University of Oviedo

About: University of Oviedo is a education organization based out in Oviedo, Spain. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Catalysis. The organization has 13423 authors who have published 31649 publications receiving 844799 citations. The organization is also known as: Universidá d'Uviéu & Universidad de Oviedo.

Planck 2015 results. IX. Diffuse component separation: CMB maps

Abstract: We present foreground-reduced cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps derived from the full Planck data set in both temperature and polarization. Compared to the corresponding Planck 2013 temperature sky maps, the total data volume is larger by a factor of 3.2 for frequencies between 30 and 70 GHz, and by 1.9 for frequencies between 100 and 857 GHz. In addition, systematic errors in the forms of temperature-to-polarization leakage, analogue-to-digital conversion uncertainties, and very long time constant errors have been dramatically reduced, to the extent that the cosmological polarization signal may now be robustly recovered on angular scales l ≳ 40. On the very largest scales, instrumental systematic residuals are still non-negligible compared to the expected cosmological signal, and modes with l< 20 are accordingly suppressed in the current polarization maps by high-pass filtering. As in 2013, four different CMB component separation algorithms are applied to these observations, providing a measure of stability with respect to algorithmic and modelling choices. The resulting polarization maps have rms instrumental noise ranging between 0.21 and 0.27μK averaged over 55′ pixels, and between 4.5 and 6.1μK averaged over pixels. The cosmological parameters derived from the analysis of temperature power spectra are in agreement at the 1σ level with the Planck 2015 likelihood. Unresolved mismatches between the noise properties of the data and simulations prevent a satisfactory description of the higher-order statistical properties of the polarization maps. Thus, the primary applications of these polarization maps are those that do not require massive simulations for accurate estimation of uncertainties, for instance estimation of cross-spectra and cross-correlations, or stacking analyses. However, the amplitude of primordial non-Gaussianity is consistent with zero within 2σ for all local, equilateral, and orthogonal configurations of the bispectrum, including for polarization E-modes. Moreover, excellent agreement is found regarding the lensing B-mode power spectrum, both internally among the various component separation codes and with the best-fit Planck 2015 Λ cold dark matter model.

Epigenetic regulation of adaptive responses of forest tree species to the environment.

Abstract: Epigenetic variation is likely to contribute to the phenotypic plasticity and adaptative capacity of plant species, and may be especially important for long-lived organisms with complex life cycles, including forest trees. Diverse environmental stresses and hybridization/polyploidization events can create reversible heritable epigenetic marks that can be transmitted to subsequent generations as a form of molecular “memory”. Epigenetic changes might also contribute to the ability of plants to colonize or persist in variable environments. In this review, we provide an overview of recent data on epigenetic mechanisms involved in developmental processes and responses to environmental cues in plant, with a focus on forest tree species. We consider the possible role of forest tree epigenetics as a new source of adaptive traits in plant breeding, biotechnology, and ecosystem conservation under rapid climate change.

On the primary functions of melatonin in evolution: Mediation of photoperiodic signals in a unicell, photooxidation, and scavenging of free radicals*

Abstract: Melatonin is widely abundant in many eukaryotic taxa, including vari-ous animal phyla, angiosperms, and unicells. In the bioluminescent dinoflagellate Gonyaulax polyedra, melatonin is produced in concentrations sometimes exceed-ing those found in the pineal gland, exhibits a circadian rhythm with a pro-nounced nocturnal maximum, and mimics the short-day response of asexual encystment. Even more efficient as a cyst inducer is 5-methoxytryptamine (5MT), which is also periodically formed in Gonyaulax. In this unicell, the photoperiodic signal-transduction pathway presumably involves melatonin formation, its deace-tylation to 5MT, 5MT-dependent transfer of protons from an acidic vacuole, and cytoplasmic acidification. According to this concept, we observe that cyst forma-tion can be induced by various monoamine oxidase inhibitors and protonophores, that 5MT dramatically stimulates H+-dependent bioluminescence and leads to a decrease of cytoplasmic pH, as shown by measurements of dicyanohydroquinone fluorescence. Cellular components from Gonyaulax catalyze the photooxidation of melatonin. Its property of being easily destroyed by light in the presence of cel-lular catalysts may have been the reason that many organisms have developed mechanisms utilizing this indoleamine as a mediator of darkness. Photooxidative reactions of melatonin, as studied with crude Gonyaulax extracts and, more in de-tail, with protoporphyrin IX as a catalyst, lead to the formation of N1 -acetyl-N -formyl-5-methoxykynuramine (AFMK) as one of the main products. Photochemical mechanisms involve interactions with a photooxidant cation radi-cal leading to the formation of a melatonyl cation radical, which subsequently combines with a superoxide anion. Photooxidation of melatonin represents one of several possibilities of a more general, biologically highly important property of this indoleamine to act as an extremely efficient radical scavenger, including its feature of terminating radical reaction chains by a final combination with the su-peroxide anion. Trapping of free radicals may reflect the primary and evolutionar-ily most ancient role of melatonin in living beings.

Extraction and validation of a new set of CMS pythia8 tunes from underlying-event measurements

Abstract: New sets of CMS underlying-event parameters (“tunes”) are presented for the pythia8 event generator. These tunes use the NNPDF3.1 parton distribution functions (PDFs) at leading (LO), next-to-leading (NLO), or next-to-next-to-leading (NNLO) orders in perturbative quantum chromodynamics, and the strong coupling evolution at LO or NLO. Measurements of charged-particle multiplicity and transverse momentum densities at various hadron collision energies are fit simultaneously to determine the parameters of the tunes. Comparisons of the predictions of the new tunes are provided for observables sensitive to the event shapes at LEP, global underlying event, soft multiparton interactions, and double-parton scattering contributions. In addition, comparisons are made for observables measured in various specific processes, such as multijet, Drell–Yan, and top quark-antiquark pair production including jet substructure observables. The simulation of the underlying event provided by the new tunes is interfaced to a higher-order matrix-element calculation. For the first time, predictions from pythia8 obtained with tunes based on NLO or NNLO PDFs are shown to reliably describe minimum-bias and underlying-event data with a similar level of agreement to predictions from tunes using LO PDF sets.