On the Density of Transitive Tournaments

We prove that for every fixed k, the number of occurrences of the transitive tournament Tr_k of order k in a tournament  on n vertices is asymptotically minimized when  is random. In the opposite direction, we show that any sequence of tournaments  achieving this minimum for any fixed  is necessarily quasirandom. We present several other characterizations of quasirandom tournaments nicely complementing previously known results and relatively easily following from our proof techniques.     

Hyperbolicity and wave propagation in extended thermodynamics

Summary The hyperbolic system of the field equations of the Extended Thermodynamics governing the non-equilibrium thermodynamical processes of gases is studied. First, the extreme cases of strongly degenerate Fermi and Bose gases are discussed so as to complete the previous analysis by Liu and Müller. The physical interpretation of these results appears to be in agreement with quantum and statistical mechanics. Then, the propagation of discontinuity waves and the critical time for classical gases will be dealt with.

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Sommario Si studia il sistema iperbolico delle equazioni di campo della Termodinamica Estesa che governa i processi termodinamici di non equilibrio nei gas. Nella prima parte si discutono i casi limite dei gas di Fermi e Bose fortemente degeneri completando la precedente analisi di Liu e Müller. L'interpretazione fisica di questi risultati appare in accordo con la meccanica quantistica e statistica. Nella seconda parte si studia la propagazione di onde di discontinuitá e il tempo critico per i gas classici.

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Supported by C.N.R., M.P.I. fondi ricerche 40% and 60% and INFN(sez. di Bologna).     

An Electrochemical Sensor for Reducing Sugars Based on a Glassy Carbon Electrode Modified with Electropolymerized Molecularly Imprinted Poly‐o‐phenylenediamine Film

An electrochemical sensor based on electropolymerizing o‐phenylenediamine (o‐PD) on a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was developed for determination of reducing sugars. The molecular imprinted sensor was tested by differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) to verify the changes in peak currents of hexacyanoferrate. Under the optimum analytical conditions, the current change was linear to the logarithm of glucose and fructose concentration from 0.25 to 25 µM. The detection limit of glucose and fructose were 0.185 µM and 0.173 µM, respectively. Besides, the applicability of the sensitive sensor has been successfully evaluated by determining reducing sugars in the samples from sugarcane industries.     

A Bioorthogonal Chemical Reporter of Viral Infection

Pathogen‐selective labeling was achieved by using the novel gemcitabine metabolite analogue 2′‐deoxy‐2′,2′‐difluoro‐5‐ethynyluridine (dF‐EdU) and click chemistry. Cells infected with Herpes Simplex Virus‐1 (HSV‐1), but not uninfected cells, exhibit nuclear staining upon the addition of dF‐EdU and a fluorescent azide. The incorporation of the dF‐EdU into DNA depends on its phosphorylation by a herpes virus thymidine kinase (TK). Crystallographic analyses revealed how dF‐EdU is well accommodated in the active site of HSV‐1 TK, but steric clashes prevent dF‐EdU from binding human TK. These results provide the first example of pathogen‐enzyme‐dependent incorporation and labeling of bioorthogonal functional groups in human cells.     

Homochiral self-assembly of biocoordination polymers: anion-triggered helicity and absolute configuration inversion

The different natures of the weakly coordinating anions – triflate or perchlorate – in the Cu²⁺-mediated self-assembly of cytidine monophosphate nucleotide play a fundamental role in the homochiral resolution process, yielding one-dimensional copper(ii) coordination polymers of opposite helicity that can be easily inverted, in a reversible way, by changing the nature of the anion as revealed by circular dichroism experiments both in solution and in the solid state.     

Mechanism Integrated Information

The Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of consciousness starts from essential phenomenological properties, which are then translated into postulates that any physical system must satisfy in order to specify the physical substrate of consciousness. We recently introduced an information measure (Barbosa et al., 2020) that captures three postulates of IIT—existence, intrinsicality and information—and is unique. Here we show that the new measure also satisfies the remaining postulates of IIT—integration and exclusion—and create the framework that identifies maximally irreducible mechanisms. These mechanisms can then form maximally irreducible systems, which in turn will specify the physical substrate of conscious experience.     

Arbitrary-Order Finite-Time Corrections for the Kramers–Moyal Operator

With the aim of improving the reconstruction of stochastic evolution equations from empirical time-series data, we derive a full representation of the generator of the Kramers–Moyal operator via a power-series expansion of the exponential operator. This expansion is necessary for deriving the different terms in a stochastic differential equation. With the full representation of this operator, we are able to separate finite-time corrections of the power-series expansion of arbitrary order into terms with and without derivatives of the Kramers–Moyal coefficients. We arrive at a closed-form solution expressed through conditional moments, which can be extracted directly from time-series data with a finite sampling intervals. We provide all finite-time correction terms for parametric and non-parametric estimation of the Kramers–Moyal coefficients for discontinuous processes which can be easily implemented—employing Bell polynomials—in time-series analyses of stochastic processes. With exemplary cases of insufficiently sampled diffusion and jump-diffusion processes, we demonstrate the advantages of our arbitrary-order finite-time corrections and their impact in distinguishing diffusion and jump-diffusion processes strictly from time-series data.     

Frequency upconversion in rare-earth doped fluoroindate glasses

We present recent results on frequency upconversion (UPC) obtained in fluoroindate glasses (FIG) doped with Ho³⁺, Tm³⁺ and Nd³⁺ ions and codoped with Pr³⁺/Nd³⁺ and Yb³⁺/Tb³⁺ ions. The results for the Ho³⁺-doped samples show strong evidence of energy transfer (ET) between Ho³⁺ ions resonantly excited at 640 nm. The origin of the blue-green upconverted fluorescence observed was identified and the dynamics of the signals revealed the pathways involved in the UPC process. In the case of Tm³⁺-doped FIG, the samples were resonantly excited at 650 nm and the main mechanism that contributes for the red-to-blue upconversion is excited-state absorption (ESA). The FIG samples codoped with Pr³⁺/Nd³⁺ were excited at 588 nm in resonance with transitions starting from the ground state of the Nd³⁺ and the Pr³⁺ ions. It was observed that the presence of Nd³⁺ ions enhanced the Pr³⁺ emission at 480 nm by two orders of magnitude. Multiphonon (MP)-assisted upconversion is also discussed for Nd³⁺-doped FIG pumped at 866 nm. Emission at 750 nm with a peculiar linear dependence with the laser intensity was observed and explained. A rate-equation model that includes MP absorption via thermally coupled electronic excited states of Nd³⁺ was developed and describes well the experimental results. The role played by effective phonon modes is clearly demonstrated. MP-assisted UPC process was also studied in Yb³⁺/Tb³⁺-codoped FIG samples excited at 1064 nm, which is off-resonance with electronic transitions starting from the ground state. It was determined that the mechanism leading to Tb³⁺ emission in the blue is due to ET from a pair of excited Yb³⁺ ions followed by ESA in the Tb³⁺ ions.     

The Logic of Quantum Measurements

We apply our previously developed formalism of contexts of histories, suitable to deal with quantum properties at different times, to the measurement process. We explore the logical implications which are allowed by the quantum theory, about the realization of properties of the microscopic measured system, before and after the measurement process with a given pointer value.