1,013 research outputs found
Interactive Music Generation with Positional Constraints using Anticipation-RNNs
Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNS) are now widely used on sequence generation
tasks due to their ability to learn long-range dependencies and to generate
sequences of arbitrary length. However, their left-to-right generation
procedure only allows a limited control from a potential user which makes them
unsuitable for interactive and creative usages such as interactive music
generation. This paper introduces a novel architecture called Anticipation-RNN
which possesses the assets of the RNN-based generative models while allowing to
enforce user-defined positional constraints. We demonstrate its efficiency on
the task of generating melodies satisfying positional constraints in the style
of the soprano parts of the J.S. Bach chorale harmonizations. Sampling using
the Anticipation-RNN is of the same order of complexity than sampling from the
traditional RNN model. This fast and interactive generation of musical
sequences opens ways to devise real-time systems that could be used for
creative purposes.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
Correlated quantum percolation in the lowest Landau level
Our understanding of localization in the integer quantum Hall effect is
informed by a combination of semi-classical models and percolation theory.
Motivated by the effect of correlations on classical percolation we study
numerically electron localization in the lowest Landau level in the presence of
a power-law correlated disorder potential. Careful comparisons between
classical and quantum dynamics suggest that the extended Harris criterion is
applicable in the quantum case. This leads to a prediction of new localization
quantum critical points in integer quantum Hall systems with power-law
correlated disorder potentials. We demonstrate the stability of these critical
points to addition of competing short-range disorder potentials, and discuss
possible experimental realizations.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figure
Organic nanowires and chiral patterns of tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ) grown by vacuum vapor deposition
Organic nanowires and quasi-two-dimensional chiral patterns of
tetracyanoquinodimethane have been successfully generated by vacuum thermal
evaporation. The nanowires and patterns were characterized by using atomic
force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The influence of
electric charged clusters, deposition rate, and substrate temperature were
experimentally investigated. Contrary to previous reports, charged clusters are
found to be unnecessary to the chiral pattern formation. It was shown that the
nanowire and pattern formation should be mainly dominated by its special
crystallization properties, though the effect of the growth conditions cannot
be neglected.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, original draf
Spin Injection into a Luttinger Liquid
We study the effect of spin injection into a Luttinger liquid. The
spin-injection-detection setup of Johnson and Silsbee is considered; here spins
injected into the Luttinger liquid induce, across an interface with a
ferromagnetic metal, either a spin-dependent current () or a
spin-dependent boundary voltage (). We find that the spin-charge
separation nature of the Luttinger liquid affects and in a very
different fashion. In particular, in the Ohmic regime, depends on the
spin transport properties of the Luttinger liquid in essentially the same way
as it would in the case of a Fermi liquid. The implications of our results for
the spin-injection-detection experiments in the high cuprates are
discussed.Comment: 4 pages, REVTEX, 2 figures. Minor changes and corrections to typos.
To appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Alcohol and DNA Methylation: An Epigenome-Wide Association Study in Blood and Normal Breast Tissue
The biological mechanisms driving associations between alcohol consumption and chronic diseases might include epigenetic modification of DNA methylation. We explored the hypothesis that alcohol consumption is associated with methylation in an epigenome-wide association study of blood and normal breast tissue DNA. Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip (Illumina Inc., San Diego, California) array data on blood DNA methylation was examined in a discovery set of 2,878 non-Hispanic white women from the Sister Study (United States, 2004-2015) who provided detailed questionnaire information on lifetime alcohol use. Robust linear regression modeling was used to identify significant associations (false discovery rate of Q < 0.05) between the number of alcoholic drinks per week and DNA methylation at 5,458 cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) sites. Associations were replicated (P < 0.05) for 677 CpGs in an independent set of 187 blood DNA samples from the Sister Study and for 628 CpGs in an independent set of 171 normal breast DNA samples; 1,207 CpGs were replicated in either blood or normal breast, with 98 CpGs replicated in both tissues. Individual gene effects were notable for phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase (PGHDH), peptidyl-prolyl cis-Trans isomerase (PPIF), solute carrier 15 (SLC15), solute carrier family 43 member 1 (SLC43A1), and solute carrier family 7 member 11 (SLC7A11).We also found that high alcohol consumption was associated with significantly lower global methylation as measured by the average of CpGs on the entire array
Treatment of primary autoimmune cerebellar ataxia with mycophenolate
Immune-mediated ataxias account for a substantial number of sporadic otherwise idiopathic ataxias. Despite some well-characterised entities such as paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration where diagnostic markers exist, the majority of immune ataxias remained undiagnosed and untreated. We present here our experience in the treatment of suspected primary autoimmune cerebellar ataxia (PACA) using mycophenolate. All patients reported attend the Sheffield Ataxia Centre on a regular basis and had undergone extensive investigations, including genetic testing using next-generation sequencing, with other causes of ataxia excluded. The diagnosis of PACA was strongly suspected based on investigations, pattern of disease progression, and cerebellar involvement. Patients were treated with mycophenolate and monitored using MR spectroscopy of the cerebellar vermis. Thirty patients with PACA are reported here. Of these, 22 received mycophenolate (group 1). The remaining 8 were not on treatment (group 2-control group). Out of the 22 treated patients, 4 underwent serial MR spectroscopy prior to starting treatment and thus were used as controls making the total number of patients in the control group 12. The mean change of the MRS within the vermis (NAA/Cr area ratio) in the treatment group was + 0.144 ± 0.09 (improved) and in the untreated group − 0.155 ± 0.06 (deteriorated). The difference was significant. We also demonstrated a strong correlation between the spectroscopy and the SARA score. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of mycophenolate in the treatment of PACA. The results suggest that immune-mediated ataxias are potentially treatable, and that there is a need for early diagnosis to prevent permanent neurological deficit. The recently published diagnostic criteria for PACA would hopefully aid the diagnosis and treatment of this entity
The order parameter-entropy relation in some universal classes: experimental evidence
The asymptotic behaviour near phase transitions can be suitably characterized
by the scaling of with , where is
the excess entropy and is the order parameter. As is obtained by
integration of the experimental excess specific heat of the transition , it displays little experimental noise so that the curve versus is better constrained than, say,
versus . The behaviour of for different
universality classes is presented and compared. In all cases, it clearly
deviates from being a constant. The determination of this function can then be
an effective method to distinguish asymptotic critical behaviour. For
comparison, experimental data for three very different systems, Rb2CoF4,
Rb2ZnCl4 and SrTiO3, are analysed under this approach. In SrTiO3, the function
does not deviate within experimental resolution from a straight
line so that, although Q can be fitted with a non mean-field exponent, the data
can be explained by a classical Landau mean-field behaviour. In contrast, the
behaviour of for the antiferromagnetic transition in Rb2CoF4 and
the normal-incommensurate phase transition in Rb2ZCl4 is fully consistent with
the asymptotic critical behaviour of the universality class corresponding to
each case. This analysis supports, therefore, the claim that incommensurate
phase transitions in general, and the ABX compounds in particular, in
contrast with most structural phase transitions, have critical regions large
enough to be observable.Comment: 13 pp. 9 ff. 2 tab. RevTeX. Submitted to J. Phys.: Cond. Matte
Anti-Mullerian Hormone Concentrations in Premenopausal Women and Breast Cancer Risk
Laboratory models support an inverse association between anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) and breast tumor development. Human studies are lacking; one study (N=105 cases, 204 controls) with prospectively-collected serum reported the opposite—an approximate 10-fold increase in breast cancer risk comparing 4th to 1st quartile AMH levels. We investigated the relation between serum AMH levels and breast cancer risk in a case-control (N=452 cases, 902 controls) study nested within the prospective Sister Study cohort of 50,884 women. At enrollment, participants were ages 35-54, premenopausal, and completed questionnaires on medical and family history, lifestyle factors, and demographics. AMH (ng/ml) was measured by ultrasensitive ELISA in serum collected at enrollment and log-transformed for analysis. Multivariate conditional logistic regression was used to calculate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) to account for matching on age and enrollment year. Mean age at enrollment was 46.8 years with an average 2.9 years from blood draw to breast cancer diagnosis (SD=1.9). AMH concentrations were below the limit of detection (0.003 ng/ml) for ~25% of samples. Compared with samples below the LOD, women with AMH >2.84 ng/ml (90th percentile among controls) had a two-fold increase in breast cancer odds (OR=2.25; 95% CI: 1.26-4.02). For each 1-unit increase in lnAMH, overall breast cancer odds increased by 8% (OR=1.08; 95% CI: 1.02-1.15) and odds of ER-positive, invasive disease increased by 15% (OR=1.15; 95% CI: 1.05-1.25). Our findings demonstrate an overall positive relation between AMH and breast cancer
Chiral patterns arising from electrostatic growth models
Recently, unusual and strikingly beautiful seahorse-like growth patterns have
been observed under conditions of quasi-two-dimensional growth. These
`S'-shaped patterns strongly break two-dimensional inversion symmetry; however
such broken symmetry occurs only at the level of overall morphology, as the
clusters are formed from achiral molecules with an achiral unit cell. Here we
describe a mechanism which gives rise to chiral growth morphologies without
invoking microscopic chirality. This mechanism involves trapped electrostatic
charge on the growing cluster, and the enhancement of growth in regions of
large electric field. We illustrate the mechanism with a tree growth model,
with a continuum model for the motion of the one-dimensional boundary, and with
microscopic Monte Carlo simulations. Our most dramatic results are found using
the continuum model, which strongly exhibits spontaneous chiral symmetry
breaking, and in particular finned `S' shapes like those seen in the
experiments.Comment: RevTeX, 12 pages, 9 figure
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