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Nowadays, the concept of “Everything is connected to Everything” has spread to reach increasingly diverse scenarios, due to the benefits of constantly being able to know, in real-time, the status of your factory, your city, your health or your smallholding. This wide variety of scenarios creates different challenges such as the heterogeneity of IoT devices, support for large numbers of connected devices, reliable and safe systems, energy efficiency and the possibility of using this system by third-parties in other scenarios. A transversal middleware in all IoT solutions is called an IoT platform. the IoT platform is a piece of software that works like a kind of “glue” to combine platforms and orchestrate capabilities that connect devices, users and applications/services in a “cyber-physical” world. In this way, the IoT platform can help solve the challenges listed above. This paper proposes an IoT agnostic architecture, highlighting the role of the IoT platform, within a broader ecosystem of interconnected tools, aiming at increasing scalability, stability, interoperability and reusability. For that purpose, different paradigms of computing will be used, such as microservices architecture and serverless computing. Additionally, a technological proposal of the architecture, called SEnviro Connect, is presented. This proposal is validated in the IoT scenario of smart farming, where five IoT devices (SEnviro nodes) have been deployed to improve wine production. A comprehensive performance evaluation is carried out to guarantee a scalable and stable platform.

This study presents an analysis of residuals and the identification of the oldest cryotolerant fermentative yeast Saccharomyces eubayanus, absorbed in the walls of ceramic vessels. The samples were dated between 920 and 750 years before present (BP) from the Meliquina Lake site in northwest Argentine Patagonia. This study provides more solid evidence supporting the hypothesis of a pre-Hispanic development area for fermented beverage production at the southernmost region between − 3 8 ∘ and − 4 0 ∘ south latitude on the continent. The isolation and subsequent phylogenetic and phylogeographic analysis of this yeast strain confirm its primitive nature, predating the previously known European hybrids. The associated context and chronology of its use, predating European-Indigenous contact, provide evidence of its management and utilization in native or autochthonous fermentative processes. Subsequently, for reasons still unclear, the strain migrated to Europe, where it hybridized with Old World strains, culminating in the emergence of blonde beers or lager in 16 th century Bavaria. The deliberate or unintentional nature of this migration remains speculative, but it underscores the significant role this yeast strain played in the development of one of today’s most popular fermented beverages, which necessitate fermentation at low temperatures.

The burial of Individual 3 at the Newen Antug site, a young adult woman, with a pottery grave offering characteristic of the Late Pottery period and dated to 880 years BP, is an indirect burial in a wooden structure. The form and design comprise a wooden wampo or small canoe, or a symbolic representation of one, a metaphor in current and historical Mapuche society for the voyage to the final abode of the dead, located beyond a water body which must be crossed in a boat. This is the first find of a burial in a canoe structure in Argentinian Patagonia, and the most southern example on the whole continent. It is also the earliest record in Argentina of pottery of the Red on White Bichrome tradition used as a grave offering, extending the repertoire of characteristics shared between the two slopes of the Andes mountains during the pottery periods, including ritual as well as material aspects.

Parmbsc1, a new force field for DNA simulations, was broadly tested on nearly 100 DNA systems and overcame simulation artifacts that affected previous force fields. We present parmbsc1, a force field for DNA atomistic simulation, which has been parameterized from high-level quantum mechanical data and tested for nearly 100 systems (representing a total simulation time of ∼140 μs) covering most of DNA structural space. Parmbsc1 provides high-quality results in diverse systems. Parameters and trajectories are available at http://mmb.irbbarcelona.org/ParmBSC1/ .

Antiretroviral therapy has significantly improved prognosis in treatment against HIV infection, however, prolonged exposure is associated to cardiovascular diseases, lipodystrophy, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, metabolic alteration, as obesity which includes the accumulation of oxidative stress in adipose tissue. FGF21 is a peptide hormone that is known to regulate glucose and lipid metabolism. FGF21 is expressed and secreted primarily in the liver and adipose tissue, promoting oxidation of glucose/fatty acids and insulin sensitivity. Alterations in FGF21 may be associated with the development of insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. We hypothesized that FGF21 protein levels are associated with metabolic abnormalities, placing special attention to the alterations in relation to the concurrence of overweight/obesity in people living with HIV (PLWH). Serum FGF21 was analyzed in 241 subjects, 160 PLWH and 81 unrelated HIV-uninfected subjects as a control group. Clinical records were consulted to obtain CD4+ cell counting and number of viral RNA copies. Serum FGF21 levels were tested for correlation with anthropometric and metabolic parameters; glucose, cholesterol, HDL, LDL, VLDL, triglycerides, insulin and indexes of atherogenesis and insulin resistance (HOMA). The participants were classified into four groups: (i) PLWH with normal weight, (ii) PLWH with overweight/obesity, (iii) HIV-uninfected with normal weight, and (iv) HIV-uninfected with overweight/obesity. Insulin resistance and FGF21 elevations were observed in overweight-obese PLWH. FGF21 elevation could be viewed as a compensation mechanism as, in the control group, FGF21 correlations appeared to be confined to weight and waist circumference. This can be explained based on the action of FGF21 promoting the uptake of glucose in adipose tissue. In PLWH, FGF21 was low, possibly as a result of a change in adiposity leading to a metabolic disruption.

In this work we study the different phenomena taking place when a hydrostatic pressure is applied in the inner fluid of a suspended microchannel resonator. Additionally to pressure-induced stiffness terms, we have theoretically predicted and experimentally demonstrated that the pressure also induces mass effects which depend on both the applied pressure and the fluid properties. We have used these phenomena to characterize the frequency response of the device as a function of the fluid compressibility and molecular masses of different fluids ranging from liquids to gases. The proposed device in this work can measure the mass density of an unknown liquid sample with a resolution of 0.7 µg/mL and perform gas mixtures characterization by measuring its average molecular mass with a resolution of 0.01 atomic mass units.

The mechanisms underlying the emergence of seizures are one of the most important unresolved issues in epilepsy research. In this paper, we study how perturbations, exogenous or endogenous, may promote or delay seizure emergence. To this aim, due to the increasingly adopted view of epileptic dynamics in terms of slow-fast systems, we perform a theoretical analysis of the phase response of a generic relaxation oscillator. As relaxation oscillators are effectively bistable systems at the fast time scale, it is intuitive that perturbations of the non-seizing state with a suitable direction and amplitude may cause an immediate transition to seizure. By contrast, and perhaps less intuitively, smaller amplitude perturbations have been found to delay the spontaneous seizure initiation. By studying the isochrons of relaxation oscillators, we show that this is a generic phenomenon, with the size of such delay depending on the slow flow component. Therefore, depending on perturbation amplitudes, frequency and timing, a train of perturbations causes an occurrence increase, decrease or complete suppression of seizures. This dependence lends itself to analysis and mechanistic understanding through methods outlined in this paper. We illustrate this methodology by computing the isochrons, phase response curves and the response to perturbations in several epileptic models possessing different slow vector fields. While our theoretical results are applicable to any planar relaxation oscillator, in the motivating context of epilepsy they elucidate mechanisms of triggering and abating seizures, thus suggesting stimulation strategies with effects ranging from mere delaying to full suppression of seizures.

The entrepreneurial motivation is a previous and indispensable step to the act of starting a company. This paper aims to find the factors that determine the motivation of university students in business degrees to become an entrepreneur. To that end, based on different models developed to explain the causes of entrepreneurship, a final model to complete these factors is proposed. This model develops the effect of curricular impacts, extracurricular and the environment in entrepreneurial motivation. It also distinguishes between impacts and expectations, assuming that the latter not only influences motivation but also generates actions. A survey to a sample of 971 students was used for the empirical study. It has been confirmed that expectations, intrinsic needs and preparation and training are the factors that most influence entrepreneurial motivation.

This article investigates the behavior of two parallel layers of different miscible dielectric liquids enclosed and sandwiched between two electrodes. By applying an electric potential to one electrode while grounding the other, electro-convection occurs when the electric Rayleigh number exceeds a critical value, setting the fluid into motion and resulting in rapid mixing between the two liquids. A numerical model is developed to account for the varying ionic mobility and permittivity of the two liquids, considering their evolution based on the relative concentration field. The simulations confirm that electro-convection significantly enhances the mixing between the two liquids, as expected. Additionally, intriguing ripples are observed near the initial interface during the early stages of electro-convection instability growth. To explain and describe the flow dynamics in terms of stability analysis, a semi-analytical model is presented. This study provides insights into the mixing behavior and flow dynamics of miscible dielectric liquids under the influence of electro-convection. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms and can be valuable for applications such as microfluidics, energy conversion, and mixing processes. Further research is encouraged to explore additional parameters and optimize the control of electro-convection for practical applications.

The creation of chiral plasmonic architectures combining templates with achiral plasmonic particles leads to strong chiroptical responses that can be finely tuned via the characteristics of the colloidal building blocks. Here we show how elastomeric molds, pre-patterned with a hexagonal array of triskelia motifs, can guide the assembly of ordinary noble metal colloids into chiral plasmonic architectures with strong dichroism values. Under normal incidence, the chiral arrays made with gold and silver colloids showed g -factors of 0.18 and 0.4, respectively. In all cases, increasing the size of the colloid allows tuning the optical properties of the structure in the VIS-NIR range. When a superstrate layer is deposited onto the structures, the extrinsic chirality response of the 2D superlattice is revealed and strongly amplified by the chiral motifs under oblique inspection, leading to g -factors of ± 1.2 at ± 14°. Finally, these chiral plasmonic resonances sustained by the triskelion array are used to produce circularly polarized photoluminescence from achiral organic dyes placed on top with up to 20% of dissymmetry. The development of scalable chiral photonic structures is a challenging task. Here, the authors use soft lithography with colloidal plasmonic inks to create chiral plasmonic arrays that enable nanophotonic films with strong chiroptical response.