Positive words carry less information than negative words

We show that the frequency of word use is not only determined by the word length \cite{Zipf1935} and the average information content \cite{Piantadosi2011}, but also by its emotional content. We have analyzed three established lexica of affective word usage in English, German, and Spanish, to verify that these lexica have a neutral, unbiased, emotional content. Taking into account the frequency of word usage, we find that words with a positive emotional content are more frequently used. This lends support to Pollyanna hypothesis \cite{Boucher1969} that there should be a positive bias in human expression. We also find that negative words contain more information than positive words, as the informativeness of a word increases uniformly with its valence decrease. Our findings support earlier conjectures about (i) the relation between word frequency and information content, and (ii) the impact of positive emotions on communication and social links.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, 3 table

A Power-Line Communication System Governed by Loop Resonance for Photovoltaic Plant Monitoring

Within this paper, a PLC system that takes advantage of the loop resonance of an entire DC-PV string configured as a circular signal path is developed and implemented. Low cost and extremely simple transceivers intended to be installed within each PV module of a string have been designed and successfully tested. In addition, an anti-saturation coil has been conceived to avoid saturation of the core when the entire DC current of the string flows through it. Bi-directional half-duplex communication was successfully executed with up to a 1 MHz carrier frequency (150 kbps bitrate), using a simple ASK modulation scheme. The transmission and reception performance are presented, along with the overall system cost in comparison to the previous literatureThis research was funded by the Universidad dee Valladolid with the predoctoral contracts of 2020 cofunded by Santander Bank. This study was also supported by the Universidad dee Valladolid with ERASMUS+ KA-107. Partial funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málag

A Resonant Ring Topology Approach to Power Line Communication Systems within Photovoltaic Plants

Within this study, single-cable propagation facilitated by PV strings’ wiring characteristics is considered for an adapted design of PLC electronics. We propose to close the communications signal path, resulting in a ring topology where a resonance condition could be implemented. A PLC topology using the resulting circular closed-loop path of a PV series string as its physical communication support is designed and leveraged for practical use. When the path length or the number of transceivers is changed, the resonance properties that come with the circular path as the physical support are affected but are shown to be preserved with the application of automatic adjustable tuning. This automatic tuning guarantees that the resonance improves propagation parameters and reverts the system to its optimal values at the chosen carrier frequency.This study was supported by the Universidad of Valladolid with the predoctoral contracts of 2020 cofunded by Santander Bank. This study was supported by the Universidad of Valladolid with ERASMUS+ KA-107. Partial funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málag

Phytochemicals as antibiotic alternatives to promote growth and enhance host health

There are heightened concerns globally on emerging drug-resistant superbugs and the lack of new antibiotics for treating human and animal diseases. For the agricultural industry, there is an urgent need to develop strategies to replace antibiotics for food-producing animals, especially poultry and livestock. The 2nd International Symposium on Alternatives to Antibiotics was held at the World Organization for Animal Health in Paris, France, December 12-15, 2016 to discuss recent scientific developments on strategic antibiotic-free management plans, to evaluate regional differences in policies regarding the reduction of antibiotics in animal agriculture and to develop antibiotic alternatives to combat the global increase in antibiotic resistance. More than 270 participants from academia, government research institutions, regulatory agencies, and private animal industries from >25 different countries came together to discuss recent research and promising novel technologies that could provide alternatives to antibiotics for use in animal health and production; assess challenges associated with their commercialization; and devise actionable strategies to facilitate the development of alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) without hampering animal production. The 3-day meeting consisted of four scientific sessions including vaccines, microbial products, phytochemicals, immune-related products, and innovative drugs, chemicals and enzymes, followed by the last session on regulation and funding. Each session was followed by an expert panel discussion that included industry representatives and session speakers. The session on phytochemicals included talks describing recent research achievements, with examples of successful agricultural use of various phytochemicals as antibiotic alternatives and their mode of action in major agricultural animals (poultry, swine and ruminants). Scientists from industry and academia and government research institutes shared their experience in developing and applying potential antibiotic-alternative phytochemicals commercially to reduce AGPs and to develop a sustainable animal production system in the absence of antibiotics.Fil: Lillehoj, Hyun. United States Department of Agriculture. Agricultural Research Service; ArgentinaFil: Liu, Yanhong. University of California; Estados UnidosFil: Calsamiglia, Sergio. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; EspañaFil: Fernandez Miyakawa, Mariano Enrique. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Patobiología; ArgentinaFil: Chi, Fang. Amlan International; Estados UnidosFil: Cravens, Ron L.. Amlan International; Estados UnidosFil: Oh, Sungtaek. United States Department of Agriculture. Agricultural Research Service; ArgentinaFil: Gay, Cyril G.. United States Department of Agriculture. Agricultural Research Service; Argentin

Pure-quartic solitons

Temporal optical solitons have been the subject of intense research due to their intriguing physics and applications in ultrafast optics and supercontinuum generation. Conventional bright optical solitons result from the interaction of anomalous group-velocity dispersion and self-phase modulation. Here we experimentally demonstrate a class of bright soliton arising purely from the interaction of negative fourth-order dispersion and self-phase modulation, which can occur even for normal group-velocity dispersion. We provide experimental and numerical evidence of shape-preserving propagation and flat temporal phase for the fundamental pure-quartic soliton and periodically modulated propagation for the higher-order pure-quartic solitons. We derive the approximate shape of the fundamental pure-quartic soliton and discover that is surprisingly Gaussian, exhibiting excellent agreement with our experimental observations. Our discovery, enabled by precise dispersion engineering, could find applications in communications, frequency combs and ultrafast lasers

A power-line communication system governed by loop resonance for photovoltaic plant monitoring

Within this paper, a PLC system that takes advantage of the loop resonance of an entire DC-PV string configured as a circular signal path is developed and implemented. Low cost and extremely simple transceivers intended to be installed within each PV module of a string have been designed and successfully tested. In addition, an anti-saturation coil has been conceived to avoid saturation of the core when the entire DC current of the string flows through it. Bi-directional half-duplex communication was successfully executed with up to a 1 MHz carrier frequency (150 kbps bitrate), using a simple ASK modulation scheme. The transmission and reception performance are presented, along with the overall system cost in comparison to the previous literature.The Universidad dee Valladolid with the predoctoral contracts of 2020 co-funded by Santander Bank.https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensorsam2023Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineerin

Angular and Current-Target Correlations in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA

Correlations between charged particles in deep inelastic ep scattering have been studied in the Breit frame with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 6.4 pb-1. Short-range correlations are analysed in terms of the angular separation between current-region particles within a cone centred around the virtual photon axis. Long-range correlations between the current and target regions have also been measured. The data support predictions for the scaling behaviour of the angular correlations at high Q2 and for anti-correlations between the current and target regions over a large range in Q2 and in the Bjorken scaling variable x. Analytic QCD calculations and Monte Carlo models correctly describe the trends of the data at high Q2, but show quantitative discrepancies. The data show differences between the correlations in deep inelastic scattering and e+e- annihilation.Comment: 26 pages including 10 figures (submitted to Eur. J. Phys. C

Measurement of the Bottom-Strange Meson Mixing Phase in the Full CDF Data Set

We report a measurement of the bottom-strange meson mixing phase \beta_s using the time evolution of B0_s -> J/\psi (->\mu+\mu-) \phi (-> K+ K-) decays in which the quark-flavor content of the bottom-strange meson is identified at production. This measurement uses the full data set of proton-antiproton collisions at sqrt(s)= 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron, corresponding to 9.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity. We report confidence regions in the two-dimensional space of \beta_s and the B0_s decay-width difference \Delta\Gamma_s, and measure \beta_s in [-\pi/2, -1.51] U [-0.06, 0.30] U [1.26, \pi/2] at the 68% confidence level, in agreement with the standard model expectation. Assuming the standard model value of \beta_s, we also determine \Delta\Gamma_s = 0.068 +- 0.026 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps-1 and the mean B0_s lifetime, \tau_s = 1.528 +- 0.019 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps, which are consistent and competitive with determinations by other experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett 109, 171802 (2012