CancerLectinDB: a database of lectins relevant to cancer

The role of lectins in mediating cancer metastasis, apoptosis as well as various other signaling events has been well established in the past few years. Data on various aspects of the role of lectins in cancer is being accumulated at a rapid pace. The data on lectins available in the literature is so diverse, that it becomes difficult and time-consuming, if not impossible to comprehend the advances in various areas and obtain the maximum benefit. Not only do the lectins vary significantly in their individual functional roles, but they are also diverse in their sequences, structures, binding site architectures, quaternary structures, carbohydrate affinities and specificities as well as their potential applications. An organization of these seemingly independent data into a common framework is essential in order to achieve effective use of all the data towards understanding the roles of different lectins in different aspects of cancer and any resulting applications. An integrated knowledge base (CancerLectinDB) together with appropriate analytical tools has therefore been developed for lectins relevant for any aspect of cancer, by collating and integrating diverse data. This database is unique in terms of providing sequence, structural, and functional annotations for lectins from all known sources in cancer and is expected to be a useful addition to the number of glycan related resources now available to the community. The database has been implemented using MySQL on a Linux platform and web-enabled using Perl-CGI and Java tools. Data for individual lectins pertain to taxonomic, biochemical, domain architecture, molecular sequence and structural details as well as carbohydrate specificities. Extensive links have also been provided for relevant bioinformatics resources and analytical tools. Availability of diverse data integrated into a common framework is expected to be of high value for various studies on lectin cancer biology.

Permanent Genetic Resources added to Molecular Ecology Resources Database 1 August 2010-30 September 2010

This article documents the addition of 229 microsatellite marker loci to the Molecular Ecology Resources Database. Loci were developed for the following species: Acacia auriculiformis x Acacia mangium hybrid, Alabama argillacea, Anoplopoma fimbria, Aplochiton zebra, Brevicoryne brassicae, Bruguiera gymnorhiza, Bucorvus leadbeateri, Delphacodes detecta, Tumidagena minuta, Dictyostelium giganteum, Echinogammarus berilloni, Epimedium sagittatum, Fraxinus excelsior, Labeo chrysophekadion, Oncorhynchus clarki lewisi, Paratrechina longicornis, Phaeocystis antarctica, Pinus roxburghii and Potamilus capax. These loci were cross-tested on the following species: Acacia peregrinalis, Acacia crassicarpa, Bruguiera cylindrica, Delphacodes detecta, Tumidagena minuta, Dictyostelium macrocephalum, Dictyostelium discoideum, Dictyostelium purpureum, Dictyostelium mucoroides, Dictyostelium rosarium, Polysphondylium pallidum, Epimedium brevicornum, Epimedium koreanum, Epimedium pubescens, Epimedium wushanese and Fraxinus angustifolia.

International sources of fisheries information to enhance fish production, poverty alleviation and food security in Nigeria and developing Nigerian Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Database

The paper viewed the decline in information provision in Nigeria to poor library development, which could be attributed to poor funding. The consequence is that current journal and books are not available in nigerian fisheries libraries. Information which can be regarded as the first factor of production on which other factors like land, labour and capital depend, can only be provided at the right time when libraries are better founded. For now if there must be increase in fish production, poverty alleviation and food security in Nigeria, our fisheries scientists and policy makers will have to rely on international sources of information using the advantage of internet connectivity. Some of such sources discussed in this paper are ASFA, AGORA, FAO DOAJ, FISHBASE, IAMSLIC, INASP, INASP-PERI, INASP-AJOL, ODINAFRICA, SIFAR, WAS, and ABASFR. However, reliance on international sources must not be at the total neglect of harnessing nigerian fisheries information. For the Nigerian Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Database being developed by NIFFR to attain an international status like those enumerated above, scientists and publishers are requested to take the pain of depositing copies of their publications with NIFFR for inclusion in the Database

Feature Selection for Speech Emotion Recognition in Spanish and Basque: On the Use of Machine Learning to Improve Human-Computer Interaction

Study of emotions in human-computer interaction is a growing research area. This paper shows an attempt to select the most significant features for emotion recognition in spoken Basque and Spanish Languages using different methods for feature selection. RekEmozio database was used as the experimental data set. Several Machine Learning paradigms were used for the emotion classification task. Experiments were executed in three phases, using different sets of features as classification variables in each phase. Moreover, feature subset selection was applied at each phase in order to seek for the most relevant feature subset. The three phases approach was selected to check the validity of the proposed approach. Achieved results show that an instance-based learning algorithm using feature subset selection techniques based on evolutionary algorithms is the best Machine Learning paradigm in automatic emotion recognition, with all different feature sets, obtaining a mean of 80,05% emotion recognition rate in Basque and a 74,82% in Spanish. In order to check the goodness of the proposed process, a greedy searching approach (FSS-Forward) has been applied and a comparison between them is provided. Based on achieved results, a set of most relevant non-speaker dependent features is proposed for both languages and new perspectives are suggested.

The use of large artificial reefs to enhance fish populations at different depths in the Florida Keys

This study showed that large prefabricated units and concrete rubble patch reefs, placed as artificial marine habitats on sand bottom, greatly enhance the abundance, diversity, and biomass of fish in an area. Densities of individuals and biomass were found considerably higher at artificial reefs than at nearby, natural, bank reefs, a result consistent with other studies. Location, depth, and vertical profile are important factors determining fish assemblages at artificial habitats in the Keys. Fishes were both produced at artificial reefs and attracted from the surrounding area. Fish assemblages at the Hawk Channel artificial reefs were considerably different from those on the offshore reef tract, particularly in terms of dominant species. Rescue of the original 1992 work in 2005 was funded by the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Prediction and Modeling Program.

Translocation as a strategy to rehabilitate the queen conch (Strombus gigas) population in the Florida Keys

Queen conch (Strombus gigas) stocks in the Florida Keys once supported commercial and recreational fisheries, but overharvesting has decimated this once abundant snail. Despite a ban on harvesting this species since 1985, the local conch population has not recovered. In addition, previous work has reported that conch located in nearshore Keys waters are incapable of spawning because of poor gonadal condition, although reproduction does occur offshore. Queen conch in other areas undergo ontogenetic migrations from shallow, nearshore sites to offshore habitats, but conch in the Florida Keys are prevented from doing so by Hawk Channel. The present study was initiated to determine the potential of translocating nonspawning nearshore conch to offshore sites in order to augment the spawning stock. We translocated adult conch from two nearshore sites to two offshore sites. Histological examinations at the initiation of this study confirmed that nearshore conch were incapable of reproduction, whereas offshore conch had normal gonads and thus were able to reproduce. The gonads of nearshore females were in worse condition than those of nearshore males. However, the gonadal condition of the translocated nearshore conch improved, and these animals began spawning after three months offshore. This finding suggests that some component of the nearshore environment (e.g., pollutants, temperature extremes, poor food or habitat quality) disrupts reproduction in conch, but that removal of nearshore animals to suitable offshore habitat can restore reproductive viability. These results indicate that translocations are preferable to releasing hatchery-reared juveniles because they are more cost-effective, result in a more rapid increase in reproductive output, and maintain the genetic integrity of the wild stock. Therefore, translocating nearshore conch to offshore spawning aggregations may be the key to expediting the recovery of queen conch stocks in the Florida Keys.