Languages Are Still a Major Barrier to Global Science

While it is recognized that language can pose a barrier to the transfer of scientific knowledge, the convergence on English as the global language of science may suggest that this problem has been resolved. However, our survey searching Google Scholar in 16 languages revealed that 35.6% of 75,513 scientific documents on biodiversity conservation published in 2014 were not in English. Ignoring such non-English knowledge can cause biases in our understanding of study systems. Furthermore, as publication in English has become prevalent, scientific knowledge is often unavailable in local languages. This hinders its use by field practitioners and policy makers for local environmental issues; 54% of protected area directors in Spain identified languages as a barrier. We urge scientific communities to make a more concerted effort to tackle this problem and propose potential approaches both for compiling non-English scientific knowledge effectively and for enhancing the multilingualization of new and existing knowledge available only in English for the users of such knowledge.European Commission’s Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship Programme (grant number PIIF-GA-2011-303221). Received by TA. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. European Commission's Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (grant number H2020-MSCA-IF-2014- 656572). Received by JPGV. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Isaac Newton Trust (grant number 15.23(s))

Multivariate predictive models for the prediction of fatty acids in the EU high added-value "acorn Iberian pig ham" using a miniature near-infrared spectroscopy instrument.

Acorn Iberian ham (Jamón Ibérico de Bellota) is one of the most expensive luxury foodstuffs produced in Europe, with a highly appreciated smell and flavour. Its recognized high-sensorial quality and health properties are mainly due to the traditional outdoor feeding system (Montanera) of Iberian pigs (IP), which provides high standards of animal welfare. Nowadays, one of the frauds affecting this product is the use of “special compound feeds” to simulate the fat composition of the acorns through the inclusion of sources of oleic acid like the ones found in pigs fed outdoors. The high prices paid for a cured leg of Iberian ham –ranging from hundreds to thousands of euros- leads to many opportunities for mislabelling and fraud. Fatty acid content of the adipose tissue could provide evidence of the feeding system. Gas chromatography (GC) is used at industry level for production control purposes. However, it is costly and time-consuming, and it is only applied to batches of animals rather than individual pigs. The main goal of this study was to use spectra belonging to a portable NIRS instrument (MicroNIR Onsite Lite, Viavi Solutions Inc.) for on–site quantitative (fatty acid content) analysis of individual Iberian pork carcasses at the slaughterhouse. Performance of this portable instrument was compared with an at-line NIRS monochromator. PLS models were built and optimized resulting in standard errors of cross validation ranging from 0.83 to 0.84 for palmitic acid, 0.94 to 0.99 for stearic acid, 1.47 to 1.56 for oleic acid and 0.53 to 0.58 for linoleic acid

Short Communication: The potential of portable near infrared spectroscopy for assuring quality and authenticity in the food chain, using Iberian hams as an example

This communication assesses the use of a portable near infrared (NIR) instrument to measure quantitative (fatty acid profile) properties and qualitative (‘Premium’ and ‘Non-premium’) categories of individual Iberian pork carcasses at the slaughterhouse. Acorn-fed Iberian pigs have more unsaturated fats than pigs fed conventional compound feed. Recent advances in miniaturisation have led to a number of handheld NIR devices being developed, allowing processing decisions to be made earlier, significantly reducing time and costs. The most common methods used for assessing quality and authenticity of Iberian hams are analysis of the fatty acid composition of subcutaneous fat using gas chromatography and DNA analysis. In this study, NIR calibrations for fatty acids and classification as premium or non-premium ham, based on carcass fat measured in situ, were developed using a portable NIR spectrometer. The accuracy of the quantitative equations was evaluated through the standard error of cross validation or standard error of prediction of 0.84 for palmitic acid (C16:0), 0.94 for stearic acid (C18:0), 1.47 for oleic acid (C18:1) and 0.58 for linoleic acid (C18:2). Qualitative calibrations provided acceptable results, with up to 98% of samples (n = 234) correctly classified with probabilities ⩾0.9. Results indicated a portable NIR instrument has the potential to be used to measure quality and authenticity of Iberian pork carcasses

Multistage and adaptive sampling protocols combined with near-infrared spectral sensors for automated monitoring of raw materials in bulk

A near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy-based real-time monitoring system is proposed to sample and analyse agro-industrial raw materials transported in bulk in a single stage, easing and optimising the evaluation process of incoming lots at reception of agri-food plants. NIR analysis allows rapid and cost-effective analytical results to be obtained, and hence to rethink current sampling protocols. For this purpose, multistage and adaptive sampling designs were tested in this paper, which have been reported (in soil science and ecology) to be more flexible and efficient than conventional strategies to study patterns of clustering or patchiness, which can be the result of natural phenomena. The additional spatial information provided by NIR has also been exploited, using geostatistical analysis to model the spatial pattern of key analytical constituents in Processed Animal Proteins (PAPs). This study addresses the assessment of two kinds of quality/safety issues in PAP lots – moisture accumulation and cross-contamination. After a simulation study, qualitative and quantitative analyses were carried out to make a performance comparison between sampling designs. Results show that sampling densities below 10–15% demonstrated higher estimation errors, failing to represent the actual spatial patterns, while a stratified adaptive cluster sampling design achieved the best performance

Performance comparison of sampling designs for quality and safety control of raw materials in bulk: a simulation study based on NIR spectral data and geostatistical analysis

This study exploits the potential of near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy to deliver a measurement for each sampling point. Furthermore, it provides a protocol for the modelling of the spatial pattern of analytical constituents. On the basis of these two aspects, the methodology proposed in this work offers an opportunity to provide a real-time monitoring system to evaluate raw materials, easing and optimising the existing procedures for sampling and analysing products transported in bulk. In this paper, Processed Animal Proteins (PAPs) were selected as case study, and two types of quality/safety issues were tested in PAP lots —induced by moisture and cross-contamination. A simulation study, based on geostatistical analysis and the use of a set of sampling protocols, made a qualitative analysis possible to compare the representation of the spatial surfaces produced by each design. Moreover, the Root Mean Square Error of Prediction (RMSEP), calculated from the differences between the analytical values and the geostatistical predictions at unsampled locations, was used to measure the performance in each case. Results show the high sensitivity of the process to the sampling plan used — understood as the sampling design plus the sampling intensity. In general, a gradual decrease in the performance can be observed as the sampling intensity decreases, so that unlike for higher intensities, the too low ones resulted in oversmoothed surfaces which did not manage to represent the actual distribution. Overall, Stratified and Simple Random samplings achieved the best results in most cases. This indicated that an optimal balance between the design and the intensity of the sampling plan is imperative to perform this methodology

A note on Mahalanobis and related distance measures in WinISI and The Unscrambler

In identifying spectral outliers in near infrared calibration it is common to use a distance measure that is related to Mahalanobis distance. However, different software packages tend to use different variants, which lead to a translation problem if more than one package is used. Here the relationships between squared Mahalanobis distance D2, the GH distance of WinISI, and the T2 and leverage (L) statistics of The Unscrambler are established as D2 = T2 ≈ L × n ≈ GH × k, where n and k are the numbers of samples and variables, respectively, in the set of spectral data used to establish the distance measure. The implications for setting thresholds for outlier detection are discussed. On the way to this result the principal component scores from WinISI and The Unscrambler are compared. Both packages scale the scores for a component to have variances proportional to the contribution of that component to total variance, but the WinISI scores, unlike those from The Unscrambler, do not have mean zero

Status and trends of European pollinators. Key findings of the STEP project

Peer reviewe

Miniature near infrared spectroscopy spectrometer and information and communication technologies to guarantee the integrity of the EU high added-value "acorn Iberian pig ham" (IP)

This research is framed within FoodIntegrity, EU sponsored project(7th FP). The main goal of the research to be done is to provide industrials, producers and consumers with a methodology based in low-cost, portable and miniature NIRS sensors and information and communication technologies for process control and voluntary labelling, to guarantee the integrity of the EU high added-value as the “acorn Iberian pig ham”. The present study is focussed in transferring a database (470 samples) of IP tissue - analysed in a FOSS-NIRSystems 6500 (FNS6500) spectrometer, during the seasons 2009-2011 - to a portable/miniature instrument MicroNIR-Onsite, VIAVI (MN1700). A set of 30 samples of adipose tissue was taken from a slaughterhouse during 2015-2016, being analysed in parallel in the satellite (FNS 6500) and master (MN 1700) instruments. Latter on, they were divided in two sets: N = 10 for building the standardization matrices and N = 20 for the validation of the cloning procedure. The algorithm Piece-Wise Direct Standardization (PDS) was applied. The best standardisation matrix was applied to the library of 470 samples taken in the FNS 6500, enabling an excellent fitting between both instruments, as shown the RMSCs statistic calculated in the satellite before and after the standardization and in the master - 108457 vs 22519 vs 17646 μlog 1/R – and the GH distance before and after standardisation between both instruments 437.41 vs 2.06

Multiplexed cellular profiling identifies an organoselenium compound as an inhibitor of CRM1-mediated nuclear export

Chromosomal region maintenance 1 (CRM1 also known as Xpo1 and exportin-1) is the receptor for the nuclear export controlling the intracellular localization and function of many cellular and viral proteins that play a crucial role in viral infections and cancer. The inhibition of CRM1 has emerged as a promising therapeutic approach to interfere with the lifecycle of many viruses, for the treatment of cancer, and to overcome therapy resistance. Recently, selinexor has been approved as the first CRM1 inhibitor for the treatment of multiple myeloma, providing proof of concept for this therapeutic option with a new mode of action. However, selinexor is associated with dose-limiting toxicity and hence, the discovery of alternative small molecule leads that could be developed as less toxic anticancer and antiviral therapeutics will have a significant impact in the clinic. Here, we report a CRM1 inhibitor discovery platform. The development of this platform includes reporter cell lines that monitor CRM1 activity by using red fluorescent protein or green fluorescent protein-labeled HIV-1 Rev protein with a strong heterologous nuclear export signal. Simultaneously, the intracellular localization of other proteins, to be interrogated for their capacity to undergo CRM1-mediated export, can be followed by co-culturing stable cell lines expressing fluorescent fusion proteins. We used this platform to interrogate the mode of nuclear export of several proteins, including PDK1, p110α, STAT5A, FOXO1, 3, 4 and TRIB2, and to screen a compound collection. We show that while p110α partially relies on CRM1-dependent nuclear export, TRIB2 is exported from the nucleus in a CRM1-independent manner. Compound screening revealed the striking activity of an organoselenium compound on the CRM1 nuclear export receptorThis article is based upon work from COST Action STRATAGEM, CA17104, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) (www.cost.eu, accessed in March 2022). Romano Silvestri is indebted to AIRC, IG 2020, code no. 24703. This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through Grant RTI2018-094629-B-I00 to Wolfgang Link. Miguel Machuqueiro thanks Fundaçao para a Ciência e Tecnologia ˜ (Portugal) for CEECIND/02300/2017 (grant), UIDB/04046/2020 and UIDP/04046/2020 (projects