Structure and dynamics of the Shapley Supercluster

We present results of our wide-field redshift survey of galaxies in a 285 square degree region of the Shapley Supercluster (SSC), based on a set of 10529 velocity measurements (including 1201 new ones) on 8632 galaxies obtained from various telescopes and from the literature. Our data reveal that the main plane of the SSC (v~ 14500 km/s) extends further than previous estimates, filling the whole extent of our survey region of 12~degrees by 30~degrees on the sky (30 x 75~h-1 Mpc). There is also a connecting structure associated with the slightly nearer Abell~3571 cluster complex (v~ 12000km/s. These galaxies seem to link two previously identified sheets of galaxies and establish a connection with a third one at V= 15000 km/s near R.A.= 13h. They also tend to fill the gap of galaxies between the foreground Hydra-Centaurus region and the more distant SSC. In the velocity range of the Shapley Supercluster (9000 km/s < cz < 18000 km/s), we found redshift-space overdensities with b\_j < 17.5 of ~5.4 over the 225 square degree central region and ~3.8 in a 192 square degree region excluding rich clusters. Over the large region of our survey, we find that the intercluster galaxies make up 48 per cent of the observed galaxies in the SSC region and, accounting for the different completeness, may contribute nearly twice as much mass as the cluster galaxies. In this paper, we discuss the completeness of the velocity catalogue, the morphology of the supercluster, the global overdensity, and some properties of the individual galaxy clusters in the Supercluster.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

High prevalence of anti-hepatitis e virus antibodies among blood donors in central Italy, february to march 2014

Prevalence of anti-hepatitis E virus (HEV) antibodies is highly variable in developed countries, which seems partly due to differences in assay sensitivity. Using validated sensitive assays, we tested 313 blood donors attending a hospital transfusion unit in central Italy in January and February 2014 for anti-HEV IgG and IgM and HEV RNA. Data on HEV exposure were collected from all donors. Overall anti-HEV IgG prevalence was 49% (153/313). Eating raw dried pig-liver sausage was the only independent predictor of HEV infection (adjusted prevalence rate ratio = 2.14; 95% confidence interval: 1.23–3.74). Three donors were positive for either anti-HEV IgM (n = 2; 0.6%) or HEV RNA (n = 2; 0.6%); they were completely asymptomatic, without alanine aminotransferase (ALT) abnormalities. Of the two HEV RNA-positive donors (both harbouring genotype 3), one was anti-HEV IgG- and IgM-positive, the other was anti-HEV IgG- and IgM-negative. The third donor was positive for anti-HEV IgG and IgM but HEV RNA-negative. HEV infection is therefore hyperendemic among blood donors (80% men 18–64 years-old) from central Italy and associated with local dietary habits. Nearly 1% of donors have acute or recent infection, implying potential transmission to blood recipients. Neither ALT nor anti-HEV IgM testing seems useful to prevent transfusion-transmitted HEV infection. © 2016, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

Aspect-based Sentiment Analysis of Scientific Reviews

Scientific papers are complex and understanding the usefulness of these papers requires prior knowledge. Peer reviews are comments on a paper provided by designated experts on that field and hold a substantial amount of information, not only for the editors and chairs to make the final decision, but also to judge the potential impact of the paper. In this paper, we propose to use aspect-based sentiment analysis of scientific reviews to be able to extract useful information, which correlates well with the accept/reject decision. While working on a dataset of close to 8k reviews from ICLR, one of the top conferences in the field of machine learning, we use an active learning framework to build a training dataset for aspect prediction, which is further used to obtain the aspects and sentiments for the entire dataset. We show that the distribution of aspect-based sentiments obtained from a review is significantly different for accepted and rejected papers. We use the aspect sentiments from these reviews to make an intriguing observation, certain aspects present in a paper and discussed in the review strongly determine the final recommendation. As a second objective, we quantify the extent of disagreement among the reviewers refereeing a paper. We also investigate the extent of disagreement between the reviewers and the chair and find that the inter-reviewer disagreement may have a link to the disagreement with the chair. One of the most interesting observations from this study is that reviews, where the reviewer score and the aspect sentiments extracted from the review text written by the reviewer are consistent, are also more likely to be concurrent with the chair's decision.Comment: Accepted in JCDL'2

A non-targeted metabolomics study on Xylella fastidiosa infected olive plants grown under controlled conditions

In the last decade, the bacterial pathogen Xylella fastidiosa has devastated olive trees throughout Apulia region (Southern Italy) in the form of the disease called “Olive Quick Decline Syndrome” (OQDS). This study describes changes in the metabolic profile due to the infection by X. fastidiosa subsp. pauca ST53 in artificially inoculated young olive plants of the susceptible variety Cellina di Nardò. The test plants, grown in a thermo-conditioned greenhouse, were also co-inoculated with some xylem-inhabiting fungi known to largely occur in OQDS-affected trees, in order to partially reproduce field conditions in terms of biotic stress. The investigations were performed by combining NMR spectroscopy and MS spectrometry with a non-targeted approach for the analysis of leaf extracts. Statistical analysis revealed that Xylella-infected plants were characterized by higher amounts of malic acid, formic acid, mannitol, and sucrose than in Xylella-non-infected ones, whereas it revealed slightly lower amounts of oleuropein. Attention was paid to mannitol which may play a central role in sustaining the survival of the olive tree against bacterial infection. This study contributes to describe a set of metabolites playing a possible role as markers in the infections by X. fastidiosa in olive

Los efectos de la torrencialidad en la ciudad de Tafí Viejo

Es intención de este trabajo el análisis, reflexión y crítica acerca de la torrencialidad, una problemática recurrente y aun sin solución en Tucumán. Durante el verano 1999-2000, una vez más, la población debió resignarse a padecer la pérdida de bienes materiales, roturas de calles, cañerías dañadas y al descubierto por el socavamiento de las aguas, roturas de defensas, etc., como consecuencia de la torrencialidad, efectos que pudieron verse atenuados si se hubieran implementado acciones estratégicas y una efectiva capacidad de respuesta, especialmente por parte de los organismos oficiales y de las autoridades responsables. A causa de este proceso, los habitantes de algunas zonas urbanas y suburbanas de Tafí Viejo sufren los efectos de la torrencialidad como un "desastre" (Reboratti), por el gran impacto que ejerce en la sociedad local, provocando una desorganización de la misma.Evento también conocido bajo el nombre de "II Jornadas Platenses de Geografía"Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Evolution and role of mergers in the BCG-cluster alignment. A view from cosmological hydrosimulations

Contradictory results have been reported on the time evolution of the alignment between clusters and their brightest cluster galaxy (BCG).We study this topic by analysing cosmological hydrosimulations of 24 massive clusters with M200|z=0 ≥ 1015M⊙, plus 5 less massive with 1 × 1014 ≤ M200|z=0≤ 7 × 1014M⊙, which have already proven to produce realistic BCG masses.We compute the BCG alignment with both the distribution of cluster galaxies and the dark matter (DM) halo. At redshift z = 0, the major axes of the simulated BCGs and their host cluster galaxy distributions are aligned on average within 20?. The BCG alignment with the DM halo is even tighter. The alignment persists up to z ≤ 2 with no evident evolution. This result continues, although with a weaker signal, when considering the projected alignment. The cluster alignment with the surrounding distribution of matter (3R200) is already in place at z ~ 4 with a typical angle of 35?, before the BCG-cluster alignment develops. The BCG turns out to be also aligned with the same matter distribution, albeit always to a lesser extent. These results taken together might imply that the BCG-cluster alignment occurs in an outside-in fashion. Depending on their frequency and geometry, mergers can promote, destroy or weaken the alignments. Clusters that do not experience recent majormergers are typically more relaxed and aligned with their BCG. In turn, accretions closer to the cluster elongation axis tend to improve the alignment as opposed to accretions closer to the cluster minor axis.Fil: Ragone Figueroa, Cinthia Judith. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba. Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental; ArgentinaFil: Granato, Gian Luigi. Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica; ItaliaFil: Borgani, S.. Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica; ItaliaFil: De Propris, R.. University of Turku; FinlandiaFil: Garcia Lambas, Diego Rodolfo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Observatorio Astronómico de Córdoba. Instituto de Astronomía Teórica y Experimental; ArgentinaFil: Murante, G.. Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica; ItaliaFil: Rasia, E.. Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica; ItaliaFil: West, M.. Lowell Observatory; Estados Unido