Two-Bit Messages are Sufficient to Implement Atomic Read/Write Registers in Crash-prone Systems

Atomic registers are certainly the most basic objects of computing science. Their implementation on top of an n-process asynchronous message-passing system has received a lot of attention. It has been shown that t \textless{} n/2 (where t is the maximal number of processes that may crash) is a necessary and sufficient requirement to build an atomic register on top of a crash-prone asynchronous message-passing system. Considering such a context, this paper presents an algorithm which implements a single-writer multi-reader atomic register with four message types only, and where no message needs to carry control information in addition to its type. Hence, two bits are sufficient to capture all the control information carried by all the implementation messages. Moreover, the messages of two types need to carry a data value while the messages of the two other types carry no value at all. As far as we know, this algorithm is the first with such an optimality property on the size of control information carried by messages. It is also particularly efficient from a time complexity point of view

Commutator Relations Reveal Solvable Structures in Unambiguous State Discrimination

We present a criterion, based on three commutator relations, that allows to decide whether two self-adjoint matrices with non-overlapping support are simultaneously unitarily similar to quasidiagonal matrices, i.e., whether they can be simultaneously brought into a diagonal structure with 2x2-dimensional blocks. Application of this criterion to unambiguous state discrimination provides a systematic test whether the given problem is reducible to a solvable structure. As an example, we discuss unambiguous state comparison.Comment: 5 pages, discussion of related work adde

Clavier DUCK : Utilisation d'un système de déduction de mots pour faciliter la saisie de texte sur écran tactile pour les non-voyants

International audienceTouch screens rapidly and significantly replace physical keyboards on mobile devices. Hence, text entry is now dependent on software (or virtual) keyboards that are widely used by sighted people, but raise accessibility issues for visually impaired users. These users rely on tactile exploration with vocal feedback of the whole screen for entering text, which is time consuming. We designed a software keyboard that aims reducing tactile exploration and speeding up text entry for VI users. It relies on the selection of the first letter of a word and rapid and inaccurate typing of the remaining letters. It then proposes a list of words having the same first letter and a similar total distance between letters. The evaluation with twelve VI users showed that this keyboard is very efficient for words larger than five characters. It also helps preventing certain typing errors.L'utilisation des écrans tactiles et en particulier les claviers logiciels est extrêmement compliquée pour les non-voyants qui manquent de repères physiques sur ce type d'appareil. Nous proposons dans cet article une solution clavier logicielle qui propose une liste de mots pouvant correspondre au mot recherché à partir de frappes approximatives des utilisateurs non-voyants. Cette technique évite ainsi à l'utilisateur d'explorer le clavier en permanence pour trouver précisément les caractères à saisir. Une première évaluation nous permet de montrer que notre système est efficace pour les mots de plus de quatre caractères. Il permet aussi d'éviter certains types d'erreur de frappe. Mots Clés Saisie de texte ; déficience visuelle ; écran tactile ; dispositifs mobiles ; clavier logiciel ; système déductif

Regularization of a three-body problem with zero-range potentials

We propose a coordinate-space regularization of the three-body problem with zero-range potentials. We include the effective range and the shape parameter in the boundary condition of the zero-range potential. The proposed extended zero-range model is tested against atomic helium trimers and is shown to provide an adequate quantitative description of these systems

Control of crosslinking for tailoring collagen-based scaffolds stability and mechanics.

UNLABELLED: We provide evidence to show that the standard reactant concentrations used in tissue engineering to cross-link collagen-based scaffolds are up to 100 times higher than required for mechanical integrity in service, and stability against degradation in an aqueous environment. We demonstrate this with a detailed and systematic study by comparing scaffolds made from (a) collagen from two different suppliers, (b) gelatin (a partially denatured collagen) and (c) 50% collagen-50% gelatin mixtures. The materials were processed, using lyophilisation, to produce homogeneous, highly porous scaffolds with isotropic architectures and pore diameters ranging from 130 to 260 μm. Scaffolds were cross-linked using a carbodiimide treatment, to establish the effect of the variations in crosslinking conditions (down to very low concentrations) on the morphology, swelling, degradation and mechanical properties of the scaffolds. Carbodiimide concentration of 11.5mg/ml was defined as the standard (100%) and was progressively diluted down to 0.1%. It was found that 10-fold reduction in the carbodiimide content led to the significant increase (almost 4-fold) in the amount of free amine groups (primarily on collagen lysine residues) without compromising mechanics and stability in water of all resultant scaffolds. The importance of this finding is that, by reducing cross-linking, the corresponding cell-reactive carboxylate anions (collagen glutamate or aspartate residues) that are essential for integrin-mediated binding remain intact. Indeed, a 10-fold reduction in carbodiimide crosslinking resulted in near native-like cell attachment to collagen scaffolds. We have demonstrated that controlling the degree of cross-linking, and hence retaining native scaffold chemistry, offers a major step forward in the biological performance of collagen- and gelatin-based tissue engineering scaffolds. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: This work developed collagen and gelatine-based scaffolds with structural, material and biological properties suitable for use in myocardial tissue regeneration. The novelty and significance of this research consist in elucidating the effect of the composition, origin of collagen and crosslinking concentration on the scaffold physical and cell-binding characteristics. We demonstrate that the standard carbodiimide concentrations used to crosslink collagenous scaffolds are up to 100 times higher than required for mechanical integrity in service, and stability against dissolution. The importance of this finding is that, by reducing crosslinking, the corresponding cell-reactive carboxylate anions (essential for integrin-mediated binding) remain intact and the native scaffold chemistry is retained. This offers a major step forward in the biological performance of tissue engineered scaffolds.The authors would like to thank the British Heart Foundation (Grants NH/11/1/28922 and RG/09/003/27122) and the ERC Advanced Grant 320598 3D-E for providing financial support for this project. D. V. Bax is funded by the Peoples Programme of the EU 7th Framework Programme (RAE no: PIIF-GA-2013-624904) and also supported by an EPSRC IKC Proof of Concept Award.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actbio.2015.07.03

Determination of the CP Violating Phase γ\gamma by a Sum Over Common Decay Modes to BsB_s and Bˉs\bar{B}_s

To help the difficult determination of the angle $\gamma$ of the unitarity triangle, Aleksan, Dunietz and Kayser have proposed the modes of the type $K^-D^+_s$, common to $B_s$ and $\bar{B}_s$. We point out that it is possible to gain in statistics by a sum over all modes with ground state mesons in the final state, i.e. $K^-D^+_s$, $K^{*-}D_+^s$, $K^-D^{*+}_s$, $K^{*-}D^{*+}_s$. The delicate point is the relative phase of these different contributions to the dilution factor $D$ of the time-dependent asymmetry. Each contribution to $D$ is proportional to a product $F^{cb}$ $F^{ub}$ $f_{D_s}$ $f_K$ where $F$ denotes form factors and $f$ decay constants. Within a definite phase convention, lattice calculations do not show any change in sign when extrapolating to light quarks the form factors and decay constants. Then, we can show that all modes contribute constructively to the dilution factor, except the $P$-wave $K^{*-}D^{*+}_s$, which is small. Quark model arguments based on wave function overlaps also confirm this stability in sign. By summing over all these modes we find a gain of a factor 6 in statistics relatively to $K^-D^+_s$. The dilution factor for the sum $D_{tot}$ is remarkably stable for theoretical schemes that are not in very strong conflict with data on $B \to \psi K(K^*)$ or extrapolated from semileptonic charm form factors, giving $D_{tot} \geq 0.6$, always close to $D(K^- D^+_s)$.Comment: 22 pages, LPTHE Orsay 94/03, DAPNIA/SPP/94-2

A eubacterial origin for the human tRNA nucleotidyltransferase?

tRNA CCA-termini are generated and maintained by tRNA nucleotidyltransferases. Together with poly(A) polymerases and other enzymes they belong to the nucleotidyltransferase superfamily. However, sequence alignments within this family do not allow to distinguish between CCA-adding enzymes and poly(A) polymerases. Furthermore, due to the lack of sequence information about animal CCA-adding enzymes, identification of corresponding animal genes was not possible so far. Therefore, we looked for the human homolog using the baker's yeast tRNA nucleotidyltransferase as a query sequence in a BLAST search. This revealed that the human gene transcript CGI-47, (\#AF151805) deposited in GenBank is likely to encode such an enzyme. To identify the nature of this protein, the cDNA of the transcript was cloned and the recombinant protein biochemically characterized, indicating that CGI-47 encodes a bona fide CCA-adding enzyme and not a poly(A) polymerase. This confirmed animal CCA-adding enzyme allowed us to identify putative homologs from other animals. Calculation of a neighbor-joining tree, using an alignment of several CCA-adding enzymes, revealed that the animal enzymes resemble more eubacterial ones than eukaryotic plant and fungal tRNA nucleotidyltransferases, suggesting that the animal nuclear cca genes might have been derived from the endosymbiotic progenitor of mitochondria and are therefore of eubacterial origin

Study of internal structures of 9,10Be and 10B in scattering of 4He from 9Be

A study of inelastic scattering and single-particle transfer reactions was performed by an alpha beam at 63 MeV on a 9$Be target. Angular distributions of the differential cross sections for the 9Be(4He,4He')9Be*, 9Be(4He,3He)10Be and 9Be(4He,t)10B reactions were measured. Experimental angular distributions of the differential cross sections for the ground state and a few low-lying states were analyzed in the framework of the optical model, coupled channels and distorted-wave Born approximation. An analysis of the obtained spectroscopic factors was performed.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables, regular paper, mispritns are corrected in new versio

Spatial distributions in static heavy-light mesons: a comparison of quark models with lattice QCD

Lattice measurements of spatial distributions of the light quark bilinear densities in static mesons allow to test directly and in detail the wave functions of quark models. These distributions are gauge invariant quantities directly related to the spatial distribution of wave functions. We make a detailed comparison of the recent lattice QCD results with our own quark models, formulated previously for quite different purposes. We find a striking agreement not only between our two quark models, but also with the lattice QCD data for the ground state in an important range of distances up to about 4/GeV. Moreover the agreement extends to the L=1 states [j^P=(1/2)^+]. An explanation of several particular features completely at odds with the non-relativistic approximation is provided. A rather direct, somewhat unexpected and of course approximate relation between wave functions of certain quark models and QCD has been established.Comment: 40 pages, 5 figures (version published in PRD