Phase Transitions in the Early Universe

The physics of the 20th Century is governed by two pillars, Einstein's relativity principle and the quantum principle. At the beginning of the 21st Century, it becomes clear that there exist the smallest units of matter, such as electrons, neutrinos, and quarks; their behaviors are described by the Standard Model. It was believed that the temperature of the early Universe was once 300 GeV, or higher, at $10^{-11} sec$, and then going through the electroweak phase transition. But the mass phase transition happens in the purely imaginary temperature. Later on, its temperature was 150 MeV at $3.3 \times 10^{-5} sec$, and then going through the "QCD cosmological phase transition". We attempt to use the Standard Model, a completely dimensionless theory apart from the negative "ignition" term, to conclude that the EW or mass phase transition {\it does not exist}. On the front of QCD cosmological phase transition, the intriguing question about the latent heat (energy) is discussed and its role is speculated.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figur

Meta-Learning for Phonemic Annotation of Corpora

We apply rule induction, classifier combination and meta-learning (stacked classifiers) to the problem of bootstrapping high accuracy automatic annotation of corpora with pronunciation information. The task we address in this paper consists of generating phonemic representations reflecting the Flemish and Dutch pronunciations of a word on the basis of its orthographic representation (which in turn is based on the actual speech recordings). We compare several possible approaches to achieve the text-to-pronunciation mapping task: memory-based learning, transformation-based learning, rule induction, maximum entropy modeling, combination of classifiers in stacked learning, and stacking of meta-learners. We are interested both in optimal accuracy and in obtaining insight into the linguistic regularities involved. As far as accuracy is concerned, an already high accuracy level (93% for Celex and 86% for Fonilex at word level) for single classifiers is boosted significantly with additional error reductions of 31% and 38% respectively using combination of classifiers, and a further 5% using combination of meta-learners, bringing overall word level accuracy to 96% for the Dutch variant and 92% for the Flemish variant. We also show that the application of machine learning methods indeed leads to increased insight into the linguistic regularities determining the variation between the two pronunciation variants studied.Comment: 8 page

Imunosni odgovor BALB/c miševa oralno imuniziranih rekombinantnim cjepivom od serovara Salmonella Typhimurium s ugrađenim antigenima enterotoksigenog soja Escherichia coli

Salmonella Typhimurium ghost vaccines containing antigens of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) were obtained by a strain harboring pMMP184, which carries a ghost cassette. The immune responses of BALB/c mice orally vaccinated with these ghost vaccines were determined in this study. Total IgG against S. Typhimurium were highly detected by the oral immunization route in BALB/c mice. IgGs against ETEC antigens in the ghost cells carrying F41 and intimin were detected at 4 weeks after vaccination. However, FedF elicited a delayed induction of IgGs, whereas FedA immune response failed to or barely induced IgGs after vaccination. Proliferations of CD3e/CD4-T cells were observed in splenocytes of BALB/c mice immunized with S. Typhimurium ghost cells carrying FedF. However, CD45R-B220/CD23-B cells were proliferated by ghost cells carrying FedA, F41, and intimin. The immunized BALB/c mice showed 25~50% protection against challenge with wild type S. Typhimurium, when compared to control mice. Therefore, it is assumed that oral vaccination of S. Typhimurium ghost cells has the potential to protect mice against pathogenic E. coli.Salmonella Typhimurium rekombinantna cjepiva što sadrže antigene enterotoksigenih sojeva Escherichia coli (ETEC) proizvedena su od soja koji posjeduje pMMP184 i nosi rekombinantnu kasetu. Istražen je imunosni odgovor BALB/c miševa oralno cijepljenih tim rekombinantnim cjepivima. Ustanovljena je visoka razina ukupnih IgG za S. Typhimurium nakon oralne imunizacije miševa BALB/c. Imunoglobulini IgG za antigene ETEC u rekombinantnom cjepivu koje sadrži F41 i intimin bili su dokazani četiri tjedna nakon cijepljenja. Ipak, FedF je potaknuo kasnu tvorbu imunoglobulina IgG, dok FedA nije potaknuo ili je potaknuo slab imunosni odgovor nakon cijepljenja. Proliferacija CD3e/CD4-T stanica bila je dokazana u splenocitima miševa BALB/c imuniziranih rekombinantnim cjepivom S. Typhimurium s ugrađenim FedF. Međutim, stanice CD45R-B220/CD23-B proliferirale su nakon cijepljenja rekombinantom FedA, F41 i intimin. Imunizirani miševi BALB/c pokazivali su 25~50% zaštitu nakon izazivačke infekcije serovarom S. Typhimurium u usporedbi s necijepljenim kontrolnim miševima. Stoga se pretpostavlja da oralno cijepljenje s rekombinantnim stanicama serovara S. Typhimurium ima potencijal da zaštiti miševe od infekcije patogenim sojevima E. coli

KINEMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE MOVEMENT PATTERNS OF STROKE PATIENTS USING AN AQUA-REHABILITATION PROGRAM

This study analyzed the effect of a BK Aquatic Protocol (aqua-rehabilitation program) on the gait patterns of stroke patients. Seven subjects were divided into three stages on the basis of initial assessment of motor ability. The program varied on the basis of motor ability group. The subjects exercised three times a week for 12 weeks. Each exercise bout lasted 50 minutes. The BK Aquatic Protocol (as the motor skills improved, the graded exercise program appropriately changed) was followed. Four digital camcorders were used to obtain the kinematics of the patients’ gait before and after participation in the aqua-rehabilitation program. Several positive kinematic changes occurred in the gait patterns of the stroke patients from pre- to post test in association with the intervention of the aqua-rehabilitation program

Resilient High Catalytic Performance of Platinum Nanocatalysts with Porous Graphene Envelope.

Despite the innumerable developments of nanosized and well dispersed noble metal catalysts, the degradation of metal nanoparticle catalysts has proven to be a significant obstacle for the commercialization of the hydrogen fuel cell. Here, the formation of Pt nanoparticle catalysts with a porous graphene envelope has been achieved using a single step low temperature vaporization process. While these Pt-Gr core-shell nanoparticles possess superior resilience to degradation, it comes at the cost of degraded overall catalyst efficacy. However, it is possible to combat this lower overall performance through inclusion of low concentrations of nitrogen precursor in the initial stage of single-step synthesis, inhibiting the formation of complete graphene shells, as verified by atomic resolution aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy (AC-TEM) imaging. The resultant porous graphene encapsulated Pt catalysts are found to have both the high peak performance of the bare Pt nanoparticle catalysts and the increased resilience of the fully shielded Pt-Gr core-shells, with the optimal N-doped Pt-Gr yielding a peak efficiency of 87% compared to bare Pt, and maintaining 90% of its catalytic activity after extended potential cycling. The nitrogen treated Pt-Gr core-shells thus act as an effective substitute catalyst for conventional bare Pt nanoparticles, maintaining their catalytic performance over prolonged use

Condensation and Clustering in the Driven Pair Exclusion Process

We investigate particle condensation in a driven pair exclusion process on one- and two- dimensional lattices under the periodic boundary condition. The model describes a biased hopping of particles subject to a pair exclusion constraint that each particle cannot stay at a same site with its pre-assigned partner. The pair exclusion causes a mesoscopic condensation characterized by the scaling of the condensate size $m_{\rm con}\sim N^\beta$ and the number of condensates $N_{\rm con}\sim N^\alpha$ with the total number of sites $N$. Those condensates are distributed randomly without hopping bias. We find that the hopping bias generates a spatial correlation among condensates so that a cluster of condensates appears. Especially, the cluster has an anisotropic shape in the two-dimensional system. The mesoscopic condensation and the clustering are studied by means of numerical simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure