111 research outputs found
Genetic and phenotype analysis of Borrelia valaisiana sp.nov. (Borrelia genomic groups VS116 and M19)
To clarify the taxonomic status of two recently described Borrelia genomic groups, groups VS116 and M19, three group VS116 strains and eight group M19 strains isolated from Ixodes ricinus ticks in Switzerland, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom were characterized. PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of the 5S-23S intergenic spacer amplicon, rRNA gene restriction analysis, 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) fingerprinting, sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), and immunoblotting with monoclonal antibodies were used for genetic and phenotypic analysis. The PCR-RFLP and RAPD patterns of three group VS116 strains and eight group M19 strains were identical but differed from those of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, Borrelia garinii, Borrelia afzelii, and Borrelia japonica. DNAs from all group VS116 and M19 strains yielded three fragments (6.9, 3.2, and 1.4 kb) and four fragments (2.1, 1.2, 0.8, and 0.6 kb) after digestion with EcoRV and HindIII, respectively, hybridizing with an Escherichia coli 16S + 23S cDNA probe. The SDS-PAGE protein profiles of group VS116 and M19 strains were heterogeneous. Phylogenetic analysis of the partial 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that group VS116 and M19 spirochetes were members of a Borrelia species distinct from previously characterized members of the genus Borrelia. Based on our present study and data from previous DNA-DNA hybridizations, a new Borrelia species, Borrelia valaisiana sp.nov., in the B. burgdorferi complex, is proposed. Strain VS116 is the type strain of this new specie
Decoupling with unitary approximate two-designs
Consider a bipartite system, of which one subsystem, A, undergoes a physical
evolution separated from the other subsystem, R. One may ask under which
conditions this evolution destroys all initial correlations between the
subsystems A and R, i.e. decouples the subsystems. A quantitative answer to
this question is provided by decoupling theorems, which have been developed
recently in the area of quantum information theory. This paper builds on
preceding work, which shows that decoupling is achieved if the evolution on A
consists of a typical unitary, chosen with respect to the Haar measure,
followed by a process that adds sufficient decoherence. Here, we prove a
generalized decoupling theorem for the case where the unitary is chosen from an
approximate two-design. A main implication of this result is that decoupling is
physical, in the sense that it occurs already for short sequences of random
two-body interactions, which can be modeled as efficient circuits. Our
decoupling result is independent of the dimension of the R system, which shows
that approximate 2-designs are appropriate for decoupling even if the dimension
of this system is large.Comment: Published versio
Strongly anisotropic spin relaxation in graphene/transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures at room temperature
Graphene has emerged as the foremost material for future two-dimensional
spintronics due to its tuneable electronic properties. In graphene, spin
information can be transported over long distances and, in principle, be
manipulated by using magnetic correlations or large spin-orbit coupling (SOC)
induced by proximity effects. In particular, a dramatic SOC enhancement has
been predicted when interfacing graphene with a semiconducting transition metal
dechalcogenide, such as tungsten disulphide (WS). Signatures of such an
enhancement have recently been reported but the nature of the spin relaxation
in these systems remains unknown. Here, we unambiguously demonstrate
anisotropic spin dynamics in bilayer heterostructures comprising graphene and
WS. By using out-of-plane spin precession, we show that the spin lifetime
is largest when the spins point out of the graphene plane. Moreover, we observe
that the spin lifetime varies over one order of magnitude depending on the spin
orientation, indicating that the strong spin-valley coupling in WS is
imprinted in the bilayer and felt by the propagating spins. These findings
provide a rich platform to explore coupled spin-valley phenomena and offer
novel spin manipulation strategies based on spin relaxation anisotropy in
two-dimensional materials
Tight informationally complete quantum measurements
We introduce a class of informationally complete positive-operator-valued
measures which are, in analogy with a tight frame, "as close as possible" to
orthonormal bases for the space of quantum states. These measures are
distinguished by an exceptionally simple state-reconstruction formula which
allows "painless" quantum state tomography. Complete sets of mutually unbiased
bases and symmetric informationally complete positive-operator-valued measures
are both members of this class, the latter being the unique minimal rank-one
members. Recast as ensembles of pure quantum states, the rank-one members are
in fact equivalent to weighted 2-designs in complex projective space. These
measures are shown to be optimal for quantum cloning and linear quantum state
tomography.Comment: 20 pages. Final versio
Optical properties of MgH2 measured in situ in a novel gas cell for ellipsometry/spectrophotometry
The dielectric properties of alpha-MgH2 are investigated in the photon energy
range between 1 and 6.5 eV. For this purpose, a novel sample configuration and
experimental setup are developed that allow both optical transmission and
ellipsometric measurements of a transparent thin film in equilibrium with
hydrogen. We show that alpha-MgH2 is a transparent, colour neutral insulator
with a band gap of 5.6 +/- 0.1 eV. It has an intrinsic transparency of about
80% over the whole visible spectrum. The dielectric function found in this work
confirms very recent band structure calculations using the GW approximation by
Alford and Chou [J.A. Alford and M.Y. Chou (unpublished)]. As Pd is used as a
cap layer we report also the optical properties of PdHx thin films.Comment: REVTeX4, 15 pages, 12 figures, 5 table
Automated Home-Cage Behavioural Phenotyping of Mice
Neurobehavioral analysis of mouse phenotypes requires the monitoring of mouse behavior over long
periods of time. Here, we describe a trainable computer vision system enabling the automated analysis
of complex mouse behaviors. We provide software and an extensive manually annotated video
database used for training and testing the system. Our system performs on par with human scoring, as
measured from ground-truth manual annotations of thousands of clips of freely behaving mice. As a
validation of the system, we characterized the home-cage behaviors of two standard inbred and two
non-standard mouse strains. From this data we were able to predict in a blind test the strain identity of
individual animals with high accuracy. Our video-based software will complement existing sensor
based automated approaches and enable an adaptable, comprehensive, high-throughput, fine-grained,
automated analysis of mouse behavior.McGovern Institute for Brain ResearchCalifornia Institute of Technology. Broad Fellows Program in Brain CircuitryNational Science Council (China) (TMS-094-1-A032
Altered gene expression of Staphylococcus aureus upon interaction with human endothelial cells
Staphylococcus aureus is isolated from a substantial number of patients with infective endocarditis who are not known to have predisposing heart abnormalities. It has been suggested that the infection is initiated by the direct binding of S. aureus to human vascular endothelium. To determine the mutual response of the endothelial cells and the bacteria, we studied the interaction between S. aureus and human vascular endothelium. Scanning electron microscopic analyses showed that binding of S. aureus to human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) mainly occurred via thread-like protrusions extending from the cell surface. Bound bacteria appeared to be internalized via retraction of the protrusions into newly formed invaginations of the endothelial cell surface. The growth phase of S. aureus had a major impact on the interaction with HUVEC. Logarithmically growing bacteria showed increased binding to, and were more readily internalized by, HUVEC compared to stationary-phase bacteria. To assess the bacterial response to the cellular environments an expression library of S. aureus was used to identify genes whose expression was induced after 4 h of exposure to HUVEC. The identified genes could be divided into different categories based on the functions of the encoded proteins (transport, catabolism, biosynthesis, and DNA repair). Further analyses of five of the S. aureus transposon clones showed that HUVEC as well as human serum are stimuli for triggering gene expression in S. aureus
Electromechanical finite element modelling for dynamic analysis of a cantilevered piezoelectric energy harvester with tip mass offset under base excitations
A new electromechanical finite element modelling of a vibration power harvester and its validation with experimental studies are presented in this paper. The new contributions for modelling the electromechanical finite element piezoelectric unimorph beam with tip mass offset under base excitation encompass five major solution techniques. These include the electromechanical discretization, kinematic equations, coupled field equations, Lagrangian electromechanical dynamic equations, and orthonormalised global matrix and scalar forms of electromechanical finite element dynamic equations. Such techniques have not been rigorously modelled previously by other researchers. There are also benefits to presenting the numerical techniques proposed in this paper. First, the proposed numerical techniques can be used for Q1 applications in many different geometrical models, including MEMS power harvesting devices. Second, applying tip mass offset located after the end of the piezoelectric beam length can result in a very practical design, which avoids direct contact with piezoelectric material because of its brittle nature.Since the surfaces of actual piezoelectric material are covered evenly with thin conducting electrodes for generating single voltage, we introduce the new electromechanical discretization, consisting of the mechanical and electrical discretised elements. Moreover, the reduced electromechanical finite element dynamic equations can be further formulated to obtain the series form of new multimode electromechanical frequency response functions (FRFs) of the displacement, velocity, voltage, current, and power, including optimal power harvesting. The normalized numerical strain node and eigenmode shapes are also further formulated using numerical discretization. Finally, the parametric numerical case studies of the piezoelectric unimorph beam under a resistive shunt circuit show good agreement with the experimental studies
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