Projecting the Bethe-Salpeter Equation onto the Light-Front and back: A Short Review

The technique of projecting the four-dimensional two-body Bethe-Salpeter equation onto the three-dimensional Light-Front hypersurface, combined with the quasi-potential approach, is briefly illustrated, by placing a particular emphasis on the relation between the projection method and the effective dynamics of the valence component of the Light-Front wave function. Some details on how to construct the Fock expansion of both i) the Light-Front effective interaction and ii) the electromagnetic current operator, satisfying the proper Ward-Takahashi identity, will be presented, addressing the relevance of the Fock content in the operators living onto the Light-Front hypersurface. Finally, the generalization of the formalism to the three-particle case will be outlined.Comment: 16 pages, macros included. Mini-review to be printed in a regular issue of Few-Body Systems devoted to the Workshop on "Relativistic Description of Two- and Three-body Systems in Nuclear Physics" ECT* Trento, 19 - 23 October 200

Barragem subterrânea: I - Diagnóstico nos estados da Bahia, Pernambuco e Paraíba.

A Embrapa Semi-Árido desenvolve um Projeto de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento que tem por finalidade estudar alternativas de manejo de solo e água em sistema de cultivos explorados em Barragem Subterrânea (BS), bem como, favorecer o processo de irradiação da BS por meio da valorização dos espaços de experimentação científica com envolvimento de pesquisadores, agricultores e ONG's. Neste contexto, visando atingir s objetivos propostos pelo Projeto, três ações de Pesquisas foram elaboradas. Ação de Pesquisa 1 - Monitoramento de BS instaladas em áreas de Produtor, através da aplicação de questionários, com o objetivo de diagnosticar as causas do sucesso ou não desta tecnologia; Ação de Pesquisa 2 - Implantação de Unidades Demonstrativas (UD's), visando implementação de ações de transferência de tecnologia através de Campos de Aprendizagem Tecnológica (CAT's); Ação de Pesquisa 3 - Manejo de solo, água e planta em BS, com o intuito de definir alguns parâmetros para avaliar o potencial da BS e medir seu impacto na propriedade, consequentemente na qualidade de vida do agricultor. Em maio de 2004 o projeto foi iniciado com a realização de um Workshop, de Gestão do Projeto, na Embrapa Semi-Árido, com a participação de toda a equipe, inclusive das Instituições Parceiras, para discutir e definir as metodologias/métodos que estão sendo utilizadas na capacitação/sensibilização dos agricultores e nos temas de pesquisa a serem estudados. Neste evento foram estabelecidas, datas de quatro oficinas, três de intercâmbio e uma de coordenação e programação, assim como a aplicação de um questionário visando diagnóstico para determinação do "marco zero". Os questionários foram aplicados num raio de cobertura maior do que o que estava previsto no Projeto. Foram aplicados 103 questionários, 53 na Paraíba, 18 na Bahia e 32 em Pernambuco, abrangendo um total de 10 municípios na PB e 08 na BA e PE. Os resultados dos questionários juntamente com os das oficinas estão norteando demandas de pesquisas de cada Estado. Os dados quantitativos obtidos com os questionários demonstraram a necessidade de uma abordagem de pesquisa-ação participativa para guiar o agricultor no aprimoramento de seus conhecimentos e de suas práticas de manejo de solo-água-planta dentro do contexto da barragem subterrânea

Arylated and dihydrofuran naphthoquinones: electrochemical parameters, evaluation of antitumor activity and their correlation.

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Global yellow fever vaccination coverage from 1970 to 2016: an adjusted retrospective analysis.

BACKGROUND: Substantial outbreaks of yellow fever in Angola and Brazil in the past 2 years, combined with global shortages in vaccine stockpiles, highlight a pressing need to assess present control strategies. The aims of this study were to estimate global yellow fever vaccination coverage from 1970 through to 2016 at high spatial resolution and to calculate the number of individuals still requiring vaccination to reach population coverage thresholds for outbreak prevention. METHODS: For this adjusted retrospective analysis, we compiled data from a range of sources (eg, WHO reports and health-service-provider registeries) reporting on yellow fever vaccination activities between May 1, 1939, and Oct 29, 2016. To account for uncertainty in how vaccine campaigns were targeted, we calculated three population coverage values to encompass alternative scenarios. We combined these data with demographic information and tracked vaccination coverage through time to estimate the proportion of the population who had ever received a yellow fever vaccine for each second level administrative division across countries at risk of yellow fever virus transmission from 1970 to 2016. FINDINGS: Overall, substantial increases in vaccine coverage have occurred since 1970, but notable gaps still exist in contemporary coverage within yellow fever risk zones. We estimate that between 393·7 million and 472·9 million people still require vaccination in areas at risk of yellow fever virus transmission to achieve the 80% population coverage threshold recommended by WHO; this represents between 43% and 52% of the population within yellow fever risk zones, compared with between 66% and 76% of the population who would have required vaccination in 1970. INTERPRETATION: Our results highlight important gaps in yellow fever vaccination coverage, can contribute to improved quantification of outbreak risk, and help to guide planning of future vaccination efforts and emergency stockpiling. FUNDING: The Rhodes Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health, the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme

Impactos ambientais do manejo agroecológico da caatinga no Rio Grande do Norte.

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar os impactos ambientais do manejo agroecológico da caatinga, em unidades de produção familiar no Rio Grande do Norte, pelo método Ambitec de produção animal - dimensão ambiental, desenvolvido pela Embrapa Meio Ambiente. Foram avaliadas sete unidades de produção familiar, em quatro projetos de assentamentos de reforma agrária do Município de Apodi, RN. Os dados para o levantamento foram obtidos por meio de questionários aplicados aos representantes das unidades produtivas familiares, que atribuíram, a cada variável estudada, um valor que representou a alteração proporcionada pela implementação da tecnologia. Após a inserção dos coeficientes de alteração de cada variável dos indicadores por unidade de produção, o coeficiente de impacto foi automaticamente calculado por meio da planilha Ambitec. O manejo agroecológico da caatinga resultou num impacto ambiental positivo, e suas maiores contribuições foram relacionadas aos efeitos positivos dos seguintes indicadores: capacidade produtiva do solo, uso de insumos materiais, qualidade do produto e diminuição da emissão de poluentes à atmosfera. Dois indicadores geraram efeitos negativos: o uso de energia e o uso de recursos naturais. Pela superioridade dos benefícios gerados, o manejo agroecológico da caatinga é uma inovação tecnológica geradora de impactos ambientais positivos

Existing and potential infection risk zones of yellow fever worldwide: a modelling analysis.

BACKGROUND: Yellow fever cases are under-reported and the exact distribution of the disease is unknown. An effective vaccine is available but more information is needed about which populations within risk zones should be targeted to implement interventions. Substantial outbreaks of yellow fever in Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Brazil, coupled with the global expansion of the range of its main urban vector, Aedes aegypti, suggest that yellow fever has the propensity to spread further internationally. The aim of this study was to estimate the disease's contemporary distribution and potential for spread into new areas to help inform optimal control and prevention strategies. METHODS: We assembled 1155 geographical records of yellow fever virus infection in people from 1970 to 2016. We used a Poisson point process boosted regression tree model that explicitly incorporated environmental and biological explanatory covariates, vaccination coverage, and spatial variability in disease reporting rates to predict the relative risk of apparent yellow fever virus infection at a 5 × 5 km resolution across all risk zones (47 countries across the Americas and Africa). We also used the fitted model to predict the receptivity of areas outside at-risk zones to the introduction or reintroduction of yellow fever transmission. By use of previously published estimates of annual national case numbers, we used the model to map subnational variation in incidence of yellow fever across at-risk countries and to estimate the number of cases averted by vaccination worldwide. FINDINGS: Substantial international and subnational spatial variation exists in relative risk and incidence of yellow fever as well as varied success of vaccination in reducing incidence in several high-risk regions, including Brazil, Cameroon, and Togo. Areas with the highest predicted average annual case numbers include large parts of Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan, where vaccination coverage in 2016 was estimated to be substantially less than the recommended threshold to prevent outbreaks. Overall, we estimated that vaccination coverage levels achieved by 2016 avert between 94 336 and 118 500 cases of yellow fever annually within risk zones, on the basis of conservative and optimistic vaccination scenarios. The areas outside at-risk regions with predicted high receptivity to yellow fever transmission (eg, parts of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand) were less extensive than the distribution of the main urban vector, A aegypti, with low receptivity to yellow fever transmission in southern China, where A aegypti is known to occur. INTERPRETATION: Our results provide the evidence base for targeting vaccination campaigns within risk zones, as well as emphasising their high effectiveness. Our study highlights areas where public health authorities should be most vigilant for potential spread or importation events. FUNDING: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Individual-environment interactions in swimming: The smallest unit for analysing the emergence of coordination dynamics in performance?

Displacement in competitive swimming is highly dependent on fluid characteristics, since athletes use these properties to propel themselves. It is essential for sport scientists and practitioners to clearly identify the interactions that emerge between each individual swimmer and properties of an aquatic environment. Traditionally, the two protagonists in these interactions have been studied separately. Determining the impact of each swimmer’s movements on fluid flow, and vice versa, is a major challenge. Classic biomechanical research approaches have focused on swimmers’ actions, decomposing stroke characteristics for analysis, without exploring perturbations to fluid flows. Conversely, fluid mechanics research has sought to record fluid behaviours, isolated from the constraints of competitive swimming environments (e.g. analyses in two-dimensions, fluid flows passively studied on mannequins or robot effectors). With improvements in technology, however, recent investigations have focused on the emergent circular couplings between swimmers’ movements and fluid dynamics. Here, we provide insights into concepts and tools that can explain these on-going dynamical interactions in competitive swimming within the theoretical framework of ecological dynamics