ICARUS-Q: A scalable RFSoC-based control system for superconducting quantum computers

We present a control and measurement setup for superconducting qubits based on Xilinx 16-channel radio frequency system on chip (RFSoC) device. The proposed setup consists of four parts: multiple RFSoC boards, a setup to synchronise every digital to analog converter (DAC), and analog to digital converter (ADC) channel across multiple boards, a low-noise direct current (DC) supply for tuning the qubit frequency and cloud access for remotely performing experiments. We also design the setup to be free of physical mixers. The RFSoC boards directly generate microwave pulses using sixteen DAC channels up to the third Nyquist zone which are directly sampled by its eight ADC channels between the fifth and the ninth zonesComment: Main text: 15 pages, 23 figures Appendix: 2 pages, 2 figure

It starts at home? Climate policies targeting household consumption and behavioral decisions are key to low-carbon futures

Through their consumption behavior, households are responsible for 72% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, they are key actors in reaching the 1.5 °C goal under the Paris Agreement. However, the possible contribution and position of households in climate policies is neither well understood, nor do households receive sufficiently high priority in current climate policy strategies. This paper investigates how behavioral change can achieve a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in European high-income countries. It uses theoretical thinking and some core results from the HOPE research project, which investigated household preferences for reducing emissions in four European cities in France, Germany, Norway and Sweden. The paper makes five major points: First, car and plane mobility, meat and dairy consumption, as well as heating are the most dominant components of household footprints. Second, household living situations (demographics, size of home) greatly influence the household potential to reduce their footprint, even more than country or city location. Third, household decisions can be sequential and temporally dynamic, shifting through different phases such as childhood, adulthood, and illness. Fourth, short term voluntary efforts will not be sufficient by themselves to reach the drastic reductions needed to achieve the 1.5 °C goal; instead, households need a regulatory framework supporting their behavioral changes. Fifth, there is a mismatch between the roles and responsibilities conveyed by current climate policies and household perceptions of responsibility. We then conclude with further recommendations for research and policy

The ability of 'non-cognitive' traits to predict undergraduate performance in medical schools : a national linkage study

Abstract Background In addition to the evaluation of educational attainment and intellectual ability there has been interest in the potential to select medical school applicants on non-academic qualities. Consequently, a battery of self-report measures concerned with assessing ‘non-cognitive’ traits was piloted as part of the UK Clinical Aptitude Test (UKCAT) administration to evaluate their potential to be used in selection. Methods The four non-cognitive instruments piloted were: 1) the Libertarian-communitarian scale, (2) The NACE (narcissism, aloofness, confidence and empathy, (3) the MEARS (Managing emotions and resilience scale; self-esteem, optimism, control, self-discipline, emotional-nondefensiveness and faking, and (4) an abridged version of instruments (1) and (2) combined. Non-cognitive scores and sociodemographic characteristics were available for 14,387 applicants. A series of univariable and multivariable analyses were conducted in order to assess the ability of the non-cognitive scores to predict knowledge and skills-based performance, as well as the odds of passing each academic year at first attempt. Non-cognitive scores and medical performance were standardised within cohorts. Results The scores on the non-cognitive scales showed only very small (magnitude of standardised betas< 0.2), though sometimes statistically significant (p < 0.01) univariable associations with subsequent performance on knowledge or skills-based assessments. The only statistically significant association between the non-cognitive scores and the probability of passing an academic year at first attempt was the narcissism score from one the abridged tests (OR 0.84,95% confidence intervals 0.71 to 0.97, p = 0.02). Conclusions Our findings are consistent with previously published research. The tests had a very limited ability to predict undergraduate academic performance, though further research on identifying narcissism in medical students may be warranted. However, the validity of such self-report tools in high-stakes settings may be affected, making such instruments unlikely to add value within the selection process

The STRANDS project: long-term autonomy in everyday environments

Thanks to the efforts of the robotics and autonomous systems community, the myriad applications and capacities of robots are ever increasing. There is increasing demand from end users for autonomous service robots that can operate in real environments for extended periods. In the Spatiotemporal Representations and Activities for Cognitive Control in Long-Term Scenarios (STRANDS) project (http://strandsproject.eu), we are tackling this demand head-on by integrating state-of-the-art artificial intelligence and robotics research into mobile service robots and deploying these systems for long-term installations in security and care environments. Our robots have been operational for a combined duration of 104 days over four deployments, autonomously performing end-user-defined tasks and traversing 116 km in the process. In this article, we describe the approach we used to enable long-term autonomous operation in everyday environments and how our robots are able to use their long run times to improve their own performance

Deep Sequencing of RNA from Blood and Oral Swab Samples Reveals the Presence of Nucleic Acid from a Number of Pathogens in Patients with Acute Ebola Virus Disease and Is Consistent with Bacterial Translocation across the Gut.

In this study, samples from the 2013-2016 West African Ebola virus outbreak from patients in Guinea with Ebola virus disease (EVD) were analyzed to discover and classify what other pathogens were present. Throat swabs were taken from deceased EVD patients, and peripheral blood samples were analyzed that had been taken from patients when they presented at the treatment center with acute illness. High-throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) and bioinformatics were used to identify the potential microorganisms. This approach confirmed Ebola virus (EBOV) in all samples from patients diagnosed as acute positive for the virus by quantitative reverse transcription-PCR in deployed field laboratories. Nucleic acid mapping to Plasmodium was also used on the patient samples, confirming results obtained with an antigen-based rapid diagnostic test (RDT) conducted in the field laboratories. The data suggested that a high Plasmodium load, as determined by sequence read depth, was associated with mortality and influenced the host response, whereas a lower parasite load did not appear to affect outcome. The identifications of selected bacteria from throat swabs via RNA-seq were confirmed by culture. The data indicated that the potential pathogens identified in the blood samples were associated with translocation from the gut, suggesting the presence of bacteremia, which transcriptome data suggested may induce or aggravate the acute-phase response observed during EVD. Transcripts mapping to different viruses were also identified, including those indicative of lytic infections. The development of high-resolution analysis of samples from patients with EVD will help inform care pathways and the most appropriate general antimicrobial therapy to be used in a resource-poor setting. IMPORTANCE Our results highlight the identification of an array of pathogens in the blood of patients with Ebola virus disease (EVD). This has not been done before, and the data have important implications for the treatment of patients with EVD, particularly considering antibiotic stewardship. We show that EVD patients who were also infected with Plasmodium, particularly at higher loads, had more adverse outcomes than patients with lower levels of Plasmodium. However, the presence of Plasmodium did not influence the innate immune response, and it is likely that the presence of EBOV dominated this response. Several viruses other than EBOV were identified, and bacteria associated with sepsis were also identified. These findings were indicative of bacterial translocation across the gut during the acute phase of EVD

Comprehensive transcriptome of the maize stalk borer, Busseola fusca, from multiple tissue types, developmental stages, and parasitoid wasp exposures

International audienc

Bacterial Community Profiling of Milk Samples as a Means to Understand Culture-Negative Bovine Clinical Mastitis

Inflammation and infection of bovine mammary glands, commonly known as mastitis, imposes significant losses each year in the dairy industry worldwide. While several different bacterial species have been identified as causative agents of mastitis, many clinical mastitis cases remain culture negative, even after enrichment for bacterial growth. To understand the basis for this increasingly common phenomenon, the composition of bacterial communities from milk samples was analyzed using culture independent pyrosequencing of amplicons of 16S ribosomal RNA genes (16S rDNA). Comparisons were made of the microbial community composition of culture negative milk samples from mastitic quarters with that of non-mastitic quarters from the same animals. Genomic DNA from culture-negative clinical and healthy quarter sample pairs was isolated, and amplicon libraries were prepared using indexed primers specific to the V1–V2 region of bacterial 16S rRNA genes and sequenced using the Roche 454 GS FLX with titanium chemistry. Evaluation of the taxonomic composition of these samples revealed significant differences in the microbiota in milk from mastitic and healthy quarters. Statistical analysis identified seven bacterial genera that may be mainly responsible for the observed microbial community differences between mastitic and healthy quarters. Collectively, these results provide evidence that cases of culture negative mastitis can be associated with bacterial species that may be present below culture detection thresholds used here. The application of culture-independent bacterial community profiling represents a powerful approach to understand long-standing questions in animal health and disease

Flow dominance and factorization of transverse momentum correlations in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC

CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO - CNPQFINANCIADORA DE ESTUDOS E PROJETOS - FINEPFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - FAPESPWe present the first measurement of the two-particle transverse momentum differential correlation function, P-2 = <Delta pT Delta p(T)gt;/ < p(T)gt;(2), in Pb-Pb collisions at root s(NN) = 2.76 TeV. Results for P-2 are reported as a function of the relative pseudorapidity (Delta eta) and azimuthal angle (Delta phi) between two particles for different collision centralities. The Delta phi dependence is found to be largely independent of Delta eta for broken vertical bar Delta eta broken vertical bar gt;= 0.9. In the 5% most central Pb-Pb collisions, the two-particle transverse momentum correlation function exhibits a clear double-hump structure around Delta phi=pi (i. e., on the away side), which is not observed in number correlations in the same centrality range, and thus provides an indication of the dominance of triangular flow in this collision centrality. Fourier decompositions of P-2, studied as a function of the collision centrality, show that correlations at broken vertical bar Delta eta broken vertical bar gt;= 0.9 can be well reproduced by a flow ansatz based on the notion that measured transverse momentum correlations are strictly determined by the collective motion of the system.11816112CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO - CNPQFINANCIADORA DE ESTUDOS E PROJETOS - FINEPFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - FAPESPCONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO - CNPQFINANCIADORA DE ESTUDOS E PROJETOS - FINEPFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - FAPESPSem informaçãoSem informaçãoSem informaçãoThe ALICE Collaboration thanks all its engineers and technicians for their invaluable contributions to the construction of the experiment and the CERN accelerator teams for the outstanding performance of the LHC complex. The ALICE Collaboration gratefully acknowledges the resources and support provided by all Grid centers and the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) Collaboration. The ALICE Collaboration acknowledges the following funding agencies for their support in building and running the ALICE detector: A. I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute) Foundation (ANSL), State Committee of Science and World Federation of Scientists (WFS), Armenia; Austrian Academy of Sciences and Nationalstiftung fur Forschung, Technologie und Entwicklung, Austria; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico (CNPq), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (Finep) and Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP), Brazil; Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MSTC), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and Ministry of Education of China (MOEC), China; Ministry of Science, Education and Sport and Croatian Science Foundation, Croatia; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic; The Danish Council for Independent Research-Natural Sciences, the Carlsberg Foundation and Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF), Denmark; Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), Finland; Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA) and Institut National de Physique Nucleaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France; Bundesministerium fur Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie (BMBF) and GSI Helmholtzzentrum fur Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Germany; Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, Greece; National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Hungary; Department of Atomic Energy Government of India (DAE) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi, India; Indonesian Institute of Science, Indonesia; Centro Fermi-Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Institute for Innovative Science and Technology, Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science (IIST), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI and Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia (CONACYT) y Tecnologia, through Fondo de Cooperacion Internacional en Ciencia y Tecnologia (FONCICYT) and Direccion General de Asuntos del Personal Academico (DGAPA), Mexico; Nationaal instituut voor subatomaire fysica (Nikhef), Netherlands; The Research Council of Norway, Norway; Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS), Pakistan; Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru, Peru; Ministry of Science and Higher Education and National Science Centre, Poland; Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), Republic of Korea; Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Institute of Atomic Physics and Romanian National Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, Romania; Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute, Russia; Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia; National Research Foundation of South Africa, South Africa; Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnologicas y Desarrollo Nuclear (CEADEN), Cubaenergia, Cuba, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion and Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas (CIEMAT), Spain; Swedish Research Council (VR) and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW), Sweden; European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland; National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSDTA), Suranaree University of Technology (SUT) and Office of the Higher Education Commission under NRU project of Thailand, Thailand; Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK), Turkey; National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), United Kingdom; National Science Foundation of the United States of America (NSF) and United States Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics (DOE NP), United States of America

Flow Dominance and Factorization of Transverse Momentum Correlations in Pb-Pb Collisions at the LHC

We present the first measurement of the two-particle transverse momentum differential correlation function, P2≡ ΔpTΔpT/ pT2, in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76 TeV. Results for P2 are reported as a function of the relative pseudorapidity (Δη) and azimuthal angle (Δφ) between two particles for different collision centralities. The Δφ dependence is found to be largely independent of Δη for |Δη|≥0.9. In the 5% most central Pb-Pb collisions, the two-particle transverse momentum correlation function exhibits a clear double-hump structure around Δφ=π (i.e., on the away side), which is not observed in number correlations in the same centrality range, and thus provides an indication of the dominance of triangular flow in this collision centrality. Fourier decompositions of P2, studied as a function of the collision centrality, show that correlations at |Δη|≥0.9 can be well reproduced by a flow ansatz based on the notion that measured transverse momentum correlations are strictly determined by the collective motion of the system