Topological field theories in n-dimensional spacetimes and Cartan's equations

Action principles of the BF type for diffeomorphism invariant topological field theories living in n-dimensional spacetime manifolds are presented. Their construction is inspired by Cuesta and Montesinos' recent paper where Cartan's first and second structure equations together with first and second Bianchi identities are treated as the equations of motion for a field theory. In opposition to that paper, the current approach involves also auxiliary fields and holds for arbitrary n-dimensional spacetimes. Dirac's canonical analysis for the actions is detailedly carried out in the generic case and it is shown that these action principles define topological field theories, as mentioned. The current formalism is a generic framework to construct geometric theories with local degrees of freedom by introducing additional constraints on the various fields involved that destroy the topological character of the original theory. The latter idea is implemented in two-dimensional spacetimes where gravity coupled to matter fields is constructed out, which has indeed local excitations.Comment: LaTeX file, no figure

Linear constraints from generally covariant systems with quadratic constraints

How to make compatible both boundary and gauge conditions for generally covariant theories using the gauge symmetry generated by first class constraints is studied. This approach employs finite gauge transformations in contrast with previous works which use infinitesimal ones. Two kinds of variational principles are taken into account; the first one features non-gauge-invariant actions whereas the second includes fully gauge-invariant actions. Furthermore, it is shown that it is possible to rewrite fully gauge-invariant actions featuring first class constraints quadratic in the momenta into first class constraints linear in the momenta (and homogeneous in some cases) due to the full gauge invariance of their actions. This shows that the gauge symmetry present in generally covariant theories having first class constraints quadratic in the momenta is not of a different kind with respect to the one of theories with first class constraints linear in the momenta if fully gauge-invariant actions are taken into account for the former theories. These ideas are implemented for the parametrized relativistic free particle, parametrized harmonic oscillator, and the SL(2,R) model.Comment: Latex file, revtex4, 18 pages, no figures. This version includes the corrections to many misprints of v1 and also the ones of the published version. The conceptual and technical parts of the paper are not altere

LA COLONIA DE TRICAHUES (CYANOLISEUS PATAGONUS BLOXAMI, AVES: PSITTACIFORMES) DEL ALTO CACHAPOAL, CHILE: VARIACIONES POBLACIONALES ENTRE 1985 Y 2015

Resumen · El Loro Tricahue (Cyanoliseus patagonus bloxami) es una subespecie endémica de Chile amenazada de extinción, siendo la caza, la captura de pollos para su comercio como mascotas y la pérdida de hábitat sus principales amenazas. Abundante y ampliamente distribuida en el pasado, su población está fragmentada y en 1985 no superaba los 3300 ejemplares. Por medio de censos sistemáticos se estudió la variación temporal en la abundancia de los Tricahues en el río Cachapoal (región de O’Higgins, Chile), entre 1985 y 2015, determinando un aumento poblacional de 217 individuos en 1985 hasta 2979 individuos en 2014–2015. El aumento poblacional se debe probablemente a la creación de la Reserva Nacional Río de los Cipreses, la protección directa de las loreras en época de reproducción y campañas de educación ambiental dirigidas a los habitantes de las localidades cercanas.Abstract · The Burrowing Parrot (Cyanoliseus patagonus bloxami, Aves: Psittaciformes) colony from Alto Cachapoal, Chile: variations in population size between 1985 and 2015 The endangered endemic subspecies of the Burrowing Parrot from Chile (Cyanoliseus patagonus bloxami) is threatened by hunting, pet trade, and loss of its habitat. Abundant and widely distributed in the past, its population has become fragmented and, by 1985, consisted of only about 3300 birds in Chile. Based on a systematic monitoring we studied population dynamics at the Cachapoal River (O’Higgins region, Central Chile), documenting a population increase from 217 individuals in 1985 to 2979 in 2014–2015. This growth is probably related to the creation of the Rio Cipreses National Reserve, as well as the direct protection of its colonies and a campaign of environmental awareness aimed at the local people

Finger Temperature: A Psychophysiological Assessment of the Attentional State

Attention is a key cognitive phenomenon that is studied to understand cognitive disorders or even to estimate workloads to prevent accidents. Usually, it is studied using brain activity, even though it has many psychophysiological correlates. In the present study, we aim to evaluate if finger temperature, as a surrogate of peripheral vasoconstriction, can be used to obtain similar and complementary information to electroencephalography (EEG) brain activity measurements. To conduct this, 34 participants were recruited and submitted to performing four tasks—one as a baseline, and three attentional tasks. These three attentional tasks measured sustained attention, resilience to distractors, and attentional resources. During the tasks, the room, forehead, tympanic, and finger temperatures were measured. Furthermore, we included a 32-channel EEG recording. Our results showed a strong monotonic association between the finger temperature and the Alpha and Beta EEG spectral bands. When predicting attentional performance, the finger temperature was complementary to the EEG spectral measurements, through the prediction of aspects of attentional performance that had not been assessed by spectral EEG activity, or through the improvement of the model’s fit. We also found that during the baseline task (non-goal-oriented task), the spectral EEG activity has an inverted correlation, as compared to a goal-oriented task. Our current results suggest that the psychophysiological assessment of attention is complementary to classic EEG approach, while also having the advantage of easy implementation of analysis tools in environments of reducing control (workplaces, student classrooms)

Implementation of multi-layer techniques using FEDERICA, PASITO and OneLab network infrastructures

Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. V. López, J. L. Añamuro, V. Moreno, J. E. L. De Vergara, J. Aracil, C. García, J. P. Fernández-Palacios, and M. Izal, "Implementation of multi-layer techniques using FEDERICA, PASITO and OneLab network infrastructures", in 17th IEEE International Conference on Networks, ICON 2011, p. 89-94This paper describes an implementation of multilayer techniques using the network infrastructure provided by FEDERICA, PASITO and OneLab projects. FEDERICA project provides a network infrastructure, based on virtualization capabilities in both network and computing resources, which creates custom-made virtual environments. PASITO is a layer- 2 network that connects universities and research centers in Spain. OneLab measurements tools allow carrying out highaccuracy active network measurements. Thanks to FEDERICA and PASITO, we have a multi-layer architecture where the traffic is routed based on the measurements of OneLab equipment. To carry out this experiment, we have developed a Multi-layer Traffic Engineering manager and an implementation of the Path Computation Element Protocol to solve the lack of a control plane in IP oriented networks. This work shows the feasibility of multilayer techniques as a convenient solution for network operators and it validates our Path Computation Element implementation.This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under project ANFORA (TEC2009-13385), by the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade under PASITO project, and by the European Union under project OneLab2 (FP7-224263). Authors would like to thank Mauro Campanella (GARR, the project coordinator of FEDERICA) and Miguel Angel Sotos (RedIris) for their support to carry out this work

Metabolome Profiling Supports the Key Role of the Spike in Wheat Yield Performance

Although the relevance of spike bracts in stress acclimation and contribution to wheat yield was recently revealed, the metabolome of this organ and its response to water stress is still unknown. The metabolite profiles of flag leaves, glumes and lemmas were characterized under contrasting field water regimes in five durum wheat cultivars. Water conditions during growth were characterized through spectral vegetation indices, canopy temperature and isotope composition. Spike bracts exhibited better coordination of carbon and nitrogen metabolisms than the flag leaves in terms of photorespiration, nitrogen assimilation and respiration paths. This coordination facilitated an accumulation of organic and amino acids in spike bracts, especially under water stress. The metabolomic response to water stress also involved an accumulation of antioxidant and drought tolerance related sugars, particularly in the spikes. Furthermore, certain cell wall, respiratory and protective metabolites were associated with genotypic outperformance and yield stability. In addition, grain yield was strongly predicted by leaf and spike bracts metabolomes independently. This study supports the role of the spike as a key organ during wheat grain filling, particularly under stress conditions and provides relevant information to explore new ways to improve wheat productivity including potential biomarkers for yield prediction.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MEC) [grant number AGL2016-76527- R]. We also acknowledge EIG CONCERT-Japan (EC) / PCIN-2017-063 (MINECO, Spain) project

Comparison of different treatments used for polycystic ovary syndrome

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a disease that currently affects many women of reproductive age. In recent years, the incidence of PCOS has increased, affecting 4% of all women worldwide, with a prevalence of 6% in Mexico. PCOS is a condition characterized by different metabolic, reproductive and hormonal disorders such as hyperandrogenism, chronic anovulation, menorrhagia or infertility. Patients commonly develop clinical alterations such as hirsutism, acne and in some cases, they become overweight or obese. Different medications and therapeutic methods from different literatures were evaluated, both pharmacological such as inositol, metformin, resveratrol, simvastatin, dapagliflozin, which showed great improvement, decreasing the levels of hyperandrogenism in patients, as well as non-pharmacological, of which significant improvements were found with a change in lifestyle, such as exercise, ketogenic diet and herbal medications such as chamomile and cinnamon, which showed a positive change in patients. It is important to make a diffusion and early diagnosis of PCOS, since in this way it will be possible to have a timely treatment, which can be individualized according to the characteristics and needs of each patient

Evaluating maize genotype performance under low nitrogen conditions using RGB UAV phenotyping techniques

Maize is the most cultivated cereal in Africa in terms of land area and production, but low soil nitrogen availability often constrains yields. Developing new maize varieties with high and reliable yields using traditional crop breeding techniques in field conditions can be slow and costly. Remote sensing has become an important tool in the modernization of field-based high-throughput plant phenotyping (HTPP), providing faster gains towards the improvement of yield potential and adaptation to abiotic and biotic limiting conditions. We evaluated the performance of a set of remote sensing indices derived from red–green–blue (RGB) images along with field-based multispectral normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and leaf chlorophyll content (SPAD values) as phenotypic traits for assessing maize performance under managed low-nitrogen conditions. HTPP measurements were conducted from the ground and from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). For the ground-level RGB indices, the strongest correlations to yield were observed with hue, greener green area (GGA), and a newly developed RGB HTPP index, NDLab (normalized difference Commission Internationale de I´Edairage (CIE)Lab index), while GGA and crop senescence index (CSI) correlated better with grain yield from the UAV. Regarding ground sensors, SPAD exhibited the closest correlation with grain yield, notably increasing in its correlation when measured in the vegetative stage. Additionally, we evaluated how different HTPP indices contributed to the explanation of yield in combination with agronomic data, such as anthesis silking interval (ASI), anthesis date (AD), and plant height (PH). Multivariate regression models, including RGB indices (R2 > 0.60), outperformed other models using only agronomic parameters or field sensors (R2 > 0.50), reinforcing RGB HTPP’s potential to improve yield assessments. Finally, we compared the low-N results to the same panel of 64 maize genotypes grown under optimal conditions, noting that only 11% of the total genotypes appeared in the highest yield producing quartile for both trials. Furthermore, we calculated the grain yield loss index (GYLI) for each genotype, which showed a large range of variability, suggesting that low-N performance is not necessarily exclusive of high productivity in optimal conditions.This research and APC was funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa program, grant number [OPP1134248], and the MAIZE CGIAR research program. The CGIAR Research Program MAIZE receives W1&W2 support from the Governments of Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, France, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, U.K., U.S., and the World Bank

Síndrome caída del ganado: consideraciones experimentales con base en plantas acumuladoras de nitratos.

Se busca evidenciar la posible relación existente entre los nitratos contenidos en algunas plantas nativas de los departamentos de Córdoba y Sucre, en Colombia, con el desenlace del síndrome caída del ganado. Se administra oralmente la mezcla de 4 plantas que acumularon elevados niveles de nitratos en la época de iniciación de lluvias: cansaviejo (Mascagnia concinna), bacota (Anemopaegma orbiculatum), yerba de pajarito (Sarcostemma glaucun) y cotorrera (sin clasificación taxonómica). El pasto admirable (Brachiaria mutica) se utiliza como control en los ensayos. Se utilizan 6 novillos de la raza Costeño con Cuernos x Cebú. Se efectúan 2 ensayos experimentales, dividiendo los animales en 2 grupos: problema y control. Cada ensayo duró 72 horas. Al grupo problema se le suministra como forraje una mezcla a partes iguales de las 4 plantas acumuladoras de nitratos, en cantidad equivalente al 10 por ciento del peso total de los animales. El grupo control se alimenta con pasto admirable en cantidad equivalente al 10 por ciento del peso total de los animales. Transcurrida una semana, se alternan los grupos para efectuar el experimento 2. En el primer ensayo los niveles de metahemoglobina no mostraron un incremento significativo entre los animales pertenecientes a cada grupo, sin embargo, las frecuencias respiratoria y cardíaca tuvieron diferencias altamente significativas entre los 2 tratamientos. En el segundo ensayo se observan diferencias altamente significativas en los niveles de metahemoglobina y en frecuencias respiratoria y cardíaca entre los 2 grupos Por lo anterior se considera que la caída del ganado no tiene una etiología específica definida, sino que es el resultado de una concomitancia de factores de diversa índoleGanado de doble propósito-Ganaderia doble proposit