BSD Crown (Israel)

Graphitic polytypes-commensurate stacking variants of graphene layers-exhibit pronounced stacking-dependent properties, including intrinsic polarization, orbital magnetism and unconventional superconductivity. Previous attempts to switch between these polytypes required micrometre-scale domains and micronewton loading forces, severely limiting practical multi-ferroic functionality. Here we demonstrate fully reversible transformations of Bernal tetralayers to rhombohedral crystals down to 30-nanometre-scale dimensions, using <1 nanonewton lateral shear forces and an energy of <1 femtojoule per switching event. We achieve this by inserting an intentionally misaligned spacer, patterned by nanometre-scale cavities, between a pair of aligned bilayers. Within each cavity, the active bilayers sag to form stable single-domain polytypes, whereas outside the cavities, the layers slide freely over superlubric, incommensurate interfaces with ultralow friction. Conducting-probe force-microscopy experiments, supported by force-field calculations, reveal edge-nucleated boundary solitons that slide spontaneously to switch the commensurate domains, indicating ultralow pinning and long-range strain relaxations extending tens of nanometres beyond the islands. By engineering cavity geometries, we program elastic coupling between neighbouring islands and tune switching thresholds and trajectories. This reconfigurable slidetronic control establishes a robust route to multi-ferroic response and elastically coupled switching among distinct stacking states.

It is generally assumed that nonresponsive people in comatose states are unconscious, especially when it is known that their neuronal circuits are not functioning normally, for example, due to severe anoxia and medically induced comas. Nevertheless, occasional reports suggest that sometimes, patients in such conditions can be fully aware of everything that happens around them. The present publication introduces a well-documented case of this kind. It concerns a patient in Israel who was diagnosed with cerebral edema and suffered severe anoxic brain damage that had already affected his brain stem. He was put in an induced coma to minimize the brain’s oxygen consumption. Still, he was expected to die within hours. However, the patient recovered unexpectedly. It turned out he had been fully conscious throughout the 44 hours he was in this coma. As a result, he was able to describe in detail every occurrence and conversation that had been held at his bedside throughout this time. This locked-in experience had an utterly traumatic impact on the patient. As a result, practices for coma patient care have been adapted and improved in Israel. We argue that it is important to raise awareness regarding the occurrence of such “paradoxical awareness” and hope that this increased recognition will help to improve the practices for coma patient care, also in other countries. Moreover, such individual case studies are vital for advancing the knowledge about the brain conditions under which it is possible to be aware – a largely neglected field of research that may have further important implications, for instance, in the context of organ donation.

Eucalyptus comprises the largest planted area of cultivated production forest in Brazil. Genetic modification of eucalyptus can provide additional characteristics for increasing productivity, protecting plant yield, and potentially altering fiber for various industrial uses. With this objective, a transgenic eucalyptus variety, event H421, received regulatory approval for commercial release after 6 years of approved risk assessment studies by the Brazilian National Technical Biosafety Commission (CTNBio) in 2015, becoming the first approved genetically modified (GM) eucalyptus in the world. GM event H421 enables increased plant biomass accumulation through overexpression of the Arabidopsis 1,4-β-endoglucanase Cel1, which remodels the xyloglucan–cellulose matrix of the cell wall during development to promote cell expansion and growth. As required, in that time, by the current normative from CTNBio, a post-commercial release monitoring plan for H421 was submitted, incorporating general surveillance for five consecutive years with the submission of annual reports. The monitoring plan was conducted on fields of H421 progenies, with conventional clones as comparators, cultivated in representative regions where eucalyptus is cultivated in the states of São Paulo, Bahia, and Maranhão, representing Southeast, Northeast, and Northern Brazil. Over the course of the five-year general surveillance monitoring plan for the approved GM eucalyptus H421, no adverse effect that could impact the biosafety of the commercially approved event was identified. Additionally, the GM eucalyptus exhibited behavior highly consistent with that of conventional commercial clones. Therefore, there was no need for an extra risk assessment study of a case-specific monitoring plan. The results show the importance of continuously updating the regulation norms of governmental agencies to align with scientific advances.

Chapter 5 considers a combination of different geophysical methods (based on both practice and information, probabilistic, and wavelet approaches) for resolving different aspects of karst problems.

Chapter 1 provides a short introduction to karst and its distribution throughout the world. It provides a brief overview of karst definitions and aspects.

This study’s aim was two-fold: (i) to test the intra-session reliability of the one-leg balance activity test; and (ii) to assess the influence of age on reaction time (RT) and the differences between dominant and non-dominant feet. Fifty young soccer players with an average age of 12.4 ± 1.8 years were divided into two groups: younger soccer players (n = 26; 11.6 ± 0.9 years) and older soccer players (n = 24; 14.2 ± 0.8 years). Each group then completed four trials (two with each leg) of the one-leg balance activity (OLBA) to evaluate RT under a single-leg stance. Mean RT and the number of hits were calculated, and the best trial was also selected. T-tests and Pearson correlations were performed for statistical analysis. Values for RT were lower, and the number of hits was higher while standing on the non-dominant foot (p = 0.01). MANOVA revealed that the “Dominant Leg” factor did not affect the multivariate composite (Pillai Trace = 0.05; F(4, 43) = 0.565; p = 0.689; Partial ETA Squared = 0.050; Observed Power = 0.174). The “Age” factor did not present an effect on the multivariate composite (Pillai Trace = 0.104; F(4, 43) = 1.243; p = 0.307; Partial ETA Squared = 0.104; Observed Power = 0.355). The results of the present investigation demonstrate that RT may be lower while standing on the non-dominant foot.

When P indistinguishable balls are randomly distributed among L distinguishable boxes, and considering the dense system P &gt;&gt; L, our natural intuition tells us that the box with the average number of balls P/L has the highest probability and that none of boxes are empty; however in reality, the probability of the empty box is always the highest. This fact is with contradistinction to sparse system P &lt;&lt; L (i.e. energy distribution in gas) in which the average value has the highest probability. Here we show that when we postulate the requirement that all possible configurations of balls in the boxes have equal probabilities, a realistic "long tail" distribution is obtained. This formalism, when applied for sparse systems, converges to distributions in which the average is preferred. We calculate some of the distributions resulted from this postulate and obtain most of the known distributions in nature, namely: Zipf’s law, Benford’s law, particles energy distributions, and more. Further generalization of this novel approach yields not only much better predictions for elections, polls, market share distribution among competing companies, and so forth, but also a compelling probabilistic explanation for Planck's famous empirical finding that the energy of a photon is hv. This paper unifies everyday probability calculations done by surveyors, gamblers and economists with the calculations done by physicists, therefore enabling the applications of the methodology of statistical physics in economics and the life sciences.

Este artigo objetiva estabelecer uma discussão acerca de como o projeto “Ciência Interativa” (CI) pode contribuir para o ensino de ciências e matemática. Isto é feito a partir de um panorama geral sobre iniciativas existentes que atuam na divulgação e popularização da ciência na microrregião de Ilhéus-Itabuna. A proposta de criação do projeto era se constituir como um importante veículo de divulgação científica, somando esforços a outras iniciativas existentes e, por conseguinte colaborar para a melhoria da educação em ciências e matemática em sua região de atuação. Neste trabalho, de caráter descritivo, apresenta-se o CI, tecendo uma análise a partir das exposições realizadas nos anos de 2014 e 2015. Como resultado, fica evidente a expansão do CI demonstrado pelo número significativo de visitantes, pela presença de comunidades escolares e sociedade civil do entorno do campus e cidades circunvizinhas nas exposições, pelo surgimento de parcerias com outras instituições, além do aumento expressivo de experimentos na área de ciências naturais (representados aqui pela física, química e biologia) e matemática. As discussões trazidas neste trabalho, além de auxiliar para reflexão das ações do CI e seu papel como projeto que atua na divulgação e popularização da ciência, apontam para a necessidade de investigações a respeito de projetos de divulgação científica e sua relação com o ensino regular, mesmo como uma forma de fomentar investimentos por parte do governo e/ou organizações não governamentais na área.