10,376 research outputs found
Treatment of Linear and Nonlinear Dielectric Property of Molecular Monolayer and Submonolayer with Microscopic Dipole Lattice Model: I. Second Harmonic Generation and Sum-Frequency Generation
In the currently accepted models of the nonlinear optics, the nonlinear
radiation was treated as the result of an infinitesimally thin polarization
sheet layer, and a three layer model was generally employed. The direct
consequence of this approach is that an apriori dielectric constant, which
still does not have a clear definition, has to be assigned to this polarization
layer. Because the Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) and the Sum-Frequency
Generation vibrational Spectroscopy (SFG-VS) have been proven as the sensitive
probes for interfaces with the submonolayer coverage, the treatment based on
the more realistic discrete induced dipole model needs to be developed. Here we
show that following the molecular optics theory approach the SHG, as well as
the SFG-VS, radiation from the monolayer or submonolayer at an interface can be
rigorously treated as the radiation from an induced dipole lattice at the
interface. In this approach, the introduction of the polarization sheet is no
longer necessary. Therefore, the ambiguity of the unaccounted dielectric
constant of the polarization layer is no longer an issue. Moreover, the
anisotropic two dimensional microscopic local field factors can be explicitly
expressed with the linear polarizability tensors of the interfacial molecules.
Based on the planewise dipole sum rule in the molecular monolayer, crucial
experimental tests of this microscopic treatment with SHG and SFG-VS are
discussed. Many puzzles in the literature of surface SHG and SFG spectroscopy
studies can also be understood or resolved in this framework. This new
treatment may provide a solid basis for the quantitative analysis in the
surface SHG and SFG studies.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figure
Situational-Context for Virtually Modeling the Elderly
The generalized aging of the population is incrementing the pressure over, frequently overextended, healthcare systems. This situations is even worse in underdeveloped, sparsely populated regions like Extremadura in Spain or Alentejo in Portugal. In this paper we propose an initial approach to use the Situational-Context, a technique to seamlessly adapt Internet of Things systems to the needs and preferences of their users, for virtually modeling the elderly. These models could be used to enhance the elderly experience when using those kind of systems without raising the need for technical skills. The proposed virtual models will also be the basis for further eldercare innovations in sparsely populated regions
Beyond Outerplanarity
We study straight-line drawings of graphs where the vertices are placed in
convex position in the plane, i.e., convex drawings. We consider two families
of graph classes with nice convex drawings: outer -planar graphs, where each
edge is crossed by at most other edges; and, outer -quasi-planar graphs
where no edges can mutually cross. We show that the outer -planar graphs
are -degenerate, and consequently that every
outer -planar graph can be -colored, and this
bound is tight. We further show that every outer -planar graph has a
balanced separator of size . This implies that every outer -planar
graph has treewidth . For fixed , these small balanced separators
allow us to obtain a simple quasi-polynomial time algorithm to test whether a
given graph is outer -planar, i.e., none of these recognition problems are
NP-complete unless ETH fails. For the outer -quasi-planar graphs we prove
that, unlike other beyond-planar graph classes, every edge-maximal -vertex
outer -quasi planar graph has the same number of edges, namely . We also construct planar 3-trees that are not outer
-quasi-planar. Finally, we restrict outer -planar and outer
-quasi-planar drawings to \emph{closed} drawings, where the vertex sequence
on the boundary is a cycle in the graph. For each , we express closed outer
-planarity and \emph{closed outer -quasi-planarity} in extended monadic
second-order logic. Thus, closed outer -planarity is linear-time testable by
Courcelle's Theorem.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 25th International Symposium on
Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2017
DeltaPhish: Detecting Phishing Webpages in Compromised Websites
The large-scale deployment of modern phishing attacks relies on the automatic
exploitation of vulnerable websites in the wild, to maximize profit while
hindering attack traceability, detection and blacklisting. To the best of our
knowledge, this is the first work that specifically leverages this adversarial
behavior for detection purposes. We show that phishing webpages can be
accurately detected by highlighting HTML code and visual differences with
respect to other (legitimate) pages hosted within a compromised website. Our
system, named DeltaPhish, can be installed as part of a web application
firewall, to detect the presence of anomalous content on a website after
compromise, and eventually prevent access to it. DeltaPhish is also robust
against adversarial attempts in which the HTML code of the phishing page is
carefully manipulated to evade detection. We empirically evaluate it on more
than 5,500 webpages collected in the wild from compromised websites, showing
that it is capable of detecting more than 99% of phishing webpages, while only
misclassifying less than 1% of legitimate pages. We further show that the
detection rate remains higher than 70% even under very sophisticated attacks
carefully designed to evade our system.Comment: Preprint version of the work accepted at ESORICS 201
Recognizing and Drawing IC-planar Graphs
IC-planar graphs are those graphs that admit a drawing where no two crossed
edges share an end-vertex and each edge is crossed at most once. They are a
proper subfamily of the 1-planar graphs. Given an embedded IC-planar graph
with vertices, we present an -time algorithm that computes a
straight-line drawing of in quadratic area, and an -time algorithm
that computes a straight-line drawing of with right-angle crossings in
exponential area. Both these area requirements are worst-case optimal. We also
show that it is NP-complete to test IC-planarity both in the general case and
in the case in which a rotation system is fixed for the input graph.
Furthermore, we describe a polynomial-time algorithm to test whether a set of
matching edges can be added to a triangulated planar graph such that the
resulting graph is IC-planar
Quantum enhanced positioning and clock synchronization
A wide variety of positioning and ranging procedures are based on repeatedly
sending electromagnetic pulses through space and measuring their time of
arrival. This paper shows that quantum entanglement and squeezing can be
employed to overcome the classical power/bandwidth limits on these procedures,
enhancing their accuracy. Frequency entangled pulses could be used to construct
quantum positioning systems (QPS), to perform clock synchronization, or to do
ranging (quantum radar): all of these techniques exhibit a similar enhancement
compared with analogous protocols that use classical light. Quantum
entanglement and squeezing have been exploited in the context of
interferometry, frequency measurements, lithography, and algorithms. Here, the
problem of positioning a party (say Alice) with respect to a fixed array of
reference points will be analyzed.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication by Natur
Developmental MRI markers cosegregate juvenile patients with myoclonic epilepsy and their healthy siblings
OBJECTIVE: MRI studies of genetic generalized epilepsies have mainly described group-level changes between patients and healthy controls. To determine the endophenotypic potential of structural MRI in juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME), we examined MRI-based cortical morphologic markers in patients and their healthy siblings. METHODS: In this prospective, cross-sectional study, we obtained 3T MRI in patients with JME, siblings, and controls. We mapped sulco-gyral complexity and surface area, morphologic markers of brain development, and cortical thickness. Furthermore, we calculated mean geodesic distance, a surrogate marker of cortico-cortical connectivity. RESULTS: Compared to controls, patients and siblings showed increased folding complexity and surface area in prefrontal and cingulate cortices. In these regions, they also displayed abnormally increased geodesic distance, suggesting network isolation and decreased efficiency, with strongest effects for limbic, fronto-parietal, and dorsal-attention networks. In areas of findings overlap, we observed strong patient-sibling correlations. Conversely, neocortical thinning was present in patients only and related to disease duration. Patients showed subtle impairment in mental flexibility, a frontal lobe function test, as well as deficits in naming and design learning. Siblings' performance fell between patients and controls. CONCLUSION: MRI markers of brain development and connectivity are likely heritable and may thus serve as endophenotypes. The topography of morphologic anomalies and their abnormal structural network integration likely explains cognitive impairments in patients with JME and their siblings. By contrast, cortical atrophy likely represents a marker of disease
Retreatment with anti-EGFR based therapies in metastatic colorectal cancer: impact of intervening time interval and prior anti-EGFR response.
BackgroundThis retrospective study aims to investigate the activity of retreatment with anti-EGFR-based therapies in order to explore the concept of clonal evolution by evaluating the impact of prior activity and intervening time interval.MethodsEighty-nine KRAS exon 2-wild-type metastatic colorectal patients were retreated on phase I/II clinical trials containing anti-EGFR therapies after progressing on prior cetuximab or panitumumab. Response on prior anti-EGFR therapy was defined retrospectively per physician-records as response or stable disease ≥6 months. Multivariable statistical methods included a multiple logistic regression model for response, and Cox proportional hazards model for progression-free survival.ResultsRetreatment anti-EGFR agents were cetuximab (n = 76) or cetuximab plus erlotinib (n = 13). The median interval time between prior and retreatment regimens was 4.57 months (range: 0.46-58.7). Patients who responded to the prior cetuximab or panitumumab were more likely to obtain clinical benefit to the retreatment compared to the non-responders in both univariate (p = 0.007) and multivariate analyses (OR: 3.38, 95 % CI: 1.27, 9.31, p = 0.019). The clinical benefit rate on retreatment also showed a marginally significant association with interval time between the two anti-EGFR based therapies (p = 0.053). Median progression-free survival on retreatment was increased in prior responders (4.9 months, 95 % CI: 3.6, 6.2) compared to prior non-responders (2.5 months, 95 % CI, 1.58, 3.42) in univariate (p = 0.064) and multivariate analysis (HR: 0.70, 95 % CI: 0.43-1.15, p = 0.156).ConclusionOur data lends support to the concept of clonal evolution, though the clinical impact appears less robust than previously reported. Further work to determine which patients benefit from retreatment post progression is needed
Moxifloxacin: Clinically compatible contrast agent for multiphoton imaging
Multiphoton microscopy (MPM) is a nonlinear fluorescence microscopic technique widely used for cellular imaging of thick tissues and live animals in biological studies. However, MPM application to human tissues is limited by weak endogenous fluorescence in tissue and cytotoxicity of exogenous probes. Herein, we describe the applications of moxifloxacin, an FDA-approved antibiotic, as a cell-labeling agent for MPM. Moxifloxacin has bright intrinsic multiphoton fluorescence, good tissue penetration and high intracellular concentration. MPM with moxifloxacin was demonstrated in various cell lines, and animal tissues of cornea, skin, small intestine and bladder. Clinical application is promising since imaging based on moxifloxacin labeling could be 10 times faster than imaging based on endogenous fluorescence.1152sciescopu
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