727 research outputs found
Cascading water underneath Wilkes Land, East Antarctic ice sheet, observed using altimetry and digital elevation models
We describe a major subglacial lake drainage close to the ice divide in
Wilkes Land, East Antarctica, and the subsequent cascading of water
underneath the ice sheet toward the coast. To analyse the event, we combined
altimetry data from several sources and subglacial topography. We estimated
the total volume of water that drained from Lake Cook<sub>E2</sub> by differencing
digital elevation models (DEM) derived from ASTER and SPOT5 stereo imagery
acquired in January 2006 and February 2012. At 5.2 ± 1.5 km<sup>3</sup>, this
is the largest single subglacial drainage event reported so far in
Antarctica. Elevation differences between ICESat laser altimetry spanning
2003â2009 and the SPOT5 DEM indicate that the discharge started in November
2006 and lasted approximately 2 years. A 13 m uplift of the surface,
corresponding to a refilling of about 0.6 ± 0.3 km<sup>3</sup>, was observed
between the end of the discharge in October 2008 and February 2012. Using
the 35-day temporal resolution of Envisat radar altimetry, we monitored the
subsequent filling and drainage of connected subglacial lakes located
downstream of Cook<sub>E2</sub>. The total volume of water traveling within the
theoretical 500-km-long flow paths computed with the BEDMAP2 data set is
similar to the volume that drained from Lake Cook<sub>E2</sub>, and our
observations suggest that most of the water released from Lake Cook<sub>E2</sub>
did not reach the coast but remained trapped underneath the ice sheet. Our
study illustrates how combining multiple remote sensing techniques allows
monitoring of the timing and magnitude of subglacial water flow beneath the
East Antarctic ice sheet
Geometry of entangled states, Bloch spheres and Hopf fibrations
We discuss a generalization to 2 qubits of the standard Bloch sphere
representation for a single qubit, in the framework of Hopf fibrations of high
dimensional spheres by lower dimensional spheres. The single qubit Hilbert
space is the 3-dimensional sphere S3. The S2 base space of a suitably oriented
S3 Hopf fibration is nothing but the Bloch sphere, while the circular fibres
represent the qubit overall phase degree of freedom. For the two qubits case,
the Hilbert space is a 7-dimensional sphere S7, which also allows for a Hopf
fibration, with S3 fibres and a S4 base. A main striking result is that
suitably oriented S7 Hopf fibrations are entanglement sensitive. The relation
with the standard Schmidt decomposition is also discussedComment: submitted to J. Phys.
Separation of phosphorylated from non-phosphorylated LHCP polypeptides by two-dimensional electrophoresis
AbstractâIn vitroâ phosphorylated thylakoid polypeptides were studied by means of different electrophoretic techniques. A highly resolving two-dimensional electrophoresis method, recently developed in the laboratory using CHAPS and SDS as detergent for electrofocusing, allows the separation of each of the LHCP apoproteins into several molecular species. Those having more acidic isoelectric points correspond to the phosphorylated forms
Symbolic Algorithms for Language Equivalence and Kleene Algebra with Tests
We first propose algorithms for checking language equivalence of finite
automata over a large alphabet. We use symbolic automata, where the transition
function is compactly represented using a (multi-terminal) binary decision
diagrams (BDD). The key idea consists in computing a bisimulation by exploring
reachable pairs symbolically, so as to avoid redundancies. This idea can be
combined with already existing optimisations, and we show in particular a nice
integration with the disjoint sets forest data-structure from Hopcroft and
Karp's standard algorithm. Then we consider Kleene algebra with tests (KAT), an
algebraic theory that can be used for verification in various domains ranging
from compiler optimisation to network programming analysis. This theory is
decidable by reduction to language equivalence of automata on guarded strings,
a particular kind of automata that have exponentially large alphabets. We
propose several methods allowing to construct symbolic automata out of KAT
expressions, based either on Brzozowski's derivatives or standard automata
constructions. All in all, this results in efficient algorithms for deciding
equivalence of KAT expressions
Mushroom body-specific profiling of gene expression identifies regulators of long-term memory in Drosophila
Memory formation is achieved by genetically tightly controlled molecular pathways that result in a change of synaptic strength and synapse organization. While for short- term memory traces rapidly acting biochemical pathways are in place, the formation of long-lasting memories requires changes in the transcriptional program of a cell. Although many genes involved in learning and memory formation have been identified, little is known about the genetic mechanisms required for changing the transcriptional program during different phases of long-term memory formation. With Drosophila melanogaster as a model system we profiled transcriptomic changes in the mushroom body, a memory center in the fly brain, at distinct time intervals during long- term memory formation using the targeted DamID technique. We describe the gene expression profiles during these phases and tested 33 selected candidate genes for deficits in long-term memory formation using RNAi knockdown. We identified 10 genes that enhance or decrease memory when knocked-down in the mushroom body. For vajk-1 and hacd1, the two strongest hits, we gained further support for their crucial role in learning and forgetting. These findings show that profiling gene expression changes in specific cell-types harboring memory traces provides a powerful entry point to identify new genes involved in learning and memory. The presented transcriptomic data may further be used as resource to study genes acting at different memory phases
Geometrical approach to SU(2) navigation with Fibonacci anyons
Topological quantum computation with Fibonacci anyons relies on the
possibility of efficiently generating unitary transformations upon
pseudoparticles braiding. The crucial fact that such set of braids has a dense
image in the unitary operations space is well known; in addition, the
Solovay-Kitaev algorithm allows to approach a given unitary operation to any
desired accuracy. In this paper, the latter task is fulfilled with an
alternative method, in the SU(2) case, based on a generalization of the
geodesic dome construction to higher dimension.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure
Ultimate decoherence border for matter-wave interferometry
Stochastic backgrounds of gravitational waves are intrinsic fluctuations of
spacetime which lead to an unavoidable decoherence mechanism. This mechanism
manifests itself as a degradation of the contrast of quantum interferences. It
defines an ultimate decoherence border for matter-wave interferometry using
larger and larger molecules. We give a quantitative characterization of this
border in terms of figures involving the gravitational environment as well as
the sensitivity of the interferometer to gravitational waves. The known level
of gravitational noise determines the maximal size of the molecular probe for
which interferences may remain observable. We discuss the relevance of this
result in the context of ongoing progresses towards more and more sensitive
matter-wave interferometry.Comment: 4 page
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