Alternative networks: toward global access to the Internet for all

It is often said that the Internet is ubiquitous in our daily lives, but this holds true only for those who can easily access it. In fact, billions of people are still digitally disconnected, as bringing connectivity to certain zones does not make a good business case. The only solution for these unsatisfied potential users is to directly undertake the building of the infrastructure required to obtaining access to the Internet, typically forming groups in order to share the corresponding cost. This article presents a global classification and a summary of the main characteristics of different Alternative Network deployments that have arisen in recent years with an aim to provide Internet services in places where mainstream network deployments do not exist or are not adequate solutions. The Global Access to the Internet for All Research Group of the Internet Research Task Force, where all authors actively participate, is interested in documenting these emerging deployments. As an outcome of this work, a classification has converged by consensus, where five criteria have been identified and, based on them, four different types of Alternative Networks have been identified and described with real-world examples. Such a classification is useful for a deeper understanding of the common characteristics behind existing and emerging Alternative Networks

On natural metalinguistic abilities in aphasia: a preliminary study

Natural metalinguistic abilities, which are put into play without explicit instructions, constitute the cognitive basis for a 'reflexive' use of language, a particular manifestation of the executive function when applied to language and verbal behaviour. This reflexive use entails a specific attentional activity by speakers and hearers with regard to linguistic outputs, and an intentional experience-based control over the language use. Putting into play natural metalinguistic abilities can be considered a significant factor for explaining different kinds of adaptive processes. Our results permit us to conclude that an impairment of metalinguistic abilities is involved in aphasia to different degrees. Moreover, the examination of preserved metalinguistic abilities provides an alternative way for assessing the degree of severity of impaired communicative behaviour by people with aphasia. Our procedure, presumably, will also be useful for suggesting new factors when designing therapeutic programmes

OPENMODS 2.0 “Instrument Jamming Meeting” report

Major achievements The feedback provided by potential users on their needs was very much appreciated. They underlined the importance of having: ● an easy to deploy instrument (i.e.: from small fishing boats); ● multi-parameter sensors in ONE device; ● less maintenance effort and prioritized the variables to measure. Although, there are technical limitations and different solutions and there is no one tool that can do everything, which is low cost, has high resolution and low maintenance, the outcomes of the platforms/sensors/communications working group meet the main requirements that emerged. Priority was given to: ● a platform that will operate in drifter mode which is extremely easy to deploy and perfect for studies associated with search and rescue operations (another need that has emerged). It also constantly guarantees the knowledge of the instrument position. The platform can be easily converted into the moored mode. ● temperature and pressure sensors. The sensors will be low -cost with the idea to replace them rather than calibrate them; ● LoRaWAN communications preferably with Bluetooth integration for the in-situ download of the data

Subfunctionalization reduces the fitness cost of gene duplication in humans by buffering dosage imbalances

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Driven essentially by random genetic drift, subfunctionalization has been identified as a possible non-adaptive mechanism for the retention of duplicate genes in small-population species, where widespread deleterious mutations are likely to cause complementary loss of subfunctions across gene copies. Through subfunctionalization, duplicates become indispensable to maintain the functional requirements of the ancestral locus. Yet, gene duplication produces a dosage imbalance in the encoded proteins and thus, as investigated in this paper, subfunctionalization must be subject to the selective forces arising from the fitness bottleneck introduced by the duplication event.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We show that, while arising from random drift, subfunctionalization must be inescapably subject to selective forces, since the diversification of expression patterns across paralogs mitigates duplication-related dosage imbalances in the concentrations of encoded proteins. Dosage imbalance effects become paramount when proteins rely on obligatory associations to maintain their structural integrity, and are expected to be weaker when protein complexation is ephemeral or adventitious. To establish the buffering effect of subfunctionalization on selection pressure, we determine the packing quality of encoded proteins, an established indicator of dosage sensitivity, and correlate this parameter with the extent of paralog segregation in humans, using species with larger population -and more efficient selection- as controls.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Recognizing the role of subfunctionalization as a dosage-imbalance buffer in gene duplication events enabled us to reconcile its mechanistic nonadaptive origin with its adaptive role as an enabler of the evolution of genetic redundancy. This constructive role was established in this paper by proving the following assertion: <it>If subfunctionalization is indeed adaptive, its effect on paralog segregation should scale with the dosage sensitivity of the duplicated genes</it>. Thus, subfunctionalization becomes adaptive in response to the selection forces arising from the fitness bottleneck imposed by gene duplication.</p

Structural Disorder Provides Increased Adaptability for Vesicle Trafficking Pathways

Vesicle trafficking systems play essential roles in the communication between the organelles of eukaryotic cells and also between cells and their environment. Endocytosis and the late secretory route are mediated by clathrin-coated vesicles, while the COat Protein I and II (COPI and COPII) routes stand for the bidirectional traffic between the ER and the Golgi apparatus. Despite similar fundamental organizations, the molecular machinery, functions, and evolutionary characteristics of the three systems are very different. In this work, we compiled the basic functional protein groups of the three main routes for human and yeast and analyzed them from the structural disorder perspective. We found similar overall disorder content in yeast and human proteins, confirming the well-conserved nature of these systems. Most functional groups contain highly disordered proteins, supporting the general importance of structural disorder in these routes, although some of them seem to heavily rely on disorder, while others do not. Interestingly, the clathrin system is significantly more disordered (,23%) than the other two, COPI (,9%) and COPII (,8%). We show that this structural phenomenon enhances the inherent plasticity and increased evolutionary adaptability of the clathrin system, which distinguishes it from the other two routes. Since multi-functionality (moonlighting) is indicative of both plasticity and adaptability, we studied its prevalence in vesicle trafficking proteins and correlated it with structural disorder. Clathrin adaptors have the highest capability for moonlighting while also comprising the most highly disordered members. The ability to acquire tissue specific functions was also used to approach adaptability: clathrin route genes have the most tissue specific exons encoding for protein segments enriched in structural disorder and interaction sites. Overall, our results confirm the general importance of structural disorder in vesicle trafficking and suggest major roles for this structural property in shaping the differences of evolutionary adaptability in the three routes

Lenguaje y envejecimiento normal

This is a preliminary study about problems of lexical retrieval in normal Spanish-speaking subjects. The analysis based on responses to a direct questionnaire and on The Cookie Theft Corpus, shows the following: a) A high percentage of the subjects acknowledges the presence oflexical memory difficulties. The same subjects though describe strategies employed in order to cope with the problem. b) Even though there is no clear correlation between age and problems of lexical retrieval, the absence of semantic pataphasias suggests a potencial difference between normal and non-normal populations.Es un hecho observado con frecuencia que las capacidades lingüísticas cambian en el proceso normal del envejecimiento. No obstante, ni la naturaleza ni los factores asociados con este cambio normal han sido estudiados en detalle en poblaciones normales. Tenemos un modesto conocimiento de los cambios lingüísticos que se producen en individuos que padecen afasias, así como aquellos asociados con enfermedades mentales o la enfermedad de Alzheimer, para mencionar sólo unos. Sin embargo, no se cuenta con suficientes estudios sobre los cambios normales que sobrevienen con la edad. Una de las manifestaciones que aparecen con el envejecimiento normal es la dificultad de �recuperación léxica�. En otras palabras, las personas después de los 40 años se quejan a menudo del fenómeno en la punta de la lengua: de no poder encontrar la palabra que se busca en el desenvolvimiento normal de sus actividades como hablantes. El presente trabajo analiza los resultados de un estudio piloto sobre dificultad léxica en una población de hablantes de Mérida. Este estudio se ha realizado de acuerdo con dos instrumentos que plantean preguntas diferentes: a) Un cuestionario directo de doce preguntas de selección múltiple realizadas a una población de 24 hablantes. El objeto de este cuestionario puede resumirse en la pregunta: ¿Cuáles son las propias observaciones del hablante sobre sus problemas de recuperación léxica y cuáles son sus estrategias para solucionarlos? b) Análisis lingüístico de treinta textos del Corpus del Robo de las Galleticas (Cookie Theft), sub-prueba del Test de Boston para el Diagnóstico de la Afasia de Goodglass y Kaplan (1972). Este análisis se centra en la cuestión: ¿Presentan los hablantes más viejos mayores evidencias de problemas de retribución del vocabulario, y cuáles son sus estrategias y las del interlocutor para su solución? Los resultados se resumen así: Respecto a (a), un alto porcentaje de sujetos admite la presencia de problemas de recuperación léxica, pero, a la vez, describe estrategias para su solución en el intercambio lingüístico. La descripción de estas estrategias es de una potencial gran utilidad para la rehabilitación lingüística de individuos no sanos. Respecto a (b), no se pudo establecer una correlación clara entre la edad y los problemas de memoria léxica, sin embargo, la ausencia de problemas de sustitución apunta a una diferencia entre la normalidad y la patología lingüística

TROPPO LoRa: TROPospheric Personal Observatory using LoRa signals

With the growth of LoRa deployments there are plenty of anecdotal reports of very long wireless links, well beyond the line of sight. Most reports suggest that these links are related to anomalous tropo-spheric propagation. We developed a platform to study tropospheric links based on TheThingsNetwork, a popular LoRaWAN-based infrastructure. We present some preliminary results and call for the IoT community to participate in this radio propagation experiment

NR 40. Effect of multinutrient blocks hardness on voluntary intake on crossbred bovines

An experiment was conducted under tropical dry forest conditions in order to evaluate the storage effect of the multinutrient blocks (BM) on hardness (R), voluntary (CV) and total dry matter intake (CMS), daily gain (GP), feed efficiency (EA) in 20 crossbred of 264 kg of average body weight (PV) in feedlot. The animal’s diet was based in Brachiaria humidicola hay (4.44 % PC) and the suplemmentation with BM. The statistic design was a completely randomized and the experimental unit was an animal, where T0: hay (control), T1: BM 15 days + hay, T2: BM 30 days + hay, T3: BM 45 days + hay. BM (30 x 15 cm) were manufactured in a cilinder molds and carried to the hydraulic concrete testing machine and evaluate resistance in kg/cm2. Increasing storage time affected (P&lt;.01) BM hardness T1: 2.33 kg/cm2 in relation to the T2 and T3 (3.24 and 3.40 kg/cm2) respectively. The CV was affected by treatments: T1 presented the greater consumption (0.75 kg/day/100 kg of PV) followed by the T2 and T3 (0.53 and 0.51 kg/day/100 kg of PV) respectively. Dry matter intake (CMS), daily gain (GP) and feed efficiency (EA) were influenced (P&lt;.01) by BM

Alternative network deployments : taxonomy, characterization, technologies, and architectures

This document presents a taxonomy of a set of "Alternative Network Deployments" that emerged in the last decade with the aim of bringing Internet connectivity to people or providing a local communication infrastructure to serve various complementary needs and objectives. They employ architectures and topologies different from those of mainstream networks and rely on alternative governance and business models. The document also surveys the technologies deployed in these networks, and their differing architectural characteristics, including a set of definitions and shared properties. The classification considers models such as Community Networks, Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs), networks owned by individuals but leased out to network operators who use them as a low-cost medium to reach the underserved population, networks that provide connectivity by sharing wireless resources of the users, and rural utility cooperatives