PTAS for Minimax Approval Voting

We consider Approval Voting systems where each voter decides on a subset to candidates he/she approves. We focus on the optimization problem of finding the committee of fixed size k minimizing the maximal Hamming distance from a vote. In this paper we give a PTAS for this problem and hence resolve the open question raised by Carragianis et al. [AAAI'10]. The result is obtained by adapting the techniques developed by Li et al. [JACM'02] originally used for the less constrained Closest String problem. The technique relies on extracting information and structural properties of constant size subsets of votes.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figur

A single photon produces general W state of N qubits and its application

Based on the Wu's scheme[1], We prepare the general N-qubit W state. We find that the concurrence of two qubits in general N-qubit W state is only related to their coefficients and we successfully apply the general N-qubit W state to quantum state transfer and quantum state prepare like that in two-qubit system

Effect of copper, cadmium and Cu.Cd mixture on amino acid content in the poslarvae of penaeid shrimp, Penaeus monodon and P. penicillatus

This study document effects of short-term (96h) sublethal levels of copper, cadmium and their mixture on the amino acid composition of postlarvae of the penaeid shrimp, P.monodon and P.penicillatus . All experimental conditions were kept constant, temperature between 25-27•C and salinity 21-22 ppt. The estimated LD50 for Cu was 200 ug/L, for Cd 177.5 ug/L and for Cu.Cd mixture 250ug/L. In P. penicillatus at the same concentration of each metal, there was significant reduction in amino acid content, which was 8.01% higher than the control. Almost similar reduction in some amino acids was observed in P.monodon. At the maximum concentration of 400 ug/L, cadmium caused higher reduction in amino acid composition than did copper. Thus, amino acid composition may be regarded as a sensitive biochemical indicator of Cu and Cd toxicity because of the effect of these metals on protein synthesis, a signal of physiological stress in marine organisms subjected to heavy metal pollution

The Haemers bound of noncommutative graphs

We continue the study of the quantum channel version of Shannon's zero-error capacity problem. We generalize the celebrated Haemers bound to noncommutative graph

Internuclear gene silencing in Phytophthora infestans is established through chromatin remodelling

In the plant pathogen Phytophthora infestans, nuclear integration of inf1 transgenic DNA sequences results in internuclear gene silencing of inf1. Although silencing is regulated at the transcriptional level, it also affects transcription from other nuclei within heterokaryotic cells of the mycelium. Here we report experiments exploring the mechanism of internuclear gene silencing in P. infestans. The DNA methylation inhibitor 5-azacytidine induced reversion of the inf1-silenced state. Also, the histone deacetylase inhibitor trichostatin-A was able to reverse inf1 silencing. inf1-expression levels returned to the silenced state when the inhibitors were removed except in non-transgenic inf1-silenced strains that were generated via internuclear gene silencing, where inf1 expression was restored permanently. Therefore, inf1-transgenic sequences are required to maintain the silenced state. Prolonged culture of non-transgenic inf1-silenced strains resulted in gradual reactivation of inf1 gene expression. Nuclease digestion of inf1-silenced and non-silenced nuclei showed that inf1 sequences in silenced nuclei were less rapidly degraded than non-silenced inf1 sequences. Bisulfite sequencing of the endogenous inf1 locus did not result in detection of any cytosine methylation. Our findings suggest that the inf1-silenced state is based on chromatin remodelling

Fundamental representations and algebraic properties of biquaternions or complexified quaternions

The fundamental properties of biquaternions (complexified quaternions) are presented including several different representations, some of them new, and definitions of fundamental operations such as the scalar and vector parts, conjugates, semi-norms, polar forms, and inner and outer products. The notation is consistent throughout, even between representations, providing a clear account of the many ways in which the component parts of a biquaternion may be manipulated algebraically

Threshold resummation for exclusive B meson decays

We argue that double logarithmic corrections $\alpha_s\ln^2 x$ need to be resumed in perturbative QCD factorization theorem for exclusive $B$ meson decays, when the end-point region with a momentum fraction $x\to 0$ is important. These double logarithms, being of the collinear origin, are absorbed into a quark jet function, which is defined by a matrix element of a quark field attached by a Wilson line. The factorization of the jet function from the decay $B\to\gamma l\bar\nu$ is proved to all orders. Threshold resummation for the jet function leads to a universal, {\it i.e.}, process-independent, Sudakov factor, whose qualitative behavior is analyzed and found to smear the end-point singularities in heavy-to-light transition form factors.Comment: 10 pages, more details are include

A High-gain and Low-scattering Waveguide Slot Antenna of Artificial Magnetic Conductor Octagonal Ring Arrangement

A novel design of high-gain and low-scattering waveguide slot antenna is proposed in this paper. Firstly the scattering pattern of artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) composite surface is estimated by array factor analysis method. The comparison between octagonal ring arrangement and chessboard arrangement proves that the former arrangement has the characteristic of diffuseness-like and expands the bandwidth of radar cross section (RCS) reduction. Secondly, the metal surface of waveguide slot antenna (WSA) is replaced by the octagonal ring arrangement composite surface (ORACS). The gain is improved because of spurious radiation units which are around the slot. At the same time using the phase cancellation principle, a backscatter null achieves RCS reduction in the vertical direction. Experimental results show that the novel antenna after loading with the ORACS, the gain is improved by 5dB; the bandwidth of RCS reduction (reduction greater than 10dB) is 5.24-5.92 GHz

Cell nuclei detection using globally optimal active contours with shape prior

Cell nuclei detection in fluorescent microscopic images is an important and time consuming task for a wide range of biological applications. Blur, clutter, bleed through and partial occlusion of nuclei make this a challenging task for automated detection of individual nuclei using image analysis. This paper proposes a novel and robust detection method based on the active contour framework. The method exploits prior knowledge of the nucleus shape in order to better detect individual nuclei. The method is formulated as the optimization of a convex energy function. The proposed method shows accurate detection results even for clusters of nuclei where state of the art methods fail