DISCOver: DIStributional approach based on syntactic dependencies for discovering COnstructions

One of the goals in Cognitive Linguistics is the automatic identification and analysis of constructions, since they are fundamental linguistic units for understanding language. This article presents DISCOver, an unsupervised methodology for the automatic discovery of lexico-syntactic patterns that can be considered as candidates for constructions. This methodology follows a distributional semantic approach. Concretely, it is based on our proposed pattern-construction hypothesis: those contexts that are relevant to the definition of a cluster of semantically related words tend to be (part of) lexico-syntactic constructions. Our proposal uses Distributional Semantic Models for modelling the context taking into account syntactic dependencies. After a clustering process, we linked all those clusters with strong relationships and we use them as a source of information for deriving lexico-syntactic patterns, obtaining a total number of 220,732 candidates from a 100 million token corpus of Spanish. We evaluated the patterns obtained intrinsically, applying statistical association measures and they were also evaluated qualitatively by experts. Our results were superior to the baseline in both quality and quantity in all cases. While our experiments have been carried out using a Spanish corpus, this methodology is language independent and only requires a large corpus annotated with the parts of speech and dependencies to be applied

Towards a Sustainable and Adaptive Groundwater Management: Lessons from the Benalup Aquifer (Southern Spain)

Reversing the chemical and quantitative impacts derived from human activity on aquifers demands a multidisciplinary approach. This requires, firstly, to update the hydrogeological knowledge of the groundwater systems, which is pivotal for the sustainable use of this resource, and secondly, to integrate the social, economic and administrative reality of the region. The present work focuses on the Benalup aquifer, whose exploitation plays a major role in the economy of the area, based mainly on irrigated agriculture. This activity has had negative consequences for the aquifer in quantitative and chemical terms, leading to its declaration as in poor condition. The study presented here shows the results obtained from the application of hydrogeological techniques, remote sensing and citizen participation tools, which have allowed us to deepen and improve the current knowledge of the system's hydrogeological, geometric, administrative and social aspects. Additionally, the lessons learned from this case study are analyzed. The deficiencies detected are discussed, and alternatives aimed at the sustainable use of groundwater are proposed, such as the possibility of a joint use of surface and groundwater resources, the creation of a Water User Association responsible for the management of groundwater and the need for greater efforts aimed at educating and raising awareness of water conservation among citizens

09251 Abstracts Collection -- Scientific Visualization

From 06-14-2009 to 06-19-2009, the Dagstuhl Seminar 09251 ``Scientific Visualization \u27\u27 was held in Schloss Dagstuhl~--~Leibniz Center for Informatics. During the seminar, over 50 international participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general

Machine learning prediction of burst suppression under general anesthesia

Treballs Finals de Grau d'Enginyeria Biomèdica. Facultat de Medicina i Ciències de la Salut. Universitat de Barcelona. Curs: 2021-2022. Tutor/Director: Pedro Luís Gambús CerrilloDuring propofol-remifentanil induced general anesthesia, burst suppression (BS) EEG patterns commonly occur in around 50% of the patients, with an increasing incidence with age. However, this phenomenon has been reported to be an indicator of too high anesthetic doses and produce adverse outcomes such as postoperative delirium, cognitive deficits, and it has even reported to be a postoperative mortality predictor. In light of the above, the present study aims to address the lack of predictive techniques for BS occurrence anticipation by developing Machine Learning predictive models such as SVM, KNN, RF, and XGB. Therefore, a large dataset including different monitored parameters during propofol-remifentanil induced general anesthesia from many patients has been used for both training and testing the models, as well as for final validation of the selected model. Obtained results present an acceptable overall performance of the SVM model with a ROC-AUC score of 0.829, and a feature importance analysis shows a high influence of age and BIS value for the final prediction. Nonetheless, 25% of the predictions have been reported to have accuracies under 0.6, questioning the reliability of the model and making it useful as an orientative aiding tool for anesthesiologists, but not the ultimate decisive factor. Hence, further studies involving more variability on the data, validation techniques and confidence intervals for each process, and an exhaustive feature selection analysis, along with the repetition of the study with different ML algorithms should be performed to improve the predictive ability of the current model and achieve better performances

Food By-Products and Agro-Industrial Wastes as a Source of β-Glucans for the Formulation of Novel Nutraceuticals

Food and agro-industrial by-products provoke a great environmental and economic impact that must be minimized by adding value to these wastes within the framework of circular economy. The relevance of β-glucans obtained from natural sources (cereals, mushrooms, yeasts, algae, etc.), in terms of their interesting biological activities (hypocholesterolemic, hypoglycemic, immune-modulatory, antioxidant, etc.), has been validated by many scientific publications. Since most of these by-products contain high levels of these polysaccharides or can serve as a substrate of β-glucan-producing species, this work reviewed the scientific literature, searching for studies that utilized food and agro-industrial wastes to obtain β-glucan fractions, attending to the applied procedures for extraction and/or purification, the characterization of the glucans and the tested biological activities. Although the results related to β-glucan production or extraction using wastes are promising, it can be concluded that further research on the glucans’ characterization, and particularly on the biological activities in vitro and in vivo (apart from antioxidant capacity), is required to reach the final goal of formulating novel nutraceuticals based on these molecules and these raw materials.Sección Deptal. de Farmacia Galénica y Tecnología Alimentaria (Veterinaria)Fac. de VeterinariaTRUEpu

Image speech combination for interactive computer assisted transcription of handwritten documents

[EN] Handwritten document transcription aims to obtain the contents of a document to provide efficient information access to, among other, digitised historical documents. The increasing number of historical documents published by libraries and archives makes this an important task. In this context, the use of image processing and understanding techniques in conjunction with assistive technologies reduces the time and human effort required for obtaining the final perfect transcription. The assistive transcription system proposes a hypothesis, usually derived from a recognition process of the handwritten text image. Then, the professional transcriber feedback can be used to obtain an improved hypothesis and speed-up the final transcription. In this framework, a speech signal corresponding to the dictation of the handwritten text can be used as an additional source of information. This multimodal approach, that combines the image of the handwritten text with the speech of the dictation of its contents, could make better the hypotheses (initial and improved) offered to the transcriber. In this paper we study the feasibility of a multimodal interactive transcription system for an assistive paradigm known as Computer Assisted Transcription of Text Images. Different techniques are tested for obtaining the multimodal combination in this framework. The use of the proposed multimodal approach reveals a significant reduction of transcription effort with some multimodal combination techniques, allowing for a faster transcription process.Work partially supported by projects READ-674943 (European Union's H2020), SmartWays-RTC-2014-1466-4 (MINECO, Spain), and CoMUN-HaT-TIN2015-70924-C2-1-R (MINECO/FEDER), and by Generalitat Valenciana (GVA), Spain under reference PROMETEOII/2014/030.Granell, E.; Romero, V.; Martínez-Hinarejos, C. (2019). Image speech combination for interactive computer assisted transcription of handwritten documents. Computer Vision and Image Understanding. 180:74-83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cviu.2019.01.009S748318

Functional ingredients from valorization of melon (Cucumis melo L.) by-products : production, bioactivity and potential application

Currently, fruit processing industries are responsible for the production and accumulation of large amounts of vegetable by-products, which are in some cases disposed of in landfills as waste, causing environmental and economic problems. Melon by-products are no exception and are part of this problem due to the proportion generated, which represents about 30% in residue (fresh weight), during its industrial processing. The development of an integral volorisation strategy for melon by-products through green and sustainable processes in the context of zero waste and circular bioeconomy is an important task. This will allow its full valorisation and reincorporation into the industrial value chain as a rich source of natural and bioactive ingredients, demonstrating the applicability of high economic value and reduced environmental impact. The main objective of this Ph D work was to fully explore and with zero¬waste the value of melon by-products and the development of functional ingredients rich in bioactive molecules with high added value, including different fractions rich in pigments, polyphenols, functional proteins (antifreeze and coagulating enzymes), pectin, microcellulose and a flour rich in fiber. In addition, it also allowed the development of an integrated downstream extractive process using clean technologies and the evaluation of the biological and technological properties of the obtained functional ingredients to establish their value and potential application. Initially, fresh melon peels were fractionated by mechanical processes within the zerowaste and biorefinery approaches, generating three fractions, which were characterized. I) The pellet fraction (PF), which represents the smallest fraction (2.0% of the total fresh weight of the peels (FW)), is the richest fraction in proteins (34.90% w/w), chlorophylls (174.84 mg/100 g FW) and total carotenoids (98.59 mg/100 dry matter (DM)) with βcarotene, lutein, β-cryptoxanthin and violaxanthin quantified as the main ones. This fraction has also been valorised through disruption processes combined with solid-liquid extraction methods to separate and isolate all important constituents, including proteins, chlorophylls and xanthophylls. II) The solid fraction (SF) represents 21.5% of the FW and is the richest fraction in fiber (44.42% w/w), which revealed the composition of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin (27.67%, 8.2% and 26.5% w/w, respectively), showing great potential as an ingredient rich in antioxidant fiber. Associated with its bioactive compound profile, this fraction was also subjected to simulated conditions of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and subsequently evaluated by in vitro fecal fermentation with the objective to develop a prototype of functional flour for health promotion, mainly associated with its prebiotic potential. The results of the 16rRNA gene analysis showed that SF did not impact negatively the intestinal microbiota diversity and allowed the positive production of short-chain fatty acids (acetate > propionate > butyrate). In addition, the SF fraction also showed high pectin content, so in a second approach, it was also extracted by testing different acids combined with temperature, being citric acid the one that exhibited the best efficacy, allowing 34% w/w extraction yield and 60-70% methyl esterification, and showing good emulsifying and gelling properties. After extracting pectin from the SF fraction, the lignocellulosic residues from melon were subjected to extraction of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) by two methods using NaOH: traditional and thermoalkaline. The results showed a higher degree of crystallinity by the thermoalkaline method than by the traditional process (51¬61% and 54-55%, respectively). Finally, III) the liquid fraction (LF), the most representative fraction in fresh weight with about 70% due to its high-water content (>90%). This fraction showed high antioxidant activity by the ABTS, DPPH and ORAC methods attributed to the high polyphenol content (798.43 mg GAE/100 g DM). The LF fraction was subjected to the conditions of the GIT. The total phenolic content (TPC) was maintained in the mouth and gastric phase (453.69 and 425.89 mg/100 g DM, respectively), while in the small intestine a drastic decrease was observed (reaching 313.37 mg/100 g DM), which corresponds to 54-57% of recovery index (RI), however, the antioxidant activity of ABTS and DPPH was still significant, which confirm the capacity of such compounds to exert their bioactive properties (54-76% accessibility index (ACI)). On the other hand, this fraction had a prebiotic effect (2% w/v) on the main beneficial groups of the intestinal microbiota, the Lactobacillus sp. and Bifidobacterium sp., modulating positively its growth and metabolism. Furthermore, cucumisin (CUC) was extracted through a green chemistry approach using carrageenan as a precipitating agent, proving to be an effective strategy to isolate it with a yield of 0.17 g CUC/100 g of by-products, and with better purification factor of proteolytic activity than the traditional precipitation process (17.65 and 1.60¬ folds, respectively), maintaining its biological properties. The melon proteins extracted by this green precipitation process also exhibited antifreeze properties, possibly attributed to the great similarity in structure and molecular weights (6.2 and 3.5 kDa) with other proteins previously reported such as type III antifreeze proteins (C-terminal domain, few alanine residues and no cysteine residues) and type I (alanine-rich), respectively. Briefly, the results of this work on the integral valorization of melon peels will contribute to a sustainable development in the fruit processing industries, allowing the obtention of new functional ingredients/additives through clean strategies and preserving their bioactivity and functionality.Atualmente, as indústrias de processamento de frutas são responsáveis pela produção e acumulação de grandes quantidades de subprodutos vegetais, os quais são em alguns casos descartados em aterros como resíduos, causando problemas ambientais e económicos. Os subprodutos do melão não são uma exceção e fazem parte deste problema devido à proporção gerada que representa cerca de 30% em resíduo (peso fresco), durante o seu processamento industrial. O desenvolvimento de uma estratégia de valorização integral para os subprodutos do melão através de processos verdes e sustentáveis no contexto de resíduos zero e bioeconomia circular é uma tarefa importante. Isto permitirá a sua valorização total e reincorporação na cadeia de valor industrial como uma fonte rica em ingredientes naturais e bioativos, demonstrando aplicabilidade de elevado valor económico e redução do impacto ambiental. O objetivo principal deste trabalho de doutoramento foi explorar de forma integral e com resíduo zero o valor dos subprodutos de melão e o desenvolvimento de ingredientes funcionais ricos em moléculas bioativas e de alto valor agregado, incluindo diferentes frações ricas em pigmentos, polifenóis, proteínas funcionais (anticongelantes e enzimas coagulantes), pectina, microcelulose e uma farinha rica em fibra. Além disso, permitiu igualmente desenvolver um processo extrativo integrado em cascata utilizando tenologias limpas e avaliar as propriedades biológicas e tecnológicas dos ingredientes funcionais obtidos para estabelecer o seu valor e potencial aplicação. Inicialmente, cascas frescas de melão foram fracionadas por processos mecânicos dentro das abordagens de resíduo zero e biorefinaria, gerando três frações, que foram caracterizadas. I) A fração do precipitado (PF), que representa a menor fração (2,0% do peso fresco total da casca (FW)), é a fração mais rica em proteínas (34,90% w/w), clorofilas (174,84 mg/100 g FW) e carotenoides totais (98,59 mg/100 DM), com o β-caroteno, luteína, βcriptoxantina e violaxantina quantificados como principais. Essa fração também foi valorizada através de processos de rutura combinados com métodos de extração sólidolíquido para separar e isolar todos os constituintes importantes, incluindo proteínas, clorofilas e xantofilas. II) A fração sólida (SF) representa 21,5% do FW e é a fração mais rica de fibra (44,42% p/p), a qual revelou a composição de celulose, hemicelulose e lenhina (27,67%, 8,2% e 26,5% p/p, respetivamente) apresentando grande potencial como ingrediente rico em fibra antioxidante. Associado ao seu perfil de compostos bioativos, esta fração também foi submetida a condições simuladas do trato gastrointestinal (TGI) e posteriormente avaliada por fermentação fecal in vitro com o objetivo de desenvolver um protótipo de farinha funcional para promoção da saúde, principalmente associado ao seu potencial prebiótico. Os resultados da análise do gene 16rRNA mostraram que o SF não impactou negativamente a diversidade da microbiota intestinal e permitiu a produção positiva de ácidos gordos de cadeia curta (acetato> propionato> butirato). Além disso, a fração SF também mostrou elevado teor em pectina, pelo que em uma segunda abordagem esta também foi extraída testando diferentes ácidos combinados com temperatura, sendo o ácido cítrico aquele que exibiu melhor eficácia, permitindo 34% w/w de rendimento de extração e 60-70% de esterificação metílica, e apresentando boas propriedades emulsificantes e gelificantes. Após a extração da pectina da fração SF, os resíduos lenhocelulósicos do melão foram submetidos a extração da celulose microcristalina (MCC) por dois métodos utilizando NaOH: o tradicional e termoalcalino. Os resultados mostraram maior grau de cristalinidade pelo método termoalcalino do que pelo processo tradicional (51-61% e 54¬ 55%, respetivamente). Finalmente, III) a fração líquida (LF), a fração mais representativa em peso fresco com cerca de 70% pelo seu elevado conteúdo em água (>90%). Esta fração mostrou uma elevada atividade antioxidante pelos métodos ABTS, DPPH e ORAC atribuídos ao alto teor de polifenóis (798,43 mg GAE/100 g MS). A fração LF foi submetido às condições do TGI. O conteúdo fenólico total (CFT) foi mantido na boca e fase gástrica (453,69 e 425,89 mg/100 g de MS, respetivamente), enquanto no intestino delgado foi observada uma diminuição drástica (atingindo 313,37 mg/100 g de MS) que corresponde a 54-57% de índice de recuperação (IR), no entanto a atividade antioxidante de ABTS e DPPH ainda foi significativa, que confirmam a capacidade de tais compostos exercerem as suas propriedades bioativas (54-76% índice de acessibilidade (IAC)). Por outro lado, esta fração apresentou efeito prebiótico (2% p/v) sobre os principais grupos benéficos da microbiota intestinal, os Lactobacillus sp. e Bifidobacterium sp., modulando o seu crescimento e o metabolismo positivamente. Além disso, a cucumisina (CUC), foi extraída através de uma abordagem de química verde usando carragenina como agente precipitante, mostrando ser uma estratégia eficaz para isolá¬la com um rendimento de 0,17 g CUC/100 g de sub-produtos, e mostrando melhor grau de purificação e atividade proteolítica do que o processo de precipitação tradicional (17,65 e 1,60 vezes, respetivamente), mantendo as suas propriedades biológicas. As proteínas do melão extraídas por este processo de precipitação verde também exibiram propriedades anticongelantes, possivelmente atribuídas à grande semelhança na estrutura e pesos moleculares (6,2 e 3,5 kDa) com outras proteínas anticongelantes já relatados do tipo III (domínio C-terminal, poucos resíduos de alanina e nenhum resíduo de cisteína) e do tipo I (ricos em alanina), respetivamente. Resumidamente, os resultados deste trabalho de valorização integral de cascas de melão contribuirão para um desenvolvimento sustentável nas indústrias de processamento de frutas, permitindo obtenção de novos ingredientes/aditivos funcionais por meio de estratégias limpas e com preservação da sua bioatividade e funcionalidade

Applications of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) in Hydrology: A Review

In less than two decades, UASs (unmanned aerial systems) have revolutionized the field of hydrology, bridging the gap between traditional satellite observations and ground-based measurements and allowing the limitations of manned aircraft to be overcome. With unparalleled spatial and temporal resolutions and product-tailoring possibilities, UAS are contributing to the acquisition of large volumes of data on water bodies, submerged parameters and their interactions in different hydrological contexts and in inaccessible or hazardous locations. This paper provides a comprehensive review of 122 works on the applications of UASs in surface water and groundwater research with a purpose-oriented approach. Concretely, the review addresses: (i) the current applications of UAS in surface and groundwater studies, (ii) the type of platforms and sensors mainly used in these tasks, (iii) types of products generated from UAS-borne data, (iv) the associated advantages and limitations, and (v) knowledge gaps and future prospects of UASs application in hydrology. The first aim of this review is to serve as a reference or introductory document for all researchers and water managers who are interested in embracing this novel technology. The second aim is to unify in a single document all the possibilities, potential approaches and results obtained by different authors through the implementation of UASs