4,345 research outputs found
Irreducible free energy expansion and overlaps locking in mean field spin glasses
We introduce a diagrammatic formulation for a cavity field expansion around
the critical temperature. This approach allows us to obtain a theory for the
overlap's fluctuations and, in particular, the linear part of the
Ghirlanda-Guerra relationships (GG) (often called Aizenman-Contucci polynomials
(AC)) in a very simple way. We show moreover how these constraints are
"superimposed" by the symmetry of the model with respect to the restriction
required by thermodynamic stability. Within this framework it is possible to
expand the free energy in terms of these irreducible overlaps fluctuations and
in a form that simply put in evidence how the complexity of the solution is
related to the complexity of the entropy.Comment: 19 page
Southern Corn Rootworm (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) Adult Emergence and Population Growth Assessment After Selection With Vacuolar ATPase-A double-stranded RNA Over Multiple Generations
The southern corn rootworm, Diabrotica undecimpunctata howardi Barber (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), was exposed over multiple generations to vacuolar (v)ATPase-A double-stranded (ds)RNA, first as adults and later, as neonate larvae. During adult selection, high mortality and lower fecundity were observed in the RNAi-selected cages after beetles were exposed to sublethal dsRNA concentrations that varied between LC40 and LC75. During larval selection, a delay in adult emergence and effects on population growth parameters were observed after neonates were exposed to sublethal dsRNA concentrations that varied between LC50 and LC70. Some of the parameters measured for adult emergence such as time to reach maximum linear adult emergence, time elapsed before attaining linear emergence, termination point of the linear emergence, and total days of linear emergence increase, were significantly different between RNAi-selected and control colonies for at least one generation. Significant differences were also observed in population growth parameters such as growth rate, net reproductive rate, doubling time, and generation time. After seven generations of selection, there was no indication that resistance evolved. The sublethal effects caused by exposures of southern corn rootworm to dsRNAs can affect important life history traits and fitness especially through delays in adult emergence and reduction in population growth. Although changes in susceptibility did not occur, the observation of sublethal effects suggests important responses to potential selection pressure. Assuming resistance involves a recessive trait, random mating between susceptible and resistant individuals is an important factor that allows sustainable use of transgenic plants, and delays in adult emergence observed in our studies could potentially compromise this assumption
Lobby index as a network centrality measure
We study the lobby index (l-index for short) as a local node centrality
measure for complex networks. The l-inde is compared with degree (a local
measure), betweenness and Eigenvector centralities (two global measures) in the
case of biological network (Yeast interaction protein-protein network) and a
linguistic network (Moby Thesaurus II). In both networks, the l-index has poor
correlation with betweenness but correlates with degree and Eigenvector. Being
a local measure, one can take advantage by using the l-index because it carries
more information about its neighbors when compared with degree centrality,
indeed it requires less time to compute when compared with Eigenvector
centrality. Results suggests that l-index produces better results than degree
and Eigenvector measures for ranking purposes, becoming suitable as a tool to
perform this task.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with
arXiv:1005.480
Renormalisation group improvement of scalar field inflation
We study quantum corrections to Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmology with a
scalar field under the assumption that the dynamics are subject to
renormalisation group improvement. We use the Bianchi identity to relate the
renormalisation group scale to the scale factor and obtain the improved
cosmological evolution equations. We study the solutions of these equations in
the renormalisation group fixed point regime, obtaining the time-dependence of
the scalar field strength and the Hubble parameter in specific models with
monomial and trinomial quartic scalar field potentials. We find that power-law
inflation can be achieved in the renormalisation group fixed point regime with
the trinomial potential, but not with the monomial one. We study the transition
to the quasi-classical regime, where the quantum corrections to the couplings
become small, and find classical dynamics as an attractor solution for late
times. We show that the solution found in the renormalisation group fixed point
regime is also a cosmological fixed point in the autonomous phase space. We
derive the power spectrum of cosmological perturbations and find that the
scalar power spectrum is exactly scale-invariant and bounded up to arbitrarily
small times, while the tensor perturbations are tilted as appropriate for the
background power-law inflation. We specify conditions for the renormalisation
group fixed point values of the couplings under which the amplitudes of the
cosmological perturbations remain small.Comment: 17 pages; 2 figure
Heat shock factor 1 regulates lifespan as distinct from disease onset in prion disease
Prion diseases are fatal, transmissible, neurodegenerative diseases caused by the misfolding of the prion protein (PrP). At present, the molecular pathways underlying prion-mediated neurotoxicity are largely unknown. We hypothesized that the transcriptional regulator of the stress response, heat shock factor 1 (HSF1), would play an important role in prion disease. Uninoculated HSF1 knockout (KO) mice used in our study do not show signs of neurodegeneration as assessed by survival, motor performance, or histopathology. When inoculated with Rocky Mountain Laboratory (RML) prions HSF1 KO mice had a dramatically shortened lifespan, succumbing to disease ≈20% faster than controls. Surprisingly, both the onset of home-cage behavioral symptoms and pathological alterations occurred at a similar time in HSF1 KO and control mice. The accumulation of proteinase K (PK)-resistant PrP also occurred with similar kinetics and prion infectivity accrued at an equal or slower rate. Thus, HSF1 provides an important protective function that is specifically manifest after the onset of behavioral symptoms of prion disease
The Relativistic Hopfield network: rigorous results
The relativistic Hopfield model constitutes a generalization of the standard
Hopfield model that is derived by the formal analogy between the
statistical-mechanic framework embedding neural networks and the Lagrangian
mechanics describing a fictitious single-particle motion in the space of the
tuneable parameters of the network itself. In this analogy the cost-function of
the Hopfield model plays as the standard kinetic-energy term and its related
Mattis overlap (naturally bounded by one) plays as the velocity. The
Hamiltonian of the relativisitc model, once Taylor-expanded, results in a
P-spin series with alternate signs: the attractive contributions enhance the
information-storage capabilities of the network, while the repulsive
contributions allow for an easier unlearning of spurious states, conferring
overall more robustness to the system as a whole. Here we do not deepen the
information processing skills of this generalized Hopfield network, rather we
focus on its statistical mechanical foundation. In particular, relying on
Guerra's interpolation techniques, we prove the existence of the infinite
volume limit for the model free-energy and we give its explicit expression in
terms of the Mattis overlaps. By extremizing the free energy over the latter we
get the generalized self-consistent equations for these overlaps, as well as a
picture of criticality that is further corroborated by a fluctuation analysis.
These findings are in full agreement with the available previous results.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur
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