6,073 research outputs found
Magneto-electric momentum transfer to atoms and molecules
We report the first observation of mechanical momentum transferred to atoms
and molecules upon application of crossed electric and magnetic fields. We
identify this momentum as the microscopic analogue of the classical Abraham
force. Several predictions of additional magneto-electrically induced
mechanical momentum are addressed. One of them, proposed to result from the
interaction with the quantum vacuum, is experimentally refuted, others are
found to be currently below experimental detection.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, one tabl
Rationalizing Historical Successes of Malaria Control in Africa in Terms of Mosquito Resource Availability Management.
Environmental management of mosquito resources is a promising approach with which to control malaria, but it has seen little application in Africa for more than half a century. Here we present a kinetic model of mosquito foraging for aquatic habitats and vertebrate hosts that allows estimation of malaria transmission intensity by defining the availability of these resources as the rate at which individual mosquitoes encounter and use them. The model captures historically observed responses of malaria transmission to environmental change, highlights important gaps in current understanding of vector ecology, and suggests convenient solutions. Resource availability is an intuitive concept that provides an adaptable framework for models of mosquito population dynamics, gene flow, and pathogen transmission that can be conveniently parameterized with direct field measurements. Furthermore, the model presented predicts that drastic reductions of malaria transmission are possible with environmental management and elucidates an ecologic basis for previous successes of integrated malaria control in Africa before the advent of DDT or chloroquine. Environmental management for malaria control requires specialist skills that are currently lacking in sub-Saharan Africa where they are needed most. Infrastructure and human capacity building in clinical, public health, and environmental disciplines should therefore be prioritized so that growing financial support for tackling malaria can be translated into truly integrated control programs
A new robust diagnostic polymerase chain reaction for determining the mating status of female Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes.
The principal malaria vector in Africa, Anopheles gambiae, contains two pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes. The Y chromosome is only associated with males and other Y chromosome-specific DNA sequences, which are transferred to women during mating. A reliable tool to determine the mating status of dried wild An. gambiae females is currently lacking. DNA was extracted from dried virgin and mated females and used to test whether Y chromosome-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) markers can be successfully amplified and used as a predictor of mating. Here we report a new PCR-based method to determine the mating status among successfully inseminated and virgin wild An. gambiae females, using three male-specific primers. This dissection-free method has the potential to facilitate studies of both population demographics and gene flow from dried mosquito samples routinely collected in epidemiologic monitoring and aid existing and new malaria-vector control approaches
Transport through Zero-Dimensional States in a Quantum Dot
We have studied the electron transport through zero-dimensional (0D) states. 0D states are formed when one-dimensional edge channels are confined in a quantum dot. The quantum dot is defined in a two-dimensional electron gas with a split gate technique. To allow electronic transport, connection to the dot is arranged via two quantum point contacts, which have adjustable selective transmission properties for edge channels. The 0D states show up as pronounced oscillations in the conductance (up to 40% of e2/h), when the flux enclosed by the confined edge channel is varied, either by changing the magnetic field or the gate voltage. A prerequisite for the appearance of 0D states is that the transport through the entire device is adiabatic (i.e. with conservation of quantum numbers), which will be shown to occur at high magnetic field. The experimental results are in good agreement with theory and show that in the ballistic quantum Hall regime the current is carried entirely by edge channels.
A Feasibility Study in Measuring Soft Tissue Artifacts on the Upper Leg Using Inertial and Magnetic Sensors
Soft-tissue artifacts cause inaccurate estimates of body segment orientations. The inertial sensor (or optical marker) is orientating (or displacing) with respect to the bone it has to measure, due to muscle and skin movement [1]. In this pilot study 11 inertial and magnetic sensors (MTw, Xsens Technologies) were placed on the rectus femoris, vastus medialis and vastus lateralis (upper leg). One sensor was positioned on the tendon plate behind the quadriceps (iliotibial tract, as used in Xsens MVN [1]) and used as reference sensor. Walking, active and passive knee extensions and muscle contractions without flexion/extension were recorded using one subject. The orientation of each sensor with respect to the reference sensor was calculated. During walking, relative orientations of up to 28.6º were measured (22.4±3.6º). During muscle contractions without flexion/extension the largest relative orientations were measured on the rectus femoris (up to 11.1º) [2]. This pilot showed that the ambulatory measurement of deformation of the upper leg is feasible; however, improving the measurement technology is required. We therefore have designed a new inertial and magnetic sensor system containing smaller sensors, based on the design of an instrumented glove for the assessment of hand kinematics [3]. This new sensor system will then be used to investigate soft-tissue artifacts more accurately; in particular we will focus on in-use estimation and elimination of these artifacts
Unitarity bounds and RG flows in time dependent quantum field theory
We generalize unitarity bounds on operator dimensions in conformal field
theory to field theories with spacetime dependent couplings. Below the energy
scale of spacetime variation of the couplings, their evolution can strongly
affect the physics, effectively shifting the infrared operator scaling and
unitarity bounds determined from correlation functions in the theory. We
analyze this explicitly for large- double-trace flows, and connect these to
UV complete field theories. One motivating class of examples comes from our
previous work on FRW holography, where this effect explains the range of
flavors allowed in the dual, time dependent, field theory.Comment: 38 page
Classification of Quantitative Light-Induced Fluorescence Images Using Convolutional Neural Network
Images are an important data source for diagnosis and treatment of oral
diseases. The manual classification of images may lead to misdiagnosis or
mistreatment due to subjective errors. In this paper an image classification
model based on Convolutional Neural Network is applied to Quantitative
Light-induced Fluorescence images. The deep neural network outperforms other
state of the art shallow classification models in predicting labels derived
from three different dental plaque assessment scores. The model directly
benefits from multi-channel representation of the images resulting in improved
performance when, besides the Red colour channel, additional Green and Blue
colour channels are used.Comment: Full version of ICANN 2017 submissio
Weak decays of 4He-Lambda
We measured the lifetime and the mesonic and non-mesonic decay rates of the
4He-Lambda hypernucleus. The hypernuclei were created using a 750 MeV/c
momentum K- beam on a liquid 4He target by the reaction 4He(K-,pi-)4He-Lambda.
The 4He-Lambda lifetime was directly measured using protons from Lambda p -> n
p non-mesonic decay (also referred to as proton-stimulated decay) and was found
to have a value of tau = 245 +/- 24 ps. The mesonic decay rates were determined
from the observed numbers of pi-'s and pi0's as Gamma_pi-/Gamma_tot = 0.270 +/-
0.024 and Gamma_pi0/Gamma_tot = 0.564 +/- 0.036, respectively, and the values
of the proton- and neutron-stimulated decay rates were extracted as
Gamma_p/Gamma_tot = 0.169 +/- 0.019 and Gamma_n/Gamma_tot <= 0.032 (95% CL),
respectively. The effects of final-state interactions and possible 3-body
Lambda N N decay contributions were studied in the context of a simple model of
nucleon-stimulated decay. Nucleon-nucleon coincidence events were observed and
were used in the determination of the non-mesonic branching fractions. The
implications of the results of this analysis were considered for the empirical
Delta I = 1/2 rule and the decay rates of the 4H-Lambda hypernucleus.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, published in PRC, revised content to match
published versio
Demonstration of Silicon-on-insulator mid-infrared spectrometers operating at 3.8 mu m
The design and characterization of silicon-on-insulator mid-infrared spectrometers operating at 3.8µm is reported. The devices are fabricated on 200mm SOI wafers in a CMOS pilot line. Both arrayed waveguide grating structures and planar concave grating structures were designed and tested. Low insertion loss (1.5-2.5dB) and good crosstalk characteristics (15-20dB) are demonstrated, together with waveguide propagation losses in the range of 3 to 6dB/cm
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