Maize is an important food crop for humans, as well as a key component of animal feed and raw material for a variety of industrial products. In the present investigation, ten cultivars of maize (Zea ...mays L.) grown across the Rajouri region of Pir Panjal Himalaya were karyomorphologically characterized. All these cultivars possessed the same chromosome number (2n = 2x = 20). Although the number of chromosomes was the same in all the cultivars, diversity in size and structure was noticed. Cultivars 1, 2, 5, and 8 had the most symmetrical karyotype, falling in the 3A category, while cultivars 7 and 4, and 6 fall in the 3B and 4B categories, respectively. Analysis of karyotypes suggested that cultivar 6 is highly evolving, followed by cultivars 4 and 7. On resolving chromosome complements of all the studied cultivars into metacentric, median, submetacentric, and subtelomeric, different karyotypic formulae were devised, revealing variability of the genome and chromosomal alterations among cultivars. Cluster analysis based on karyotypic data grouped ten cultivars into three major groups. Cultivars 9, 2, 8, and 4 forms one group; cultivars 10, 7, 6, and 5 form the second group, whereas cultivars 3 and 1 constitute the third group. Principal coordinate analysis also revealed the existence of diversity among the investigated maize cultivars. The karyotypic variation detected in the present investigation can be utilized for germplasm conservation and breeding purposes of maize.
•Karyomorphology of cultivars of maize collected from different regions of Pir Panjal Himalaya were investigated.•All the cultivars possessed the same chromosome number (2n = 2x = 20).•A significant diversity in size and structure of chromosomes were observed.•Cluster analysis based on karyotypic data revealed the existence of diversity among the investigated maize cultivars.
The current study was carried out with a set of 44 mulberry accessions in order to evaluate the degree of distinctiveness and relatedness among the selected germplasm accessions. A total of 40 ...microsatellite markers were selected on the basis of earlier studies, out of which 26 primers yielded a total of 182 polymorphic bands. The PIC (polymorphism information content) values was above 0.5. Based on clusters obtained from unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean, all the genotypes were grouped into three major cluster namely cluster viz., A, B and C having subsub- clusters comprising of genetically different accessions. Cluster analysis displayed relatively high degree of genetic variation among the genotypes belonging to neighbouring clusters. Grouping of genotypes was further confirmed by principal component analysis which revealed similar diversification among the studied genotypes. Therefore, the current investigation can be utilized in creating unique genetic profile of mulberry genotypes.
Rice is the most important staple food crop among the cereals and feeds more than half of the world’s population. Assessment of genetic diversity is of utmost importance in rice breeding from the ...perspective of selection, conservation and proper utilization. The present study was undertaken with an objective to assess the genetic diversity among 27 rice cultivars with 12 SSR markers. The results revealed a total of 40 alleles were detected across 27 rice cultivars tested. PIC values varied widely among SSR loci tested and it ranged from 0.38 to 0.65, with an average of 0.56 per marker. The 27 rice cultivars were grouped into two major clusters i.e., cluster I and II with similarity coefficient 0.13. Cluster I was sub divided into two minor sub-groups IA and IB having 5 and 8 genotypes respectively. These subgroups were further subdivided into minor groups. In similar way, the second main cluster i.e. Cluster II was also sub divided into two minor sub-groups that is IIA and IIB having 5 and 9 genotypes respectively. These subgroups were further divided into minor groups. This indicated presence of considerable diversity in the genotypes studied and the most diverse cultivars were IR 98846-2-1-2-3 and IR 14D201.
•Providing the condition under which an AHC does not effectively extract clusters.•Introducing the entanglement to measure the dendrogram quality.•Identifying the root cause of a density bias of ...traditional AHC algorithms.•Improving AHC performance with a data-dependent kernel.
Agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) is one of the popular clustering approaches. AHC generates a dendrogram that provides richer information and insights from a dataset than partitioning clustering. However, a major problem with existing distance-based AHC methods is: it fails to effectively identify adjacent clusters with varied densities, regardless of the cluster extraction methods applied to the resultant dendrogram. This paper aims to reveal the root cause of this issue and provides a solution by using a data-dependent kernel. We analyse the condition under which existing AHC methods fail to effectively extract clusters, and give the reason why the data-dependent kernel is an effective remedy. This leads to a new approach to kernerlise existing hierarchical clustering algorithms including the traditional AHC algorithms, HDBSCAN, GDL, PHA and HC-OT. Our extensive empirical evaluation shows that the recently introduced Isolation Kernel produces a higher quality or purer dendrogram than distance, Gaussian Kernel and adaptive Gaussian Kernel in all the above mentioned AHC algorithms.
Cleaner production is a simple defensive mechanism to protect the environment from pollution and depletion of resources. It is also envisioned to minimise the waste and capitalise on natural ...resources with effective utilization. Solar energy is a natural resource which can be converted into electricity using photovoltaic (PV) system. This article sheds insights on the implementation of solar PV system with interdisciplinary views and analyse motives and barriers for PV adoption by different citizen groups in India. A survey was conducted to understand the people's perception on solar PV energy system and to determine the level of acceptability among the citizens. The survey information was synthesised and consolidated from various perspectives and the result consigns the research findings into technical, human and socio-economic components. The findings were synthesised through cross-cultural, comparative and mixed-method research outcomes by means of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), Dendrogram diagram and biplot interpretation. Statistical tools such as ‘IBM-SPSS Amos’ and ‘R’ language programming were also used to interpret the results. This article concludes by specifying the barriers that limit the retrofitting interventions, suggests possible measures and policies to overcome such barriers and promote solar energy in India.
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•Rethinking: Sustainability and progress of solar energy sector in India.•Key influence on energy policy and solar PV energy system.•Energy policy-strategy set leveraging statistical methods for participatory planning.•Policy implication for Solar PV energy system on the basis of pan-India survey.•Identified major challenges associated with solar energy policy implementation.
Sleep staging is a critical step in a range of electrophysiological signal processing pipelines used in clinical routine as well as in sleep research. Although the results currently achievable with ...automatic sleep staging methods are promising, there is need for improvement, especially given the time-consuming and tedious nature of visual sleep scoring.
Here we propose a sleep staging framework that consists of a multi-class support vector machine (SVM) classification based on a decision tree approach. The performance of the method was evaluated using polysomnographic data from 15 subjects (electroencephalogram (EEG), electrooculogram (EOG) and electromyogram (EMG) recordings). The decision tree, or dendrogram, was obtained using a hierarchical clustering technique and a wide range of time and frequency-domain features were extracted. Feature selection was carried out using forward sequential selection and classification was evaluated using k-fold cross-validation.
The dendrogram-based SVM (DSVM) achieved mean specificity, sensitivity and overall accuracy of 0.92, 0.74 and 0.88 respectively, compared to expert visual scoring. Restricting DSVM classification to data where both experts' scoring was consistent (76.73% of the data) led to a mean specificity, sensitivity and overall accuracy of 0.94, 0.82 and 0.92 respectively.
The DSVM framework outperforms classification with more standard multi-class "one-against-all" SVM and linear-discriminant analysis.
The promising results of the proposed methodology suggest that it may be a valuable alternative to existing automatic methods and that it could accelerate visual scoring by providing a robust starting hypnogram that can be further fine-tuned by expert inspection.
Kehilangan hasil akibat penyakit bulai, yang disebabkan oleh Peronosclerospora spp. di beberapa sentra penanaman jagung di Pulau Jawa telah dilaporkan. Penelitian dilakukan untuk menentukan ...karakteristik morfometri dan tingkat patogenisitas strain Peronosclerospora. Sepuluh strain Peronosclerospora spp. berasal dari sentra produksi jagung, yaitu Blitar (BLT), Kediri (KDR), Kediri 2 (KDR2), Klaten (KLT), Cianjur (CJR), Garut (GRT), Jatinangor Sumedang (JTN), Rancakalong Sumedang (RCG), Indramayu (IMY), dan Sukabumi (SKB). Variasi morfometri diperoleh melalui pengamatan secara mikroskopis dengan melihat bentuk konidium, mengukur ketebalan dinding sel, panjang konidiofor, konidium dan konidiofor, serta menghitung jumlah cabang dan percabangan. Tingkat patogenisitas ditetapkan dengan cara menghitung persentase insidensi penyakit pada tanaman jagung. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan morfometri dan tingkat patogenisitas strain yang beragam. Analisis dendrogram berdasarkan karakter morfometri memisahkan strain Peronosclerospora menjadi dua klaster utama. Strain KDR2 merupakan spesies P. philipinensis karena identik dengan strain rujukan, yaitu P. philippinensis yang berada pada satu klaster; sedangkan strain-strain lain teridentifikasi sebagai P. maydis karena identik dengan spesies rujukan P. maydis dan membentuk satu klaster lain. Berdasarkan uji patogenisitas, strain IMY menyebabkan insidensi penyakit terendah (8.33%) dan strain KLT menyebabkan insidensi penyakit tertinggi (47.92%).
In Brazil, coffee beverage quality is classified according to technical recommendations of the Associação Brasileira da Indústria de Café (ABIC), which determines cutoff points to discriminate from ...non-recommended to gourmet coffees. Accordingly, this study aimed to propose the use of cluster analysis to evaluate coffee blends composed of coffees with different qualities and of different varieties regarding a few sensory properties, using continuous and binary scales obtained by a cutoff, which defines whether the coffee is recommendable or not according to the ABIC criteria. It is believed, therefore, that this technique can be used to analyze coffee beverage quality as it is easily accessible and implemented by researchers. In conclusion, a qualitative cluster analysis using the minimum cutoff value of the ABIC had more promising results. This is because blends whose composition contained high and moderate proportions of specialty coffees were more homogeneous in the clustering.
This research paper is devoted to the application of cluster analysis for evaluating samples of soft spring wheat by elements of crop structure. The purpose of the study is to analyse the ...intraspecific and interspecific variability of morphological features of samples of spring wheat of various ecological and geographical origin according to 8 morphological features. Observations were carried out in 2018-2020 in the training and experimental production centre “Doslidne pole” of the Kharkiv National Agrarian University named after V.V. Dokuchaev. The cluster analysis of the collection of spring wheat samples, which included 76 samples of various ecological and geographical origin, allowed the study to assess the following features: the presence of awns, the colour of awns, the colour of ear scales, the pubescence of leaves, the pubescence of the subcrown internode, the pubescence of the ear internode, the colour of caryopsis, the colour of straw. The results of analysis of the phylogeny of various types of spring wheat by cluster analysis using morphological markers to determine homogeneous groups are presented, and the affected tree of systematic formation of clustering groups is established. Based on the cluster analysis, two separate groups of soft spring wheat samples were identified according to the complex of plant productivity elements. Samples are grouped into each cluster depending on the quantitative characteristics of the crop structure and their interaction with each other. In general, all samples over the years of study showed good results, namely based on “colour of awns”, of particular note are the samples of the Tr. persicumspecies. According to the results obtained, all samples have good indicators, and cluster analysis of soft spring wheat samples allowed identifying groups of plants that exceed the parent forms in the optimal set of economically valuable traits, which would allow for a more purposeful selection of valuable forms based on certain traits
•South African and Mozambican indigenous beef cattle are poorly differentiated.•All populations included show moderate genetic diversity and low levels of inbreeding.•Mozambican Nguni and South ...African Nguni cattle share similar genetic ancestry.•KCNMB2 and MYLK3 were identified using both FST and Rsb analyses, and indicate superior reproductive efficiency.
Knowledge of genetic variability among cattle populations is essential to gain insight into the adaptation mechanisms to different environments and to support the conservation of genetic resources. Individuals from Mozambican Nguni (MZ Nguni; n = 119), South African Nguni (SA Nguni; n = 150), South African Tuli (SA Tuli; n = 150), and South African Boran (SA Boran; n = 150) cattle populations were genotyped using the International Dairy and Beef SNP BeadChip version three (IDB) and the GeneSeek Genomic Profiler (GGP 80k) assays, to investigate their levels of genetic diversity and the relationships between these indigenous breeds. Levels of genetic diversity, assessed by expected heterozygosity (He), varied from 0.284 (SA Boran) to 0.324 (SA Tuli). Population structure, as well as principal component analysis (PCA), revealed tight clustering of the two Nguni populations, while the SA Tuli and SA Boran populations diverged, as expected, into two distinct clusters. Little genetic distance (0.031) was observed among MZ Nguni and SA Nguni, while SA Boran (a Zebu breed) was further removed from SA Tuli than from the other Sanga cattle populations. Runs of homozygosity (ROH) analysis revealed low inbreeding rates (with the average FROH per population ranging from 0.003 to 0.006). Short ROH segments (ROH ≤ 5 Mb) were more frequent in all four populations than longer segments, suggesting more ancient inbreeding in these populations. The highest number of ROH (303) was observed in SA Tuli, while the lowest (56) was detected in SA Nguni. Analysis of both Wright's fixation index (FST) and ratio of extended haplotype homozygosity (Rsb) identified a total of 229 differentiated single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) to be under selection, in a comparison between the MZ Nguni cattle and South African cattle populations. Highly differentiated SNP (FST ≥ 0.26 or pRsb ≥ 3) indicated genes including KLHL29, ZEB2, LAMC1, MYLK3, and KCNK5 that are implicated in several metabolic processes essential for adaptation and production traits.