In 1927, at the Solvay conference, Einstein posed a thought experiment with the primary intention of showing the incompleteness of quantum mechanics; to prove it, he employed the instantaneous ...nonlocal effects caused by the collapse of the wavefunction of a single particle-the spooky action at a distance-, when a measurement is done. This historical event preceded the well-know Einstein-Podolsk-Rosen criticism over the incompleteness of quantum mechanics. Here, by using the Stern-Gerlach experiment, we demonstrate how the instantaneous nonlocal feature of the collapse of the wavefunction together with the single-particle entanglement can be used to produce the nonlocal effect of steering, i.e. the single-particle steering. In the steering process Bob gets a quantum state depending on which observable Alice decides to measure. To accomplish this, we fully exploit the spreading (over large distances) of the entangled wavefunction of the single-particle. In particular, we demonstrate that the nonlocality of the single-particle entangled state allows the particle to "know" about the kind of detector Alice is using to steer Bob's state. Therefore, notwithstanding strong counterarguments, we prove that the single-particle entanglement gives rise to truly nonlocal effects at two faraway places. This opens the possibility of using the single-particle entanglement for implementing truly nonlocal task.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is the most serious form of degenerative motor neuron disease in adults, characterized by upper and lower motor neuron degeneration, skeletal muscle atrophy, ...paralysis, and death. High prevalence of malnutrition and weight loss adversely affect quality of life. Moreover, two thirds of patients develop a hypermetabolism of unknown cause, leading to increased resting energy expenditure. Inasmuch as lipids are the major source of energy for muscles, we determined the status of lipids in a population of patients with ALS and investigated whether lipid contents may have an impact on disease progression and survival.
Blood concentrations of triglycerides, cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) were measured in a cohort of 369 patients with ALS and compared to a control group of 286 healthy subjects. Postmortem histologic examination was performed on liver specimens from 59 other patients with ALS and 16 patients with Parkinson disease (PD).
The frequency of hyperlipidemia, as revealed by increased plasma levels of total cholesterol or LDL, was twofold higher in patients with ALS than in control subjects. As a result, steatosis of the liver was more pronounced in patients with ALS than in patients with PD. Correlation studies demonstrated that bearing an abnormally elevated LDL/HDL ratio significantly increased survival by more than 12 months.
Hyperlipidemia is a significant prognostic factor for survival of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. This finding highlights the importance of nutritional intervention strategies on disease progression and claims our attention when treating these patients with lipid-lowering drugs.
The present study aims to explore how familiarity modulates the neural processing of faces under different conditions: upright or inverted, neutral or emotional. To this purpose, 32 participants (25 ...female; age: M = 27.7 years, SD = 9.3) performed two face/emotion identification tasks during EEG recording. In the first task, to study facial processing, three different categories of facial stimuli were presented during a target detection task: famous familiar faces, faces of loved ones, and unfamiliar faces. To explore the face inversion effect according to each level of familiarity, these facial stimuli were also presented upside down. In the second task, to study emotional face processing, an emotional identification task on personally familiar and unfamiliar faces was conducted. The behavioural results showed an improved performance in the identification of facial expressions of emotion with the increase of facial familiarity, consistent with the previous literature. Regarding electrophysiological results, we found increased amplitudes of the P100, N170, and N250 for inverted compared to upright faces, independently of their degree of familiarity. Moreover, we did not find familiarity effects at the P100 and N170 time-windows, but we found that N250 amplitude was larger for personally familiar compared to unfamiliar faces. This result supports the reasoning that the facial familiarity increases the neural activity during the N250 time-window, which may be explained by the processing of additional information prompted by the viewing of our loved ones faces, in contrast to what happens with unfamiliar individuals.
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Context.
The supernova (SN) 2023ixf is among the nearest Type II SNe discovered in recent decades. As such, there is a wealth of observational data of both the event itself and of the associated ...object identified in pre-explosion images. This has enabled variety of studies aimed at determining the SN properties and the nature of the putative progenitor star. Modeling the light curve is a powerful method to derive the physical properties independently of direct progenitor analyses.
Aims.
We investigate the physical nature of SN 2023ixf based on a hydrodynamical modeling of its bolometric light curve and expansion velocities during the complete photospheric phase.
Methods.
A grid of one dimensional (1D) explosions was calculated for evolved stars of different masses. We derived the properties of SN 2023ixf and its progenitor by comparing our models with the observations.
Results.
The observations at
t
≳ 20 days are aptly reproduced by the explosion of a star with zero-age main sequence mass of
M
ZAMS
= 12
M
⊙
, an explosion energy of 1.2 × 10
51
erg, and a nickel mass of 0.05
M
⊙
. This indicates that SN 2023ixf was a normal event. Our modeling suggests a limit of
M
ZAMS
< 15
M
⊙
, thereby favouring the low-mass range among the results from pre-explosion observations.
Enormous progress has been made in the treatment of Parkinson's disease (PD). As a result of advances in experimental therapeutics, many promising therapies for PD are emerging. Levodopa remains the ...most potent drug for controlling PD symptoms, yet is associated with significant complications such as the "wearing off" effect, levodopa-induced dyskinesias and other motor complications. Catechol-o-methyl-transferase inhibitors, dopamine agonists and nondopaminergic therapy are alternative modalities in the management of PD and may be used concomitantly with levodopa or one another. The neurosurgical treatment, focusing on deep brain stimulation, is reviewed briefly. Although this review has attempted to highlight the most recent advances in the treatment of PD, it is important to note that new treatments are not necessarily better than the established conventional therapy and that the treatment options must be individualized and tailored to the needs of each individual patient.
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► Jacaranda and plum kernels are used in the synthesis of activated carbons. ► A calcium solution extracted from egg shells is used to impregnate these precursors. ► Activated carbons ...are used for the removal of dye AB25, MB and Pb2+ from water. ► Activated carbons obtained from plum kernels show the best adsorption performance.
Activated carbon is the most widely used adsorbent for wastewater treatment and water pollution control. Lignocellulosic precursors obtained from crops and fruits offer several advantages for synthesizing activated carbons due to its wide availability and their interesting physicochemical properties. In particular, biomass of plum kernel and jacaranda are alternative lignocellulosic precursors for activated carbon preparation. This study reports the application of Prunus domestica and Jacaranda mimosifolia biomass for the synthesis of activated carbons to remove commercial dyes (i.e., AB25 and methylene blue) and Pb2+ ions from aqueous solutions. Two different methodologies for the preparation of activated carbons were analyzed, namely, direct carbonization at 800°C and the impregnation of the biomass with a calcium solution extracted from egg shell wastes prior to carbonization. Results indicated that both carbonization and activation processes improved the uptake of lead, acid blue 25 and methylene blue up to 10 times with respect to adsorption results obtained for raw precursors. Characterization of raw precursors and activated carbons by several techniques were used to understand the adsorption results obtained in this study. Overall, activated carbons obtained from plum kernels showed the best performance for the removal of these priority water pollutants. The adsorption capacities of plum kernel adsorbents are higher (up to 100%) than those obtained for adsorbents prepared from jacaranda.
Both hypoactivity and hyperactivity in the amygdala are associated with perturbations in social behavior. While >60 years of experimental manipulations of the amygdala in animal models have shown ...that amygdala is critical for social behavior, many of these studies contradict one another. Moreover, several questions remain unaddressed. (1) What effect does activation of amygdala have on social behavior? (2) What is the effect of transient silencing, rather than permanent damage? (3) Is there a dissociation between the roles of the central (CeA) and basolateral amygdala (BLA) in regulating social behavior? (4) Can the prosocial effects of amygdala manipulations be explained by anxiolytic effects? We focally manipulated activity within the CeA or BLA in macaques by intracerebral microinjection of muscimol (to inactivate) or bicuculline (to activate) to these amygdaloid subregions. Social interactions were observed in pairs of highly familiar monkeys. We compared these effects to those achieved with systemic diazepam. Activation of the BLA but not CeA suppressed social behavior. Inhibition of either structure increased social behavior, although the effect was greater following inhibition of the BLA. Systemic diazepam was without effect. These studies, which are the first to bidirectionally manipulate the primate amygdala for effects on social behavior, revealed that (1) the amygdala, as a critical regulator of the social network, is bidirectionally sensitive to perturbations in activity, and (2) increased sociability after amygdala inactivation cannot be solely explained by decreased fear.
Many previous studies reported loss of social interactions following permanent damage to the amygdala in nonhuman primates. In contrast, we report that transient inhibition of the basolateral amygdala triggered a profound increase in social interactions in dyads of monkeys highly familiar with each other. We compared these effects to those of systemic diazepam, which failed to increase social behavior. While it has been suggested that suppression of "fear" could underlie the prosocial effects of amygdala manipulations, our data strongly suggest that impairment in fear processing per se cannot account for the prosocial effects of amygdala inhibition. Furthermore, our studies are the first to examine activation of the amygdala and to assess the separate roles of the amygdaloid nuclei in social behavior in primates.
In November 2004, a regional climate change workshop was held in Guatemala with the goal of analyzing how climate extremes had changed in the region. Scientists from Central America and northern ...South America brought long‐term daily temperature and precipitation time series from meteorological stations in their countries to the workshop. After undergoing careful quality control procedures and a homogeneity assessment, the data were used to calculate a suite of climate change indices over the 1961–2003 period. Analysis of these indices reveals a general warming trend in the region. The occurrence of extreme warm maximum and minimum temperatures has increased while extremely cold temperature events have decreased. Precipitation indices, despite the large and expected spatial variability, indicate that although no significant increases in the total amount are found, rainfall events are intensifying and the contribution of wet and very wet days are enlarging. Temperature and precipitation indices were correlated with northern and equatorial Atlantic and Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures. However, those indices having the largest significant trends (percentage of warm days, precipitation intensity, and contribution from very wet days) have low correlations to El Niño–Southern Oscillation. Additionally, precipitation indices show a higher correlation with tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures.
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which underlies many quantum key features, is under close scrutiny regarding its applicability to new scenarios. Using both the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem ...establishing that observables do not have predetermined values before measurements and the measurement postulate of quantum mechanics, we propose that in order to describe the disturbance produced by the measurement process, it is convenient to define disturbance by the changes produced on quantum states. Hence, we propose to quantify disturbance in terms of the square root of the Jensen-Shannon entropy distance between the probability distributions before and after the measurement process. Additionally, disturbance and statistical distinguishability of states are fundamental concepts of quantum mechanics that have thus far been unrelated; however, we show that they are intermingled thereupon we enquire into whether the statistical distinguishability of states, caused by statistical fluctuations in the measurement outcomes, is responsible for the disturbance's magnitude.
Purpose
The use of mesh is a common practice in ventral hernia repair (VHR). Lack of consensus on which prosthetic material works better in different settings remains. This meta-analysis aims to ...summarize the available evidence on hernia recurrence and complications after repair with synthetic, biologic, or biosynthetic/bioabsorbable meshes in hernias grade 2–3 of the Ventral Hernia Working Group modified classification.
Methods
A literature search was conducted in January 2021 using Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, and MEDLINE (via PubMed) databases. Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) and observational studies with adult patients undergoing VHR with either synthetic, biologic, or biosynthetic/bioabsorbable mesh were included. Outcomes were hernia recurrence, Surgical Site Occurrence (SSO), Surgical Site Infection (SSI), 30 days re-intervention, and infected mesh removal. Random-effects meta-analyses of pooled proportions were performed. Quality of the studies was assessed, and heterogeneity was explored through sensitivity analyses.
Results
25 articles were eligible for inclusion. Mean age ranged from 47 to 64 years and participants’ follow-up ranged from 1 to 36 months. Biosynthetic/bioabsorbable mesh reported a 9% (95% CI 2–19%) rate of hernia recurrence, lower than synthetic and biologic meshes. Biosynthetic/bioabsorbable mesh repair also showed a lower incidence of SSI, with a 14% (95% CI 6–24%) rate, and there was no evidence of infected mesh removal. Rates of seroma were similar for the different materials.
Conclusions
This meta-analysis did not show meaningful differences among materials. However, the best proportions towards lower recurrence and complication rates after grade 2–3 VHR were after using biosynthetic/slowly absorbable mesh reinforcement. These results should be taken with caution, as head-to-head comparative studies between biosynthetic and synthetic/biologic meshes are lacking. Although, biosynthetic/bioabsorbable materials could be considered an alternative to synthetic and biologic mesh reinforcement in these settings.
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