Zero-Temperature Limit of the SUSY-breaking Complexity in Diluted Spin-Glass Models

We study the SUSY-breaking complexity of the Bethe Lattice Spin-Glass in the zero temperature limit. We consider both the Gaussian and the bimodal distribution of the coupling constants. For $J_{ij}=\pm 1$ the SUSY breaking theory yields fields distributions that concentrate on integer values at low temperatures, at variance with the unbroken SUSY theory. This concentration takes place both in the quenched as well as in the simpler annealed formulation.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Modeling of Mid-IR Amplifier Based on an Erbium-Doped Chalcogenide Microsphere

An optical amplifier based on a tapered fiber and an Er3+-doped chalcogenide microsphere is designed and optimized. A dedicated 3D numerical model, which exploits the coupled mode theory and the rate equations, is used. The main transitions among the erbium energy levels, the amplified spontaneous emission, and the most important secondary transitions pertaining to the ion-ion interactions have been considered. Both the pump and signal beams are efficiently injected and obtained by a suitable design of the taper angle and the fiber-microsphere gap. Moreover, a good overlapping between the optical signals and the rare-earth-doped region is also obtained. In order to evaluate the amplifier performance in reduced computational time, the doped area is partitioned in sectors. The obtained simulation results highlight that a high-efficiency midinfrared amplification can be obtained by using a quite small microsphere

Motor cortex function in fibromyalgia: A study by functional near-infrared spectroscopy

Previous studies indicated changes of motor cortex excitability in fibromyalgia (FM) patients and the positive results of transcranial stimulation techniques. The present study aimed to explore the metabolism of motor cortex in FM patients, in resting state and during slow and fast finger tapping, using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS), an optical method which detects in real time the metabolism changes in the cortical tissue. We studied 24 FM patients and 24 healthy subjects. We found a significant slowness of motor speed in FM patients compared to controls. During resting state and slow movement conditions, the metabolism of the motor areas was similar between groups. The oxyhemoglobin concentrations were significantly lower in patients than in control group during the fast movement task. This abnormality was independent from FM severity and duration. The activation of motor cortex areas is dysfunctional in FM patients, thus supporting the rationale for the therapeutic role of motor cortex modulation in this disabling disorder

The relevance of knowledge transfer for universities' efficiency scores: An empirical approximation on the Spanish public higher education system

This article examines how knowledge transfer (KT) indicators affect analyses on efficiency in the Higher Education sector, taking into account the characteristics of the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). After revising the concept of third mission as a field for data development and its importance in assessing university performance, we applied various data envelopment analysis models with different specifications to 47 Spanish public universities to test whether KT indicators are relevant when evaluating the performance of HEIs in terms of their efficiency and, if so, which indicators are most suitable. Our results suggest that the effect of including KT indicators in the efficiency analyses varies from university to university according to their characteristics. The subject mix taught at the university, the focus according to each mission's relative importance within the total range of activities carried out in each university (mission mix), and the mix of their third mission activities affect the increase of the universities' efficiency scores when KT is taken into account in the analysis. This means that these factors affect the universities' position for the different efficiency score

Steady-state visual evoked potentials and phase synchronization in migraine

We investigate phase synchronization in EEG recordings from migraine patients. We use the analytic signal technique, based on the Hilbert transform, and find that migraine brains are characterized by enhanced alpha band phase synchronization in presence of visual stimuli. Our findings show that migraine patients have an overactive regulatory mechanism that renders them more sensitive to external stimuli.Comment: 4 page

TRPA1 mediates aromatase inhibitor-evoked pain by the aromatase substrate androstenedione

Aromatase inhibitors (AI) induce painful musculoskeletal symptoms (AIMSS), which are dependent upon the pain transducing receptor TRPA1. However, as the AI concentrations required to engage TRPA1 in mice are higher than those found in the plasma of patients, we hypothesized that additional factors may cooperate to induce AIMSS. Here we report that the aromatase substrate androstenedione, unique among several steroid hormones, targeted TRPA1 in peptidergic primary sensory neurons in rodent and human cells expressing the native or recombinant channel. Androstenedione dramatically lowered the concentration of letrozole required to engage TRPA1. Notably, addition of a minimal dose of androstenedione to physiologically ineffective doses of letrozole and oxidative stress byproducts produces AIMSS-like behaviors and neurogenic inflammatory responses in mice. Elevated androstenedione levels cooperated with low letrozole concentrations and inflammatory mediators were sufficient to provoke AIMSS-like behaviors. The generation of such painful conditions by small quantities of simultaneously administered TRPA1 agonists justifies previous failure to identify a precise link between AIs and AIMSS, underscoring the potential of channel antagonists to treat AIMSS

Broadband integrated beam splitter using spatial adiabatic passage

Light routing and manipulation are important aspects of integrated optics. They essentially rely on beam splitters which are at the heart of interferometric setups and active routing. The most common implementations of beam splitters suffer either from strong dispersive response (directional couplers) or tight fabrication tolerances (multimode interference couplers). In this paper we fabricate a robust and simple broadband integrated beam splitter based on lithium niobate with a splitting ratio achromatic over more than 130 nm. Our architecture is based on spatial adiabatic passage, a technique originally used to transfer entirely an optical beam from a waveguide to another one that has been shown to be remarkably robust against fabrication imperfections and wavelength dispersion. Our device shows a splitting ratio of 0.52$\pm$0.03 and 0.48$\pm$0.03 from 1500\,nm up to 1630\,nm. Furthermore, we show that suitable design enables the splitting in output beams with relative phase 0 or $\pi$. Thanks to their independence to material dispersion, these devices represent simple, elementary components to create achromatic and versatile photonic circuits

The measure of randomness by leave-one-out prediction error in the analysis of EEG after laser painful stimulation in healthy subjects and migraine patients

Objective: We aimed to perform a quantitative analysis of event-related modulation of EEG activity, resulting from a not-warned and a warned paradigm of painful laser stimulation, in migraine patients and controls, by the use of a novel analysis, based upon a parametric approach to measure predictability of short and noisy time series. Methods: Ten migraine patients were evaluated during the not-symptomatic phase and compared to seven age and sex matched controls. The dorsum of the right hand and the right supraorbital zone were stimulated by a painful CO2 laser, in presence or in absence of a visual warning stimulus. An analysis time of 1 s after the stimulus was submitted to a time–frequency analysis by a complex Morlet wavelet and to a crosscorrelation analysis, in order to detect the development of EEG changes and the most activated cortical regions. A parametric approach to measure predictability of short and noisy time series was applied, where time series were modeled by leave-one-out (LOO) error. Results: The averaged laser-evoked potentials features were similar between the two groups in the alerted and not alerted condition. A strong reset of the beta rhythms after the painful stimuli was seen for three groups of electrodes along the midline in patients and controls: the predictability of the series induced by the laser stimulus changed very differently in controls and patients. The separation was more evident after the warning signal, leading to a separation with P-values of 0.0046 for both the hand and the face. Discussion: As painful stimulus causes organization of the local activity in cortex, EEG series become more predictable after stimulation. This phenomenon was less evident in migraine, as a sign of an inadequate cortical reactivity to pain. Significance: The LOO method enabled to show in migraine subtle changes in the cortical response to pain

Large Deviations of the Free-Energy in Diluted Mean-Field Spin-Glass

Sample-to-sample free energy fluctuations in spin-glasses display a markedly different behaviour in finite-dimensional and fully-connected models, namely Gaussian vs. non-Gaussian. Spin-glass models defined on various types of random graphs are in an intermediate situation between these two classes of models and we investigate whether the nature of their free-energy fluctuations is Gaussian or not. It has been argued that Gaussian behaviour is present whenever the interactions are locally non-homogeneous, i.e. in most cases with the notable exception of models with fixed connectivity and random couplings $J_{ij}=\pm \tilde{J}$. We confirm these expectation by means of various analytical results. In particular we unveil the connection between the spatial fluctuations of the populations of populations of fields defined at different sites of the lattice and the Gaussian nature of the free-energy fluctuations. On the contrary on locally homogeneous lattices the populations do not fluctuate over the sites and as a consequence the small-deviations of the free energy are non-Gaussian and scales as in the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model

Probiotics Reduce Inflammation in Antiretroviral Treated, HIV-Infected Individuals: Results of the "Probio-HIV" Clinical Trial

BACKGROUND: HIV infection results in damage to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, microbial translocation and immune activation. These are not completely normalized with combined antiretroviral therapy (cART). Moreover, increate morbidity and mortality of cART-treated HIV-infected individuals is associated with inflammation. METHODS: In order to enhance GI tract immunity, we recruited and treated 20 HIV-infected humans with cART supplemented with probiotics and followed inflammation and immunological parameters (clinical trial number NCT02164344). 11 HIV seronegative subjects were included as control group. The enumeration of CD4+, CD8+, CD38+ and HLA-DR+ lymphocytes were evaluated on peripheral blood; HIV-RNA levels, sCD14, d-dimer, C-reactive protein (CRP) high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), IL-6 and Lipopolysaccharide Binding Protein (LBP) were assayed on plasma. RESULTS: We observe that cART does not normalize the levels of immune activation in HIV positive patients anyway inflammation and markers of microbial translocation were significantly reduced with probiotic supplementation. Patients show a clear and statistically significant reduction in the levels of immune activation on CD4 T-lymphocytes, for both markers CD38 and HLA-DR and their simultaneous expression, LBP and hsCRP plasma levels after probiotic diet supplementation settling to values comparable to controls. CONCLUSIONS: Supplementing cART with probiotics in HIV-infected individuals may improve GI tract immunity and there by mitigate inflammatory sequelae, ultimately improving prognosis