Comment on the Adiabatic Condition

The experimental observation of effects due to Berry's phase in quantum systems is certainly one of the most impressive demonstrations of the correctness of the superposition principle in quantum mechanics. Since Berry's original paper in 1984, the spin 1/2 coupled with rotating external magnetic field has been one of the most studied models where those phases appear. We also consider a special case of this soluble model. A detailed analysis of the coupled differential equations and comparison with exact results teach us why the usual procedure (of neglecting nondiagonal terms) is mathematically sound.Comment: 9 page

Femtoscopic correlations and the ΛcN\Lambda_c N interaction

We study the prospects for deducing constraints on the interaction of charmed baryons with nucleons from measurements of two-particle momentum correlation functions for $\Lambda_c p$. The correlation functions are calculated for $\Lambda_c N$ and $\Sigma_c N$ interactions that have been extrapolated from lattice QCD simulations at unphysical masses of $m_\pi=410-570$ MeV to the physical point using chiral effective field theory as guideline. In addition, we consider phenomenological $Y_c N$ models from the literature to explore the sensitivity of the results to the properties of the interaction in detail. We find that a measurement of the $\Lambda_c p$ correlation functions could indeed allow one to discriminate between strongly attractive $\Lambda_c N$ forces, as predicted by some phenomenological models, and a weakly attractive interaction as suggested by the presently available lattice simulations.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Neonatal Morbi-Mortality in Very Low Birth Weight in Europe: the Portuguese Experience

The aim of this study was to access evolution in care of very low birth weight (VLBW) infants after the implementation of a regionalization policy in Portugal. The data of the National Portuguese Network of VLBW infants are analyzed concerning mortality, morbidity, and quality of regionalization. A total of 12,826 VLBW infants born from 1 January 1994 to 31 December 2008 were enrolled, with a prevalence of 0.66%-0.99% of all live born. The global mortality was 11%. The major improvement in survival is in the babies more than 1000 g. Since 2004, the threshold of viability is 25 weeks, but the intact survival is around 28 weeks. In the last 10 years with more efficient regionalization more VLBW babies are born in the right place. The improvement in neonatal mortality rate was determinant in the good evolution of perinatal and infant mortalities. After reinforcement of regionalization policies, we found improvements in mortality for VLBW infants. The aims of regionalization were achieved. The reform of perinatal care in Portugal is an example of how a good diagnosis and adequate proposals combined with a strong political will is crucial for changing.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Beyond spatial scalability limitations with a massively parallel method for linear oscillatory problems

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this record.This paper presents, discusses and analyses a massively parallel-in-time solver for linear oscillatory PDEs, which is a key numerical component for evolving weather, ocean, climate and seismic models. The time parallelization in this solver allows us to significantly exceed the computing resources used by parallelization-in-space methods and results in a correspondingly significantly reduced wall-clock time. One of the major difficulties of achieving Exascale performance for weather prediction is that the strong scaling limit – the parallel performance for a fixed problem size with an increasing number of processors – saturates. A main avenue to circumvent this problem is to introduce new numerical techniques that take advantage of time parallelism. In this paper we use a time-parallel approximation that retains the frequency information of oscillatory problems. This approximation is based on (a) reformulating the original problem into a large set of independent terms and (b) solving each of these terms independently of each other which can now be accomplished on a large number of HPC resources. Our results are conducted on up to 3586 cores for problem sizes with the parallelization-in-space scalability limited already on a single node. We gain significant reductions in the time-to-solution of 118.3 for spectral methods and 1503.0 for finite-difference methods with the parallelizationin-time approach. A developed and calibrated performance model gives the scalability limitations a-priory for this new approach and allows us to extrapolate the performance method towards large-scale system. This work has the potential to contribute as a basic building block of parallelization-in-time approaches, with possible major implications in applied areas modelling oscillatory dominated problems.The authors gratefully acknowledge the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing e.V. (www.gauss-centre.eu) for funding this project by providing computing time on the GCS Supercomputer SuperMUC at Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ, www.lrz. de). We also acknowledge use of Hartree Centre resources in this work on which the early evaluation of the parallelization concepts were done

Carbono das frações orgânicas como indicador de uso de cambissolos e latossolos no estado do Rio de Janeiro.

Os solos apresentam resposta diferenciada quanto ao manejo, e o conhecimento mais detalhado de aspectos pedológicos pode auxiliar na interpretação dos resultados obtidos com o uso de indicadores clássicos da matéria orgânica do solo (MOS). Amostras de terra na profundidade de 0-10 cm de Cambissolos (n=42) e de Latossolos (n=32) coletadas sob diferentes usos (mata, mata inicial, pasto, cultivos perenes e cultivos anuais) de uma Microbacia do Estado Rio de Janeiro tiveram sua matéria orgânica fisicamente fracionada. Foi observado que o uso do solo impacta negativamente os teores de carbono total e das frações lábeis e recalcitrantes da MOS, porém de forma diferenciada em relação às classes de solos estudadas. O uso agropecuário propicia redução da MOS em maior proporção na classe dos Cambissolos em relação aos Latossolos. A separação dos Latossolos pelo tipo de horizonte A podem alterar a interpretação dos resultados do impacto do uso

Farmer and scientific knowledge of soil quality: a social ecological soil systems approach.

This article focuses on how farmers identify and evaluate the quality of soils cultivated and how their indicators compare to those used by agricultural scientists. The aim is to bridge the gap between specific farmer knowledge and universal scientific knowledge by adopting an ecosystem framework applied to agriculture through the concept of agro-ecosystems. This approach was applied to farming in mountainous areas of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, a global environmental hotspot that has been degraded over time. In order to reverse this trend, local actors have to build agro-ecological systems that maintain environmental quality, agronomic sustainability and socio-economic viability. For this to happen, local and scientific knowledge must be bridged and mutually adapted in order to be successful. This study therefore concentrates on processes of inter-communication between farmers and agricultural scientists concerning the role of soil quality in farming and conservation

Exploring blended learning tools to transform a laboratory course unit in engineering: Challenges, setbacks and rewards

To boost students engagement on learning outcomes, promote active peer learning, and adopt more dynamic teaching practices, a module of a laboratory course unit (TPL) in engineering was reformulated exploring blended learning. This reformulation was even more challenging than initially anticipated as it was implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic. As TPL learning practises are based on the operation of laboratory modules mimicking heat and mass transfer phenomena, asynchronous and on-line synchronous learning classes and face-to-face laboratory classes were outlined. To promote the asynchronous learning, a full script of TPL and pitch and longer videos presenting, respectively, each work and its practical operation process were formerly prepared and available online. Students were required to work in group to define the variables and conditions to be evaluated in each laboratory module, organize and plan the experimental activities, create data recording documents, and later present and argue their options in virtual synchronous classes. In the face-to-face classes, different activities were performed in a rotating system, scheduled and tuned in the online classes. It was also aimed in-situ promoting peer discussion of the data and reports elaboration, goals not attained due to the pandemic restrictions, as only two students of each group were present in each hands-on class and in sequential times. TPL reformulation was a tough and time-consuming task since 73 students were enrolled, divided into 3 shifts, each one with 5 groups of five students. Students individual learning evolution was inferred through online quizzes that were periodically made available. A final inquiry, launched to obtain students` opinion about this transformation endeavour highlighted the script, videos, and the prompt teachers feedback on the reports as the most fruitful and important aspects for students engagement and guide their learning pathway. The rationale behind this paper was to disclose this transformation experience and share information and strategies that can be used in the teaching/learning of laboratory classes. © 2021 University of Minho. All rights reserved.(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Monte Carlo Performance Studies for the Site Selection of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) represents the next generation of ground-based instruments for very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray astronomy, aimed at improving on the sensitivity of current-generation experiments by an order of magnitude and providing coverage over four decades of energy. The current CTA design consists of two arrays of tens of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, comprising Small, Medium and Large-Sized Telescopes, with one array located in each of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. To study the effect of the site choice on the overall \gls{cta} performance and support the site evaluation process, detailed Monte Carlo simulations have been performed. These results show the impact of different site-related attributes such as altitude, night-sky background and local geomagnetic field on CTA performance for the observation of VHE gamma rays.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures, Accepted for publication in AP