32,617 research outputs found
Robust variable selection in partially varying coefficient single-index model
By combining basis function approximations and smoothly clipped absolute deviation (SCAD) penalty, this paper proposes a robust variable selection procedure for a partially varying coefficient single-index model based on modal regression. The proposed procedure simultaneously selects significant variables in the parametric components and the nonparametric components. With appropriate selection of the tuning parameters, we establish the theoretical properties of our procedure, including consistency in variable selection and the oracle property in estimation. Furthermore, we also discuss the bandwidth selection and propose a modified expectation-maximization (EM)-type algorithm for the proposed estimation procedure. The finite sample properties of the proposed estimators are illustrated by some simulation examples.The research of Zhu is partially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC) under Grants 71171075, 71221001 and 71031004. The research of Yu is supported by NNSFC under Grant 11261048
Role of noncoding RNA in vascular remodelling
Purpose of review: Noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs), such as microRNAs (miRNAs) and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are becoming fundamentally important in the pathophysiology relating to injury-induced vascular remodelling. We highlight recent studies that demonstrate the involvement of ncRNAs in vein graft disease, in in-stent restenosis and in pulmonary arterial hypertension, with a particular focus on endothelial cell and vascular smooth muscle cell function. We also briefly discuss the emerging role of exosomal-derived ncRNAs and how this mechanism impacts on vascular function.
Recent findings: ncRNAs have been described as novel regulators in the pathophysiology of vascular injury, inflammation, and vessel wall remodelling. In particular, several studies have demonstrated that manipulation of miRNAs can reduce the burden of pathological vascular remodelling. Such studies have also shown that exosomal miRNA-mediated, cell-to-cell communication between endothelial cells and vascular smooth muscle cells is critical in the disease process. In addition to miRNAs, lncRNAs are emerging as regulators of vascular function in health and disease. Although lncRNAs are complex in both their sheer numbers and mechanisms of action, identifying their contribution to vascular disease is essential.
Summary: Given the important roles of ncRNAs in vascular injury and remodelling together will their capacity for cell-to-cell communication, manipulating ncRNA might provide novel therapeutic interventions
Heralded Entanglement between Atomic Ensembles: Preparation, Decoherence, and Scaling
Heralded entanglement between collective excitations in two atomic ensembles
is probabilistically generated, stored, and converted to single photon fields.
By way of the concurrence, quantitative characterizations are reported for the
scaling behavior of entanglement with excitation probability and for the
temporal dynamics of various correlations resulting in the decay of
entanglement. A lower bound of the concurrence for the collective atomic state
of 0.9\pm 0.3 is inferred. The decay of entanglement as a function of storage
time is also observed, and related to the local dynamics.Comment: 4 page
Effect of weak measurement on entanglement distribution over noisy channels
Being able to implement effective entanglement distribution in noisy
environments is a key step towards practical quantum communication, and
long-term efforts have been made on the development of it. Recently, it has
been found that the null-result weak measurement (NRWM) can be used to enhance
probabilistically the entanglement of a single copy of amplitude-damped
entangled state. This paper investigates remote distributions of bipartite and
multipartite entangled states in the amplitudedamping environment by combining
NRWMs and entanglement distillation protocols (EDPs). We show that the NRWM has
no positive effect on the distribution of bipartite maximally entangled states
and multipartite Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states, although it is able to
increase the amount of entanglement of each source state (noisy entangled
state) of EDPs with a certain probability. However, we find that the NRWM would
contribute to remote distributions of multipartite W states. We demonstrate
that the NRWM can not only reduce the fidelity thresholds for distillability of
decohered W states, but also raise the distillation efficiencies of W states.
Our results suggest a new idea for quantifying the ability of a local filtering
operation in protecting entanglement from decoherence.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures. Minor revision has been mad
Optimal nonlocal multipartite entanglement concentration based on projection measurements
We propose an optimal nonlocal entanglement concentration protocol (ECP) for
multi-photon systems in a partially entangled pure state, resorting to the
projection measurement on an additional photon. One party in quantum
communication first performs a parity-check measurement on her photon in an
N-photon system and an additional photon, and then she projects the additional
photon into an orthogonal Hilbert space for dividing the original -photon
systems into two groups. In the first group, the N parties will obtain a subset
of -photon systems in a maximally entangled state. In the second group, they
will obtain some less-entangled N-photon systems which are the resource for the
entanglement concentration in the next round. By iterating the entanglement
concentration process several times, the present ECP has the maximal success
probability which is just equivalent to the entanglement of the partially
entangled state. That is, this ECP is an optimal one.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Flux rope, hyperbolic flux tube, and late EUV phases in a non-eruptive circular-ribbon flare
We present a detailed study of a confined circular flare dynamics associated
with 3 UV late phases in order to understand more precisely which topological
elements are present and how they constrain the dynamics of the flare. We
perform a non-linear force free field extrapolation of the confined flare
observed with the HMI and AIA instruments onboard SDO. From the 3D magnetic
field we compute the squashing factor and we analyse its distribution.
Conjointly, we analyse the AIA EUV light curves and images in order to identify
the post-flare loops, their temporal and thermal evolution. By combining both
analysis we are able to propose a detailed scenario that explains the dynamics
of the flare. Our topological analysis shows that in addition to a null-point
topology with the fan separatrix, the spine lines and its surrounding
Quasi-Separatix Layers halo (typical for a circular flare), a flux rope and its
hyperbolic flux tube (HFT) are enclosed below the null. By comparing the
magnetic field topology and the EUV post-flare loops we obtain an almost
perfect match 1) between the footpoints of the separatrices and the EUV
1600~\AA{} ribbons and 2) between the HFT's field line footpoints and bright
spots observed inside the circular ribbons. We showed, for the first time in a
confined flare, that magnetic reconnection occured initially at the HFT, below
the flux rope. Reconnection at the null point between the flux rope and the
overlying field is only initiated in a second phase. In addition, we showed
that the EUV late phase observed after the main flare episode are caused by the
cooling loops of different length which have all reconnected at the null point
during the impulsive phase.Comment: Astronomy & Astrophysics, in pres
Efficient multipartite entanglement purification with the entanglement link from a subspace
We present an efficient multipartite entanglement purification protocol
(MEPP) for N-photon systems in a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state with
parity-check detectors. It contains two parts. One is the conventional MEPP
with which the parties can obtain a high-fidelity N-photon ensemble directly,
similar to the MEPP with controlled-not gates. The other is our recycling MEPP
in which the entanglement link is used to produce some -photon entangled
systems from entangled N'-photon subsystems (2 \leq N'<N) coming from the
instances which are just discarded in all existing conventional MEPPs. The
entangled N'-photon subsystems are obtained efficiently by measuring the
photons with potential bit-flip errors. With these two parts, the present MEPP
has a higher efficiency than all other conventional MEPPs.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables. We correct the error in the address of
the author in the published version (Phys. Rev. A 84, 052312 (2011)
Disk stars in the Milky Way detected beyond 25 kpc from its center
CONTEXT. The maximum size of the Galactic stellar disk is not yet known. Some
studies have suggested an abrupt drop-off of the stellar density of the disk at
Galactocentric distances kpc, which means that in practice no
disk stars or only very few of them should be found beyond this limit. However,
stars in the Milky Way plane are detected at larger distances. In addition to
the halo component, star counts have placed the end of the disk beyond 20 kpc,
although this has not been spectroscopically confirmed so far.
AIMS. Here, we aim to spectroscopically confirm the presence of the disk
stars up to much larger distances.
METHODS. With data from the LAMOST and SDSS-APOGEE spectroscopic surveys, we
statistically derived the maximum distance at which the metallicity
distribution of stars in the Galactic plane is distinct from that of the halo
populations.
RESULTS. Our analysis reveals the presence of disk stars at R>26 kpc (99.7%
C.L.) and even at R>31 kpc (95.4% C.L.).Comment: 4 pages, accepted to be published in A&A-Letter
Simulation-based evaluation of defuzzification-based approaches to fuzzy multi-attribute decision making
This paper presents a simulation-based study to evaluate the performance of 12 defuzzification-based approaches for solving the general fuzzy multiattribute decision-making (MADM) problem requiring cardinal ranking of decision alternatives. These approaches are generated based on six defuzzification methods in conjunction with the simple additive weighting (SAW) method and the technique for order preference by similarity to the ideal solution method. The consistency and effectiveness of these approaches are examined in terms of four new objective performance measures, which are based on five evaluation indexes. The Simulation result shows that the approaches, which are capable of using all the available information on fuzzy numbers, effectively in the defuzzification process, produce more consistent ranking outcomes. In particular, the SAW method with the degree of dominance defuzzification is proved to be the overall best performed approach, which is, followed by the SAW method with the area center defuzzification. These findings are of practical significance in real-world settings where the selection of the defuzzification-based approaches is required in solving the general fuzzy MADM problems under specific decision contexts
- …