321 research outputs found
Effect of sorghum tannin levels and postweaning day on some morphophysiological characteristics of the digestive tract of piglets
An experiment was conducted with piglets to evaluate the effect of dietary sorghum tannin level on trypsin activity, digesta pH, the weight of digestive organs, and intestinal morphology. Sixteen weaned (at 28 days of age) Duroc x Landrace piglets (eight per treatment) were fed, from postweaning until slaughter, either a diet with low-tannins sorghum (SBT) or one with high-tannins sorghum (SAT). Four animals per treatment were slaughtered on each of days 3 and 16 postweaning. Also, four piglets were slaughtered at weaning (day 0) as a control group. There were no effects (P>0.05) of dietary tannin levels on pancreatic trypsin activity; development of pancreas, stomach, liver, and small intestine; digesta pH in stomach, duodenum, jejunum, and ileum; and morphology of intestinal villi and crypts. The variables weight at sacrifice and relative weight of digestive organs, excepting liver, were affected (P<0.05) by days after weaning (0, 3 or 16), being highest at d 16. Ingesta pH in all four parts of the digestive tract was also affected (P<0.05) by days postweaning, with significant differences as follows: stomach, max. at d 0 and min. at d 3; duodenum, max. at d 16 and min at d 3; jejunum, max. at d 3 and min at d 0 and 16; ileum, max at d 3 and min at d 16. Crypt depth in jejunum and ileum was greater (P<0.05) at d 16 than at d 3 postweaning. In conclusion, dietary tannins did not impact negatively the morphological and physiological characteristics studied. The changes observed suggest a digestive adaptation to starter feed
Exploiting visual cues for safe and flexible cyber-physical production systems
Human workers are envisioned to work alongside robots and other intelligent factory modules, and fulfill supervision tasks in future smart factories. Technological developments, during the last few years, in the field of smart factory automation have introduced the concept of cyber-physical systems, which further expanded to cyber-physical production systems. In this context, the role of collaborative robots is significant and depends largely on the advanced capabilities of collision detection, impedance control, and learning new tasks based on artificial intelligence. The system components, collaborative robots, and humans need to communicate for collective decision-making. This requires processing of shared information keeping in consideration the available knowledge, reasoning, and flexible systems that are resilient to the real-time dynamic changes on the industry floor as well as within the communication and computer network infrastructure. This article presents an ontology-based approach to solve industrial scenarios for safety applications in cyber-physical production systems. A case study of an industrial scenario is presented to validate the approach in which visual cues are used to detect and react to dynamic changes in real time. Multiple scenarios are tested for simultaneous detection and prioritization to enhance the learning surface of the intelligent production system with the goal to automate safety-based decisions
Gene Therapy Corrects Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Hematopoietic Progenitor Cells and Fibroblasts from Coq9R239X Mice
This study has been submitted to the patent's offices at the "University of Granada" and "Fundación Progreso y Salud". Please note that the results of this manuscript have been submitted to patent protection (application number P201630630; title: “Uses of Coenzyme Q biosynthetic proteins”; date:05/16/2016).Recent clinical trials have shown that in vivo and ex vivo gene therapy strategies can be an option for the treatment of several neurological disorders. Both strategies require efficient and safe vectors to 1) deliver the therapeutic gene directly into the CNS or 2) to genetically modify stem cells that will be used as Trojan horses for the systemic delivery of the therapeutic protein. A group of target diseases for these therapeutic strategies are mitochondrial encephalopathies due to mutations in nuclear DNA genes. In this study, we have developed a lentiviral vector (CCoq9WP) able to overexpress Coq9 mRNA and COQ9 protein in mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) and hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs) from Coq9R239X mice, an animal model of mitochondrial encephalopathy due to primary Coenzyme Q (CoQ) deficiency. Ectopic over-expression of Coq9 in both cell types restored the CoQ biosynthetic pathway and mitochondrial function, improving the fitness of the transduced cells. These results show the potential of the CCoq9WP lentiviral vector as a tool for gene therapy to treat mitochondrial encephalopathies.This work was supported by grants from Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spain) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) from the European Union, to LCL through the research grants SAF2013-47761-R and SAF2015-65786-R; by Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias ISCIII (Spain) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) from the European Union through the research grants PI12/01097 and ISCIII Red de Terapia Celular TerCel RD12/0019/0006 to FM; by the Consejería de Economía, Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo, Junta de Andalucía-FEDER/Fondo de Cohesion Europeo (FSE) de Andalucía through the research grants P10-CTS-6133 to LCL; P09-CTS-04532, PI-57069, PI-0001/2009 and PAIDI-Bio-326 to F.M.; PI-0160/2012 to KB and PI-0407/2012 to MC; by the NIH through the research P01HD080642 to LCL and by the foundation “todos somos raros, todos somos únicos” to LCL. LCL is supported by the ‘Ramón y Cajal’ National Programme, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain (RYC-2011-07643)
Ibero-American Consensus on Low- and No-Calorie Sweeteners: Safety, Nutritional Aspects and Benefits in Food and Beverages
International scientific experts in food, nutrition, dietetics, endocrinology, physical activity, paediatrics, nursing, toxicology and public health met in Lisbon on 2-4 July 2017 to develop a Consensus on the use of low- and no-calorie sweeteners (LNCS) as substitutes for sugars and other caloric sweeteners. LNCS are food additives that are broadly used as sugar substitutes to sweeten foods and beverages with the addition of fewer or no calories. They are also used in medicines, health-care products, such as toothpaste, and food supplements. The goal of this Consensus was to provide a useful, evidence-based, point of reference to assist in efforts to reduce free sugars consumption in line with current international public health recommendations. Participating experts in the Lisbon Consensus analysed and evaluated the evidence in relation to the role of LNCS in food safety, their regulation and the nutritional and dietary aspects of their use in foods and beverages. The conclusions of this Consensus were: (1) LNCS are some of the most extensively evaluated dietary constituents, and their safety has been reviewed and confirmed by regulatory bodies globally including the World Health Organisation, the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority; (2) Consumer education, which is based on the most robust scientific evidence and regulatory processes, on the use of products containing LNCS should be strengthened in a comprehensive and objective way; (3) The use of LNCS in weight reduction programmes that involve replacing caloric sweeteners with LNCS in the context of structured diet plans may favour sustainable weight reduction. Furthermore, their use in diabetes management programmes may contribute to a better glycaemic control in patients, albeit with modest results. LNCS also provide dental health benefits when used in place of free sugars; (4) It is proposed that foods and beverages with LNCS could be included in dietary guidelines as alternative options to products sweetened with free sugars; (5) Continued education of health professionals is required, since they are a key source of information on issues related to food and health for both the general population and patients. With this in mind, the publication of position statements and consensus documents in the academic literature are extremely desirable
Searches for Neutrinos from Gamma-Ray Bursts Using the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are considered as promising sources of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) due to their large power output. Observing a neutrino flux from GRBs would offer evidence that GRBs are hadronic accelerators of UHECRs. Previous IceCube analyses, which primarily focused on neutrinos arriving in temporal coincidence with the prompt gamma-rays, found no significant neutrino excess. The four analyses presented in this paper extend the region of interest to 14 days before and after the prompt phase, including generic extended time windows and targeted precursor searches. GRBs were selected between 2011 May and 2018 October to align with the data set of candidate muon-neutrino events observed by IceCube. No evidence of correlation between neutrino events and GRBs was found in these analyses. Limits are set to constrain the contribution of the cosmic GRB population to the diffuse astrophysical neutrino flux observed by IceCube. Prompt neutrino emission from GRBs is limited to ≲1% of the observed diffuse neutrino flux, and emission on timescales up to 104 s is constrained to 24% of the total diffuse flux.Peer Reviewe
Search for Continuous and Transient Neutrino Emission Associated with IceCube's Highest-Energy Tracks: An 11-Year Analysis
IceCube alert events are neutrinos with a moderate-to-high probability of
having astrophysical origin. In this study, we analyze 11 years of IceCube data
and investigate 122 alert events and a selection of high-energy tracks detected
between 2009 and the end of 2021. This high-energy event selection (alert
events + high-energy tracks) has an average probability of to be of
astrophysical origin. We search for additional continuous and transient
neutrino emission within the high-energy events' error regions. We find no
evidence for significant continuous neutrino emission from any of the alert
event directions. The only locally significant neutrino emission is the
transient emission associated with the blazar TXS~0506+056, with a local
significance of , which confirms previous IceCube studies. When
correcting for 122 test positions, the global p-value is and is
compatible with the background hypothesis. We constrain the total continuous
flux emitted from all 122 test positions at 100~TeV to be below ~(TeV cm s) at 90% confidence assuming an
spectrum. This corresponds to 4.5% of IceCube's astrophysical diffuse flux.
Overall, we find no indication that alert events, in general, are linked to
lower-energetic continuous or transient neutrino emission.Comment: Accepted by Ap
All-flavor constraints on nonstandard neutrino interactions and generalized matter potential with three years of IceCube DeepCore data
We report constraints on nonstandard neutrino interactions (NSI) from the observation of atmospheric neutrinos with IceCube, limiting all individual coupling strengths from a single dataset. Furthermore, IceCube is the first experiment to constrain flavor-violating and nonuniversal couplings simultaneously. Hypothetical NSI are generically expected to arise due to the exchange of a new heavy mediator particle. Neutrinos propagating in matter scatter off fermions in the forward direction with negligible momentum transfer. Hence the study of the matter effect on neutrinos propagating in the Earth is sensitive to NSI independently of the energy scale of new physics. We present constraints on NSI obtained with an all-flavor event sample of atmospheric neutrinos based on three years of IceCube DeepCore data. The analysis uses neutrinos arriving from all directions, with reconstructed energies between 5.6 GeV and 100 GeV. We report constraints on the individual NSI coupling strengths considered singly, allowing for complex phases in the case of flavor-violating couplings. This demonstrates that IceCube is sensitive to the full NSI flavor structure at a level competitive with limits from the global analysis of all other experiments. In addition, we investigate a generalized matter potential, whose overall scale and flavor structure are also constrained
Search for Extended Sources of Neutrino Emission in the Galactic Plane with IceCube
The Galactic plane, harboring a diffuse neutrino flux, is a particularly
interesting target to study potential cosmic-ray acceleration sites. Recent
gamma-ray observations by HAWC and LHAASO have presented evidence for multiple
Galactic sources that exhibit a spatially extended morphology and have energy
spectra continuing beyond 100 TeV. A fraction of such emission could be
produced by interactions of accelerated hadronic cosmic rays, resulting in an
excess of high-energy neutrinos clustered near these regions. Using 10 years of
IceCube data comprising track-like events that originate from charged-current
muon neutrino interactions, we perform a dedicated search for extended neutrino
sources in the Galaxy. We find no evidence for time-integrated neutrino
emission from the potential extended sources studied in the Galactic plane. The
most significant location, at 2.6 post-trials, is a 1.7 sized
region coincident with the unidentified TeV gamma-ray source 3HWC J1951+266. We
provide strong constraints on hadronic emission from several regions in the
Galaxy.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables including an appendix. Accepted for
publication in Astrophysical Journa
Measurement of atmospheric neutrino mixing with improved IceCube DeepCore calibration and data processing
We describe a new data sample of IceCube DeepCore and report on the latest measurement of atmospheric neutrino oscillations obtained with data recorded between 2011–2019. The sample includes significant improvements in data calibration, detector simulation, and data processing, and the analysis benefits from a sophisticated treatment of systematic uncertainties, with significantly greater level of detail since our last study. By measuring the relative fluxes of neutrino flavors as a function of their reconstructed energies and arrival directions we constrain the atmospheric neutrino mixing parameters to be sin2θ23=0.51±0.05 and Δm232=2.41±0.07×10−3 eV2, assuming a normal mass ordering. The errors include both statistical and systematic uncertainties. The resulting 40% reduction in the error of both parameters with respect to our previous result makes this the most precise measurement of oscillation parameters using atmospheric neutrinos. Our results are also compatible and complementary to those obtained using neutrino beams from accelerators, which are obtained at lower neutrino energies and are subject to different sources of uncertainties
Measurement of Atmospheric Neutrino Mixing with Improved IceCube DeepCore Calibration and Data Processing
We describe a new data sample of IceCube DeepCore and report on the latest
measurement of atmospheric neutrino oscillations obtained with data recorded
between 2011-2019. The sample includes significant improvements in data
calibration, detector simulation, and data processing, and the analysis
benefits from a detailed treatment of systematic uncertainties, with
significantly higher level of detail since our last study. By measuring the
relative fluxes of neutrino flavors as a function of their reconstructed
energies and arrival directions we constrain the atmospheric neutrino mixing
parameters to be and , assuming a normal mass ordering. The
resulting 40\% reduction in the error of both parameters with respect to our
previous result makes this the most precise measurement of oscillation
parameters using atmospheric neutrinos. Our results are also compatible and
complementary to those obtained using neutrino beams from accelerators, which
are obtained at lower neutrino energies and are subject to different sources of
uncertainties
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