First case of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus in Spain

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The H5N1 strain of avian influenza virus has been involved in severe mortality in domestic poultry, and has also been found in different species of wildlife in Europe. The Basque Country avian influenza surveillance program began sample collection and processing the fall of 2005.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here we report the first confirmation of the presence of highly pathogenic H5N1 strain in a Great Crested Grebe (<it>Podiceps cristatus</it>) found dead in a pond near Vitoria in the Basque Country on the North of Spain. Regarding the survey for generic influenza type A virus, we have obtained positive results in about 8% of more that 3500 birds examined.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We think that the self-limiting nature of our finding and others proves that certain regions have ecological, geographical and climatological features that make it difficult for the H5N1 virus to spread <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B1">1</abbr></abbrgrp> and cause disease at least in the large scale scenario that has been worrying human and animal health authorities during the last years.</p

Active audience?: interaction of young people with television and online video content

This article examines the different ways of interaction that young people have with television and online video content. Inspired by Van Dijck’s argument (2009), that there is a misleading assumption to define the audience in terms of passive recipients related to old media (e.g. television) and active participants who are internet users, the aim of this study is, firstly, to analyze if there are differences related to the type of medium; and, secondly, to examine if it is possible to develop an audience interaction typology in relation to television and to video content. The study presents the most significant statistical results of a survey of 475 students conducted at Mondragon University. After carrying out a factorial analysis, two multiple generalized linear regressions and a cluster analysis, our results show that it is statistically impossible to describe the audience’s attitude as a dichotomy between passive television viewers and active internet users. Likewise, it is not possible to develop an audience interaction typology in relation to television and to video content. The results rather show a multifarious profile of activity patterns related to specific contents and interactive practices on the Web. This study illustrates the complexity of content, context and audience practices in the new media environment

SemEval-2017 Task 1: semantic textual similarity - multilingual and cross-lingual focused evaluation

Semantic Textual Similarity (STS) measures the meaning similarity of sentences. Applications include machine translation (MT), summarization, generation, question answering (QA), short answer grading, semantic search, dialog and conversational systems. The STS shared task is a venue for assessing the current state-of-the-art. The 2017 task focuses on multilingual and cross-lingual pairs with one sub-track exploring MT quality estimation (MTQE) data. The task obtained strong participation from 31 teams, with 17 participating in all language tracks. We summarize performance and review a selection of well performing methods. Analysis highlights common errors, providing insight into the limitations of existing models. To support ongoing work on semantic representations, the STS Benchmark is introduced as a new shared training and evaluation set carefully selected from the corpus of English STS shared task data (2012-2017)

Meaningful results for Information Retrieval in the MEANING project

The goal of the MEANING project (IST-2001-34460) is to develop tools for the automatic acquisition of lexical knowledge that will help Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD). The acquired lexical knowledge from various sources and various languages is stored in the Multilingual Central Repository (MCR) (Atserias et al 04), which is based on the design of the EuroWordNet database. The MCR holds wordnets in various languages (English, Spanish, Italian, Catalan and Basque), which are interconnected via an Inter-Lingual-Index (ILI). In addition, the MCR holds a number of ontologies and domain labels related to al

ZONACIÓN DE LA VEGETACIÓN HALÓFILA A LO LARGO DE UN GRADIENTE DE EXPOSICIÓN MAREAL Y PROCESOS ASOCIADOS

The zonation of vegetation in the salt-marsh of Mundaka-Gemika (Bay of Biscay, N. Spain) is studied along a small scale topographic gradient. Species distribution appears closely linked to abiotic factors deriving from topographical level, such as organic matter, pH, moisture and conductivity. The redox potential and the compactness of the soil vary in other ways, thus increasing the heterogeneity of the habitat. There is a critica1 elevation, close to MHW level, after which coexistence processes give way to dominance by the best equipped species. A model of the zonation is given. In this model the degree of overlap decreases towards the top area, where there is competitive exclusion and segregation of interior species to the most exposed area. It can not be concluded that the marked segregation of the species along the gradient is exclusively due to physiological requirements of the plants. Tidal dispersal probably plays an important role on the distributional pattem of the annual species Salicornia and Suaeda, but a minor role on the species with vegetative expansion, Spartina maritima, Arthrocnemum perenne, Halimioneportulacoides, and Arthrocnemumfr.uticosum. Plant zonation can only be explained bearing in mind associated processes such as physical disturbance and interspecific competition. As other authors found in higher latitudes, these processes will need to be considered in relation to edaphic factors in elucidating the underlying mechanisms of salt marsh plant zonation. Experimental work in field and laboratory is needed to determine the niche position of each species in the salt marshes in this part of the Atlantic Coast.Se ha estudiado la zonación de la vegetación a lo largo de un gradiente topográfico a pequeña escala en la marisma de Mundaka-Gemika (Norte de España, Golfo de Vizcaya). La distribución de las especies aparece estrechamente ligada a los factores derivados de la topografía, como son la materia orgánica, el pH, la humedad y la conductividad. El potencial redox y la compactación del suelo varían independientemente, aumentando la heterogeneidad del hábitat. La altura media de las pleamares es el nivel a partir del cual los procesos de coexistencia dan paso a la dominancia de las especies competidoras. Se plantea un modelo de zonación. En este modelo, el grado de solapamiento disminuye hacia tierra adentro, donde se produce una competencia y una segregación de las especies inferiores hacia los lugares más expuestos. No se puede concluir que la marcada segregación de las especies a lo largo del gradiente sea debida exclusivamente a los requerimientos fisiológicos de las plantas. La dispersión mareal juega probablemente un importante papel en la distribución de las anuales Salicornia y Suaeda, pero escaso en las especies con crecimiento vegetativo, Spartina maritima, Arthrocnemum perenne, Halimione portuhcoides, y Arthiocnemum fruticosum. La zonación de las plantas debe ser explicada teniendo en cuenta procesos asociados como la perturbación física y la competencia interespecífica, que deben ser considerados en relación con los factores edáficos, para explicar los mecanismos subyacentes de tal zonación. Es necesario el trabajo en el campo y en el laboratorio para determinar el nicho de estas especies en las marismas de esta parte de la Costa Atlántica

Polyurethane/acrylic hybrid dispersions containing phosphorus reactive flame retardants as transparent coatings for wood

Phosphorus modified polyurethane/acrylic hybrid dispersions were prepared for flame retardant transparent wood coatings. The polymerisation was carried out in three steps. In the first one, the polyurethane was synthesised using an acrylic monomer as solvent. The second step involved water addition that promoted the phase inversion and lastly, acrylic part was polymerised. The phosphorous compounds were covalently linked to polyurethane using a phosphorylated polyol and to the acrylic phase using an acrylic phosphate. Polymerisation was monitored by FTIR and NMR and the molar mass of the hybrids was measured by AF4 and SEC. The effects of the phosphorus in fire-retardant properties were analysed by thermogravimetry and pyrolysis combustion flow calorimetry. The introduction of phosphorus did not produce significant changes in the polymerisation process but promoted the cross-linking of the coatings. The coated wood samples maintained the transparency and good properties with the introduction of phosphorus and presented a slight reduction in the Peak Heat Release Rate measured by cone calorimeter. The action of phosphorus as a fire retardant was effective as it gave rise to significant reduction of the CO and CO2 peaks.The funding received from University of the Basque Country (GIU19/077, predoctoral grant of M. Puyadena and postdoctoral grant of M. Cobos) and the Basque Government (IT1313-19, PIBA20/16) is grate-fully acknowledged. Technical and human support provided by SGIker is also sincerely acknowledged (UPV/EHU/ ERDF, EU

Sexual Segregation in Iberian Noctule Bats

Sexual segregation during the breeding season is common in many temperate bat species, and may be related to sex-specific thermoregulatory, microclimatic, or energetic requirements. We compiled capture data for 3 species of Nyctalus (noctule bats) obtained over .20 years to study reproductive and migratory strategies of these species in southwestern Europe. Within the Iberian Peninsula, several different strategies regarding sex distribution and migratory behavior were observed within each of the 3 Nyctalus species. In the northern part of Iberia there are populations of the 3 species composed of males all year-round with females appearing only during the mating season. Reproduction by females in this area has not been confirmed. In central and southern Iberia there are breeding populations in which sexual segregation occurs only at the roosts or at a regional scale, possibly with females located at lower elevations during the breeding season. Female-biased, long-distance migration is likely to be the cause of sexual segregation in populations of N. noctula and N. leisleri in northern and central Iberia, but not of N. lasiopterus, absent in central Europe. For this latter species, segregation by elevation also could occur in northern Iberia. The Iberian Peninsula is a good example of how breeding strategies and migratory behavior in bats can be very flexible and vary across relatively small geographical scales.Peer reviewe

Identification by Real-time PCR of 13 mature microRNAs differentially expressed in colorectal cancer and non-tumoral tissues

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short non-coding RNA molecules playing regulatory roles by repressing translation or cleaving RNA transcripts. Although the number of verified human miRNA is still expanding, only few have been functionally described. However, emerging evidences suggest the potential involvement of altered regulation of miRNA in pathogenesis of cancers and these genes are thought to function as both tumours suppressor and oncogenes. In our study, we examined by Real-Time PCR the expression of 156 mature miRNA in colorectal cancer. The analysis by several bioinformatics algorithms of colorectal tumours and adjacent non-neoplastic tissues from patients and colorectal cancer cell lines allowed identifying a group of 13 miRNA whose expression is significantly altered in this tumor. The most significantly deregulated miRNA being miR-31, miR-96, miR-133b, miR-135b, miR-145, and miR-183. In addition, the expression level of miR-31 was correlated with the stage of CRC tumor. Our results suggest that miRNA expression profile could have relevance to the biological and clinical behavior of colorectal neoplasia