Self-Forces on Electric and Magnetic Linear Sources in the Space-Time of a Cosmic String

In this paper we calculate the magnetic and electric self-forces, induced by the conical structure of a cosmic string space-time, on a long straight wire which presents either a constant current or a linear charge density. We also show how these self-forces are related by a Lorentz tranformation and, in this way, explain what two different inertial observers detect in their respective frames.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, to be published in Phys. Rev. D

Virtual environments to cope with anxiety situations: Two case-studies

Anxiety is a growing problem in modern societies. Virtual reality has been widely adopted to treat anxiety and more severe psychological problems. We have been working on an approach that involves compelling virtual environments (VE) to treat anxiety. These VE recreate a particular situation and support in real-time the intervention of the therapist. Public domain software tools and a simple projection screen have been used. This paper describes two interactive applications that simulate VE to help people coping with particular anxiety situations. One of the applications is developed in Blender and is dedicated to the fear of talking in front of an audience; the other application is developed in OpenSim and is devoted to the fear of driving inside a tunnel.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The Year of Discovery

Education is currently seen worldwide as the most desirable path for people to earn a decent living and to reach personal growth and happiness. It is generally agreed that educated people not only get higher incomes but also contribute considerably to business innovation, productivity and national economic performance. Recent evidence also indicates that educated people can make decisions that help to get healthier and longer lives. So, it is possible to say that education can help to get success, health and happiness. This is the desire of all human beings and education is a great part to foster human welfare. Another aspect about education is that there is a strong and direct relationship between investment in education, educational achievement and economic growth. These facts lead to the need to work on improving the quality of basic education or K12, mainly concerning basic knowledge in literacy, numeracy and the development of essential life skills. However, it is necessary to deliver a high-quality education with comparatively low spending. Therefore, public education, which should provide equal education access for all citizens, has to find ways to do so. The Education Research Team of COPEC has designed and implemented what has been named as K12 School Adventure Plan for a city, which challenge is to provide better and effective knowledge for young students even for those who will not enter University. The main goal is to help encourage more bright young minds to pursue careers in engineering and/or technology by providing K12 students of public schools of the city the necessary knowledge about sciences and research methodology in a way that will remain as a life practice. It fits to the necessity of the country to improve competitiveness in technology growth that has implications for workforce development as well as science and technology development.Competitivity Factors Operational Programme - COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007136Competitivity Factors Operational Programme - COMPETE: POCI-010145-FEDER-007043Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) - within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/201

Electrostatic self-force in (2+1)-dimensional cosmological gravity

Point sources in (2+1)-dimensional gravity are conical singularities that modify the global curvature of the space giving rise to self-interaction effects on classical fields. In this work we study the electrostatic self-interaction of a point charge in the presence of point masses in (2+1)-dimensional gravity with a cosmological constant.Comment: 9 pages, Late

Comparison of RAPD, RFLP, AFLP and SSR markers for diversity studies in tropical maize inbred lines

In order to compare their relative efficiencies as markers and to find the most suitable marker for maize diversity studies we evaluated 18 inbred tropical maize lines using a number of different loci as markers. The loci used were: 774 amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs); 262 random amplified polymorphic DNAs (RAPDs); 185 restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs); and 68 simple sequence repeats (SSR). For estimating genetic distance the AFLP and RFLP markers gave the most correlated results, with a correlation coefficient of r = 0.87. Bootstrap analysis were used to evaluate the number of loci for the markers and the coefficients of variation (CV) revealed a skewed distribution. The dominant markers (AFLP and RAPD) had small CV values indicating a skewed distribution while the codominant markers gave high CV values. The use of maximum values of genetic distance CVs within each sample size was efficient in determining the number of loci needed to obtain a maximum CV of 10%. The number of RFLP and AFLP loci used was enough to give CV values of below 5%, while the SSRs and RAPD loci gave higher CV values. Except for the RAPD markers, all the markers correlated genetic distance with single cross performance and heterosis which showed that they could be useful in predicting single cross performance and heterosis in intrapopulation crosses for broad-based populations. Our results indicate that AFLP seemed to be the best-suited molecular assay for fingerprinting and assessing genetic relationships among tropical maize inbred lines with high accuracy.579588Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq

The amino acids motif-32GSSYN36-in the catalytic domain of E. coli flavorubredoxin NO reductase is essential for its activity

Funding Information: Funding: This study was financially supported by the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e Tec-nologia (FCT), grants PTDC/BIA-BQM/27959/2017 and PTDC/BIA-BQM/0562/2020, and Project MOSTMICRO-ITQB with references UIDB/04612/2020 and UIDP/04612/2020. This project has also received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement 810856. MCM is the recipient of FCT grant SFRH/BD/143651/2019. BAS is the recipient of FCT grant DFA/BD/8066/2020. Funding Information: This study was financially supported by the Portuguese Funda??o para a Ci?ncia e Tecnologia (FCT), grants PTDC/BIA-BQM/27959/2017 and PTDC/BIA-BQM/0562/2020, and Project MOSTMICRO-ITQB with references UIDB/04612/2020 and UIDP/04612/2020. This project has also received funding from the European Union?s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement 810856. MCM is the recipient of FCT grant SFRH/BD/143651/2019. BAS is the recipient of FCT grant DFA/BD/8066/2020. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Flavodiiron proteins (FDPs) are a family of modular and soluble enzymes endowed with nitric oxide and/or oxygen reductase activities, producing N2O or H2O, respectively. The FDP from Escherichia coli, which, apart from the two core domains, possesses a rubredoxin-like domain at the C-terminus (therefore named flavorubredoxin (FlRd)), is a bona fide NO reductase, exhibiting O2 reducing activity that is approximately ten times lower than that for NO. Among the flavorubredoxins, there is a strictly conserved amino acids motif,-G[S,T]SYN-, close to the catalytic diiron center. To assess its role in FlRd’s activity, we designed several site-directed mutants, replacing the conserved residues with hydrophobic or anionic ones. The mutants, which maintained the general characteristics of the wild type enzyme, including cofactor content and integrity of the diiron center, revealed a decrease of their oxygen reductase activity, while the NO reductase activity—specifically, its physiological function—was almost completely abolished in some of the mutants. Molecular modeling of the mutant proteins pointed to subtle changes in the predicted structures that resulted in the reduction of the hydration of the regions around the conserved residues, as well as in the elimination of hydrogen bonds, which may affect proton transfer and/or product release.publishe

Toll-like Receptor 4, F4/80 And Pro-inflammatory Cytokines In Intestinal And Mesenteric Fat Tissue Of Crohn's Disease.

Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic intestinal ailment with a multifactorial etiology, whose incidence has increased during the last three decades. Recently, a role for mesenteric fat has been proposed in CD pathophysiology, since fat hypertrophy is detected nearby the affected intestinal area; however, there are few studies on this aspect. To evaluate inflammatory activity in intestinal mucosa and mesenteric fat tissue of patients with CD and controls. Ten patients with ileocecal CD and 16 patients with non-inflammatory disease (control groups) were studied. The specimens were snap-frozen and the expression of TLR-4, F4/80, IL1-β and IL-6 were determined by immunoblot of protein extracts. TLR4 RNA level were measured using RT-PCR. The t Test was applied (p<0.05). The local ethical committee approved the study. The intestinal mucosa of CD group had significantly higher protein levels of TLR-4, F4/80, IL-1β and IL-6 than the controls. The gene expression of TLR4 was lower in the intestinal mucosa of CD compared to the control group. Regard the mesenteric fat tissue, there was no statistical difference related to TLR-4, F4/80, IL-1β and IL-6 proteins expression. These findings may result from an up-regulation of macrophage activation and intracellular pathways activated by bacterial antigens, which are more important in intestinal mucosa than fat tissue in CD patients. This may represent an anomalous regulation of innate immunity and could contribute to the production of proinflammatory mediators and disease development.698-10