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The longstanding view of Neotropical mountain uplift as a promoter of species diversification has become commonplace in the last decades and could benefit from more specific Earth-Life evolution associations. We now know that mountain formation has contributed to the outstanding levels of richness and endemism of Neotropical mountains. Nonetheless, we are lacking conceptual and empirical frameworks where geological and biological processes are causally linked through testable hypotheses. In this perspective, we present volcanic activity in the Neotropics, not as phenomena occurring “on top of” mountain uplift, the latter being the phenomena of biogeographical interest, but rather as geological processes that directly impact biodiversity and are themselves the phenomenon of biogeographical interest. Volcanoes deserve biogeographical attention because their effects on landscape evolution generate predictable biodiversity process counterparts that can be integrated into biogeographical models enabling hypothesis testing. We review examples in the literature emphasizing the spatio-temporal scale of volcanism’s predicted and recorded effects on biodiversity. We illustrate our perspective by two recent study cases, focusing on wax palms and passerine birds. In the first one, wax palm genomic sampling was used to test 2 hypotheses: that the northern Andes have been disconnected in the past and connected by rapid but repeated eruptions of caldera-forming eruptions in the Colombian Massif fostering episodic dispersal, or alternatively, that they have always been continuous and have gradually uplifted hosting continuous diversification and dispersal through time. In broadly this same area, genetic and phenotypic data revealed the existence of a hybrid zone between species in the warbler genus Myioborus. Because hybridization is likely younger than volcanic activity, topographic connection spurred by volcanism could have also enabled secondary contact between previously isolated species, a hypothesis that merits formal testing. Altogether, we emphasize the pertinence of the volcanic record in offering opportunities for the evaluation of biogeographical hypotheses in the context of Neotropical mountains and their singularly outsized biodiversity.

Summary: Large language models (LLMs) have significantly impacted various fields with their ability to understand and generate human‐like text. This study explores the potential benefits and limitations of integrating LLMs, such as ChatGPT, into haematology practices. Utilizing systematic review methodologies, we analysed studies published after 1 December 2022, from databases like PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus, and assessing each for bias with the QUADAS‐2 tool. We reviewed 10 studies that applied LLMs in various haematology contexts. These models demonstrated proficiency in specific tasks, such as achieving 76% diagnostic accuracy for haemoglobinopathies. However, the research highlighted inconsistencies in performance and reference accuracy, indicating variability in reliability across different uses. Additionally, the limited scope of these studies and constraints on datasets could potentially limit the generalizability of our findings. The findings suggest that, while LLMs provide notable advantages in enhancing diagnostic processes and educational resources within haematology, their integration into clinical practice requires careful consideration. Before implementing them in haematology, rigorous testing and specific adaptation are essential. This involves validating their accuracy and reliability across different scenarios. Given the field's complexity, it is also critical to continuously monitor these models and adapt them responsively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid progress in conversational AI has given rise to advanced language models capable of generating human‐like texts. Among these models, ChatGPT and Bard, developed by OpenAI and Google AI respectively, have gained significant attention. With their wide range of functionalities, such as human‐like response generation, proficiency in professional exams, complex problem solving, and more, these models have captured interest. This study presents a comprehensive survey exploring and comparing the capabilities and features of ChatGPT and Bard. We delve into their architectures, training methodologies, performance evaluations, and limitations across various domains. Ethical considerations such as biases and potential misconduct are also examined. Our findings highlight ChatGPT's exceptional performance, positioning it as a leading model. This survey is a vital resource for scholars, innovators, and interested parties operating within the domain of conversational artificial intelligence, offering valuable insights for the advancement of cutting‐edge language models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We monitored leaf production in seedlings, trunkless juvenile, immature, and mature male and female plants of the dioecious palm, Lodoicea maldivica, and studied how internode length changed with trunk height. The fieldwork was conducted in closed forest on Praslin Island and degraded forest on Curieuse Island. Data on numbers of leaves produced and rates of leaf production were used to estimate plant age.On Praslin, the interval between successive leaves increased from 0.47/0.52 years in male/female plants to 4.2 years in seedlings, and on Curieuse from 0.41/0.49 to 2.3 years. Estimated leaf lifespan was 6.4–6.8 years in mature palms and much longer in seedlings and juveniles. On Praslin, internode length increased from the base of the trunk to a mean of 14 cm at leaf 21, before declining to 2.75 cm above leaf 100. Mean internode length of the smaller palms on Curieuse was 1.9 cm and varied little with height.Plants at the same development stage varied widely in age. On Praslin, median time to maturity was 77 (range: 32–209) and on Curieuse 83 (31–191) years. The tallest palms on Praslin (28.4 m trunk height) and Curieuse (8 m) were estimated at 442 and 232 years old, respectively.The ageing method was used to interpret height data of different populations. All showed a marked decline in regeneration in the 19th or early 20th centuries, probably caused by fires. We conclude that slow growth makes this species very vulnerable to disturbance, especially from fire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge of the genetic diversity and population structure of species can facilitate conservation and guide management programs. However, the type of molecular markers used can affect estimates of genetic divergence and population structure. Here three types of molecular markers were used to estimate the genetic diversity and population structure of Euterpe edulis, a palm endemic to the Atlantic Forest and economically and ecologically important. The objective was to estimate the parameters of genetic diversity and population structure for two other types of molecular markers (SNP and SilicoDArT) in addition to the commonly used one (SSR) to the species. We used single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), SilicoDArT, and microsatellite (SSR) markers in 138 E. edulis individuals sampled from 15 sites. Euterpe edulis individuals were grouped into 11 clusters using SNPs and SilicoDArT and six groups using SSR data. The SNP and SilicoDArT data showed less divergence between the individuals within each cluster in comparison to the results derived from the SSR data. The probability of reassigning individuals to their cluster of origin revealed an average association with the original clusters was 0.92 for SNPs (n = 100), 0.71 for SSR (n = 8), and 0.99 for SilicoDArT (n = 445). The genetic divergence is high among sites using SNP markers, whereas SSRs showed the largest genetic divergence is found within each site. The overall heterozygosity values for each site in the eight SSR (He = 0.69; Ho = 0.59) markers were almost four times higher than those values inferred using SNPs (data 7833 SNP, He = 0.15; Ho = 0.13; data 100 SNP, He = 0.14; Ho = 0.12). Within each site, we found low inbreeding rates using both markers (SNP and SSR). In addition, population structure analysis identified two strongly supported geographical groups, one northern and one southern Brazilian Atlantic Forest group, for both markers. This study contributes to the understanding of the population genetics and population structure of E. edulis and may have important implications for its conservation. In addition, our results suggest that SNP and SilicoDArT markers are more effective for evaluating population structure, but SSR is more capable of detecting diversity among individuals for this species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fossil pinnate palm leaves (Arecaceae, subfam. Arecoideae) are described from the Eocene or Miocene Island Lagoon fossil site near Woomera in the arid zone of South Australia. These leaves are described as a new species, Phoenicites insula-lacuna and shown to share morphological similarities to the extant genus Archontophoenix (subtr. Archontophoenicinae), endemic to eastern Australia. This fossil record constitutes a significant temporal and geographic range extension for Archontophoenicinae and likely Archontophoenix. The presence in Australia of Archontophoenicinae as early as the Eocene or more likely Miocene, is in accordance with molecular analyses that propose dispersal of this clade into Australia from New Guinea, with subsequent dispersal from Australia to New Caledonia and divergence of the Archontophoenix and Chambeyronia lineages during this interval of time. Previously reported co-occurring myrtaceous woody fruits from Island Lagoon and proximal-coeval silcrete floras previously referred to Angophora, Callistemon, Eucalyptus, Melaleuca and fossils of other sclerophyllous taxa such as Banksia are consistent with this palm being part of a landscape mosaic with riparian rainforest that included mesic plants growing within wider sclerophyllous forest or woodland vegetation comparable to the eastern coastal zone of modern-day Australia and the modern range of Archontophoenix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Sago palm (Metroxylon sagu Rottb.) is one of the most important economic crops abundantly found in Mukah, Sarawak, Malaysia. The robustness of the palm triggered the Sarawak government's selection as one of the state's commodity crops, with the opening of several sago palm plantations. However, stunted (non-trunking) palms were reported in several sago palm plantations despite attaining a maturity period of more than ten years after cultivation. Research targeting this problem has been conducted in various fields, yet information on molecular mechanisms is still scarce. This study aimed to determine the genes responsible for sago palm's normal phenotype (trunking) by attaining leaf transcriptomes from samples of all trunking sago palms from different sago palm plantations. Data description: The conventional CTAB method was employed in the present investigation to extract total RNA from leaf tissues. Transcriptome sequencing was conducted on the Illumina NovaSeq 6000 platform. Differential expression analysis was performed using the DESeq2 package. A total of 6,119 differentially expressed genes, comprising 4,384 downregulated and 1,735 upregulated genes, were expressed in all three sago palm datasets. The datasets provide insights into the commonly expressed genes among trunking sago palms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Objective Sago palm (Metroxylon sagu Rottb.) is one of the most important economic crops abundantly found in Mukah, Sarawak, Malaysia. The robustness of the palm triggered the Sarawak government’s selection as one of the state’s commodity crops, with the opening of several sago palm plantations. However, stunted (non-trunking) palms were reported in several sago palm plantations despite attaining a maturity period of more than ten years after cultivation. Research targeting this problem has been conducted in various fields, yet information on molecular mechanisms is still scarce. This study aimed to determine the genes responsible for sago palm’s normal phenotype (trunking) by attaining leaf transcriptomes from samples of all trunking sago palms from different sago palm plantations. Data description The conventional CTAB method was employed in the present investigation to extract total RNA from leaf tissues. Transcriptome sequencing was conducted on the Illumina NovaSeq 6000 platform. Differential expression analysis was performed using the DESeq2 package. A total of 6,119 differentially expressed genes, comprising 4,384 downregulated and 1,735 upregulated genes, were expressed in all three sago palm datasets. The datasets provide insights into the commonly expressed genes among trunking sago palms.

Standing pelvic tilt (PT) is related to biomechanics linked with increased risk of injury such as dynamic knee valgus. However, there is limited evidence on how standing PT relates to dynamic PT and whether the palpation meter (PALM), a tool to measure standing PT, is valid against 3-dimensional (3D) motion analysis. The purposes of this study were to (1) determine the criterion validity of the PALM for measuring standing PT and (2) identify the relationship between standing PT and dynamic PT during running. Participants (n = 25; 10 males and 15 females) had their standing PT measured by the PALM and 3D motion analysis. Dynamic PT variables were defined at initial contact and toe off. No relationship between the 2 tools was found. Significant large positive relationships between standing PT and PT at initial contact (r =.751, N = 25, P <.001) and PT at toe off (r =.761, N = 25, P <.001) were found. Since no relationship was found between standing PT measured by the PALM and 3D motion analysis, the PALM is not a valid alternative to 3D motion analysis. Clinicians may be able to measure standing PT and gain valuable information on dynamic PT, allowing clinicians to quickly assess whether further biomechanical testing is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the design of a two-degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) pseudo-force presentation device for a palm. The device was designed to present pressure stimulation to a palm to invoke a pseudo-force sensation. In addition, the stimulator can rotate to invoke a pseudo-torque sensation through tangential skin stretch in the proximal/distal direction. Whereas the previous devices used for pseudo-force presentation on a palm utilized voice coil motors (VCM) to generate pressure, the developed device uses a DC gear motor, cam, and lever, which comprise a series elastic actuator (SEA). Although the mechanism's response is slower than the VCM-based device's, it can realize lower power consumption when generating constant force. The paper discusses the design requirement to provide sufficient pseudo-force sensation. Then, a prototype device was evaluated, which satisfied the requirements regarding size, weight, force, and stroke. The device was utilized in a human-subject experiment to investigate the effect of tangential skin stretch along the proximal/distal direction on a palm. The results showed that the stimulation can invoke the feeling of rotation, or pseudo-torque sensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aims Palm fossils are often used as evidence for warm and wet palaeoenvironments, reflecting the affinities of most modern palms. However, several extant palm lineages tolerate cool and/or arid climates, making a clear understanding of the taxonomic composition of ancient palm communities important for reliable palaeoenvironmental inference. However, taxonomically identifiable palm fossils are rare and often confined to specific facies. Although the resolution of taxonomic information they provide remains unclear, phytoliths (microscopic silica bodies) provide a possible solution because of their high preservation potential under conditions where other plant fossils are scarce. We thus evaluate the taxonomic and palaeoenvironmental utility of palm phytoliths. Methods We quantified phytolith morphology of 97 modern palm and other monocot species. Using this dataset, we tested the ability of five common discriminant methods to identify nine major palm clades. We then compiled a dataset of species' climate preferences and tested if they were correlated with phytolith morphology using a phylogenetic comparative approach. Finally, we reconstructed palm communities and palaeoenvironmental conditions at six fossil sites. Key results Best-performing models correctly identified phytoliths to their clade of origin only 59 % of the time. Although palms were generally distinguished from non-palms, few palm clades were highly distinct, and phytolith morphology was weakly correlated with species' environmental preferences. Reconstructions at all fossil sites suggested that palm communities were dominated by Trachycarpeae and Areceae, with warm, equable climates and high, potentially seasonal rainfall. However, fossil site reconstructions had high uncertainty and often conflicted with other climate proxies. Conclusions While phytolith morphology provides some distinction among palm clades, caution is warranted. Unlike prior spatially restricted studies, our geographically and phylogenetically broad study indicates phytolith morphology may not reliably differentiate most palm taxa in deep time. Nevertheless, it reveals distinct clades, including some likely to be palaeoenvironmentally informative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to partially replace jute sound absorption material, sound absorption performance and influencing factors of the palm kapok fiber felt/poly (3 hydroxybutyrate-valerate (PHBV) hot pressed composite material were studied. The effcts of palm fiber, kapok fiber and PHBV mass ratio, fiber felt surface density, palm fiber linear density, the thickness of the composite material on the average sound absorption coefficient at low frequency (200 Hz-1 600 Hz) were analyzed. The results showed that the 2 pieces of fiber felt was adopted and the mass ratio of palm, kapok, PHBV was 10:30:60, surface density of the fiber felt was 185 g/m2 and 145 g/m2 respectively, linear density of kapok fiber was 0.25 tex, linear density of palm fiber was 0.60 tex, thickness of hot pressed composite materials was 4 mm, the average low frequency sound absorption coefficient of hot pressed composite material was 0.42, which could be used as absorption material in actual operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the Nasserist state built a large hydroelectric dam in the south of Egypt in the early 1960s, Egyptian botanists undertook salvage surveys of the area to be flooded behind the dam, known as historic Nubia. Scientists in these surveys searched for a type of palm tree (Medemia argun) well documented in ancient Egyptian tombs but unrecorded "in living condition" since the late eighteenth century. Gathering written and photographic accounts in memoirs, archives, and botanical tracts, this essay charts the documentary traces of the search for Medemia argun and the affective responses that surface along the margins of texts to show how debate over the potential absence or extinction of a "flagship" endogenous plant coincided with two important shifts in botanical knowledge production: transitions in botany as a discipline that employed new research methodologies and located Egypt "geobotanically" as the temporal and spatial origin for world flora; and transitions in botany as an arena of scientific expertise during postcolonial nationalism's reordering of the Egyptian academy. Building on extinction and destroyed landscape studies, this article explores ecological lexicons of absence and practices of "following" in botany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hybridization has significant evolutionary consequences across the Tree of Life. The process of hybridization has played a major role in plant evolution and has contributed to species richness and trait variation. Since morphological traits are partially a product of their environment, there may be a link between hybridization and ecology. Plant hybrid species richness is noted to be higher in harsh environments, and we explore this hypothesis with a keystone tropical plant lineage, palms (Arecaceae). Leveraging a recent literature review of naturally occurring palm hybrids, we developed a method to calculate hybrid frequency, and then tested if there is phylogenetic signal of hybrids using a phylogeny of all palms. Further, we used phylogenetic comparative methods to examine the interaction between hybrid frequency and presence in dry environments, on islands, and the species richness of genera. Phylogenetic generalized least squares models had stronger support than models of random association, indicating phylogenetic signal for the presence of hybrids in dry and island environments. However, all p‐values were >.05 and therefore the correlation was poor between hybridization and the trait frequencies examined. Presence in particular environments are not strongly correlated to hybrid frequency, but phylogenetic signal suggests a role in its distribution in different habitats. Hybridization in palms is not evenly distributed across subfamilies, tribes, subtribes yet plays an important role in palm diversity, nonetheless. Increasing our understanding hybridization in this economically and culturally important plant family is essential, particularly since rates are projected to increase with climate change, reconfiguring the dynamics and distribution of biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The partition dimension of a graph is the minimum number of vertex partitions such that every vertex has different distances to the ordered partitions. Many resolving partitions for trees have all vertices not in an end-path in the same partition. This reduces the problem of the partition dimension of trees into finding the partition dimension of palms, the end-paths from a branch. In this paper, we construct a resolving partition for trees using resolving partitions of their palms. We also study some bounds for the partition dimension of palms and also find the partition dimension of regular palm and olive trees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An anthostomella-like fungus associated with dead palm rachis (Arecaceae) was collected in Nang Lae Village, Chiang Rai Province, Thailand. It is characterised by solitary, scattered ascomata beneath a clypeus, centric ostioles, pedicellate, unitunicate asci, and dark, olivaceous-brown ascospores. Multigene phylogenetic analyses (ITS-LSU-rpb2-tub2) revealed that our isolates formed a distinct clade in Xenoanthostomella (Gyrothricaceae, Xylariales), sister to X. chromolaenae, X. cycadis, X. olivacea, and X. parvispora. Based on its distinct morphology compared with related taxa having semi-immersed ascomata, cylindrical and short pedicellate asci, oblong to narrow ellipsoid ascospores with a straight germ slit, and multigene phylogeny, a new anthostomella-like taxon is introduced as Xenoanthostomella thailandica. A comprehensive description and illustrations of the new taxon, a synopsis of morphological characteristics and illustrations of anthostomella-like genera accepted in Xylariomycetidae are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The macaw palm is a palm tree with wide geographic distribution. The aim of this work was to determine the modal properties of the macaw palm fruit-rachilla system subjected to mechanical vibrations. Three-dimensional models were elaborated using a computational program for 3D CAD modeling. The three-dimensional model developed was validated as a function of the real displacements observed during laboratory vibration tests. The average values observed for the system natural frequencies in the vibration tests were 20.09 Hz for the immature stage and 19.86 Hz for the mature stage. The average values of natural frequencies obtained by the numerical simulations were 28.41 Hz and 25.56 Hz for the immature and mature maturation stages, respectively. The vibration mode corresponding to the natural frequencies evaluated was characterized as pendulum displacements of the macaw palm fruit-rachilla system.

Using continuous waveform data from 27 fixed seismic stations in Ningxia spanning nearly a decade from 2013 to September 2022, the automatic detection matching method (PALM) was employed to capture 34,373 seismic events across the region, which is twelve times more than manual cataloging during the same period. The events were used as a template to search for smaller seismic events in the Haiyuan-Liupanshan region. After location, a total of 14,741 microseismic events were detected. Based on this expanded dataset, we calculated b value and analysis the depth profiles of seismic. The findings indicate that the distribution of microseismicity has characteristics of zonation, clustering and interruption. Seismic activity aligns with active faults and closely correlates with tectonic zones. The areas with seismic gaps and low b-value zones indicate a higher stress level on the north side of the middle section of the Haiyuan Fault, which was also the epicenter of the magnitude 4.9 Pingchuan earthquake on December 31, 2023. The seismic profiles show that the regional earthquakes mainly occur at a depth of more than 30 km. The depth distribution of these earthquakes reflects the inclination of the fault and thus corresponds exactly to the actual conditions.

Palmoplantar skin is structurally and functionally unique, but the transcriptional programs driving this specialization are unclear. Here, we use bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing of human palm, sole, and hip skin to describe the distinguishing characteristics of palmoplantar and non-palmoplantar skin while also uncovering differences between palmar and plantar sites. Our approach reveals an altered immune environment in palmoplantar skin, with downregulation of diverse immunological processes and decreased immune cell populations. Further, we identify specific fibroblast populations that appear to orchestrate key differences in cell-cell communication in palm, sole, and hip. Dedicated keratinocyte analysis highlights major differences in basal cell fraction among the three sites and demonstrates the existence of two spinous keratinocyte populations constituting parallel, site-selective epidermal differentiation trajectories. In summary, this deep characterization of highly adapted palmoplantar skin contributes key insights into the fundamental biology of human skin and provides a valuable data resource for further investigation.

• New hybrid of Phoenix. • Interesting hybrid in gardening. • New hybrid of Phoenix canariensis. • New hybrid of Phoenix reclinata. Phoenix reclinata Jacq. is a palm species native to tropical and southern Africa, extending to Madagascar, where its natural populations are exploited for sap and fibre. Widely embraced as an ornamental palm in gardens within warm zones abroad, it has established itself as an integral part of horticultural landscapes. On the other hand, Phoenix canariensis H. Wildpret is an endemic species found in the Canary Islands (Spain), forming extensive palm forests. Since the 1850s, it has emerged as the predominant ornamental Phoenix palm tree. Interestingly, in various regions, the natural habitat of one species intersects with cultivated individuals of the other. For instance, in southern Africa, where P. reclinata is indigenous and P. canariensis is exotic, occasional spontaneous hybrids have been reported. These hybrids have also been observed in Florida and California (USA), where both species are cultivated. In this publication, we formally introduce a new hybrid: Phoenix × arehuquensis nov. hybr., originating from the Canary Islands. Additionally, we explore its potential impact on natural palm forests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Nypa fruticans (Wurmb), a mangrove palm species with origins dating back to the Late Cretaceous period, is a unique species for investigating long‐term adaptation strategies to intertidal environments and the early evolution of palms. Here, we present a chromosome‐level genome sequence and assembly for N. fruticans. We integrated the genomes of N. fruticans and other palm family members for a comparative genomic analysis, which confirmed that the common ancestor of all palms experienced a whole‐genome duplication event around 89 million years ago, shaping the distinctive characteristics observed in this clade. We also inferred a low mutation rate for the N. fruticans genome, which underwent strong purifying selection and evolved slowly, thus contributing to its stability over a long evolutionary period. Moreover, ancient duplicates were preferentially retained, with critical genes having experienced positive selection, enhancing waterlogging tolerance in N. fruticans. Furthermore, we discovered that the pseudogenization of Early Methionine‐labelled 1 (EM1) and EM6 in N. fruticans underly its crypto‐vivipary characteristics, reflecting its intertidal adaptation. Our study provides valuable genomic insights into the evolutionary history, genome stability, and adaptive evolution of the mangrove palm. Our results also shed light on the long‐term adaptation of this species and contribute to our understanding of the evolutionary dynamics in the palm family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender classification based on the hand image is used in computer vision for human-computer communication, hand-based authentication, and identification systems. Beside this, gender classification may be applied for criminal investigations, visual surveillance, and other legal purposes. The traditional manual methods require a lot of time and are susceptible to variable fluctuations. However, for low amounts of data, the deep-learning models are going to be overfitted. In this regard, this work proposes a shallow convolutional neural network (CNN) with a regularization method. Here, different gender classification models are built to detect the gender individually from dorsal and palmar hand images. For that, the 11K hand dataset is divided into four labels, i.e., men dorsal side, women dorsal side, men palm side, and women palm side. These data have been pre-processed by resizing and scaling. Furthermore, a model is developed for classifying gender from the real time data. According to the experimental results, the model developed for the dorsal hand images outperforms the other proposed models and the current state-of-the-art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiesel production through the synthesis of Datura stramonium L. oil is studied to explore the most efficient approaches to suggest an alternate feedstock for biodiesel production. The main objective of this work is to optimize the process variables of biodiesel synthesis by using some statistical approach (Taguchi method, grey relational analysis (GRA), and response surface methodology (RSM) analyzing three parameters, i.e., alcohol-to-oil molar ratio, catalyst (NaOH) concentration, and process temperature for achieving maximum biodiesel derived from Datura stramonium L. oil. The transesterification process is applied by using an ultrasonic-assisted technique. Grey relational analysis (GRA) was successfully applied with the Taguchi method resulting in the optimum combination of A2B1C1. Based on the findings, the best operating conditions for transesterifying are attained with the RSM approach consisting of a 5.697:1 molar ratio (level 2), 0.3 (wt.%) NaOH concentration (level 1), and 70 °C process temperature (level 1). With a value of 87.02%, these ideal operating conditions produce the maximum yield as compared to grey relational analysis (GRA) yields 83.99%. The obtained results have been verified through the characterization of oil and biodiesel as well. Also, the fuel qualities of DSL biodiesel were identified and assessed. DSL oil was found 137.6 degrees of unsaturation during fatty acid profile analysis. DSL biodiesel was found the best kinematic viscosity (4.2 mm2/s) and acid value (0.49) when compared to Karanja and palm biodiesel. D. stramonium L. was recognized as a suitable species for biodiesel feedstock according to the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Magnetic resonance imaging of peripheral nerves in the wrist and palm is challenging due to the small size, tortuous course, complex surrounding tissues, and accompanying blood vessels. The occurrence of carpal palmar lesions leads to edema, swelling, and mass effect, which may further interfere with the display and identification of nerves. Objective: To evaluate whether contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance neurography (ceMRN) improves the visualization of the morphology and pathology of the median, ulnar nerves, and their small branches in the wrist and palm. Design: An observational study. Methods: In total 57 subjects, including 36 volunteers and 21 patients with carpal palmar lesions, were enrolled and underwent ceMRN and non-contrast MRN (ncMRN) examination at 3.0 Tesla. The degree of vascular suppression, nerve visualization, diagnostic confidence, and lesion conspicuity was qualitatively assessed by two radiologists. Kappa statistics were obtained for inter-reader agreement. The signal-to-noise ratio, contrast ratio (CR), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of the median nerve were measured. The subjective ratings and quantitative measurements were compared between ncMRN and ceMRN. Results: The inter-reader agreement was excellent (k > 0.8) for all qualitative assessments and visualization assessment of each nerve segment. Compared with ncMRN, ceMRN significantly improved vascular suppression in volunteers and patients (both p < 0.001). The ceMRN significantly enhanced nerve visualization of each segment (all p < 0.05) and diagnostic confidence in volunteers and patients (both p < 0.05). The ceMRN improved lesion conspicuity (p = 0.003) in patients. Quantitatively, ceMRN had significantly higher CRs of nerve versus subcutaneous fat, bone marrow, and vessels and CNR of nerve versus vessel than ncMRN (all p < 0.05). Conclusion: The ceMRN significantly improves the visualization of peripheral nerves and pathology in the wrist and palm by robustly suppressing the signals of fat, bone marrow, and especially vessels in volunteers and patients. Plain language summary: Study on the improvement of magnetic resonance imaging and lesion display of small nerves in the wrist and palm using contrast agents Why was the study done? Because the nerves and branches in the wrist and palm are numerous, small, tortuous, and surrounded by muscles, fat, bones, blood vessels and other tissues, it is difficult to show their complete shape with conventional magnetic resonance imaging. Hand lesions often lead to swelling, edema and masses, which interfere with the display of nerves. Therefore, it is difficult to directly diagnose the relationship between the lesions and nerves in clinical practice. What did the researchers do? The research team used contrast agent plus three-dimensional high-resolution magnetic resonance sequence to display the nerves of volunteers and patients with hand lesions, and used subjective and objective evaluation methods to compare the display effect of the sequence on the nerves before and after the use of contrast agent. What did the researchers find? The imaging method of contrast agent plus three-dimensional high-resolution magnetic resonance sequence can reduce the interference of fat, blood vessels, etc. on nerve display, improve the display effect of each nerve segment of the wrist and palm, increase readers' confidence in identifying nerves, and improve the detection of lesions. What do the findings mean? This study verified the feasibility and advantages of using contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging of nerves in the wrist and palm. It provides a new method for clinical and imaging diagnosis of hand lesions, which can simultaneously display the morphological characteristics of nerves and lesions, reducing the difficulty of clinical diagnosis and improving the efficiency of imaging diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study delves into the in-depth exploration of the utilization of Decision Support System (DSS) with Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method in the context of oil palm cultivation land selection. The aim is to assist stakeholders, including oil palm farmers, plantation companies, and the government, in making more accurate and informative decisions. The research discusses the stages of using this method, considering various factors involved in decision-making, and its benefits in enhancing the sustainability and efficiency of oil palm plantations. Seven criteria, including rainfall, topography, soil texture, water depth, soil pH, slope, and accessibility, with three sub-criteria, were employed. The consistency ratio of 0.056 indicates feasibility. Results from the ranking application and manual calculations for seven alternatives were found to be consistent, demonstrating accuracy and validity in decision-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Palms have high ecological and economical importance in tropical and subtropical regions around the world. Preserving genetic resources of palms is hampered by poor understanding of the complex seed physiology, which differs in desiccation tolerance and germination requirements depending on species and ecoregion. This study investigates Butia catarinensis embryo water content threshold, in vitro germination using gibberellin 3 (GA3) (0 and 8µM) and cryopreservation methods (cooling rate and cryoprotectant solution) for propagation and ex situ preservation of an endemic Arecaceae from Brazil. We use light and electronic microscopy to study the effect of desiccation and low temperatures in embryos cells. B. catarinensis embryos exhibit physiological and cytological traits from both, desiccations tolerant (small vacuoles, lipid and protein reserves) and sensitive (many mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum) palms seeds. Embryos excised from mature seeds lacked differentiated cells, especially above the cotyledonary axis, but showed 90% of germination on MS medium containing 8µM of GA3, suggesting that B. catarinensis seeds exhibit morphophysiological dormancy. Embryos from mature fruits were quite moist (1.42 gH2O•gDW− 1). Extreme embryo dehydration to 0.13gH2O•gDW− 1 caused ultrastructural deformation, but did not reduce the capacity of the embryo to germinate (83%) upon rehydration. As a step toward cryobanking, embryo response to immersion in liquid nitrogen (LN) were 77% normal seedlings post-thawing and in vitro cultivation. B. catarinensis embryos are rudimentary, desiccation tolerant and can be stored in LN and revived using cryobiotechnology strategies. This can be effective at protecting genetic diversity of threatened species as B. catarinensis from anthropogenic threats.Key message: Butia catarinensis embryos are rudimentary, desiccation tolerant and can be stored at liquid nitrogen temperatures and revived using cryobiotechnology strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated the physicochemical properties, antioxidant capacity, and potential prebiotic effects on the human intestinal microbiota of freeze-dried Opuntia dillenii (Ker Gawl). Haw] (Cactaceae) cladodes (FDOd). FDOd had high levels of total fiber (52.36 g/100 g), especially soluble fiber (33.36 g/100 g), as well as minerals, such as potassium (4415.49 mg/100 g), calcium (1593.25 mg/100 g), magnesium (853.55 mg/100 g), and phosphorus (209.04 mg/100 g), high total chlorophyll content (912.00 mg/100 g), presence of various phenolic compounds, such as catechin (41.00 mg/100 g), myricetin (785.00 mg/100 g), isorhamnetin (5.00 mg/100 g), rutin (42 mg/100 g), and antioxidant activity (ABTS•+: 0.51 µmol TEAC/g; DPPH•: 0.32 µmol TEAC/g; FRAP: 2.75 µmol FeSO4/g). Fermentation of FDOd using human fecal inoculum changed the composition and metabolic activity of intestinal microbiota, increasing the relative abundance of Ligilactobacillus (0.03 %–16.44 %), Lactiplantibacillus (0.00 %–1.11 %), and Agathobacter (1.80 %–4.23 %), and decreasing the relative abundance of Prevotella_9 (25.08 %–0.15 %) and Succinivibrio (24.77 %–1.54 %). FDOd influenced the metabolic profile of the intestinal microbiota with the production of various metabolites, including short- and medium-chain fatty acids, organic acids, essential amino acids, and other compound classes with health-promoting properties. The results indicate FDOd as a new ingredient with prebiotic properties in the human intestinal microbiota.

Hurricanes are expected to intensify throughout the 21st century, yet the impact of frequent major hurricanes on tropical ecosystems remains unknown. To investigate tropical forest damage and recovery under different hurricane regimes, we generate a suite of scenarios based on Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 climate projections and increased hurricane recurrence and intensity for the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico. We then use the Ecosystem Demography model to predict changes in carbon stocks, forest structure and composition. Our results indicate that frequent hurricane disturbances in the future would decrease the overall aboveground biomass, decrease the dominance of late-successional species, but increase the dominance of palm species. Warmer climates with increased CO2 would have little effect on the functional-type composition but increase the aboveground biomass. However, the predicted climate and CO2 fertilization effects would not compensate for the biomass loss due to more frequent severe-hurricane disturbances.

In this study, the pests of palms on Kish Island landscape, and the possible damages caused by palm borers and dominant termite species during 2019-2021 were identified. They include: two phytophagous mites, Raoiella indica Hirst (Acari: Tenuipalpidae) and Oligonychus washingtoniae Mushtaq et al. (Tetranychidae), three Hemipteren, Parlatoria blanchardi (Targioni Tozzetti) (Diaspididae), Phoenicoccus marlatti Cockerell (Phoenicoccidae) and Phenacoccus solenopsis Tinsley (Pseudococcidae), four termite species, Amitermes stephensoni Harris, Microcerotermes brettikeri Chhotani &. Bose, Microcerotermes sp. (Isoptera: Termitidae), and Anacanthotermes vagans (Hagen) (Hodotermitidae) were collected for the first time from Kish Island. The A. stephensoni was the predominant species over the other species. Furthermore, two types of plam borers including, Jebusaea hammerschmidti Reiche (Col.: Cerambycidae) and Oryctes agamemnon matthiesseni Reitter (Col.: Scarabaeidae) were detected on date palm and Washingtonia palm. In this study, O. washingtoniae is reported for the first time from Iran and Washingtonia filifera (Linden ex André) H. Wendl. is reported for the first time as a host of J. hammerschmidti in the world. The study on the activity of borer pests showed that 87% of palm trees on the Island were infested with termites and 38% with wood borer beetles.

The paper aims to evaluate and provide a comparative analysis of the performance and fine-tuning cost of various Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT-3.5, GPT-4, PaLM, Bard, and Llama in automating the de-identification of Protected Health Information (PHI) from medical records, ensuring patient and healthcare professional privacy. Zero-shot learning was utilized initially to assess the capabilities of these LLMs in de-identifying medical data. Subsequently, each model was fine-tuned with varying training set sizes to observe changes in performance. The study also investigates the impact of the specificity of prompts on the accuracy of de-identification tasks. Fine-tuning LLMs with specific examples significantly enhanced the accuracy of the de-identification process, surpassing the zero-shot learning accuracy of pre-trained counterparts. Notably, a fine-tuned GPT-3.5 model with a few-shot learning technique was able to exceed the performance of a zero-shot learning GPT-4 model, with 99% accuracy. Detailed prompts resulted in higher task accuracy across all models, yet fine-tuned models with brief instructions still outperformed pre-trained models given detailed prompts. Also, the fine-tuned models were more resilient to medical record format change than the zero-shot models. Code, calculations, and comparisons are available at https://github.com/YashwanthYS/De-Identification-of-medical-Records. The findings underscore the potential of LLMs, particularly when fine-tuned, to effectively automate the de-identification of PHI in medical records. The study highlights the importance of model training and prompt specificity in achieving high accuracy in de-identification tasks.

Sentiment analysis is essential for comprehending public opinion, particularly when considering e-commerce and the expansion of online businesses. Early approaches treated sentiment analysis as a document or sentence-level classification problem, lacking the ability to capture nuanced opinions about specific aspects. This limitation was addressed by the development of aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA), which links sentiment to specific aspects that are mentioned explicitly or implicitly in the review. ABSA is relatively a recent field of sentiment analysis and the existing models for ABSA face three main challenges, including domain-specificity, reliance on labeled data, and a lack of exploration into the potential of newer large language models (LLMs) such as GPT, PaLM, and T5. Leveraging a diverse set of datasets, including DOTSA, MAMS, and SemEval16, we evaluate the performance of prominent models such as ATAE-LSTM, flan-t5-large-absa, DeBERTa, PaLM, and GPT-3.5-Turbo. Our findings reveal nuanced strengths and weaknesses of these models across different domains, with DeBERTa emerging as consistently high-performing and PaLM demonstrating remarkable competitiveness for aspect term sentiment analysis (ATSA) tasks. In addition, the PaLM demonstrates competitive performance for all the domains that were used in the experiments including the restaurant, hotel, books, clothing, and laptop reviews. Notably, the analysis underscores the models’ domain sensitivity, shedding light on their varying efficacy for both ATSA and ACSA tasks. These insights contribute to a deeper understanding of model applicability and highlight potential areas for improvement in ABSA research and development.

This study aimed to describe the characteristics of the selected respondents in exploring the development of the Parents Assisted Learning Model (PALM) on the literacy skills of upper-class students in public elementary schools in coastal and mountainous areas. The data analysis technique used is the descriptive analysis technique. The selected research sample is the parents of students as the key subjects of PALM implementation. The results showed that the characteristics of the parents of students who support the development of the Parents Assisted Learning Model (PALM) in order to support the literacy movement of students in elementary schools in coastal and mountainous areas are the parents of students with the type of work of farmer/fisherman/trader/honorary.

We build a high-resolution early aftershock catalog for the 2023 SE Türkiye seismic sequence with PALM, a seamless workflow that sequentially performs phase picking, association, location, and matched filter for continuous data. The catalog contains 29,519 well-located events in the two mainshocks rupture region during 2023-02-01–2023-02-28, which significantly improves the detection completeness and relocation precision compared to the public routine catalog. Employing the new PALM catalog, we analyze the structure of the seismogenic fault system. We find that the Eastern Anatolian Fault (EAF) that generated the first MW7.9 mainshock is overall near-vertical, whereas complexities are revealed in a small-scale, such as subparallel subfaults, unmapped branches, and stepovers. The seismicity on EAF is shallow (

Parents may experience challenges implementing their child's therapeutic treatment following burn. A mixed methods study was conducted to explore the parent experience of intensive splinting following palmar burns in young children (median age 16 months [IQR 14]). Thirteen parents were interviewed after cessation of their child's splinting (mean 12 months [SD 2] following burn). Parent interviews were semi-structured with open-ended questions and conducted one-to-one. Inductive thematic analysis was completed by two researchers with consensus achieved through discussion and agreement from third researcher. Themes were triangulated with quantitative data, including range of motion (ROM), scar, developmental and quality of life outcomes. Children used the splint intensively (>12–24 h/day) for median 179 days (IQR 74) with all splinting ceased by median 275 days (IQR 105). All children had full ROM at scar maturation. Thematic analysis revealed two main themes: parents perceive the impact of splinting to be greater on them than their child and parents perceive outcomes to be more important than burden. Parents described the importance of routine and therapeutic relationships in ongoing engagement with intervention. Parents consider intensive splinting to impact them more than their child with burden of care manageable considering overall outcomes. • Parents perceive intensive splinting to have greater impact on them than child. • Intensive splinting has minimal impact on child's daily activities. • Parents report practical and emotional challenges implementing child's treatment. • Parents perceive outcomes to be more important than burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiesel's major limitations are its low-temperature performance and oxidation stability. This study analyses how different oil mixes affect biodiesel oxidation stability and cold flow properties (cloud and pour points). Three oils, namely, Jatropha, Karanja, and Palm oils, were selected for this investigation based on their chemical composition and availability, and their mixtures were formed. A simplex lattice mixture design model for biodiesel properties (oxidation stability, cloud point and pour point) was designed, and optimisation was carried out to achieve a set of objectives. The optimal mixed-oil ratio for Jatropha, Karanja, and Palm oil was found to be 8:57:35(% v/v), with desirability of 0.32, and the response values were observed to be compatible with biodiesel standards (EN 14214 and IS 15607). Optimal oils mix biodiesel oxidation stability was 8.5 h, better than Jatropha biodiesel (5.2 h) and Karanja biodiesel (7.5 h). Mixing oil improves biodiesel oxidation stability by 63% and 13% compared to Jatropha and Karanja biodiesel. Similarly, blended oil's biodiesel cloud point improves by 57% compared to Palm biodiesel. Oil-mixing technique balances saturated and unsaturated fatty acids and improves the oxidation stability and cold flow properties without chemical treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the pests of palms on Kish Island landscape, and the possible damages caused by palm borers and dominant termite species during 2019-2021 were identified. They include: two phytophagous mites, Raoiella indica Hirst (Acari: Tenuipalpidae) and Oligonychus washingtoniae Mushtaq et al. (Tetranychidae), three Hemipteren, Parlatoria blanchardi (Targioni Tozzetti) (Diaspididae), Phoenicoccus marlatti Cockerell (Phoenicoccidae) and Phenacoccus solenopsis Tinsley (Pseudococcidae), four termite species, Amitermes stephensoni Harris, Microcerotermes brettikeri Chhotani &. Bose, Microcerotermes sp. (Isoptera: Termitidae), and Anacanthotermes vagans (Hagen) (Hodotermitidae) were collected for the first time from Kish Island. The A. stephensoni was the predominant species over the other species. Furthermore, two types of plam borers including, Jebusaea hammerschmidti Reiche (Col.: Cerambycidae) and Oryctes agamemnon matthiesseni Reitter (Col.: Scarabaeidae) were detected on date palm and Washingtonia palm. In this study, O. washingtoniae is reported for the first time from Iran and Washingtonia filifera (Linden ex André) H. Wendl. is reported for the first time as a host of J. hammerschmidti in the world. The study on the activity of borer pests showed that 87% of palm trees on the Island were infested with termites and 38% with wood borer beetles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to decipher the digital and palmar dermatoglyphic patterns among the Ahom community in Assam's Lakhimpur district. It examines the sexual dimorphism in the dermatoglyphic characteristics of the population's fingers. Additionally, it compares current results with those from other ethnic groups previously studied to evaluate group heterogeneity. The study relies on the finger and palm prints of 100 Ahom individuals (50 males and 50 females) from Lakhimpur, using established dermatographic techniques. The male Ahom display a 'Mongoloid' ethnic affinity according to the Dankmeijer index, while the female samples slightly exceed the Mongoloid threshold. Both genders exhibit a broad variation in the pattern intensity index, characteristic of Mongoloid populations. A more comprehensive study with a larger sample size is crucial for a thorough understanding of all dermatoglyphic features related to ethnic diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, despite rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) transforming many industry practices, construction largely lags in adoption. Recently, the emergence and rapid adoption of advanced large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI's GPT, Google's PaLM, and Meta's Llama have shown great potential and sparked considerable global interest. However, the current surge lacks a study investigating the opportunities and challenges of implementing Generative AI (GenAI) in the construction sector, creating a critical knowledge gap for researchers and practitioners. This underlines the necessity to explore the prospects and complexities of GenAI integration. Bridging this gap is fundamental to optimizing GenAI's early stage adoption within the construction sector. Given GenAI's unprecedented capabilities to generate human-like content based on learning from existing content, we reflect on two guiding questions: What will the future bring for GenAI in the construction industry? What are the potential opportunities and challenges in implementing GenAI in the construction industry? This study delves into reflected perception in literature, analyzes the industry perception using programming-based word cloud and frequency analysis, and integrates authors' opinions to answer these questions. This paper recommends a conceptual GenAI implementation framework, provides practical recommendations, summarizes future research questions, and builds foundational literature to foster subsequent research expansion in GenAI within the construction and its allied architecture and engineering domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today’s interconnected world, the significance of effective career guidance has been magnified. With the advent of mobile technologies, e-orientation and artificial intelligence (AI)-orientation systems offer a promising avenue for personalized career guidance. This paper delves into the potential of transitioning from traditional e-orientation to advanced AI-orientation systems in Morocco by employing large language models (LLMs) such as LLAMA2, GPT, and PaLM. These LLMs, renowned for their human-like text generation and contextual understanding, are proposed as the backbone for AI chatbots that can serve as virtual career counselors. Accessible via mobile platforms, these mobile chatbot interfaces can provide real-time insights on career paths, educational prerequisites, and job market dynamics and outlooks. Despite challenges such as Internet reliability, data privacy, and legislative regulations, the integration of AI-orientated systems into mobile platforms can revolutionize career guidance for Moroccan students. This paper presents a detailed roadmap and implementation for embedding these innovative technologies into Morocco’s educational framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a novel double sparse regularized modelling paradigm for Generalized Linear Model in high-dimensional setting, where we allow the underlying population distribution to be possibly heavy-tailed or heteroscedastic. Differing from the existing approaches that seek to find a robust estimate against potential heterogeneity in the training samples via robustification mechanisms, the proposed regularized modelling paradigm can identify and quantify the heterogeneous-specific effect simultaneously, and it contributes to a more consistent and optimal estimate, and is flexible enough to accommodate latent heterogeneity both in individual and subgroup levels. The proposed method has three popular applications, i.e., heterogeneous analysis, outlier detection and image restoration. We devise an efficient learning algorithm, referring to Proximal Alternating Linearized Minimization (PALM), to implement the proposed approach. The PALM algorithm proceeds by leveraging Linearization and Alternation Minimization techniques, and works well in general regularized (possibly nonconvex) bi-block optimizations. We discuss the Algorithmic Generalization Ability of the PALM for the regularized generalized linear regression, which demonstrates the asymptotic consistency between iterative sequences and true parameter vectors with a high probability guarantee. The computational efficiency, performance in estimation, and predictive validation are empirically verified with several simulations and real data applications, and results indicate that the proposed approach is competitive with the existing state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We build a high-resolution early aftershock catalog for the 2023 SE Türkiye seismic sequence with PALM, a seamless workflow that sequentially performs phase picking, association, location, and matched filter for continuous data. The catalog contains 29,519 well-located events in the two mainshocks rupture region during 2023-02-01-2023-02-28, which significantly improves the detection completeness and relocation precision compared to the public routine catalog. Employing the new PALM catalog, we analyze the structure of the seismogenic fault system. We find that the Eastern Anatolian Fault (EAF) that generated the first MW7.9 mainshock is overall near-vertical, whereas complexities are revealed in a small-scale, such as subparallel subfaults, unmapped branches, and stepovers. The seismicity on EAF is shallow (<15 km) and concentrated in depth distribution, indicating a clear lock-creep transition. In contrast, the Sürgü Fault (SF) that is responsible for the second MW7.8 mainshock is shovel-shaped for the nucleation segment and has overall low dip angles (~40°-80°). Aftershocks on the SF distribute in a broad range of depth, extending down to ~35 km. We also analyze the temporal behavior of seismicity, discovering no immediate foreshocks within ~5 days preceding the first mainshock, and no seismic activity on the SF before the second mainshock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The prevalence of skin diseases has increased over the last few decades and they contribute to a significant burden on the health-care systems all across the world. In some forms of reconstructive or plastic surgery, palm skin has successfully been replaced with sole skin, removed to form a full-thickness graft that covered almost the entire palm of the hand without impairing the weight-bearing areas of the feet or encumbering the gait. In cases such as these, the skin of the palm and sole is preferred for grafts. Aims and Objectives: The study was conducted to learn the microanatomy of palm and sole. Materials and Methods: The present observational study was carried out in the Department of Anatomy, King George Medical University, Lucknow, from the period of September 2017 to August 2018. Ethical clearance was obtained from Institutional Ethics Committee (Ref. code:63/Ethics/R-Cell-18). For the present study, skin was procured from the palm and sole of six freshly embalmed human cadavers (three males and three females). The mean age of the cadavers was 67 years. Tissues were preserved in 10% of formaldehyde for 48 h, fixed, Stained in H and E, and observed under light microscope. Results: The study showed that the thickness of epidermis and ratio of epidermis to stratum corneum (Edp: sc) of the sole are greater than palm, dermoepidermal junctions were more in sole. Thickness of dermis both papillary and reticular dermis was more in sole than palm. Conclusion: The values of thickness of skin of palm and sole region provide data for plastic surgeons to plan cosmetic surgeries.

The production of flowers and fruit below ground (geoflory and geocarpy, respectively) is a paradoxical reproductive strategy that seemingly hinders pollination and dispersal. Though rare, these phenomena occur in 33 angiosperm families. Plants that flower and fruit entirely below ground are exceptionally unusual. Pinanga subterranea (Arecaceae), a species new to science from Borneo, is the first member of the palm family recorded to flower and fruit almost exclusively below ground. This raises many questions about its evolution, pollination and dispersal, which we discuss here. Strikingly, this remarkable species is widespread across western Borneo and valued by the local people for its edible fruits but has escaped the attention of scientists until now.