O esporte na cidade : aspectos do esforço civilizador brasileiro

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Pulsar binary systems in a nonsymmetric theory of gravitation II. Dipole radiation

This paper deals with the emission of gravitational radiation in the context of a previously studied metric nonsymmetric theory of gravitation. The part coming from the symmetric part of the metric coincides with the mass quadrupole moment result of general relativity. The one associated to the antisymmetric part of the metric involves the dipole moment of the fermionic charge of the system. The results are applied to binary star systems and the decrease of the period of the elliptical motion is calculated.

Nonexistence of regular stationary solution in a metric nonsymmetric theory of gravitation

It is proven that the field equations of a previously studied metric nonsymmetric theory of gravitation do not admit any non-singular stationary solution which represents a field of non-vanishing total mass and non-vanishing total fermionic charge.

Analyzing the n→π* Electronic Transition of Formaldehyde in Water. A Sequential Monte Carlo/Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory

The n→π* absorption transition of formaldehyde in water is analyzed using combined and sequential classical Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and quantum mechanics (QM) calculations. MC simulations generate the liquid solute-solvent structures for subsequent QM calculations. Using time-dependent density functional theory in a localized set of gaussian basis functions (TD-DFT/6-311++G(d,p)) calculations are made on statistically relevant configurations to obtain the average solvatochromic shift. All results presented here use the electrostatic embedding of the solvent. The statistically converged average result obtained of 2300 cm-1 is compared to previous theoretical results available. Analysis is made of the effective dipole moment of the hydrogen-bonded shell and how it could be held responsible for the polarization of the solvent molecules in the outer solvation shells.

Avaliação da atenção básica em saúde: uma nova proposta

Este artigo apresenta uma nova proposta de avaliação da Atenção Básica em Saúde (ABS), utilizando a abordagem sistêmica de Donabedian, com a modificação de que a avaliação desse serviço deveria iniciar pelo componente Processo, visando identificar a adequação da oferta e das relações entre os distintos procedimentos desse nível de atenção. A partir dessa análise deverá ser realizada a busca do resultado preditivo, permitindo a relação entre esses componentes. Com base nessa análise, a avaliação de estrutura ganha significado para o processo de decisão. Faz parte da abordagem a avaliação da rede de atenção, tendo como foco e imagem-objetivo a atenção básica como porta de entrada da rede. Apresenta uma concepção de rede mais dinâmica e flexível e propõe a utilização na avaliação do método misto, englobando a abordagem quantitativa baseada nos bancos de dados existentes no sistema Datasus e complementada pela abordagem qualitativa, permitindo maior compreensão do significado das relações encontradas nos serviços e na rede. Nesse desenho metodológico, será possível a identificação das variáveis de funcionamento e a organização da ABS e da rede de serviços, possibilitando direcionar a tomada de decisão para a melhoria de qualidade da atenção básica de saúde.

Mobility and social network effects on extremist opinions

Understanding the emergence of extreme opinions and in what kind of environment they might become less extreme is a central theme in our modern globalized society. A model combining continuous opinions and observed discrete actions (CODA) capable of addressing the important issue of measuring how extreme opinions might be has been recently proposed. In this paper I show extreme opinions to arise in a ubiquitous manner in the CODA model for a multitude of social network structures. Depending on network details reducing extremism seems to be possible. However, a large number of agents with extreme opinions is always observed. A significant decrease in the number of extremists can be observed by allowing agents to change their positions in the network.

Density functional theory study of Fe(3)Ga

First-principles scalar relativistic calculations in supercells of 16 atoms are used to represent disordered B2 ordering of Fe(3)Ga in order to observe the effect of Ga-Ga pairs on the electronic structure of this alloy. From a comparison with pure bcc Fe it is observed that the energy position and occupation of e(g) and t(2g) states are largely affected by the Ga-Ga pairs and strengthened intraplane interactions takes place. The results show that a larger hybridization of the conduction band is in the source of the magnetostriction enhancement experimentally observed in Galfenol. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3525609]

A new constitutive theory extending Hypoplasticity

The purpose of the present theory is to improve Hypoplasticity, especially in relation to reloading processes. This is done by means of two hypoplastic equations (a classical equation along with a new one containing a so-called mnemonic tensor), a cone in stress space and a criterion defining loading, unloading and reloading. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Anticipation of pain enhances the nociceptive transmission and functional connectivity within pain network in rats

Background: Expectation is a very potent pain modulator in both humans and animals. There is evidence that pain transmission neurons are modulated by expectation preceding painful stimuli. Nonetheless, few studies have examined the influence of pain expectation on the pain-related neuronal activity and the functional connectivity within the central nociceptive network. Results: This study used a tone-laser conditioning paradigm to establish the pain expectation in rats, and simultaneously recorded the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the medial dorsal thalamus (MD), and the primary somatosensory cortex (SI) to investigate the effect of pain expectation on laser-induced neuronal responses. Cross-correlation and partial directed coherence analysis were used to determine the functional interactions within and between the recorded areas during nociceptive transmission. The results showed that under anticipation condition, the neuronal activity to the auditory cue was significantly increased in the ACC area, whereas those to actual noxious stimuli were enhanced in all the recorded areas. Furthermore, neuronal correlations within and between these areas were significantly increased under conditions of expectation compared to those under non-expectation conditions, indicating an enhanced synchronization of neural activity within the pain network. In addition, information flow from the medial (ACC and MD) to the lateral (SI cortex) pain pathway increased, suggesting that the emotion-related neural circuits may modulate the neuronal activity in the somatosensory pathway during nociceptive transmission. Conclusion: These results demonstrate that the nociceptive processing in both medial and lateral pain systems is modulated by the expectation of pain.

Border figure detection using a phase oscillator network with dynamical coupling

Oscillator networks have been developed in order to perform specific tasks related to image processing. Here we analytically investigate the existence of synchronism in a pair of phase oscillators that are short-range dynamically coupled. Then, we use these analytical results to design a network able of detecting border of black-and-white figures. Each unit composing this network is a pair of such phase oscillators and is assigned to a pixel in the image. The couplings among the units forming the network are also dynamical. Border detection emerges from the network activity.

AtPIN: Arabidopsis thaliana Protein Interaction Network

Background: Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) constitute one of the most crucial conditions to sustain life in living organisms. To study PPI in Arabidopsis thaliana we have developed AtPIN, a database and web interface for searching and building interaction networks based on publicly available protein-protein interaction datasets. Description: All interactions were divided into experimentally demonstrated or predicted. The PPIs in the AtPIN database present a cellular compartment classification (C(3)) which divides the PPI into 4 classes according to its interaction evidence and subcellular localization. It has been shown in the literature that a pair of genuine interacting proteins are generally expected to have a common cellular role and proteins that have common interaction partners have a high chance of sharing a common function. In AtPIN, due to its integrative profile, the reliability index for a reported PPI can be postulated in terms of the proportion of interaction partners that two proteins have in common. For this, we implement the Functional Similarity Weight (FSW) calculation for all first level interactions present in AtPIN database. In order to identify target proteins of cytosolic glutamyl-tRNA synthetase (Cyt-gluRS) (AT5G26710) we combined two approaches, AtPIN search and yeast two-hybrid screening. Interestingly, the proteins glutamine synthetase (AT5G35630), a disease resistance protein (AT3G50950) and a zinc finger protein (AT5G24930), which has been predicted as target proteins for Cyt-gluRS by AtPIN, were also detected in the experimental screening. Conclusions: AtPIN is a friendly and easy-to-use tool that aggregates information on Arabidopsis thaliana PPIs, ontology, and sub-cellular localization, and might be a useful and reliable strategy to map protein-protein interactions in Arabidopsis. AtPIN can be accessed at http://bioinfo.esalq.usp.br/atpin.

Decision theory applied to image quality control in radiology

Background: The present work aims at the application of the decision theory to radiological image quality control ( QC) in diagnostic routine. The main problem addressed in the framework of decision theory is to accept or reject a film lot of a radiology service. The probability of each decision of a determined set of variables was obtained from the selected films. Methods: Based on a radiology service routine a decision probability function was determined for each considered group of combination characteristics. These characteristics were related to the film quality control. These parameters were also framed in a set of 8 possibilities, resulting in 256 possible decision rules. In order to determine a general utility application function to access the decision risk, we have used a simple unique parameter called r. The payoffs chosen were: diagnostic's result (correct/incorrect), cost (high/low), and patient satisfaction (yes/no) resulting in eight possible combinations. Results: Depending on the value of r, more or less risk will occur related to the decision-making. The utility function was evaluated in order to determine the probability of a decision. The decision was made with patients or administrators' opinions from a radiology service center. Conclusion: The model is a formal quantitative approach to make a decision related to the medical imaging quality, providing an instrument to discriminate what is really necessary to accept or reject a film or a film lot. The method presented herein can help to access the risk level of an incorrect radiological diagnosis decision.

The Brain as a Distributed Intelligent Processing System: An EEG Study

Background: Various neuroimaging studies, both structural and functional, have provided support for the proposal that a distributed brain network is likely to be the neural basis of intelligence. The theory of Distributed Intelligent Processing Systems (DIPS), first developed in the field of Artificial Intelligence, was proposed to adequately model distributed neural intelligent processing. In addition, the neural efficiency hypothesis suggests that individuals with higher intelligence display more focused cortical activation during cognitive performance, resulting in lower total brain activation when compared with individuals who have lower intelligence. This may be understood as a property of the DIPS. Methodology and Principal Findings: In our study, a new EEG brain mapping technique, based on the neural efficiency hypothesis and the notion of the brain as a Distributed Intelligence Processing System, was used to investigate the correlations between IQ evaluated with WAIS (Whechsler Adult Intelligence Scale) and WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children), and the brain activity associated with visual and verbal processing, in order to test the validity of a distributed neural basis for intelligence. Conclusion: The present results support these claims and the neural efficiency hypothesis.

Biologically Plausible Connectionist Prediction of Natural Language Thematic Relations

In Natural Language Processing (NLP) symbolic systems, several linguistic phenomena, for instance, the thematic role relationships between sentence constituents, such as AGENT, PATIENT, and LOCATION, can be accounted for by the employment of a rule-based grammar. Another approach to NLP concerns the use of the connectionist model, which has the benefits of learning, generalization and fault tolerance, among others. A third option merges the two previous approaches into a hybrid one: a symbolic thematic theory is used to supply the connectionist network with initial knowledge. Inspired on neuroscience, it is proposed a symbolic-connectionist hybrid system called BIO theta PRED (BIOlogically plausible thematic (theta) symbolic-connectionist PREDictor), designed to reveal the thematic grid assigned to a sentence. Its connectionist architecture comprises, as input, a featural representation of the words (based on the verb/noun WordNet classification and on the classical semantic microfeature representation), and, as output, the thematic grid assigned to the sentence. BIO theta PRED is designed to ""predict"" thematic (semantic) roles assigned to words in a sentence context, employing biologically inspired training algorithm and architecture, and adopting a psycholinguistic view of thematic theory.

Particle competition for complex network community detection

In many real situations, randomness is considered to be uncertainty or even confusion which impedes human beings from making a correct decision. Here we study the combined role of randomness and determinism in particle dynamics for complex network community detection. In the proposed model, particles walk in the network and compete with each other in such a way that each of them tries to possess as many nodes as possible. Moreover, we introduce a rule to adjust the level of randomness of particle walking in the network, and we have found that a portion of randomness can largely improve the community detection rate. Computer simulations show that the model has good community detection performance and at the same time presents low computational complexity. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.