Moss and liverwort epiphytes on trunks of Cyathea delgadii in a fragment of tropical rain forest, São Paulo State, Brazil

This study is a survey of the bryophyte species that occur on the trunks of Cyathea delgadii Sternb. (Cyatheaceae), a native tree fern, encountered in a fragment of Atlantic forest located in the area of the „Parque Estadual das Fontes do Ipiranga (PEFI)“, São Paulo State, Brazil. Specimens of bryophytes were collected from March 2001 to October 2003. We found 35 bryophyte species (12 spp. of mosses and 23 of liverworts). Ceratolejeuenea dentacornuta Steph. is presented as a new record for Brazil. A brief discussion about previous records of bryophyte species growing on trunks of tree ferns in Brazil is also presented

A Generalized Sznajd Model

In the last decade the Sznajd Model has been successfully employed in modeling some properties and scale features of both proportional and majority elections. We propose a new version of the Sznajd model with a generalized bounded confidence rule - a rule that limits the convincing capability of agents and that is essential to allow coexistence of opinions in the stationary state. With an appropriate choice of parameters it can be reduced to previous models. We solved this new model both in a mean-field approach (for an arbitrary number of opinions) and numerically in a Barabasi-Albert network (for three and four opinions), studying the transient and the possible stationary states. We built the phase portrait for the special cases of three and four opinions, defining the attractors and their basins of attraction. Through this analysis, we were able to understand and explain discrepancies between mean-field and simulation results obtained in previous works for the usual Sznajd Model with bounded confidence and three opinions. Both the dynamical system approach and our generalized bounded confidence rule are quite general and we think it can be useful to the understanding of other similar models.Comment: 19 pages with 8 figures. Submitted to Physical Review

Macroeconomics of the New and the Used Car Markets

The new cars of today are used cars of tomorrow and some people assume a competition between new and used markets. There are numerous, preconceived ideas and academic theories regarding the interactions between primary and secondary markets. To investigate the relations, we provide a macroeconomic analysis of the French, the British and the US car markets. We aim at answering the following questions. What are the interactions between the new and the second-hand car markets? Can we use the interactions to estimate the car prices of tomorrow? Our results indicate that the relations appear limited for France and the UK, whereas the US market faces a Scitovscky mechanism, defined by constant disequilibrium and multiple interactions between primary and secondary markets. Furthermore, they illustrate that the interrelations are not strong enough to fully explain and forecast market patterns.second-hand market, automotive market, prices, causality, cyclical correlations, VAR.

The role of short periodic orbits in quantum maps with continuous openings

We apply a recently developed semiclassical theory of short periodic orbits to the continuously open quantum tribaker map. In this paradigmatic system the trajectories are partially bounced back according to continuous reflectivity functions. This is relevant in many situations that include optical microresonators and more complicated boundary conditions. In a perturbative regime, the shortest periodic orbits belonging to the classical repeller of the open map - a cantor set given by a region of exactly zero reflectivity - prove to be extremely robust in supporting a set of long-lived resonances of the continuously open quantum maps. Moreover, for step like functions a significant reduction in the number needed is obtained, similarly to the completely open situation. This happens despite a strong change in the spectral properties when compared to the discontinuous reflectivity case.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1604.0181

FUS-CHOP promotes invasion in myxoid liposarcoma through a SRC/FAK/RHO/ROCK-dependent pathway

Deregulated SRC/FAK signaling leads to enhanced migration and invasion in many types of tumors. In myxoid and round cell liposarcoma (MRCLS), an adipocytic tumor characterized by the expression of the fusion oncogene FUS-CHOP, SRC have been found as one of the most activated kinases. Here we used a cell-of-origin model of MRCLS and an MRCLS cell line to thoroughly characterize the mechanisms of cell invasion induced by FUS-CHOP using in vitro (3D spheroid invasion assays) and in vivo (chicken chorioallantoic membrane model) approaches. FUS-CHOP expression activated SRC-FAK signaling and increased the invasive ability of MRCLS cells. In addition, FAK expression was found to significantly correlate with tumor aggressiveness in sarcoma patient samples. The involvement of SRC/FAK activation in FUS-CHOP–mediated invasion was further confirmed using the SRC inhibitor dasatinib, the specific FAK inhibitor PF-573228, and FAK siRNA. Notably, dasatinib and PF573228 could also efficiently block the invasion of cancer stem cell subpopulations. Downstream of SRC/FAK signaling, we found that FUS-CHOP expression increases the levels of the RHO/ROCK downstream effector phospho-MLC2 (T18/S19) and that this activation was prevented by dasatinib or PF573228. Moreover, the ROCK inhibitor RKI-1447 was able to completely abolish invasion in FUS-CHOP–expressing cells. These data uncover the involvement of SRC/FAK/RHO/ROCK signaling axis in FUS-CHOP–mediated invasion, thus providing a rationale for testing inhibitors of this pathway as potential novel antimetastatic agents for MRCLS treatmentPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Periodic orbit bifurcations and scattering time delay fluctuations

We study fluctuations of the Wigner time delay for open (scattering) systems which exhibit mixed dynamics in the classical limit. It is shown that in the semiclassical limit the time delay fluctuations have a distribution that differs markedly from those which describe fully chaotic (or strongly disordered) systems: their moments have a power law dependence on a semiclassical parameter, with exponents that are rational fractions. These exponents are obtained from bifurcating periodic orbits trapped in the system. They are universal in situations where sufficiently long orbits contribute. We illustrate the influence of bifurcations on the time delay numerically using an open quantum map.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, contribution to QMC200

Semiclassical structure of chaotic resonance eigenfunctions

We study the resonance (or Gamow) eigenstates of open chaotic systems in the semiclassical limit, distinguishing between left and right eigenstates of the non-unitary quantum propagator, and also between short-lived and long-lived states. The long-lived left (right) eigenstates are shown to concentrate as $\hbar\to 0$ on the forward (backward) trapped set of the classical dynamics. The limit of a sequence of eigenstates $\{\psi(\hbar)\}_{\hbar\to 0}$ is found to exhibit a remarkably rich structure in phase space that depends on the corresponding limiting decay rate. These results are illustrated for the open baker map, for which the probability density in position space is observed to have self-similarity properties.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; some minor corrections, some changes in presentatio