Spanish National Research Council

About: Spanish National Research Council is a government organization based out in Madrid, Spain. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Galaxy. The organization has 79563 authors who have published 220470 publications receiving 7698991 citations. The organization is also known as: CSIC & Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.

Greatly enhanced arsenic shoot assimilation in rice leads to elevated grain levels compared to wheat and barley

Abstract: Paired grain, shoot, and soil of 173 individual sample sets of commercially farmed temperate rice, wheat, and barley were surveyed to investigate variation in the assimilation and translocation of arsenic (As). Rice samples were obtained from the Carmargue (France), Donana (Spain), Cadiz (Spain), California, and Arkansas. Wheat and barleywere collected from Cornwall and Devon (England) and the east coast of Scotland. Transfer of As from soil to grain was an order of magnitude greater in rice than for wheat and barley, despite lower rates of shoot-to-grain transfer. Rice grain As levels over 0.60 microg g(-1) d. wt were found in rice grown in paddy soil of around only 10 microg g(-1) As, showing that As in paddy soils is problematic with respect to grain As levels. This is due to the high shoot/soil ratio of approximately 0.8 for rice compared to 0.2 and 0.1 for barley and wheat, respectively. The differences in these transfer ratios are probably due to differences in As speciation and dynamics in anaerobic rice soils compared to aerobic soils for barley and wheat. In rice, the export of As from the shoot to the grain appears to be under tight physiological control as the grain/shoot ratio decreases by more than an order of magnitude (from approximately 0.3 to 0.003 mg/kg) and as As levels in the shoots increase from 1 to 20 mg/kg. A down regulation of shoot-to-grain export may occur in wheat and barley, but it was not detected at the shoot As levels found in this survey. Some agricultural soils in southwestern England had levels in excess of 200 microg g(-1) d. wt, although the grain levels for wheat and barley never breached 0.55 microg g(-1) d. wt. These grain levels were achieved in rice in soils with an order of magnitude lower As. Thus the risk posed by As in the human food-chain needs to be considered in the context of anaerobic verses aerobic ecosystems.

HiggsSignals: Confronting arbitrary Higgs sectors with measurements at the Tevatron and the LHC

Abstract: HiggsSignals is a Fortran90 computer code that allows to test the compatibility of Higgs sector predictions against Higgs rates and masses measured at the LHC or the Tevatron. Arbitrary models with any number of Higgs bosons can be investigated using a model-independent input scheme based on HiggsBounds. The test is based on the calculation of a $$\chi ^2$$ measure from the predictions and the measured Higgs rates and masses, with the ability of fully taking into account systematics and correlations for the signal rate predictions, luminosity and Higgs mass predictions. It features two complementary methods for the test. First, the peak-centered method, in which each observable is defined by a Higgs signal rate measured at a specific hypothetical Higgs mass, corresponding to a tentative Higgs signal. Second, the mass-centered method, where the test is evaluated by comparing the signal rate measurement to the theory prediction at the Higgs mass predicted by the model. The program allows for the simultaneous use of both methods, which is useful in testing models with multiple Higgs bosons. The code automatically combines the signal rates of multiple Higgs bosons if their signals cannot be resolved by the experimental analysis. We compare results obtained with HiggsSignals to official ATLAS and CMS results for various examples of Higgs property determinations and find very good agreement. A few examples of HiggsSignals applications are provided, going beyond the scenarios investigated by the LHC collaborations. For models with more than one Higgs boson we recommend to use HiggsSignals and HiggsBounds in parallel to exploit the full constraining power of Higgs search exclusion limits and the measurements of the signal seen at $$m_H\approx 125.5$$ GeV.

Probiotics, gut microbiota, and their influence on host health and disease.

Abstract: The gastrointestinal tract of mammals hosts a high and diverse number of different microorganisms, known as intestinal microbiota. Many probiotics were originally isolated from the gastrointestinal tract, and they were defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)/WHO as "live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host." Probiotics exert their beneficial effects on the host through four main mechanisms: interference with potential pathogens, improvement of barrier function, immunomodulation and production of neurotransmitters, and their host targets vary from the resident microbiota to cellular components of the gut-brain axis. However, in spite of the wide array of beneficial mechanisms deployed by probiotic bacteria, relatively few effects have been supported by clinical data. In this regard, different probiotic strains have been effective in antibiotic-associated diarrhea or inflammatory bowel disease for instance. The aim of this review was to compile the molecular mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of probiotics, mainly through their interaction with the intestinal microbiota and with the intestinal mucosa. The specific benefits discussed in this paper include among others those elicited directly through dietary modulation of the human gut microbiota.

Photonic information processing beyond Turing: an optoelectronic implementation of reservoir computing.

Abstract: Many information processing challenges are difficult to solve with traditional Turing or von Neumann approaches. Implementing unconventional computational methods is therefore essential and optics provides promising opportunities. Here we experimentally demonstrate optical information processing using a nonlinear optoelectronic oscillator subject to delayed feedback. We implement a neuro-inspired concept, called Reservoir Computing, proven to possess universal computational capabilities. We particularly exploit the transient response of a complex dynamical system to an input data stream. We employ spoken digit recognition and time series prediction tasks as benchmarks, achieving competitive processing figures of merit.