Does abscisic acid affect strigolactone biosynthesis?

Strigolactones are considered a novel class of plant hormones that, in addition to their endogenous signalling function, are exuded into the rhizosphere acting as a signal to stimulate hyphal branching of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and germination of root parasitic plant seeds. Considering the importance of the strigolactones and their biosynthetic origin (from carotenoids), we investigated the relationship with the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA). Strigolactone production and ABA content in the presence of specific inhibitors of oxidative carotenoid cleavage enzymes and in several tomato ABA-deficient mutants were analysed by LC-MS/MS. In addition, the expression of two genes involved in strigolactone biosynthesis was studied. * • The carotenoid cleavage dioxygenase (CCD) inhibitor D2 reduced strigolactone but not ABA content of roots. However, in abamineSG-treated plants, an inhibitor of 9-cis-epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase (NCED), and the ABA mutants notabilis, sitiens and flacca, ABA and strigolactones were greatly reduced. The reduction in strigolactone production correlated with the downregulation of LeCCD7 and LeCCD8 genes in all three mutants. * • The results show a correlation between ABA levels and strigolactone production, and suggest a role for ABA in the regulation of strigolactone biosynthesis

Biblioteca de Complejidad Textual

This paper introduces a new resource for computing textual complexity. It consists in a Python library for calculating different complexity metrics for several languages from plain texts. The resource has been made available to the research community and provides all needed instructions for its installation and use. To our knowledge, it is the first time a resource like this is published, so we expect many researchers can profit from it.Este artículo presenta un nuevo recurso para el cálculo de la complejidad textual. Se trata de una biblioteca de programación en Python que facilita el cómputo de distintas métricas de complejidad para varios idiomas a partir de textos en lenguaje natural. El recurso se ha liberado para su uso por parte de la comunidad científica y proporciona todas las instrucciones necesarias para su instalación y aprovechamiento. Hasta donde sabemos, es la primera vez que un recurso así está disponible, por lo que esperamos sea de utilidad.This work has been partially supported by Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER), LIVING-LANG project (RTI2018-094653-B-C21) from the Spanish Government

Text categorization using bibliographic records : beyond document content

En este artículo se estudia el uso de diferentes fuentes de información para tareas de clasificación de textos. Dado el creciente número de bibliotecas digitales, se impone una revisión de la información disponible en dichas bases de datos. Se han llevado a cabo una serie de experimentos de clasificación multi-etiquetado dentro del dominio de la Física de Altas Energías haciendo uso de diferentes clasificadores base y combinando distintas fuentes de información. Los resultados muestran que el uso de metadatos es tan válido como el uso de versiones a texto completo de los documentos.This paper studies the use of different sources of information for performing a text classification task. The growing number of digital libraries imposes a review of the available data from those databases. Some experiments applying different base classifiers for a multi-label classifier in the domain of High Energy Physics on several of these possible sources have been carried out. Results show that the use of metadata is almost as good as the full-text version of papers.This work is partially financed by the Spanish Minister of Science and Technology, by means of project TIC2003- 07158-C04-04

TRANSFERENCIA DE MASA EN LA DESHIDRATACIÓN OSMÓTICA A VACÍO DE RODAJAS DE ANANAS COMO SUS L. MERR“PIÑA”

The temperature and pressure effects on the mass transfer kinetics during vacuum osmotic treatment in pineapple slices were analized. Experiments were carried out with solution of sucrose of 65 oBrix at temperatures of 40 and 50oC, pressure of 1 013, 220 and 100 mb, for 30, 60, 120, 180 and 240 min. The highest mass transference was obtained at 100 mb under the specified working conditions.Se analizaron los efectos de la temperatura y presión en la velocidad de transferencia de masa durante la deshidratación osmótica a vacío de rodajas de Ananas comosus L.Merr “piña”. En los experimentos se empleó solución de sacarosa de 65 ºBrix a temperaturas de 40 y 50 ºC, presiones de 1 013, 220 y 100 mb, por 30, 60, 120, 180 y 240 min. Se halló que la mayor transferencia de masa se obtuvo a 100 mb a las condiciones de trabajo especificadas

Les proteïnes de fase aguda indiquen la gravetat de la sarna sarcòptica en la cabra salvatge

Les proteïnes de fase aguda (PFA) són proteïnes del sèrum la concentració de les quals pot variar a causa de malalties o estrès. Un estudi ha analitzat la concentració de PFA en cabres salvatges sanes i afectades per la sarna sarcòptica. Els resultats mostren que les cabres infestades tenen un major nivell d'algunes PFA, que és més elevat en els animals amb lesions cutànies més grans. Aquests resultats són diferents dels obtinguts en espècies semblants, fet que indica la necessitat de més estudis per entendre millor les variacions de les PFA.Las proteínas de fase aguda (PFA) son proteínas séricas cuya concentración puede variar a causa de enfermedades o estrés. Un estudio ha analizado la concentración de PFA en cabras monteses sanas y afectadas por la sarna sarcóptica. Los resultados muestran que las cabras infestadas tienen un mayor nivel de algunas PFA, que es más elevado en los animales con mayores lesiones cutáneas. Estos resultados son diferentes de los obtenidos en especies parecidas, hecho que indica la necesidad de más estudios para entender mejor las variaciones de las PFA.The acute phase proteins (APP) are serum proteins whose concentrations may vary because of diseases or stress. A study has analysed the concentrations of APP in healthy Iberian ibexes and others affected by sarcoptic mange. The results show that infested ibexes have higher levels of some APP, and the more severely affected ibexes have higher APP levels. These results are different from those obtained in similar species, so further studies are needed in order to better understand APP variations

A Survey on Bias in Deep NLP

Deep neural networks are hegemonic approaches to many machine learning areas, including natural language processing (NLP). Thanks to the availability of large corpora collections and the capability of deep architectures to shape internal language mechanisms in self-supervised learning processes (also known as “pre-training”), versatile and performing models are released continuously for every new network design. These networks, somehow, learn a probability distribution of words and relations across the training collection used, inheriting the potential flaws, inconsistencies and biases contained in such a collection. As pre-trained models have been found to be very useful approaches to transfer learning, dealing with bias has become a relevant issue in this new scenario. We introduce bias in a formal way and explore how it has been treated in several networks, in terms of detection and correction. In addition, available resources are identified and a strategy to deal with bias in deep NLP is proposed.This study is partially funded by the Spanish Government under the LIVING-LANG project (RTI2018-094653-B-C21)

Recommendation of Tourist Points of Interest using the Web as source

Este artículo presenta un sistema de recomendación híbrido, basado en contenido y comunidad de usuarios, para recomendar a los usuarios los lugares próximos más afines a sus gustos. El contenido se extrae de forma automática de la web oficial del punto de interés. Destacamos los buenos resultados obtenidos cuando la información recuperada para cada lugar de su sitio web es descriptiva. Nuestros experimentos se han realizado sobre los datos ofrecidos por la organización del Contextual Suggestion Track en TREC 2014, una tarea exigente donde la información de los usuarios es dispersa y cuyas recomendaciones se deben obtener a partir de coordenadas geográficas y poca información adicional.This paper introduces a hybrid recommender system, based on both content and community of users, to suggest places according to user's interests. The content has been automatically extracted from official web page of each place. We remark the promising results obtained when the official web site provides descriptive content. Our experiments have been performed on the Contextual Suggestion Track dataset from TREC 2014, a competitive task where information about users is very sparse and recommendations must come from only GPS coordinates and few additional information.Este trabajo se ha desarrollado gracias a la financiación parcial del proyecto ATTOS (TIN2012-38536-C03-0) del Gobierno de España y del proyecto CEATIC-2013-01 de la Universidad de Jaén

Phosphorus availability drives mycorrhiza induced resistance in tomato

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis can provide multiple benefits to the host plant, including improved nutrition and protection against biotic stress. Mycorrhiza induced resistance (MIR) against pathogens and insect herbivores has been reported in different plant systems, but nutrient availability may influence the outcome of the interaction. Phosphorus (P) is a key nutrient for plants and insects, but also a regulatory factor for AM establishment and functioning. However, little is known about how AM symbiosis and P interact to regulate plant resistance to pests. Here, using the tomato-Funneliformis mosseae mycorrhizal system, we analyzed the effect of moderate differences in P fertilization on plant and pest performance, and on MIR against biotic stressors including the fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea and the insect herbivore Spodoperta exigua. P fertilization impacted plant nutritional value, plant defenses, disease development and caterpillar survival, but these effects were modulated by the mycorrhizal status of the plant. Enhanced resistance of F. mosseae-inoculated plants against B. cinerea and S. exigua depended on P availability, as no protection was observed under the most P-limiting conditions. MIR was not directly explained by changes in the plant nutritional status nor to basal differences in defense-related phytohormones. Analysis of early plant defense responses to the damage associated molecules oligogalacturonides showed primed transcriptional activation of plant defenses occurring at intermediate P levels, but not under severe P limitation. The results show that P influences mycorrhizal priming of plant defenses and the resulting induced-resistance is dependent on P availability, and suggest that mycorrhiza fine-tunes the plant growth vs defense prioritization depending on P availability. Our results highlight how MIR is context dependent, thus unravel molecular mechanism based on plant defence in will contribute to improve the efficacy of mycorrhizal inoculants in crop protection

Text readability, complexity metrics and the importance of words

El presente trabajo expone un estudio sobre la determinación de la edad recomendada de lectura sobre un conjunto de textos infantiles. Se ha evaluado el mismo con 12 medidas de complejidad propuestas por distintos autores. Usando estas medidas como características, hemos modelado los textos y aplicado una validación cruzada con varios clasificadores automáticos. Los resultados se han comparado con otras formas de representación de los textos, como vectores de palabras y vectores TF.IDF. Nuestras conclusiones indican que el rasgo más determinante para la determinación de la edad de lectura recomendada no radica tanto en factores como la complejidad sintáctica o léxica, sino en el uso de determinado vocabulario.This article describes our study on the identification of the recommended age for readers in texts written for children. They have been evaluated over 12 complexity metrics proposed by different authors. By using these metrics as features, we have trained several automatic classifiers and cross-validated their performances to detect recommended reader level. The results have been compared with the classification performance obtained from other document models, like word embeddings and TF.IDF vectors. Our conclusions are that the most relevant facet to identify the recommended reader age is not on lexical or syntactical complexities, but strongly related with the vocabulary involved.Este trabajo ha sido parcialmente financiado por el Gobierno de España a través del proyecto REDES (TIN2015-65136-C2-1-R)