Hyperspectral Reflectance as a Basis to Discriminate Olive Varieties—A Tool for Sustainable Crop Management

Worldwide sustainable development is threatened by current agricultural land change trends, particularly by the increasing rural farmland abandonment and agricultural intensification phenomena. In Mediterranean countries, these processes are affecting especially traditional olive groves with enormous socio-economic costs to rural areas, endangering environmental sustainability and biodiversity. Traditional olive groves abandonment and intensification are clearly related to the reduction of olive oil production income, leading to reduced economic viability. Most promising strategies to boost traditional groves competitiveness—such as olive oil differentiation through adoption of protected denomination of origin labels and development of value-added olive products—rely on knowledge of the olive varieties and its specific properties that confer their uniqueness and authenticity. Given the lack of information about olive varieties on traditional groves, a feasible and inexpensive method of variety identification is required. We analyzed leaf spectral information of ten Portuguese olive varieties with a powerful data-mining approach in order to verify the ability of satellite’s hyperspectral sensors to provide an accurate olive variety identification. Our results show that these olive varieties are distinguishable by leaf reflectance information and suggest that even satellite open-source data could be used to map them. Additional advantages of olive varieties mapping were further discussed

Hindered rotor tunneling splittings: an application of the two-dimensional non-separable method to benzyl alcohol and two of its fluorine derivatives

In this work we present a novel application of the two-dimensional non-separable (2D-NS) method to the calculation of torsional tunneling splittings in systems with two hindered internal rotors. This method could be considered an extension of one-dimensional methods for the case of compounds with two tops. The 2D-NS method includes coupling between torsions in the kinetic and potential energy. Specifically, it has been applied to benzyl alcohol (BA) and two of its fluorine derivatives: 3-fluorobenzyl alcohol (3FBA) and 4-fluorobenzyl alcohol (4FBA). These molecules present two torsions, i.e., about the –CH2OH (ϕ1) and –OH (ϕ2) groups. The electronic structure calculations to build the two-dimensional torsional potential energy surface were performed at the DF-LMP2-F12//DF-LMP2/cc-pVQZ level of theory. For BA and 4FBA the calculated ground-state vibrational level splittings are 429 and 453 MHz, respectively, in good agreement with the experimental values of 337.10 and 492.82 MHz, respectively. In these two cases there are four equivalent wells and the tunneling splitting is the result of transitions between the two closer minima along ϕ1. The analysis of the wavefunctions, as well as the previous experimental work on the system, supports this conclusion. For 3FBA the observed ground-state splitting is 0.82 MHz, whereas in this case the calculated value amounts only to 0.02 MHz. The 2D-NS method, through the analysis of the wavefunctions, shows that this tiny tunneling splitting occurs between the two most stable minima of the potential energy surface. Additionally, we predict that the first vibrationally excited tunneling splitting will also be small and exclusively due to the interconversion between the second lowest minimaS

Hardware-accelerated data decoding and reconstruction for automotive LiDAR sensors

The automotive industry is facing an unprecedented technological transformation towards fully autonomous vehicles. Optimists predict that, by 2030, cars will be sufficiently reliable, affordable, and common to displace most current human driving tasks. To cope with these trends, autonomous vehicles require reliable perception systems to hear and see all the surroundings, being light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors a key instrument for recreating a 3D visualization of the world. However, for a reliable operation, such systems require LiDAR sensors to provide high-resolution 3D representations of the car’s vicinity, which results in millions of data points to be processed in real-time. With this article we propose the ALFA-Pi, a data packet decoder and reconstruction system fully deployed on an embedded reconfigurable hardware platform. By resorting to field-programmable gate array (FPGA) technology, ALFAPi is able to interface different LiDAR sensors at the same time, while providing custom representation outputs to high-level perception systems. By accelerating the LiDAR interface, the proposed system outperforms current software-only approaches, achieving lower latency in the data acquisition and data decoding tasks while reaching high performance ratios

Assessment of a Large-Scale Unbiased Malignant Pleural Effusion Proteomics Study of a Real-Life Cohort

Funding Information: R.M. is supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (CEEC position, 2019–2025 investigator). This article is a result of the projects (iNOVA4Health—UIDB/04462/2020), supported by Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). This work is also funded by FEDER funds through the COMPETE 2020 Programme and National Funds through FCT—Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the projects number PTDC/BTM-TEC/30087/2017 and PTDC/BTM-TEC/30088/2017. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.Background: Pleural effusion (PE) is common in advanced-stage lung cancer patients and is related to poor prognosis. Identification of cancer cells is the standard method for the diagnosis of a malignant PE (MPE). However, it only has moderate sensitivity. Thus, more sensitive diagnostic tools are urgently needed. Methods: The present study aimed to discover potential protein targets to distinguish malignant pleural effusion (MPE) from other non-malignant pathologies. We have collected PE from 97 patients to explore PE proteomes by applying state-of-the-art liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to identify potential biomarkers that correlate with immunohistochemistry assessment of tumor biopsy or with survival data. Functional analyses were performed to elucidate functional differences in PE proteins in malignant and benign samples. Results were integrated into a clinical risk prediction model to identify likely malignant cases. Sensitivity, specificity, and negative predictive value were calculated. Results: In total, 1689 individual proteins were identified by MS-based proteomics analysis of the 97 PE samples, of which 35 were diagnosed as malignant. A comparison between MPE and benign PE (BPE) identified 58 differential regulated proteins after correction of the p-values for multiple testing. Furthermore, functional analysis revealed an up-regulation of matrix intermediate filaments and cellular movement-related proteins. Additionally, gene ontology analysis identified the involvement of metabolic pathways such as glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, pyruvate metabolism and cysteine and methionine metabolism. Conclusion: This study demonstrated a partial least squares regression model with an area under the curve of 98 and an accuracy of 0.92 when evaluated on the holdout test data set. Furthermore, highly significant survival markers were identified (e.g., PSME1 with a log-rank of 1.68 × 10−6).publishersversionpublishe

Effect of long-term fungicide applications on virulence and diversity of Colletotrichum spp. Associated to olive anthracnose

In this study, the presence and variability of Colletotrichum spp. was evaluated by comparing fungal isolates obtained from olive trees under long-time phytosanitary treatments with trees without any phytosanitary treatments (treated and untreated, respectively). Olive fruits of trees of the highly susceptible ‘Galega vulgar’ cultivar growing in the Alentejo region were used as samples. From the 210 olive trees sampled (half from treated and half from untreated orchards), 125 (59.5%) presented Colletotrichum spp., with a significant lower number of infected trees in treated (39) when compared to untreated orchards (86). The alignment and analysis of beta-tubulin (tub2), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), actin (ACT), chitin synthase (CHS-1) and histone H3 (HIS-3) gene sequences allowed the identification of all 125 isolates as belonging to the C. acutatum complex. The vast majority of the isolates (124) were identified as C. nymphaeae and one isolate, from an untreated tree, was identified as C. godetiae. Isolates were divided into five different groups: Group A: 39 isolates from treated trees matched in 100% with C. nymphaeae sequences from the database; Group B: 76 isolates from untreated trees matched in 100% with C. nymphaeae sequences from the database; Group C: one isolate from untreated trees presenting a single nucleotidic difference in the HIS-3 sequence; Group D: eight isolates from untreated trees presenting differences in two nucleotides in the tub2 sequences that changed the protein structure, together with differences in two specific nucleotides of the GAPDH sequences; Group E: one isolate, from untreated olive trees, matched 100% with C. godetiae sequences from the database in all genes. Considering the similarities of the sampled areas, our results show that the long-time application of fungicides may have caused a reduction in the number of olive trees infected with Colletotrichum spp. but an increase in the number of fruits positive to Colletotrichum spp. within each tree, which may suggest different degrees of virulence of Colletotrichum isolates from trees growing different management regimes. It is imperative that the fungicides described as causing resistance are applied at appropriate times and intervals, since their efficiency decreases when applied incorrectly and new and more virulent species may arise

NewsMeSH: a new classifier designed to annotate health news with MeSH headings

Motivation In the age of big data, the amount of scientific information available online dwarfs the ability of current tools to support researchers in locating and securing access to the necessary materials. Well-structured open data and the smart systems that make the appropriate use of it are invaluable and can help health researchers and professionals to find the appropriate information by, e.g., configuring the monitoring of information or refining a specific query on a disease. Methods We present an automated text classifier approach based on the MEDLINE/MeSH thesaurus, trained on the manual annotation of more than 26 million expert-annotated scientific abstracts. The classifier was developed tailor-fit to the public health and health research domain experts, in the light of their specific challenges and needs. We have applied the proposed methodology on three specific health domains: the Coronavirus, Mental Health and Diabetes, considering the pertinence of the first, and the known relations with the other two health topics. Results A classifier is trained on the MEDLINE dataset that can automatically annotate text, such as scientific articles, news articles or medical reports with relevant concepts from the MeSH thesaurus. Conclusions The proposed text classifier shows promising results in the evaluation of health-related news. The application of the developed classifier enables the exploration of news and extraction of health-related insights, based on the MeSH thesaurus, through a similar workflow as in the usage of PubMed, with which most health researchers are familiar

Molecular characterization of multidrug resistant Enterobacterales strains isolated from liver and kidney transplant recipients in Spain

The objective of this study was to analyse the mechanisms of resistance to carbapenems and other extended-spectrum-?-lactams and to determine the genetic relatedness of multidrug-resistant Enterobacterales (MDR-E) causing colonization or infection in solid-organ transplantation (SOT) recipients. Prospective cohort study in kidney (n= 142), liver (n= 98) or kidney/pancreas (n= 7) transplant recipients between 2014 and 2018 in seven Spanish hospitals. We included 531 MDR-E isolates from rectal swabs obtained before transplantation and weekly for 4?6 weeks after the procedure and 10 MDR-E from clinical samples related to an infection. Overall, 46.2% Escherichia coli, 35.3% Klebsiella pneumoniae, 6.5% Enterobacter cloacae, 6.3% Citrobacter freundii and 5.7% other species were isolated. The number of patients with MDR-E colonization post-transplantation (176; 71.3%) was 2.5-fold the number of patients colonized pre-transplantation (71; 28.7%). Extended spectrum ?-lactamases (ESBLs) and carbapenemases were detected in 78.0% and 21.1% of MDR-E isolates respectively. In nine of the 247 (3.6%) transplant patients, the microorganism causing an infection was the same strain previously cultured from surveillance rectal swabs. In our study we have observed a low rate of MDR-E infection in colonized patients 4?6 weeks post-transplantation. E. coli producing blaCTX-M-G1 and K. pneumoniae harbouring blaOXA-48 alone or with blaCTX-M-G1 were the most prevalent MDR-E colonization strains in SOT recipients.Acknowledgements The authors thank Mª Jesús Lecea and Laura Álvarez for technical assistance. Tis research was supported by ‘Plan Nacional de I+D+i and Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias 13/01191), Subdirección General de Redes y Centros de Investigación Cooperativa, Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, and the Spanish Network for Research in Infectious Diseases (REIPI RD16/0016/0007, RD16/0016/0010, RD16/0016/0012, RD16/0016/0011, RD16/0016/0008, RD16/0016/0002). Te study was co-fnanced by the European Development Regional Fund “A way to achieve Europe” and the Operative Program Intelligent Growth 2014‐2020

Commonality and variation in mental representations of music revealed by a cross-cultural comparison of rhythm priors in 15 countries

Music is present in every known society but varies from place to place. What, if anything, is universal to music cognition? We measured a signature of mental representations of rhythm in 39 participant groups in 15 countries, spanning urban societies and Indigenous populations. Listeners reproduced random 'seed' rhythms; their reproductions were fed back as the stimulus (as in the game of 'telephone'), such that their biases (the prior) could be estimated from the distribution of reproductions. Every tested group showed a sparse prior with peaks at integer-ratio rhythms. However, the importance of different integer ratios varied across groups, often reflecting local musical practices. Our results suggest a common feature of music cognition: discrete rhythm 'categories' at small-integer ratios. These discrete representations plausibly stabilize musical systems in the face of cultural transmission but interact with culture-specific traditions to yield the diversity that is evident when mental representations are probed across many cultures. [Abstract copyright: © 2024. The Author(s).

Multi-messenger observations of a binary neutron star merger

On 2017 August 17 a binary neutron star coalescence candidate (later designated GW170817) with merger time 12:41:04 UTC was observed through gravitational waves by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor independently detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) with a time delay of ~1.7 s with respect to the merger time. From the gravitational-wave signal, the source was initially localized to a sky region of 31 deg2 at a luminosity distance of 40+8-8 Mpc and with component masses consistent with neutron stars. The component masses were later measured to be in the range 0.86 to 2.26 Mo. An extensive observing campaign was launched across the electromagnetic spectrum leading to the discovery of a bright optical transient (SSS17a, now with the IAU identification of AT 2017gfo) in NGC 4993 (at ~40 Mpc) less than 11 hours after the merger by the One- Meter, Two Hemisphere (1M2H) team using the 1 m Swope Telescope. The optical transient was independently detected by multiple teams within an hour. Subsequent observations targeted the object and its environment. Early ultraviolet observations revealed a blue transient that faded within 48 hours. Optical and infrared observations showed a redward evolution over ~10 days. Following early non-detections, X-ray and radio emission were discovered at the transient’s position ~9 and ~16 days, respectively, after the merger. Both the X-ray and radio emission likely arise from a physical process that is distinct from the one that generates the UV/optical/near-infrared emission. No ultra-high-energy gamma-rays and no neutrino candidates consistent with the source were found in follow-up searches. These observations support the hypothesis that GW170817 was produced by the merger of two neutron stars in NGC4993 followed by a short gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) and a kilonova/macronova powered by the radioactive decay of r-process nuclei synthesized in the ejecta