Testing the EPR Locality using B-Mesons

We study the possibility of testing local realistic theory (LRT), envisioned implicitly by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen in 1935, based on the Bell inequality for the correlations in the decay modes of entangled K or B-mesons. It is shown that such a test is possible for a restricted class of LRT, despite the passive nature of decay events and/or the non-unitary treatment of the correlations which invalidate the test for general LRT. Unfortunately, the present setup of the KEKB (Belle) experiment, where the coherence of entangled B-mesons has been confirmed recently, does not admit such a test due to the inability of determining the decay times of the entangled pairs separately. The indeterminacy also poses a problem for ensuring the locality of the test, indicating that improvement to resolve the indeterminacy is crucial for the test of LRT.Comment: 14 pages, PlainTeX, minor revisio

Reaction time and the learning of an anticipatóry timing task in the elderly

Parece que a “performance” motora em idosos está relacionada ao sistema efetor mais em termos dc controle do que de força muscular, particularmente com a velocidade de processamento de informações. Durante o envelhecimento há um aumento do tempo de resposta motora devido a modificações estruturais e funcionais do organismo. Entretanto, a identificação dos fatores envolvidos nesta lentidão e o efeito destes fatores na organização espacial e temporal dc movimentos ainda necessitam de maiores estudos. O objetivo deste estudo foi medir, inicialmente, o tempo dc reação (TR) dc indivíduos idosos e então verificar a sua influência na aprendizagem de uma tarefa dc “timing1 antccipatório. Trinta indivíduos entre 60 e 79 anos dc idade participaram do experimento. Para investigar o efeito do TR foram formados dois grupos experimentais: (TRC) tempo de reação curto: c (TRL) tempo dc reação longo. Os resultados foram analisados cm termos de erros absoluto, constante e variável, aplicando-se análise de variância, teste t de Student e teste dc Tukcy. Ambos os grupos mostraram uma diminuição gradativa de erros na fase de aquisição e mantiveram um nível dc desempenho semelhante na fase dc retenção. O efeito do TR curto ou longo foi diluído durante o processo de aprendizagem. Os resultados revelaram que mesmo partindo de estados iniciais diferentes, alcançou-se o mesmo patamar de desempenho (estado final semelhante), evidenciando a importância de se considerar as diferenças individuais no que se refere a adaptabilidade do idoso na aprendizagem motoraIt seems that motor performance in the elderly is related to the effector system, more in terms of control rather than strength, particularly regarding the speed of information processing. During the aging process there are increases in response time due to organism's structural and functional modifications. However, the identification of factors involved in this process and the way these factors affect the temporal and spatial organization of movements need more investigation. The purpose of this study was initially to measure the reaction time (RT) of elderly and then to verify its influence on the learning of an anticipatory timing task. Thirty individuals between the ages of 60 and 79 years participated as subjects in the experiment. In order to investigate the effect of RT on the learning of an anticipatory timing task, the subjects were distributed in two experimental groups: (TRC) short reaction time; and (TRL) long reaction time. The results were analysed in terms of absolute, constant, and variable error (in msec). The analysis of variance, Student t test and Tukey post hoc test were used to carry out the statistical treatment. Both groups showed a gradual reduction of timing errors in the acquisition phase and maintained a similar level of performance in the retention phase. The effect of short or long RT was attenuated during the learning process. These results showed that it is possible to achieve similar end states beginning from different starting points and they were interpreted as an evidence that individual differences must be taken into account in order to understand adaptability of the elderly in the process of motor learnin

On tests of local realism by CP-violation parameters of K^0 mesons

Recently various papers have proposed to test local realism (LR) by considering electroweak CP-violation parameters values in neutral pseudoscalar meson systems. Considering the large interest for a conclusive test of LR and the experimental accessibility to these tests, in this paper we critically consider these results showing how they, albeit very interesting, require anyway additional assumptions and therefore cannot be considered conclusive tests of LR

Inverse Orbital Torque via Spin-Orbital Entangled States

While current-induced torque by orbital current has been experimentally found in various structures, evidence for its reciprocity has been missing so far. Here, we report experimental evidences of strong inverse orbital torque in YIG/Pt/CuOx (YIG = Y3Fe5O12) mediated by spin-orbital entangled electronic states in Pt. By injecting spin current from YIG to Pt by the spin pumping via ferromagnetic resonance and by the spin Seebeck effect, we find a pronounced inverse spin Hall effect-like signal. While a part of the signal is explained as due to the inverse spin-orbital Hall effect in Pt, we also find substantial increase of the signal in YIG/Pt/CuOx structures compared to the signal in YIG/Pt. We attribute this to the inverse orbital Edelstein effect at Pt/CuOx interface mediated by the spin-orbital entangled states in Pt. Our work paves the way toward understanding of spin-orbital entangled physics in nonequilibrium and provides a way for electrical detection of the orbital current in orbitronic device applications.Comment: 8 pages, four figure

Pharmacogenomics, human genetic diversity and the incorporation and rejection of color/race in Brazil

Public funding for research on the action of drugs in countries like the United States requires that racial classification of research subjects should be considered when defining the composition of the samples as well as in data analysis, sometimes resulting in interpretations that Whites and Blacks differ in their pharmacogenetic profiles. In Brazil, pharmacogenomic results have led to very different interpretations when compared with those obtained in the United States. This is explained as deriving from the genomic heterogeneity of the Brazilian population. This article argues that in the evolving field of pharmacogenomics research in Brazil there is simultaneously both an incorporation and rejection of the US informed race-genes paradigm. We suggest that this must be understood in relation to continuities with national and transnational history of genetic research in Brazil, a differently situated politics of Brazilian public health and the ongoing valorization of miscegenation or race mixture by Brazilian geneticists as a resource for transnational genetic research. Our data derive from anthropological investigation conducted in INCA (Brazilian National Cancer Institute), in Rio de Janeiro, with a focus on the drug warfarin. The criticism of Brazilian scientists regarding the uses of racial categorization includes a revision of mathematical algorithms for drug dosage widely used in clinical procedures around the world. Our analysis reveals how the incorporation of ideas of racial purity and admixture, as it relates to the efficacy of drugs, touches on issues related to the possibility of application of pharmaceutical technologies on a global scale

Resolução de Problemas no Ensino de Química – fundamentos epistemológicos para o emprego da metodologia na Educação Básica

A resolução de problemas se constitui em campo metodológico e epistemológico do ensino de ciências. Enquanto metodologia de ensino permite o trabalho pedagogicamente orientado por situações instigantes, a construção de concepções cientificas adequadas e o desenvolvimento de atitude científica nos contextos das aulas de ciências. Como campo epistemológico, fundamentado principalmente no trabalho de Larry Laudan (1977), permite compreender a ciência como empreendimento humano focado na resolução de problemas empíricos e conceituais que promovem o desenvolvimento teórico e experimental da ciência. Este texto se propõe a apresentar e discutir aspectos da teoria de Laudan com o objetivo de fundamentar a tese de que a química deve ser ensinada a partir da atividade de resolução de problemas

The interplay of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya and Kitaev interactions for magnonic properties of Heisenberg-Kitaev honeycomb ferromagnets

The properties of Kitaev materials are attracting ever increasing attention owing to their exotic properties. In realistic two-dimensional materials, Kitaev interaction is often accompanied by the Dzyloshinskii-Moriya interaction, which poses a challenge of distinguishing their magnitude separately. In this work, we demonstrate that it can be done by accessing magnonic transport properties. By studying honeycomb ferromagnets exhibiting Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya and Kitaev interactions simultaneously, we reveal non-trivial magnonic topological properties accompanied by intricate magnonic transport characteristics as given by thermal Hall and magnon Nernst effects. We also investigate the effect of a magnetic field, showing that it does not only break the symmetry of the system but also brings drastic modifications to magnonic topological transport properties, which serve as hallmarks of the relative strength of anisotropic exchange interactions. Based on our findings, we suggest strategies to estimate the importance of Kitaev interactions in real materials.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Molecular and geographic analyses of vampire bat-transmitted cattle rabies in central Brazil

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Vampire bats are important rabies virus vectors, causing critical problems in both the livestock industry and public health sector in Latin America. In order to assess the epidemiological characteristics of vampire bat-transmitted rabies, the authors conducted phylogenetic and geographical analyses using sequence data of a large number of cattle rabies isolates collected from a wide geographical area in Brazil.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Partial nucleoprotein genes of rabies viruses isolated from 666 cattle and 18 vampire bats between 1987 and 2006 were sequenced and used for phylogenetic analysis. The genetic variants were plotted on topographical maps of Brazil.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study, 593 samples consisting of 24 genetic variants were analyzed. Regional localization of variants was observed, with the distribution of several variants found to be delimited by mountain ranges which served as geographic boundaries. The geographical distributions of vampire-bat and cattle isolates that were classified as the identical phylogenetic group were found to overlap with high certainty. Most of the samples analyzed in this study were isolated from adjacent areas linked by rivers.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study revealed the existence of several dozen regional variants associated with vampire bats in Brazil, with the distribution patterns of these variants found to be affected by mountain ranges and rivers. These results suggest that epidemiological characteristics of vampire bat-related rabies appear to be associated with the topographical and geographical characteristics of areas where cattle are maintained, and the factors affecting vampire bat ecology.</p

Physical fitness spurts in pre-adolescent boys and girls: Timing, intensity and sequencing

We aim to (1) estimate age of attainment of the peak mid-growth spurt in stature (age-at-peak MGS) in pre-adolescent boys and girls; (2) identify the timing, intensity, and sequences of physical fitness (PF) spurts aligned by the age-at-peak MGS; and (3) identify any sex differences in PF spurts aligned by age-at peak MGS. The sample included 180 Portuguese children (90 girls) aged 6 to 10 years at study entry who were followed annually for 4 years. Height, health-, and performance-related PF were assessed. Age-at peak MGS and PF spurts were estimated using a non-smooth mathematical procedure. Boys’ and girls’ age-at-peak MGS occurred at 7.8 ± 0.47 years and 8.0 ± 0.72 years, respectively. PF spurts’ timing aligned by age-at-peak MGS were as follows: (1) before age-at-peak MGS: boys – static strength, aerobic capacity, explosive leg strength, and flexibility; girls – speed, agility, aerobic capacity, and upper body strength; (2) coincident with age-at-peak MGS: girls – explosive leg strength and flexibility; (3) after age-at-peak MGS: boys – abdominal strength, upper body strength, agility, and speed; girls – abdominal strength and static strength. Boys and girls attained their MGS at relatively similar ages. However, the timing and sequences of PF spurts, aligned on age-at-MGS, were different between boys and girls.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Commission des Communautes Europeennes: Groupe du Porte-Parole = Commission of European Communities: Spokesman Group. Spokesman Service Note to National Offices Bio No. (81) 276, 8 July 1981

This paper presents a novel approach for multi-lingual sentiment classification in short texts. This is a challenging task as the amount of training data in languages other than English is very limited. Previously proposed multi-lingual approaches typically require to establish a correspondence to English for which powerful classifiers are already available. In contrast, our method does not require such supervision. We leverage large amounts of weakly-supervised data in various languages to train a multi-layer convolutional network and demonstrate the importance of using pre-training of such networks. We thoroughly evaluate our approach on various multi-lingual datasets, including the recent SemEval-2016 sentiment prediction benchmark (Task 4), where we achieved state-of-the-art performance. We also compare the performance of our model trained individually for each language to a variant trained for all languages at once. We show that the latter model reaches slightly worse – but still acceptable – performance when compared to the single language model, while benefiting from better generalization properties across languages