Twisted Nano-optics: Manipulating Light at the Nanoscale with Twisted Phonon Polaritonic Slabs

Recent discoveries have shown that when two layers of van der Waals (vdW) materials are superimposed with a relative twist angle between their respective in-plane principal axes, the electronic properties of the coupled system can be dramatically altered. Here, we demonstrate that a similar concept can be extended to the optics realm, particularly to propagating polaritons, hybrid light-matter interactions. To do this, we fabricate stacks composed of two twisted slabs of a polar vdW crystal (MoO3) supporting low-loss anisotropic phonon polaritons (PhPs), and image the propagation of the latter when launched by localized sources (metal antennas). Our images reveal that under a critical angle the PhPs isofrequency curve (determining the PhPs momentum at a fixed frequency) undergoes a topological transition. Remarkably, at this angle, the propagation of PhPs is strongly guided along predetermined directions (canalization regime) with no geometrical spreading (diffraction-less). These results demonstrate a new degree of freedom (twist angle) for controlling the propagation of polaritons at the nanoscale with potential for nano-imaging, (bio)-sensing, quantum applications and heat management

Historia y Filosofía de la Ciencia en Latinoamérica

Introduction: The countries of Latin America have a common history in which they share languages, roots and traditions, and this is a major milestone in their unique way of progress. Objective: To characterise the communication patterns and impact of Latin American scientific output in the category “History and Philosophy of Science”. Methods: A bibliometric study was conducted where the documents belonging to the category "History and Philosophy of Science" from the period between 1996 and 2016 were analysed, using as tools Scival and Scimago Country and Journal Rank. Results: While the regional scientific output showed an annual growth, especially after 2009, this growth was less noticeable at a global level, which indicates the scientific community’s interest towards this type of studies. More than half of the documents were cited, with a citation average of 28 cites per document. More than 30% of the communications involved international collaboration. Different studies have proven that the works which involved collaboration had a greater impact, at the expense of their visibility. Conclusions: The analysis of the Latin-American field of History and Philosophy of Science is characterised by a sustained growth, with Brazil as its greater producer. The region has high indicators for scientific leadership and citation. They show their potential based on the recovery of the historical memory of Latin-American people in a new context related to the recognition of scientific heritage as an essential part of our people’s culture, economy, politics and society

A new near-IR window of low extinction in the Galactic plane

Reproduced with permission from Astronomy & Astrophysics. © 2018 ESO. Comments: 6 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & AstrophysicsAims. The windows of low extinction in the Milky Way (MW) plane are rare but important because they enable us to place structural constraints on the opposite side of the Galaxy, which has hither to been done rarely. Methods. We use the near-infrared (near-IR) images of the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) Survey to build extinction maps and to identify low extinction windows towards the Southern Galactic plane. Here we report the discovery of VVV WIN 1713-3939, a very interesting window with relatively uniform and low extinction conveniently placed very close to the Galactic plane. Results. The new window of roughly 30 arcmin diameter is located at Galactic coordinates (l, b) = (347.4, -0.4) deg. We analyse the VVV near-IR colour-magnitude diagrams in this window. The mean total near-IR extinction and reddening values measured for this window are A Ks = 0.46 and E(J - K s) = 0.95. The red clump giants within the window show a bimodal magnitude distribution in the K s band, with peaks at K s = 14.1 and 14.8 mag, corresponding to mean distances of D = 11.0 ± 2.4 and 14.8 ± 3.6 kpc, respectively. We discuss the origin of these red clump overdensities within the context of the MW disk structure.Peer reviewe

Extinction ratios in the inner Galaxy as revealed by the VVV survey

Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters, 10 pages, 3 Figures, 2 Tables © 2017 The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.Interstellar extinction towards the Galactic Center is large and significantly differential. Its reddening and dimming effects in red clump stars in the Galactic Bulge can be exploited to better constrain the extinction law towards the innermost Galaxy. By virtue of a deep and complete catalog of more than 30 million objets at $|l|\le2.7\deg$ and $|b|\le1.55\deg$ obtained from VVV survey observations, we apply the red clump method to infer the selective-to-total extinction ratios in the $Z$, $Y$, $J$, $H$ and $K_s$ broadband near-infrared filters. The measured values are smaller than previously reported, and are not constant, with mean values, e.g., $A_{K_S}/E(J-K_s)=0.428\pm0.005\pm0.04$ and $A_{K_S}/E(H-K_s)=1.104\pm0.022\pm0.2$. We also obtain a ratio $A_Z$:$A_Y$:$A_J$:$A_H$:$A_{K_S}$ of 7.74:5.38:3.30:1.88:1.0, implying extinction towards the Galactic Center to follow a distribution as a function of wavelength steeper than previously reported, consistent with a power law $A_{\lambda}\propto{\lambda}^{-2.47}$ in the near-infrared.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Efecto del cereal base y del programa de alimetnación sobre los parámetros productivos en pollitas de 1 a 17 semanas de edad.

Maíz y trigo son los cereales más utilizados en piensos para aves. El maíz tiene menos proteína (7,7 vs. 11,2%) pero más energía (3.260 vs. 3.150 Kcal EMAn/kg) que el trigo (FEDNA, 2010). Además, el valor nutricional es más variable para el trigo que para el maíz Kim et al., 1976; Mollah et al., 1983). En pollos y en ponedoras, numerosos trabajos indican que el trigo puede ser utilizado en sustitución del maíz como ingrediente principal del pienso Mathlouthi et al., 2002; Carré et al., 2002; Lázaro et al., 2003; Pérez-Bonilla et al., 2011). Frikha et al. (2009), observaron que las pollitas alimentadas con maíz tenían mayores GMD pero IC similares que las pollitas alimentadas con trigo. La presentación del pienso afecta los rendimientos productivos en avicultura. Amerah et al. (2007) mostraron un aumento de la GMD y una mejora del IC en pollos alimentados con gránulos en comparación con los alimentados con harina. Gous y Morris (2001) observaron que pollitas alimentadas con migas de 1 a 4 sem y con gránulo de 5 a 20 sem de edad, consumieron 2% menos pienso pero pesaron un 6% más que las alimentadas con harina durante toda la recría. Frikha et al. (2009) observaron un incremento en la GMD en las pollitas alimentadas con gránulo respecto a las pollitas alimentadas con harina. Los autores no han encontrado información alguna sobre el efecto de alternar la presentación del pienso (bien en harina, bien en miga) durante las distintas etapas del periodo de recría (0-5, 5-10 y 10-17 sem de vida) sobre la productividad de las aves. El presente trabajo estudió la influencia del cereal base del pienso y de cambios en la presentación del mismo durante las 3 fases del programa de alimentación en recría sobre los parámetros productivos en pollitas de 1 a 17 semanas de edad

A stereological study of synapse number in the epileptic human hippocampus

Hippocampal sclerosis is the most frequent pathology encountered in resected mesial temporal structures from patients with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Here, we have used stereological methods to compare the overall density of synapses and neurons between non-sclerotic and sclerotic hippocampal tissue obtained by surgical resection from patients with TLE. Specifically, we examined the possible changes in the subiculum and CA1, regions that seem to be critical for the development and/or maintenance of seizures in these patients. We found a remarkable decrease in synaptic and neuronal density in the sclerotic CA1, and while the subiculum from the sclerotic hippocampus did not display changes in synaptic density, the neuronal density was higher. Since the subiculum from the sclerotic hippocampus displays a significant increase in neuronal density, as well as a various other neurochemical changes, we propose that the apparently normal subiculum from the sclerotic hippocampus suffers profound alterations in neuronal circuits at both the molecular and synaptic level that are likely to be critical for the development or maintenance of seizure activit

Towards a holistic indicator of flow disturbance impact: fish community size spectra

Fish size-spectra provide a simple synthetic metric to assess the effects of pressures on the overall function of river ecosystems. An exploration of the effects of hydrological pressures on this metric is addressed in order to test its sensitiveness as a potential holistic indicator of ecological integrity. A set of 652 sampling sites with individual fish length data were used to compare the size-spectra among unimpaired sites and sites only affected by hydrological pressures. The variation of size-spectra along a gradient of rheophily was also considered. Our results show that size spectra slopes are naturally steeper in rheophilic than in limnephilic reaches. According to this, hydrological alterations produce different responses in the fish community size spectra. Hydrologically impaired rheophilic reaches show an increase in the ecological efficiency (size spectra slope) but a decrease in community capacity (elevation of the size spectra), whereas limnephilic reaches experience a decrease in the ecological efficiency but an increase in the food-web capacity (increased elevation of the size spectra). Slight differences in the type of the hydrological alteration (e.g. water abstraction vs. hydropeaking) might explain these effects

Effects of the main cereal and type of fat of the diet on productive performance and egg quality of brown egg laying hens from twenty two to fifty four weeks of age

The influence of the main cereal and supplemental fat of the diet on productive performance and egg quality was studied in 756 brown-egg laying hens from 22 to 54 weeks of age. The experiment was conducted as a completely randomized design with 9 treatments arranged factorially with 3 cereals (dented corn, soft wheat, and barley) and 3 types of fat [soy oil (SBO), acidulated soapstocks (AOS), and lard]

Fingerprint Image-Quality Estimation and its Application to Multialgorithm Verification

Signal-quality awareness has been found to increase recognition rates and to support decisions in multisensor environments significantly. Nevertheless, automatic quality assessment is still an open issue. Here, we study the orientation tensor of fingerprint images to quantify signal impairments, such as noise, lack of structure, blur, with the help of symmetry descriptors. A strongly reduced reference is especially favorable in biometrics, but less information is not sufficient for the approach. This is also supported by numerous experiments involving a simpler quality estimator, a trained method (NFIQ), as well as the human perception of fingerprint quality on several public databases. Furthermore, quality measurements are extensively reused to adapt fusion parameters in a monomodal multialgorithm fingerprint recognition environment. In this study, several trained and nontrained score-level fusion schemes are investigated. A Bayes-based strategy for incorporating experts past performances and current quality conditions, a novel cascaded scheme for computational efficiency, besides simple fusion rules, is presented. The quantitative results favor quality awareness under all aspects, boosting recognition rates and fusing differently skilled experts efficiently as well as effectively (by training).Comment: Published at IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Securit