38 research outputs found
New insights into the enigmatic Cretaceous family Spathiopterygidae (Hymenoptera: Diaprioidea)
The Cretaceous family Spathiopterygidae (Hymenoptera: Diaprioidea), containing five species in four genera, showed a wide distribution from the upper Barremian to the Turonian. We describe two new representatives of the family from the upper Albian San Just outcrop in the eastern Iberian Peninsula that correspond to Diameneura marveni gen. et sp. nov. Santer and Ălvarez-Parra and to a female member of Mymaropsis turolensis Engel and Ortega-Blanco, 2013. The forewing venation of Diameneura marveni gen. et sp. nov. is interpreted, allowing an appropriate comparison for future descriptions. Furthermore, we provide a diagnosis for Mymaropsis baabdaensis since no diagnosis was proposed in the initial paper. We indicate the taphonomic characteristics of the newly described specimens, discuss the interrelationships of the family, and provide new insights about the sexual dimorphism and palaeobiology of spathiopterygids
Impact of nutrient warning labels on choice of ultra-processed food and drinks high in sugar, sodium, and saturated fat in Colombia : a randomized controlled trial
Q2Q1Objective:
This study assessed nutrient warningsâ impact on product selection and identification of food products high in nutrients of concern in Colombia.
Methods:
In an online experiment (October 2020), 8,061 Colombians were randomized to a nutrient warning, guideline daily amounts (GDA), Nutri-Score, or no-label condition. They viewed two fruit drinks labeled according to their condition, one high in sugar and one not, and completed selection tasks. Next, they assessed four products high in sugar, sodium, and/or saturated fat (âhigh inâ product). Finally, they selected which label would most discourage them from consuming a âhigh inâ product.
Results:
The nutrient warning performed better on most outcomes. Twenty percent of participants exposed to the nutrient warning would purchase the high-sugar fruit drink compared to GDA (24%, p<0.01), Nutri-Score (33%, p<0.001), and no label (29%, p<0.001). GDA performed slightly better than the nutrient warning in identifying the high-sugar fruit drink (91% vs 88%, p<0.001). The nutrient warning best helped participants correctly identify other âhigh inâ products (75% vs. 23% no-label, 26% Nutri-Score, and 43% GDA, all p<0.001) and had the highest perceived message effectiveness (3.86 on 5-point scale vs. 2.97 GDA and 2.70 Nutri-Score, both p<0.001) and lowest likelihood of purchasing âhigh inâ products (2.58 on 5-point scale vs. 3.23 GDA, 3.49 Nutri-Score, and 3.51 no label, all p<0.001). The nutrient warning most discouraged participants from wanting to consume âhigh inâ products.
Conclusions:
Nutrient warnings are a promising policy to help consumers identify and discourage consumption of products high in nutrients of concern.https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1834-3012Revista Internacional - IndexadaA1N
Absorption lines from magnetically driven winds in X-ray binaries II: high resolution observational signatures expected from future X-ray observatories
In our self-similar, analytical, magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD)
accretion-ejection solution, the density at the base of the outflow is
explicitly dependent on the disk accretion rate - a unique property of this
class of solutions. We had earlier found that the ejection index is a key MHD parameter that decides if the flow
can cause absorption lines in the high resolution X-ray spectra of black hole
binaries. Here we choose 3 dense warm solutions with and
carefully develop a methodology to generate spectra which are convolved with
the Athena and XRISM response functions to predict what they will observe
seeing through such MHD outflows. In this paper two other external parameters
were varied - extent of the disk, , and the angle of the line of sight, .
Resultant absorption lines (H and He-like Fe, Ca, Ar) change in strength and
their profiles manifest varying degrees of asymmetry. We checked if a) the
lines and ii) the line asymmetries are detected, in our suit of synthetic
Athena and XRISM spectra. Our analysis shows that Athena should detect the
lines and their asymmetries for a standard 100 ksec observation of a 100 mCrab
source - lines with equivalent width as low as a few eV should be detected if
the 6-8 keV counts are larger than even for the least favourable
simulated cases.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures in the main body and 3 figures in the appendix.
Accepted for publication in MNRA
Tracking the X-ray Polarization of the Black Hole Transient Swift J1727.8-1613 during a State Transition
We report on a campaign on the bright black hole X-ray binary Swift
J1727.81613 centered around five observations by the Imaging X-ray
Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). This is the first time it has been possible to
trace the evolution of the X-ray polarization of a black hole X-ray binary
across a hard to soft state transition. The 2--8 keV polarization degree slowly
decreased from 4\% to 3\% across the five observations, but
remained in the North-South direction throughout. Using the Australia Telescope
Compact Array (ATCA), we measure the intrinsic 7.25 GHz radio polarization to
align in the same direction. Assuming the radio polarization aligns with the
jet direction (which can be tested in the future with resolved jet images),
this implies that the X-ray corona is extended in the disk plane, rather than
along the jet axis, for the entire hard intermediate state. This in turn
implies that the long (10 ms) soft lags that we measure with the
Neutron star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER) are dominated by processes
other than pure light-crossing delays. Moreover, we find that the evolution of
the soft lag amplitude with spectral state differs from the common trend seen
for other sources, implying that Swift J1727.81613 is a member of a hitherto
under-sampled sub-population.Comment: Submitted to ApJ. 20 pages, 8 figure
CropPol: a dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination
Seventy five percent of the world's food crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop yield, as well as to anticipate changes in this service, develop predictions, and inform management actions. Here, we present CropPol, a dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination. It contains measurements recorded from 202 crop studies, covering 3,394 field observations, 2,552 yield measurements (i.e. berry weight, number of fruits and kg per hectare, among others), and 47,752 insect records from 48 commercial crops distributed around the globe. CropPol comprises 32 of the 87 leading global crops and commodities that are pollinator dependent. Malus domestica is the most represented crop (32 studies), followed by Brassica napus (22 studies), Vaccinium corymbosum (13 studies), and Citrullus lanatus (12 studies). The most abundant pollinator guilds recorded are honey bees (34.22% counts), bumblebees (19.19%), flies other than Syrphidae and Bombyliidae (13.18%), other wild bees (13.13%), beetles (10.97%), Syrphidae (4.87%), and Bombyliidae (0.05%). Locations comprise 34 countries distributed among Europe (76 studies), Northern America (60), Latin America and the Caribbean (29), Asia (20), Oceania (10), and Africa (7). Sampling spans three decades and is concentrated on 2001-05 (21 studies), 2006-10 (40), 2011-15 (88), and 2016-20 (50). This is the most comprehensive open global data set on measurements of crop flower visitors, crop pollinators and pollination to date, and we encourage researchers to add more datasets to this database in the future. This data set is released for non-commercial use only. Credits should be given to this paper (i.e., proper citation), and the products generated with this database should be shared under the same license terms (CC BY-NC-SA). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
COVID-19 symptoms at hospital admission vary with age and sex: results from the ISARIC prospective multinational observational study
Background:
The ISARIC prospective multinational observational study is the largest cohort of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. We present relationships of age, sex, and nationality to presenting symptoms.
Methods:
International, prospective observational study of 60â109 hospitalized symptomatic patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 recruited from 43 countries between 30 January and 3 August 2020. Logistic regression was performed to evaluate relationships of age and sex to published COVID-19 case definitions and the most commonly reported symptoms.
Results:
âTypicalâ symptoms of fever (69%), cough (68%) and shortness of breath (66%) were the most commonly reported. 92% of patients experienced at least one of these. Prevalence of typical symptoms was greatest in 30- to 60-year-olds (respectively 80, 79, 69%; at least one 95%). They were reported less frequently in children (â€â18 years: 69, 48, 23; 85%), older adults (â„â70 years: 61, 62, 65; 90%), and women (66, 66, 64; 90%; vs. men 71, 70, 67; 93%, each Pâ<â0.001). The most common atypical presentations under 60 years of age were nausea and vomiting and abdominal pain, and over 60 years was confusion. Regression models showed significant differences in symptoms with sex, age and country.
Interpretation:
This international collaboration has allowed us to report reliable symptom data from the largest cohort of patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19. Adults over 60 and children admitted to hospital with COVID-19 are less likely to present with typical symptoms. Nausea and vomiting are common atypical presentations under 30 years. Confusion is a frequent atypical presentation of COVID-19 in adults over 60 years. Women are less likely to experience typical symptoms than men
MUSE spectroscopy of the ULX NGC 1313 X-1: a shock-ionised bubble, an X-ray photoionised nebula, and two supernova remnants
The presence of large ionised gaseous nebulae found around some ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) provides the means to assess the mechanical and radiative feedback of the central source, and hence constrain the efficiency and impact on the surroundings of the super-Eddington regime powering most of these sources. NGC 1313 X--1 is an archetypal ULX which has been reported to be surrounded by abnormally high [O I]6300/H 0.1 ratios and for which high-resolution spectroscopy in X-rays has hinted the presence of powerful outflows. We report observations taken with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer of NGC 1313 X--1 in order to confirm the presence of a nebula inflated by the winds, investigate its main sources of ionisation and estimate the mechanical output of the source. We detect a bubble of 452 266 pc in size, roughly centred around the ULX, which shows clear evidence for shock ionisation in the outer edges. We estimate shock velocities to be in the km/s range based on the line ratios. This suggests that an average and continuous outflow power of erg/s over a timescale of yr is required to inflate the bubble. In the interior of the bubble and closer to the ULX we detect an extended (140 pc) X-ray ionised region. Additionally, we detect two supernova remnants coincidentally close to the bubble of which we also report age and explosion energy estimates. The elongated morphology and the kinematics of the bubble strongly suggest that the bubble is being inflated by winds and/or jets emanating from the central source, supporting the presence of winds found through X-ray spectroscopy. The estimated mechanical power is comparable or higher than the X-ray luminosity of the source, providing additional evidence in support of NGC 1313 X--1 harbouring a super-Eddington accretor
Lipedema: What we don't know.
Lipedema is a loose connective tissue disease characterized by a disproportionate accumulation of adipose tissue in the limbs of women. Despite its incidence of 10-20%, lipedema is often underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed. This review aims to outline current, available evidence regarding this enigmatic syndrome and gives a synopsis of the subjects that are still unknown. PubMed and Embase searches were conducted to identify relevant articles on lipedema pathophysiology, clinical presentation, diagnosis, and treatment. Lipedema can be considered a disease of the adipocytes or a circulatory disorder of the lymphatics. The relationship between lymphatics and adipose tissue remains controversial. The clinical distinction between lipedema, lymphedema, phlebolymphedema, and lipolymphedema can be difficult. Diagnoses often coexist, further complicating the diagnosis of lipedema, which is currently made on clinical grounds alone. The value of diagnostic imaging studies is unclear. Liposuction appears to be an effective treatment and significantly improves symptoms. Diagnosing lipedema remains a challenge due to its heterogeneous presentation, co-existing diseases, and lack of objective diagnostic imaging. Further directions for research include the effect of excess skin resection surgery on lymphatic drainage
Reducing cache coherence traffic with hierarchical directory cache and NUMA-aware runtime scheduling
Cache Coherent NUMA (ccNUMA) architectures are a widespread paradigm due to the benefits they provide for scaling core count and memory capacity. Also, the flat memory address space they offer considerably improves programmability. However, ccNUMA architectures require sophisticated and expensive cache coherence protocols to enforce correctness during parallel executions, which trigger a significant amount of on- and off-chip traffic in the system.
This paper analyses how coherence traffic may be best constrained in a large, real ccNUMA platform through the use of a joint hardware/software approach. For several benchmarks, we study coherence traffic in detail under the influence of an added hierarchical cache layer in the directory protocol combined with runtime managed NUMA-aware scheduling and data allocation techniques to make most efficient use of the added hardware. The effectiveness of this joint approach is demonstrated by speedups of 1.23x to 2.54x and coherence traffic reductions between 44% and 77% in comparison to NUMA-oblivious scheduling and data allocation.
Furthermore, we show that the NUMA-aware techniques we employ at the runtime level are crucial to ensure the added hierarchical layer in the directory coherence protocol does not introduce significant coherence traffic to the system.This work has been supported by the Spanish Government (Severo Ochoa grants SEV2015-0493), by the Spanish Ministry
of Science and Innovation (contracts TIN2015-65316-P), by the Generalitat de Catalunya (contracts 2014-SGR-1051 and 2014-SGR-1272), by the RoMoL ERC Advanced Grant (GA 321253) and the European HiPEAC Network of Excellence. The Mont-Blanc project receives funding from
the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no 610402 and from the EU's H2020 Framework Programme (H2020/2014-2020) under grant agreement no 671697. M. MoretĂł has been partially supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral fellowship number JCI-2012- 15047. M. Casas is supported by the Secretary for Universities and Research of the Ministry of Economy and Knowledge
of the Government of Catalonia and the Cofund programme of the Marie Curie Actions of the 7th R&D Framework Programme of the European Union (Contract 2013
BP B 00243).Peer Reviewe