Malaysian Sciuridae are often parasitised by 2 species of Hepatocystis which were described as a single species Hepatocystis vassali malayensis by Field and Edeson, (1950). One of them corresponds to the majority of forms seen by Field and Edeson; it is redescribed herein and raised to specific status: H. v. malayensis becomes H. malayensis Field and Edeson, 1950. By the morphological characteristics of its gametocytes and schizonts, H. malayensis is related to H. kochi. The evolution of tissue schizonts studied at liver biopsies and autopsies of squirrels captured shortly before examination is of a peculiar type: an immunological tissue reaction appears with the hyperinfestation of the Rodents and controls the growth of the schizonts.
Hepatocystis brayi n. sp. is described and separated from the second species parasitising Malaysian Sciuridae, H. malayensis Field and Edeson, 1950. H. brayi is characterized by: 1) the evolution of its tissue schizonts which are intracellular throughout all their development; the cytoplasm and the nucleus of the host cell are highly hypertrophied; 2) the scarcity of the colloid. The schizogony persists for several months in the liver of infected animals and the gametocytaemia apparently undergoes seasonal relapses. H. brayi is a parasite of hosts occurring in the middle and under canopy, H. malayensis the middle and top canopy.
Thorough knowledge of anatomical complexities of the root canal system has a direct impact on the effectiveness of canal preparation and filling, and is an essential prerequisite for successful root canal treatment. A wide range of complex variations in root canal anatomy exists, including root canal configuration type, developmental anomalies and minor canal morphology such as accessory canals and apical deltas. Accessory canals and apical deltas have been associated with pulp disease, primary canal infection, canal reinfection and post-treatment disease. The current definitions of accessory canal anatomy are not standardized and potentially confusing. Given their role in endodontic disease and their impact on treatment outcomes, there is a need to have a simple classification of their anatomy to provide an accurate description of their position and path from the canal to the external surface of the root. The purpose of this article is to introduce a new system for classifying accessory canal morphology for use in research, clinical practice and training.
The phylogenetic affinities of the fern genus Aenigmopteris have been the subject of considerable disagreement, but until now, no molecular data were available from the genus. Based on the analysis of three chloroplast DNA regions (rbcL, rps16-matK, and trnL-F) we demonstrate that Aenigmopteris dubia (the type species of the genus) and A. elegans are closely related and deeply imbedded in Tectaria. The other three species of genus are morphologically very similar; we therefore transfer all five known species into Tectaria. Detailed morphological comparison further shows that previously proposed diagnostic characters of Aenigmopteris fall within the range of variation of a broadly circumscribed Tectaria.
The study of electroencephalography (EEG) signals is not a new topic. However, the analysis of human emotions upon exposure to music considered as important direction. Although distributed in various academic databases, research on this concept is limited. To extend research in this area, the researchers explored and analysed the academic articles published within the mentioned scope. Thus, in this paper a systematic review is carried out to map and draw the research scenery for EEG human emotion into a taxonomy. Systematically searched all articles about the, EEG human emotion based music in three main databases: ScienceDirect, Web of Science and IEEE Xplore from 1999 to 2016. These databases feature academic studies that used EEG to measure brain signals, with a focus on the effects of music on human emotions. The screening and filtering of articles were performed in three iterations. In the first iteration, duplicate articles were excluded. In the second iteration, the articles were filtered according to their titles and abstracts, and articles outside of the scope of our domain were excluded. In the third iteration, the articles were filtered by reading the full text and excluding articles outside of the scope of our domain and which do not meet our criteria. Based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, 100 articles were selected and separated into five classes. The first class includes 39 articles (39%) consists of emotion, wherein various emotions are classified using artificial intelligence (AI). The second class includes 21 articles (21%) is composed of studies that use EEG techniques. This class is named 'brain condition'. The third class includes eight articles (8%) is related to feature extraction, which is a step before emotion classification. That this process makes use of classifiers should be noted. However, these articles are not listed under the first class because these eight articles focus on feature extraction rather than classifier accuracy. The fourth class includes 26 articles (26%) comprises studies that compare between or among two or more groups to identify and discover human emotion-based EEG. The final class includes six articles (6%) represents articles that study music as a stimulus and its impact on brain signals. Then, discussed the five main categories which are action types, age of the participants, and number size of the participants, duration of recording and listening to music and lastly countries or authors' nationality that published these previous studies. it afterward recognizes the main characteristics of this promising area of science in: motivation of using EEG process for measuring human brain signals, open challenges obstructing employment and recommendations to improve the utilization of EEG process.
Surveys of pupae and larvae of black flies were carried out in Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa and Flores in the Lesser Sunda Archipelago, Indonesia, where 10 species were known. A total of 14 simuliid species including four new species and five new records of the genus Simulium were collected, bringing the number of species from the Lesser Sunda Archipelago to 19. They are classified into four subgenera: two in Nevermannia, nine in Gomphostilbia, seven in Simulium and one in Wallacellum. One of four new species, Simulium (Simulium) baliense, is described based on females, males, pupae and larvae from Bali and Lombok. This new species, which is placed in the Simulium striatum species-group of the subgenus Simulium, is closely related to S. (S.) argyrocinctum De Meijere from Java and Sumatra, but it is distinguished from the latter species by the smaller number of the male enlarged upper-eye facets and larval abdomen lacking dorsal pairs of conical protuberances. The distribution record of S. (S.) upikae Takaoka & Davies from Flores is corrected as that of S. (S.) eximium De Meijere. Some aberrant characters of the pupal gill filaments of S. (G.) atratum De Meijere, S. (G.) floresense Takaoka, Hadi & Sigit and S. (G.) sunapii Takaoka, Sofian-Azirun & Suana are illustrated. Characteristics of the fauna of black flies in this archipelago are briefly noted. Keys to all 19 species are provided for females, males, pupae and larvae.
The causative agent responsible for vibriosis in tropical fish aquaculture, Vibrio harveyi, has become a major bacterial pathogen. Studies suggest that this bacterium has developed resistance to antibiotics commonly used in aquaculture. In view of this situation and the requirement for the proposed postantibiotic era, bacteriophage therapy seems to be a promising control strategy for fish vibriosis. In this study, a lytic Vibrio phage VhKM4 belonging to a member of large, marine Myoviridae was successfully isolated. It exhibited bacteriolysis to both V. harveyi VHJR7 and V. parahaemolyticus ATCC 17802. The latent period of the VhKM4 phage was recorded at 60 min. It also recorded average burst size of approximately 52 plaque-forming units per infected cell. A strong bacteriolytic activity at low multiplicity of infection of 0.01 indicates the effectiveness of this large marine myovirid against fish pathogenic strain of V. harveyi VHJR7. Received June 16, 2016; accepted October 7, 2016.
Rickettsia felis (Rickettsiales: Rickettsiaceae) is an emergent human pathogen that causes febrile illnesses in various parts of the world. This study describes the identification and growth characteristics of a R. felis-like organism (designated as Rickettsia sp. TH2014) cultured from Ctenocephalides orientis fleas in rural Malaysia. In this study, culturing of rickettsiae from filtered triturated flea lysates was performed in Aedes albopictus C6/36 cells. Cytopathic effects were observed from one of the samples 4 d post-inoculation. Electron microscopy revealed actively replicating intracytosolic coccobacillary organisms in the rickettsia-infected cells. Sequence analysis of amplified citrate synthase (gltA) gene fragment shows complete match of the rickettsia with Rickettsia sp. Rf31 in Southeast Asia, and 'Candidatus Rickettsia senegalensis' strain PU01-02 in Africa. The whole-genome sequence of Rickettsia sp. TH2014 was determined and assembled. The estimated genome size and guanine + cytosine content of the rickettsia are 1.37 Mb and 32.9%, respectively. The high values of average nucleotide identity and tetra-nucleotide signature correlation index obtained from pairwise genome comparison study suggest the identification of the rickettsia as R. felis. The whole-genome single-nucleotide polymorphism analysis demonstrates close genetic relatedness of the rickettsia with R. felis and Rickettsia asemboensis. However, based on sequence analyses of rickettsial genes (16S rDNA, gltA, ompB, and sca4), Rickettsia sp. TH2014 is found to be distinct from R. felis and R. asemboensis. The sequence analyses reveal that Rickettsia sp. TH2014 is highly similar to 'Ca. Rickettsia senegalensis' detected in fleas from Africa, Asia, and North America. Further investigation to provide insights on pathogenic potential and transmission dynamics of the rickettsia is warranted.
A man-biting black fly species so far regarded as Simulium rufibasis Brunetti in Thailand was morphologically analyzed. It was found to be almost indistinguishable in the female from S. rufibasis sensu stricto but distinguishable in the male by the slender fore basitarsus and abdominal segments 2, 6, and 7 each with a pair of shiny dorsolateral patches, and in the pupa by the absence of spine-combs on abdominal segment 7 and terminal hooks on segment 9. It is described as a new species, Simulium tenebrosum. Taxonomic notes are given to separate it from all 11 known species of the S. rufibasis subgroup of the Simulium (Simulium) tuberosum species-group. An analysis of the COI gene sequences shows that this new species is distantly separated from the closely related species.
As a chronic disease, diabetes mellitus has emerged as a worldwide epidemic. The aim of this study is to classify diabetes disease by developing an intelligence system using machine learning techniques. Our method is developed through clustering, noise removal and classification approaches. Accordingly, we use expectation maximization, principal component analysis and support vector machine for clustering, noise removal and classification tasks, respectively. We also develop the proposed method for incremental situation by applying the incremental principal component analysis and incremental support vector machine for incremental learning of data. Experimental results on Pima Indian Diabetes dataset show that proposed method remarkably improves the accuracy of prediction and reduces computation time in relation to the non-incremental approaches. The hybrid intelligent system can assist medical practitioners in the healthcare practice as a decision support system.
The current study deals with the detailed morphology investigation of eight Cypsela species belonging to tribe Cichoreae. The different Cypsela types were described, explained, compared, and their taxonomic significance is discussed in detail. Light microscopy (LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) have been used to highlight quantitative and qualitative characters of underestudied species. Cypsela exhibit great diversity in macro and micromorphological features such as shape, color, length, width, anticlinal and periclinal wall patterns, surface patterns, epicuticular projections. Majority of Cypsela species were brownish in color and their size ranges from 2.16 to 3.98 mm in length and 1.16 to 0.82 mm in breadth. A great diversity in Cypsela shapes like oblanceolate to obovate, obovoid to cylindrical, obvate, narrowly lanceolate were observed. Most of the platelets having epicuticular projections were observed. The surface pattern on the cypsela surface varied from rugose papillate, verrucose papillate, and striated. On the basis of considerable variations observed, the present study can assist as useful constraints at various taxonomic levels. The aim of the present study is to provide a comprehensive description of the Cypsela morphology and to determine the extent to which these micro morphological data can be used as a taxonomic character to delineate various taxa belonging to the tribe Cichoreae.
Two new tentaculariid species were found infecting carcharhiniform sharks from off the coasts of Malaysian Borneo and the southwestern coast of the Baja California Sur, Mexico. Both new species exhibit a homeoacanthous heteromorphous basal and a homeoacanthous homeomorphous metabasal armature. Since this hook arrangement is unique within the tentaculariids and the taxonomy in this group deeply depends on the tentacular armature, Reimeriella n. g. is erected to accommodate R. varioacantha n. sp. ex Carcharhinus sorrah (Müller & Henle) and R. mexicoensis n. sp. ex Sphyrna lewini (Griffith & Smith). Unlike R. mexicoensis n. sp., R. varioacantha n. sp. has a pars bothrialis not overlapping the pars bulbosa and the number of testes is higher. Reimeriella mexicoensis n. sp. possesses very large uncinate to falcate hooks in the basal armature, while in R. varioacantha n. sp. these hooks are almost the same in size as the remaining hooks in both the basal and metabasal armature. The latter species is the first tentaculariid species where the metabasal armature very closely resembles an eutetrarhynchid with a heteroacanthous typical homeomorphous metabasal armature and a high number of spiniform hooks per half spiral row (10-11 vs 6-7 in R. mexicoensis n. sp.) in the metabasal and apical armature. This pattern provides further morphological evidence for the close relationship of the Eutetrarhynchoidea and the Tentacularioidea. Reimeriella varioacantha n. sp. enriches the trypanorhynch fauna from off the coast of Malaysian Borneo while R. mexicoensis n. sp. is a novel record of a tentaculariid trypanorhynch from the Mexican Pacific.
Despite the medical, veterinary and forensic relevance of myiasis-causing flies, knowledge of their diversity in Saudi Arabia is limited especially in the southern region. Therefore, a survey of myiasis-causing flies in the Jazan region was carried out using Red Top Fly Catcher traps baited with either decomposing beef liver or a lure composed primarily from fishmeal during the period April 2013-March 2014. Twelve known species were identified and recorded in this study, seven species of them belonging to Calliphoridae (Chrysomya, Lucilia, and Hemipyrella) and five species belonging to Sarcophagidae (Sarcophaga). Two of these species were recorded for the first time for Saudi Arabia, namely Hemipyrella pulchra (Wiedemann, 1830) and Sarcophaga (Liosarcophaga) exuberans Pandellé, 1896. Images of the species recorded are also provided for the first time. The results expand the knowledge of geographical distribution, fauna, and habitat of the myiasis-causing flies in Saudi Arabia. Biological information and world-wide geographical distribution of these species are included together with some taxonomic remarks.
In addition to the scarcity of forensic entomology baseline data on oviposition of necrophagous insects and completion of their life cycles in the Borneo region, similar data derived from caves remain unreported. Since entomological baseline data can differ from one biogeoclimatic region to another, the lack of such data would limit the practical values of applying entomological evidence in estimating minimum postmortem interval (mPMI). Therefore, this present research that investigated oviposition and completion of life cycles of necrophagous flies infesting rabbit carcasses decomposing in Mount Kapur Cave and its surrounding forest habitat in Kuching, Sarawak merits forensic consideration. In general, 13 taxa of necrophagous flies were identified viz. Hypopygiopsis violacea, Hypopygiopsis fumipennis, Hemipyrellia ligurriens, Hemipyrellia tagaliana, Chrysomya megacephala, Chrysomya villeneuvi, Chrysomya rufifacies, Chrysomya chani, Chrysomya pinguis, Chrysomya nigripes, Ophyra spinigera and Ophyra chalcogaster, as well as unidentified Sarcophagidae. In addition, Hyp. violacea and Hyp. fumipennis were the two earlier necrophagous flies that oviposited in all rabbit carcasses decomposing in both habitats. While all these necrophagous flies were observed infesting carcasses in Mount Kapur Cave, Hem. ligurriens and Hem. tagaliana were not found infesting carcasses in the surrounding forest habitat. Complete life cycles for six and five different necrophagous fly species were successfully observed in Mount Kapur Cave and its surrounding forest habitat, respectively. Significant delay in oviposition, as well as longer durations for completing the life cycles in several necrophagous fly species were observed in Mount Kapur Cave when compared with those of surrounding forest habitat (p < 0.05). These findings deserve consideration as the first ever forensic empirical baseline data on oviposition and completion of life cycles for necrophagous flies in Sarawak as well as in a cave habitat, in view of its practical values for estimating mPMI for forensic practical caseworks.
Oncolytic virotherapy is a therapeutic approach that uses replication-competent viruses to kill cancers. The ability of oncolytic viruses to selectively replicate in cancer cells leads to direct cell lysis and induction of anticancer immune response. Like other anticancer therapies, oncolytic virotherapy has several limitations such as viral delivery to the target, penetration into the tumor mass, and antiviral immune responses. This review provides an insight into the different characteristics of oncolytic viruses (natural and genetically modified) that contribute to effective applications of oncolytic virotherapy in preclinical and clinical trials, and strategies to overcome the limitations. The potential of oncolytic virotherapy combining with other conventional treatments or cancer immunotherapies involving immune checkpoint inhibitors and CAR-T therapy could form part of future multimodality treatment strategies.
A broad-scale comparative phylogeographic and phylogenetic study of pennah croakers, mainly Pennahia anea, P. macrocephalus, and P. ovata was conducted to elucidate the mechanisms that may have driven the diversification of marine organisms in Southeast Asian waters. A total of 316 individuals from the three species, and an additional eight and six individuals of P. argentata and P. pawak were employed in this study. Two genetically divergent lineages each of P. argentata and P. anea (lineages L1 and L2) were respectively detected from the analyses based on mitochondrial cytochrome b gene data. Historical biogeography analysis with a multi-gene dataset revealed that Pennahia species most likely originated in the South China Sea and expanded into the eastern Indian Ocean, East China Sea, and northwestern Pacific Ocean through three separate range expansions. The main diversifications of Pennahia species occurred during Miocene and Pliocene periods, and the occurrences of lineage divergences within P. anea and P. argentata were during the Pleistocene, likely as a consequence of cyclical glaciations. The population expansions that occurred after the sea level rise might be the reason for the population homogeneity observed in P. macrocephalus and most P. anea L2 South China Sea populations. The structure observed between the two populations of P. ovata, and the restricted distributions of P. anea lineage L1 and P. ovata in the eastern Indian Ocean, might have been hampered by the northward flowing ocean current at the Malacca Strait and by the distribution of coral reefs or rocky bottoms. While our results support S. Ekman's center-of-origin hypothesis taking place in the South China Sea, the Malacca Strait serving as the center of overlap is a supplementary postulation for explaining the present-day high diversity of pennah croakers centered in these waters.
Horse flies (Diptera: Tabanidae) are of medical and veterinary importance, as their blood-sucking feeding habit enables them to transmit several disease-causing agents. In Malaysia, the family Tabanidae consists of 120 species belonging to eight genera. The current study describes two new species (Chrysops idlani sp. nov. and Tabanus ekor sp. nov.) and presents new records for seven species: Tabanus fontinalisSchuurmans Stekhoven, 1926; Tabanus fuscifronsSchuurmans Stekhoven, 1926, Tabanus latifasciesSchuurmans Stekhoven, 1926, Tabanus megalops (Walker, 1854), Tabanus rhinargusPhilip, 1962, Tabanus salvazai (Surcouf, 1922), and Tabanus tristisWulp, 1881. Complete descriptions and illustrations are provided for the new species, and species variations for the new records are discussed. Male Tabanus latifasciesSchuurmans Stekhoven, 1926 and Tabanus perakiensis Ricardo, 1911 are thoroughly described herein.
Indonesia is one of the megadiversity country in the world endowed with rich and unique biodiversity insects such as blackflies species (Diptera: Simuliidae). Blackflies are found almost anywhere with running water suitable as habitat for the immature stages. This family is one of the most important groups of blood-sucking insects. This study collates the records of Simulium (Diptera: Simuliidae) in previous publications related fauna of Indonesia. Based on the results of this study, there were 124 species of blackflies in Indonesian Archipelago. All species are assigned to the genus Simulium Latreille s.l., and are placed into five subgenera, i.e. Gomphostilbia Enderlein, Morops Enderlein, Nevermannia Enderlein, Simulium Latreille s.str. and Wallacellum Takaoka. Further classification into 27 species groups within the subgenera were also made. Checklists of Indonesian Simuliidae are provided including data on the distribution of each species.