Acoustic assessment and distribution of the main pelagic fish species in ICES Subdivision 9a South during the ECOCADIZ-RECLUTAS 2017-10 Spanish survey (October 2017).

The present working document summarises the main results obtained during the ECOCADIZ‐RECLUTAS 2017‐10 Spanish (pelagic ecosystem‐) acoustic survey. The survey’s main objective is the acoustic assessment of anchovy and sardine juveniles (age 0 fish) in the recruitment areas of the Gulf of Cadiz. The survey was planned to be conducted by IEO between 12nd and 31st October 2017 in the Portuguese and Spanish shelf waters (20‐200 m isobaths) off the Gulf of Cadiz onboard the R/V Ramón Margalef. However, a serious breakdown of the vessel’s propulsion system detected in the afternoon of the 22th October led to the early termination of the survey in that day. Only the seven (7) easternmost acoustic transects were sampled, which were accompanied by the conduction of eight (8) fishing hauls. The resulting estimates are therefore referred to this surveyed area, which corresponded to the eastern sector of the Spanish shelf waters, comprising the shelf between Doñana and Cape Trafalgar, and they are not comparable to the previous available estimates. Anchovy abundance and biomass in that surveyed area were 1 492 million fish and 7 641 t. The abundance and biomass of age 0 anchovies in the surveyed area were estimated at 1 433 million fish and 7 290 t. This juvenile fraction accounted for 96% and 95% of the total estimated population abundance and biomass, respectively. The estimates for Gulf of Cadiz sardine in the surveyed area were of 591 million fish and 12 103 t. Estimates of age‐0 sardine were of 483 million fish and 8 778 t, 82% and 72% of the total population, respectively. These estimates cannot be compared with the remaining data points in the series because the abovementioned problems with acoustic sampling coverage

NIRS potential use for the determination of natural resources quality from dehesa (acorn and grass) in Montanera system for Iberian pigs.

NIRS technology has been used as an alternative to conventional methods to determinate the content of nutrients of acorns and grass from dehesa ecosystem. Dry matter (DM), crude fat (CF), crude protein (CP), starch, total phenolic compounds (TP), α-tocopherol, γ-tocopherol, fatty acids, neutral detergent fiber (NDF), total antioxidant activity (TAA) and total energy (TE) were determined by conventional methods for later development of NIRS predictive equations. The NIR spectrum of each sample was collected and for all studied parameters, a predictive model was obtained and external validated. Good prediction equations were obtained for moisture, crude fat, crude protein, total energy and γ-tocopherol in acorns samples, with high coefficients of correlation (1-VR) and low standard error of prediction (SEP) (1-VR=0.81, SEP=2.62; 1-VR=0.92, SEP=0.54; 1-VR=0.86, SEP=0.47; 1-VR=0.84, SEP=0.2; 1-VR=0.88, SEP=5.4, respectively) and crude protein, NDF, α-tocopherol and linolenic acid content in grass samples (1-VR=0.9, SEP=1.99; 1-VR=0.87, SEP=4.13; 1-VR=0.76, SEP=10.9; 1-VR=0.82, SEP=0.6, respectively). Therefore, these prediction models could be used to determinate the nutritional composition of Montanera natural resources

On the ubiquity of trivial torsion on elliptic curves

The purpose of this paper is to give a "down--to--earth" proof of the well--known fact that a randomly chosen elliptic curve over the rationals is most likely to have trivial torsion

From a FPGA Prototyping Platform to a Computing Platform: The MANGO Experience

[EN] In this paper we describe the evolution of the FPGA-based prototype deployed in the MANGO project, from a hardware prototyping platform of HPC architectures to a computing platform targeting HPC and AI applications. Our main goal is to reinvest on the MANGO cluster by providing a duality in its use for both large-scale hardware prototyping and highperformance computation. From our experience we can reach several interesting conclusions about the complexities and hurdles that lay below FPGA technologies, and therefore, shedding some light onto the real complexities that difficult the adoption of FPGAs on either large-scale pure HPC systems or on hybrid systems (HPC + BigData/Ai).This work is supported by the European Commission through RECIPE and DeepHealth projects, under the Horizon 2020 program, grant number 801137 and 825111, respectively.Flich Cardo, J.; Tornero-Gavilá, R.; Rodríguez, D.; Russo, D.; Martínez Martínez, JM.; Hernández Luz, C. (2021). From a FPGA Prototyping Platform to a Computing Platform: The MANGO Experience. IEEE. 1-6. https://doi.org/10.23919/DATE51398.2021.94740511

Acoustic assessment and distribution of anchovy and sardine in ICES Subdivision IXa South during the ECOCADIZ 2015‐07 Spanish survey (July‐August 2015) with notes on the distribution of other pelagic species

The present working document summarises a part of the main results obtained from the Spanish (pelagic ecosystem‐) acoustic survey conducted by IEO between 28th July and 10th August 2015 in the Portuguese and Spanish shelf waters (20‐200 m isobaths) off the Gulf of Cadiz onboard the R/V Miguel Oliver. The 21 foreseen acoustic transects were sampled. A total of 19 valid fishing hauls were carried out for echo‐trace ground‐truthing purposes. CUFES sampling (117 stations) was carried during the survey in order to describe the extension of the anchovy spawning area. A census of top predator species was also carried out along the sampled acoustic transects. This working document only provides abundance and biomass estimates for anchovy and sardine which are presented without age structure. The distribution of all the mid‐sized and small pelagic fish species susceptible of being acoustically assessed is also shown from the mapping of their back‐scattering energies. Sardine was the most frequent species in the fishing hauls, followed by horse mackerel, chub mackerel, anchovy and mackerel. However, the most abundant species in these hauls was anchovy, followed at quite a distance by blue jack mackerel, sardine, horse mackerel and chub mackerel. As usual, the bulk of the anchovy population was concentrated in the central part of the surveyed area, with the smallest anchovies mainly occurring in the surroundings of the Guadiana and Guadalquivir river mouths and Bay of Cadiz, and larger/older anchovies occurring in the westernmost waters. The total biomass estimated for anchovy, 21.3 kt (2 506 million fish), was slightly below the historical average, but it still in the range of population levels featuring to a recovered population. The comparison of these estimates with their spring counterparts from the PELAGO survey evidences almost identical values for the Portuguese waters, whereas the ECOCADIZ survey estimated in summer at about 1000 million and 11800 t less of anchovy in the Spanish waters. Such differences might be attributable to a possible overestimation of the acoustic energy attributed to anchovy in the Spanish waters of the Gulf by the PELAGO survey because of the difficulties in the discrimination of anchovy echoes in this area from a dense plankton layer where the species was embedded. Sardine was widely distributed all over the surveyed area but in the easternmost waters closer to the Strait of Gibraltar and showed two main nuclei of density: the coastal waters of the central part of the Gulf, and the inner‐mid shelf waters between Cape San Vicente and Cape Santa Maria. Sardine yielded a total of 23.5 kt (883 million fish), population levels which have showed some recovery from the lowest historical values recorded in the two previous years but still below the historical average. In contrast to the abovementioned for anchovy, ECOCADIZ survey estimated in summer 4 fold more sardine in Spanish waters than PELAGO survey in spring, with the juvenile fraction being the dominant in both seasons. The progressive incorporation (recruitment) of juveniles coming from successive spawning events may be the reason for such seasonal differences. INTRODUCTIO

Analysis of Finite Microstrip Structures Using an Efficient Implementation of the Integral Equation Technique

An efficient numerical implementation of the Integral Equation technique (IE) has been developed for the analysis of the electrical characteristics of finite microstrip structures. The technique formulates a volume version of the IE for the finite dielectric objects, and a standard surface IE technique for the metallic areas. The system of integral equations formu- lated are solved with special numerical techniques described in this paper. The input impedances of several microstrip antennas have been computed, showing good agreement with respect mea- surements. The technique has shown to be accurate even for complex geometries containing several stacked dielectric layers. The radiation patterns of the structures have also been com- puted, and measured results from real manufactured hardware confirm that backside radiation and secondary lobes are accurately predicted by the theoretical model. The paper also discuss a suitable excitation model for finite size ground planes, and investigates the possibilities for an independent meshing of the metallic areas and the dielectric objects inside a given geom- etry. The practical value of the approach derived is that microstrip circuits can be designed minimizing the volume and size of the dielectric substrates.This work has been supported bythe Spanish National Project ESP2001-4546-PE, and RegionalSeneca Project PB/4/FS/02

Animal Board Invited Review: Sheep birth distribution in past herds: a review for prehistoric Europe (6th to 3rd millennia BC)

In temperate latitudes sheep have a seasonal reproductive behaviour, which imposes strong constraints on husbandry in terms of work organization and availability of animal products. During the last 50 years, researchers have focused on understanding the mechanisms driving small ruminants’ reproduction cycles and finding ways to control them. This characteristic is inherited from their wild ancestor. However, the history of its evolution over the 10 millennia that separates present day European sheep from their Near Eastern ancestors’ remains to be written. This perspective echoes archaeologists’ current attempts at reconstructing ancient pastoral societies’ socio-economical organization. Information related to birth seasonality may be retrieved directly from archaeological sheep teeth. The methodology consists of reconstructing the seasonal cycle record in sheep molars, through sequential analysis of the stable oxygen isotope composition (δ 18O) of enamel. Because the timing of tooth development is fixed within a species, inter-individual variability in this parameter reflects birth seasonality. A review of the data obtained from 10 European archaeological sites dated from the 6th to the 3rd millennia BC is provided. The results demonstrate a restricted breeding season for sheep: births occurred over a period of 3 to 4 months, from late winter to early summer at latitudes 43°N to 48°N, while a later onset was observed at a higher latitude (59°N). All conclusions concurred with currently held expectations based on present day sheep physiology, which, aside from the historical significance, contributes to the reinforcing of the methodological basis of the approach. Further study in this area will permit regional variability attributable to technical choices, within global schemes, to be fully reported

CNstream: A method for the identification and genotyping of copy number polymorphisms using Illumina microarrays

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Understanding the genetic basis of disease risk in depth requires an exhaustive knowledge of the types of genetic variation. Very recently, Copy Number Variants (CNVs) have received much attention because of their potential implication in common disease susceptibility. Copy Number Polymorphisms (CNPs) are of interest as they segregate at an appreciable frequency in the general population (i.e. > 1%) and are potentially implicated in the genetic basis of common diseases.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>This paper concerns CNstream, a method for whole-genome CNV discovery and genotyping, using Illumina Beadchip arrays. Compared with other methods, a high level of accuracy was achieved by analyzing the measures of each intensity channel separately and combining information from multiple samples. The CNstream method uses heuristics and parametrical statistics to assign a confidence score to each sample at each probe; the sensitivity of the analysis is increased by jointly calling the copy number state over a set of nearby and consecutive probes. The present method has been tested on a real dataset of 575 samples genotyped using Illumina HumanHap 300 Beadchip, and demonstrates a high correlation with the Database of Genomic Variants (DGV). The same set of samples was analyzed with PennCNV, one of the most frequently used copy number inference methods for Illumina platforms. CNstream was able to identify CNP loci that are not detected by PennCNV and it increased the sensitivity over multiple other loci in the genome.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>CNstream is a useful method for the identification and characterization of CNPs using Illumina genotyping microarrays. Compared to the PennCNV method, it has greater sensitivity over multiple CNP loci and allows more powerful statistical analysis in these regions. Therefore, CNstream is a robust CNP analysis tool of use to researchers performing genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on Illumina platforms and aiming to identify CNVs associated with the variables of interest. CNstream has been implemented as an R statistical software package that can work directly from raw intensity files generated from Illumina GWAS projects. The method is available at <url>http://www.urr.cat/cnv/cnstream.html</url>.</p