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This paper studies the effect of sentiment on asset prices during the 20th century (1905 to 2005). As a proxy for sentiment, we use the fraction of positive and negative words in two columns of financial news from the New York Times. The main contribution of the paper is to show that, controlling for other well-known time-series patterns, the predictability of stock returns using news' content is concentrated in recessions. A one standard deviation shock to our news measure during recessions predicts a change in the conditional average return on the DJIA of 12 basis points over one day.

Worldwide outbreaks of enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) in 2014 and 2016 have caused serious respiratory and neurological disease. We collected samples from several European countries during the 2018 outbreak and determined 53 near full-length genome (‘whole genome’) sequences. These sequences were combined with 718 whole genome and 1,987 VP1-gene publicly available sequences. In 2018, circulating strains clustered into multiple subgroups in the B3 and A2 subclades, with different phylogenetic origins. Clusters in subclade B3 emerged from strains circulating primarily in the US and Europe in 2016, though some had deeper roots linking to Asian strains, while clusters in A2 traced back to strains detected in East Asia in 2015-2016. In 2018, all sequences from the USA formed a distinct subgroup, containing only three non-US samples. Alongside the varied origins of seasonal strains, we found that diversification of these variants begins up to 18 months prior to the first diagnostic detection during a EV-D68 season. EV-D68 displays strong signs of continuous antigenic evolution and all 2018 A2 strains had novel patterns in the putative neutralizing epitopes in the BC- and DE-loops. The pattern in the BC-loop of the USA B3 subgroup had not been detected on that continent before. Patients with EV-D68 in subclade A2 were significantly older than patients with a B3 subclade virus. In contrast to other subclades, the age distribution of A2 is distinctly bimodal and was found primarily among children and in the elderly. We hypothesize that EV-D68’s rapid evolution of surface proteins, extensive diversity, and high rate of geographic mixing could be explained by substantial reinfection of adults. Better understanding of evolution and immunity across diverse viral pathogens, including EV-D68 and SARS-CoV-2, is critical to pandemic preparedness in the future.

The flavor of dry cured ham explains the high appreciation of this product and it determines consumer acceptance. Volatile compounds provide valuable information about the odor and sensory quality of dry cured hams. Since amino acids are the origin of some volatile compounds of dry cured ham, the volatile and amino acid compositions of forty-one dry cured hams from Spain and France were determined to establish associations between them. The samples included different pig breeds (non Iberian vs. Iberian), which were additionally affected by different maturation times and feeding types (acorn vs. fodder). Results showed that 20 volatile compounds were able to distinguish Iberian and non Iberian hams, and 16 of those had relevant sensory impact according to their odor activity values. 3-Methylbutanol, 2-heptanol and hexanal were among the most concentrated volatile compounds. In the case of non-volatile compounds, the concentrations of amino acids were generally higher in Iberian hams, and all the amino acids were able to distinguish Iberian from non Iberian hams with the exception of tryptophan and asparagine. A strong correlation of some amino acids with volatile compounds was found in the particular case of alcohols and aldehydes when only Iberian hams were considered. The high correlation values found in some cases proved that proteolysis plays an important role in aroma generation.

Abstract Helminths are highly prevalent in many regions of the world. Due to the chronic nature of most helminth infections, these parasites are proficient immunomodulators of their hosts. This modulation often leads to skewed or even impaired immune responses against unrelated antigens, such as viruses and vaccines, which can be both beneficial and detrimental for the host. The extent of these effects and the impact on the outcomes of viral infection depends on a variety of factors including timing and tropism of both infections, pathological mechanisms, genetic background, and environmental factors. In this review, we dissect these complex interactions between virus and helminths in the context of coinfection and the impact of helminth infection on antiviral vaccine efficacy. We characterize the key contributing mechanisms that have been defined in preclinical models and human trials and describe the immune actors involved in the modulation of the antiviral and vaccine immune response by helminths. Finally, we address the limitations of our current understanding of helminth–virus interactions. This review provides an extensive overview of the literature on what is known of how helminth infections affect host immune responses to viral infections and vaccines.

Preventing the progressive deterioration of works of art over time is a topic of great interest to collectors and museums. With this aim, time capsules where environmental conditions remain unchanged are well known for preserving art. In this paper, a prototype of an IoT time capsule is presented with a focus on low cost in order to make it accessible to private collectors or small museums with tight budgets. Valencian ‘sainetes’ (small plays), which are considered materials of artistic interest, have been placed in a “time capsule”, which is a manually made container with insulating materials for keeping small pieces for a long time. Environmental control has been performed with a low-cost microcontroller, sensors and actuators connected to a free online IoT platform. This platform recorded data and made decisions based on these data, sending cooling or heating orders to an environmental control system. The results obtained are very satisfactory and open interesting perspectives for future research. However, they also highlight some relevant technical and economic limitations that will have to be considered in the future.

Adequate thermic conditions are required for the preventive conservation of artworks, but such optimum conditions cannot always be achieved in historical buildings such as ancient churches. In those cases, it is of interest to assess the potential risk of punctual changes in indoor environments that can be harmful to artworks. These conditions can be assessed by means of a microclimate monitoring system comprised of a set of energy-efficient wireless sensors connected to the cloud using IoT techniques. This approach was followed at the baroque church of Saint Thomas and Saint Philip Neri in Valencia (Spain). A set of 26 wireless nodes was installed, which recorded values of temperature and relative humidity every hour for a period of 7 months. Small differences of temperature were obtained among sensors, so that an efficient methodology based on principal component analysis (PCA) was applied for the characterization of similarities and dissimilarities between sensors. Daily ranges of temperatures were studied as well as mean trajectories, differences between days of the week, and changes in the correlation structure of daily median values over time. Results provide a framework for an efficient characterization of temperatures in heritage buildings based on a network of wireless sensors. Such a framework is useful to assess the potential risk of temperature fluctuations on the preventive conservation of historical buildings and artworks.

A large amount of effort has recently been put into understanding the barren plateau phenomenon. In this perspective article, we face the increasingly loud elephant in the room and ask a question that has been hinted at by many but not explicitly addressed: Can the structure that allows one to avoid barren plateaus also be leveraged to efficiently simulate the loss classically? We collect evidence-on a case-by-case basis-that many commonly used models whose loss landscapes avoid barren plateaus can also admit classical simulation, provided that one can collect some classical data from quantum devices during an initial data acquisition phase. This follows from the observation that barren plateaus result from a curse of dimensionality, and that current approaches for solving them end up encoding the problem into some small, classically simulable, subspaces. Thus, while stressing that quantum computers can be essential for collecting data, our analysis sheds doubt on the information processing capabilities of many parametrized quantum circuits with provably barren plateau-free landscapes. We end by discussing the (many) caveats in our arguments including the limitations of average case arguments, the role of smart initializations, models that fall outside our assumptions, the potential for provably superpolynomial advantages and the possibility that, once larger devices become available, parametrized quantum circuits could heuristically outperform our analytic expectations. There has been growing evidence that strategies to circumvent the barren plateau problem in variational quantum computing might also kill potential quantum advantages. In this Perspective, the authors gather this evidence, discuss what is still missing to provide a definitive answer, and provide new research directions.

An earlier study carried out in 2010 at the archaeological site of L’Almoina (Valencia, Spain) found marked daily fluctuations of temperature, especially in summer. Such pronounced gradient is due to the design of the museum, which includes a skylight as a ceiling, covering part of the remains in the museum. In this study, it was found that the thermal conditions are not homogeneous and vary at different points of the museum and along the year. According to the European Standard EN10829, it is necessary to define a plan for long-term monitoring, elaboration and study of the microclimatic data, in order to preserve the artifacts. With the aforementioned goal of extending the study and offering a tool to monitor the microclimate, a new statistical methodology is proposed. For this propose, during one year (October 2019–October 2020), a set of 27 data-loggers was installed, aimed at recording the temperature inside the museum. By applying principal component analysis and k-means, three different microclimates were established. In order to characterize the differences among the three zones, two statistical techniques were put forward. Firstly, Sparse Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (sPLS-DA) was applied to a set of 671 variables extracted from the time series. The second approach consisted of using a random forest algorithm, based on the same functions and variables employed by the first methodology. Both approaches allowed the identification of the main variables that best explain the differences between zones. According to the results, it is possible to establish a representative subset of sensors recommended for the long-term monitoring of temperatures at the museum. The statistical approach proposed here is very effective for discriminant time series analysis and for explaining the differences in microclimate when a net of sensors is installed in historical buildings or museums.

Tauopathies are a class of neurodegenerative diseases associated with the microtubule-associated protein tau, with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) being the most prevalent related disorder. Neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) are one of the neuropathological hallmarks present in the brains of AD patients. Because NFTs are aberrant intracellular inclusions formed by hyperphosphorylated tau, it was initially proposed that phosphorylated and/or aggregated intracellular tau protein was causative of neuronal death. However, recent studies suggest a toxic role for non-phosphorylated and non-aggregated tau when it is located in the brain extracellular space. In this work, we will discuss the neurotoxic role of extracellular tau as well its involvement in the spreading of tau pathologies.

Syneruptive magma mixing is widespread in volcanic eruptions, affecting explosivity and composition of products, but its evidence in basaltic systems is usually cryptic. Here we report direct evidence of mixing between basanitic and tephritic magmas in the first days of the 2021 Tajogaite eruption of Cumbre Vieja, La Palma. Groundmass glass in tephritic tephra from the fifth day of the eruption is locally inhomogeneous, showing micron-scale filamentary structures of Si-poor and Fe-, Mg-rich melt, forming complex filaments attached to bubbles. Their compositional distribution attests the presence of primitive basanitic magma, with compositions similar to late-erupted melts, interacting with an evolved tephritic melt during the first week of the event. From filament morphology, we suggest their generation by dragging and folding of basanitic melt during bubble migration through melt interfaces. Semi-quantitative diffusion modelling indicates that the filamentary structures are short-lived, dissipating in timescales of tens of seconds. In combination with thermobarometric constraints, we suggest a mixing onset by sub-Moho remobilization of a tephritic reservoir by basanite input, followed by turbulent ascent of a mingled magma. In the shallow conduit or lava fountain, bubble nucleation and migration triggered further mingling of the distinct melt-phases. This phenomenon might have enhanced the explosive behaviour of the eruption in such period, where violent strombolian explosions were common.