Measuring local depletion of terrestrial game vertebrates by central-place hunters in rural Amazonia

The degree to which terrestrial vertebrate populations are depleted in tropical forests occupied by human communities has been the subject of an intense polarising debate that has important conservation implications. Conservation ecologists and practitioners are divided over the extent to which community-based subsistence offtake is compatible with ecologically functional populations of tropical forest game species. To quantify depletion envelopes of forest vertebrates around human communities, we deployed a total of 383 camera trap stations and 78 quantitative interviews to survey the peri-community areas controlled by 60 semi-subsistence communities over a combined area of over 3.2 million hectares in the Médio Juruá and Uatumã regions of Central-Western Brazilian Amazonia. Our results largely conform with prior evidence that hunting large-bodied vertebrates reduces wildlife populations near settlements, such that they are only found at a distance to settlements where they are hunted less frequently. Camera trap data suggest that a select few harvest-sensitive species, including lowland tapir, are either repelled or depleted by human communities. Nocturnal and cathemeral species were detected relatively more frequently in disturbed areas close to communities, but individual species did not necessarily shift their activity patterns. Group biomass of all species was depressed in the wider neighbourhood of urban areas rather than communities. Interview data suggest that species traits, especially group size and body mass, mediate these relationships. Large-bodied, large-group-living species are detected farther from communities as reported by experienced informants. Long-established communities in our study regions have not “emptied” the surrounding forest. Low human population density and low hunting offtake due to abundant sources of alternative aquatic protein, suggest that these communities represent a best-case scenario for sustainable hunting of wildlife for food, thereby providing a conservative assessment of game depletion. Given this ‘best-case’ camera trap and interview-based evidence for hunting depletion, regions with higher human population densities, external trade in wildlife and limited access to alternative protein will likely exhibit more severe depletion

Entanglement in a Solid State Spin Ensemble

Entanglement is the quintessential quantum phenomenon and a necessary ingredient in most emerging quantum technologies, including quantum repeaters, quantum information processing (QIP) and the strongest forms of quantum cryptography. Spin ensembles, such as those in liquid state nuclear magnetic resonance, have been powerful in the development of quantum control methods, however, these demonstrations contained no entanglement and ultimately constitute classical simulations of quantum algorithms. Here we report the on-demand generation of entanglement between an ensemble of electron and nuclear spins in isotopically engineered phosphorus-doped silicon. We combined high field/low temperature electron spin resonance (3.4 T, 2.9 K) with hyperpolarisation of the 31P nuclear spin to obtain an initial state of sufficient purity to create a non-classical, inseparable state. The state was verified using density matrix tomography based on geometric phase gates, and had a fidelity of 98% compared with the ideal state at this field and temperature. The entanglement operation was performed simultaneously, with high fidelity, to 10^10 spin pairs, and represents an essential requirement of a silicon-based quantum information processor.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures plus supporting information of 4 pages, 1 figure v2: Updated reference

Teatro na educação de crianças e adolescentes participantes de ensaio clínico

OBJETIVO: Analisar os efeitos de uma intervenção pedagógica na aprendizagem de crianças e adolescentes participantes de pesquisa clínica. MÉTODOS: Estudo quantitativo, quasi-experimental e longitudinal, parte de um conjunto de estudos envolvidos no teste de uma vacina contra ancilostomíase. Amostra por conveniência com 133 estudantes de dez a 17 anos, de ambos os sexos, da Escola Municipal de Maranhão, MG, Brasil, 2009. Utilizou-se um questionário estruturado aplicado pré e pós-intervenção. O dispositivo pedagógico foi o Teatro do Oprimido. As variáveis dependentes foram o conhecimento específico e global sobre pesquisa clínica e sobre verminoses; a variável independente foi a participação na intervenção educativa. RESULTADOS: Houve aumento do conhecimento sobre sinais e sintomas, susceptibilidade à reinfecção e modo de contágio da verminose após a intervenção educativa. Aumentaram acertos relativos à duração da pesquisa clínica, aos procedimentos previstos, à possibilidade de desistência da participação e de ocorrência de eventos adversos. Permaneceu a noção de que o propósito primário da pesquisa é terapêutico, embora tenha reduzido o percentual de participantes que associaram a pesquisa ao tratamento médico. O Teatro do Oprimido possibilitou que as discussões acerca da helmintose e da pesquisa clínica fossem contextualizadas e materializadas. Os sujeitos puderam se despojar ou reduzir suas representações prévias. CONCLUSÕES: A participação de crianças e adolescentes em ensaios clínicos deve ser precedida de intervenção educativa, já que indivíduos dessa faixa etária nem sequer reconhecem que têm direito a decidir por si próprios

The Hubbard model within the equations of motion approach

The Hubbard model has a special role in Condensed Matter Theory as it is considered as the simplest Hamiltonian model one can write in order to describe anomalous physical properties of some class of real materials. Unfortunately, this model is not exactly solved except for some limits and therefore one should resort to analytical methods, like the Equations of Motion Approach, or to numerical techniques in order to attain a description of its relevant features in the whole range of physical parameters (interaction, filling and temperature). In this manuscript, the Composite Operator Method, which exploits the above mentioned analytical technique, is presented and systematically applied in order to get information about the behavior of all relevant properties of the model (local, thermodynamic, single- and two- particle ones) in comparison with many other analytical techniques, the above cited known limits and numerical simulations. Within this approach, the Hubbard model is shown to be also capable to describe some anomalous behaviors of the cuprate superconductors.Comment: 232 pages, more than 300 figures, more than 500 reference