Planning the digitisation, storage and access of large scale audiovisual archives

This paper presents ongoing work in PrestoSpace on how broadcast archives can plan large-scale, long-term digitization and storage projects. In our approach, carrier decay, technical obsolescence, and rapidly falling costs of mass storage are represented as a series of statistical and predictive models. The models include ongoing migration within a digital archive. The objective is to allow archive managers to investigate the trade-offs between how many items to transfer, the cost of transfer and storage, how long it will take, what quality can be achieved, how much will be lost, and what digital storage solutions to adopt over time. The process and models are based on digitization projects conducted by large broadcast archives that are currently migrating their collections into digital form. Whilst our focus is on broadcast archives, our findings should be readily transferable to other scenarios where there is a need to store large volumes of digital data over long periods of time

A Feature-Augmented Grammar for Automated Media Production

The IST Polymnia project is creating a fully automated system for personalised video generation, including content creation, selection and composition. This paper presents a linguistically motivated solution using context-free feature-augmented grammar rules to describe editing tasks and hence automate video editing. The solution is media and application independent

DISTRIBUTION OF SPAWNING AND NURSERY GROUNDS FOR DEEP–WATER RED SHRIMPS IN THE CENTRAL WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN SEA

The presence of spawning and nursery grounds of Aristeids in the central western Mediterranean Sea were investigated using fishery-independent data (trawl surveys, 1994–2012). Spatial distributions were generated for mature animals and recruits, for both spring/summer and autumn data, using an inverse distance weighted deterministic interpolation. The persistence index was used to identify stable spawning and nursery grounds in the Sardinian slope region for Aristaeomorpha foliacea and Aristeus antennatus. Areas of aggregation for recruits and mature females appear connected with important physical habitat features. The analysis also suggests a seasonal bathymetric distribution for nursery areas. The recruits of A. foliacea are located in the upper part of the continental slope (377-450 m) in spring-summer and reach greater depths (468-628 m) in autumn. For A. antennatus, for which nursery areas only emerge in autumn, there is presumably an opposite ontogenic migration, from deep sea to upper slope, during the summer (575-681 m). Results indicate also a partial overlap between the nursery and spawning grounds of both species. In this particular areas, local environmental conditions such as upwelling events or the presence of canyons and seamounts seem to play an important role in their distribution. This study generated also relevant information on the spatial and temporal distribution of seasonal or persistent aggregations of spawners and recruits, providing scientific elements to suggest the feasibility of protecting these important resources

Intron Evolution and Information processing in the DNA polymerase α gene in spirotrichous ciliates: A hypothesis for interconversion between DNA and RNA deletion

BACKGROUND: The somatic DNA molecules of spirotrichous ciliates are present as linear chromosomes containing mostly single-gene coding sequences with short 5' and 3' flanking regions. Only a few conserved motifs have been found in the flanking DNA. Motifs that may play roles in promoting and/or regulating transcription have not been consistently detected. Moreover, comparing subtelomeric regions of 1,356 end-sequenced somatic chromosomes failed to identify more putatively conserved motifs. RESULTS: We sequenced and compared DNA and RNA versions of the DNA polymerase α (pol α) gene from nine diverged spirotrichous ciliates. We identified a G-C rich motif aaTACCGC(G/C/T) upstream from transcription start sites in all nine pol α orthologs. Furthermore, we consistently found likely polyadenylation signals, similar to the eukaryotic consensus AAUAAA, within 35 nt upstream of the polyadenylation sites. Numbers of introns differed among orthologs, suggesting independent gain or loss of some introns during the evolution of this gene. Finally, we discuss the occurrence of short direct repeats flanking some introns in the DNA pol α genes. These introns flanked by direct repeats resemble a class of DNA sequences called internal eliminated sequences (IES) that are deleted from ciliate chromosomes during development. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that conserved motifs are present at both 5' and 3' untranscribed regions of the DNA pol α genes in nine spirotrichous ciliates. We also show that several independent gains and losses of introns in the DNA pol α genes have occurred in the spirotrichous ciliate lineage. Finally, our statistical results suggest that proven introns might also function in an IES removal pathway. This could strengthen a recent hypothesis that introns evolve into IESs, explaining the scarcity of introns in spirotrichs. Alternatively, the analysis suggests that ciliates might occasionally use intron splicing to correct, at the RNA level, failures in IES excision during developmental DNA elimination. REVIEWERS: This article was reviewed by Dr. Alexei Fedorov (referred by Dr. Manyuan Long), Dr. Martin A. Huynen and Dr. John M. Logsdon

The Role of Innate Immune Response and Microbiome in Resilience of Dairy Cattle to Disease: The Mastitis Model

Animal health is affected by many factors such as metabolic stress, the immune system, and epidemiological features that interconnect. The immune system has evolved along with the phylogenetic evolution as a highly refined sensing and response system, poised to react against diverse infectious and non-infectious stressors for better survival and adaptation. It is now known that high genetic merit for milk yield is correlated with a defective control of the inflammatory response, underlying the occurrence of several production diseases. This is evident in the mastitis model where high-yielding dairy cows show high disease prevalence of the mammary gland with reduced effectiveness of the innate immune system and poor control over the inflammatory response to microbial agents. There is growing evidence of epigenetic effects on innate immunity genes underlying the response to common microbial agents. The aforementioned agents, along with other non-infectious stressors, can give rise to abnormal activation of the innate immune system, underlying serious disease conditions, and affecting milk yield. Furthermore, the microbiome also plays a role in shaping immune functions and disease resistance as a whole. Accordingly, proper modulation of the microbiome can be pivotal to successful disease control strategies. These strategies can benefit from a fundamental re-appraisal of native cattle breeds as models of disease resistance based on successful coping of both infectious and non-infectious stressors

The AGILE real-time analysis pipelines in the multi-messenger era

In the multi-messenger era, space and ground-based observatories usually develop real-time analysis (RTA) pipelines to rapidly detect transient events and promptly share information with the scientific community to enable follow-up observations. These pipelines can also react to science alerts shared by other observatories through networks such as the Gamma-Ray Coordinates Network (GCN) and the Astronomer's Telegram (ATels). AGILE is a space mission launched in 2007 to study X-ray and gamma-ray phenomena. This contribution presents the technologies used to develop two types of AGILE pipelines using the RTApipe framework and an overview of the main scientific results. The first type performs automated analyses on new AGILE data to detect transient events and automatically sends AGILE notices to the GCN network. Since May 2019, this pipeline has sent more than 50 automated notices with a few minutes delay since data arrival. The second type of pipeline reacts to multi-messenger external alerts (neutrinos, gravitational waves, GRBs, and other transients) received through the GCN network and performs hundreds of analyses searching for counterparts in all AGILE instruments' data. The AGILE Team uses these pipelines to perform fast follow-up of science alerts reported by other facilities, which resulted in the publishing of several ATels and GCN circulars.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, Proceedings of the 37th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2021), Berlin, German

The Second AGILE MCAL Gamma-Ray Burst Catalog: 13 yr of Observations

We present the results of a systematic search and analysis of GRBs detected by the Astrorivelatore Gamma ad Immagini LEggero (AGILE) MiniCALorimeter (MCAL; 0.4–100 MeV) over a time frame of 13 yr, from 2007 to 2020 November. The MCAL GRB sample consists of 503 bursts triggered by MCAL, 394 of which were fully detected onboard with high time resolution. The sample consists of about 44% short GRBs and 56% long GRBs. In addition, 109 bursts triggered partial MCAL onboard data acquisitions, providing further detections that can be used for joint analyses or triangulations. More than 90% of these GRBs were also detected by the AGILE Scientific RateMeters (RMs), providing simultaneous observations between 20 keV and 100 MeV. We performed spectral analysis of these events in the 0.4–50 MeV energy range. We could fit the time-integrated spectrum of 258 GRBs with a single power-law model, resulting in a mean photon index 〈β〉of−2.3. Among them, 43 bursts could also be fitted with a Band model, with peak energy above 400 keV, resulting in a mean low-energy photon index 〈α〉 = −0.6, a mean high-energy photon index 〈β〉 = −2.5, and a mean peak energy 〈Ep〉 = 640 keV. The AGILE MCAL GRB sample mostly consists of hard-spectrum GRBs, with a large fraction of short-duration events. We discuss properties and features of the MCAL bursts, whose detections can be used to perform joint broad-band analysis with other missions, and to provide insights on the high-energy component of the prompt emission in the tens of mega electron volt energy range.publishedVersio

The Northern Cross Fast Radio Burst project: III. The FRB-magnetar connection in a sample of nearby galaxies

Context. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond radio transients observed at cosmological distances. The nature of their progenitors is still a matter of debate, although magnetars are invoked by most models. The proposed FRB-magnetar connection was strengthened by the discovery of an FRB-like event from the Galactic magnetar SGR J1935+2154. Aims: In this work we aim to investigate how prevalent magnetars such as SGR J1935+2154 are within FRB progenitors. Methods: To this end, we carried out an FRB search in a sample of seven nearby (< 12 Mpc) galaxies with the Northern Cross Radio Telescope for a total of 692 h. Results: We detected one 1.8 ms burst in the direction of M 101 with a fluence of 58 ± 5 Jy ms. Its dispersion measure of 303 pc cm−3 places it most likely beyond M 101. Considering that no significant detection comes indisputably from the selected galaxies, we place a 38 yr−1 upper limit on the total burst rate (i.e. including the whole sample) at the 95% confidence level. This upper limit constrains the event rate per magnetar to λmag < 0.42 magnetar−1 yr−1 or, if combined with literature observations of a similar sample of nearby galaxies, it yields a joint constraint of λmag < 0.25 magnetar−1 yr−1. We also provide the first constraints on the expected rate of FRBs hypothetically originating from ultra-luminous X-ray (ULX) sources, since some of the galaxies observed during our observational campaign host confirmed ULXs. We obtain < 13 yr−1 per ULX for the total sample of galaxies observed. Conclusions: Our results indicate that bursts with energies E > 1034 erg from magnetars such as SGR J1935+2154 appear more rarely compared to previous observations and further disfavour them as unique progenitors for the cosmological FRB population. This provides support to the idea that there is a greater contribution from a population of more exotic magnetars not born via core-collapsed supernovae

An IPM guide for enset root mealybug (Cataenococcus ensete) in enset production

This guide has been produced as an overview of a body of work that aims to help mitigate the threat of Enset mealybug: the biology and description of Enset mealybug; its behaviour; its geographical distribution; the pest symptoms; the list of mealybug dispersal methods, and the means of mealybug management, including prevention (clean planting material, extension, affordable management, quarantine, hygiene and ant control), cultural control (farmyard manure, hot water treatment, cultivation), biological control, use of insecticidal plant extracts (botanicals), and agrochemical control