5,276 research outputs found
Top Physics in WHIZARD
In this talk we summarize the top physics setup in the event generator
WHIZARD with a main focus on lepton colliders. This includes full six-, eight-
and ten-fermion processes, factorized processes and spin correlations. For
lepton colliders, QCD NLO processes for top quark physics are available and
will be discussed. A special focus is on the top-quark pair threshold, where a
special implementation combines a non-relativistic effective field theory
calculation augmented by a next-to-leading threshold logarithm resummation with
a continuum relativistic fixed-order QCD NLO simulation.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, Talk presented at the International Workshop on
Future Linear Colliders (LCWS15), Whistler, Canada, 2-6 November 201
Percutaneous pulmonary valve implantation alters electrophysiologic substrate
BACKGROUND: Percutaneous pulmonary valve implantation (PPVI) is firstâline therapy for some congenital heart disease patients with right ventricular outflow tract dysfunction. The hemodynamics improvements after PPVI are well documented, but little is known about its effects on the electrophysiologic substrate. The objective of this study is to assess the shortâ and mediumâterm electrophysiologic substrate changes and elucidate postprocedure arrhythmias. METHODS AND RESULTS: A retrospective chart review of patients undergoing PPVI from May 2010 to April 2015 was performed. AÂ total of 106 patients underwent PPVI; most commonly these patients had tetralogy of Fallot (n=59, 55%) and pulmonary insufficiency (n=60, 57%). The median followâup time was 28Â months (7â63Â months). PreâPPVI, 25 patients (24%) had documented arrhythmias: nonsustained ventricular tachycardia (NSVT) (n=9, 8%), frequent premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) (n=6, 6%), and atrial fibrillation/flutter (AF/AFL) (n=10, 9%). PostâPPVI, arrhythmias resolved in 4 patients who had NSVT (44%) and 5 patients who had PVCs (83%). New arrhythmias were seen in 16 patients (15%): 7 NSVT, 8 PVCs, and 1 AF/AFL. There was resolution at mediumâterm followâup in 6 (86%) patients with newâonset NSVT and 7 (88%) patients with newâonset PVCs. There was no difference in QRS duration preâPPVI, postâPPVI, and at mediumâterm followâup (P=0.6). The median corrected QT lengthened immediately postâPPVI but shortened significantly at midterm followâup (P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: PPVI reduced the prevalence of NSVT. The majority of postimplant arrhythmias resolve by 6Â months of followâup
MinMax Radon Barcodes for Medical Image Retrieval
Content-based medical image retrieval can support diagnostic decisions by
clinical experts. Examining similar images may provide clues to the expert to
remove uncertainties in his/her final diagnosis. Beyond conventional feature
descriptors, binary features in different ways have been recently proposed to
encode the image content. A recent proposal is "Radon barcodes" that employ
binarized Radon projections to tag/annotate medical images with content-based
binary vectors, called barcodes. In this paper, MinMax Radon barcodes are
introduced which are superior to "local thresholding" scheme suggested in the
literature. Using IRMA dataset with 14,410 x-ray images from 193 different
classes, the advantage of using MinMax Radon barcodes over \emph{thresholded}
Radon barcodes are demonstrated. The retrieval error for direct search drops by
more than 15\%. As well, SURF, as a well-established non-binary approach, and
BRISK, as a recent binary method are examined to compare their results with
MinMax Radon barcodes when retrieving images from IRMA dataset. The results
demonstrate that MinMax Radon barcodes are faster and more accurate when
applied on IRMA images.Comment: To appear in proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on
Visual Computing, December 12-14, 2016, Las Vegas, Nevada, US
Selection and reconstruction of the top quarks in the all-hadronic decays at a Linear Collider
A method of reconstruction of the top quarks produced in the process E+E- ->
t\bar{t} -> 6 jets at a Linear Collider (LC) is proposed. The approach does not
involve a kinematic fit, as well as assumptions on the invariant masses of the
dijets originating from the decays of W bosons and, therefore, the method is
expected to be less sensitive to theoretical and experimental uncertainties on
the top-mass measurement than traditional reconstruction methods. For the first
time, the reconstruction of the top quarks was investigated using the full LC
detector simulation after taking into account the background arising from QCD
multi-jet production.Comment: 22 pages, including 13 figures and 3 table
On the form of growing strings
Patterns and forms adopted by Nature, such as the shape of living cells, the
geometry of shells and the branched structure of plants, are often the result
of simple dynamical paradigms. Here we show that a growing self-interacting
string attached to a tracking origin, modeled to resemble nascent polypeptides
in vivo, develops helical structures which are more pronounced at the growing
end. We also show that the dynamic growth ensemble shares several features of
an equilibrium ensemble in which the growing end of the polymer is under an
effective stretching force. A statistical analysis of native states of proteins
shows that the signature of this non-equilibrium phenomenon has been fixed by
evolution at the C-terminus, the growing end of a nascent protein. These
findings suggest that a generic non-equilibrium growth process might have
provided an additional evolutionary advantage for nascent proteins by favoring
the preferential selection of helical structures.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let
Identification d'un réseau hydrométrique pour le suivi des modifications climatiques dans la province de Québec
Depuis une dizaine d'annĂ©es, la communautĂ© scientifique s'est beaucoup intĂ©ressĂ©e Ă l'hypothĂšse d'un rĂ©chauffement Ă l'Ă©chelle planĂ©taire. De nombreuses Ă©tudes ont portĂ© sur l'analyse de ces modifications climatiques Ă©ventuelles ainsi que sur la modĂ©lisation de leurs impacts sur les ressources en eau. Cependant, malgrĂ© l'attention croissante que reçoit le sujet des modifications climatiques, trĂšs peu de travail a Ă©tĂ© accompli pour mettre en place des rĂ©seaux de mesure spĂ©cialement conçus pour l'Ă©tude des modifications climatiques et leurs impacts sur les ressources en eau, et pour crĂ©er des bases de donnĂ©es adaptĂ©es Ă cet objectif. Cette tĂąche est encore plus nĂ©cessaire dans le cadre des rĂ©ductions budgĂ©taires auxquelles sont soumis les rĂ©seaux hydromĂ©triques dans certains pays dĂ©veloppĂ©s. Cet article prĂ©sente les bases d'une Ă©tude dont l'objectif est la conception d'un rĂ©seau hydromĂ©trique pour le suivi des modifications climatiques dans la province de QuĂ©bec, Canada. Le but est d'identifier, afin de les conserver, les stations de jaugeage les plus adĂ©quates pour accomplir cette tĂąche. L'article prĂ©sente aussi une brĂšve revue des types de modifications climatiques qui peuvent ĂȘtre observĂ©s et de certains tests qui existent pour leur dĂ©tection et leur quantification. Une procĂ©dure bayĂ©sienne de dĂ©tection des sauts de la moyenne a Ă©tĂ© sĂ©lectionnĂ©e sur la base de ses avantages thĂ©oriques, et appliquĂ©e aux sĂ©ries de donnĂ©es des stations retenues au QuĂ©bec.The 1980s and 1990s contained most of the warmest years since the beginning of worldwide temperature recording nearly 140 years ago. Widely accepted estimates project that the earth's average temperature might increase by about 2°C over the next 100 years. It is also expected that, as a result of global warming, the frequency and intensity of floods and droughts may change. However, despite the increasing attention that the issue of climate change receives, there has been little effort to develop a systematic approach for the collection of relevant data, and to establish observational networks specifically designed for the analysis of climate variability and change and their impact on hydrologic regimes and water resources in general. This task is particularly important given the major network reductions that result from recent cutbacks in the funding of monitoring programs in Canada and other countries. This paper presents the results of a rigorous study that was carried out recently, and aimed at establishing a hydrometric network for the study of the attributes of climate change and variability across the province of Quebec (Canada) and their impact on water resources. The approach is based on identifying and maintaining stations that can help provide an understanding of the physical processes within the hydrological cycle and account for climate variations across the province. This network will be of fundamental importance in establishing scientific evidence of the magnitude and direction of possible shifts in climate patterns across the province. These aspects are of global significance and must be considered during the rationalization of monitoring networks. The results of the application of this procedure to the hydrometric network of the province of Quebec are presented. The paper presents also a brief review of the various types of non-stationarities that can be observed in hydrologic data series, and some of the current approaches that can be used for the detection of these non-stationarities. Several statistical tests and procedures have been proposed in the literature for the analysis of the characteristics of data samples and for hypothesis testing, for various types of non-stationarity. A Bayesian procedure, proposed by Lee and Heghinian (1977) and generalized by Bernier (1994), for the detection of shifts in the mean of hydrological and meteorological time-series is selected based on its theoretical advantages (Faucher et al., 1997). The procedure is then applied for the analysis of all streamflow series of selected stations in the province of Quebec with the objective of extracting information on possible climatic changes. Results indicate the presence of significant non-stationarities for a number of the series analyzed. For five stations, the most probable date for the shift in the mean level falls in the period 1983-1985. Recommandations are made for future research activities
MicroRNA-203 predicts human survival after resection of colorectal liver metastasis.
BackgroundResection of colorectal liver metastasis (CRLM) can be curative. Predicting which patients may benefit from resection, however, remains challenging. Some microRNAs (miRNAs) become deregulated in cancers and contribute to cancer progression. We hypothesized that miRNA expression can serve as a prognostic marker of survival after CRLM resection.ResultsMiR-203 was significantly overexpressed in tumors of short-term survivors compared to long-term survivors. R1/R2 margin status and high clinical risk score (CRS) were also significantly associated with short-term survival (both p = 0.001). After adjusting for these variables, higher miR-203 expression remained an independent predictor of shorter survival (p = 0.010). In the serum cohort, high CRS and KRAS mutation were significantly associated with short-term survival (p = 0.005 and p = 0.026, respectively). After adjusting for CRS and KRAS status, short-term survivors were found to have significantly higher miR-203 levels (p = 0.016 and p = 0.033, respectively).Materials and methodsWe employed next-generation sequencing of small-RNAs to profile miRNAs in solid tumors obtained from 38 patients who underwent hepatectomy for CRLM. To validate, quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was performed on 91 tumor samples and 46 preoperative serum samples.ConclusionsAfter CRLM resection, short-term survivors exhibited significantly higher miR-203 levels relative to long-term survivors. MiR-203 may serve as a prognostic biomarker and its prognostic capacity warrants further investigation
Pathways to folding, nucleation events and native geometry
We perform extensive Monte Carlo simulations of a lattice model and the Go
potential to investigate the existence of folding pathways at the level of
contact cluster formation for two native structures with markedly different
geometries. Our analysis of folding pathways revealed a common underlying
folding mechanism, based on nucleation phenomena, for both protein models.
However, folding to the more complex geometry (i.e. that with more non-local
contacts) is driven by a folding nucleus whose geometric traits more closely
resemble those of the native fold. For this geometry folding is clearly a more
cooperative process.Comment: Accepted in J. Chem. Phy
Top quark mass definition and top quark pair production near threshold at the NLC
We suggest an infrared-insensitive quark mass, defined by subtracting the
soft part of the quark self energy from the pole mass. We demonstrate the deep
relation of this definition with the static quark-antiquark potential. At
leading order in 1/m this mass coincides with the PS mass which is defined in a
completely different manner. Going beyond static limit, the small normalization
point introduces recoil corrections which are calculated here as well. Using
this mass concept and other concepts for the quark mass we calculate the cross
section of e+ e- -> t t-bar near threshold at NNLO accuracy adopting three
alternative approaches, namely (1) fixing the pole mass, (2) fixing the PS
mass, and (3) fixing the new mass which we call the PS-bar mass. We demonstrate
that perturbative predictions for the cross section become much more stable if
we use the PS or the PS-bar mass for the calculations. A careful analysis
suggests that the top quark mass can be extracted from a threshold scan at NLC
with an accuracy of about 100-200 MeV.Comment: published version, 21 pages in LaTeX including 11 PostScript figure
High Current ESD Test of Advanced Triple Junction Solar Array Coupon
A test was conducted on an Advanced Triple Junction (ATJ) coupon that was part of a risk reduction effort in the development of a high-powered solar array design by SSL. The ATJ coupon was a small, 4-cell, two-string configuration that has served as the basic test coupon design used in previous SSL environmental aging campaigns. The coupon has many attributes of the flight design; e.g., substrate structure with graphite face sheets, integrated by-pass diodes, cell interconnects, RTV grout, wire routing, etc. The objective of the present test was to evaluate the performance of the coupon after being subjected to induced electrostatic discharge testing at two string voltages (100 V, 150 V) and four array current (1.65 A, 2.0 A, 2.475 A, and 3.3 A). An ESD test circuit, unique to SSL solar array design, was built that simulates the effect of missing cells and strings in a full solar panel with special primary arc flashover circuitry. A total of 73 primary arcs were obtained that included 7 temporary sustained arcs (TSA) events. The durations of the TSAs ranged from 50 s to 2.9 ms. All TSAs occurred at a string voltage of 150 V. Post-test Large Area Pulsed Solar Simulator (LAPSS), Dark I-V, and By-Pass Diode tests showed that no degradation occurred due to the TSA events. In addition, the post-test insulation resistance measured was > 50 G-ohms between cells and substrate. These test results indicate a robust design for application to a high-current, high-power mission application
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