So you want to do research: we can fix that

Presentation for medical residents about the goals/methods of scientific research, resources available, and regulatory consideration

Braiding and fusion of non-Abelian vortex anyons

We demonstrate that certain vortices in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates are non-Abelian anyons and may be useful for topological quantum computation. We perform numerical experiments of controllable braiding and fusion of such vortices, implementing the actions required for manipulating topological qubits. Our results suggest that a new platform for topological quantum information processing could potentially be developed by harnessing non-Abelian vortex anyons in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, 6 supplementary figures; added details of the H-charge, J. K. Slingerland added to author lis

Designing a Research Study

Lecture presented to UNM Anesthesiology Department for its Pediatric Anesthesia Fellowship serie

Venture capital investments in Michigan companies in 1996

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/96933/1/MBA_PetersenW_1997Final.pd

Taxonomic implications of basicranial variation in Australopithecus africanus

Although it was discovered 85 years ago, Australopithecus africanus remains a source of contention among paleoanthropologists. Uncertainty about the fossils taxonomic unity has resulted in controversy about their place in hominin phylogeny. This work addresses their taxonomy through application of three-dimensional morphometrics followed by analysis of their patterns of variation in traditional morphological characters. This sequential approach lends more support to the conclusions than would either technique alone. The cranial base was selected as the focus of the analyses because it preserves well and is likely to capture taxonomically-important variation. This inference is supported by the finding herein that the cranial bases of Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus are morphometrically distinct. Morphometrically, the sample of basicranial specimens typically assigned to A. africanus is shown here to be slightly more variable than is a broad pooled-species sample of Pan crania. The fossils\u27 pairwise Procrustes distances were compared to the distribution of similar distances within that Pan sample, and their percentile scores in its distribution were ordinated to reveal underlying patterns in their variation. This indirect approach to the comparisons permitted more fossils to be analyzed together than would otherwise have been possible. In these comparisons, several A. africanus specimens are shown to have distinct morphometric shapes in their basicrania. Of these, Sts 19, Sts 25, and Stw 580 also have distinct patterns of traditional morphological characteristics. The consistency with which these three specimens are distinguished indicates that they are likely to belong to a taxon other than A. africanus, but the fragmentary nature of Stw 580 renders this conclusion more tentative for that particular specimen. These findings do not support the hypothesis that the Sterkfontein and Makapansgat fossil assemblages represent different taxa, nor the hypothesis that the Sterkfontein sample contains approximately equal numbers of specimens from two distinct species.\u2

Evaluation of denoising strategies to address motion-correlated artifacts in resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from the human connectome roject

Like all resting-state functional connectivity data, the data from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) are adversely affected by structured noise artifacts arising from head motion and physiological processes. Functional connectivity estimates (Pearson's correlation coefficients) were inflated for high-motion time points and for high-motion participants. This inflation occurred across the brain, suggesting the presence of globally distributed artifacts. The degree of inflation was further increased for connections between nearby regions compared with distant regions, suggesting the presence of distance-dependent spatially specific artifacts. We evaluated several denoising methods: censoring high-motion time points, motion regression, the FMRIB independent component analysis-based X-noiseifier (FIX), and mean grayordinate time series regression (MGTR; as a proxy for global signal regression). The results suggest that FIX denoising reduced both types of artifacts, but left substantial global artifacts behind. MGTR significantly reduced global artifacts, but left substantial spatially specific artifacts behind. Censoring high-motion time points resulted in a small reduction of distance-dependent and global artifacts, eliminating neither type. All denoising strategies left differences between high- and low-motion participants, but only MGTR substantially reduced those differences. Ultimately, functional connectivity estimates from HCP data showed spatially specific and globally distributed artifacts, and the most effective approach to address both types of motion-correlated artifacts was a combination of FIX and MGTR

Modeling suggests gene editing combined with vaccination could eliminate a persistent disease in livestock

Recent breakthroughs in gene-editing technologies that can render individual animals fully resistant to infections may offer unprecedented opportunities for controlling future epidemics in farm animals. Yet, their potential for reducing disease spread is poorly understood as the necessary theoretical framework for estimating epidemiological effects arising from gene-editing applications is currently lacking. Here, we develop semistochastic modeling approaches to investigate how the adoption of gene editing may affect infectious disease prevalence in farmed animal populations and the prospects and time scale for disease elimination. We apply our models to the porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS), one of the most persistent global livestock diseases to date. Whereas extensive control efforts have shown limited success, recent production of gene-edited pigs that are fully resistant to the PRRS virus have raised expectations for eliminating this deadly disease. Our models predict that disease elimination on a national scale would be difficult to achieve if gene editing was used as the only disease control. However, from a purely epidemiological perspective, disease elimination may be achievable within 3 to 6 y, if gene editing were complemented with widespread and sufficiently effective vaccination. Besides strategic distribution of genetically resistant animals, several other key determinants underpinning the epidemiological impact of gene editing were identified