Smart tourist information points by combining agents, semantics and AI techniques

The tourism sector in the province of Teruel (Aragon, Spain) is increasing rapidly. Although the number of domestic and foreign tourists is continuously growing, there are some tourist attractions spread over a wide geographical area, which are only visited by a few people at specific times of the year. Additionally, having human tourist guides everywhere and speaking different languages is unfeasible. An integrated solution based on smart and interactive Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) tourist guides combined with ontologies would overcome this problem. This paper presents a smart tourist information points approach which gathers tourism information about Teruel, structured according to a novel lightweight ontology built on OWL (Ontology Web Language), known as TITERIA (Touristic Information of TEruel for Intelligent Agents). Our proposal, which combines TITERIA with the Maxine platform, is capable of responding appropriately to the users thanks to its Artificial Intelligence Modeling Language (AIML) database and the AI techniques added to Maxine. Preliminary results indicate that our prototype is able to inform users about interesting topics, as well as to propose other related information, allowing them to acquire a complete information about any issue. Furthermore, users can directly talk with an artificial actor making communication much more natural and closer

Practical considerations for clinical use of mesenchymal stem cells: From the laboratory to the horse

Since the clinical use of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) for treating musculoskeletal injuries is gaining popularity, practitioners should be aware of the factors that may affect MSCs from tissue harvesting for MSC isolation to cell delivery into the injury site. This review provides equine practitioners with up-to-date, practical knowledge for the treatment of equine patients using MSCs. A brief overview of laboratory procedures affecting MSCs is provided, but the main focus is on shipping conditions, routes of administration, injection methods, and which commonly used products can be combined with MSCs and which products should be avoided as they have deleterious effects on cells. There are still several knowledge gaps regarding MSC-based therapies in horses. Therefore, it is important to properly manage the factors which are currently known to affect MSCs, to further strengthen the evidence basis of this treatment

Archaeometric characterization of the handmade pottery from the Early Iron Age site of Sant Jaume (Alcanar, Montsià)

L’estudi arqueomètric de la ceràmica a mà del jaciment protohistòric de Sant Jaume, realitzat mitjançant l’aplicació de diverses tècniques d’anàlisi fisicoquímiques (FRX, DRX, MER), mostra com aquestes ceràmiques van ser fabricades seguint una mateixa tradició tècnica caracteritzada per una important presència d’inclusions de desgreixador de calcita triturada i coccions a baixa temperatura. Aquesta tradició va ser utilitzada per a la fabricació de tots els tipus de vasos ceràmics, independentment de la seva funcionalitat. A més, s’hi observa una important diversitat de provinences, fet que permet proposar l’existència de xarxes locals i regionals de producció i distribució d’aquests tipus ceràmics, superant l’actual visió on es contempla la ceràmica a mà com a una producció típicament local.An archaeometric study has been conducted on the handmade pottery recovered at Sant Jaume by combining different analytical techniques (XRF, XRD, SEM). The results show that all ceramics were produced by using the same technical tradition: a clay paste enriched with crushed calcite as temper, fired at low firing temperatures. This tradition was used in all different ceramic types regardless of their function. Moreover, several provenances have also been identified. Therefore, we propose the existence of local and regional networks for handmade pottery production and distribution, something that changes the nowadays assumption of local production

Differentiation of equine bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells increases the expression of immunogenic genes

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are a promising treatment for equine musculoskeletal injuries because of their ability to regulate the inflammation and to differentiate into other cell types. Since interest in allogeneic therapy is rising, concerns about MSC immunogenicity need to be addressed. Differentiated MSCs from several species increase their expression of immunogenic molecules and induce alloresponses, but equine MSC immunogenic profile after differentiation has not been reported. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the gene expression of immunogenic markers in tri-lineage differentiated equine bone marrow derived MSCs (eBM-MSCs). For this purpose, eBM-MSCs (n = 4) were differentiated into osteoblasts, adipocytes and chondrocytes. Differentiation was confirmed by specific staining and gene expression of lineage-related markers. Subsequently, gene expression of MHC-I, MHC-II, CD40 and CD80 was analyzed in undifferentiated (control) and tri-lineage differentiated eBM-MSCs. Osteogenesis and adipogenesis, but not chondrogenesis, significantly upregulated MHC-I; MHC-II expression significantly increased in the three lineages, while CD40 and CD80 expression did not change. Despite this, MHC-I and MHC-II upregulation after differentiation might lead to increased immunogenicity and risk of allorecognition, either eBM-MSCs differentiate in vivo after administration or they are differentiated prior to administration, with potential negative consequences for effectiveness and safety of allogeneic therapy

Molecular, physico-chemical, and sensory characterization of the traditional spanish apple variety "Pero de Cehegín"

The "Pero de Cehegín"is an ancient local variety of apple grown in Murcia (Spain). In this study, microsatellites markers showed evidence of a unique profile that has never been reported before in other Spanish apple germplasm collections. Five "Pero de Cehegín"clones were evaluated and compared with two commercial apple varieties, "Fuji"and "Golden Delicious", to assess its marketing potential. For this, the physical (weight, height, and width of the fruit, moisture content, firmness, and color of the fruit, among others), and chemical (total soluble solids, total acidity, and maturity index) properties of the fruits were evaluated. In addition, the content of bioactive compounds such as total polyphenol content, total antioxidant activity using the ABTS+, DPPH, and FRAP methods, and the sugar profile were analyzed, and their sensory profile was also evaluated. Physico-chemical differences were found within the "Pero de Cehegín"clones and between the commercial varieties. "Pero de Cehegín"had a high firmness, high total soluble solids, very low total acidity, high FRAP antioxidant capacity, and more sucrose content in comparison with "Fuji"and "Golden Delicious". These distinctive characteristics and the good appearance of the fruit make this variety a marketable product that will increase the offering of traditional, local, but underutilized fruit varieties

Humoral immune response against allogeneic equine mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) mediated by the major histocompatibility complex (MHC): an issue to take into account for the safety and efficacy of treatment with MSCs

Allogeneic mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) present several advantages, but recipient immune response needs to be further elucidated. Proinflammatory priming of MSCs activated their in vivo regulatory capacity, but repeated administrations led to slight inflammatory reaction in an osteoarthritis equine model. This may be associated with higher major histocompatibility complex (MHC) expression, which would increase MSC immunogenicity potentially inducing humoral mediated immune memory. This study aimed at assessing allo-antibody production against donor’s equine MHC (equine leukocyte antigen, ELA) in animals that received intra-articular repeated administration of allogeneic MSC-primed. For this purpose, we used stored samples from a previous study. Donor and recipients ELA-haplotypes were stablished by microsatellite typing and complementmediated microcytoxicity assays were carried out by exposing target cells from the donor (unstimulated MSCs [MSC-nai¨ve], MSC-primed or lymphocytes [control]) to sera collected at different time-points from 10 recipients: ELA-mismatched MSCnai ¨ve recipients, ELA-mismatched MSC-primed recipients or ELA-partially matched MSC-primed recipients. All animals receiving allogeneic MSCs produced allo-antibodies after the first injection, regardless of the matching degree. However, antibody peak production after second administration was only observed in ELA-mismatched recipients, both of MSC-nai¨ve and MSCprimed. Horses injected with MSC-primed produced fewer antibodies but MSC-primed were more targeted in the microcytoxicity assay. Thus, activated immunomodulatory profile of MSC-primed could have led to slighter humoral response after ..

X-GRL: An Empirical Assessment of Explainable GNN-DRL in B5G/6G Networks

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques has triggered a revolution in beyond fifth-generation (B5G) and upcoming sixth-generation (6G) mobile networks. Despite these advances, efficient resource allocation in dynamic and complex networks remains a major challenge. This paper presents an experimental implementation of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) enhanced with graph neural networks (GNNs) on a real 5G testbed. The method addresses the explainability of GNNs by evaluating the importance of each edge in determining the model's output. The custom sampling functions feed the data into the proposed GNN-driven Monte Carlo policy gradient (REINFORCE) agent to optimize the gNodeB (gNB) radio resources according to the specific traffic demands. The demo demonstrates real-time visualization of network parameters and superior performance compared to benchmarks.Comment: 3 pages, 8 figure

Cusp formation in classical trajectory Monte-Carlo calculations of single atomic ionization by the impact of neutral projectiles

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Analysis of platelets from a diet-induced obesity rat model: elucidating platelet dysfunction in obesity

Obesity is one of the main health problems in industrialized countries. The contribution of multiple factors developed in obesity can hardly be modeled in vitro. In this context, the development of animal models mimicking human obesity could be essential. The aim of the present study was to compare platelets from a diet-induced obesity (DIO) rat model with their lean control group in order to elucidate platelet dysfunction mechanisms in obesity and correlate the results with previous data from morbid obese patients. In parallel, we also established a blood collection and platelet isolation methodology to study the DIO rat model at biochemical and functional level. Optimal blood collection was obtained from vena cava and platelet isolation was based on a serial of centrifugations avoiding platelet activation. Our results show that the DIO rat model simulate obesity pathologically since weight gain, fasting glucose and platelet counts are increased in obese rats. Interestingly, platelet levels of the active form of Src (pTyr(419)) showed a tendency to increase in DIO rats pointing towards a potential dysfunction in Src family kinases-related signalling pathways in obesity. Moreover, platelets from DIO rats adhere more to collagen compared with the control group, pointing towards Glycoprotein VI (GPVI) as one of the dysregulated receptors in obesity, in agreement with our recent studies in humans. These results confirm that obesity, in line with human studies, present a platelet dysregulation, and highlight the relevance of considering novel antithrombotic drug targets in these patients, such as GPVI

Accelerating BST Methods for Model Reduction with Graphics Processors

Model order reduction of dynamical linear time-invariant system appears in many scientific and engineering applications. Numerically reliable SVD-based methods for this task require O(n3) floating-point arithmetic operations, with n being in the range 103 − 105 for many practical applications. In this paper we investigate the use of graphics processors (GPUs) to accelerate model reduction of large-scale linear systems via Balanced Stochastic Truncation, by off-loading the computationally intensive tasks to this device. Experiments on a hybrid platform consisting of state-of-the-art general-purpose multi-core processors and a GPU illustrate the potential of this approach