3,861 research outputs found
Effect of phase fluctuation and dephasing on the dynamics of entanglement generation in a correlated emission laser
A detailed study of the effects of phase fluctuation and dephasing on the
dynamics of the entanglement generated from a coherently pumped correlated
emission laser is presented. It is found that the time evolution of the
entanglement is significantly reliant on the phase fluctuation and dephasing,
particularly, at early stages of the lasing process. In the absence of external
driving radiation, the degree of entanglement and intensity turns out to attain
a maximum value just before starting to exhibit oscillation which dies at
longer time scale. However, in case the driving mechanism is on, the
oscillatory nature disappears due to the additional induced coherent
superposition and the degree of entanglement would be larger at steady state.
Moreover, the degree of entanglement as predicted by the logarithmic negativity
and the Duan-Giedke-Cirac-Zoller criteria exhibits a similar nature when there
is no driving radiation, although such a trend is eroded with increasing
strength of the pumping radiation at longer time scale. The other important
aspect of the phase fluctuation and dephasing is the possibility of relaxing
the time at which the maximum entanglement is detected.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure
Day-ahead allocation of operation reserve in composite power systems with large-scale centralized wind farms
This paper focuses on the day-ahead allocation of operation reserve considering wind power prediction error and network transmission constraints in a composite power system. A two-level model that solves the allocation problem is presented. The upper model allocates operation reserve among subsystems from the economic point of view. In the upper model, transmission constraints of tielines are formulated to represent limited reserve support from the neighboring system due to wind power fluctuation. The lower model evaluates the system on the reserve schedule from the reliability point of view. In the lower model, the reliability evaluation of composite power system is performed by using Monte Carlo simulation in a multi-area system. Wind power prediction errors and tieline constraints are incorporated. The reserve requirements in the upper model are iteratively adjusted by the resulting reliability indices from the lower model. Thus, the reserve allocation is gradually optimized until the system achieves the balance between reliability and economy. A modified two-area reliability test system (RTS) is analyzed to demonstrate the validity of the method.This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51277141) and National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program) (No. 2011AA05A103)
Structure and Function of a Mycobacterial NHEJ DNA Repair Polymerase
Non homologous end-joining (NHEJ)-mediated repair of DNA double-strand breaks in prokaryotes requires Ku and a specific multidomain DNA ligase (LigD). We present crystal structures of the primase/polymerisation domain (PolDom) of Mycobacterium tuberculosis LigD, alone and complexed with nucleotides. The PolDom structure combines the general fold of the archaeo-eukaryotic primase (AEP) superfamily with additional loops and domains that together form a deep cleft on the surface, likely used for DNA binding. Enzymatic analysis indicates that the PolDom of LigD, even in the absence of accessory domains and Ku proteins, has the potential to recognise DNA end-joining intermediates. Strikingly, one of the main signals for the specific and efficient binding of PolDom to DNA is the presence of a 5'-phosphate group, located at the single/double-stranded junction at both gapped and 3'-protruding DNA molecules. Although structurally unrelated, Pol lambda and Pol mu, the two eukaryotic DNA polymerases involved in NHEJ, are endowed with a similar capacity to bind a 5'-phosphate group. Other properties that are beneficial for NHEJ, such as the ability to generate template distortions and realignments of the primer, displayed by Pol lambda and Pol mu, are shared by the PolDom of bacterial LigD. In addition, PolDom can perform non-mutagenic translesion synthesis on termini containing modified bases. Significantly, ribonucleotide insertion appears to be a recurrent theme associated with NHEJ, maximised in this case by the deployment of a dedicated primase, although its in vivo relevance is unknown
Conservation Laws and Integrability of a One-dimensional Model of Diffusing Dimers
We study a model of assisted diffusion of hard-core particles on a line. The
model shows strongly ergodicity breaking : configuration space breaks up into
an exponentially large number of disconnected sectors. We determine this
sector-decomposion exactly. Within each sector the model is reducible to the
simple exclusion process, and is thus equivalent to the Heisenberg model and is
fully integrable. We discuss additional symmetries of the equivalent quantum
Hamiltonian which relate observables in different sectors. In some sectors, the
long-time decay of correlation functions is qualitatively different from that
of the simple exclusion process. These decays in different sectors are deduced
from an exact mapping to a model of the diffusion of hard-core random walkers
with conserved spins, and are also verified numerically. We also discuss some
implications of the existence of an infinity of conservation laws for a
hydrodynamic description.Comment: 39 pages, with 5 eps figures, to appear in J. Stat. Phys. (March
1997
Everyday concept detection in visual lifelogs: validation, relationships and trends
The Microsoft SenseCam is a small lightweight wearable camera used to passively capture photos and other sensor readings from a user's day-to-day activities. It can capture up to 3,000 images per day, equating to almost 1 million images per year. It is used to aid memory by creating a personal multimedia lifelog, or visual recording of the wearer's life. However the sheer volume of image data captured within a visual lifelog creates a number of challenges, particularly for locating relevant content. Within this work, we explore the applicability of semantic concept detection, a method often used within video retrieval, on the novel domain of visual lifelogs. A concept detector models the correspondence between low-level visual features and high-level semantic concepts (such as indoors, outdoors, people, buildings, etc.) using supervised machine learning. By doing so it determines the probability of a concept's presence. We apply detection of 27 everyday semantic concepts on a lifelog collection composed of 257,518 SenseCam images from 5 users. The results were then evaluated on a subset of 95,907 images, to determine the precision for detection of each semantic concept. We conduct further analysis on the temporal consistency, co-occurance and trends within the detected concepts to more extensively investigate the robustness of the detectors within this novel domain. We additionally present future applications of concept detection within the domain of lifelogging
EULAR recommendations for the use of imaging in the clinical management of peripheral joint osteoarthritis
The increased information provided by modern imaging has led to its more extensive use. Our aim was to develop evidence-based recommendations for the use of imaging in the clinical management of the most common arthropathy, osteoarthritis (OA). A task force (including rheumatologists, radiologists, methodologists, primary care doctors and patients) from nine countries defined 10 questions on the role of imaging in OA to support a systematic literature review (SLR). Joints of interest were the knee, hip, hand and foot; imaging modalities included conventional radiography (CR), MRI, ultrasonography, CT and nuclear medicine. PubMed and EMBASE were searched. The evidence was presented to the task force who subsequently developed the recommendations. The strength of agreement for each recommendation was assessed. 17 011 references were identified from which 390 studies were included in the SLR. Seven recommendations were produced, covering the lack of need for diagnostic imaging in patients with typical symptoms; the role of imaging in differential diagnosis; the lack of benefit in monitoring when no therapeutic modification is related, though consideration is required when unexpected clinical deterioration occurs; CR as the first-choice imaging modality; consideration of how to correctly acquire images and the role of imaging in guiding local injections. Recommendations for future research were also developed based on gaps in evidence, such as the use of imaging in identifying therapeutic targets, and demonstrating the added value of imaging. These evidence-based recommendations and related research agenda provide the basis for sensible use of imaging in routine clinical assessment of people with OA
Impact of co-morbid burden on mortality in patients with coronary heart disease, heart failure, and cerebrovascular accident: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Aims: We sought to investigate the prognostic impact of co-morbid burden as defined by the Charlson Co-morbidity Index (CCI) in patients with a range of prevalent cardiovascular diseases. Methods and results: We searched MEDLINE and EMBASE to identify studies that evaluated the impact of CCI on mortality in patients with cardiovascular disease. A random-effects meta-analysis was undertaken to evaluate the impact of CCI on mortality in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD), heart failure (HF), and cerebrovascular accident (CVA). A total of 11 studies of acute coronary syndrome (ACS), 2 stable coronary disease, 5 percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), 13 HF, and 4 CVA met the inclusion criteria. An increase in CCI score per point was significantly associated with a greater risk of mortality in patients with ACS [pooled relative risk ratio (RR) 1.33; 95% CI 1.15-1.54], PCI (RR 1.21; 95% CI 1.12-1.31), stable coronary artery disease (RR 1.38; 95% CI 1.29-1.48), and HF (RR 1.21; 95% CI 1.13-1.29), but not CVA. A CCI score of >2 significantly increased the risk of mortality in ACS (RR 2.52; 95% CI 1.58-4.04), PCI (RR 3.36; 95% CI 2.14-5.29), HF (RR 1.76; 95% CI 1.65-1.87), and CVA (RR 3.80; 95% CI 1.20-12.01). Conclusion: Increasing co-morbid burden as defined by CCI is associated with a significant increase in risk of mortality in patients with underlying CHD, HF, and CVA. CCI provides a simple way of predicting adverse outcomes in patients with cardiovascular disease and should be incorporated into decision-making processes when counselling patients
Increased expression of bronchial epithelial transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 channels in severe asthma
A SINFONI view of flies in the Spiderweb: a galaxy cluster in the making
The environment of the high-z radio galaxy PKS 1138-262 at z~2.2 is a prime
example of a forming galaxy cluster. We use deep SINFONI data to perform a
detailed study of the kinematics of the galaxies within 60 kpc of the radio
core and we link this to the kinematics of the protocluster on the megaparsec
scale. Identification of optical emission lines shows that 11 galaxies are at
the redshift of the protocluster. The density of line emitters is more than an
order of magnitude higher in the core of the protocluster than the larger scale
environment. This implies a matter overdensity in the core of delta_m~70 which
is similar to the outskirts of local galaxy clusters. The velocity distribution
of the confirmed satellite galaxies shows a broad, double-peaked velocity
structure with sigma=1360+/-206 km/s. A similar broad, double-peaked
distribution was found in a previous study targeting the large scale
protocluster structure, indicating that a common process is acting on both
small and large scales. Including all spectroscopically confirmed protocluster
galaxies, a velocity dispersion of 1013+/-87 km/s is found. We show that the
protocluster has likely decoupled from the Hubble flow and is a dynamically
evolved structure. Comparison to the Millenium simulation indicates that the
protocluster velocity distribution is consistent with that of the most massive
haloes at z~2, but we rule out that the protocluster is a fully virialized
structure based on dynamical arguments and its X-ray luminosity. Comparison to
merging haloes in the Millennium simulation shows that the structure as
observed in and around the Spiderweb galaxy is best interpreted as being the
result of a merger between two massive haloes. We propose that this merger can
result in an increase in star formation and AGN activity in the protocluster
core and is possibly an important stage in the evolution of massive cD
galaxies.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA
- …
