945 research outputs found
Predictive Information: Status or Alert Information?
Previous research investigating the efficacy of predictive information for detecting and diagnosing aircraft system failures found that subjects like to have predictive information concerning when a parameter would reach an alert range. This research focused on where the predictive information should be located, whether the information should be more closely associated with the parameter information or with the alert information. Each subject saw 3 forms of predictive information: (1) none, (2) a predictive alert message, and (3) predictive information on the status display. Generally, subjects performed better and preferred to have predictive information available although the difference between status and alert predictive information was minimal. Overall, for detection and recalling what happened, status predictive information is best; however for diagnosis, alert predictive information holds a slight edge
Convergence to equilibrium for many particle systems
The goal of this paper is to give a short review of recent results of the
authors concerning classical Hamiltonian many particle systems. We hope that
these results support the new possible formulation of Boltzmann's ergodicity
hypothesis which sounds as follows. For almost all potentials, the minimal
contact with external world, through only one particle of , is sufficient
for ergodicity. But only if this contact has no memory. Also new results for
quantum case are presented
Experimental study of Taylor's hypothesis in a turbulent soap film
An experimental study of Taylor's hypothesis in a quasi-two-dimensional
turbulent soap film is presented. A two probe laser Doppler velocimeter enables
a non-intrusive simultaneous measurement of the velocity at spatially separated
points. The breakdown of Taylor's hypothesis is quantified using the cross
correlation between two points displaced in both space and time; correlation is
better than 90% for scales less than the integral scale. A quantitative study
of the decorrelation beyond the integral scale is presented, including an
analysis of the failure of Taylor's hypothesis using techniques from
predictability studies of turbulent flows. Our results are compared with
similar studies of 3D turbulence.Comment: 27 pages, + 19 figure
Functional properties of human NMDA receptors associated with epilepsy-related mutations of GluN2A subunit
© 2017 Sibarov, Bruneau, Antonov, Szepetowski, Burnashev and Giniatullin. Genetic variants of the glutamate activated N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor (NMDAR) subunit GluN2A are associated with the hyperexcitable states manifested by epileptic seizures and interictal discharges in patients with disorders of the epilepsy-aphasia spectrum (EAS). The variants found in sporadic cases and families are of different types and include microdeletions encompassing the corresponding GRIN2A gene as well as nonsense, splice-site and missense GRIN2A defects. They are located at different functional domains of GluN2A and no clear genotype-phenotype correlation has emerged yet. Moreover, GluN2A variants may be associated with phenotypic pleiotropy. Deciphering the consequences of pathogenic GRIN2A variants would surely help in better understanding of the underlying mechanisms. This emphasizes the need for functional studies to unravel the basic functional properties of each specific NMDAR variant. In the present study, we have used patch-clamp recordings to evaluate kinetic changes of mutant NMDARs reconstituted after co-transfection of cultured cells with the appropriate expression vectors. Three previously identified missense variants found in patients or families with disorders of the EAS and situated in the N-terminal domain (p.Ile184Ser) or in the ligand-binding domain (p.Arg518His and p.Ala716Thr) of GluN2A were studied in both the homozygous and heterozygous conditions. Relative surface expression and current amplitude were significantly reduced for NMDARs composed of mutant p.Ile184Ser and p.Arg518His, but not p.Ala716His, as compared with wild-type (WT) NMDARs. Amplitude of whole-cell currents was still drastically decreased when WT and mutant p.Arg518His-GluN2A subunits were co-expressed, suggesting a dominant-negative mechanism. Activation times were significantly decreased in both homozygous and heterozygous conditions for the two p.Ile184Ser and p.Arg518His variants, but not for p.Ala716His. Deactivation also significantly increased for p.Ile184Ser variant in the homozygous but not the heterozygous state while it was increased for p.Arg518His in both states. Our data indicate that p.Ile184Ser and p.Arg518His GluN2A variants both impacted on NMDAR function, albeit differently, whereas p.Ala716His did not significantly influence NMDAR kinetics, hence partly questioning its direct and strong pathogenic role. This study brings new insights into the functional impact that GRIN2A variants might have on NMDAR kinetics, and provides a mechanistic explanation for the neurological manifestations seen in the corresponding human spectrum of disorders
Random Time-Dependent Quantum Walks
We consider the discrete time unitary dynamics given by a quantum walk on the
lattice performed by a quantum particle with internal degree of freedom,
called coin state, according to the following iterated rule: a unitary update
of the coin state takes place, followed by a shift on the lattice, conditioned
on the coin state of the particle. We study the large time behavior of the
quantum mechanical probability distribution of the position observable in
when the sequence of unitary updates is given by an i.i.d. sequence of
random matrices. When averaged over the randomness, this distribution is shown
to display a drift proportional to the time and its centered counterpart is
shown to display a diffusive behavior with a diffusion matrix we compute. A
moderate deviation principle is also proven to hold for the averaged
distribution and the limit of the suitably rescaled corresponding
characteristic function is shown to satisfy a diffusion equation. A
generalization to unitary updates distributed according to a Markov process is
also provided. An example of i.i.d. random updates for which the analysis of
the distribution can be performed without averaging is worked out. The
distribution also displays a deterministic drift proportional to time and its
centered counterpart gives rise to a random diffusion matrix whose law we
compute. A large deviation principle is shown to hold for this example. We
finally show that, in general, the expectation of the random diffusion matrix
equals the diffusion matrix of the averaged distribution.Comment: Typos and minor errors corrected. To appear In Communications in
Mathematical Physic
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