373 research outputs found
Control system design using optimization techniques Final report
Optimization techniques for control of fuel valve systems for air breathing jet engines and 40-60 inlet control problem
Topics concerning state variable feedback in automatic control systems. Part 1 - Specification. Part 2 - Sensitivity. Part 3 - Intentional nonlinearities. Part 4 - Unavailable states
Specifications, sensitivity, intentional nonlinearities, and unavailable states concerned with state variable feedback in automatic control system
Search for Mars lander/rover/sample-return sites: A status review
Ten Mars sites were studied in the USA for four years. The sites are the Chasma Boreale (North Pole), Planum Australe (South Pole), Olympus Rupes, Mangala Valles, Memnonia Sulci, Candor Chasma, Kasel Valles, Nilosyrtis Mensae, Elysium Montes, and Apollinaris Patera. Seven sites are being studied by the USSR; their prime sites are located at the east mouth of Kasel Valles and near Uranius Patera. Thirteen geological maps of the first six USA sites are compiled and in review. Maps of the Mangala East and West sites at 1:1/2 million scale and a 1:2 million scale map show evidence of three episodes of small-channel formation interspersed with episodes of volcanism and tectonism that span the period from 3.5 to 0.6 b.y. ago. The tectonic and geological history of Mars, both ancient and modern, can be elucidated by sampling volcanic and fluvial geologic units at equatorial sites and layered deposits at polar sites. The evidence appears clear for multiple episodes of fluvial channeling, including some that are quite recent; this evidence contrasts with the theses of Baker and Partridge (1986) and many others that all channels are ancient. Verification of this hypothesis by Mars Observer will be an important step forward in the perception of the history of Mars
The association between histamine 2 receptor antagonist use and Clostridium difficile infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Background
Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is a major health problem. Epidemiological evidence suggests that there is an association between acid suppression therapy and development of CDI.
Purpose
We sought to systematically review the literature that examined the association between histamine 2 receptor antagonists (H2RAs) and CDI.
Data source
We searched Medline, Current Contents, Embase, ISI Web of Science and Elsevier Scopus from 1990 to 2012 for all analytical studies that examined the association between H2RAs and CDI.
Study selection
Two authors independently reviewed the studies for eligibility.
Data extraction
Data about studies characteristics, adjusted effect estimates and quality were extracted.
Data synthesis
Thirty-five observations from 33 eligible studies that included 201834 participants were analyzed. Studies were performed in 6 countries and nine of them were multicenter. Most studies did not specify the type or duration of H2RAs therapy. The pooled effect estimate was 1.44, 95% CI (1.22–1.7), I2 = 70.5%. This association was consistent across different subgroups (by study design and country) and there was no evidence of publication bias. The pooled effect estimate for high quality studies was 1.39 (1.15–1.68), I2 = 72.3%. Meta-regression analysis of 10 study-level variables did not identify sources of heterogeneity. In a speculative analysis, the number needed to harm (NNH) with H2RAs at 14 days after hospital admission in patients receiving antibiotics or not was 58, 95% CI (37, 115) and 425, 95% CI (267, 848), respectively. For the general population, the NNH at 1 year was 4549, 95% CI (2860, 9097).
Conclusion
In this rigorous systematic review and meta-analysis, we observed an association between H2RAs and CDI. The absolute risk of CDI associated with H2RAs is highest in hospitalized patients receiving antibiotics
A valley-spin qubit in a carbon nanotube
Although electron spins in III-V semiconductor quantum dots have shown great
promise as qubits, a major challenge is the unavoidable hyperfine decoherence
in these materials. In group IV semiconductors, the dominant nuclear species
are spinless, allowing for qubit coherence times that have been extended up to
seconds in diamond and silicon. Carbon nanotubes are a particularly attractive
host material, because the spin-orbit interaction with the valley degree of
freedom allows for electrical manipulation of the qubit. In this work, we
realise such a qubit in a nanotube double quantum dot. The qubit is encoded in
two valley-spin states, with coherent manipulation via electrically driven spin
resonance (EDSR) mediated by a bend in the nanotube. Readout is performed by
measuring the current in Pauli blockade. Arbitrary qubit rotations are
demonstrated, and the coherence time is measured via Hahn echo. Although the
measured decoherence time is only 65 ns in our current device, this work offers
the possibility of creating a qubit for which hyperfine interaction can be
virtually eliminated
Effect of Oscillating Landau Bandwidth on the Integer Quantum Hall Effect in a Unidirectional Lateral Superlattice
We have measured activation gaps for odd-integer quantum Hall states in a
unidirectional lateral superlattice (ULSL) -- a two-dimensional electron gas
(2DEG) subjected to a unidirectional periodic modulation of the electrostatic
potential. By comparing the activation gaps with those simultaneously measured
in the adjacent section of the same 2DEG sample without modulation, we find
that the gaps are reduced in the ULSL by an amount corresponding to the width
acquired by the Landau levels through the introduction of the modulation. The
decrement of the activation gap varies with the magnetic field following the
variation of the Landau bandwidth due to the commensurability effect. Notably,
the decrement vanishes at the flat band conditions.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, minor revisio
High Resolution Spectroscopy of Two-Dimensional Electron Systems
Spectroscopic methods involving the sudden injection or ejection of electrons
in materials are a powerful probe of electronic structure and interactions.
These techniques, such as photoemission and tunneling, yield measurements of
the "single particle" density of states (SPDOS) spectrum of a system. The SPDOS
is proportional to the probability of successfully injecting or ejecting an
electron in these experiments. It is equal to the number of electronic states
in the system able to accept an injected electron as a function of its energy
and is among the most fundamental and directly calculable quantities in
theories of highly interacting systems. However, the two-dimensional electron
system (2DES), host to remarkable correlated electron states such as the
fractional quantum Hall effect, has proven difficult to probe
spectroscopically. Here we present an improved version of time domain
capacitance spectroscopy (TDCS) that now allows us to measure the SPDOS of a
2DES with unprecedented fidelity and resolution. Using TDCS, we perform
measurements of a cold 2DES, providing the first direct measurements of the
single-particle exchange-enhanced spin gap and single particle lifetimes in the
quantum Hall system, as well as the first observations of exchange splitting of
Landau levels not at the Fermi surface. The measurements reveal the difficult
to reach and beautiful structure present in this highly correlated system far
from the Fermi surface.Comment: There are formatting and minor textual differences between this
version and the published version in Nature (follow the DOI link below
Microscopic Polarization in Bilayer Graphene
Bilayer graphene has drawn significant attention due to the opening of a band
gap in its low energy electronic spectrum, which offers a promising route to
electronic applications. The gap can be either tunable through an external
electric field or spontaneously formed through an interaction-induced symmetry
breaking. Our scanning tunneling measurements reveal the microscopic nature of
the bilayer gap to be very different from what is observed in previous
macroscopic measurements or expected from current theoretical models. The
potential difference between the layers, which is proportional to charge
imbalance and determines the gap value, shows strong dependence on the disorder
potential, varying spatially in both magnitude and sign on a microscopic level.
Furthermore, the gap does not vanish at small charge densities. Additional
interaction-induced effects are observed in a magnetic field with the opening
of a subgap when the zero orbital Landau level is placed at the Fermi energy
Clostridium difficile in Retail Meat Products, USA, 2007
To determine the presence of Clostridium difficile, we sampled cooked and uncooked meat products sold in Tucson, Arizona. Forty-two percent contained toxigenic C. difficile strains (either ribotype 078/toxinotype V [73%] or 027/toxinotype III [NAP1 or NAP1-related; 27%]). These findings indicate that food products may play a role in interspecies C. difficile transmission
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