3,663 research outputs found
Stochastic Gene Expression in Single Gene Oscillator Variants
It is infeasible to understand all dynamics in cell, but we can aim to understand the impact of design choices under our control. Here we consider a single gene oscillator as a case study to understand the influence of DNA copy number and repressor choice on the resulting dynamics. We first switch the repressor in the oscillator from the originally published lacI to treRL, a chimeric repressor with a lacI DNA binding domain that is inducible by trehalose. This slightly modified system produces faster and more regular oscillations than the original lacI oscillator. We then compare the treRL oscillator at three different DNA copy numbers. The period and amplitude of oscillations increases as the copy number is decreased. We cannot explain the change in period with differential equation models without changing delays or degradation rates. The correlation and phase coherence between daughter cells after cell division also tend to fall off faster for the lower copy oscillator variants. These results suggest that lower copy number variants of our single gene oscillator produce more synchronized oscillations
Fractional boundary value problems: Analysis and numerical methods
This is the author's PDF of an article published in Fractional calculus and applied analysis 2011. The original publication is available at www.springerlink.comThis journal article discusses nonlinear boundary value problems.Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologi
A Synopsis of Interfacial Phenomena in Lithium-Based Polymer Electrolyte Electrochemical Cells
The interfacial regions between electrode materials, electrolytes and other cell components play key roles in the overall performance of lithium-based batteries. For cell chemistries employing lithium metal, lithium alloy or carbonaceous materials (i.e., lithium-ion cells) as anode materials, a "solid electrolyte interphase" (SEI) layer forms at the anode/electrolyte interface, and the properties of this "passivating" layer significantly affect the practical cell/battery quality and performance. A thin, ionically-conducting SEI on the electrode surface can beneficially reduce or eliminate undesirable side reactions between the electrode and the electrolyte, which can result in a degradation in cell performance. The properties and phenomena attributable to the interfacial regions existing at both anode and cathode surfaces can be characterized to a large extent by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and related techniques. The intention of the review herewith is to support the future development of lithium-based polymer electrolytes by providing a synopsis of interfacial phenomena that is associated with cell chemistries employing either lithium metal or carbonaceous "composite" electrode structures which are interfaced with polymer electrolytes (i.e., "solvent-free" as well as "plasticized" polymer-binary salt complexes and single ion-conducting polyelectrolytes). Potential approaches to overcoming poor cell performance attributable to interfacial effects are discussed
Experimental Lithium-Ion Battery Developed for Demonstration at the 2007 NASA Desert Research and Technology Studies (D-RATS) Program
The NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) Electrochemistry Branch designed and built five lithium-ion battery packs for demonstration in spacesuit simulators as a part of the 2007 Desert Research and Technology Studies (D-RATS) activity at Cinder Lake, Arizona. The experimental batteries incorporated advanced, NASA-developed electrolytes and included internal protection against over-current, overdischarge and over-temperature. The 500-g experimental batteries were designed to deliver a constant power of 22 W for 2.5 hr with a minimum voltage of 13 V. When discharged at the maximum expected power output of 38.5 W, the batteries operated for 103 min of discharge time, achieving a specific energy of 130 Wh/kg. This report summarizes design details and safety considerations. Results for field trials and laboratory testing are summarized
Assessment of Lithium-based Battery Electrolytes Developed under the NASA PERS Program
Recently, NASA formally completed the Polymer Energy Rechargeable System (PERS) Program, which was established in 2000 in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to support the development of polymer-based, lithium-based cell chemistries and battery technologies to address the next generation of aerospace applications and mission needs. The goal of this program was to ultimately develop an advanced, space-qualified battery technology, which embodied a solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) and complementary components, with improved performance characteristics that would address future aerospace battery requirements. Programmatically, the PERS initiative exploited both interagency collaborations to address common technology and engineering issues and the active participation of academia and private industry. The initial program phases focused on R&D activities to address the critical technical issues and challenges at the cell level. A variety of cell and polymeric electrolyte concepts were pursued as part of the development efforts undertaken at numerous governmental, industrial and academic laboratories. Numerous candidate electrolyte materials were developed, synthesized and optimized for evaluation. Utilizing the component screening facility and the "standardized" test procedures developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center, electrochemical screening and performance evaluations of promising candidate materials were completed. This overview summarizes test results for a variety of candidate electrolyte materials that were developed under the PERS Program. Electrolyte properties are contrasted and compared to the original project goals, and the strengths and weaknesses of the electrolyte chemistries are discussed. Limited cycling data for full-cells using lithium metal and vanadium oxide electrodes are also presented. Based on measured electrolyte properties, the projected performance characteristics and temperature limitations of batteries utilizing the advanced electrolytes and components have been estimated. Limitations for the achievement of practical performance levels are also discussed, as well as needs for future research and development
Quantum privacy amplification and the security of quantum cryptography over noisy channels
Existing quantum cryptographic schemes are not, as they stand, operable in
the presence of noise on the quantum communication channel. Although they
become operable if they are supplemented by classical privacy-amplification
techniques, the resulting schemes are difficult to analyse and have not been
proved secure. We introduce the concept of quantum privacy amplification and a
cryptographic scheme incorporating it which is provably secure over a noisy
channel. The scheme uses an `entanglement purification' procedure which,
because it requires only a few quantum Controlled-Not and single-qubit
operations, could be implemented using technology that is currently being
developed. The scheme allows an arbitrarily small bound to be placed on the
information that any eavesdropper may extract from the encrypted message.Comment: 13 pages, Latex including 2 postcript files included using psfig
macro
Are We Seeing Magnetic Axis Reorientation in the Crab and Vela Pulsars?
Variation in the angle between a pulsar's rotational and magnetic
axes would change the torque and spin-down rate. We show that sudden increases
in , coincident with glitches, could be responsible for the persistent
increases in spin-down rate that follow glitches in the Crab pulsar. Moreover,
changes in at a rate similar to that inferred for the Crab pulsar
account naturally for the very low braking index of the Vela pulsar. If
increases with time, all pulsar ages obtained from the conventional
braking model are underestimates. Decoupling of the neutron star liquid
interior from the external torque cannot account for Vela's low braking index.
Variations in the Crab's pulse profile due to changes in might be
measurable.Comment: 14 pages and one figure, Latex, uses aasms4.sty. Accepted to ApJ
Letter
Trading quantum for classical resources in quantum data compression
We study the visible compression of a source E of pure quantum signal states,
or, more formally, the minimal resources per signal required to represent
arbitrarily long strings of signals with arbitrarily high fidelity, when the
compressor is given the identity of the input state sequence as classical
information. According to the quantum source coding theorem, the optimal
quantum rate is the von Neumann entropy S(E) qubits per signal.
We develop a refinement of this theorem in order to analyze the situation in
which the states are coded into classical and quantum bits that are quantified
separately. This leads to a trade--off curve Q(R), where Q(R) qubits per signal
is the optimal quantum rate for a given classical rate of R bits per signal.
Our main result is an explicit characterization of this trade--off function
by a simple formula in terms of only single signal, perfect fidelity encodings
of the source. We give a thorough discussion of many further mathematical
properties of our formula, including an analysis of its behavior for group
covariant sources and a generalization to sources with continuously
parameterized states. We also show that our result leads to a number of
corollaries characterizing the trade--off between information gain and state
disturbance for quantum sources. In addition, we indicate how our techniques
also provide a solution to the so--called remote state preparation problem.
Finally, we develop a probability--free version of our main result which may be
interpreted as an answer to the question: ``How many classical bits does a
qubit cost?'' This theorem provides a type of dual to Holevo's theorem, insofar
as the latter characterizes the cost of coding classical bits into qubits.Comment: 51 pages, 7 figure
Schumacher's quantum data compression as a quantum computation
An explicit algorithm for performing Schumacher's noiseless compression of
quantum bits is given. This algorithm is based on a combinatorial expression
for a particular bijection among binary strings. The algorithm, which adheres
to the rules of reversible programming, is expressed in a high-level pseudocode
language. It is implemented using two- and three-bit primitive
reversible operations, where is the length of the qubit strings to be
compressed. Also, the algorithm makes use of auxiliary qubits; however,
space-saving techniques based on those proposed by Bennett are developed which
reduce this workspace to while increasing the running time by
less than a factor of two.Comment: 37 pages, no figure
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