1,262 research outputs found
Beyond the Death of Linear Response: 1/f optimal information transport
Non-ergodic renewal processes have recently been shown by several authors to
be insensitive to periodic perturbations, thereby apparently sanctioning the
death of linear response, a building block of nonequilibrium statistical
physics. We show that it is possible to go beyond the ``death of linear
response" and establish a permanent correlation between an external stimulus
and the response of a complex network generating non-ergodic renewal processes,
by taking as stimulus a similar non-ergodic process. The ideal condition of
1/f-noise corresponds to a singularity that is expected to be relevant in
several experimental conditions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, in press on Phys. Rev. Let
The Serre spectral sequence of a noncommutative fibration for de Rham cohomology
For differential calculi on noncommutative algebras, we construct a twisted
de Rham cohomology using flat connections on modules. This has properties
similar, in some respects, to sheaf cohomology on topological spaces. We also
discuss generalised mapping properties of these theories, and relations of
these properties to corings. Using this, we give conditions for the Serre
spectral sequence to hold for a noncommutative fibration. This might be better
read as giving the definition of a fibration in noncommutative differential
geometry. We also study the multiplicative structure of such spectral
sequences. Finally we show that some noncommutative homogeneous spaces satisfy
the conditions to be such a fibration, and in the process clarify the
differential structure on these homogeneous spaces. We also give two explicit
examples of differential fibrations: these are built on the quantum Hopf
fibration with two different differential structures.Comment: LaTeX, 33 page
Self-Organized Criticality model for Brain Plasticity
Networks of living neurons exhibit an avalanche mode of activity,
experimentally found in organotypic cultures. Here we present a model based on
self-organized criticality and taking into account brain plasticity, which is
able to reproduce the spectrum of electroencephalograms (EEG). The model
consists in an electrical network with threshold firing and activity-dependent
synapse strenghts. The system exhibits an avalanche activity power law
distributed. The analysis of the power spectra of the electrical signal
reproduces very robustly the power law behaviour with the exponent 0.8,
experimentally measured in EEG spectra. The same value of the exponent is found
on small-world lattices and for leaky neurons, indicating that universality
holds for a wide class of brain models.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Scaling law for the transient behavior of type-II neuron models
We study the transient regime of type-II biophysical neuron models and
determine the scaling behavior of relaxation times near but below the
repetitive firing critical current, . For both
the Hodgkin-Huxley and Morris-Lecar models we find that the critical exponent
is independent of the numerical integration time step and that both systems
belong to the same universality class, with . For appropriately
chosen parameters, the FitzHugh-Nagumo model presents the same generic
transient behavior, but the critical region is significantly smaller. We
propose an experiment that may reveal nontrivial critical exponents in the
squid axon.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Increasing the frequency of hand washing by healthcare workers does not lead to commensurate reductions in staphylococcal infection in a hospital ward
Hand hygiene is generally considered to be the most important measure that can be applied to prevent the spread of healthcare-associated infection (HAI). Continuous emphasis on this intervention has lead to the widespread opinion that HAI rates can be greatly reduced by increased hand hygiene compliance alone. However, this assumes that the effectiveness of hand hygiene is not constrained by other factors and that improved compliance in excess of a given level, in itself, will result in a commensurate reduction in the incidence of HAI. However, several researchers have found the law of diminishing returns to apply to hand hygiene, with the greatest benefits occurring in the first 20% or so of compliance, and others have demonstrated that poor cohorting of nursing staff profoundly influences the effectiveness of hand hygiene measures. Collectively, these findings raise intriguing questions about the extent to which increasing compliance alone can further reduce rates of HAI.
In order to investigate these issues further, we constructed a deterministic Ross-Macdonald model and applied it to a hypothetical general medical ward. In this model the transmission of staphylococcal infection was assumed to occur after contact with the transiently colonized hands of HCWs, who, in turn, acquire contamination only by touching colonized patients. The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of imperfect hand cleansing on the transmission of staphylococcal infection and to identify, whether there is a limit, above which further hand hygiene compliance is unlikely to be of benefit.
The model demonstrated that if transmission is solely via the hands of HCWs, it should, under most circumstances, be possible to prevent outbreaks of staphylococcal infection from occurring at a hand cleansing frequencies <50%, even with imperfect hand hygiene. The analysis also indicated that the relationship between hand cleansing efficacy and frequency is not linear - as efficacy decreases, so the hand cleansing frequency required to ensure R0<1 increases disproportionately.
Although our study confirmed hand hygiene to be an effective control measure, it demonstrated that the law of diminishing returns applies, with the greatest benefit derived from the first 20% or so of compliance. Indeed, our analysis suggests that there is little benefit to be accrued from very high levels of hand cleansing and that in most situations compliance >40% should be enough to prevent outbreaks of staphylococcal infection occurring, if transmission is solely via the hands of HCWs. Furthermore we identified a non-linear relationship between hand cleansing efficacy and frequency, suggesting that it is important to maximise the efficacy of the hand cleansing process
Noncommutative spherically symmetric spacetimes at semiclassical order
Working within the recent formalism of Poisson-Riemannian geometry, we
completely solve the case of generic spherically symmetric metric and
spherically symmetric Poisson-bracket to find a unique answer for the quantum
differential calculus, quantum metric and quantum Levi-Civita connection at
semiclassical order . Here is the deformation parameter,
plausibly the Planck scale. We find that are all forced to be
central, i.e. undeformed at order , while for each value of we
are forced to have a fuzzy sphere of radius with a unique differential
calculus which is necessarily nonassociative at order . We give the
spherically symmetric quantisation of the FLRW cosmology in detail and also
recover a previous analysis for the Schwarzschild black hole, now showing that
the quantum Ricci tensor for the latter vanishes at order . The
quantum Laplace-Beltrami operator for spherically symmetric models turns out to
be undeformed at order while more generally in Poisson-Riemannian
geometry we show that it deforms to in terms of the classical Levi-Civita connection
, the contorsion tensor , the Poisson-bivector and
the Ricci curvature of the Poisson-connection that controls the quantum
differential structure. The Majid-Ruegg spacetime with its
standard calculus and unique quantum metric provides an example with nontrivial
correction to the Laplacian at order .Comment: 47 pages 1 figur
Self-Organized Criticality as Witten-type Topological Field Theory with Spontaneously Broken Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin Symmetry
Here, a scenario is proposed, according to which a generic self-organized
critical (SOC) system can be looked upon as a Witten-type topological field
theory (W-TFT) with spontaneously broken Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST)
symmetry. One of the conditions for the SOC is the slow driving noise, which
unambiguously suggests Stratonovich interpretation of the corresponding
stochastic differential equation (SDE). This, in turn, necessitates the use of
Parisi-Sourlas-Wu stochastic quantization procedure, which straightforwardly
leads to a model with BRST-exact action, i.e., to a W-TFT. In the parameter
space of the SDE, there must exist full-dimensional regions where the
BRST-symmetry is spontaneously broken by instantons, which in the context of
SOC are essentially avalanches. In these regions, the avalanche-type SOC
dynamics is liberated from overwise a rightful dynamics-less W-TFT, and a
Goldstone mode of Fadeev-Popov ghosts exists. Goldstinos represent modulii of
instantons (avalanches) and being gapless are responsible for the critical
avalanche distribution in the low-energy, long-wavelength limit. The above
arguments are robust against moderate variations of the SDE's parameters and
the criticality is "self-tuned". The proposition of this paper suggests that
the machinery of W-TFTs may find its applications in many different areas of
modern science studying various physical realizations of SOC. It also suggests
that there may in principle exist a connection between some of SOC's and the
concept of topological quantum computing.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure; v2 is the published version, extensively revised
as compared to v
Focal adhesion kinase modulates tension signaling to control actin and focal adhesion dynamics
In response to αβ1 integrin signaling, transducers such as focal adhesion kinase (FAK) become activated, relaying to specific machineries and triggering distinct cellular responses. By conditionally ablating Fak in skin epidermis and culturing Fak-null keratinocytes, we show that FAK is dispensable for epidermal adhesion and basement membrane assembly, both of which require αβ1 integrins. FAK is also dispensible for proliferation/survival in enriched medium. In contrast, FAK functions downstream of αβ1 integrin in regulating cytoskeletal dynamics and orchestrating polarized keratinocyte migration out of epidermal explants. Fak-null keratinocytes display an aberrant actin cytoskeleton, which is tightly associated with robust, peripheral focal adhesions and microtubules. We find that without FAK, Src, p190RhoGAP, and PKL–PIX–PAK, localization and/or activation at focal adhesions are impaired, leading to elevated Rho activity, phosphorylation of myosin light chain kinase, and enhanced tensile stress fibers. We show that, together, these FAK-dependent activities are critical to control the turnover of focal adhesions, which is perturbed in the absence of FAK
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Comparison of SST diurnal variation models over the Tropical Warm Pool region
Four sea surface temperature (SST) diurnal variation (DV) models have been compared against Multi-functional Transport Satellite - 1R (MTSAT-1R) SST measurements over the Tropical Warm Pool region (TWP, 90°E-170°E, 25°S-15°N) for four months from January to April 2010. The four models include one empirical model formulated by Chelle Gentemann (hereafter CG03), one physical model proposed by Zeng and Beljaars in 2005 (ZB05) and its updated version (ZB+T), and one air-sea coupled model (the Met Office Unified Model Global Coupled configuration 2, GC2) with ZB05 warm layer scheme added on top of the standard configuration. The sensitivity of the v3 MTSAT-1R data to the “true” changes in SST is first investigated using drifting buoys and is estimated to be 0.60 ± 0.05. This being significantly different from 1, the models are validated against MTSAT-1R data and the same data scaled by the inverse of the sensitivity (representing an estimate of the true variability). Results indicate that all models are able to capture the general DV patterns but with differing accuracies and features. Specifically, CG03 and ZB+T underestimate strong (> 2 K) DV events’ amplitudes especially if we assume that sensitivity-scaled MTSAT-1R variability is most realistic. ZB05 can effectively capture the DV cycles under most DV and wind conditions, as well as the DV spatial distribution. GC2 tends to overestimate small-moderate (< 2 K) DV events but can reasonably predict large DV events. 1-3 hr lags in warming start and peak times are found in GC2
Classification of real three-dimensional Lie bialgebras and their Poisson-Lie groups
Classical r-matrices of the three-dimensional real Lie bialgebras are
obtained. In this way all three-dimensional real coboundary Lie bialgebras and
their types (triangular, quasitriangular or factorizable) are classified. Then,
by using the Sklyanin bracket, the Poisson structures on the related
Poisson-Lie groups are obtained.Comment: 17 page
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