems in Drosophila.

Introgressive hybridization facilitates incorporation of genes from one species into the gene pool of another. Studies on long-term effects of introgressive hybridization in animal systems are sparse. Drosophila nasuta (2n = 8) and D.

Hybridization and introgression of the genomes of Drosophila nasuta and Drosophila albomicans: evolution of new karyotypes.

Drosophila nasuta (2n = 8) and Drosophila albomicans (2n = 6) are cross-fertile allopatric sibling chromosomal races of the nasuta subgroup of Drosophila. Hybrids of these races can be maintained for any number of generations. Some of the introgressed hybrid lineages of D.

Incipient sexual isolation in the nasuta-albomicans complex of Drosophila: mating preference in male-, female- and multiple-choice mating experiments.

Interracial divergence is an important facet of speciation. The nasuta-albomicans complex of Drosophila with sixteen morphologically identical, karyotypically different but cross-fertile races is an excellent system to study a few dimensions of raciation. Drosophila nasuta nasuta, Drosophila nasuta albomicans, Cytorace 1, Cytorace 2, Cytorace 3 and Cytorace 4 of this subgroup have been subjected to male-, female- and multiple-choice mating experiments.

Autoradiographic study of transcription and dosage compensation in the sex and neo-sex chromosome of Drosophila nasuta nasuta and Drosophila nasuta albomicans.

Cellular autoradiography is used to study the transcription patterns of the polytene X chromosomes in Drosophila nasuta nasuta and D. n. albomicans.

Incipient sexual isolation in the nasuta-albomicans complex of Drosophila: no-choice experiments.

Drosophila nasuta nasuta and Drosophila nasuta albomicans are cross-fertile races of Drosophila. Hybridization between these races in the laboratory has given rise to new races (Cytoraces), among which karyotypic composition differs from one another and also from those of the parental races. In this study, we search for the evidence of incipient reproductive isolation among the parental races and four Cytoraces by assessing the fraction of no-matings, mating latency and copulation duration in all possible types of homo- and heterogamic crosses (N = 4184).