3,131 research outputs found
The super-oscillating superlens
We demonstrate a lens that creates a sub-wavelength focal spot beyond the near-field by exploiting the phenomenon of super-oscillation
Helically arranged cross struts in azhdarchid pterosaur cervical vertebrae and their biomechanical implications
Ambient seismic noise tomography of Canada and adjacent regions: Part I. Crustal structures
This paper presents the first continental-scale study of the crust and upper mantle shear velocity (V_s) structure of Canada and adjacent regions using ambient noise tomography. Continuous waveform data recorded between 2003 and 2009 with 788 broadband seismograph stations in Canada and adjacent regions were used in the analysis. The higher primary frequency band of the ambient noise provides better resolution of crustal structures than previous tomographic models based on earthquake waveforms. Prominent low velocity anomalies are observed at shallow depths (<20 km) beneath the Gulf of St. Lawrence in east Canada, the sedimentary basins of west Canada, and the Cordillera. In contrast, the Canadian Shield exhibits high crustal velocities. We characterize the crust-mantle transition in terms of not only its depth and velocity but also its sharpness, defined by its thickness and the amount of velocity increase. Considerable variations in the physical properties of the crust-mantle transition are observed across Canada. Positive correlations between the crustal thickness, Moho velocity, and the thickness of the transition are evident throughout most of the craton except near Hudson Bay where the uppermost mantle V_s is relatively low. Prominent vertical V_s gradients are observed in the midcrust beneath the Cordillera and beneath most of the Canadian Shield. The midcrust velocity contrast beneath the Cordillera may correspond to a detachment zone associated with high temperatures immediately beneath, whereas the large midcrust velocity gradient beneath the Canadian Shield probably represents an ancient rheological boundary between the upper and lower crust
Learning a Factor Model via Regularized PCA
We consider the problem of learning a linear factor model. We propose a
regularized form of principal component analysis (PCA) and demonstrate through
experiments with synthetic and real data the superiority of resulting estimates
to those produced by pre-existing factor analysis approaches. We also establish
theoretical results that explain how our algorithm corrects the biases induced
by conventional approaches. An important feature of our algorithm is that its
computational requirements are similar to those of PCA, which enjoys wide use
in large part due to its efficiency
Higgs-Boson Production Induced by Bottom Quarks
Bottom quark-induced processes are responsible for a large fraction of the
LHC discovery potential, in particular for supersymmetric Higgs bosons.
Recently, the discrepancy between exclusive and inclusive Higgs boson
production rates has been linked to the choice of an appropriate bottom
factorization scale. We investigate the process kinematics at hadron colliders
and show that it leads to a considerable decrease in the bottom factorization
scale. This effect is the missing piece needed to understand the corresponding
higher order results. Our results hold generally for charged and for neutral
Higgs boson production at the LHC as well as at the Tevatron. The situation is
different for single top quark production, where we find no sizeable
suppression of the factorization scale. Turning the argument around, we can
specify how large the collinear logarithms are, which can be resummed using the
bottom parton picture.Comment: 18 page
A multidisciplinary approach to the identification of the protein-RNA connectome in double-stranded RNA virus capsids
How multi-segmented double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) viruses correctly incorporate their genomes into their capsids remains unclear for many viruses, including Bluetongue virus (BTV), a Reoviridae member, with a genome of 10 segments. To address this, we used an RNA-cross-linking and peptide-fingerprinting assay (RCAP) to identify RNA binding sites of the inner capsid protein VP3, the viral polymerase VP1 and the capping enzyme VP4. Using a combination of mutagenesis, reverse genetics, recombinant proteins and in vitro assembly, we validated the importance of these regions in virus infectivity. Further, to identify which RNA segments and sequences interact with these proteins, we used viral photo-activatable ribonucleoside crosslinking (vPAR-CL) which revealed that the larger RNA segments (S1-S4) and the smallest segment (S10) have more interactions with viral proteins than the other smaller segments. Additionally, using a sequence enrichment analysis we identified an RNA motif of nine bases that is shared by the larger segments. The importance of this motif for virus replication was confirmed by mutagenesis followed by virus recovery. We further demonstrated that these approaches could be applied to a related Reoviridae member, rotavirus (RV), which has human epidemic impact, offering the possibility of novel intervention strategies for a human pathogen
Impact of R-Parity Violation on Supersymmetry Searches at the Tevatron
We evaluate cross sections for \eslt, 1 and various dilepton and
multilepton event topologies that result from the simultaneous production of
all sparticles at the Tevatron collider, both within the minimal model
framework as well as in two different -parity violating scenarios. Our
analysis assumes that these -violating couplings are small, and that their
sole effect is to cause the lightest supersymmetric particle to decay inside
the detector. We reassess future strategies for sparticle searches at the
Tevatron, and quantify by how much the various signals for supersymmetry could
differ from their minimal model expectations, if -parity is not conserved
due to either baryon number or lepton number violating operators. We also
evaluate the Tevatron reach in for the various models, and find that
rate-limited multilepton signals ultimately provide the largest reach for both
-parity conserving and -parity violating cases.Comment: preprint nos. FSU-HEP-941001, UR-1387, ER-40685-836 and
UH-511-807-94, 13 pages (REVTEX) plus 3 uuencoded figures attache
Charged Higgs Boson Production in Bottom-Gluon Fusion
We compute the complete next-to-leading order SUSY-QCD corrections for the
associated production of a charged Higgs boson with a top quark via
bottom-gluon fusion. We investigate the applicability of the bottom parton
description in detail. The higher order corrections can be split into real and
virtual corrections for a general two Higgs doublet model and into additional
massive supersymmetric loop contributions. We find that the perturbative
behavior is well under control. The supersymmetric contributions consist of the
universal bottom Yukawa coupling corrections and non-factorizable diagrams.
Over most of the relevant supersymmetric parameter space the Yukawa coupling
corrections are sizeable, while the remaining supersymmetric loop contributions
are negligible.Comment: 18 pages, v2: some discussions added, v3: published versio
Sheep Feed and Scrapie, France
Proprietary concentrates and milk replacers were linked to risk for scrapie
- …