Unveiling GRB hard X-ray afterglow emission with Simbol-X

Despite the enormous progress occurred in the last 10 years, the Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB) phenomenon is still far to be fully understood. One of the most important open issues that have still to be settled is the afterglow emission above 10 keV, which is almost completely unexplored. This is due to the lack of sensitive enough detectors operating in this energy band. The only detection, by the BeppoSAX/PDS instrument (15-200 keV), of hard X-ray emission from a GRB (the very bright GRB 990123), combined with optical and radio observations, seriously challenged the standard scenario in which the dominant mechanism is synchrotron radiation produced in the shock of a ultra-relativistic fireball with the ISM, showing the need of a substantial revision of present models. In this respect, thanks to its unprecedented sensitivity in the 10-80 keV energy band, Simbol-X, through follow-up observations of bright GRBs detected and localized by GRB dedicated experiments that will fly in the >2010 time frame, will provide an important breakthrough in the GRB field.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Paper presented at "Simbol-X: the hard X-ray universe in focus", held in Bologna, Italy, on 14-16 May 2007. To be published in Memorie della Societa' Astronomica Italian

Genetic diversity of Lusitano horse in Brazil using pedigree information

This study aimed to evaluate population parameters and to describe the genetic diversity of the Lusitano breed in Brazil using pedigree data. Two populations were evaluated: total population (TP) containing 18,922 animals, and reference population (RP) composed of a part of TP containing 8,329 animals, representing the last generation. The generation interval (10.1 ± 5.1 years) was in the range for horse populations. Pedigree completeness in RP shows almost 100% filling in the three most recent generations, indicating improvement in the pedigree data and accuracy of the results, and the inbreeding coefficient (4.46%) and average relatedness (5.97%) for RP, indicating control on the part of breeders. The effective population size was 89 (TP) and 90 (RP). The effective number of founders (fe) were 33 and 29, effective number of ancestors (fa) were 30 and 26, and effective number of founder genomes (fg) were 19 and 15 for TP and RP, respectively, indicating a reduction of genetic variability in the last generations. The total number of ancestors that explains 100% of the genetic diversity in the Lusitano breed in Brazil was 427 (TP) and 341 (RP). The reproductive parameters, probabilities of gene origin showing loss of variability in the last generations, and the genetic contributions of ancestors suggest the need to monitor genetic diversity over time in breeding programs to allow control of the next generations and to increase their variability.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

How Implicit Attitudes toward Vaccination Affect Vaccine Hesitancy and Behaviour: Developing and Validating the V-IRAP

Vaccination is one of the most important ways of fighting infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. However, vaccine hesitancy and refusal can reduce adherence to vaccination campaigns, and therefore undermine their effectiveness. Although the scientific community has made great efforts to understand the psychological causes of vaccine hesitancy, studies on vaccine intention have usually relied on traditional detection techniques, such as questionnaires. Probing these constructs explicitly could be problematic due to defense mechanisms or social desirability. Thus, a measure capable of detecting implicit attitudes towards vaccination is needed. To achieve this aim, we designed and validated a new test called the Vaccine-IRAP, or V-IRAP, which is a modified version of the original Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure, or IRAP, task. The V-IRAP allows the unspoken reasons behind vaccine hesitancy to be investigated, and is able to distinguish between positive and negative beliefs on vaccination. The test was assessed in a sample of 151 participants. The V-IRAP showed good internal reliability and convergent validity, with meaningful correlational patterns with explicit measures. Moreover, it revealed incremental validity over such explicit measures. Lastly, the V-IRAP was able to shed light on the implicit attitudes involved in vaccine refusal, revealing negative attitudes relative to vaccine-related risks in non-vaccinated participants. Overall, these results support V-IRAP as a sensitive and reliable tool that could be used in future studies on implicit attitudes toward vaccination

Nutritional and physicochemical meat properties of wild boar (Sus scrofa ferus) x Duroc pig slaughtered to different live weights

AbstractDuring the past few years, an increasing interest has been shown for wild and autochthonous pig, that can offer meat of high culinary, technological and health-promoting value. Production of hybrids (wild boar x swine) can be a valid way to give back some properties to pig meat, lost in commercial swine breeding. This study, conducted in a farm in Wronie (Poland), was designed to investigate the effects of slaughter weight and gender on nutritional and physicochemical meat properties derived from crossing the European wild boar (Sus scrofa ferus) with sows of Duroc breed. Twenty-six hybrids (16 barrows and 10 gilts) were reared in pens, housed according to sex, and were fed ad libitum, from a hog feeder, with a feed containing 12,5 MJ of EM/kg and 160g of CP/kg. Animals were slaughtered at two different live weights: 8 barrows and 5 gilts at 92,0 ± 4,2 kg and 8 barrows and 5 gilts at 108,1 ± 4,3 kg. Animals were electrically stunned; following exsanguination, the carcasses were dehaired and evisce..

Comment on "Evidence of Non-Mean-Field-Like Low-Temperature Behavior in the Edwards-Anderson Spin-Glass Model"

A recent interesting paper [Yucesoy et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 177204 (2012), arXiv:1206:0783] compares the low-temperature phase of the 3D Edwards-Anderson (EA) model to its mean-field counterpart, the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick (SK) model. The authors study the overlap distributions P_J(q) and conclude that the two models behave differently. Here we notice that a similar analysis using state-of-the-art, larger data sets for the EA model (generated with the Janus computer) leads to a very clear interpretation of the results of Yucesoy et al., showing that the EA model behaves as predicted by the replica symmetry breaking (RSB) theory.Comment: Version accepted for publication in PRL. 1 page, 1 figur

Assessing the reliability of species distribution projections in climate change research

Aim: Forecasting changes in species distribution under future scenarios is one of the most prolific areas of application for species distribution models (SDMs). However, no consensus yet exists on the reliability of such models for drawing conclusions on species’ distribution response to changing climate. In this study, we provide an overview of common modelling practices in the field and assess the reliability of model predictions using a virtual species approach. Location: Global. Methods: We first review papers published between 2015 and 2019. Then, we use a virtual species approach and three commonly applied SDM algorithms (GLM, MaxEnt and random forest) to assess the estimated and actual predictive performance of models parameterized with different modelling settings and violations of modelling assumptions. Results: Most SDM papers relied on single models (65%) and small samples (N < 50, 62%), used presence-only data (85%), binarized models' output (74%) and used a split-sample validation (94%). Our simulation reveals that the split-sample validation tends to be over-optimistic compared to the real performance, whereas spatial block validation provides a more honest estimate, except when datasets are environmentally biased. The binarization of predicted probabilities of presence reduces models’ predictive ability considerably. Sample size is one of the main predictors of the real model accuracy, but has little influence on estimated accuracy. Finally, the inclusion of ecologically irrelevant predictors and the violation of modelling assumptions increases estimated accuracy but decreases real accuracy of model projections, leading to biased estimates of range contraction and expansion. Main conclusions: Our ability to predict future species distribution is low on average, particularly when models’ predictions are binarized. A robust validation by spatially independent samples is required, but does not rule out inflation of model accuracy by assumption violation. Our findings call for caution in the application and interpretation of SDM projections under different climates