2,410 research outputs found
Pulsed Feedback Defers Cellular Differentiation
Environmental signals induce diverse cellular differentiation programs. In certain systems, cells defer differentiation for extended time periods after the signal appears, proliferating through multiple rounds of cell division before committing to a new fate. How can cells set a deferral time much longer than the cell cycle? Here we study Bacillus subtilis cells that respond to sudden nutrient limitation with multiple rounds of growth and division before differentiating into spores. A well-characterized genetic circuit controls the concentration and phosphorylation of the master regulator Spo0A, which rises to a critical concentration to initiate sporulation. However, it remains unclear how this circuit enables cells to defer sporulation for multiple cell cycles. Using quantitative time-lapse fluorescence microscopy of Spo0A dynamics in individual cells, we observed pulses of Spo0A phosphorylation at a characteristic cell cycle phase. Pulse amplitudes grew systematically and cell-autonomously over multiple cell cycles leading up to sporulation. This pulse growth required a key positive feedback loop involving the sporulation kinases, without which the deferral of sporulation became ultrasensitive to kinase expression. Thus, deferral is controlled by a pulsed positive feedback loop in which kinase expression is activated by pulses of Spo0A phosphorylation. This pulsed positive feedback architecture provides a more robust mechanism for setting deferral times than constitutive kinase expression. Finally, using mathematical modeling, we show how pulsing and time delays together enable âpolyphasicâ positive feedback, in which different parts of a feedback loop are active at different times. Polyphasic feedback can enable more accurate tuning of long deferral times. Together, these results suggest that Bacillus subtilis uses a pulsed positive feedback loop to implement a âtimerâ that operates over timescales much longer than a cell cycle
Measurement of polarization-transfer to bound protons in carbon and its virtuality dependence
We measured the ratio of the transverse to longitudinal
components of polarization transferred from electrons to bound protons in
by the process at the
Mainz Microtron (MAMI). We observed consistent deviations from unity of this
ratio normalized to the free-proton ratio,
, for both -
and -shell knocked out protons, even though they are embedded in averaged
local densities that differ by about a factor of two. The dependence of the
double ratio on proton virtuality is similar to the one for knocked out protons
from and , suggesting a universal behavior.
It further implies no dependence on average local nuclear density
Discrete-time quantum walks on one-dimensional lattices
In this paper, we study discrete-time quantum walks on one-dimensional
lattices. We find that the coherent dynamics depends on the initial states and
coin parameters. For infinite size of lattice, we derive an explicit expression
for the return probability, which shows scaling behavior
and does not depends on the initial states of the walk. In the long-time limit,
the probability distribution shows various patterns, depending on the initial
states, coin parameters and the lattice size. The average mixing time
closes to the limiting probability in linear (size of the
lattice) for large values of thresholds . Finally, we introduce
another kind of quantum walk on infinite or even-numbered size of lattices, and
show that the walk is equivalent to the traditional quantum walk with
symmetrical initial state and coin parameter.Comment: 17 pages research not
The trans-activation domain of the sporulation response regulator Spo0A revealed by X-ray crystallography
Sporulation in Bacillus involves the induction of scores of genes in a temporally and spatially co-ordinated programme of cell development. Its initiation is under the control of an expanded two-component signal transduction system termed a phosphorelay. The master control element in the decision to sporulate is the response regulator, Spo0A, which comprises a receiver or phosphoacceptor domain and an effector or transcription activation domain. The receiver domain of Spo0A shares sequence similarity with numerous response regulators, and its structure has been determined in phosphorylated and unphosphorylated forms. However, the effector domain (C-Spo0A) has no detectable sequence similarity to any other protein, and this lack of structural information is an obstacle to understanding how DNA binding and transcription activation are controlled by phosphorylation in Spo0A. Here, we report the crystal structure of C-Spo0A from Bacillus stearothermophilus revealing a single alpha -helical domain comprising six alpha -helices in an unprecedented fold. The structure contains a helix-turn-helix as part of a three alpha -helical bundle reminiscent of the catabolite gene activator protein (CAP), suggesting a mechanism for DNA binding. The residues implicated in forming the sigma (A)-activating region clearly cluster in a flexible segment of the polypeptide on the opposite side of the structure from that predicted to interact with DNA. The structural results are discussed in the context of the rich array of existing mutational data
Precision determination of the dpi -> NN transition strength at threshold
An unusual but effective way to determine at threshold the dpi -> NN
transition strength is to exploit the hadronic ground-state broadening in
pionic deuterium, accessible by x-ray spectroscopy. The broadening is dominated
by the true absorption channel dpi- -> nn, which is related to s-wave pion
production pp -> dpi+ by charge symmetry and detailed balance. Using the exotic
atom circumvents the problem of Coulomb corrections to the cross section as
necessary in the production experiments. Our dedicated measurement finds
(1171+23/-49) meV for the broadening yielding (252+5/-11) \mub.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl
Pionic Deuterium
The strong interaction shift and broadening in pionic deuterium have been
remeasured with high statistics by means of the (3p-1s) X-ray transition using
the cyclotron trap and a high-resolution crystal spectrometer. Preliminary
results are (-2325+/-31) meV (repulsive) for the shift and (1171+23/-49} meV
for the width, which yields precise values for the pion-deuteron scattering
length and the threshold parameter for pion production.Comment: Conf. Proc. Few Body 19 (FB19), August 31 - September 5, 2009, Bonn,
Germany 9 pages, 13 figure
Observation of Caustics in the Trajectories of Cold Atoms in a Linear Magnetic Potential
We have studied the spatial and temporal dynamics of a cold atom cloud in the
conservative force field of a ferromagnetic guide, after laser cooling has been
switched off suddenly. We observe outgoing 'waves' that correspond to caustics
of individual trajectories of trapped atoms. This provides detailed information
on the magnetic field, the energy distribution and the spin states.Comment: 21 pages, incl. 12 figure
Implementation of a Toffoli Gate with Superconducting Circuits
The quantum Toffoli gate allows universal reversible classical computation.
It is also an important primitive in many quantum circuits and quantum error
correction schemes. Here we demonstrate the realization of a Toffoli gate with
three superconducting transmon qubits coupled to a microwave resonator. By
exploiting the third energy level of the transmon qubit, the number of
elementary gates needed for the implementation of the Toffoli gate, as well as
the total gate time can be reduced significantly in comparison to theoretical
proposals using two-level systems only. We characterize the performance of the
gate by full process tomography and Monte Carlo process certification. The gate
fidelity is found to be %.Comment: 4 pages, 5figure
On the relationship between continuous- and discrete-time quantum walk
Quantum walk is one of the main tools for quantum algorithms. Defined by
analogy to classical random walk, a quantum walk is a time-homogeneous quantum
process on a graph. Both random and quantum walks can be defined either in
continuous or discrete time. But whereas a continuous-time random walk can be
obtained as the limit of a sequence of discrete-time random walks, the two
types of quantum walk appear fundamentally different, owing to the need for
extra degrees of freedom in the discrete-time case.
In this article, I describe a precise correspondence between continuous- and
discrete-time quantum walks on arbitrary graphs. Using this correspondence, I
show that continuous-time quantum walk can be obtained as an appropriate limit
of discrete-time quantum walks. The correspondence also leads to a new
technique for simulating Hamiltonian dynamics, giving efficient simulations
even in cases where the Hamiltonian is not sparse. The complexity of the
simulation is linear in the total evolution time, an improvement over
simulations based on high-order approximations of the Lie product formula. As
applications, I describe a continuous-time quantum walk algorithm for element
distinctness and show how to optimally simulate continuous-time query
algorithms of a certain form in the conventional quantum query model. Finally,
I discuss limitations of the method for simulating Hamiltonians with negative
matrix elements, and present two problems that motivate attempting to
circumvent these limitations.Comment: 22 pages. v2: improved presentation, new section on Hamiltonian
oracles; v3: published version, with improved analysis of phase estimatio
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