203 research outputs found
Efeito da aplicação de fungicidas no controle das ferrugens da folha e do colmo e sobre o rendimento de grãos de trigo.
bitstream/item/66142/1/CPAO-PESQ.-AND.-5-80.pd
Interpreting doubly special relativity as a modified theory of measurement
In this article we develop a physical interpretation for the deformed
(doubly) special relativity theories (DSRs), based on a modification of the
theory of measurement in special relativity. We suggest that it is useful to
regard the DSRs as reflecting the manner in which quantum gravity effects
induce Planck-suppressed distortions in the measurement of the "true" energy
and momentum. This interpretation provides a framework for the DSRs that is
manifestly consistent, non-trivial, and in principle falsifiable. However, it
does so at the cost of demoting such theories from the level of "fundamental"
physics to the level of phenomenological models -- models that should in
principle be derivable from whatever theory of quantum gravity one ultimately
chooses to adopt.Comment: 18 pages, plain LaTeX2
Space--time fluctuations and the spreading of wavepackets
Using a density matrix description in space we study the evolution of
wavepackets in a fluctuating space-time background. We assume that space-time
fluctuations manifest as classical fluctuations of the metric. From the
non-relativistic limit of a non-minimally coupled Klein-Gordon equation we
derive a Schr\"odinger equation with an additive gaussian random potential.
This is transformed into an effective master equation for the density matrix.
The solutions of this master equation allow to study the dynamics of
wavepackets in a fluctuating space-time, depending on the fluctuation scenario.
We show how different scenarios alter the diffusion properties of wavepackets.Comment: 11 page
Particle detectors, geodesic motion, and the equivalence principle
It is shown that quantum particle detectors are not reliable probes of
spacetime structure. In particular, they fail to distinguish between inertial
and non-inertial motion in a general spacetime. To prove this, we consider
detectors undergoing circular motion in an arbitrary static spherically
symmetric spacetime, and give a necessary and sufficient condition for the
response function to vanish when the field is in the static vacuum state. By
examining two particular cases, we show that there is no relation, in general,
between the vanishing of the response function and the fact that the detector
motion is, or is not, geodesic. In static asymptotically flat spacetimes,
however, all rotating detectors are excited in the static vacuum. Thus, in this
particular case the static vacuum appears to be associated with a non-rotating
frame. The implications of these results for the equivalence principle are
considered. In particular, we discuss how to properly formulate the principle
for particle detectors, and show that it is satisfied.Comment: 14 pages. Revised version, with corrections; added two references.
Accepted for publication in Class. Quantum Gra
Optical geometry for gravitational collapse and Hawking radiation
The notion of optical geometry, introduced more than twenty years ago as a
formal tool in quantum field theory on a static background, has recently found
several applications to the study of physical processes around compact objects.
In this paper we define optical geometry for spherically symmetric
gravitational collapse, with the purpose of extending the current formalism to
physically interesting spacetimes which are not conformally static. The
treatment is fully general but, as an example, we also discuss the special case
of the Oppenheimer-Snyder model. The analysis of the late time behaviour shows
a close correspondence between the structure of optical spacetime for
gravitational collapse and that of flat spacetime with an accelerating
boundary. Thus, optical geometry provides a natural physical interpretation for
derivations of the Hawking effect based on the ``moving mirror analogy.''
Finally, we briefly discuss the issue of back-reaction in black hole
evaporation and the information paradox from the perspective of optical
geometry.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, aps, revtex, To be published in PR
Excited by a quantum field: Does shape matter?
The instantaneous transition rate of an arbitrarily accelerated Unruh-DeWitt
particle detector on four-dimensional Minkowski space is ill defined without
regularisation. We show that Schlicht's regularisation as the zero-size limit
of a Lorentz-function spatial profile yields a manifestly well-defined
transition rate with physically reasonable asymptotic properties. In the
special case of stationary trajectories, including uniform acceleration, we
recover the results that have been previously obtained by a regularisation that
relies on the stationarity. Finally, we discuss evidence for the conjecture
that the zero-size limit of the transition rate is independent of the detector
profile.Comment: 7 pages, uses jpconf. Talk given at NEB XII (Nafplio, Greece, 29 June
- 2 July 2006
Transcriptome Profiles of Strawberry (Fragaria vesca) Fruit Interacting With Botrytis cinerea at Different Ripening Stages
Gray mold caused by Botrytis cinerea is a major cause of economic losses in strawberry fruit production, limiting fruit shelf life and commercialization. When the fungus infects Fragaria x ananassa strawberry at flowering or unripe fruit stages, symptoms develop after an extended latent phase on ripe fruits before or after harvesting. To elucidate the growth kinetics of B. cinerea on flower/fruit and the molecular responses associated with low susceptibility of unripe fruit stages, woodland strawberry Fragaria vesca flowers and fruits, at unripe white and ripe red stages, were inoculated with B. cinerea. Quantification of fungal genomic DNA within 72 h postinoculation (hpi) showed limited fungal growth on open flower and white fruit, while on red fruit, the growth was exponential starting from 24 hpi and sporulation was observed within 48 hpi. RNA sequencing applied to white and red fruit at 24 hpi showed that a total of 2,141 genes (12.5% of the total expressed genes) were differentially expressed due to B. cinerea infection. A broad transcriptional reprogramming was observed in both unripe and ripe fruits, involving in particular receptor and signaling, secondary metabolites, and defense response pathways. Membrane-localized receptor-like kinases and nucleotide-binding site leucine-rich repeat genes were predominant in the surveillance system of the fruits, most of them being downregulated in white fruits and upregulated in red fruits. In general, unripe fruits exhibited a stronger defense response than red fruits. Genes encoding for pathogenesis-related proteins and flavonoid polyphenols as well as genes involved in cell-wall strengthening were upregulated, while cell-softening genes appeared to be switched off. As a result, B. cinerea remained quiescent in white fruits, while it was able to colonize ripe red fruits
Whole genome methylation profiles as independent markers of survival in stage IIIc melanoma patients
Background: The clinical course of cutaneous melanoma (CM) can differ significantly for patients with identical stages of disease, defined clinico-pathologically, and no molecular markers differentiate patients with such a diverse prognosis. This study aimed to define the prognostic value of whole genome DNA methylation profiles in stage III CM.Methods: Genome-wide methylation profiles were evaluated by the Illumina Human Methylation 27 BeadChip assay in short-term neoplastic cell cultures from 45 stage IIIC CM patients. Unsupervised K-means partitioning clustering was exploited to sort patients into 2 groups based on their methylation profiles. Methylation patterns related to the discovered groups were determined using the nearest shrunken centroid classification algorithm. The impact of genome-wide methylation patterns on overall survival (OS) was assessed using Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier analyses.Results: Unsupervised K-means partitioning by whole genome methylation profiles identified classes with significantly different OS in stage IIIC CM patients. Patients with a " favorable" methylation profile had increased OS (P = 0.001, log-rank = 10.2) by Kaplan-Meier analysis. Median OS of stage IIIC patients with a " favorable" vs. " unfavorable" methylation profile were 31.5 and 10.4 months, respectively. The 5 year OS for stage IIIC patients with a " favorable" methylation profile was 41.2% as compared to 0% for patients with an " unfavorable" methylation profile. Among the variables examined by multivariate Cox regression analysis, classification defined by methylation profile was the only predictor of OS (Hazard Ratio = 2.41, for " unfavorable" methylation profile; 95% Confidence Interval: 1.02-5.70; P = 0.045). A 17 gene methylation signature able to correctly assign prognosis (overall error rate = 0) in stage IIIC patients on the basis of distinct methylation-defined groups was also identified.Conclusions: A discrete whole-genome methylation signature has been identified as molecular marker of prognosis for stage IIIC CM patients. Its use in daily practice is foreseeable, and promises to refine the comprehensive clinical management of stage III CM patients. © 2012 Sigalotti et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd
Hawking Radiation from AdS Black Holes
We investigate Hawking radiation from black holes in (d+1)-dimensional
anti-de Sitter space. We focus on s-waves, make use of the geometrical optics
approximation, and follow three approaches to analyze the radiation. First, we
compute a Bogoliubov transformation between Kruskal and asymptotic coordinates
and compare the different vacua. Second, following a method due to Kraus,
Parikh, and Wilczek, we view Hawking radiation as a tunneling process across
the horizon and compute the tunneling probablility. This approach uses an
anti-de Sitter version of a metric originally introduced by Painleve for
Schwarzschild black holes. From the tunneling probability one also finds a
leading correction to the semi-classical emission rate arising from the
backreaction to the background geometry. Finally, we consider a spherically
symmetric collapse geometry and the Bogoliubov transformation between the
initial vacuum state and the vacuum of an asymptotic observer.Comment: 13 pages, latex2e, v2: some clarifications and references adde
Poincare ball embeddings of the optical geometry
It is shown that optical geometry of the Reissner-Nordstrom exterior metric
can be embedded in a hyperbolic space all the way down to its outer horizon.
The adopted embedding procedure removes a breakdown of flat-space embeddings
which occurs outside the horizon, at and below the Buchdahl-Bondi limit
(R/M=9/4 in the Schwarzschild case). In particular, the horizon can be captured
in the optical geometry embedding diagram. Moreover, by using the compact
Poincare ball representation of the hyperbolic space, the embedding diagram can
cover the whole extent of radius from spatial infinity down to the horizon.
Attention is drawn to advantages of such embeddings in an appropriately curved
space: this approach gives compact embeddings and it distinguishes clearly the
case of an extremal black hole from a non-extremal one in terms of topology of
the embedded horizon.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures; CQG accepte
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