663 research outputs found
Ballistic effects in a proximity induced superconducting diffusive metal
Using a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM), we investigate the Local Density
of States (LDOS) of artificially fabricated normal metal nano-structures in
contact with a superconductor. Very low temperature local spectroscopic
measurements (100 mK) reveal the presence of well defined subgap peaks at
energy |E|<Delta in the LDOS at various positions of the STM tip. Although no
clear correlations between the LDOS and the shape of the samples have emerged,
some of the peak features suggest they originate from quasi-particle bound
states within the normal metal structures (De Gennes St James states).
Refocusing of electronic trajectories induced by the granular srtucture of the
samples can explain the observation of spatially uncorrelated interference
effects in a non-ballistic medium.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Stable Marriage with Multi-Modal Preferences
We introduce a generalized version of the famous Stable Marriage problem, now
based on multi-modal preference lists. The central twist herein is to allow
each agent to rank its potentially matching counterparts based on more than one
"evaluation mode" (e.g., more than one criterion); thus, each agent is equipped
with multiple preference lists, each ranking the counterparts in a possibly
different way. We introduce and study three natural concepts of stability,
investigate their mutual relations and focus on computational complexity
aspects with respect to computing stable matchings in these new scenarios.
Mostly encountering computational hardness (NP-hardness), we can also spot few
islands of tractability and make a surprising connection to the \textsc{Graph
Isomorphism} problem
Teratozoospermia: spotlight on the main genetic actors in the human
BACKGROUND Male infertility affects >20 million men worldwide and represents a major health concern. Although multifactorial, male infertility has a strong genetic basis which has so far not been extensively studied. Recent studies of consanguineous families and of small cohorts of phenotypically homogeneous patients have however allowed the identification of a number of autosomal recessive causes of teratozoospermia. Homozygous mutations of aurora kinase C (AURKC) were first described to be responsible for most cases of macrozoospermia. Other genes defects have later been identified in spermatogenesis associated 16 (SPATA16) and dpy-19-like 2 (DPY19L2) in patients with globozoospermia and more recently in dynein, axonemal, heavy chain 1 (DNAH1) in a heterogeneous group of patients presenting with flagellar abnormalities previously described as dysplasia of the fibrous sheath or short/stump tail syndromes, which we propose to call multiple morphological abnormalities of the flagella (MMAF). METHODS A comprehensive review of the scientific literature available in PubMed/Medline was conducted for studies on human genetics, experimental models and physiopathology related to teratozoospermia in particular globozoospermia, large headed spermatozoa and flagellar abnormalities. The search included all articles with an English abstract available online before September 2014. RESULTS Molecular studies of numerous unrelated patients with globozoospermia and large-headed spermatozoa confirmed that mutations in DPY19L2 and AURKC are mainly responsible for their respective pathological phenotype. In globozoospermia, the deletion of the totality of the DPY19L2 gene represents ∼81% of the pathological alleles but point mutations affecting the protein function have also been described. In macrozoospermia only two recurrent mutations were identified in AURKC, accounting for almost all the pathological alleles, raising the possibility of a putative positive selection of heterozygous individuals. The recent identification of DNAH1 mutations in a proportion of patients with MMAF is promising but emphasizes that this phenotype is genetically heterogeneous. Moreover, the identification of mutations in a dynein strengthens the emerging point of view that MMAF may be a phenotypic variation of the classical forms of primary ciliary dyskinesia. Based on data from human and animal models, the MMAF phenotype seems to be favored by defects directly or indirectly affecting the central pair of axonemal microtubules of the sperm flagella. CONCLUSIONS The studies described here provide valuable information regarding the genetic and molecular defects causing infertility, to improve our understanding of the physiopathology of teratozoospermia while giving a detailed characterization of specific features of spermatogenesis. Furthermore, these findings have a significant influence on the diagnostic strategy for teratozoospermic patients allowing the clinician to provide the patient with informed genetic counseling, to adopt the best course of treatment and to develop personalized medicine directly targeting the defective gene product
Integer Quantum Hall Effect in Trilayer Graphene
The Integer Quantum Hall Effect (IQHE) is a distinctive phase of
two-dimensional electronic systems subjected to a perpendicular magnetic field.
Thus far, the IQHE has been observed in semiconductor heterostructures and in
mono- and bi-layer graphene. Here we report on the IQHE in a new system:
trilayer graphene. Experimental data are compared with self-consistent Hartree
calculations of the Landau levels for the gated trilayer. The plateau structure
in the Hall resistivity determines the stacking order (ABA versus ABC). We find
that the IQHE in ABC trilayer graphene is similar to that in the monolayer,
except for the absence of a plateau at filling factor v=2. At very low filling
factor, the Hall resistance vanishes due to the presence of mixed electron and
hole carriers induced by disorder.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Approximability of Connected Factors
Finding a d-regular spanning subgraph (or d-factor) of a graph is easy by
Tutte's reduction to the matching problem. By the same reduction, it is easy to
find a minimal or maximal d-factor of a graph. However, if we require that the
d-factor is connected, these problems become NP-hard - finding a minimal
connected 2-factor is just the traveling salesman problem (TSP).
Given a complete graph with edge weights that satisfy the triangle
inequality, we consider the problem of finding a minimal connected -factor.
We give a 3-approximation for all and improve this to an
(r+1)-approximation for even d, where r is the approximation ratio of the TSP.
This yields a 2.5-approximation for even d. The same algorithm yields an
(r+1)-approximation for the directed version of the problem, where r is the
approximation ratio of the asymmetric TSP. We also show that none of these
minimization problems can be approximated better than the corresponding TSP.
Finally, for the decision problem of deciding whether a given graph contains
a connected d-factor, we extend known hardness results.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of WAOA 201
Self-stabilizing algorithms for Connected Vertex Cover and Clique decomposition problems
In many wireless networks, there is no fixed physical backbone nor
centralized network management. The nodes of such a network have to
self-organize in order to maintain a virtual backbone used to route messages.
Moreover, any node of the network can be a priori at the origin of a malicious
attack. Thus, in one hand the backbone must be fault-tolerant and in other hand
it can be useful to monitor all network communications to identify an attack as
soon as possible. We are interested in the minimum \emph{Connected Vertex
Cover} problem, a generalization of the classical minimum Vertex Cover problem,
which allows to obtain a connected backbone. Recently, Delbot et
al.~\cite{DelbotLP13} proposed a new centralized algorithm with a constant
approximation ratio of for this problem. In this paper, we propose a
distributed and self-stabilizing version of their algorithm with the same
approximation guarantee. To the best knowledge of the authors, it is the first
distributed and fault-tolerant algorithm for this problem. The approach
followed to solve the considered problem is based on the construction of a
connected minimal clique partition. Therefore, we also design the first
distributed self-stabilizing algorithm for this problem, which is of
independent interest
First electron beam polarization measurements with a Compton polarimeter at Jefferson Laboratory
A Compton polarimeter has been installed in Hall A at Jefferson Laboratory.
This letter reports on the first electron beam polarization measurements
performed during the HAPPEX experiment at an electron energy of 3.3 GeV and an
average current of 40 A. The heart of this device is a Fabry-Perot cavity
which increased the luminosity for Compton scattering in the interaction region
so much that a 1.4% statistical accuracy could be obtained within one hour,
with a 3.3% total error
A photon calorimeter using lead tungstate crystals for the CEBAF Hall A Compton polarimeter
The performances of the calorimeter of the Jlab Hall A Compton Polarimeter
have been measured using the Mainz tagged photon beam.Comment: 13 page
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