Production of optical phase space vortices with non-locally distributed mode converters

Optical vortices have been observed in a wide variety of optical systems. They can be observed directly in the wavefront of optical beams, or in the correlations between pairs of entangled photons. We present a novel optical vortex which appears in a non-local plane of the two-photon phase space, composed of a single degree of freedom of each photon of an entangled pair. The preparation of this vortex can be viewed as a "non-local" or distributed mode converter. We show how these novel optical vortices of arbitrary order can be prepared in the spatial degrees of freedom of entangled photons.Comment: To appear in upcoming special issue "Orbital Angular Momentum" of the Journal of Optic

A miniaturized self-calibrated pyrometer microsystem

paper describes the design, modeling and optimization of a miniaturized self-calibrated pyrometer to detect infrared radiation (in 5-20 µm range of wavelengths) in order to measure the real temperature of objects without contact. The microsystem consists of a thermally insulated absorbing area and two thermopiles with the hot junctions in the absorbing area and the cold junctions on a heat sink (i.e. the silicon bulk). The complete microsystem is in silicon planar technology and each thermopile has a different reference temperature, biased by a Peltier microstructure near to the cold junction of the thermopile. A silicon die passivated with a silicon nitride membrane is the ground floor of all microsystem. The absorbing area, a black gold strip on the silicon nitride membrane is obtained by anisotropic etching of the bulk silicon from the back of the wafer. The pyrometer microsystem is composed by: the IR optical filter on the top, the electronic system built in CMOS technology added by Multi-Chip-Module (MCM) techniques and the pyrometer. Application of a network of pyrometers in textile industry is the final goal.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Grain yield adaptability and stability of blackeyed cowpea genotypes under rainfed agriculture in Brazil.

The present study aimed to evaluate the grain yield adaptability and stability of 20 blackeyed cowpea genotypes under rainfed agriculture in North, Northeastern and Central/Western Brazil

Viridans streptococcus endocarditis associated with spondylodiscitis.

Rev Port Cardiol. 2004 May;23(5):723-8. Viridans streptococcus endocarditis associated with spondylodiscitis. [Article in English, Portuguese] Luz A, Castro A, Ribeiro R, Bernardo L, Carvalho H, Bernardo A, Gomes L. SourceServiço de Cardiologia e Medicina 2 do Hospital Geral de Santo António, Porto, Portugal. [email protected] Abstract The authors report a case of a 78-year-old male, admitted to the Hospital with fever, lumbar pain and a systolic murmur. Viridans streptococcus endocarditis associated with spondylodiscitis was diagnosed. Images and results of the exams are presented. This case is compared with similar studies in the literature. PMID: 15279456 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE

Of adenosine and the blues: the adenosinergic system in the pathophysiology and treatment of major depressive disorder

© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the foremost cause of global disability, being responsible for enormous personal, societal, and economical costs. Importantly, existing pharmacological treatments for MDD are partially or totally ineffective in a large segment of patients. As such, the search for novel antidepressant drug targets, anchored on a clear understanding of the etiological and pathophysiological mechanisms underpinning MDD, becomes of the utmost importance. The adenosinergic system, a highly conserved neuromodulatory system, appears as a promising novel target, given both its regulatory actions over many MDD-affected systems and processes. With this goal in mind, we herein review the evidence concerning the role of adenosine as a potential player in pathophysiology and treatment of MDD, combining data from both human and animal studies. Altogether, evidence supports the assertions that the adenosinergic system is altered in both MDD patients and animal models, and that drugs targeting this system have considerable potential as putative antidepressants. Furthermore, evidence also suggests that modifications in adenosine signaling may have a key role in the effects of several pharmacological and non-pharmacological antidepressant treatments with demonstrated efficacy, such as electroconvulsive shock, sleep deprivation, and deep brain stimulation. Lastly, it becomes clear from the available literature that there is yet much to study regarding the role of the adenosinergic system in the pathophysiology and treatment of MDD, and we suggest several avenues of research that are likely to prove fruitful.This work was supported by project funding from Fundação para a Ciência e para a Tecnologia (FCT) to SHV (PTDC/BTM-SAL/32147/2017) and AMS (PTDC/MED-FAR/30933/2017). This project has received funding from H2020-WIDESPREAD-05-2017-Twinning (EpiEpinet) under grant agreement No. 952455. MF-F (SFRH/BD/147505/2019), JG-R (PD/BD/150342/2019), and NR (PD/BD/113463/2015) are supported by PhD fellowships from FCT.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio