3,405 research outputs found
A Cone Jet-Finding Algorithm for Heavy-Ion Collisions at LHC Energies
Standard jet finding techniques used in elementary particle collisions have
not been successful in the high track density of heavy-ion collisions. This
paper describes a modified cone-type jet finding algorithm developed for the
complex environment of heavy-ion collisions. The primary modification to the
algorithm is the evaluation and subtraction of the large background energy,
arising from uncorrelated soft hadrons, in each collision. A detailed analysis
of the background energy and its event-by-event fluctuations has been performed
on simulated data, and a method developed to estimate the background energy
inside the jet cone from the measured energy outside the cone on an
event-by-event basis. The algorithm has been tested using Monte-Carlo
simulations of Pb+Pb collisions at TeV for the ALICE detector at
the LHC. The algorithm can reconstruct jets with a transverse energy of 50 GeV
and above with an energy resolution of .Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure
Age-Correlated Gene Expression in Normal and Neurodegenerative Human Brain Tissues
Human brain aging has received special attention in part because of the elevated risks of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease in seniors. Recent technological advances enable us to investigate whether similar mechanisms underlie aging and neurodegeneration, by quantifying the similarities and differences in their genome-wide gene expression profiles.We have developed a computational method for assessing an individual's "physiological brain age" by comparing global mRNA expression datasets across a range of normal human brain samples. Application of this method to brains samples from select regions in two diseases--Alzheimer's disease (AD, superior frontal gyrus), frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD, in rostral aspect of frontal cortex ∼BA10)--showed that while control cohorts exhibited no significant difference between physiological and chronological ages, FTLD and AD exhibited prematurely aged expression profiles.This study establishes a quantitative scale for measuring premature aging in neurodegenerative disease cohorts, and it identifies specific physiological mechanisms common to aging and some forms of neurodegeneration. In addition, accelerated expression profiles associated with AD and FTLD suggest some common mechanisms underlying the risk of developing these diseases
Particle Production at Large Transverse Momentum with ALICE
We present transverse momentum distributions of inclusive charged particles
and identified hadrons in and Pb--Pb collisions at \rs= 2.76 TeV,
measured by ALICE at the LHC. The Pb--Pb data are presented in intervals of
collision centrality and cover transverse momenta up to 50 GeV/. Nuclear
medium effects are studied in terms of the nuclear modification factor \raa.
The results indicate a strong suppression of high- particles in Pb--Pb
collisions, consistent with a large energy loss of hard-scattered partons in
the hot, dense and long-lived medium created at the LHC. We compare the
preliminary results for inclusive charged particles to previous results from
RHIC and calculations from energy loss models. Furthermore, we compare the
nuclear modification factors of inclusive charged particles to those of
identified , , K, and .Comment: Talk given at Quark Matter 2011 conferenc
Unleashing Quantum Simulation Advantages: Hamiltonian Subspace Encoding for Resource Efficient Quantum Simulations
Number-conserved subspace encoding for fermionic Hamiltonians, which
exponentially reduces qubit cost, is necessary for quantum advantages in
variational quantum eigensolver (VQE). However, optimizing the trade-off
between qubit compression and increased measurement cost poses a challenge. By
employing the Gilbert-Varshamov bound on linear code, we optimize qubit scaling
and measurement cost for modes
electrons chemistry problems. The compression is implemented with the
Randomized Linear Encoding (RLE) algorithm on VQE for and LiH in
the 6-31G* and STO-3G/6-31G* basis respectively. The resulting subspace circuit
expressivity and trainability are enhanced with less circuit depth and higher
noise tolerance
Measurement of pseudorapidity distributions of charged particles in proton–proton collisions at s√=8 TeV by the CMS and TOTEM experiments
This is the published version.Pseudorapidity (η) distributions of charged particles produced in proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV are measured in the ranges |η|<2.2 and 5.3<|η|<6.4 covered by the CMS and TOTEM detectors, respectively. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of L=45 μb−1. Measurements are presented for three event categories. The most inclusive category is sensitive to 91–96 % of the total inelastic proton–proton cross section. The other two categories are disjoint subsets of the inclusive sample that are either enhanced or depleted in single diffractive dissociation events. The data are compared to models used to describe high-energy hadronic interactions. None of the models considered provide a consistent description of the measured distributions
Individual variation in patterns of task focused, and detailed, thought are uniquely associated within the architecture of the medial temporal lobe
Understanding the neural processes that support different patterns of ongoing thought is an important goal of contemporary cognitive neuroscience. Early accounts assumed the default mode network (DMN) was especially important for conscious attention to task-irrelevant/personally relevant material. However, simple task-negative accounts of the DMN are incompatible with more recent evidence that neural patterns within the system can be related to ongoing processing during active task states. To better characterize the contribution of the DMN to ongoing thought, we conducted a cross-sectional analysis of the relationship between the structural organisation of the brain, as indexed by cortical thickness, and patterns of experience, identified using experience sampling in the cognitive laboratory. In a sample of 181 healthy individuals (mean age 20 years, 117 females) we identified an association between cortical thickness in the anterior parahippocampus and patterns of task focused thought, as well as an adjacent posterior region in which cortical thickness was associated with experiences with higher levels of subjective detail. Both regions fell within regions of medial temporal lobe associated with the DMN, yet varied in their functional connectivity: the time series of signals in the ‘on-task’ region were more correlated with systems important for external task-relevant processing (as determined by meta-analysis) including the dorsal and ventral attention, and fronto-parietal networks. In contrast, connectivity within the region linked to subjective ‘detail’ was more correlated with the medial core of the DMN (posterior cingulate and the medial pre-frontal cortex) and regions of primary visual cortex. These results provide cross-sectional evidence that confirms a role of the DMN in how detailed experiences are and so provide further evidence that the role of this system in experience is not simply task-irrelevant. Our results also highlight processes within the medial temporal lobe, and their interactions with other regions of cortex as important in determining multiple aspects of how human cognition unfolds
High pT and jet physics from RHIC to LHC
The observation of the strong suppression of high pT hadrons in heavy ion
collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL has motivated a
large experimental program using hard probes to characterize the deconfined
medium created. However what can be denoted as ``leading particle physics''
accessible at RHIC presents some limitations which motivate at higher energy
the study of much more penetrating objects: jets. The gain in center of mass
energy expected at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will definitively
improve our understanding on how the energy is lost in the system opening a new
major window of study: the physics of jets on an event-by-event basis. We will
concentrate on the expected performance for jet reconstruction in ALICE using
the EMCal calorimeter.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures, Proceedings of the Workshop on Relativistic
Nuclear Physics (WRNP) 2007, Kiev, Ukraine. Conference Info:
http://wrnp2007.bitp.kiev.ua/. Final version published in "Physics of Atomic
Nuclei
Variants in estrogen-biosynthesis genes CYP17 and CYP19 and breast cancer risk: a family-based genetic association study
BACKGROUND: Case-control studies have reported inconsistent results concerning breast cancer risk and polymorphisms in genes that control endogenous estrogen biosynthesis. We report findings from the first family-based association study examining associations between female breast cancer risk and polymorphisms in two key estrogen-biosynthesis genes CYP17 (T→C promoter polymorphism) and CYP19 (TTTA repeat polymorphism). METHODS: We conducted the study among 278 nuclear families containing one or more daughters with breast cancer, with a total of 1123 family members (702 with available constitutional DNA and questionnaire data and 421 without them). These nuclear families were selected from breast cancer families participating in the Metropolitan New York Registry, one of the six centers of the National Cancer Institute's Breast Cancer Family Registry. We used likelihood-based statistical methods to examine allelic associations. RESULTS: We found the CYP19 allele with 11 TTTA repeats to be associated with breast cancer risk in these families. We also found that maternal (but not paternal) carrier status of CYP19 alleles with 11 repeats tended to be associated with breast cancer risk in daughters (independently of the daughters' own genotype), suggesting a possible in utero effect of CYP19. We found no association of a woman's breast cancer risk either with her own or with her mother's CYP17 genotype. CONCLUSION: This family-based study indicates that a woman's personal and maternal carrier status of CYP19 11 TTTA repeat allele might be related to increased breast cancer risk. However, because this is the first study to report an association between CYP19 11 TTTA repeat allele and breast cancer, and because multiple comparisons have been made, the associations should be interpreted with caution and need confirmation in future family-based studies
Optical properties and charge-transfer excitations in edge-functionalized all-graphene nanojunctions
We investigate the optical properties of edge-functionalized graphene
nanosystems, focusing on the formation of junctions and charge transfer
excitons. We consider a class of graphene structures which combine the main
electronic features of graphene with the wide tunability of large polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons. By investigating prototypical ribbon-like systems, we
show that, upon convenient choice of functional groups, low energy excitations
with remarkable charge transfer character and large oscillator strength are
obtained. These properties can be further modulated through an appropriate
width variation, thus spanning a wide range in the low-energy region of the
UV-Vis spectra. Our results are relevant in view of designing all-graphene
optoelectronic nanodevices, which take advantage of the versatility of
molecular functionalization, together with the stability and the electronic
properties of graphene nanostructures.Comment: J. Phys. Chem. Lett. (2011), in pres
Designing all-graphene nanojunctions by covalent functionalization
We investigated theoretically the effect of covalent edge functionalization,
with organic functional groups, on the electronic properties of graphene
nanostructures and nano-junctions. Our analysis shows that functionalization
can be designed to tune electron affinities and ionization potentials of
graphene flakes, and to control the energy alignment of frontier orbitals in
nanometer-wide graphene junctions. The stability of the proposed mechanism is
discussed with respect to the functional groups, their number as well as the
width of graphene nanostructures. The results of our work indicate that
different level alignments can be obtained and engineered in order to realize
stable all-graphene nanodevices
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