Drip and Mate Operations Acting in Test Tube Systems and Tissue-like P systems

The operations drip and mate considered in (mem)brane computing resemble the operations cut and recombination well known from DNA computing. We here consider sets of vesicles with multisets of objects on their outside membrane interacting by drip and mate in two different setups: in test tube systems, the vesicles may pass from one tube to another one provided they fulfill specific constraints; in tissue-like P systems, the vesicles are immediately passed to specified cells after having undergone a drip or mate operation. In both variants, computational completeness can be obtained, yet with different constraints for the drip and mate operations

Mapping Patent Classifications: Portfolio and Statistical Analysis, and the Comparison of Strengths and Weaknesses

The Cooperative Patent Classifications (CPC) jointly developed by the European and US Patent Offices provide a new basis for mapping and portfolio analysis. This update provides an occasion for rethinking the parameter choices. The new maps are significantly different from previous ones, although this may not always be obvious on visual inspection. Since these maps are statistical constructs based on index terms, their quality--as different from utility--can only be controlled discursively. We provide nested maps online and a routine for portfolio overlays and further statistical analysis. We add a new tool for "difference maps" which is illustrated by comparing the portfolios of patents granted to Novartis and MSD in 2016.Comment: Scientometrics 112(3) (2017) 1573-1591; http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-017-2449-

Determination of the working time requirement for suckling sows in the pen of Wels

These days, especially in organic piglet production, it is necessary to reduce the production costs to be competitive on the market. A large proportion of the production costs are caused by labor and construction costs to ensure a high level of animal welfare. The farrowing pen of Wels, currently existing in prototype form, was designed to fulfill organic farming requirements, improve animal welfare, and minimize the costs for construction and labor. The housing system is characterized by four separate functional areas: the lying area, the excretion and moving area, the feeding area for the sow, and a piglet nest. To identify the working time requirements of routine and special tasks, a time study, based on the work element method and an electronic time recording system (ortim b3) (a Pocket PC with time recording software), was conducted. The influencing variables and the time measurements were collected by directly observing work processes in the farrowing unit, which had 5 farrowing pens, over a period of 21 days at the “LFZ Raumberg Gumpenstein.” The data were descriptive and statistically analyzed to obtain planning data on the element basis. The time requirement was modeled according to the related task and in total over the suckling period. The routine tasks consisted in transporting the feed to the pen, feeding the sows, monitoring the sows and piglets, mucking out the dung corridor with a tractor and sprinkling straw in it, as well as filling up the hay rack. The labor input was 3.99 AKmin per sow and day in total. The special tasks included inoculating the piglets, marking with ear tags, castrating the male piglets, cleaning the whole pen and the dung corridor, and preparing the farrowing pen for the next sows. Special work required 25.9 MPmin per sow over the keeping period of 21 days. The total working time requirements over the period of 21 days were 1.82 MPh per sow. Overall, the farrowing pen of Wels has low time requirements and can be seen as a good alternative to the existing organic pens

Graph-Controlled Insertion-Deletion Systems

In this article, we consider the operations of insertion and deletion working in a graph-controlled manner. We show that like in the case of context-free productions, the computational power is strictly increased when using a control graph: computational completeness can be obtained by systems with insertion or deletion rules involving at most two symbols in a contextual or in a context-free manner and with the control graph having only four nodes.Comment: In Proceedings DCFS 2010, arXiv:1008.127

T cell expansion from umbilical cord blood without thymic stroma cells after stimulation with SCF, IL-7, AND IL-2

We analyzed in vitro expansion and differentiation of T progenitor cells from umbilical cord blood in the absence of thymic epithelium. The expansion setup is performed in the presence of SCF, IL-7 , and IL -2 with autologous serum .Using CBMCs as initial source , we compared the growth kinetics of several cell populations in either whole CBMC or  CD34+ -enriched-, as well as in CD3CD4CD8-depleted expansion assays by FACS analysis. After 11 days of culture, cell increase values were about 7 fold for CD3+, 6 fold for CD3+CD4+, 7 fold for CD3+CD8+, 4fold for CD3+CD56, 6fold for CD56+, and 0.2 fold for CD34+. We characterized the developmental state of these cell populations by RT –PCR analysis of the lymphoid differentiation markers RAG-1 and pre T-Alpha. In all samples , transcripts of both markers could be detected from day 0 though day 11, however , in case of pre – T-Alpha,  nested PCR  was always required , indicating lower expression . These findings; therefore, demonstrate that T-cell differentiation events (as opposed to mere expansion) do occur in stroma cell free expansion assays

Double-beta decay of 130^{130}Te to the first 0+^{+} excited state of 130^{130}Xe with CUORICINO

The CUORICINO experiment was an array of 62 TeO$_{2}$ single-crystal bolometers with a total $^{130}$Te mass of $11.3\,$kg. The experiment finished in 2008 after more than 3 years of active operating time. Searches for both $0\nu$ and $2\nu$ double-beta decay to the first excited $0^{+}$ state in $^{130}$Xe were performed by studying different coincidence scenarios. The analysis was based on data representing a total exposure of N($^{130}$Te)$\cdot$t=$9.5\times10^{25}\,$y. No evidence for a signal was found. The resulting lower limits on the half lives are $T^{2\nu}_{1/2}(^{130} Te\rightarrow^{130} Xe^{*})>1.3\times10^{23}\,$y (90% C.L.), and $T^{0\nu}_{1/2}(^{130} Te\rightarrow^{130} Xe^{*})>9.4\times10^{23}\,$y (90% C.L.).Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Jet substructure at the Large Hadron Collider

Jet substructure has emerged to play a central role at the Large Hadron Collider, where it has provided numerous innovative ways to search for new physics and to probe the standard model, particularly in extreme regions of phase space. This review focuses on the development and use of state-of-the-art jet substructure techniques by the ATLAS and CMS experiments

Validation of techniques to mitigate copper surface contamination in CUORE

In this article we describe the background challenges for the CUORE experiment posed by surface contamination of inert detector materials such as copper, and present three techniques explored to mitigate these backgrounds. Using data from a dedicated test apparatus constructed to validate and compare these techniques we demonstrate that copper surface contamination levels better than 10E-07 - 10E-08 Bq/cm2 are achieved for 238U and 232Th. If these levels are reproduced in the final CUORE apparatus the projected 90% C.L. upper limit on the number of background counts in the region of interest is 0.02-0.03 counts/keV/kg/y depending on the adopted mitigation technique.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, 6 table