A Runway Safety System Based on Vertically Oriented Stereovision.

In 2020, over 10,000 bird strikes were reported in the USA, with average repair costs exceeding $200 million annually, rising to $1.2 billion worldwide. These collisions of avifauna with airplanes pose a significant threat to human safety and wildlife. This article presents a system dedicated to monitoring the space over an airport and is used to localize and identify moving objects. The solution is a stereovision based real-time bird protection system, which uses IoT and distributed computing concepts together with advanced HMI to provide the setup's flexibility and usability. To create a high degree of customization, a modified stereovision system with freely oriented optical axes is proposed. To provide a market tailored solution affordable for small and medium size airports, a user-driven design methodology is used. The mathematical model is implemented and optimized in MATLAB. The implemented system prototype is verified in a real environment. The quantitative validation of the system performance is carried out using fixed-wing drones with GPS recorders. The results obtained prove the system's high efficiency for detection and size classification in real-time, as well as a high degree of localization certainty.

Comprehensive Bird Preservation at Wind Farms.

Wind as a clean and renewable energy source has been used by humans for centuries. However, in recent years with the increase in the number and size of wind turbines, their impact on avifauna has become worrisome. Researchers estimated that in the U.S. up to 500,000 birds die annually due to collisions with wind turbines. This article proposes a system for mitigating bird mortality around wind farms. The solution is based on a stereo-vision system embedded in distributed computing and IoT paradigms. After a bird's detection in a defined zone, the decision-making system activates a collision avoidance routine composed of light and sound deterrents and the turbine stopping procedure. The development process applies a User-Driven Design approach along with the process of component selection and heuristic adjustment. This proposal includes a bird detection method and localization procedure. The bird identification is carried out using artificial intelligence algorithms. Validation tests with a fixed-wing drone and verifying observations by ornithologists proved the system's desired reliability of detecting a bird with wingspan over 1.5 m from at least 300 m. Moreover, the suitability of the system to classify the size of the detected bird into one of three wingspan categories, small, medium and large, was confirmed.

Application of microsatellite-primed PCR (MSP-PCR) and PCR melting profile (PCR-MP) method for intraspecies differentiation of dermatophytes.

In this study, two PCR-based methods (MSP-PCR and PCR-MP) were compared for their abilities to identify intraspecies variations of 23 isolates of Trichophyton rubrum, 78 isolates of Trichophyton interdigitale and 22 isolates of Microsporum canis, obtained mainly from patients in Lódz city. The results allowed to distinguish four types (containing two subtypes) characteristic for T. interdigitale and three types characteristic for T. rubrum using PCR-MP method. Analysis conducted using MSP-PCR with (GACA)4 primer revealed four types for T. rubrum and three types (containing one subtype) for T. interdigitale and with (GTG), primer showed two types (containing one subtype) for T. rubrum and six types (containing one subtype) for T. interdigitale. No differentiation was observed for the M. canis isolates with either method.

[Sources of antibiotics in natural environments and their biological role]. / Zródla antybiotyków w srodowiskach naturalnych i ich rola biologiczna.

Nowadays antibiotics are broadly used not only for treatment of bacterial infections but also in nonmedical applications. For many years they have been added as livestock and poultry growth supplements, and they are applied similarly in fish farming. In basically unchanged form they may get into the natural environment and remain there for a long time. Excessive use of antibiotics leads to widespread of antibiotic resistance among clinical and environmental bacterial strains. Subinhibitory concentrations of antibiotics, which do not inhibit growth of bacteria, are often found in soil, water or even in the tissue of different organisms. Such low concentrations affect many bacterial genes through changes in their transcription level and increase of the mutation rate, and as a consequence lead to many bacterial adaptations to environmental stresses. There is also evidence that subinhibitory concentrations of antibiotics induce transfer of mobile genetic elements through horizontal gene transfer pathways, and therefore enhance antibiotic resistance, also among environmental strains. The analyzed data suggest the necessity of restriction and regular monitoring of antibiotics, which may be considered as environmental pollutants.

Identification of dermatophyte species using genomic in situ hybridization (GISH).

A genomic in situ hybridization (GISH)-based method for dermatophyte identification has been developed. Using specific GISH probes, discrimination between Trichophyton interdigitale, Trichophyton rubrum and Microsporum canis has been conducted. Moreover, GISH has been found particularly helpful when proper dermatophyte identification was difficult due to ambiguous PCR-RFLP patterns.

Direct and inverted repeats elicit genetic instability by both exploiting and eluding DNA double-strand break repair systems in mycobacteria.

Repetitive DNA sequences with the potential to form alternative DNA conformations, such as slipped structures and cruciforms, can induce genetic instability by promoting replication errors and by serving as a substrate for DNA repair proteins, which may lead to DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs). However, the contribution of each of the DSB repair pathways, homologous recombination (HR), non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) and single-strand annealing (SSA), to this sort of genetic instability is not fully understood. Herein, we assessed the genome-wide distribution of repetitive DNA sequences in the Mycobacterium smegmatis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Escherichia coli genomes, and determined the types and frequencies of genetic instability induced by direct and inverted repeats, both in the presence and in the absence of HR, NHEJ, and SSA. All three genomes are strongly enriched in direct repeats and modestly enriched in inverted repeats. When using chromosomally integrated constructs in M. smegmatis, direct repeats induced the perfect deletion of their intervening sequences ~1,000-fold above background. Absence of HR further enhanced these perfect deletions, whereas absence of NHEJ or SSA had no influence, suggesting compromised replication fidelity. In contrast, inverted repeats induced perfect deletions only in the absence of SSA. Both direct and inverted repeats stimulated excision of the constructs from the attB integration sites independently of HR, NHEJ, or SSA. With episomal constructs, direct and inverted repeats triggered DNA instability by activating nucleolytic activity, and absence of the DSB repair pathways (in the order NHEJ>HR>SSA) exacerbated this instability. Thus, direct and inverted repeats may elicit genetic instability in mycobacteria by 1) directly interfering with replication fidelity, 2) stimulating the three main DSB repair pathways, and 3) enticing L5 site-specific recombination.

Breakpoints of gross deletions coincide with non-B DNA conformations.

Genomic rearrangements are a frequent source of instability, but the mechanisms involved are poorly understood. A 2.5-kbp poly(purine.pyrimidine) sequence from the human PKD1 gene, known to form non-B DNA structures, induced long deletions and other instabilities in plasmids that were mediated by mismatch repair and, in some cases, transcription. The breakpoints occurred at predicted non-B DNA structures. Distance measurements also indicated a significant proximity of alternating purine-pyrimidine and oligo(purine.pyrimidine) tracts to breakpoint junctions in 222 gross deletions and translocations, respectively, involved in human diseases. In 11 deletions analyzed, breakpoints were explicable by non-B DNA structure formation. We conclude that alternative DNA conformations trigger genomic rearrangements through recombination-repair activities.