Felama® Almond

The almond breeding program at the Agrifood Research and Technology Center of Aragon (CITA) began in 1974, focusing on self-compatibility and late flowering while ensuring fruit quality and productivity in new planting systems. Self-compatible cultivars are crucial in modern plantations. ‘Aylés’, ‘Moncayo’, and ‘Guara’ were the program’s initial releases (Felipe and R Socias i Company 1987), with ‘Guara’ being the first cultivar introduced to the industry in Spain in 1988 combining self-compatibility and late flowering. Other self-compatible cultivars released in the early stages of the breeding program were ‘Blanquerna’, ‘Cambra’, and ‘Felisia’ (R Socias i Company and Felipe 1999). New self-pollinating cultivars with high fruit quality have been selected. In 2005, ‘Soleta’ and ‘Isabelona’ were introduced, both self-pollinating, late-flowering, and of high fruit quality (Bielsa et al. 2021; R Socias i Company and Felipe 2007). These varieties have been widely used in high-density planting systems. Two extralate flowering cultivars were released, Diamar (Mardía®) and Vialfas (R Socias i Company et al. 2008, 2015). The introduction of late and very late flowering cultivars has significantly reduced frost damage and allowing the expansion of almond cultivation inland Spain. ‘Felama’ has recently been released due to its high productivity, medium vigor, uniform and balanced branching, late flowering, and early fruit maturation, indicating high marketability in areas without the risk of spring frost

Molecular and Metabolic Subtypes Correspondence for Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Classification

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the most common form of pancreatic cancer, is an extremely lethal disease due to late diagnosis, aggressiveness and lack of effective therapies. Considering its intrinsic heterogeneity, patient stratification models based on transcriptomic and genomic signatures, with partially overlapping subgroups, have been established. Besides molecular alterations, PDAC tumours show a strong desmoplastic response, resulting in profound metabolic reprogramming involving increased glucose and amino acid consumption, as well as lipid scavenging and biosynthesis. Interestingly, recent works have also revealed the existence of metabolic subtypes with differential prognosis within PDAC, which correlated to defined molecular subclasses in patients: lipogenic subtype correlated with a classical/progenitor signature, while glycolytic tumours associated with the highly aggressive basal/squamous profile. Bioinformatic analyses have demonstrated that the representative genes of each metabolic subtype are up-regulated in PDAC samples and predict patient survival. This suggests a relationship between the genetic signature, metabolic profile, and aggressiveness of the tumour. Considering all this, defining metabolic subtypes represents a clear opportunity for patient stratification considering tumour functional behaviour independently of their mutational background

Recursive estimation of 3D features using a moving camera

This paper presents a scheme allowing to estimate parameters which describe geometrical structures in a 3 D scene by only using informations issued front a sequence of images provided by a mobile vision sensor with known motion . We fisrt recall the basic used models: points and lines, and then we relate their perspective projection in the image plane to the camera motion . Some techniques of recursive filtering are used into the sequence of images to incrementaly build the 3 D scene all along the diplacement of the camera . Some experimental results in the field of robotics are given .On présente un schéma d'estimation de primitives géométriques 3D à partir d'informations continues dans une séquence d'images fournie par une caméra mobile dont le mouvement est conn

Efficient coupler between silicon photonic and metal-insulator-silicon-metal plasmonic waveguides

We report the experimental realization of a compact, efficient coupler between silicon waveguides and vertical metal-insulator-silicon-metal (MISM) plasmonic waveguides. Devices were fabricated using complementary metal-oxide-silicon technology processes, with copper layers that support low-loss plasmonic modes in the MISM structures at a wavelength of 1550 nm. By implementing a short (0.5 μm) optimized metal-insulator-silicon-insulator structure inserted between the photonic and plasmonic waveguide sections, we demonstrate experimental coupling loss of 2.5 dB, despite the high optical confinement of the MISM mode and mismatch with the silicon waveguide mode

Primary endometrial carcinoma with signet-ring cells. A case report and review of the literature

Endometrial adenocarcinoma with signet-ring cells is an infrequent histological type of carcinoma that usually corresponds to a metastasis of a primary carcinoma of another origin, mainly from the gastrointestinal tract or the breast. For this reason, in view of this histological finding, it is essential to carry out a thorough evaluation including mammography, gastroscopy, colonoscopy and thoracoabdominopelvic CT. To date, only six cases of primary endometrial carcinoma with signet-ring cells have been reported in the English literature. A 73-year-old patient was referred to the Gynecology Department with a 3-day history of postmenopausal bleeding. She was diagnosed with primary endometrial adenocarcinoma with signet-ring cells. The anatomopathological special features of the surgical specimen are presented, as well as the evolution of the patient, who remained asymptomatic and free of disease 28 months after surgery. A review of the literature is performed, emphasizing the peculiarities of this rare histological subtype. Despite the fact that primary endometrial carcinoma with signet-ring cells is an infrequent tumor, it must be considered in the differential diagnosis of malignant tumors of aforesaid origin. It is essential to carry out a correct and an extensive investigative study as well as an immunohistochemical analysis of the samples obtained for its confirmation diagnosis

Learning to reach by reinforcement learning using a receptive field based function approximation approach with continuous actions

Reinforcement learning methods can be used in robotics applications especially for specific target-oriented problems, for example the reward-based recalibration of goal directed actions. To this end still relatively large and continuous state-action spaces need to be efficiently handled. The goal of this paper is, thus, to develop a novel, rather simple method which uses reinforcement learning with function approximation in conjunction with different reward-strategies for solving such problems. For the testing of our method, we use a four degree-of-freedom reaching problem in 3D-space simulated by a two-joint robot arm system with two DOF each. Function approximation is based on 4D, overlapping kernels (receptive fields) and the state-action space contains about 10,000 of these. Different types of reward structures are being compared, for example, reward-on- touching-only against reward-on-approach. Furthermore, forbidden joint configurations are punished. A continuous action space is used. In spite of a rather large number of states and the continuous action space these reward/punishment strategies allow the system to find a good solution usually within about 20 trials. The efficiency of our method demonstrated in this test scenario suggests that it might be possible to use it on a real robot for problems where mixed rewards can be defined in situations where other types of learning might be difficult

Clinical Outcomes of a Zika Virus Mother-Child Pair Cohort in Spain

BACKGROUND: Zika virus (ZIKV) infection has been associated with congenital microcephaly and other neurodevelopmental abnormalities. There is little published research on the effect of maternal ZIKV infection in a non-endemic European region. We aimed to describe the outcomes of pregnant travelers diagnosed as ZIKV-infected in Spain, and their exposed children. METHODS: This prospective observational cohort study of nine referral hospitals enrolled pregnant women (PW) who travelled to endemic areas during their pregnancy or the two previous months, or those whose sexual partners visited endemic areas in the previous 6 months. Infants of ZIKV-infected mothers were followed for about two years. RESULTS: ZIKV infection was diagnosed in 163 PW; 112 (70%) were asymptomatic and 24 (14.7%) were confirmed cases. Among 143 infants, 14 (9.8%) had adverse outcomes during follow-up; three had a congenital Zika syndrome (CZS), and 11 other potential Zika-related outcomes. The overall incidence of CZS was 2.1% (95%CI: 0.4-6.0%), but among infants born to ZIKV-confirmed mothers, this increased to 15.8% (95%CI: 3.4-39.6%). CONCLUSIONS: A nearly 10% overall risk of neurologic and hearing adverse outcomes was found in ZIKV-exposed children born to a ZIKV-infected traveler PW. Longer-term follow-up of these children is needed to assess whether there are any later-onset manifestations

Cryptic Diversity in Indo-Pacific Coral-Reef Fishes Revealed by DNA-Barcoding Provides New Support to the Centre-of-Overlap Hypothesis

Diversity in coral reef fishes is not evenly distributed and tends to accumulate in the Indo-Malay-Philippines Archipelago (IMPA). The comprehension of the mechanisms that initiated this pattern is in its infancy despite its importance for the conservation of coral reefs. Considering the IMPA either as an area of overlap or a cradle of marine biodiversity, the hypotheses proposed to account for this pattern rely on extant knowledge about taxonomy and species range distribution. The recent large-scale use of standard molecular data (DNA barcoding), however, has revealed the importance of taking into account cryptic diversity when assessing tropical biodiversity. We DNA barcoded 2276 specimens belonging to 668 coral reef fish species through a collaborative effort conducted concomitantly in both Indian and Pacific oceans to appraise the importance of cryptic diversity in species with an Indo-Pacific distribution range. Of the 141 species sampled on each side of the IMPA, 62 presented no spatial structure whereas 67 exhibited divergent lineages on each side of the IMPA with K2P distances ranging between 1% and 12%, and 12 presented several lineages with K2P distances ranging between 3% and 22%. Thus, from this initial pool of 141 nominal species with Indo-Pacific distribution, 79 dissolved into 165 biological units among which 162 were found in a single ocean. This result is consistent with the view that the IMPA accumulates diversity as a consequence of its geological history, its location on the junction between the two main tropical oceans and the presence of a land bridge during glacial times in the IMPA that fostered allopatric divergence and secondary contacts between the Indian and Pacific oceans