1,350 research outputs found
An Evaluation Schema for the Ethical Use of Autonomous Robotic Systems in Security Applications
We propose a multi-step evaluation schema designed to help procurement agencies and others to examine the ethical dimensions of autonomous systems to be applied in the security sector, including autonomous weapons systems
Microscopic construction of the chiral Luttinger liquid theory of the quantum Hall edge
We give a microscopic derivation of the chiral Luttinger liquid theory for
the Laughlin states. Starting from the wave function describing an arbitrary
incompressibly deformed Laughlin state (IDLS) we quantize these deformations.
In this way we obtain the low-energy projections of local microscopic operators
and derive the quantum field theory of edge excitations directly from quantum
mechanics of electrons. This shows that to describe experimental and numeric
deviations from chiral Luttinger liquid theory one needs to go beyond
Laughlin's approximation. We show that in the large N limit the IDLS is
described by the dispersionless Toda hierarchy.Comment: 5 pages, revtex, several clarifying comments adde
Sometimes neither water nor fire are more useful than friendship — A new risk score for prediction of contrast-induced nephropathy (CIN) and long-term adverse outcomes in patients undergoing coronary angiography
Triviality of Higher Derivative Theories
We show that some higher derivative theories have a BRST symmetry. This
symmetry is due to the higher derivative structure and is not associated to any
gauge invariance. If physical states are defined as those in the BRST
cohomology then the only physical state is the vacuum. All negative norm
states, characteristic of higher derivative theories, are removed from the
physical sector. As a consequence, unitarity is recovered but the S-matrix is
trivial. We show that a class of higher derivative quantum gravity theories
have this BRST symmetry so that they are consistent as quantum field theories.
Furthermore, this BRST symmetry may be present in both relativistic and
non-relativistic systems.Comment: 4 pages, minor correction
Alpha-particle clustering in excited expanding self-conjugate nuclei
The fragmentation of quasi-projectiles from the nuclear reaction 40Ca + 12C
at 25 MeV/nucleon was used to produce alpha-emission sources. From a careful
selection of these sources provided by a complete detection and from
comparisons with models of sequential and simultaneous decays, strong
indications in favour of -particle clustering in excited 16O, 20Ne and
24}Mg are reported.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 12th International Conference on Nucleus-Nucleus
collisions (NN2015), 21-26 June 2015, Catania, Ital
Vacuum structure for expanding geometry
We consider gravitational wave modes in the FRW metrics in a de Sitter phase
and show that the state space splits into many unitarily inequivalent
representations of the canonical commutation relations. Non-unitary time
evolution is described as a trajectory in the space of the representations. The
generator of time evolution is related to the entropy operator. The
thermodynamic arrow of time is shown to point in the same direction of the
cosmological arrow of time. The vacuum is a two-mode SU(1,1) squeezed state of
thermo field dynamics. The link between expanding geometry, squeezing and
thermal properties is exhibited.Comment: Latex file, epsfig, 1 figure, 21 page
Quantizing the damped harmonic oscillator
We consider the Fermi quantization of the classical damped harmonic
oscillator (dho). In past work on the subject, authors double the phase space
of the dho in order to close the system at each moment in time. For an
infinite-dimensional phase space, this method requires one to construct a
representation of the CAR algebra for each time. We show that unitary dilation
of the contraction semigroup governing the dynamics of the system is a logical
extension of the doubling procedure, and it allows one to avoid the
mathematical difficulties encountered with the previous method.Comment: 4 pages, no figure
Production of -particle condensate states in heavy-ion collisions
The fragmentation of quasi-projectiles from the nuclear reaction +
at 25 MeV/nucleon was used to produce excited states candidates to
-particle condensation. The experiment was performed at LNS-Catania
using the CHIMERA multidetector. Accepting the emission simultaneity and
equality among the -particle kinetic energies as experimental criteria
for deciding in favor of the condensate nature of an excited state, we analyze
the and states of C and the state of O. A
sub-class of events corresponding to the direct 3- decay of the Hoyle
state is isolated.Comment: contribution to the 2nd Workshop on "State of the Art in Nuclear
Cluster Physics" (SOTANCP2), Universite Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), May
25-28, 2010, to be published in the International Journal of Modern Physics
Altered gut microbiota in Rett syndrome
Background
The human gut microbiota directly affects human health, and its alteration can lead to gastrointestinal abnormalities and inflammation. Rett syndrome (RTT), a progressive neurological disorder mainly caused by mutations in MeCP2 gene, is commonly associated with gastrointestinal dysfunctions and constipation, suggesting a link between RTT’s gastrointestinal abnormalities and the gut microbiota. The aim of this study was to evaluate the bacterial and fungal gut microbiota in a cohort of RTT subjects integrating clinical, metabolomics and metagenomics data to understand if changes in the gut microbiota of RTT subjects could be associated with gastrointestinal abnormalities and inflammatory status.
Results
Our findings revealed the occurrence of an intestinal sub-inflammatory status in RTT subjects as measured by the elevated values of faecal calprotectin and erythrocyte sedimentation rate. We showed that, overall, RTT subjects harbour bacterial and fungal microbiota altered in terms of relative abundances from those of healthy controls, with a reduced microbial richness and dominated by microbial taxa belonging to Bifidobacterium, several Clostridia (among which Anaerostipes, Clostridium XIVa, Clostridium XIVb) as well as Erysipelotrichaceae, Actinomyces, Lactobacillus, Enterococcus, Eggerthella, Escherichia/Shigella and the fungal genus Candida.
We further observed that alterations of the gut microbiota do not depend on the constipation status of RTT subjects and that this dysbiotic microbiota produced altered short chain fatty acids profiles.
Conclusions
We demonstrated for the first time that RTT is associated with a dysbiosis of both the bacterial and fungal component of the gut microbiota, suggesting that impairments of MeCP2 functioning favour the establishment of a microbial community adapted to the costive gastrointestinal niche of RTT subjects. The altered production of short chain fatty acids associated with this microbiota might reinforce the constipation status of RTT subjects and contribute to RTT gastrointestinal physiopathology
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