A leitura da literatura como ponto de partida para a construção de um estudo autoetnográfico sobre a interseccionalidade

Autoethnography is an important methodology that allows the expression of dissident bodies. The reading of a literary book and the construction of reading diaries, as a starting point for autoethnographic reflection, is still little explored. Here, I start from the question: what is it to be a gay scientist? Starting from this question and the experience of a teacher the proposal of this study was to perform an autoethnographic analysis reading and interpreting The life of Galileo by the writer Bertolt Brecht. To this end, a literary reading journal and an analysis reflecting with theories and these experiences was constructed keeping in mind how the vulnerability of dissident bodies, can be in alliance for the uses and responsible work with sciences. In conclusion, the construction of a 1-year autoethnographic diary of reading a book of literature allowed us to conduct a record, denouement and cultural critique of an important moment, which touches on points of intersectionality, about the context of the covid-19 pandemic.La autoetnografía es una metodología importante que permite la expresión de los cuerpos disidentes. La lectura de un libro literario y la construcción de diarios de lectura, como punto de partida para una reflexión autoetnográfica, todavía son poco exploradas. Aquí, parte da pergunta: ¿o que é ser un cientista gay? Partindo dessa questão e da experiência de una profesora a propuesta de este estudio para realizar un análisis autoetnográfico leyendo e interpretando “A Vida de Galileu” del escritor Bertolt Brecht. Para tanto, foi construído um diário de leitura literária e uma análise reflexiva com teorías y essas experiências tendo em mente como a vulnerabilidade dos corpos disidentes, pode estar em aliança para os usos e trabalho responsável com as ciências. En conclusión, la construcción de un diario autoetnográfico de 1 año de lectura de un libro de literatura permitió realizar registro, diseño y crítica cultural de un momento importante, que toca en puntos de interseccionalidad, sobre el contexto de la pandemia de COVID-19.A autoetnografia é uma metodologia importante que permite a expressão de corpos dissidentes. A leitura de um livro literário e a construção de diários de leitura, como ponto de partida para a reflexão autoetnográfica, ainda é pouco explorada. Aqui, parto da pergunta: o que é ser um cientista gay? Partindo dessa questão e da experiência de uma professora a proposta deste estudo foi realizar uma análise autoetnográfica lendo e interpretando A vida de Galileu do escritor Bertolt Brecht. Para tanto, foi construído um diário de leitura literária e uma análise reflexiva com teorias e essas experiências tendo em mente como a vulnerabilidade dos corpos dissidentes, pode estar em aliança para os usos e trabalho responsável com as ciências. Concluindo, a construção de um diário autoetnográfico de um ano de leitura de um livro de literatura permitiu realizar registro, desenlace e crítica cultural de um momento importante, que toca em pontos de interseccionalidade, sobre o contexto da pandemia de covid-19

Second-order quantum nonlinear optical processes in single graphene nanostructures and arrays

Intense efforts have been made in recent years to realize nonlinear optical interactions at the single-photon level. Much of this work has focused on achieving strong third-order nonlinearities, such as by using single atoms or other quantum emitters while the possibility of achieving strong second-order nonlinearities remains unexplored. Here, we describe a novel technique to realize such nonlinearities using graphene, exploiting the strong per-photon fields associated with tightly confined graphene plasmons in combination with spatially nonlocal nonlinear optical interactions. We show that in properly designed graphene nanostructures, these conditions enable extremely strong internal down-conversion between a single quantized plasmon and an entangled plasmon pair, or the reverse process of second harmonic generation. A separate issue is how such strong internal nonlinearities can be observed, given the nominally weak coupling between these plasmon resonances and free-space radiative fields. On one hand, by using the collective coupling to radiation of nanostructure arrays, we show that the internal nonlinearities can manifest themselves as efficient frequency conversion of radiative fields at extremely low input powers. On the other hand, the development of techniques to efficiently couple to single nanostructures would allow these nonlinear processes to occur at the level of single input photons.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figure

Cellular geometric semantic genetic programming

Among the different variants of Genetic Programming (GP), Geometric Semantic GP (GSGP) has proved to be both efficient and effective in finding good solutions. The fact that the operators of GSGP operate on the semantics of the individuals in a clear way provides guarantees on the way the search is performed. GSGP is not, however, free from limitations like the premature convergence of the population to a small - and possibly sub-optimal-area of the search space. One reason for this issue could be the fact that good individuals can quickly "spread" in the population suppressing the emergence of competition. To mitigate this problem, we impose a cellular automata (CA) inspired communication topology over GSGP. In CAs a collection of agents (as finite state automata) are positioned in a n-dimensional periodic grid and communicates only locally with the automata in their neighbourhoods. Similarly, we assign a location to each individual on an n-dimensional grid and the entire evolution for an individual will happen locally by considering, for each individual, only the individuals in its neighbourhood. Specifically, we present an algorithm in which, for each generation, a subset of the neighbourhood of each individual is sampled and the selection for the given cell in the grid is performed by extracting the two best individuals of this subset, which are employed as parents for the Geometric Semantic Crossover. We compare this cellular GSGP (cGSGP) approach with standard GSGP on eight regression problems, showing that it can provide better solutions than GSGP. Moreover, by analyzing convergence rates, we show that the improvement is observable regardless of the number of executed generations. As a side effect, we additionally show that combining a small-neighbourhood-based cellular spatial structure with GSGP helps in producing smaller solutions. Finally, we measure the spatial autocorrelation of the population by adopting the Moran's I coefficient to provide an overview of the diversity, showing that our cellular spatial structure helps in providing better diversity during the early stages of the evolutio

Analysis of epistemic practices in reports of higher education students groups in carrying out the inquiry-based activity of immunology

International audiencePractical classes in immunology are important to assist the learning of abstract theoretical concepts of biological phenomena learned in the classroom. Here, our proposal was the qualitative characterization of epistemic practices. Analysis of the results obtained from the investigative activities showed that student groups mobilize a huge variety of epistemic practices during reports writing, for example, to predict, conclude, name, describe, explain, opine, and the use of theoretical data for reviewing and evaluating the consistency of the data observed. A better understanding of these interactions can help in the teaching of Immunology classes for undergraduate students of life sciences and health courses

Analysis of epistemic practices in reports of higher education students groups in carrying out the inquiry-based activity of immunology

International audiencePractical classes in immunology are important to assist the learning of abstract theoretical concepts of biological phenomena learned in the classroom. Here, our proposal was the qualitative characterization of epistemic practices. Analysis of the results obtained from the investigative activities showed that student groups mobilize a huge variety of epistemic practices during reports writing, for example, to predict, conclude, name, describe, explain, opine, and the use of theoretical data for reviewing and evaluating the consistency of the data observed. A better understanding of these interactions can help in the teaching of Immunology classes for undergraduate students of life sciences and health courses

ProNGF-p75NTR axis plays a proinflammatory role in inflamed joints. A novel pathogenic mechanism in chronic arthritis

To identify the role of mature nerve growth factor (mNGF), its immature form proNGF and their receptors in arthritis inflammatio

The effect of diameter variability and medullation of wool on Fibre Fineness Distribution Analyser (FFDA) measurements.

No presente trabalho foram investigados os efeitos da medulação e da variabilidade de diâmetro da lã sobre as medidas de diâmetro no FFDA. Foram desenvolvidas equações para corrigir os resultados oriundos do FFDA, de acordo com o grau de medulação das amostras. Os resultados do trabalho indicaram que na calibração do FFDA deveria ser incluído um "top" de lã com maior diâmetro médio do que os usados correntemente. Isto melhoraria os resultados para as lãs mais grossas.The effect of medullation and variability of fibre diameter on FFDA measurements were investigated. For a FFDA fitted with the expanding (new) cell, medullated wools and more variable wools gave finer results than those obtained with the projection microscope. Equations correcting FFDA results for the degree of medullation are presented. It is suggested that calibration using a coarser top than those currently in use would improve measurements on coarse wool

Hepatic metastases from gastric cancer: A surgical perspective

Management of patients with hepatic metastases as the sole metastatic site at diagnosis of gastric cancer (synchronous setting) or detected during follow-up (metachronous) is controversial. The prevailing attitude in these cases is passive, leading to surgical palliation and, possibly, to chemotherapy. Authors focused this editorial in order to promote a more pragmatic attitude. They stress the importance of recognizing the good candidates to curative surgery of both gastric cancer and hepatic metastases (synchronous setting) or hepatic disease alone (metachronous disease) from those who will not benefit from surgical therapy. In fact, in adequately selected subgroup of patients surgery, especially if integrated in multimodal therapeutic strategies, may achieve unexpected 5-year survival rates, ranging from 10% to 40%. The critical revision of the literature suggests that some simple clinical criteria exist that may be effectively employed in patients selection. These are mainly related to the gastric cancer (factors T, N, G) and to the extent of hepatic involvement (factor H). Upon these criteria it is possible to adequately select about 50% of cases. In the remaining 50% of cases a critical discussion on a case-by-case basis is recommended, considering that among these patients some potential long-survivors exist, that survival is strictly influenced by the ablation of the tumor bulk and by multimodality treatments including chemotherapy and that in expert institutions this kind of surgery is performed with very low mortality and morbidity rates

A Two-Party System Under the Proportional Rule is Possible: Strategic Voting in the Lab

In this study, we implement a series of voting games in the laboratory to test whether a strategic voting behavior in a proportional system would arise and induce a two-party system. In each voting game, a finite number of subjects with single-peaked preferences, uniformly distributed on a 0–20 line, are asked to vote for a number within the interval 0–20. The policy outcome is the average of the chosen numbers—a realistic representation of a compromise between parties in a parliament elected through the proportional rule. Our main result shows that polarization and strategic voting occur in the proposed proportional rule scenario. Moreover, experience and information concerning the electoral outcome of the previous period drive individuals to opt for strategic voting