793 research outputs found
When coercive economies fail: the political economy of the US South after the boll weevil
How do coercive societies respond to negative economic shocks? We explore this question in the
early 20th-Century United States South. Since before the nation's founding, cotton cultivation
formed the politics and institutions in the South, including the development of slavery, the lack of
democratic institutions, and intergroup relations between whites and blacks. We leverage the
natural experiment generated by the boll weevil infestation from 1892-1922, which disrupted
cotton production in the region. Panel difference-in-differences results provide evidence that
Southern society became less violent and repressive in response to this shock with fewer
lynchings and less Confederate monument construction. Cross-sectional results leveraging spatial
variation in the infestation and historical cotton specialization show that affected counties had
less KKK activity, higher non-white voter registration, and were less likely to experience
contentious politics in the form of protests during the 1960s. To assess mechanisms, we show that
the reductions in coercion were responses to African American out-migration. Even in a context
of antidemocratic institutions, ordinary people can retain political power through the ability to
"vote with their feet."First author draf
Author Correction: Novel Chlamydia species isolated from snakes are temperature-sensitive and exhibit decreased susceptibility to azithromycin
Decoherence of quantum registers
The dynamical evolution of a quantum register of arbitrary length coupled to
an environment of arbitrary coherence length is predicted within a relevant
model of decoherence. The results are reported for quantum bits (qubits)
coupling individually to different environments (`independent decoherence') and
qubits interacting collectively with the same reservoir (`collective
decoherence'). In both cases, explicit decoherence functions are derived for
any number of qubits. The decay of the coherences of the register is shown to
strongly depend on the input states: we show that this sensitivity is a
characteristic of types of coupling (collective and independent) and not
only of the collective coupling, as has been reported previously. A non-trivial
behaviour ("recoherence") is found in the decay of the off-diagonal elements of
the reduced density matrix in the specific situation of independent
decoherence. Our results lead to the identification of decoherence-free states
in the collective decoherence limit. These states belong to subspaces of the
system's Hilbert space that do not get entangled with the environment, making
them ideal elements for the engineering of ``noiseless'' quantum codes. We also
discuss the relations between decoherence of the quantum register and
computational complexity based on the new dynamical results obtained for the
register density matrix.Comment: Typos corrected. Discussion and references added. 1 figure + 3 tables
added. This updated version contains 13 (double column) pages + 8 figures.
PRA in pres
Caribbean Corals in Crisis: Record Thermal Stress, Bleaching, and Mortality in 2005
BACKGROUND The rising temperature of the world's oceans has become a major threat to coral reefs globally as the severity and frequency of mass coral bleaching and mortality events increase. In 2005, high ocean temperatures in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean resulted in the most severe bleaching event ever recorded in the basin. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Satellite-based tools provided warnings for coral reef managers and scientists, guiding both the timing and location of researchers' field observations as anomalously warm conditions developed and spread across the greater Caribbean region from June to October 2005. Field surveys of bleaching and mortality exceeded prior efforts in detail and extent, and provided a new standard for documenting the effects of bleaching and for testing nowcast and forecast products. Collaborators from 22 countries undertook the most comprehensive documentation of basin-scale bleaching to date and found that over 80% of corals bleached and over 40% died at many sites. The most severe bleaching coincided with waters nearest a western Atlantic warm pool that was centered off the northern end of the Lesser Antilles. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE Thermal stress during the 2005 event exceeded any observed from the Caribbean in the prior 20 years, and regionally-averaged temperatures were the warmest in over 150 years. Comparison of satellite data against field surveys demonstrated a significant predictive relationship between accumulated heat stress (measured using NOAA Coral Reef Watch's Degree Heating Weeks) and bleaching intensity. This severe, widespread bleaching and mortality will undoubtedly have long-term consequences for reef ecosystems and suggests a troubled future for tropical marine ecosystems under a warming climate.This work was partially supported by salaries from the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program to the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program authors. NOAA provided funding to Caribbean ReefCheck investigators to undertake surveys of bleaching and mortality. Otherwise, no funding from outside authors' institutions was necessary for the undertaking of this study. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
Decoherence control in microwave cavities
We present a scheme able to protect the quantum states of a cavity mode
against the decohering effects of photon loss. The scheme preserves quantum
states with a definite parity, and improves previous proposals for decoherence
control in cavities. It is implemented by sending single atoms, one by one,
through the cavity. The atomic state gets first correlated to the photon number
parity. The wrong parity results in an atom in the upper state. The atom in
this state is then used to inject a photon in the mode via adiabatic transfer,
correcting the field parity. By solving numerically the exact master equation
of the system, we show that the protection of simple quantum states could be
experimentally demonstrated using presently available experimental apparatus.Comment: 13 pages, RevTeX, 8 figure
Haplotype-based association analysis of general cognitive ability in Generation Scotland, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, and UK Biobank
Background: Cognitive ability is a heritable trait with a polygenic architecture, for which several associated variants have been identified using genotype-based and candidate gene approaches. Haplotype-based analyses are a complementary technique that take phased genotype data into account, and potentially provide greater statistical power to detect lower frequency variants.
Methods: In the present analysis, three cohort studies (ntotal = 48,002) were utilised: Generation Scotland: Scottish Family Health Study (GS:SFHS), the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), and the UK Biobank. A genome-wide haplotype-based meta-analysis of cognitive ability was performed, as well as a targeted meta-analysis of several gene coding regions.
Results: None of the assessed haplotypes provided evidence of a statistically significant association with cognitive ability in either the individual cohorts or the meta-analysis. Within the meta-analysis, the haplotype with the lowest observed P-value overlapped with the D-amino acid oxidase activator (DAOA) gene coding region. This coding region has previously been associated with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and Alzheimerâs disease, which have all been shown to impact upon cognitive ability. Another potentially interesting region highlighted within the current genome-wide association analysis (GS:SFHS: P = 4.09 x 10-7), was the butyrylcholinesterase (BCHE) gene coding region. The protein encoded by BCHE has been shown to influence the progression of Alzheimerâs disease and its role in cognitive ability merits further investigation.
Conclusions: Although no evidence was found for any haplotypes with a statistically significant association with cognitive ability, our results did provide further evidence that the genetic variants contributing to the variance of cognitive ability are likely to be of small effect
Intercomparison of Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) Measurements for Atmospheric Science During the LAPSE-RATE Campaign
Small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) are rapidly transforming atmospheric research. With the advancement of the development and application of these systems, improving knowledge of best practices for accurate measurement is critical for achieving scientific goals. We present results from an intercomparison of atmospheric measurement data from the Lower Atmospheric Process Studies at Elevationâa Remotely piloted Aircraft Team Experiment (LAPSE-RATE) field campaign. We evaluate a total of 38 individual sUAS with 23 unique sensor and platform configurations using a meteorological tower for reference measurements. We assess precision, bias, and time response of sUAS measurements of temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed, and wind direction. Most sUAS measurements show broad agreement with the reference, particularly temperature and wind speed, with mean value differences of 1.6 ± 2.6 °C and 0.22 ± 0.59 m/s for all sUAS, respectively. sUAS platform and sensor configurations were found to contribute significantly to measurement accuracy. Sensor configurations, which included proper aspiration and radiation shielding of sensors, were found to provide the most accurate thermodynamic measurements (temperature and relative humidity), whereas sonic anemometers on multirotor platforms provided the most accurate wind measurements (horizontal speed and direction). We contribute both a characterization and assessment of sUAS for measuring atmospheric parameters, and identify important challenges and opportunities for improving scientific measurements with sUAS
Broad targeting of resistance to apoptosis in cancer
Apoptosis or programmed cell death is natural way of removing aged cells from the body. Most of the anti-cancer therapies trigger apoptosis induction and related cell death networks to eliminate malignant cells. However, in cancer, de-regulated apoptotic signaling, particularly the activation of an anti-apoptotic systems, allows cancer cells to escape this program leading to uncontrolled proliferation resulting in tumor survival, therapeutic resistance and recurrence of cancer. This resistance is a complicated phenomenon that emanates from the interactions of various molecules and signaling pathways. In this comprehensive review we discuss the various factors contributing to apoptosis resistance in cancers. The key resistance targets that are discussed include (1) Bcl-2 and Mcl-1 proteins; (2) autophagy processes; (3) necrosis and necroptosis; (4) heat shock protein signaling; (5) the proteasome pathway; (6) epigenetic mechanisms; and (7) aberrant nuclear export signaling. The shortcomings of current therapeutic modalities are highlighted and a broad spectrum strategy using approaches including (a) gossypol; (b) epigallocatechin-3-gallate; (c) UMI-77 (d) triptolide and (e) selinexor that can be used to overcome cell death resistance is presented. This review provides a roadmap for the design of successful anti-cancer strategies that overcome resistance to apoptosis for better therapeutic outcome in patients with cancer
The Protein Maker: an automated system for high-throughput parallel purification
The Protein Maker instrument addresses a critical bottleneck in structural genomics by allowing automated purification and buffer testing of multiple protein targets in parallel with a single instrument. Here, the use of this instrument to (i) purify multiple influenza-virus proteins in parallel for crystallization trials and (ii) identify optimal lysis-buffer conditions prior to large-scale protein purification is described
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