Robustness against parametric noise of non ideal holonomic gates

Holonomic gates for quantum computation are commonly considered to be robust against certain kinds of parametric noise, the very motivation of this robustness being the geometric character of the transformation achieved in the adiabatic limit. On the other hand, the effects of decoherence are expected to become more and more relevant when the adiabatic limit is approached. Starting from the system described by Florio et al. [Phys. Rev. A 73, 022327 (2006)], here we discuss the behavior of non ideal holonomic gates at finite operational time, i.e., far before the adiabatic limit is reached. We have considered several models of parametric noise and studied the robustness of finite time gates. The obtained results suggest that the finite time gates present some effects of cancellation of the perturbations introduced by the noise which mimic the geometrical cancellation effect of standard holonomic gates. Nevertheless, a careful analysis of the results leads to the conclusion that these effects are related to a dynamical instead of geometrical feature.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, several changes made, accepted for publication on Phys. Rev.

Particle current in symmetric exclusion process with time-dependent hopping rates

In a recent study, (Jain et al 2007 Phys. Rev. Lett. 99 190601), a symmetric exclusion process with time-dependent hopping rates was introduced. Using simulations and a perturbation theory, it was shown that if the hopping rates at two neighboring sites of a closed ring vary periodically in time and have a relative phase difference, there is a net DC current which decreases inversely with the system size. In this work, we simplify and generalize our earlier treatment. We study a model where hopping rates at all sites vary periodically in time, and show that for certain choices of relative phases, a DC current of order unity can be obtained. Our results are obtained using a perturbation theory in the amplitude of the time-dependent part of the hopping rate. We also present results obtained in a sudden approximation that assumes large modulation frequency.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure

The Search for Fast Transients with CZTI

The Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager on AstroSat has proven to be a very effective all-sky monitor in the hard X-ray regime, detecting over three hundred GRBs and putting highly competitive upper limits on X-ray emissions from gravitational wave sources and fast radio bursts. We present the algorithms used for searching for such transient sources in CZTI data, and for calculating upper limits in case of non-detections. We introduce CIFT: the CZTI Interface for Fast Transients, a framework used to streamline these processes. We present details of 88 new GRBs detected by this framework that were previously not detected in CZTI.Comment: Accepted in the "AstroSat - 5 years" special issue of the Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy; revised to add referee suggestions, results unchange

The Search for Fast Transients with CZTI

The Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager on AstroSat has proven to be a very effective all-sky monitor in the hard X-ray regime, detecting over three hundred GRBs and putting highly competitive upper limits on X-ray emissions from gravitational wave sources and fast radio bursts. We present the algorithms used for searching for such transient sources in CZTI data, and for calculating upper limits in case of non-detections. We introduce CIFT: the CZTI Interface for Fast Transients, a framework used to streamline these processes. We present details of 88 new GRBs detected by this framework that were previously not detected in CZTI

Residence Time Statistics for Normal and Fractional Diffusion in a Force Field

We investigate statistics of occupation times for an over-damped Brownian particle in an external force field. A backward Fokker-Planck equation introduced by Majumdar and Comtet describing the distribution of occupation times is solved. The solution gives a general relation between occupation time statistics and probability currents which are found from solutions of the corresponding problem of first passage time. This general relationship between occupation times and first passage times, is valid for normal Markovian diffusion and for non-Markovian sub-diffusion, the latter modeled using the fractional Fokker-Planck equation. For binding potential fields we find in the long time limit ergodic behavior for normal diffusion, while for the fractional framework weak ergodicity breaking is found, in agreement with previous results of Bel and Barkai on the continuous time random walk on a lattice. For non-binding potential rich physical behaviors are obtained, and classification of occupation time statistics is made possible according to whether or not the underlying random walk is recurrent and the averaged first return time to the origin is finite. Our work establishes a link between fractional calculus and ergodicity breaking.Comment: 12 page

Improving Phase Change Memory Performance with Data Content Aware Access

A prominent characteristic of write operation in Phase-Change Memory (PCM) is that its latency and energy are sensitive to the data to be written as well as the content that is overwritten. We observe that overwriting unknown memory content can incur significantly higher latency and energy compared to overwriting known all-zeros or all-ones content. This is because all-zeros or all-ones content is overwritten by programming the PCM cells only in one direction, i.e., using either SET or RESET operations, not both. In this paper, we propose data content aware PCM writes (DATACON), a new mechanism that reduces the latency and energy of PCM writes by redirecting these requests to overwrite memory locations containing all-zeros or all-ones. DATACON operates in three steps. First, it estimates how much a PCM write access would benefit from overwriting known content (e.g., all-zeros, or all-ones) by comprehensively considering the number of set bits in the data to be written, and the energy-latency trade-offs for SET and RESET operations in PCM. Second, it translates the write address to a physical address within memory that contains the best type of content to overwrite, and records this translation in a table for future accesses. We exploit data access locality in workloads to minimize the address translation overhead. Third, it re-initializes unused memory locations with known all-zeros or all-ones content in a manner that does not interfere with regular read and write accesses. DATACON overwrites unknown content only when it is absolutely necessary to do so. We evaluate DATACON with workloads from state-of-the-art machine learning applications, SPEC CPU2017, and NAS Parallel Benchmarks. Results demonstrate that DATACON significantly improves system performance and memory system energy consumption compared to the best of performance-oriented state-of-the-art techniques.Comment: 18 pages, 21 figures, accepted at ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on Memory Management (ISMM

Emerging Roles of PAR-1 and PAFR in Melanoma Metastasis

Melanoma growth, angiogenesis and metastatic progression are strongly promoted by the inflammatory tumor microenvironment due to high levels of cytokine and chemokine secretion by the recruited inflammatory and stromal cells. In addition, platelets and molecular components of procoagulant pathways have been recently emerging as critical players of tumor growth and metastasis. In particular, thrombin, through the activity of its receptor protease-activated receptor-1 (PAR-1), regulates tumor cell adhesion to platelets and endothelial cells, stimulates tumor angiogenesis, and promotes tumor growth and metastasis. Notably, in many tumor types including melanoma, PAR-1 expression directly correlates with their metastatic phenotype and is directly responsible for the expression of interleukin-8, matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2), vascular endothelial growth factor, platelet-derived growth factor, and integrins. Another proinflammatory receptor–ligand pair, platelet-activating factor (PAF) and its receptor (PAFR), have been shown to act as important modulators of tumor cell adhesion to endothelial cells, angiogenesis, tumor growth and metastasis. PAF is a bioactive lipid produced by a variety of cells from membrane glycerophospholipids in the same reaction that releases arachidonic acid, and can be secreted by platelets, inflammatory cells, keratinocytes and endothelial cells. We have demonstrated that in metastatic melanoma cells, PAF stimulates the phosphorylation of cyclic adenosine monophosphate response element-binding protein (CREB) and activating transcription factor 1 (ATF-1), which results in overexpression of MMP-2 and membrane type 1-MMP (membrane type 1-MMP). Since only metastatic melanoma cells overexpress CREB/ATF-1, we propose that metastatic melanoma cells are better equipped than their non-metastatic counterparts to respond to PAF within the tumor microenvironment. The evidence supporting the hypothesis that the two G-protein coupled receptors, PAR-1 and PAFR, contribute to the acquisition of the metastatic phenotype of melanoma is presented and discussed

Virus Adaptation by Manipulation of Host's Gene Expression

Viruses adapt to their hosts by evading defense mechanisms and taking over cellular metabolism for their own benefit. Alterations in cell metabolism as well as side-effects of antiviral responses contribute to symptoms development and virulence. Sometimes, a virus may spill over from its usual host species into a novel one, where usually will fail to successfully infect and further transmit to new host. However, in some cases, the virus transmits and persists after fixing beneficial mutations that allow for a better exploitation of the new host. This situation would represent a case for a new emerging virus. Here we report results from an evolution experiment in which a plant virus was allowed to infect and evolve on a naïve host. After 17 serial passages, the viral genome has accumulated only five changes, three of which were non-synonymous. An amino acid substitution in the viral VPg protein was responsible for the appearance of symptoms, whereas one substitution in the viral P3 protein the epistatically contributed to exacerbate severity. DNA microarray analyses show that the evolved and ancestral viruses affect the global patterns of host gene expression in radically different ways. A major difference is that genes involved in stress and pathogen response are not activated upon infection with the evolved virus, suggesting that selection has favored viral strategies to escape from host defenses

Inverting family GH156 sialidases define an unusual catalytic motif for glycosidase action

Sialic acids are a family of related sugars that play essential roles in many biological events intimately linked to cellular recognition in both health and disease. Sialidases are therefore orchestrators of cellular biology and important therapeutic targets for viral infection. Here, we sought to define if uncharacterized sialidases would provide distinct paradigms in sialic acid biochemistry. We show that a recently discovered sialidase family, whose first member EnvSia156 was isolated from hot spring metagenomes, defines an unusual structural fold and active centre constellation, not previously described in sialidases. Consistent with an inverting mechanism, EnvSia156 reveals a His/Asp active center in which the His acts as a Bronsted acid and Asp as a Bronsted base in a single-displacement mechanism. A pre-dominantly hydrophobic aglycone site facilitates accommodation of a variety of 2-linked sialosides; a versatility that offers the potential for glycan hydrolysis across a range of biological and technological platforms