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In this paper we study a new class of functions, which we call (ω,c)\\(( ,c)\\)-pseudo periodic functions. This collection includes pseudo periodic, pseudo anti-periodic, pseudo Bloch-periodic, and unbounded functions. We prove that the set conformed by these functions is a Banach space with a suitable norm. Furthermore, we show several properties of this class of functions as the convolution invariance. We present some examples and a composition result. As an application, we prove the existence and uniqueness of (ω,c)\\(( ,c)\\)-pseudo periodic mild solutions to the first order abstract Cauchy problem on the real line. Also, we establish some sufficient conditions for the existence of positive (ω,c)\\(( ,c)\\)-pseudo periodic solutions to the Lasota–Wazewska equation with unbounded oscillating production of red cells.

The settlement of cold and arid environments by Pleistocene hunter-gatherers has been a heated topic in Paleolithic Archaeology and the Quaternary Sciences for years. In the Iberian Peninsula, a key area for studying human adaptations to such environments is composed by the large interior and upland regions of the northern and southern plateaus ( Mesetas ) and bordering areas. As, traditionally, these regions have been relatively under-investigated compared to the ecologically more favored coastal areas of the peninsula, our knowledge of the human settlement of the whole Iberian hinterland remains scarce for the Last Glacial. In this paper we present the discovery and first geoarcheological, paleoenvironmental and chronometric evidence obtained at Charco Verde II, a new site close to the southwestern foothills of the Iberian system range (Guadalajara province, Spain), bearing a sequence of Magdalenian human occupations starting at least at 20.8–21.4 ka cal BP during the Last Glacial Maximum, and covering Greenland Stadial 2 until ∼15.1–16.6 ka cal BP, including Heinrich stadial 1. As this site is located in an upland region which today faces one of the harshest climates in Iberia, such occupation sequence, occurred during some of the coldest and most arid phases of the Last Glacial, has relevant implications for our understanding of human-environment-climate interactions and population dynamics in Iberia and Western Europe. These findings support the hypothesis that the Iberian hinterland was not avoided by Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers due to ecological constraints, but it hosted a complex and relatively dense settlement at least in some areas, even during cold periods. This suggest, one more time, that the historical scarcity of Upper Paleolithic sites in inland Iberia is, to a significant extent, an artifact of research bias.

The aim of this study is to analyze the properties of a series of polysaccharide composite films, such as apparent density, color, the presence of functional groups, morphology, and thermal stability, as well as the correlation between them and their antimicrobial and optical properties. Natural antioxidants such as anthocyanins (from cranberry; blueberry and pomegranate); betalains (from beetroot and pitaya); resveratrol (from grape); and thymol and carvacrol (from oregano) were added to the films. Few changes in the position and intensity of the FTIR spectra bands were observed despite the low content of extract added to the films. Due to this fact, the antioxidants were extracted and identified by spectroscopic analysis; and they were also quantified using the Folin-Denis method and a gallic acid calibration curve, which confirmed the presence of natural antioxidants in the films. According to the SEM analysis, the presence of natural antioxidants has no influence on the film morphology because the stretch marks and white points that were observed were related to starch presence. On the other hand, the TGA analysis showed that the type of extract influences the total weight loss. The overall interpretation of the results suggests that the use of natural antioxidants as additives for chitosan-starch film preparation has a prominent impact on most of the critical properties that are decisive in making them suitable for food-packing applications.

Ketamine has shown promising antidepressant efficacy for adolescent treatment-resistant depression. However, the potential enduring consequences of ketamine exposure have not been thoroughly evaluated. Thus, we examined if juvenile ketamine treatment results in long-lasting changes for the rewarding properties of sucrose and cocaine in adulthood, across three separate experiments. In Experiment 1, adolescent male and female C57BL/6 mice received ketamine (20 mg/kg) for 15 consecutive days (Postnatal Day [PD] 35–49). Twenty-one days later (PD70; adulthood) we examined their behavioral responsivity to sucrose (1%) on a two-bottle choice design, or cocaine (0, 5, 10 mg/kg) using the conditioned place preference (CPP) test. We found that juvenile ketamine-pretreatment increased preference for sucrose and environments paired with cocaine in male, but not female, adult mice. This long-term outcome was not observed when male and female mice received ketamine as adults (PD70-84) and tested for sucrose and cocaine preference 21-days later (Experiment 2). Similarly, in Experiment 3, no long-lasting differences in these measures were observed when adolescent male mice were exposed to concomitant ketamine and social stressors (PD35-44), namely the social defeat or vicarious defeat stress paradigms—procedures that mediated a depression-related phenotype (along with a ketamine antidepressant-like response). Collectively, we demonstrate that in the absence of physical or psychological stress, adolescent ketamine exposure increases later life preference for the rewarding properties of sucrose and cocaine in a sex- and age-specific manner. As such, this preclinical work provides awareness for the potential long-term behavioral consequences associated with juvenile ketamine exposure.

Formation of long-term pair-bonds is a complex process, involving multiple neural circuits and is context- and experience-dependent. While laboratory studies using prairie voles have identified the involvement of several neural mechanisms, efforts to translate these findings into predictable field outcomes have been inconsistent at best. Here we test the hypothesis that inhibition of oestrogen receptor alpha (ERα) in the medial amygdala of male prairie voles would significantly increase the expression of social monogamy in the field. Prairie vole populations of equal sex ratio were established in outdoor enclosures with males bred for high levels of ERα expression and low levels of prosocial behaviour associated with social monogamy. Medial amygdala ERα expression was knocked down in half the males per population. Knockdown males displayed a greater degree of social monogamy in five of the eight behavioural indices assessed. This study demonstrates the robust nature of ERα in playing a critical role in the expression of male social monogamy in a field setting.

In order to remedy the environmental pollution caused by oil spills, new materials with gelation capacity of organic solvents and fuels have been synthetized during the recent years. Among them, some of the most promising materials contain amide groups, which are often incorporated into the chemical structure of organogelators due to their effectiveness in gelling organic solvents through hydrogen bonds. A bisamide derivative of hydroxybenzoic acid (Bis-HUB1) was designed and synthesized in two steps and is able to congeal organic solvents. Gelation tests, critical gelation concentrations, and gel-sol transition temperatures were discussed in terms of its supramolecular interactions. Intermolecular hydrogen bonds and π-π stacking were studied through variable-temperature FTIR and UV-visible spectroscopy, while the structural characterization was performed via freeze-fracture TEM. Interestingly, Bis-HUB1 showed the ability to gel gasoline and diesel from monophasic and biphasic systems, which implies its potential use as a remediation agent in fuel spills. The results encourage further research.

We have developed two quantum classifier models for the ttH classification problem, both of which fall into the category of hybrid quantumclassical algorithms for Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum devices (NISQ). Our results, along with other studies, serve as a proof of concept that Quantum Machine Learning (QML) methods can have similar or better performance, in specific cases of low number of training samples, with respect to conventional ML methods even with a limited number of qubits available in current hardware. To utilise algorithms with a low number of qubits — to accommodate for limitations in both simulation hardware and real quantum hardware — we investigated different feature reduction methods. Their impact on the performance of both the classical and quantum models was assessed. We addressed different implementations of two QML models, representative of the two main approaches to supervised quantum machine learning today: a Quantum Support Vector Machine (QSVM), a kernel-based method, and a Variational Quantum Circuit (VQC), a variational approach.

The objective of this study was to evaluate whether juvenile fluoxetine (FLX) exposure induces long-term changes in baseline responses to anxiety-inducing environments, and if so, whether its re-exposure in adulthood would ameliorate this anxiety-like phenotype. An additional goal was to assess the impact of adolescent FLX pretreatment, and its re-exposure in adulthood, on serotonin transporters (5-HTT) and brain-derived-neurotrophic-factor (BDNF)-related signaling markers (TrkB-ERK1/2-CREB-proBDNF-mBDNF) within the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. To do this, female C57BL/6 mice were exposed to FLX in drinking water during postnatal-days (PD) 35–49. After a 21-day washout-period (PD70), mice were either euthanized (tissue collection) or evaluated on anxiety-related tests (open field, light/dark box, elevated plus-maze). Juvenile FLX history resulted in a persistent avoidance-like profile, along with decreases in BDNF-signaling markers, but not 5-HTTs or TrkB receptors, within both brain regions. Interestingly, FLX re-exposure in adulthood reversed the enduring FLX-induced anxiety-related responses across all behavioral tasks, while restoring ERK2-CREB-proBDNF markers to control levels and increasing mBDNF within the prefrontal cortex, but not the hippocampus. Collectively, these results indicate that adolescent FLX history mediates neurobehavioral adaptations that endure into adulthood, which are indicative of a generalized anxiety-like phenotype, and that this persistent effect is ameliorated by later-life FLX re-exposure, in a prefrontal cortex-specific manner.

Pursuing new packaging that contributes to the safety of meat products, that can also be from renewable sources and that has adequate mechanical properties is a challenge. Therefore, this study attempted to incorporate a layer of polylactic acid (PLA) containing nisin and oregano oil extract (OEO) into biocomposites of cassava bran (CB) and coffee husk (CH) to improve their mechanical properties and enhance their antimicrobial properties. A compression molding process is carried out, the operating conditions for the preparation of the biocomposite were pressure: 40 bar, temperature: 170°C, and time: 2.5 min. The composition of the biocomposite was 80, 18, and 2% of CB, CH, and glycerol respectively, with 30% moisture. The polylactic acid (PLA) layer was added by immersion and contained nisaplin and OEO. PLA layer was evaporated in forced convection oven. Once the active packaging was obtained, inhibition in vitro against Listeria monocytogenes was performed. The packing containing OEO and nisin that showed the highest inhibition on the pathogen was used for stability analysis in pork. In order to measure changes in pork meat quality, the biocomposite with and without coating and with commercial polystyrene packaging were compared. Raw meat muscle was kept at 4° C and was tested for color, pH, moisture, and texture profile analysis (TPA) for 0, 7, 14, and 21 days. The values of the flexural test of the biocomposite were: 11.08 MPa of maximum flexural strength (σF), 1.81% of maximum deformation (εF), and 842.22 MPa of elastic modulus (E M ). According to the results of in vitro inhibition, the packaging can contribute to reduce the proliferation of gram-positive microorganisms, such as L. monocytogenes . During storage, the hardness and gumminess of the meat showed significant changes, mainly in the PLA-free biocomposite. Results on pork meat showed that packaging with antimicrobials and PLA can maintain color, texture, moisture, and pH similar to commercial packaging.

The effect of sargassum particle size on the final properties of sargassum-modified asphalt is investigated in this article. Seaweed sargassum particles were first obtained and characterized through elemental analysis, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction, and FTIR spectroscopy. Additionally, pure and sargassum-modified asphalt blends were evaluated through physical and rheological tests such as penetration, softening point, thermal stability, dynamic viscosity, failure temperature, and epifluorescence microscopy. Modified asphalt blends were prepared by the hot mixing technique using different proportions of sargassum particles of two maximum sizes: 500 μm and 850 μm. Incorporating 3.0 wt.% of sargassum particles under 500 μm into the asphalt increased the viscosity of the original binder by a factor of 2.5 and its complex modulus by a factor of 1.9. At the same time, its failure temperature was 11 °C higher than the reference asphalt, which implies an improved viscoelastic behavior and rutting resistance at high temperatures. The study results suggest that the particles under 500 μm were responsible for the most significant effect on the final properties of the asphalt. Moreover, the storage stability test revealed that the modified asphalt blends are stable when the sargassum particle content was kept below 3.0 wt.%. The statistical analysis of the effect of sargassum particle size and concentration on the modified asphalt properties revealed that the rheological behavior is more affected by the modifier particle size; in contrast, the conventional physical properties were more determined by its concentration. Therefore, using low proportions of fine sargassum particles is efficient for improving the physical and rheological properties of the original asphalt, which is not only positive from the asphalt modification technology point of view but also from a sustainable perspective, since seaweed sargassum has become a useless plague in many coastal regions.