Protected 0-pi states in SIsFS junctions for Josephson memory and logic

We study the peculiarities in current-phase relations (CPR) of the SIsFS junction in the region of $0$ to $\pi$ transition. These CPR consist of two independent branches corresponding to $0-$ and $\pi-$ states of the contact. We have found that depending on the transparency of the SIs tunnel barrier the decrease of the s-layer thickness leads to transformation of the CPR shape going in the two possible ways: either one of the branches exists only in discrete intervals of the phase difference $\varphi$ or both branches are sinusoidal but differ in the magnitude of their critical currents. We demonstrate that the difference can be as large as $10\%$ under maintaining superconductivity in the s layer. An applicability of these phenomena for memory and logic application is discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Ancient DNA from Guam and the peopling of the Pacific

We know more about the settlement of Polynesia than we do about the settlement of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific. There is debate over where people came from to get to the Marianas, with various lines of evidence pointing to the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea, or the Bismarck Archipelago, and over how the ancestors of the present Mariana Islanders, the Chamorro, might be related to Polynesians. We analyzed ancient DNA from Guam from two skeletons dating to ˜2,200 y ago and found that their ancestry is linked to the Philippines. Moreover, they are closely related to early Lapita skeletons from Vanuatu and Tonga, suggesting that the early Mariana Islanders may have been involved in the colonization of Polynesia.Humans reached the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific by ˜3,500 y ago, contemporaneous with or even earlier than the initial peopling of Polynesia. They crossed more than 2,000 km of open ocean to get there, whereas voyages of similar length did not occur anywhere else until more than 2,000 y later. Yet, the settlement of Polynesia has received far more attention than the settlement of the Marianas. There is uncertainty over both the origin of the first colonizers of the Marianas (with different lines of evidence suggesting variously the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea, or the Bismarck Archipelago) as well as what, if any, relationship they might have had with the first colonizers of Polynesia. To address these questions, we obtained ancient DNA data from two skeletons from the Ritidian Beach Cave Site in northern Guam, dating to ˜2,200 y ago. Analyses of complete mitochondrial DNA genome sequences and genome-wide SNP data strongly support ancestry from the Philippines, in agreement with some interpretations of the linguistic and archaeological evidence, but in contradiction to results based on computer simulations of sea voyaging. We also find a close link between the ancient Guam skeletons and early Lapita individuals from Vanuatu and Tonga, suggesting that the Marianas and Polynesia were colonized from the same source population, and raising the possibility that the Marianas played a role in the eventual settlement of Polynesia.All data used in this paper are in the main text or in the SI Appendix. The new data reported in this paper have been deposited in the European Nucleotide Archive, https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/home (accession no. PRJEB40707)

The association of serum osteocalcin level with lipid metabolism indices of infant with rickets amid obesity

Department of Pediatrics No 1, N. I. Pirogov National Medical University of Vinnitsa, UkraineBackground: Osteocalcin is considered the specific marker of osteogenesis. However recently more and more researcher’s attention is drawn to osteocalcin as a possible regulator of adipose tissue. Material and methods: 56 children aged from 3 to 12 months with clinical signs of vitamin D-deficient rickets were under the supervision. The main group was formed of 28 children with physical development that exceeded the age limit. The comparison group consisted of 28 children with the normal physical development. The control group was formed of 20 apparently healthy children of similar age. According to the aim of the research we determined serum concentrations of osteocalcin and lipids for all of them. Results: Statistically lower levels of osteocalcin were recorded in children of the main group (p < 0.05). There was a positive correlation between the concentration of serum osteocalcin with HDL (r = 0.86, p < 0.001) for children of the first year of life. A strong inverse correlation was found between the bone marker data and SC (r = -0.93, p < 0.001). A significant difference in the mean values of serum osteocalcin relative to the comparison group was observed in children with obesity and overweight. Conclusions: The results of our research suggest a causal relationship between obesity and impaired bone metabolism in children during the first year of life

Method for reliable realization of a varphi Josephson junction

We propose a method to realize a $\phi$ Josephson junction by combining alternating 0 and $\pi$ parts (sub junctions) with an intrinsically non-sinusoidal current-phase relation (CPR). Conditions for the realization of the $\phi$ ground state are analyzed. It is shown that taking into account the non-sinusoidal CPR for a "clean junction with a ferromagnetic (F) barrier, one can significantly enlarge the domain (regime of suitable F-layer thicknesses) of the $\phi$ ground state and make the practical realization of $\phi$ Josephson junctions feasible. Such junctions may also have two different stable solutions, such as 0 and $\pi$, 0 and $\phi$, or $\phi$ and $\pi$

Frame "Social Activities to Achieve the Goal": Formation and Specifics of Its Representation at Language Level

The proposed article is devoted to describing the specifics of the frame formation "social activity to achieve the goal" represented by the verbal tokens (achieve, accomplish, attain, gain, succeed in, obtain, manage, strive, etc.) with the corresponding meaning and revealing the dependence of the modification of their meaning on the intrasystem and extra system restructuring of the proper frame

Genetic variation and recent positive selection in worldwide human populations: Evidence from nearly 1 million SNPs

BACKGROUND: Genome-wide scans of hundreds of thousands of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have resulted in the identification of new susceptibility variants to common diseases and are providing new insights into the genetic structure and relationships of human populations. Moreover, genome-wide data can be used to search for signals of recent positive selection, thereby providing new insights into the genetic adaptations that occurred as modern humans spread out of Africa and around the world. METHODOLOGY: We genotyped approximately 500,000 SNPs in 255 individuals (5 individuals from each of 51 worldwide populations) from the Human Genome Diversity Panel (HGDP-CEPH). When merged with non-overlapping SNPs typed previously in 250 of these same individuals, the resulting data consist of over 950,000 SNPs. We then analyzed the genetic relationships and ancestry of individuals without assigning them to populations, and we also identified candidate regions of recent positive selection at both the population and regional (continental) level. CONCLUSIONS: Our analyses both confirm and extend previous studies; in particular, we highlight the impact of various dispersals, and the role of substructure in Africa, on human genetic diversity. We also identified several novel candidate regions for recent positive selection, and a gene ontology (GO) analysis identified several GO groups that were significantly enriched for such candidate genes, including immunity and defense related genes, sensory perception genes, membrane proteins, signal receptors, lipid binding/metabolism genes, and genes involved in the nervous system. Among the novel candidate genes identified are two genes involved in the thyroid hormone pathway that show signals of selection in African Pygmies that may be related to their short stature