On the Role of Entanglement in Schroedinger's Cat Paradox

In this paper we re-investigate the core of Schroedinger's 'cat paradox'. We argue that one has to distinguish clearly between superpositions of macroscopic cat states and superpositions of entangled states which comprise both the state of the cat. It is shown, that in the first instance recurrence to decoherence or other mechanisms is not necessary in this special case in order to explain the absence of macroscopic superpositions. Additionally, we present modified versions of two quantum optical experiments as experimenta crucis. Applied rigorously, quantum mechanical formalism reduces the problem to a mere pseudo-paradox.Comment: 10 pages; LaTeX; contact information update

Trauma-Informed Supervision: The Supervisory Needs of Mental Health Therapists Engaged in Trauma-Related Work

We present the need for therapists who engage in trauma-specific work to receive trauma-informed supervision or consultation. This is based on the findings that the emotional labor required of trauma-specific work is high and increases a therapist’s risk for experiencing negative impacts from their work such as vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, unhelpful transference/countertransference, reminders of their own trauma, and burnout. Further, clients incur risks of receiving iatrogenic care when therapists engaged in trauma-related work are not given appropriate job related resources and/or receive ineffective supervision. We discuss a model for trauma-informed supervision, including supporting theory and initial guidelines for supervisors’ competence and activities. Specifically, we outline the knowledge and activities necessary for trauma supervisors to engage effectively in the clinical supervision of trauma sensitive cases and as advocates for therapists who engage in trauma sensitive work. We provide specific suggestions for supervisory intervention to reduce therapists’ negative experiences with trauma work and increase positive ones. Areas for future exploration conclude this initial dialogue, which is intended to be a catalyst for crafting an evolving framework for trauma-informed supervision

Формирование предпринимательских умений студентов инженерного вуза

Представлена методика формирования предпринимательских умений студентов инженерного вуза на основе практико-ориентированной подготовки, способствующей внедренческой деятельности инженера в современных условиях. Проведен анализ состояния проблемы формирования предпринимательских умений в России. Определены педагогические условия, способствующие формированию готовности студентов технического университета к комплексной инженерной деятельности. Сформулировано понятие предпринимательской компетенции инженера. Обосновано эффективное применение метода проектов для формирования предпринимательских умений студентов инженерного вуза. Представлена модель формирования предпринимательских умений студентов инженерного вуза с учетом проектной деятельности инженера.The developing methods of entrepreneurial competences of engineering students, based on the practice-oriented training to encourage an implemental activity of an engineer in the modern context has been presented in the report. The analysis of the problem of entrepreneurial competencies development in Russia has been carried out. The pedagogical conditions encouraging the commitment of the technical university students for an integrated engineering activity has been defined. The concept of entrepreneurial competencies of an engineer has been stated. An effective appliance of project methods to develop entrepreneurial competences of the engineering university students has been proved. There has been presented the development model of entrepreneurial competences of engineering students

Integrating Decision-Making Support in Geocollaboration Tools

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Study of the plutino object (208996) 2003 AZ84 from stellar occultations: size, shape and topographic features

We present results derived from four stellar occultations by the plutino object (208996) 2003~AZ$_{84}$, detected at January 8, 2011 (single-chord event), February 3, 2012 (multi-chord), December 2, 2013 (single-chord) and November 15, 2014 (multi-chord). Our observations rule out an oblate spheroid solution for 2003~AZ$_{84}$'s shape. Instead, assuming hydrostatic equilibrium, we find that a Jacobi triaxial solution with semi axes $(470 \pm 20) \times (383 \pm 10) \times (245 \pm 8)$~km % axis ratios $b/a= 0.82 \pm 0.05$ and $c/a= 0.52 \pm 0.02$, can better account for all our occultation observations. Combining these dimensions with the rotation period of the body (6.75~h) and the amplitude of its rotation light curve, we derive a density $\rho=0.87 \pm 0.01$~g~cm$^{-3}$ a geometric albedo $p_V= 0.097 \pm 0.009$. A grazing chord observed during the 2014 occultation reveals a topographic feature along 2003~AZ$_{84}$'s limb, that can be interpreted as an abrupt chasm of width $\sim 23$~km and depth $> 8$~km or a smooth depression of width $\sim 80$~km and depth $\sim 13$~km (or an intermediate feature between those two extremes)

Enhancing encapsulation of hydrophobic phyto-drugs naringenin and baicalein in polymeric nano-micelles

Pluronic micelles hold great potential to act as hydrophobic drug delivery carriers; however, there is a pressing need to optimize their use in commercial formulations. This is the first report that describes the loading of phyto-drugs naringenin (NAR) and baicalein (BAC) in different Pluronics F108, F127 and P84 using solvent evaporation method (S.Ev.M) and Direct dissolution method (D.D.M.). Pluronic P84 micelles were able to encapsulate significantly higher amount of both phyto-drugs as compared to other Pluronic micelles. S.Ev.M appreciably enhanced the encapsulation of NAR (19.2 ± 0.438 mg/mL) and BAC (2.593 ± 0.223 mg/mL) compared to D.D.M. (NAR, 10.95 ± 0.212 mg/mL, and BAC, 1.058 ± 0.049 mg/mL) in 5% w/v and 12% w/v Pluronic P84, respectively. SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) results showed a spherical morphology after the incorporation of NAR into Pluronic micelles and evidenced that S.Ev.M did not affect the morphology. Sustained release behavior of phyto-drugs was observed from the loaded Pluronic micelles, which was conformed via in vitro release studies. Finally, antioxidant activity was analyzed by ABTS•+ (2,2′-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) scavenging assays, with both NAR and BAC loaded P84 micelles (IC50 7.185 and 28.90 μg/mL) showcasing a marked increase in antioxidant properties compared to the pure phyto-drugs NAR and BAC (IC50 13.25 and 53.68 μg/mL) or other Pluronic formulations. Interaction of phyto-drugs and Pluronic P84 has been screened using 1H NMR Spectroscopy (proton nuclear magnetic spectroscopy) and revealed that the whole NAR molecule was encapsulated within the Pluronic micelles. These phyto-drugs hold great potential for use as nutraceuticals and other pharmaceutical applications but currently can't be used due to poor solubilization. Therefore, it can be suggested that preparation of drug loaded Pluronic formulations using S.Ev.M. would be more convenient, fast, and efficient method over D.D.M

Habitual wearers of colored lenses adapt more rapidly to the color changes the lenses produce

The visual system continuously adapts to the environment, allowing it to perform optimally in a changing visual world. One large change occurs every time one takes off or puts on a pair of spectacles. It would be advantageous for the visual system to learn to adapt particularly rapidly to such large, commonly occurring events, but whether it can do so remains unknown. Here, we tested whether people who routinely wear spectacles with colored lenses increase how rapidly they adapt to the color shifts their lenses produce. Adaptation to a global color shift causes the appearance of a test color to change. We measured changes in the color that appeared “unique yellow”, that is neither reddish nor greenish, as subjects donned and removed their spectacles. Nine habitual wearers and nine age-matched control subjects judged the color of a small monochromatic test light presented with a large, uniform, whitish surround every 5 s. Red lenses shifted unique yellow to more reddish colors (longer wavelengths), and greenish lenses shifted it to more greenish colors (shorter wavelengths), consistent with adaptation “normalizing” the appearance of the world. In controls, the time course of this adaptation contained a large, rapid component and a smaller gradual one, in agreement with prior results. Critically, in habitual wearers the rapid component was significantly larger, and the gradual component significantly smaller than in controls. The total amount of adaptation was also larger in habitual wearers than in controls. These data suggest strongly that the visual system adapts with increasing rapidity and strength as environments are encountered repeatedly over time. An additional unexpected finding was that baseline unique yellow shifted in a direction opposite to that produced by the habitually worn lenses. Overall, our results represent one of the first formal reports that adjusting to putting on or taking off spectacles becomes easier over time, and may have important implications for clinical management

Asteroids' physical models from combined dense and sparse photometry and scaling of the YORP effect by the observed obliquity distribution

The larger number of models of asteroid shapes and their rotational states derived by the lightcurve inversion give us better insight into both the nature of individual objects and the whole asteroid population. With a larger statistical sample we can study the physical properties of asteroid populations, such as main-belt asteroids or individual asteroid families, in more detail. Shape models can also be used in combination with other types of observational data (IR, adaptive optics images, stellar occultations), e.g., to determine sizes and thermal properties. We use all available photometric data of asteroids to derive their physical models by the lightcurve inversion method and compare the observed pole latitude distributions of all asteroids with known convex shape models with the simulated pole latitude distributions. We used classical dense photometric lightcurves from several sources and sparse-in-time photometry from the U.S. Naval Observatory in Flagstaff, Catalina Sky Survey, and La Palma surveys (IAU codes 689, 703, 950) in the lightcurve inversion method to determine asteroid convex models and their rotational states. We also extended a simple dynamical model for the spin evolution of asteroids used in our previous paper. We present 119 new asteroid models derived from combined dense and sparse-in-time photometry. We discuss the reliability of asteroid shape models derived only from Catalina Sky Survey data (IAU code 703) and present 20 such models. By using different values for a scaling parameter cYORP (corresponds to the magnitude of the YORP momentum) in the dynamical model for the spin evolution and by comparing synthetics and observed pole-latitude distributions, we were able to constrain the typical values of the cYORP parameter as between 0.05 and 0.6.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, January 15, 201

Discovery and Expansion of Gene Modules by Seeking Isolated Groups in a Random Graph Process

BACKGROUND: A central problem in systems biology research is the identification and extension of biological modules-groups of genes or proteins participating in a common cellular process or physical complex. As a result, there is a persistent need for practical, principled methods to infer the modular organization of genes from genome-scale data. RESULTS: We introduce a novel approach for the identification of modules based on the persistence of isolated gene groups within an evolving graph process. First, the underlying genomic data is summarized in the form of ranked gene-gene relationships, thereby accommodating studies that quantify the relevant biological relationship directly or indirectly. Then, the observed gene-gene relationship ranks are viewed as the outcome of a random graph process and candidate modules are given by the identifiable subgraphs that arise during this process. An isolation index is computed for each module, which quantifies the statistical significance of its survival time. CONCLUSIONS: The Miso (module isolation) method predicts gene modules from genomic data and the associated isolation index provides a module-specific measure of confidence. Improving on existing alternative, such as graph clustering and the global pruning of dendrograms, this index offers two intuitively appealing features: (1) the score is module-specific; and (2) different choices of threshold correlate logically with the resulting performance, i.e. a stringent cutoff yields high quality predictions, but low sensitivity. Through the analysis of yeast phenotype data, the Miso method is shown to outperform existing alternatives, in terms of the specificity and sensitivity of its predictions

Detection of Crosslinks within and between Proteins by LC-MALDI-TOFTOF and the Software FINDX to Reduce the MSMS-Data to Acquire for Validation

Lysine-specific chemical crosslinking in combination with mass spectrometry is emerging as a tool for the structural characterization of protein complexes and protein-protein interactions. After tryptic digestion of crosslinked proteins there are thousands of peptides amenable to MSMS, of which only very few are crosslinked peptides of interest. Here we describe how the advantage offered by off-line LC-MALDI-TOF/TOF mass spectrometry is exploited in a two-step workflow to focus the MSMS-acquisition on crosslinks mainly. In a first step, MS-data are acquired and all the peak list files from the LC-separated fractions are merged by the FINDX software and screened for presence of crosslinks which are recognized as isotope-labeled doublet peaks. Information on the isotope doublet peak mass and intensity can be used as search constraints to reduce the number of false positives that match randomly to the observed peak masses. Based on the MS-data a precursor ion inclusion list is generated and used in a second step, where a restricted number of MSMS-spectra are acquired for crosslink validation. The decoupling of MS and MSMS and the peptide sorting with FINDX based on MS-data has the advantage that MSMS can be restricted to and focused on crosslinks of Type 2, which are of highest biological interest but often lowest in abundance. The LC-MALDI TOF/TOF workflow here described is applicable to protein multisubunit complexes and using 14N/15N mixed isotope strategy for the detection of inter-protein crosslinks within protein oligomers