Localization Operators and an Uncertainty Principle for the Discrete Short Time Fourier Transform

Localization operators in the discrete setting are used to obtain information on a signal f from the knowledge on the support of its short time Fourier transform. In particular, the extremal functions of the uncertainty principle for the discrete short time Fourier transform are characterized and their connection with functions that generate a time-frequency basis is studied

Educational Uses of Augmented Reality (AR): Experiences in Educational Science

Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging technology that is gaining greater influence on teaching every day. AR, together with mobile technology, is defined as one of the most efficient pairs for supporting significant and ubiquitous learning. Purpose of the study: the Instructional Material Motivational Survey (IMMS), by Keller, was used to determine the degree of motivation possessed by the Pedagogy students on the utilization of the notes enriched with AR in the classroom, available for their didactic use through mobile devices. Methods: through an app designed for the courses Education Technology (ET) and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Applied to Education, the motivation gained when participating in this experience, and how it influences the improvement of academic performance, was evaluated. Results and conclusions: the most notable main result was finding a strong relationship between the motivation of the students when using the enriched notes and the increase of performance in the academic subject where it was used. Likewise, it was proved that the use of Augmented Reality benefited the learning process itself

Quasi-Perfect Lee Codes of Radius 2 and Arbitrarily Large Dimension

A construction of two-quasi-perfect Lee codes is given over the space ?np for p prime, p ? ±5 (mod 12), and n = 2[p/4]. It is known that there are infinitely many such primes. Golomb and Welch conjectured that perfect codes for the Lee metric do not exist for dimension n ? 3 and radius r ? 2. This conjecture was proved to be true for large radii as well as for low dimensions. The codes found are very close to be perfect, which exhibits the hardness of the conjecture. A series of computations show that related graphs are Ramanujan, which could provide further connections between coding and graph theories

Trace elements and C and N isotope composition in two mushroom species from a mine-spill contaminated site

Fungi play a key role in the functioning of soil in terrestrial ecosystems, and in particular in the remediation of degraded soils. The contribution of fungi to carbon and nutrient cycles, along with their capability to mobilise soil trace elements, is well-known. However, the importance of life history strategy for these functions has not yet been thoroughly studied. This study explored the soil-fungi relationship of two wild edible fungi, the ectomycorrhizal Laccaria laccata and the saprotroph Volvopluteus gloiocephalus. Fruiting bodies and surrounding soils in a mine-spill contaminated area were analysed. Isotope analyses revealed Laccaria laccata fruiting bodies were 15N-enriched when compared to Volvopluteus gloiocephalus, likely due to the transfer of 15N-depleted compounds to their host plant. Moreover, Laccaria laccata fruiting bodies δ13C values were closer to host plant values than surrounding soil, while Volvopluteus gloiocephalus matched the δ13C composition to that of the soil. Fungal species presented high bioaccumulation and concentrations of Cd and Cu in their fruiting bodies. Human consumption of these fruiting bodies may represent a toxicological risk due to their elevated Cd concentrations

Cyclodextrin-based multivalent glycodisplays: Covalent and supramolecular conjugates to assess carbohydrate-protein interactions

Covalent attachment of biorecognizable sugar ligands in several copies at precise positions of cyclomaltooligosaccharide (cyclodextrin, CD) macrocycles has proven to be an extremely flexible strategy to build multivalent conjugates. The commercial availability of the native CDs in three different sizes, their axial symmetry and the possibility of position- and face-selective functionalization allow a strict control of the valency and spatial orientation of the recognition motifs (glycotopes) in low, medium, high and hyperbranched glycoclusters, including glycodendrimer-CD hybrids. >Click-type> ligation chemistries, including copper(i)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC), thiol-ene coupling or thiourea-forming reactions, have been implemented to warrant full homogeneity of the adducts. The incorporation of different glycotopes to investigate multivalent interactions in heterogeneous environments has also been accomplished. Not surprisingly, multivalent CD conjugates have been, and continue to be, major actors in studies directed at deciphering the structural features ruling carbohydrate recognition events. Nanometric glycoassemblies endowed with the capability of adapting the inter-saccharide distances and orientations in the presence of a receptor partner or capable of mimicking the fluidity of biological membranes have been conceived by multitopic inclusion complex formation, rotaxanation or self-assembling. Applications in the fields of sensors, site-specific drug and gene delivery or protein stabilization attest for the maturity of the field.Ministerio de Economı´a y Competitividad CTQ2010-15848, SAF2010-1567

Wild animals are reservoirs and sentinels of staphylococcus aureus and MRSA clones: A problem with “one health” concern

Background: The availability of comprehensive data on the ecology and molecular epidemiology of Staphylococcus aureus/MRSA in wild animals is necessary to understand their relevance in the “One Health” domain. Objective: In this study, we determined the pooled prevalence of nasal, tracheal and/or oral (NTO) Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) carriage in wild animals, with a special focus on mecA and mecC genes as well as the frequency of MRSA and methicillin susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) of the lineages CC398 and CC130 in wild animals. Methodology: This systematic review was executed on cross-sectional studies that reported S. aureus and MRSA in the NTO cavities of wild animals distributed in four groups: non-human primates (NHP), wild mammals (WM, excluding rodents and NHP), wild birds (WB) and wild rodents (WR). Appropriate and eligible articles published (in English) between 1 January 2011 to 30 August 2021 were searched for from PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, SciElo and Web of Science. Results: Of the 33 eligible and analysed studies, the pooled prevalence of NTO S. aureus and MRSA carriage was 18.5% (range: 0–100%) and 2.1% (range: 0.0–63.9%), respectively. The pooled prevalence of S. aureus/MRSA in WM, NHP, WB and WR groups was 15.8/1.6, 32.9/2.0, 10.3/3.4 and 24.2/3.4%, respectively. The prevalence of mecC-MRSA among WM/NHP/WB/WR was 1.64/0.0/2.1/0.59%, respectively, representing 89.9/0.0/59.1/25.0% of total MRSA detected in these groups of animals.The MRSA-CC398 and MRSA-CC130 lineages were most prevalent in wild birds (0.64 and 2.07%, respectively); none of these lineages were reported in NHP studies. The MRSA-CC398 (mainly of spa-type t011, 53%), MRSA-CC130 (mainly of spa types t843 and t1535, 73%), MSSA-CC398 (spa-types t571, t1451, t6606 and t034) and MSSA-CC130 (spa types t843, t1535, t3625 and t3256) lineages were mostly reported. Conclusion: Although the global prevalence of MRSA is low in wild animals, mecC-mediated resistance was particularly prevalent among MRSA isolates, especially among WM and WB. Considering the genetic diversity of MRSA in wild animals, they need to be monitored for effective control of the spread of antimicrobial resistance

"Agenda setting" y crisis económica: influencia de la prensa en el comportamiento de consumo y ahorro

The analysis of media influence over society has generated an important interest for social investigators. This paper is focused on potential effects of media into people behaviour. We have followed the “agenda setting” of main spanish newspapers through its contents referred to economic crisis process. This information has determined people consumption and their saving behaviour. The higher the uncertainties about future perspectives, the greater the increase of people savings.El análisis de la influencia de los media sobre la sociedad ha suscitado desde hace años un importante interés por parte de los investigadores. Este trabajo se centra en analizar el posible efecto que sobre el comportamiento de los ciudadanos pueden ejercer los medios de comunicación. en concreto, se trata de observar desde la perspectiva del establecimiento de la agenda (Agenda setting) como los diarios de referencia en España a través de sus contenidos y atención al reciente proceso de crisis económica han condicionado el comportamiento de consumo y ahorro de los hogares, en la medida en que la inclusión de noticias sobre la misma va asociada a una mayor incertidumbre en las perspectivas de futuro y, por tanto, genera un incremento en las tasas de ahorro a costa de un menor consumo presente

Identification of value added services from intelligent transportation systems using concept maps technique

El desarrollo de la tecnología aplicada a los sistemas de transporte ha desarrollado un nuevo campo de investigación: los Sistemas Inteligentes de Transporte, permitiendo la aplicación y control de la información electrónica en el transporte. La evaluación de sus aspectos socioeconómicos es particularmente importante para las decisiones políticas gubernamentales a la hora de desarrollar pautas de evaluación apropiadas para los proyectos de los sistemas inteligentes de transporte (Zhang et al., 1996). Sin embargo, la mayoría de estas guías no detallan cómo deberían ser medidos, valorados, o al menos, definidos sus impactos. Las metodologías más utilizadas a la hora de evaluar estos impactos socio-económicos son los análisis coste-beneficio (CBA), los análisis de efectividad del coste y las aproximaciones multi-criterio tales como el análisis envolvente o análisis de la frontera (DEA). Así pues, si bien son muchos los trabajos a partir de los que es posible identificar el rango de beneficios potenciales sin recurrir a la utilización de los costes en los proyectos ITS, no obstante, y desafortunadamente también, los resultados alcanzados son a menudo difíciles de comparar dado que los diferentes proyectos existentes adoptan distintas pautas de acción y de evaluación de los costes y los beneficios (Zhicai et al., 2006). Cabe mencionar también que los beneficios típicos de la implantación de Sistemas Inteligentes de Transporte están relacionados con los servicios de valor añadido que conlleva el empleo de las nuevas tecnologías. Esta investigación pretende utilizar una nueva perspectiva a la hora de valorar los Sistemas Inteligentes de Transporte, al utilizar, no una perspectiva de coste-beneficio, sino una perspectiva estratégica., pretendiendo, en cierta medida, que los resultados obtenidos sirvan de guía para futuras comparaciones de estos sistemas. Con todo esto en mente, el objetivo inicial ha sido identificar los servicios de valor añadido que la aplicación de los Sistemas Inteligentes de Transporte pudiera ofrecer. Para ello hemos hecho uso de una herramienta científica, basada en el proceso de elaboración de los Mapas conceptuales. Los resultados obtenidos nos han permitido identificar seis servicios de valor añadido a tener en cuenta al tratar estos sistemas. Dichos servicios se podrían englobar en tres grandes áreas: Información, Seguridad y Gestión. De igual forma, se ha podido constatar también que aquellos servicios referidos a la mejora de la seguridad y al acceso de información sobre el tráfico son los más valiosos, en contraposición a aquellos referidos a información sobre puntos de interés, resultado, este último, consecuente con los obtenidos por Adler & Blue (1998) en investigaciones previas. Este trabajo propone una clasificación de los servicios de valor añadido que estos sistemas pueden ofrecer, con el fin de facilitar sus evaluaciones y comparaciones futuras. La carencia en el ámbito de la evaluación y comparación de estos sistemas justifica la originalidad de este trabajoA new research area is appearing because of the development of the technology applied to transport systems. This new area is called: Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Electronic information is applied and controlled in transport systems. The assessment of the socio-economic aspects is important for governments’ public decision-making when developing guides for evaluating ITS projects (Zhang et al., 1996). However, most of these guides do not specify the way in which the impacts should be measured, assessed or even defined. The most used methodologies have been Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA), Cost Effectiveness Analysis, and multicriteria approaches such as Development Efficiency Analysis (DEA). Although there are too much researches through which the potential benefits could be identified without using costs rates in ITS projects, their results are sometimes difficult to compare because of the use of different guides to assess costs and benefits (Zhicai et al., 2006). The usual benefits derived from ITS refer to the value added services of these new technologies. Our research make use of a strategic view to assess ITS, instead of a cost-benefit view, in order to make easier the comparison among these systems. The main objective of this research is to identify the value added services that ITS could offer. We have made use of Concept Maps Technique to achieve this objective. Six value added services when working with these systems have been identified. These can be grouped into three regions: Information, Security & Safety, and Management. Moreover, those services referring to safety and to accessing to information on traffic are more valuable than those referring to security and information on point of interests. This result coincides with those from Adler & Blue (1998). This research proposes a classification of the value added services that these systems could offer in order to make easier future evaluations and comparisons. The scarcity in this area is what justifies the originality of this research