Viral decay and production in sediments of the Mediterranean Sea

Here, for the first time, we have carried out synoptic measurements of viral production and decay rates in continental-shelf and deep-sea sediments of the Mediterranean Sea to explore the viral balance. The net viral production and decay rates were significantly correlated, and were also related to prokaryotic heterotrophic production. The addition of enzymes increased the decay rates in the surface sediments, but not in the subsurface sediments. Both the viral production and the decay rates decreased significantly in the deeper sediment layers, while the virus-to-prokaryote abundance ratio increased, suggesting a high preservation of viruses in the subsurface sediments. Viral decay did not balance viral production at any of the sites investigated, accounting on average for c. 32% of the gross viral production in the marine sediments. We estimate that the carbon (C) released by viral decay contributed 6-23% to the total C released by the viral shunt. Because only ca. 2% of the viruses produced can infect other prokaryotes, the majority is not subjected to direct lysis and potentially remains as a food source for benthic consumers. The results reported here suggest that viral decay can play an important role in biogeochemical cycles and benthic trophodynamics.

Skill sorting, inter-industry skill wage premium, and production chains: evidence from India 1999-2000

This paper proposes a mechanism that links industry’s technological characteristics (i.e. quality of non-labor inputs, which is proxied by the length of industry production chains), industry-specific skill wage premium, and skill sorting across industries. It is hypothesized that high-skilled workers are sorted into industries where they can receive a higher skill wage premium, by working with better quality non-labor input. The quality of non-labor inputs is assumed to be worse in industries with longer production chains due to the increased involvement of low-skilled labor and poor infrastructure over the sequential production. By examining Indian wage and employment data for 1999-2000, empirical evidence to support this mechanism can be obtained: First, the skill wage premium is lower [higher] in industries with longer [shorter] production chains. Second, the skill wage premium is lower [higher] in industries with a higher [lower] proportion of low-skilled workers producing inputs outside their own industry. Third, the proportion of high-skilled workers is larger in industries with shorter production chains and lower ratio of low-skilled labor involved, i.e., a skill sorting trend can be observed.

Skill sorting and production chains : evidence from India

This study proposes a new mechanism that explains skill-sorting patterns and skill wage differentials across industries based on the length of the industry's production chain. A simple simultaneous production model shows that when the quality of intermediate inputs deteriorates rapidly along the production chains, high-skilled individuals choose to work in industries with shorter production chains because of higher returns to skill. I empirically confirm this skill-sorting pattern and these inter-industry skill wage differentials in India, where the quality of intermediate inputs is likely to degrade rapidly because of the high number of unskilled laborers, poor infrastructure, and less-advantaged technology. The results remain robust even when considering selection bias, alternative reasons for inter-industry skill wage differentials, and a different period. The results of this study have important implications when considering countries' industrial development patterns.

Specific skills assessment learned by students of building engineering and technical architecture in topics relating to durability and control of concrete structures

In many university courses such as Building Engineering or Technical Architectural, the high density of the contents included in the curriculum, make the student, after graduation, unable to develop the skills already acquired and evaluated in the disciplines of the first courses. From the Group of Educational Innovation at the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) "Teaching of Structural Concrete" (GIEHE) we have conducted a study in which are valued specific skills acquired by students after the first courses of career. We have worked with students from UPM fourth-year career and with Technical Architecture students who have completed their studies and also have completed the Adaptation Course of Technical Architecture to the Building Engineer. The work is part of the Educational Innovation Project funded by the UPM "Integration of training and assessment of generic and specific skills in structural concrete" We have evaluated specific skills learned in the areas of durability and control of structural concrete structures. The results show that overall, students are not able to fully develop the skills already acquired earlier, even being these essential to their professional development. Possibly, the large amount of content taught in these degrees together with a teaching and assessment of "flat profile", ie, which are presented and evaluated with the same intensity as the fundamental and the accessory, are causes enough to cause these results.

Research and production of a multi-view streaming page

The electronic and mechanical media such as film, television, photography, offset, are just examples of how fast and important the technological development had become in society. Nevertheless the outcoming technologies and the continuous development had provided newer and better possibilities every time for having advanced services. Nowadays multi-view video has been developed with different tools and applications, having as main goal to be more innovative and bring within technical offerings in a friendly for all users in general, in terms of managing and accessibility (just internet connection is needed). The intention of all technologies is to generate an innovation in order to gain more users and start being popular, therefore is important to realize an implementation in this case. In such terms realizing about the outreach that Multi View Video, an importance to become more global in this days, an application that supports this aim such as the possibility of language selection within the use of a same scenario has been realized. Finally is important to point out that thanks to the Multi View Video's continuous progress in technology a more intercultural market will be reachable, making of it a shared society growth on the world's global development. � ��� ���� ������� ��� �� ��� ��� �������� ��� ���� ��� ��� ������ ���������� � ���� � �� ���� ���� � ���� �� � � ���� � � ��� ��� �� ��� �� � ��� ��� ��������� �� � ����� ��������� ��� � ��� � ���� ���� ����� ����������� ��� ��� �� � ������������� �� �������� �������� ������� ������� �� ����� �������� ��� � � �� ���� �������� ���� ����� �������� �������� �� ������ ���� �� � ����������� ������������� � � ��!��� � � � �� ������� ��� ��������"������ � �� ���������� �������� ��� �� ������ � ����� ����� ��� ��� �� � �� �� ���� �� ��� �� ���� � � � �� ��� ������ �� �� ��� �� �� ��� �� � �� ��� #�� ��� ������� � ��� �� � �� ������$������� � ��� ��� # ������� � ����� ����� �� ���� �% ���% �������� ��� ����� ����������� �� ������� �� � �� ������ ��� ���� �� ��� �� � ����� �� � �� � �� ����� ��� ��� ���� � � �� ��� ��������� ����� ��� � � �� ���������������������� ����������� ��� #����& ������ �� ��� �� � ���� � ��� � �� � ���'�� �� ��� ��� � % ��� % ���(�� ��� ������ � �� ���� �� ���������� ���� �� � � ��� � ����� '� �� ��� ��� ���������� ��' ������ ������ ������ � ��� �� ����� ����� ��(������������������� ��� � �

An Evening with Lisa Nicole Bell, Award-Winning Media Entrepreneur, Writer, Producer, and On Camera Talent

Lisa Bell is the founder and CEO of Inspired Life Media Group, a Los Angeles-based international content development and production company that works with a diverse cross-section of venture-backed startups, high profile individuals, and fortune 500 brands. Lisa, past content and business ventures are critically-acclaimed, diverse, and plentiful. She created, directed, and produced The American Dream Revised, a digital docuseries that follows a diverse group of young entrepreneurs. Lisa’s past business ventures include startups in technology, personal development, and original content.After launching her first company at 19 years old, she later started a for-profit social enterprise that reached more than 400,000 girls around the world with active programs in Liberia, England, Brazil, and the US.

Song selectivity and sensorimotor signals in vocal learning and production

Bird song, like human speech, is a learned vocal behavior that requires auditory feedback. Both as juveniles, while they learn to sing, and as adults, songbirds use auditory feedback to compare their own vocalizations with an internal model of a target song. Here we describe experiments that explore a role for the songbird anterior forebrain pathway (AFP), a basal ganglia-forebrain circuit, in evaluating song feedback and modifying vocal output. First, neural recordings in anesthetized, juvenile birds show that single AFP neurons are specialized to process the song stimuli that are compared during sensorimotor learning. AFP neurons are tuned to both the bird's own song and the tutor song, even when these stimuli are manipulated to be very different from each other. Second, behavioral experiments in adult birds demonstrate that lesions to the AFP block the deterioration of song that normally follows deafening. This observation suggests that deafening results in an instructive signal, indicating a mismatch between feedback and the internal song model, and that the AFP is involved in generating or transmitting this instructive signal. Finally, neural recordings from behaving birds reveal robust singing-related activity in the AFP. This activity is likely to originate from premotor areas and could be modulated by auditory feedback of the bird's own voice. One possibility is that this activity represents an efference copy, predicting the sensory consequences of motor commands. Overall, these studies illustrate that sensory and motor processes are highly interrelated in this circuit devoted to vocal learning, as is true for brain areas involved in speech.

Negative-strand RNA viruses: genetic engineering and applications.

The negative-strand RNA viruses are a broad group of animal viruses that comprise several important human pathogens, including influenza, measles, mumps, rabies, respiratory syncytial, Ebola, and hantaviruses. The development of new strategies to genetically manipulate the genomes of negative-strand RNA viruses has provided us with new tools to study the structure-function relationships of the viral components and their contributions to the pathogenicity of these viruses. It is also now possible to envision rational approaches--based on genetic engineering techniques--to design live attenuated vaccines against some of these viral agents. In addition, the use of different negative-strand RNA viruses as vectors to efficiently express foreign polypeptides has also become feasible, and these novel vectors have potential applications in disease prevention as well as in gene therapy.