Adaptive Networks as a Model for Human Speech Development

Unrestricted English text can be converted to speech through the use of a look up table, or through a parallel feedforward network of deterministic processing units. Here, we reproduce the network structure used in NETtalk. Several experiments are carried out to determine which characteristics of the network are responsible for which learning behavior, and how closely that maps human speech development. The network is also trained with different levels of speech complexity, and with a second language. The results are shown to be highly dependent on statistical characteristics of the input

Characterization and winemaking application of a novel pectin-degrading enzyme complex from Aspergillus sojae ATCC 20235

A novel pectin-degrading enzyme complex produced by Aspergillus sojae ATCC 20235 (PC-AS) using lowcost substrates was characterised in terms of its enzyme activities relevant in winemaking. This novel PC-AS was applied at the maceration/fermentation stage during the elaboration of 'Tempranillo' red wines to study its effect on colour development and the phenolic and amino acid wine composition. PC-AS polygalacturonase activity was the major enzyme activity detected and quantified under winemaking conditions (pH 3.5, 20 °C) and proved being stable and active in the presence of sulfur dioxide. Xylanase activity, albeit in lesser amounts, was also present in PC-AS, and neither pectinesterase, which produces methanol, nor β-glucosidase, which is detrimental to wine colour, were detected in PC-AS. This pectin-degrading complex promoted a faster colour extraction since maximum colour intensity of the enzyme treated wines was reached earlier compared to their controls. After 6 months of storage under winery conditions, wines elaborated with PC-AS presented higher concentrations of caffeic acid, coumaric acid and aspartic acid (p ˂ 0.05), suggesting an improved extraction of grape cell components. In conclusion, the application of PCAS yielded results that showed that it can be used in red winemaking to shorten the maceration time needed to reach high CI values and to improve the extraction of some phenolics and other compounds that enhance the quality of the final product.Facultad de Ciencias ExactasCentro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Fermentaciones Industriale

Characterization and winemaking application of a novel pectin-degrading enzyme complex from Aspergillus sojae ATCC 20235

A novel pectin-degrading enzyme complex produced by Aspergillus sojae ATCC 20235 (PC-AS) using lowcost substrates was characterised in terms of its enzyme activities relevant in winemaking. This novel PC-AS was applied at the maceration/fermentation stage during the elaboration of 'Tempranillo' red wines to study its effect on colour development and the phenolic and amino acid wine composition. PC-AS polygalacturonase activity was the major enzyme activity detected and quantified under winemaking conditions (pH 3.5, 20 °C) and proved being stable and active in the presence of sulfur dioxide. Xylanase activity, albeit in lesser amounts, was also present in PC-AS, and neither pectinesterase, which produces methanol, nor β-glucosidase, which is detrimental to wine colour, were detected in PC-AS. This pectin-degrading complex promoted a faster colour extraction since maximum colour intensity of the enzyme treated wines was reached earlier compared to their controls. After 6 months of storage under winery conditions, wines elaborated with PC-AS presented higher concentrations of caffeic acid, coumaric acid and aspartic acid (p ˂ 0.05), suggesting an improved extraction of grape cell components. In conclusion, the application of PCAS yielded results that showed that it can be used in red winemaking to shorten the maceration time needed to reach high CI values and to improve the extraction of some phenolics and other compounds that enhance the quality of the final product.Facultad de Ciencias ExactasCentro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Fermentaciones Industriale

Characterization and winemaking application of a novel pectin-degrading enzyme complex from Aspergillus sojae ATCC 20235

A novel pectin-degrading enzyme complex produced by Aspergillus sojae ATCC 20235 (PC-AS) using lowcost substrates was characterised in terms of its enzyme activities relevant in winemaking. This novel PC-AS was applied at the maceration/fermentation stage during the elaboration of 'Tempranillo' red wines to study its effect on colour development and the phenolic and amino acid wine composition. PC-AS polygalacturonase activity was the major enzyme activity detected and quantified under winemaking conditions (pH 3.5, 20 °C) and proved being stable and active in the presence of sulfur dioxide. Xylanase activity, albeit in lesser amounts, was also present in PC-AS, and neither pectinesterase, which produces methanol, nor β-glucosidase, which is detrimental to wine colour, were detected in PC-AS. This pectin-degrading complex promoted a faster colour extraction since maximum colour intensity of the enzyme treated wines was reached earlier compared to their controls. After 6 months of storage under winery conditions, wines elaborated with PC-AS presented higher concentrations of caffeic acid, coumaric acid and aspartic acid (p ˂ 0.05), suggesting an improved extraction of grape cell components. In conclusion, the application of PCAS yielded results that showed that it can be used in red winemaking to shorten the maceration time needed to reach high CI values and to improve the extraction of some phenolics and other compounds that enhance the quality of the final product.Facultad de Ciencias ExactasCentro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Fermentaciones Industriale

Chikungunya virus infections among travellers returning to Spain, 2008 to 2014

Since the first documented autochthonous transmission of chikungunya virus in the Caribbean island of Saint Martin in 2013, the infection has been reported within the Caribbean region as well as North, Central and South America. The risk of autochthonous transmission of chikungunya virus becoming established in Spain may be elevated due to the large numbers of travellers returning to Spain from countries affected by the 2013 epidemic in the Caribbean and South America, as well as the existence of the Aedes albopictus vector in certain parts of Spain. We retrospectively analysed the laboratory diagnostic database of the National Centre for Microbiology, Institute of Health Carlos III (CNM-ISCIII) from 2008 to 2014. During the study period, 264 confirmed cases, of 1,371 suspected cases, were diagnosed at the CNM-ISCIII. In 2014 alone, there were 234 confirmed cases. The highest number of confirmed cases were reported from the Dominican Republic (n = 136), Venezuela (n = 30) and Haiti (n = 11). Six cases were viraemic in areas of Spain where the vector is present. This report highlights the need for integrated active case and vector surveillance in Spain and other parts of Europe where chikungunya virus may be introduced by returning travellers

First Report of Sylvatic DENV-2-Associated Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever in West Africa

Dengue virus (DENV) circulates in human and sylvatic cycles. Sylvatic strains are both ecologically and evolutionarily distinct from endemic viruses. Although sylvatic dengue cycles occur in West African countries and Malaysia, only a few cases of mild human disease caused by sylvatic strains and one single case of dengue hemorrhagic fever in Malaysia have been reported. Here we report a case of dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) with thrombocytopenia (13000/µl), a raised hematocrit (32% above baseline) and mucosal bleeding in a 27-year-old male returning to Spain in November 2009 after visiting his home country Guinea Bissau. Sylvatic DENV-2 West African lineage was isolated from blood and sera. This is the first case of DHF associated with sylvatic DENV-2 in Africa and the second case worldwide of DHF caused by a sylvatic strain

Survival and long-term maintenance of tertiary trees in the Iberian Peninsula during the Pleistocene. First record of Aesculus L.

The Italian and Balkan peninsulas have been places traditionally highlighted as Pleistocene glacial refuges. The Iberian Peninsula, however, has been a focus of controversy between geobotanists and palaeobotanists as a result of its exclusion from this category on different occasions. In the current paper, we synthesise geological, molecular, palaeobotanical and geobotanical data that show the importance of the Iberian Peninsula in the Western Mediterranean as a refugium area. The presence of Aesculus aff. hippocastanum L. at the Iberian site at Cal Guardiola (Tarrasa, Barcelona, NE Spain) in the Lower– Middle Pleistocene transition helps to consolidate the remarkable role of the Iberian Peninsula in the survival of tertiary species during the Pleistocene. The palaeodistribution of the genus in Europe highlights a model of area abandonment for a widely-distributed species in the Miocene and Pliocene, leading to a diminished and fragmentary presence in the Pleistocene and Holocene on the southern Mediterranean peninsulas. Aesculus fossils are not uncommon within the series of Tertiary taxa. Many appear in the Pliocene and suffer a radical impoverishment in the Lower–Middle Pleistocene transition. Nonetheless some of these tertiary taxa persisted throughout the Pleistocene and Holocene up to the present in the Iberian Peninsula. Locating these refuge areas on the Peninsula is not an easy task, although areas characterised by a sustained level of humidity must have played an predominant role

The Human Phenotype Ontology in 2024: phenotypes around the world.

The Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) is a widely used resource that comprehensively organizes and defines the phenotypic features of human disease, enabling computational inference and supporting genomic and phenotypic analyses through semantic similarity and machine learning algorithms. The HPO has widespread applications in clinical diagnostics and translational research, including genomic diagnostics, gene-disease discovery, and cohort analytics. In recent years, groups around the world have developed translations of the HPO from English to other languages, and the HPO browser has been internationalized, allowing users to view HPO term labels and in many cases synonyms and definitions in ten languages in addition to English. Since our last report, a total of 2239 new HPO terms and 49235 new HPO annotations were developed, many in collaboration with external groups in the fields of psychiatry, arthrogryposis, immunology and cardiology. The Medical Action Ontology (MAxO) is a new effort to model treatments and other measures taken for clinical management. Finally, the HPO consortium is contributing to efforts to integrate the HPO and the GA4GH Phenopacket Schema into electronic health records (EHRs) with the goal of more standardized and computable integration of rare disease data in EHRs

Guía de práctica clínica para la prevención, diagnóstico, tratamiento y rehabilitación de la falla cardiaca en población mayor de 18 años, clasificación B, C y D

La falla cardíaca es un síndrome clínico caracterizado por síntomas y signos típicos de insuficiencia cardíaca, adicional a la evidencia objetiva de una anomalía estructural o funcional del corazón. Guía completa 2016. Guía No. 53Población mayor de 18 añosN/

Clonal chromosomal mosaicism and loss of chromosome Y in elderly men increase vulnerability for SARS-CoV-2

The pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19) had an estimated overall case fatality ratio of 1.38% (pre-vaccination), being 53% higher in males and increasing exponentially with age. Among 9578 individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 in the SCOURGE study, we found 133 cases (1.42%) with detectable clonal mosaicism for chromosome alterations (mCA) and 226 males (5.08%) with acquired loss of chromosome Y (LOY). Individuals with clonal mosaic events (mCA and/or LOY) showed a 54% increase in the risk of COVID-19 lethality. LOY is associated with transcriptomic biomarkers of immune dysfunction, pro-coagulation activity and cardiovascular risk. Interferon-induced genes involved in the initial immune response to SARS-CoV-2 are also down-regulated in LOY. Thus, mCA and LOY underlie at least part of the sex-biased severity and mortality of COVID-19 in aging patients. Given its potential therapeutic and prognostic relevance, evaluation of clonal mosaicism should be implemented as biomarker of COVID-19 severity in elderly people. Among 9578 individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 in the SCOURGE study, individuals with clonal mosaic events (clonal mosaicism for chromosome alterations and/or loss of chromosome Y) showed an increased risk of COVID-19 lethality