High coherence hybrid superconducting qubit

We measure the coherence of a new superconducting qubit, the {\em low-impedance flux qubit}, finding $T_2^* \sim T_1 \sim 1.5\mu$s. It is a three-junction flux qubit, but the ratio of junction critical currents is chosen to make the qubit's potential have a single well form. The low impedance of its large shunting capacitance protects it from decoherence. This qubit has a moderate anharmonicity, whose sign is reversed compared with all other popular qubit designs. The qubit is capacitively coupled to a high-Q resonator in a $\lambda/2$ configuration, which permits the qubit's state to be read out dispersively

Definition of a crowdsourcing innovation service for the european SMEs

Based on literature review and on the study of the most known and referred Crowdsourcing brokers, there's a clear trend to implement this model by large companies and mainly within the North American context. Our research team is focused in bringing this approach closer to the European culture, more specifically the cultural factors underlying the dynamics and motivation of communities available to solve the innovation challenges of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), that we call Crowdsourcing Innovation. We believe that, due to the common lack of resources for innovation in these companies, a service capable of involving them in large networks filled with useful and reachable knowledge, and capable of supporting these companies through all the innovation process, is crucial to the future competitiveness of the European SMEs. Although our team is focusing on several aspects related to Crowdsourcing, my main research focuses the information services and supporting applications to create a web platform adapted to the key economical, organizational, legal and cultural differences that make current Crowdsourcing Innovation businesses less popular among European SMEs than in North America.- (undefined

GSH23.0-0.7+117, a neutral hydrogen shell in the inner Galaxy

GSH23.0-0.7+117 is a well-defined neutral hydrogen shell discovered in the VLA Galactic Plane Survey (VGPS). Only the blueshifted side of the shell was detected. The expansion velocity and systemic velocity were determined through the systematic behavior of the HI emission with velocity. The center of the shell is at (l,b,v)=(23.05,-0.77,+117 km/s). The angular radius of the shell is 6.8', or 15 pc at a distance of 7.8 kpc. The HI mass divided by the volume of the half-shell implies an average density n_H = 11 +/- 4 cm^{-3} for the medium in which the shell expanded. The estimated age of GSH23.0-0.7+117 is 1 Myr, with an upper limit of 2 Myr. The modest expansion energy of 2 * 10^{48} erg can be provided by the stellar wind of a single O4 to O8 star over the age of the shell. The 3 sigma upper limit to the 1.4 GHz continuum flux density (S_{1.4} < 248 mJy) is used to derive an upper limit to the Lyman continuum luminosity generated inside the shell. This upper limit implies a maximum of one O9 star (O8 to O9.5 taking into account the error in the distance) inside the HI shell, unless most of the incident ionizing flux leaks through the HI shell. To allow this, the shell should be fragmented on scales smaller than the beam (2.3 pc). If the stellar wind bubble is not adiabatic, or the bubble has burst (as suggested by the HI channel maps), agreement between the energy and ionization requirements is even less likely. The limit set by the non-detection in the continuum provides a significant challenge for the interpretation of GSH23.0-0.7+117 as a stellar wind bubble. A similar analysis may be applicable to other Galactic HI shells that have not been detected in the continuum.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures. Figures 1 and 4 separately in GIF format. Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journa

Genetic basis of Campylobacter colonisation in the broiler chicken and its impact on intestinal health following natural field exposure

Campylobacter is the leading bacterial cause of foodborne diarrheal illness in humans and source attribution studies unequivocally identify handling or consumption of poultry meat as a key risk factor. Campylobacter colonizes the avian intestines in high numbers and rapidly spreads within flocks. A need therefore exists to devise strategies to reduce Campylobacter populations in poultry flocks. There has been a great deal of research aiming to understand the epidemiology and transmission characteristics of Campylobacter in poultry as a means to reduce carriage rates in poultry and reduce infection in humans. One potential strategy for control is the genetic selection of poultry for increased resistance to colonization by Campylobacter. The potential for genetic control of colonization has been demonstrated in inbred populations following experimental challenge with Campylobacter where quantitative trait loci associated with resistance have been identified. Currently in the literature there is no information of the genetic basis of Campylobacter colonization in commercial broiler lines and it is unknown whether these QTL are found in commercial broiler lines. The aim of this study was to estimate genetic parameters associated with Campylobacter load and genetic correlations with gut health and production traits following natural exposure of broiler chickens to Campylobacter. The results from the analysis show a low but significant heritability estimate (0.095 ± 0.037) for Campylobacter load which indicates a limited genetic basis and that non-genetic factors have a greater influence on the level of Campylobacter found in the broiler chicken. Furthermore, through examination of macroscopic intestinal health and absorptive capacity, our study indicated that Campylobacter has no detrimental effects on intestinal health and bird growth following natural exposure in the broiler line under study. These data indicate that whilst there is a genetic component to Campylobacter colonization worthy of further investigation, there is a large proportion of phenotypic variance under the influence of non-genetic effects. As such the control of Campylobacter will require understanding and manipulation of non-genetic host and environmental factors

Moving toward "laboratory-supported" criteria for psychogenic tremor.

A confident clinical diagnosis of psychogenic tremor is often possible, but, in some cases, a "laboratory-supported" level of certainty would aid in early positive diagnosis. Various electrophysiological tests have been suggested to identify patients with psychogenic tremor, but their diagnostic reliability has never been assessed "head to head" nor compared to forms of organic tremor other than essential tremor or PD. We compared baseline tremor characteristics (e.g., frequency and amplitude) as well as electrophysiological tests previously reported to distinguish psychogenic and organic tremor in a cohort of 13 patients with psychogenic tremor and 25 patients with organic tremor, the latter including PD, essential-, dystonic-, and neuropathic tremors. We assessed between-group differences and calculated sensitivity and specificity for each test. A number of tests, including entrainment or frequency changes with tapping, pause of tremor during contralateral ballistic movements, increase in tremor amplitude with loading, presence of coherence, and tonic coactivation at tremor onset, revealed significant differences on a group level, but there was no single test with adequate sensitivity and specificity for separating the groups (33%-77% and 84%-100%, respectively). However, a combination of electrophysiological tests was able to distinguish psychogenic and organic tremor with excellent sensitivity and specificity. A laboratory-supported level of diagnostic certainty in psychogenic tremor is likely to require a battery of electrophysiological tests to provide sufficient specificity and sensitivity. Our data suggest such a battery that, if supported in a prospective study, may form the basis of laboratory-supported criteria for the diagnosis of psychogenic tremor

Failure to Engage Neural Plasticity through Practice of a High-difficulty Task is Accompanied by Reduced Motor Skill Retention in Older Adults

White the difficulty of a motor task can act as a stimulus for learning in younger adults, it is unknown how task difficulty interacts with age-related reductions in motor performance and altered brain activation. We examined the effects of task difficulty on motor performance and used electroencephalography (EEG) to probe task-related brain activation after acquisition and 24-h retention of a mirror star-tracing skill in healthy older adults (N = 36, 65-86 years). The results showed that the difficulty of the motor skill affected both the magnitude of motor skill learning and the underlying neural mechanisms. Behavioral data revealed that practicing a motor task at a high difficulty level hindered motor skill consolidation. The EEG data indicated that task difficulty modulated changes in brain activation after practice. Specifically, a decrease in task-related alpha power in frontal and parietal electrodes was only present after practice of the skill at the low and medium, but not the high difficulty level. Taken together, our findings show that a failure to engage neural plasticity through practice of a highdifficulty task is accompanied by reduced motor skill retention in older adults. The data help us better understand how older adults learn new motor skills and might have implications for prescribing motor skill practice according to its difficulty in rehabilitation settings. (c) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of IBRO. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Neural Correlates of Motor Skill Learning Are Dependent on Both Age and Task Difficulty

Although a general age-related decline in neural plasticity is evident, the effects of age on neural plasticity after motor practice are inconclusive. Inconsistencies in the literature may be related to between-study differences in task difficulty. Therefore, we aimed to determine the effects of age and task difficulty on motor learning and associated brain activity. We used task-related electroencephalography (EEG) power in the alpha (8-12 Hz) and beta (13-30 Hz) frequency bands to assess neural plasticity before, immediately after, and 24-h after practice of a mirror star tracing task at one of three difficulty levels in healthy younger (19-24 yr) and older (65-86 yr) adults. Results showed an age-related deterioration in motor performance that was more pronounced with increasing task difficulty and was accompanied by a more bilateral activity pattern for older vs. younger adults. Task difficulty affected motor skill retention and neural plasticity specifically in older adults. Older adults that practiced at the low or medium, but not the high, difficulty levels were able to maintain improvements in accuracy at retention and showed modulation of alpha TR-Power after practice. Together, these data indicate that both age and task difficulty affect motor learning, as well as the associated neural plasticity

The VLA Galactic Plane Survey

The VLA Galactic Plane Survey (VGPS) is a survey of HI and 21-cm continuum emission in the Galactic plane between longitude 18 degrees 67 degr. with latitude coverage from |b| < 1.3 degr. to |b| < 2.3 degr. The survey area was observed with the Very Large Array (VLA) in 990 pointings. Short-spacing information for the HI line emission was obtained by additional observations with the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). HI spectral line images are presented with a resolution of 1 arcmin x 1 arcmin x 1.56 km/s (FWHM) and rms noise of 2 K per 0.824 km/s channel. Continuum images made from channels without HI line emission have 1 arcmin (FWHM) resolution. VGPS images are compared with images from the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (CGPS) and the Southern Galactic Plane Survey (SGPS). In general, the agreement between these surveys is impressive, considering the differences in instrumentation and image processing techniques used for each survey. The differences between VGPS and CGPS images are small, < 6 K (rms) in channels where the mean HI brightness temperature in the field exceeds 80 K. A similar degree of consistency is found between the VGPS and SGPS. The agreement we find between arcminute resolution surveys of the Galactic plane is a crucial step towards combining these surveys into a single uniform dataset which covers 90% of the Galactic disk: the International Galactic Plane Survey (IGPS). The VGPS data will be made available on the World Wide Web through the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC).Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal. 41 pages, 13 figures. For information on data release, colour images etc. see http://www.ras.ucalgary.ca/VGP