683 research outputs found
The appendage role of insect disco genes and possible implications on the evolution of the maggot larval form
AbstractThough initially identified as necessary for neural migration, Disconnected and its partially redundant paralog, Disco-related, are required for proper head segment identity during Drosophila embryogenesis. Here, we present evidence that these genes are also required for proper ventral appendage development during development of the adult fly, where they specify medial to distal appendage development. Cells lacking the disco genes cannot contribute to the medial and distal portions of ventral appendages. Further, ectopic disco transforms dorsal appendages toward ventral fates; in wing discs, the medial and distal leg development pathways are activated. Interestingly, this appendage role is conserved in the red flour beetle, Tribolium (where legs develop during embryogenesis), yet in the beetle we found no evidence for a head segmentation role. The lack of an embryonic head specification role in Tribolium could be interpreted as a loss of the head segmentation function in Tribolium or gain of this function during evolution of flies. However, we suggest an alternative explanation. We propose that the disco genes always function as appendage factors, but their appendage nature is masked during Drosophila embryogenesis due to the reduction of limb fields in the maggot style Drosophila larva
Penrose Limits and Non-local theories
We investigate Penrose limits of two classes of non-local theories, little
string theories and non-commutative gauge theories. Penrose limits of the
near-horizon geometry of NS5-branes help to shed some light on the high energy
spectrum of little string theories. We attempt to understand renormalization
group flow in these theories by considering Penrose limits wherein the null
geodesic also has a radial component. In particular, we demonstrate that it is
possible to construct a pp-wave spacetime which interpolates between the linear
dilaton and the AdS regions for the Type IIA NS5-brane. Similar analysis is
considered for the holographic dual geometry to non-commutative field theories.Comment: 27 pages, LaTeX; v2: added reference
Observation of Caustics in the Trajectories of Cold Atoms in a Linear Magnetic Potential
We have studied the spatial and temporal dynamics of a cold atom cloud in the
conservative force field of a ferromagnetic guide, after laser cooling has been
switched off suddenly. We observe outgoing 'waves' that correspond to caustics
of individual trajectories of trapped atoms. This provides detailed information
on the magnetic field, the energy distribution and the spin states.Comment: 21 pages, incl. 12 figure
First demonstration of neural sensing and control in a kilometer-scale gravitational wave observatory
Suspended optics in gravitational wave (GW) observatories are susceptible toalignment perturbations and, in particular, to slow drifts over time due tovariations in temperature and seismic levels. Such misalignments affect thecoupling of the incident laser beam into the optical cavities, degrade bothcirculating power and optomechanical photon squeezing, and thus decrease theastrophysical sensitivity to merging binaries. Traditional alignment techniquesinvolve differential wavefront sensing using multiple quadrant photodiodes, butare often restricted in bandwidth and are limited by the sensing noise. Wepresent the first-ever successful implementation of neural network-basedsensing and control at a gravitational wave observatory and demonstratelow-frequency control of the signal recycling mirror at the GEO 600 detector.Alignment information for three critical optics is simultaneously extractedfrom the interferometric dark port camera images via a CNN-LSTM networkarchitecture and is then used for MIMO control using soft actor-critic-baseddeep reinforcement learning. Overall sensitivity improvement achieved using ourscheme demonstrates deep learning's capabilities as a viable tool for real-timesensing and control for current and next-generation GW interferometers.<br
Assessment of genetic diversity among Malnad Gidda, Punganur and Vechur-dwarf cattle breeds of India using microsatellite markers
The genetic diversity among 3 dwarf breeds of cattle in India, viz. Malnad Gidda, Punganur and Vechur were analysed using 12 sets of microsatellite markers. All 11 amplified microsatellite loci were polymorphic with a mean number of alleles of 7.818±1.66 across breeds and in different breeds it ranged from 7.273 in Malnad Gidda to 3.546 in Vechur. The mean polymorphic information content (PIC) value observed and expected heterozygosity values across the population were 0.642, 0.610 and 0.683, respectively. A moderate level of inbreeding was observed with the inbreeding estimates ranging from -0.027 (ILSTS6) to 0.271 (HAUT24). Among the 3 breeds the highest mean number of alleles (7.273), mean PIC value (0.639), observed heterozygosity (0.630) and lower inbreeding estimates at majority of loci were observed in Malnad Gidda cattle indicating high degree of heterozygosity compared to Punganur and Vechur breeds. Even though departure from Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE) was found in Vechur and Punganur cattle population at majority of the loci, the population combining the 3 breeds was maintained at HWE with respect to most of loci under study. The genetic distance analysis revealed highest genetic distance between Vechur and Punganur (0.331) and lowest between Malnad Gidda and Punganur (0.125)
European and Mediterranean hydroclimate responses to tropical volcanic forcing over the last millennium
Volcanic eruptions have global climate impacts, but their effect on the hydrologic cycle is poorly understood. We use a modified version of superposed epoch analysis, an eruption year list collated from multiple data sets, and seasonal paleoclimate reconstructions (soil moisture, precipitation, geopotential heights, and temperature) to investigate volcanic forcing of spring and summer hydroclimate over Europe and the Mediterranean over the last millennium. In the western Mediterranean, wet conditions occur in the eruption year and the following 3 years. Conversely, northwestern Europe and the British Isles experience dry conditions in response to volcanic eruptions, with the largest moisture deficits in posteruption years 2 and 3. The precipitation response occurs primarily in late spring and early summer (April–July), a pattern that strongly resembles the negative phase of the East Atlantic Pattern. Modulated by this mode of climate variability, eruptions force significant, widespread, and heterogeneous hydroclimate responses across Europe and the Mediterranean
Structural Analysis of Biodiversity
Large, recently-available genomic databases cover a wide range of life forms, suggesting opportunity for insights into genetic structure of biodiversity. In this study we refine our recently-described technique using indicator vectors to analyze and visualize nucleotide sequences. The indicator vector approach generates correlation matrices, dubbed Klee diagrams, which represent a novel way of assembling and viewing large genomic datasets. To explore its potential utility, here we apply the improved algorithm to a collection of almost 17000 DNA barcode sequences covering 12 widely-separated animal taxa, demonstrating that indicator vectors for classification gave correct assignment in all 11000 test cases. Indicator vector analysis revealed discontinuities corresponding to species- and higher-level taxonomic divisions, suggesting an efficient approach to classification of organisms from poorly-studied groups. As compared to standard distance metrics, indicator vectors preserve diagnostic character probabilities, enable automated classification of test sequences, and generate high-information density single-page displays. These results support application of indicator vectors for comparative analysis of large nucleotide data sets and raise prospect of gaining insight into broad-scale patterns in the genetic structure of biodiversity
The rise of fully turbulent flow
Over a century of research into the origin of turbulence in wallbounded shear
flows has resulted in a puzzling picture in which turbulence appears in a
variety of different states competing with laminar background flow. At slightly
higher speeds the situation changes distinctly and the entire flow is
turbulent. Neither the origin of the different states encountered during
transition, nor their front dynamics, let alone the transformation to full
turbulence could be explained to date. Combining experiments, theory and
computer simulations here we uncover the bifurcation scenario organising the
route to fully turbulent pipe flow and explain the front dynamics of the
different states encountered in the process. Key to resolving this problem is
the interpretation of the flow as a bistable system with nonlinear propagation
(advection) of turbulent fronts. These findings bridge the gap between our
understanding of the onset of turbulence and fully turbulent flows.Comment: 31 pages, 9 figure
CFT dual of the AdS Dirichlet problem: Fluid/Gravity on cut-off surfaces
We study the gravitational Dirichlet problem in AdS spacetimes with a view to
understanding the boundary CFT interpretation. We define the problem as bulk
Einstein's equations with Dirichlet boundary conditions on fixed timelike
cut-off hypersurface. Using the fluid/gravity correspondence, we argue that one
can determine non-linear solutions to this problem in the long wavelength
regime. On the boundary we find a conformal fluid with Dirichlet constitutive
relations, viz., the fluid propagates on a `dynamical' background metric which
depends on the local fluid velocities and temperature. This boundary fluid can
be re-expressed as an emergent hypersurface fluid which is non-conformal but
has the same value of the shear viscosity as the boundary fluid. The
hypersurface dynamics arises as a collective effect, wherein effects of the
background are transmuted into the fluid degrees of freedom. Furthermore, we
demonstrate that this collective fluid is forced to be non-relativistic below a
critical cut-off radius in AdS to avoid acausal sound propagation with respect
to the hypersurface metric. We further go on to show how one can use this
set-up to embed the recent constructions of flat spacetime duals to
non-relativistic fluid dynamics into the AdS/CFT correspondence, arguing that a
version of the membrane paradigm arises naturally when the boundary fluid lives
on a background Galilean manifold.Comment: 71 pages, 2 figures. v2: Errors in bulk metrics dual to
non-relativistic fluids (both on cut-off surface and on the boundary) have
been corrected. New appendix with general results added. Fixed typos. 82
pages, 2 figure
Implications of Dedicated Seismometer Measurements on Newtonian-Noise Cancellation for Advanced LIGO
Newtonian gravitational noise from seismic fields will become a limiting noise source at low frequency for second-generation, gravitational-wave detectors. It is planned to use seismic sensors surrounding the detectors’ test masses to coherently subtract Newtonian noise using Wiener filters derived from the correlations between the sensors and detector data. In this Letter, we use data from a seismometer array deployed at the corner station of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) Hanford detector combined with a tiltmeter for a detailed characterization of the seismic field and to predict achievable Newtonian-noise subtraction levels. As was shown previously, cancellation of the tiltmeter signal using seismometer data serves as the best available proxy of Newtonian-noise cancellation. According to our results, a relatively small number of seismometers is likely sufficient to perform the noise cancellation due to an almost ideal two-point spatial correlation of seismic surface displacement at the corner station, or alternatively, a tiltmeter deployed under each of the two test masses of the corner station at Hanford will be able to efficiently cancel Newtonian noise. Furthermore, we show that the ground tilt to differential arm-length coupling observed during LIGO’s second science run is consistent with gravitational coupling
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