Perfect Quantum Routing in Regular Spin Networks

Regular families of coupled quantum networks are described such the unknown state of a qubit can be perfectly routed from any node to any other node in a time linear in the distance. Unlike previous constructions, the transfer can be achieved perfectly on a network that is local on any specified number of spatial dimensions. The ability to route the state, and the regularity of the networks, vastly improve the utility of this scheme in comparison to perfect state transfer schemes. The structures can also be used for entanglement generation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Walking the Talk: Educational Administration Candidates\u27 Espoused and Observed Dispositions

Teachers who seek a career as a school administrator envision their leadership will be transformational and charismatic--and are often surprised by the conflict and confrontation that is an inevitable part of school administration (Hall, 2008; Hartzell, Williams, & Nelson, 1995; Sigford, 2005). Just as preservice teachers imagine a future career where all children love learning and respect teachers, only to find a reality that is less utopian (Su, 1992), this disconnect between the ideal of the vision and the reality and the new job often produces disappointment and shock (Senge, et al., 2000). The reality is that successful school leaders must engage the school and community in the development of school structures and climates that will promote change, innovation, and creativity to educate the most diverse group of students ever seen in U.S. schools (CCSSO, 2008: Jazzar & Algozzine, 2006; Murphy, 2006). School administrators are responsible for improving teaching, learning, and student achievement at all levels of public and private education, and so developing and assessing the potential for this leadership is central to the mission of educational administration programs. Along with knowledge and skills, dispositions form the basis of what a school leader can bring to the critical and creative tasks of educational administration. Dispositions, “the values, commitments, and professional ethics that influence behavior” (NCATE, 2002, p. 53), can be more difficult to teach and assess than knowledge or skills (Edick, Danielson, & Edwards, 2005; Edwards & Edick, 2006). Development of positive dispositions must be vigorously and intentionally addressed by school leadership preparation programs, because administrators who have not developed positive dispositions have trouble being leaders of an effective schools (Davis, 1998; Hallinger & Heck, 1996; Heifetz, 2006). Therefore, it is imperative for those who prepare administrators to assess and encourage the development of these dispositions in a deliberate, sequential manner

Virulence of malaria is associated with differential expression of Plasmodium falciparum var gene subgroups in a case-control study

Plasmodium falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1 (PfEMP1) is a major pathogenicity factor in falciparum malaria that mediates cytoadherence. PfEMP1 is encoded by approximately 60 var genes per haploid genome. Most var genes are grouped into 3 subgroups: A, B, and C. Evidence is emerging that the specific expression of these subgroups has clinical significance. Using field samples from children from Papua New Guinea with severe, mild, and asymptomatic malaria, we compared proportions of transcripts of var groups, as determined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. We found a significantly higher proportion of var group B transcripts in children with clinical malaria (mild and severe), whereas a large proportion of var group C transcripts was found in asymptomatic children. These data from naturally infected children clearly show that major differences exist in var gene expression between parasites causing clinical disease and those causing asymptomatic infections. Furthermore, parasites forming rosettes showed a significant up-regulation of var group A transcripts

Quantum Control Theory for State Transformations: Dark States and their Enlightenment

For many quantum information protocols such as state transfer, entanglement transfer and entanglement generation, standard notions of controllability for quantum systems are too strong. We introduce the weaker notion of accessible pairs, and prove an upper bound on the achievable fidelity of a transformation between a pair of states based on the symmetries of the system. A large class of spin networks is presented for which this bound can be saturated. In this context, we show how the inaccessible dark states for a given excitation-preserving evolution can be calculated, and illustrate how some of these can be accessed using extra catalytic excitations. This emphasises that it is not sufficient for analyses of state transfer in spin networks to restrict to the single excitation subspace. One class of symmetries in these spin networks is exactly characterised in terms of the underlying graph properties.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures v3: rewritten for increased clarit

Cross-sectional study of the provision of interventional oncology services in the UK

Objective: To map out the current provision of interventional oncology (IO) services in the UK. Design: Cross-sectional multicentre study. Setting: All National Health Service (NHS) trusts in England and Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland health boards. Participants: Interventional radiology (IR) departments in all NHS trusts/health boards in the UK. Results: A total of 179 NHS trusts/health boards were contacted. We received a 100% response rate. Only 19 (11%) institutions had an IO lead. 144 trusts (80%) provided IO services or had a formal pathway of referral in place for patients to a recipient trust. 21 trusts (12%) had plans to provide an IO service or formal referral pathway in the next 12 months only. 14 trusts (8%) did not have a pathway of referral and no plans to implement one. 70 trusts (39%) offered supportive and disease-modifying procedures. One trust had a formal referral pathway for supportive procedures. 73 trusts (41%) provided only supportive procedures (diagnostic or therapeutic). Of these, 43 (59%) had a referral pathway for disease-modifying IO procedures, either from a regional cancer network or through IR networks and 30 trusts (41%) did not have a referral pathway for disease-modifying procedures. Conclusion: The provision of IO services in the UK is promising; however, collaborative networks are necessary to ensure disease-modifying IO procedures are made accessible to all patients and to facilitate larger registry data for research with commissioning of new services

The Impact of Virtual Environments for Future Electric Powered-Mobility Development Using Human-in-the-Loop: Part A - Fundamental Design and Modelling

The use of virtual tools will be discussed across two complimentary chapters, Part A explores the fundamental concepts of electric vehicle systems modelling and a design procedure for human-in-the-loop virtual environments; Part B demonstrates how this architecture can be applied to assess energy optimization strategies. In Part A, this research investigates the design and implementation of simulation tools used to predict the energy consumption and strategic tool for the development of an electric vehicle. The case study used is an electric prototype race car for Ene-1 GP SUZUKA competition. Engineering effort is re-directed from physical product design, optimisation and validation to digital tools, processes and virtual testing. This virtual platform is characterised by the integration of two different simulation models—mathematical model of the electric vehicle systems represented by Matlab/Simulink, which accounts for the representation of the powertrain performance prediction that taking into account the resistance motion; and a virtual environment represented by Cruden Software, which accounts recreate topography of real world environment in a driving simulator and incorporate human driver behaviour

Ebbie: automated analysis and storage of small RNA cloning data using a dynamic web server

BACKGROUND: DNA sequencing is used ubiquitously: from deciphering genomes[1] to determining the primary sequence of small RNAs (smRNAs) [2-5]. The cloning of smRNAs is currently the most conventional method to determine the actual sequence of these important regulators of gene expression. Typical smRNA cloning projects involve the sequencing of hundreds to thousands of smRNA clones that are delimited at their 5' and 3' ends by fixed sequence regions. These primers result from the biochemical protocol used to isolate and convert the smRNA into clonable PCR products. Recently we completed a smRNA cloning project involving tobacco plants, where analysis was required for ~700 smRNA sequences[6]. Finding no easily accessible research tool to enter and analyze smRNA sequences we developed Ebbie to assist us with our study. RESULTS: Ebbie is a semi-automated smRNA cloning data processing algorithm, which initially searches for any substring within a DNA sequencing text file, which is flanked by two constant strings. The substring, also termed smRNA or insert, is stored in a MySQL and BlastN database. These inserts are then compared using BlastN to locally installed databases allowing the rapid comparison of the insert to both the growing smRNA database and to other static sequence databases. Our laboratory used Ebbie to analyze scores of DNA sequencing data originating from an smRNA cloning project[6]. Through its built-in instant analysis of all inserts using BlastN, we were able to quickly identify 33 groups of smRNAs from ~700 database entries. This clustering allowed the easy identification of novel and highly expressed clusters of smRNAs. Ebbie is available under GNU GPL and currently implemented on CONCLUSION: Ebbie was designed for medium sized smRNA cloning projects with about 1,000 database entries [6-8].Ebbie can be used for any type of sequence analysis where two constant primer regions flank a sequence of interest. The reliable storage of inserts, and their annotation in a MySQL database, BlastN[9] comparison of new inserts to dynamic and static databases make it a powerful new tool in any laboratory using DNA sequencing. Ebbie also prevents manual mistakes during the excision process and speeds up annotation and data-entry. Once the server is installed locally, its access can be restricted to protect sensitive new DNA sequencing data. Ebbie was primarily designed for smRNA cloning projects, but can be applied to a variety of RNA and DNA cloning projects[2,3,10,11]

The Impact of Virtual Environments for Future Electric Powered-Mobility Development Using Human-in-the-Loop: Part B - Virtual Testing and Physical Validation

Electric vehicles are increasing in popularity worldwide, and there have been numerous advances in technology to increase the energy efficiency of the vehicle and reduce the range anxiety for the user. For example, the latest electric vehicle (Tesla model S, equipped by 100kWh battery) available in the market in 2019 is able to drive around 375 miles. However, human behavior such as driving strategy is an important issue that impacts on energy optimization and ultimately vehicle range. Human behavior is rather complex and is difficult to replicate with computer algorithms. Therefore, to fully assess the impact of a particular technology, the interactions between humans, vehicle, and the environment need to be examined simultaneously, through a Human-in-the-Loop approach. In this chapter, the results of investigating a human-in-the-loop test platform, which incorporate human-driving behavior and the vehicle characteristics, are presented. In addition, this chapter analyzes a driving strategy, using a Human-in-the-Loop approach, applied to optimizing the energy usage for an electric vehicle competition

Leadership Dispositions and Skills for Ethnically Diverse Schools

Quality educational leadership is especially critical today in the era of school improvement, student achievement, and teacher accountability. Leaders help meet ever-changing contexts and opportunities. Senge (1990) observed, “The new view of leadership in learning organizations centers on subtler and more important tasks. In learning organizations, leaders are designers, stewards, and teachers” (p. 340). In addition to these new leadership challenges, this is a time when school resources—human as well as financial--are limited not only in PK-12 schools but to universities as well (Price, 2008). While American educators today are serving an increasingly diverse community, educators are still predominately middle-class, European American, and English-only speakers (Banks et al., 2005; Jazzar & Algozzine, 2006; Swartz, 2003). Not only must school leaders understand students’ communities and experience, they also need the willingness, attitudes, and ethics or dispositions to work well with diversity and to teach these skills to others (Lindsey, Robins, & Terrell, 2003). Dispositions may be defined as, “values, commitments, and professional ethics that influence behaviors toward students, families, colleagues, and communities” (NCATE, 2002, p. 53). More specifically, diversity dispositions include the skills, beliefs and connections to be successful within the community (Schulte, Edwards, & Edick, 2008). For school administrators, the objective is to become a leader who “promotes the success of students by collaborating with families and community members, responding to the diverse community interests and needs, and mobilizing community resources” (CCSSO, 2007, p. 16) More than ever before, those who train educators need to assist candidates in cultivating their positive dispositions in order to help all students succeed (Keiser & Smith, 2009)