Some lower bounds for solutions of Schrodinger evolutions

We present some lower bounds for regular solutions of Schr odinger equations with bounded and time dependent complex potentials. Assuming that the solution has some positive mass at time zero within a ball of certain radius, we prove that this mass can be observed if one looks at the solution and its gradient in space-time regions outside of that ball

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

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

Vacuum packaging and semipassive chips for wireless temperature monitoring in industrial applications

This paper describes a smart system to monitor high temperature in industrial applications. The solution includes a semipassive microchip which allows logging data and wireless reading. Protection for the electronics against high temperature environment is provided by a vacuum packaging. Thermal isolation at 150°C and 800°C ambient temperature allows the system to work properly during 14 and 2 minutes respectively

Inoculation of Triatoma Virus (Dicistroviridae: Cripavirus) elicits a non-infective immune response in mice

Background: Dicistroviridae is a new family of small, non-enveloped, +ssRNA viruses pathogenic to both beneficial arthropods and insect pests. Little is known about the dicistrovirus replication mechanism or gene function, and any knowledge on these subjects comes mainly from comparisons with mammalian viruses from the Picornaviridae family. Due to its peculiar genome organization and characteristics of the per os viral transmission route, dicistroviruses make good candidates for use as biopesticides. Triatoma virus (TrV) is a pathogen of Triatoma infestans (Hemiptera: Reduviidae), one of the main vectors of the human trypanosomiasis disease called Chagas disease. TrV was postulated as a potential control agent against Chagas' vectors. Although there is no evidence that TrV nor other dicistroviruses replicate in species outside the Insecta class, the innocuousness of these viruses in humans and animals needs to be ascertained. Methods. In this study, RT-PCR and ELISA were used to detect the infectivity of this virus in Mus musculus BALB/c mice. Results: In this study we have observed that there is no significant difference in the ratio IgG2a/IgG1 in sera from animals inoculated with TrV when compared with non-inoculated animals or mice inoculated only with non-infective TrV protein capsids. Conclusions: We conclude that, under our experimental conditions, TrV is unable to replicate in mice. This study constitutes the first test to evaluate the infectivity of a dicistrovirus in a vertebrate animal model.Centro de Estudios Parasitológicos y de Vectore

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

Evaluating hierarchical organisation structures for exploring digital libraries

Search boxes providing simple keyword-based search are insufficient when users have complex information needs or are unfamiliar with a collection, for example in large digital libraries. Browsing hierarchies can support these richer interactions, but many collections do not have a suitable hierarchy available. In this paper we present a number of approaches for automatically creating hierarchies and mapping items into them, including a novel technique which automatically adapts a Wikipedia-based taxonomy to the target collection. These approaches are applied to a large collection of cultural heritage items which is formed through the aggregation of other collections and for which no unified hierarchy is available. We investigate a number of novel user-evaluated metrics to quantify the hierarchies’ quality and performance, showing that the proposed technique is preferred by users. From this we draw a number of conclusions as to what makes a hierarchy useful to the user

The effects of astronomically forced climate change on hemipelagic carbonate sedimentation in a tectonically active setting: the Albian Mioño Formation in Castro Urdiales (Cantabria, N Spain)

Our understanding of the stratigraphic expression of astronomically driven climate-change cycles in the Milankovitch frequency band has improved significantly in recent decades. However, several aspects have been little studied to date, such as the nature of the climatically regulated environmental processes that ultimately control cyclic sedimentation. Similarly, relatively little is known about the expression of Milankovitch cycles in successions accumulated in tectonically active basins. In order to fill this knowledge gap, the Albian hemipelagic deposits of the Miono Formation exposed in Castro Urdiales (Basque-Cantabrian Basin) are studied herein. These deposits were accumulated during a rifting phase with strong tectonic activity. The sedimentological, petrographic and cyclostratigraphic analysis demonstrates that, despite the synsedimentary tectonic instabilities and some diagenetic overprinting, the hemipelagic carbonate alternation was astronomically forced 110.68-110.47 Ma. Seasonality fluctuations driven by precession cycles caused periodic (20 ky) variations in the rate of carbonate productivity (abundance of pelagic calcareous plankton and micrite exported from adjacent shallow-water areas) and/or siliceous dilution (terrestrially derived siliciclastic sediment supply and siliceous particle production by sponges). These variations resulted in the formation of marly limestone beds when annual seasonality was low (i.e., boreal summer at aphelion, winter at perihelion) and the accumulation of marlstones when seasonality increased (i.e., boreal summer at perihelion, winter at aphelion). The incidence of these processes increased and decreased in line with seasonality modulation by short-eccentricity cycles of 100 ky. In conclusion, this study shows that Milankovitch cycles can be reliably recorded in hemipelagic successions accumulated in tectonically active settings if sediment gravity flows or other disturbances do not affect autochthonous sedimentation.Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature. Research funded by the MCIN/AEI project PID2019-105670GB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 of the Spanish Government and by the Consolidated Research Group IT160222 of the Basque Government