An unified cosmological evolution driven by a mass dimension one fermionic field

An unified cosmological model for an Universe filled with a mass dimension one (MDO) fermionic field plus the standard matter fields is considered. After a primordial quantum fluctuation the field slowly rolls down to the bottom of a symmetry breaking potential, driving the Universe to an inflationary regime that increases the scale factor for about 71 e-folds. After the end of inflation, the field starts to oscillate and can transfer its energy to the standard model particles through a reheating mechanism. Such a process is briefly discussed in terms of the admissible couplings of the MDO field with the electromagnetic and Higgs fields. We show that even if the field loses all its kinetic energy during reheating, it can evolve as dark matter due a gravitational coupling (of spinorial origin) with baryonic matter. Since the field acquires a constant value at the bottom of the potential, a non-null, although tiny, mass term acts as a dark energy component nowadays. Therefore, we conclude that MDO fermionic field is a good candidate to drive the whole evolution of the Universe, in such a way that the inflationary field, dark matter and dark energy are described by different manifestations of a single field.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure

Fast pick up technique for high quality heterostructures of bilayer graphene and hexagonal boron nitride

We present a fast method to fabricate high quality heterostructure devices by picking up crystals of arbitrary sizes. Bilayer graphene is encapsulated with hexagonal boron nitride to demonstrate this approach, showing good electronic quality with mobilities ranging from 17 000 cm^2/V/s at room temperature to 49 000 cm^2/V/s at 4.2 K, and entering the quantum Hall regime below 0.5 T. This method provides a strong and useful tool for the fabrication of future high quality layered crystal devices.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Group theory analysis of electrons and phonons in N-layer graphene systems

In this work we study the symmetry properties of electrons and phonons in graphene systems as function of the number of layers. We derive the selection rules for the electron-radiation and for the electron-phonon interactions at all points in the Brillouin zone. By considering these selection rules, we address the double resonance Raman scattering process. The monolayer and bilayer graphene in the presence of an applied electric field are also discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Social Capital accumulation and the role of the researcher: An example of a transdisciplinary visioning process for the future of agriculture in Europe

Transdisciplinarity is a demanding paradigm, considered by many in the literature as the way to move forward in terms of science and policy integration. In this paper we present the example of a tailored transdisciplinary (TD) Process to tackle a key topic of European Policy The future of agriculture at the regional level. This Phased process was followed in seven regions across Europe and involved the co-construction of future visions, engaging both researchers and a range of relevant stakeholders. This Paper presents results based on a critical reflection made by researchers and stakeholders in Portugal and Scotland, through- out the participatory process. These results provide insights into the roles and responsibilities of researchers and stakeholders in TD processes. One main conclusion is that accumulated social capital can be essential to initiate and maintain a TD process, and requires a commitment between the research community and the surrounding society. Our analysis demonstrates the challenges of implementing a TD process within the temporal frame/boundaries of a research project and the added value of having transdisciplinarity as part of the long term strategy of a research group, not just one part of a specific project. Not acknowledging this may lead to disappointment and fatigue amongst those connecting with researchers. We also found that researchers position themselves differently in a TD Process depending on their soft skills, experience and knowledge about transdisciplinarity; hence we call attention to the need to work more explicitly with these skills in the research environment and to present this concept in an early stage of researcher training, if better transdisciplinarity is to be achieved

Controlling spin relaxation in hexagonal BN-encapsulated graphene with a transverse electric field

We experimentally study the electronic spin transport in hBN encapsulated single layer graphene nonlocal spin valves. The use of top and bottom gates allows us to control the carrier density and the electric field independently. The spin relaxation times in our devices range up to 2 ns with spin relaxation lengths exceeding 12 $\mu$m even at room temperature. We obtain that the ratio of the spin relaxation time for spins pointing out-of-plane to spins in-plane is $\tau_{\bot} / \tau_{||} \approx$ 0.75 for zero applied perpendicular electric field. By tuning the electric field this anisotropy changes to $\approx$0.65 at 0.7 V/nm, in agreement with an electric field tunable in-plane Rashba spin-orbit coupling

Retinopathy of prematurity: A review of pathophysiology and signaling pathways

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a vasoproliferative disorder of the retina and a leading cause of visual impairment and childhood blindness worldwide. The disease is characterized by an early stage of retinal microvascular degeneration, followed by neovascularization that can lead to subsequent retinal detachment and permanent visual loss. Several factors play a key role during the different pathological stages of the disease. Oxidative and nitrosative stress and inflammatory processes are important contributors to the early stage of ROP. Nitric oxide synthase and arginase play important roles in ischemia/reperfusion-induced neurovascular degeneration. Destructive neovascularization is driven by mediators of the hypoxia-inducible factor pathway, such as vascular endothelial growth factor and metabolic factors (succinate). The extracellular matrix is involved in hypoxia-induced retinal neovascularization. Vasorepulsive molecules (semaphorin 3A) intervene preventing the revascularization of the avascular zone. This review focuses on current concepts about signaling pathways and their mediators, involved in the pathogenesis of ROP, highlighting new potentially preventive and therapeutic modalities. A better understanding of the intricate molecular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of ROP should allow the development of more effective and targeted therapeutic agents to reduce aberrant vasoproliferation and facilitate physiological retinal vascular development.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Caprinocultura e ovinocultura: crescimento promissor x desorganização preocupante.

bitstream/item/52348/1/Midia-Caprinocultura-e-ovinocultura.pd

Situação atual e perspectivas da caprinocultura no Vale do São Francisco.

Caracterização física e agro-sócio-econômico da zona caprinícola do Vale do São Francisco; Limitações da Caprinocultura regional; Potencialidades da Caprinocultura regional; O mercado para os produtos caprinos e ovinos; O potencial de interação com as áreas irrigadas e com outras atividades agrrícolas e não agrícolas; Infraestrutura agroindustrial; O expressivo dispositivo institucional da região; Proposta de um programa de desenvolvimento

A pilot study on canonical gravity with mass dimension one fermions

The mass dimension one (MDO) fermionic field is built on a complete set of dual-helicity eigenspinors of the charge conjugation operator, which obeys the statistic of Fermi-Dirac. These spinors are a potential candidate for the description of dark matter. The redefinition of the dual structure of this object holds a local adjacent theory and satisfies complete Lorentz invariance. In this work, we investigate important aspects of the interaction of this fermion with gravity in the light of a canonical formulation in ADM formalism. We construct an action via tetrad fields using a manifold on a family of space-like surfaces $\Sigma_t$ that carries the MDO matter field, and additionally we propose a condition for the action to have a term associated with dark energy. We found the Hamiltonian and diffeomorphism constraints at the classical level for gravitational dynamics with the immersion of this material content in space-time, which leads us to the interpretation of the contribution of dark matter energy density, parallel to the lapse function of foliation and its directional flux of energy density in the hypersurface of manifold.Comment: Larevtex4, 12 pages with 0 figure