Measurement of the Spin-forbidden Decay rate (3s3d)1^{1}D2_{2} →\to (3s3p)3^{3}P2,1_{2,1} in 24^{24}Mg

We have measured the spin-forbidden decay rate from (3s3d)$^{1}$D$_{2}$ $\to$ (3s3p)$^{3}$P$_{2,1}$ in $^{24}$Mg atoms trapped in a magneto-optical trap. The total decay rate, summing up both exit channels (3s3p)$^{3}$P$_{1}$ and (3s3p)$^{3}$P$_{2}$, yields (196 $\pm$ 10) s$^{-1}$ in excellent agreement with resent relativistic many-body calculations of [S.G. Porsev et al., Phys. Rev. A. \textbf{64}, 012508 (2001)]. The characterization of this decay channel is important as it may limit the performance of quantum optics experiments carried out with this ladder system as well as two-photon cooling experiments currently explored in several groups.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

High-fidelity quantum driving

The ability to accurately control a quantum system is a fundamental requirement in many areas of modern science such as quantum information processing and the coherent manipulation of molecular systems. It is usually necessary to realize these quantum manipulations in the shortest possible time in order to minimize decoherence, and with a large stability against fluctuations of the control parameters. While optimizing a protocol for speed leads to a natural lower bound in the form of the quantum speed limit rooted in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, stability against parameter variations typically requires adiabatic following of the system. The ultimate goal in quantum control is to prepare a desired state with 100% fidelity. Here we experimentally implement optimal control schemes that achieve nearly perfect fidelity for a two-level quantum system realized with Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices. By suitably tailoring the time-dependence of the system's parameters, we transform an initial quantum state into a desired final state through a short-cut protocol reaching the maximum speed compatible with the laws of quantum mechanics. In the opposite limit we implement the recently proposed transitionless superadiabatic protocols, in which the system perfectly follows the instantaneous adiabatic ground state. We demonstrate that superadiabatic protocols are extremely robust against parameter variations, making them useful for practical applications.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure

The Transcriptome of the Salivary Glands of Amblyomma aureolatum Reveals the Antimicrobial Peptide Microplusin as an Important Factor for the Tick Protection Against Rickettsia rickettsii Infection

The salivary glands (SG) of ixodid ticks play a pivotal role in blood feeding, producing both the cement and the saliva. The cement is an adhesive substance that helps the attachment of the tick to the host skin, while the saliva contains a rich mixture of antihemostatic, anti-inflammatory, and immunomodulatory substances that allow ticks to properly acquire the blood meal. The tick saliva is also a vehicle used by several pathogens to be transmitted to the vertebrate host, including various bacterial species from the genus Rickettsia. Rickettsia rickettsii is a tick-borne obligate intracellular bacterium that causes the severe Rocky Mountain spotted fever. In Brazil, the dog yellow tick Amblyomma aureolatum is a vector of R. rickettsii. In the current study, the effects of an experimental infection with R. rickettsii on the global gene expression profile of A. aureolatum SG was determined by next-generation RNA sequencing. A total of 260 coding sequences (CDSs) were modulated by infection, among which 161 were upregulated and 99 were downregulated. Regarding CDSs in the immunity category, we highlight one sequence encoding one microplusin-like antimicrobial peptide (AMP) (Ambaur-69859). AMPs are important effectors of the arthropod immune system, which lack the adaptive response of the immune system of vertebrates. The expression of microplusin was confirmed to be significantly upregulated in the SG as well as in the midgut (MG) of infected A. aureolatum by a quantitative polymerase chain reaction preceded by reverse transcription. The knockdown of the microplusin expression by RNA interference caused a significant increase in the prevalence of infected ticks in relation to the control. In addition, a higher rickettsial load of one order of magnitude was recorded in both the MG and SG of ticks that received microplusin-specific dsRNA. No effect of microplusin knockdown was observed on the R. rickettsii transmission to rabbits. Moreover, no significant differences in tick engorgement and oviposition were recorded in ticks that received dsMicroplusin, demonstrating that microplusin knockdown has no effect on tick fitness. Further studies must be performed to determine the mechanism of action of this AMP against R. rickettsii

Constrained deep neural network architecture search for IoT devices accounting for hardware calibration

Deep neural networks achieve outstanding results for challenging image classification tasks. However, the design of network topologies is a complex task, and the research community is conducting ongoing efforts to discover top-accuracy topologies, either manually or by employing expensive architecture searches. We propose a unique narrow-space architecture search that focuses on delivering low-cost and rapidly executing networks that respect strict memory and time requirements typical of Internet-of-Things (IoT) near-sensor computing platforms. Our approach provides solutions with classification latencies below 10 ms running on a low-cost device with 1 GB RAM and a peak performance of 5.6 GFLOPS. The narrow-space search of floating-point models improves the accuracy on CIFAR10 of an established IoT model from 70.64% to 74.87% within the same memory constraints. We further improve the accuracy to 82.07% by including 16-bit half types and obtain the highest accuracy of 83.45% by extending the search with model-optimized IEEE 754 reduced types. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first empirical demonstration of more than 3000 trained models that run with reduced precision and push the Pareto optimal front by a wide margin. Within a given memory constraint, accuracy is improved by more than 7% points for half and more than 1% points for the best individual model format

Standard Communication protocol for ECG Exchange in Tele-Cardiology Network on Rural Area. Three Years Project Experience

The National project "Territorial Tele-Cardiology" aims to make easily avalaible the ECG diagnosis in the medical ambulatory and patients home by supporting the diagnostic phase by telephonic consult with an expert cardiologist. General practitioners (GP) were equipped by standard 12 leads electrocardiograph with internal modem for the connection to the consultant station placed at the closer Coronary Care unit. The connection between GP to the cardiologist was organized in asynchronous way, with the incoming list of on-processing ECG available 24 hours a day. The network has been in progress since 1997 and is now available for 15000 patients with a used rate of 54+-8 ECG per week. Averaged time of response was 1.5 a days and always lower than 3 days. In conclusion, the project demonstrated the feasibility and utility of a Tele-Cardiology network, offering improved access to specialty service even in rural and mountain are

Strongly correlated excitation dynamics in cold Rydberg gases

Strongly correlated excitation dynamics in cold Rydberg gase