Phase synchronization from noisy univariate signals

We present methods for detecting phase synchronization of two unidirectionally coupled, self-sustained noisy oscillators from a signal of the driven oscillator alone. One method detects soft, another hard phase locking. Both are applied to the problem of detecting phase synchronization in von Karman vortex flow meters.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

The microbiome of diabetic foot ulcers : a comparison of swab and tissue biopsy wound sampling techniques using 16S rRNA gene sequencing

Background: Health-care professionals need to collect wound samples to identify potential pathogens that contribute to wound infection. Obtaining appropriate samples from diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) where there is a suspicion of infection is of high importance. Paired swabs and tissue biopsies were collected from DFUs and both sampling techniques were compared using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Results: Mean bacterial abundance determined using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was significantly lower in tissue biopsies (p = 0.03). The mean number of reads across all samples was significantly higher in wound swabs X = 32,014) compared to tissue (X = 15,256, p = 0.001). Tissue biopsies exhibited greater overall diversity of bacteria relative to swabs (Shannon’s H diversity p = 0.009). However, based on a presence/ absence analysis of all paired samples, the frequency of occurrence of bacteria from genera of known and potential pathogens was generally higher in wound swabs than tissue biopsies. Multivariate analysis identified significantly different bacterial communities in swabs compared to tissue (p = 0.001). There was minimal correlation between paired wound swabs and tissue biopsies in the number and types of microorganisms. RELATE analysis revealed low concordance between paired DFU swab and tissue biopsy samples (Rho = 0.043, p = 0.34). Conclusions: Using 16S rRNA gene sequencing this study identifies the potential for using less invasive swabs to recover high relative abundances of known and potential pathogen genera from DFUs when compared to the gold standard collection method of tissue biopsy. SOME OF THE SCIENTIC SYMBOLS CAN NOT BE REPRESENTED CORRECTLY IN THE ABSTRACT. PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION AND REFER TO THE ORIGINAL PUBLICATION

Infrared spectroscopy of diatomic molecules - a fractional calculus approach

The eigenvalue spectrum of the fractional quantum harmonic oscillator is calculated numerically solving the fractional Schr\"odinger equation based on the Riemann and Caputo definition of a fractional derivative. The fractional approach allows a smooth transition between vibrational and rotational type spectra, which is shown to be an appropriate tool to analyze IR spectra of diatomic molecules.Comment: revised + extended version, 9 pages, 6 figure

Discretely guided electromagnetic effective medium

A material comprised of an array of subwavelength coaxial waveguides decomposes incident electromagnetic waves into spatially discrete wave components, propagates these components without frequency cut-off, and reassembles them on the far side of the material. The propagation of these wave components is fully controlled by the physical properties of the waveguides and their geometrical distribution in the array. This allows for an exceptional degree of control over the electromagnetic response of this effective medium, with numerous potential applications. With the development of nanoscale subwavelength coaxial waveguides, these applications (including metamaterial functionality) can be enabled in the visible frequency range

The time resolution of the St. Petersburg paradox

A resolution of the St. Petersburg paradox is presented. In contrast to the standard resolution, utility is not required. Instead, the time-average performance of the lottery is computed. The final result can be phrased mathematically identically to Daniel Bernoulli's resolution, which uses logarithmic utility, but is derived using a conceptually different argument. The advantage of the time resolution is the elimination of arbitrary utility functions.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figur

Controlling light-with-light without nonlinearity

According to Huygens' superposition principle, light beams traveling in a linear medium will pass though one another without mutual disturbance. Indeed, it is widely held that controlling light signals with light requires intense laser fields to facilitate beam interactions in nonlinear media, where the superposition principle can be broken. We demonstrate here that two coherent beams of light of arbitrarily low intensity can interact on a metamaterial layer of nanoscale thickness in such a way that one beam modulates the intensity of the other. We show that the interference of beams can eliminate the plasmonic Joule losses of light energy in the metamaterial or, in contrast, can lead to almost total absorbtion of light. Applications of this phenomenon may lie in ultrafast all-optical pulse-recovery devices, coherence filters and THz-bandwidth light-by-light modulators

Measuring and modelling the energy cost of reconfiguration in sensor networks [forthcoming]

As Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) must operate for long periods on a limited power budget, estimating the energy cost of software operations is critical. Contemporary reconfiguration approaches for WSN allow for software evolution at various granularities; from reflashing of a complete software image, through replacement of complete applications, to the reconfiguration of individual software components. This paper contributes a generic model for measuring and modelling the energy cost of reconfiguration in WSN. We validate that this model is accurate in the face of different hardware platforms, software stacks and software encapsulation approaches. We have embedded this model in the LooCI middleware, resulting in the first energy aware reconfigurable component model for sensor networks. We evaluate our approach using two real-world WSN applications and demonstrate that our model predicts the energy cost of reconfiguration with 93% accuracy. Using this model we demonstrate that selecting the most appropriate software modularisation approach is key to minimising energy consumption

Emergent global oscillations in heterogeneous excitable media: The example of pancreatic beta cells

Using the standard van der Pol-FitzHugh-Nagumo excitable medium model I demonstrate a novel generic mechanism, diversity, that provokes the emergence of global oscillations from individually quiescent elements in heterogeneous excitable media. This mechanism may be operating in the mammalian pancreas, where excitable beta cells, quiescent when isolated, are found to oscillate when coupled despite the absence of a pacemaker region.Comment: See home page http://lec.ugr.es/~julya

Ten Misconceptions from the History of Analysis and Their Debunking

The widespread idea that infinitesimals were "eliminated" by the "great triumvirate" of Cantor, Dedekind, and Weierstrass is refuted by an uninterrupted chain of work on infinitesimal-enriched number systems. The elimination claim is an oversimplification created by triumvirate followers, who tend to view the history of analysis as a pre-ordained march toward the radiant future of Weierstrassian epsilontics. In the present text, we document distortions of the history of analysis stemming from the triumvirate ideology of ontological minimalism, which identified the continuum with a single number system. Such anachronistic distortions characterize the received interpretation of Stevin, Leibniz, d'Alembert, Cauchy, and others.Comment: 46 pages, 4 figures; Foundations of Science (2012). arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1108.2885 and arXiv:1110.545

The Utility of High-Resolution Melting Analysis of SNP Nucleated PCR Amplicons—An MLST Based Staphylococcus aureus Typing Scheme

High resolution melting (HRM) analysis is gaining prominence as a method for discriminating DNA sequence variants. Its advantage is that it is performed in a real-time PCR device, and the PCR amplification and HRM analysis are closed tube, and effectively single step. We have developed an HRM-based method for Staphylococcus aureus genotyping. Eight single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were derived from the S. aureus multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) database on the basis of maximized Simpson's Index of Diversity. Only G↔A, G↔T, C↔A, C↔T SNPs were considered for inclusion, to facilitate allele discrimination by HRM. In silico experiments revealed that DNA fragments incorporating the SNPs give much higher resolving power than randomly selected fragments. It was shown that the predicted optimum fragment size for HRM analysis was 200 bp, and that other SNPs within the fragments contribute to the resolving power. Six DNA fragments ranging from 83 bp to 219 bp, incorporating the resolution optimized SNPs were designed. HRM analysis of these fragments using 94 diverse S. aureus isolates of known sequence type or clonal complex (CC) revealed that sequence variants are resolved largely in accordance with G+C content. A combination of experimental results and in silico prediction indicates that HRM analysis resolves S. aureus into 268 “melt types” (MelTs), and provides a Simpson's Index of Diversity of 0.978 with respect to MLST. There is a high concordance between HRM analysis and the MLST defined CCs. We have generated a Microsoft Excel key which facilitates data interpretation and translation between MelT and MLST data. The potential of this approach for genotyping other bacterial pathogens was investigated using a computerized approach to estimate the densities of SNPs with unlinked allelic states. The MLST databases for all species tested contained abundant unlinked SNPs, thus suggesting that high resolving power is not dependent upon large numbers of SNPs