348 research outputs found
Wigner Functions for Arbitrary Quantum Systems
The possibility of constructing a complete, continuous Wigner function for
any quantum system has been a subject of investigation for over 50 years. A key
system that has served to illustrate the difficulties of this problem has been
an ensemble of spins. Here we present a general and consistent framework for
constructing Wigner functions exploiting the underlying symmetries in the
physical system at hand. The Wigner function can be used to fully describe any
quantum system of arbitrary dimension or ensemble size.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Charged Higgs bosons from the 3-3-1 models and the anomalies
Several anomalies in the semileptonic B-meson decays such as
have been reported by , Belle, and LHCb
collaborations recently. In this paper, we investigate the contributions of the
charged Higgs bosons from the 3-3-1 models to the
anomalies. We find that, in a wide range of parameter space, the 3-3-1 models
might give reasonable explanations to the anomalies and
other analogous anomalies of the B meson's semileptonic decays.Comment: Accpeted by Physical Review
Orthopaedic surgeons and the medical device industry: The threat to scientific integrity and the public trust
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De novo design of bioactive protein switches.
Allosteric regulation of protein function is widespread in biology, but is challenging for de novo protein design as it requires the explicit design of multiple states with comparable free energies. Here we explore the possibility of designing switchable protein systems de novo, through the modulation of competing inter- and intramolecular interactions. We design a static, five-helix 'cage' with a single interface that can interact either intramolecularly with a terminal 'latch' helix or intermolecularly with a peptide 'key'. Encoded on the latch are functional motifs for binding, degradation or nuclear export that function only when the key displaces the latch from the cage. We describe orthogonal cage-key systems that function in vitro, in yeast and in mammalian cells with up to 40-fold activation of function by key. The ability to design switchable protein functions that are controlled by induced conformational change is a milestone for de novo protein design, and opens up new avenues for synthetic biology and cell engineering
Bacterial etiology of sexually transmitted infections at a STI clinic in Ghana; use of multiplex real time PCR
Background: Most sexually transmitted infection (STI) management efforts focus on the syndromic approach to diagnose and treat patients. However, most women with STIs have been shown to be entirely asymptomatic, or if symptoms exist, are often missed when either clinical or conventional bacteriologic diagnostic tools are employed.Methods: We assessed the performance of a multiplex real time PCR assay to describe other potential pathogens that could be missed by conventional bacteriological techniques in 200 women attending a routine STI clinic in Kumasi, Ghana.Results: Although a total 78.00% of the women were asymptomatic, 77.1% of them tested positive for at least one bacterial STI pathogen. Mycoplasma genitalium was the most commonly detectable pathogen present in 67.5% of all women. Of those testing positive, 25.0% had single infections, while 38.0% and 19.5% had double and triple infections respectively. Altogether, 86.54% and 90.91% of the symptomatic and asymptomatic women respectively tested positive for at least one pathogen (p<0.05). There were no significant associations (p<0.05) between the clinical manifestations of the symptomatic women and the pathogens detected in their samples.Conclusions: Our study confirmed the importance of complementing the syndromic approach to STI management with pathogen detection and most importantly recognise that STIs in women are asymptomatic and regular empirical testing even for both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients is critical for complete clinical treatment.Funding: EOD (Ellis Owusu-Dabo Research working group, KCCR)Keywords: Etiology, Syndromic, Sexually Transmitted Infections, Multiplex real time PC
A Bayesian approach to modelling spectrometer data chromaticity corrected using beam factors -- I. Mathematical formalism
Accurately accounting for spectral structure in spectrometer data induced by
instrumental chromaticity on scales relevant for detection of the 21-cm signal
is among the most significant challenges in global 21-cm signal analysis. In
the publicly available EDGES low-band data set, this complicating structure is
suppressed using beam-factor based chromaticity correction (BFCC), which works
by dividing the data by a sky-map-weighted model of the spectral structure of
the instrument beam. Several analyses of this data have employed models that
start with the assumption that this correction is complete. However, while BFCC
mitigates the impact of instrumental chromaticity on the data, given realistic
assumptions regarding the spectral structure of the foregrounds, the correction
is only partial. This complicates the interpretation of fits to the data with
intrinsic sky models (models that assume no instrumental contribution to the
spectral structure of the data). In this paper, we derive a BFCC data model
from an analytic treatment of BFCC and demonstrate using simulated observations
that, in contrast to using an intrinsic sky model for the data, the BFCC data
model enables unbiased recovery of a simulated global 21-cm signal from
beam-factor chromaticity corrected data in the limit that the data is corrected
with an error-free beam-factor model.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figures; accepted for publication in MNRA
Ontology Mapping and Data Discovery for the Translational Investigator
An integrated data repository (IDR) containing aggregations of clinical, biomedical, economic, administrative, and public health data is a key component of an overall translational research infrastructure. But most available data repositories are designed using standard data warehouse architecture that employs arbitrary data encoding standards, making queries across disparate repositories difficult. In response to these shortcomings we have designed a Health Ontology Mapper (HOM) that translates terminologies into formal data encoding standards without altering the underlying source data. We believe the HOM system promotes inter-institutional data sharing and research collaboration, and will ultimately lower the barrier to developing and using an IDR
On the potential of regional-scale emissions zoning as an air quality management tool for the grand canyon
Air arriving at the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River during 1988-1989 is attributed to one of four geographic quadrants--NE, SE, SW, NW--on the basis of routinely calculated back-trajectories. Most of the haze observed at the Canyon is attributed to the SW quadrant, which contains the populous and industrialized areas of southern California. Air from either northern quadrant tends to be significantly clearer than air from either southern quadrant. Clear northern air is most common during the winter, and is rarely observed during the summer tourist season, when steady flow from the southwest is the norm. Various possible interpretations of these empirical results are discussed, with varying implications for emissions management policy.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/31947/1/0000900.pd
First radial velocity results from the MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA)
The MINiature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA) is a dedicated
observatory of four 0.7m robotic telescopes fiber-fed to a KiwiSpec
spectrograph. The MINERVA mission is to discover super-Earths in the habitable
zones of nearby stars. This can be accomplished with MINERVA's unique
combination of high precision and high cadence over long time periods. In this
work, we detail changes to the MINERVA facility that have occurred since our
previous paper. We then describe MINERVA's robotic control software, the
process by which we perform 1D spectral extraction, and our forward modeling
Doppler pipeline. In the process of improving our forward modeling procedure,
we found that our spectrograph's intrinsic instrumental profile is stable for
at least nine months. Because of that, we characterized our instrumental
profile with a time-independent, cubic spline function based on the profile in
the cross dispersion direction, with which we achieved a radial velocity
precision similar to using a conventional "sum-of-Gaussians" instrumental
profile: 1.8 m s over 1.5 months on the RV standard star HD 122064.
Therefore, we conclude that the instrumental profile need not be perfectly
accurate as long as it is stable. In addition, we observed 51 Peg and our
results are consistent with the literature, confirming our spectrograph and
Doppler pipeline are producing accurate and precise radial velocities.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, submitted to PASP, Peer-Reviewed and Accepte
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