A new dwarf alestid from the vicinity of Inga on the lower Congo River, Bas Congo Province, Democratic Republic of Congo is described. Assignment of the new taxon to the poorly defined genus, Micralestes, is discussed and justified on the basis of available morphological character data. With the recognition of Micralestes schelly sp. nov., a total of six Micralestes are now known to inhabit the...

Sea biscuits and sand dollars diverged from other irregular echinoids approximately 55 million years ago and rapidly dispersed to oceans worldwide. A series of morphological changes were associated with the occupation of sand beds such as flattening of the body, shortening of primary spines, multiplication of podia, and retention of the lantern of Aristotle into adulthood. To investigate the de...

Because of the high similarity leaves different Cerasus humilis varieties, it is difficult to identify them with naked eye. In this study, four varieties collected in field were used as research objects, and a new leaf recognition model based on improved lightweight convolution neural network EfficientNet-B0 was proposed. Firstly, performance models Efficientnet-B0 ResNet50, GoogleNet, ShuffleN...

The phylogenetic relationships within the genus Betula (Betulaceae) were investigated using a part of the nuclear ADH gene and DNA sequences of the chloroplast matK gene with parts of its flanking regions. Two well-supported phylogenetic groups could be identified in the chloroplast DNA sequence: one containing the three American species B. lenta, B. alleghaniensis, and B. papyrifera and the ot...

A novel tyrolobibenzyl derivative, 1-->beta-D-apiosyl-beta-D-glucopyranosyl 4-[2-(4-hydroxyphenyl)ethyl]benzofuran-2-carboxylate 3 (tyrolobibenzyl D) was isolated from Scorzonera humilis L. and its structure established by mass spectrometry and 1D- and 2D-NMR spectroscopy. The biological activities of the new compound and related tyrolobibenzyls A-C (1-2, 4) and the semi-synthetic peracetyl der...

We describe three new species in the genus Ametadoria Townsend from Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG), Costa Rica. All three were reared from wild-caught Zygaenidae and Lacturidae caterpillars. We provide a concise description of each species using morphology, life history and molecular data, with photographic documentation. The new species are authored and described by Fleming and Wood: Am...

In today’s open Medicine, steven Lewis brings forth provocative commentary on the appointment of Dr. Bernard Prigent, vice-president of medical affairs for Pfizer Canada, to the governing council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). He outlines a number of arguments against the appointment that centre around conflict of interest, and places a spotlight on the diverging agendas ...

Hyperspectral imaging data within the wavelength range of 400–1000 nm were used to classify common skin conditions (i.e., normal, scar, decay, and insect bite) achacha fruits. The band ratio (BR) spectral angle mapper (SAM) algorithms in a binary classification. Furthermore, SAM, support vector machine (SVM), artificial neural network (ANN) models multiclass performances classification assessed...