The goal of this study was to evaluate impacts of electromagnetic fields (EMF) on the membrane lipid peroxidation, anatomical alterations, antioxidant enzymes activities, total phenolic and flavonoid ...contents of
Physalis alkekengi
L. from Solanaceae family. In vitro germinated seeds were exposed with various intensities of EMF (0, 2, 4, 6 and 8 mT). Our results showed that EMF enhanced dry mass, root and shoot length, protein content, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POX) enzymes activities, while decreased hydrogen peroxide (H
2
O
2
) level, lipid peroxidation (MDA) and catalase (CAT) activity as compared to the control. The maximum induction of seed germination (81.2%) was detected at 6 mT. Xylem number, phloem area and stele diameter increased up to 4 mT in
P. alkekengi
, and then decreased at higher intensities. Total phenolic and flavonoid also increased under different EMF intensities, and the optimum contents were observed at 4 (147.36 µg/g dry wt) and 6 mT (99.36 µg/g dry wt) for total phenolic and flavonoid, respectively. The results revealed that EMF pretreatment improved, secondary metabolites content and membrane stability via promoting antioxidant enzyme activity and reactive oxygen scavenging in
P. alkekengi
seedlings.
There are various face recognition techniques in literature, which are faced with challenges such as occlusion, pose variation, illumination, and facial expressions. Existing methods often perform ...well when their database is small, or multiple samples per person exist. However, face recognition methods with just one reference sample per person may not work well, especially on a large database. To address this problem, this paper proposes a scheme to extract features from facial images. Using Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF), basic features are extracted from the face structure. The matrix of images is decomposed into basis matrix (W) and weight matrix (H). The basis matrix contains several versions of mouths, noses and other facial parts, where the various versions are in different locations or forms. Hence, to recognize a facial image in the database, searching is done on the weight matrices feature set. In this research, to more precisely form the structural elements, a separate basis matrix is constructed for the upper and lower parts of the facial images from the database. Also the images are enhanced using pre-processing techniques including histogram equalization, image intensity, and contrast limited adaptive histogram. The FERET database with 990 single images per person was used to evaluate the proposed method. Experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve a recognition rate close to 93%.
Cold stress is an environmental cause of pulmonary hypertension syndrome (PHS) in broiler chickens. This factor could increase the rate of metabolic activity via thyroid hormones (T3 and T4). To ...evaluate the effect of these hormones on the heart, the plasma concentration of T3, T4, and the gene expression of their receptors (THRα and THRβ) and many contractile proteins (ACTC1, MHCα, MHCβ, RYR2, SERCA2, THRα, THRβ, and troponin I) were measured in the right ventricle in 2 periods of age (21 and 35 d). Plasma T3 concentration was significantly higher in the PHS group of chickens than in the control one at 21 and 35 d while plasma T4 did not change. The relative expression of MHCα, RYR2, SERCA2, and THRα genes in the right ventricle tissues was only higher in PHS group of broilers than control group at 21 d (P < 0.05) whereas the expression of ACTC1, MHCβ, and troponin I did not differ at 2 periods of age. The positive correlations between MHCα, RYR2, SERCA2, and T3, THRα were confirmed. The expression of THRβ gene was only higher in PHS group of broilers than control at 35 d (P < 0.05). The data determined that cold stress could increase thyroid hormones and the gene expression of their receptor (THRα) in the pick of chicken growth (21 d) that they themselves elevates the expression of many genes related to contractile elements (MHCα, RYR2, and SERCA2), leading to adaptive right ventricle hypertrophy.
Human behavior analysis and visual anomaly detection are important applications in fields such as video surveillance, security systems, intelligent houses, and elderly care. People re-identification ...is one of the main steps in a surveillance system that directly affects system performance; and variations in appearance, pose, and scene illumination may be challenging issues for such a system. Previous re-identification approaches faced limitations while considering appearance changes in their tracking task. This paper proposes a new approach for people's re-identification using a descriptor that is robust to appearance changes. In our proposed method, the enhanced Gaussian Of Gaussian (GOG) and the Hierarchical Gaussian Descriptors (HGDs) are employed to extract feature vectors from images. Experimental results on a number of commonly used people re-identification databases imply the superiority of the proposed approach in people re-identification compared to other existing approaches.
Head pose variations are a major problem in face recognition. Many advanced methods exist for synthesizing frontal face images with head pose variations. These methods are generally categorized into ...three groups: 3D based methods which use 3D face models, path based methods which exploit linear transformations of small segments of the face, and deep learning methods. Frontalization methods usually use a single head pose image for frontal face synthesizing and heuristics for filling the hidden parts of the face in the reference model. This causes some artifact in the image, and reduces similarity between the synthesized and actual frontal face image. In this research, frontalization is done by a weighted averaging algorithm, as an extended version of the path based frontalization method powered by matrix rank minimization, which exploits from classical image domain transform. This preprocessing technique grants matrix decomposition methods the ability to eliminate head pose variations. Representing the actual face models and robustness to facial landmark detection errors are the advantages of this method compared to other existing methods. Quantitative and qualitative comparison results indicate superiority of the proposed method in face frontalization.
In this study, the impact of Fe
3
O
4
nanoparticles (NPs) at different concentrations was studied on physiology, antioxidant enzymes, cell damage, and secondary metabolites of
Physalis alkekengi
...seedlings under in vitro conditions. Seeds were grown on a solid MS medium containing different Fe
3
O
4
NPs concentrations (0, 10, 20, and 30 mg/L). The results showed that Fe
3
O
4
NP at 20 mg/L increased growth (fresh and dry weight, length of shoot and root, and the number of adventitious roots) and physiological (relative water content, chlorophyll pigments, carotenoid, carbohydrate, H
2
O
2
, and ion leakage) parameters through stimulation of protein content and antioxidant enzyme activities of catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and ascorbate peroxidase. Fe
3
O
4
NP at 20 mg/L was found to be the optimum concentration for enhancing secondary metabolites (total flavonoids, phenolics, and withanolides) and activity of DPPH radical scavenging and PAL, while the higher Fe
3
O
4
NPs concentration (30 mg/L) showed toxicity impact on growth parameters through promoting H
2
O
2
level, lipoxygenase activity, and ion leakage and inactivation of the antioxidant enzyme isoforms. The electrophoretic pattern displayed Fe
3
O
4
NPs at 30 mg/L decreased the band intensity of SOD (Mn-SOD and Cu/Zn-SOD1) and CAT (CAT1 and 2) isoforms. These findings display that the optimal dose of Fe
3
O
4
NPs (20 mg/L) acts as an elicitor to induce antioxidant functions of
P. alkekengi
cell system to suppress oxidative damage.
1. The alterations of relative telomere length and expression of shelterin genes (TRF1, TRF2, RAP1, POT1, and TPP1) were evaluated from the chickens' right heart ventricle in the early and last ...stages of cold-induced pulmonary hypertension (PHS) at 21 and 42 d of age.
2. The relative telomere length in the right ventricular tissues was significantly shorter in the PHS group of broilers than in the control group at 42 d, but did not statistically change at 21 d of age. There was a significant negative correlation between relative telomere length and RV:TV ratio in the broilers at 42 d of age.
3. The relative expression of POT1, RAP1 and TPP1 genes in the right ventricular tissues was significantly lower in the PHS group than in the control group at 21 d. The relative expression of the TRF2 gene was only higher in the PHS group of broilers than control at 42 d. The mRNA level of the TRF2 gene exhibited a significant positive correlation with RV:TV ratio at 42 d.
4. It was concluded that most shelterin genes are dysregulated in the early stage of PHS (right ventricular hypertrophy) while telomere attrition occurs only at the last stage (heart dilation/failure).
Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) syndrome in broilers is associated with hypoxia, which prevails at high altitude. Oxidative stress is the pathogenic mechanism underlying PAH. Because selenium ...is key element in the structure of antioxidant enzymes, we evaluated pulmonary hypertensive responses in broiler chickens fed with diets supplemented with organic or nano-selenium. One hundred forty-four broilers (starting at 5 days old) were fed with (i) control group: birds received a standard diet; (ii) nano-selenium group: birds were fed with basal diet supplemented with nano-selenium at 0.3 mg/kg; and (iii) organic selenium group: birds received basal diet supplemented with organic selenium at 0.3 mg/kg. We assessed growth performance, carcass characteristics, antioxidant variables, blood parameters, and small intestine morphology. Although Se supplementation did not affect growth performance, carcass traits, and organ weight (
P
> 0.05), the right to total ventricular weight ratio (RV:TV), malondialdehyde concentration in the liver, and heterophil to lymphocyte ratio were significantly lower in the nano-selenium group relative to the control (
P
< 0.05). Chickens that received nano-selenium also elicited significantly higher antibody titers after 24 h of an injection of sheep red blood cells (
P
< 0.05). Nano-selenium supplementation also significantly increased villus height, absorptive surface area, and lamina propria thickness relative to the control (
P
< 0.05) in different segments of the small intestine. In contrast, organic selenium supplement improved intestinal morphometry only in the jejunum. We conclude that dietary supplementation of 0.30 mg/kg nano-selenium could prevent right ventricular hypertrophy as reflected by reduced RV:TV, reduced levels of lipid peroxidation in the liver, and improved gut function.
The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of synbiotic on humoral response to Newcastle disease vaccine and intestinal morphology. A total of 108 one-d-old fast-growing broiler ...chickens (Ross 308) were allocated to pens, then, pens were assigned to 1 control and 2 treatments with 3 pens per treatment and 12 chickens per pen. Chickens were reared at standard condition for 6 week and provided a standard basal diet and diets supplemented with 0.1 or 0.2% synbiotic. On d 8, 22, 32, and 42, 12 chickens from each treatment were randomly selected and blood samples were collected. Antibody response was measured by the hemagglutination inhibition technique. On d 22, and 42, 12 chickens from each treatment were killed and 3 segments of intestine were dissected for evaluation of intestinal morphology. Antibody titers were increased in chickens fed the diet supplemented with synbiotic (P<0.05). Antibody level in chickens fed the diet supplemented with synbiotic increased at d 22, 32, and 42 compared to d 8. Amount of antibody was increased at d 32 compared to other day in chickens fed 0.2% synbiotic supplement (P<0.05). Antibody level was progressively reduced in the control group at d 22, 32, and 42. Duodenal villus height was greater in both treatments than their controls (P<0.05). Duodenal villus surface area was also greater in chickens fed 0.1% synbiotic supplement than controls at d 22, 32, and 42 (P<0.05). Jejunal villus width and surface area were lower in chickens fed 0.2% synbiotic supplement than controls on d 22 and 42 (P<0.05). Ileal villus height was lower (P<0.05) in chickens fed 0.2% synbiotic supplement than controls on d 42, while the villus width and surface area were only greater (P<0.05) in chickens fed the diet supplemented with 0.1% synbiotic. The sum of measured villus surface area in 3 intestinal parts was greater only in chickens fed 0.1% synbiotic supplement on d 42 (P<0.05). Villus types changed from leaf and tongue to convoluted and ridge shapes in both treatments on d 22 and 42 (ileum, 0.1 and 0.2% synbiotic) and 32 (jejunum, 0.2% synbiotic) compared to their controls (P<0.05). It is concluded that synbiotic had beneficial effects on antibody production, and antibody levels in chickens fed synbiotic supplement were maintained or increased during rearing. In intestine, only 0.1% synbiotic had positive effect on intestinal morphology.
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