The in silico macrophage: toward a better understanding of inflammatory disease

Macrophages function as sentinel, cell-regulatory hubs capable of initiating, perpetuating and contributing to the resolution of an inflammatory response, following their activation from a resting state. Highly complex and varied gene expression programs within the macrophage enable such functional diversity. To investigate how programs of gene expression relate to the phenotypic attributes of the macrophage, the development of in silico modeling methods is needed. Such models need to cover multiple scales, from molecular pathways in cell-autonomous immunity and intercellular communication pathways in tissue inflammation to whole organism response pathways in systemic disease. Here, we highlight the potential of in silico macrophage modeling as an amenable and important yet under-exploited tool in aiding in our understanding of the immune inflammatory response. We also discuss how in silico macrophage modeling can help in future therapeutic strategies for modulating both the acute protective effects of inflammation (such as host defense and tissue repair) and the harmful chronic effects (such as autoimmune diseases).Comment: 7 pages plus 1 figur

Tailored codes for small quantum memories

We demonstrate that small quantum memories, realized via quantum error correction in multi-qubit devices, can benefit substantially by choosing a quantum code that is tailored to the relevant error model of the system. For a biased noise model, with independent bit and phase flips occurring at different rates, we show that a single code greatly outperforms the well-studied Steane code across the full range of parameters of the noise model, including for unbiased noise. In fact, this tailored code performs almost optimally when compared with 10,000 randomly selected stabilizer codes of comparable experimental complexity. Tailored codes can even outperform the Steane code with realistic experimental noise, and without any increase in the experimental complexity, as we demonstrate by comparison in the observed error model in a recent 7-qubit trapped ion experiment.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, supplementary material; v2 published versio

Achieving Universal Coverage Through Comprehensive Health Reform: The Vermont Experience

Provides an overview of Vermont's comprehensive health reform and the interim results of a two-year evaluation of its impact on the affordability of coverage and access to services, as well as its sustainability. Discusses lessons learned

Digital Rosetta Stone: A Conceptual Model for Maintaining Long-Term Access to Digital Documents

Due to the rapid evolution of technology, future digital systems may not be able to read and/or interpret the digital recordings made by older systems, even if those recordings are still in good condition. This thesis addresses the problem of maintaining long-term access to digital documents and provides a methodology for overcoming access difficulties due to technological obsolescence. A review was conducted to determine the long-term access methods that have already been suggested by other researchers. These previously suggested methods are then combined with other ideas that were encountered and conceived while performing research for this project. The combination of these methods and ideas led to the creation of a model, the Digital Rosetta Stone, that provides a methodology for maintaining long-term access to digital documents. The hypothesis for the model is that knowledge preserved about different storage devices and file formats can be used to recover data from obsolete media and to reconstruct the digital documents. The Digital Rosetta Stone model describes three processes that are necessary for maintaining long-term access to digital documents in their native formats--knowledge preservation, data recovery, and document reconstruction. Finally, recommendations are made for the evaluation and implementation of the Digital Rosetta Stone

Theory of stripes in quasi two dimensional rare-earth tritellurides

Even though the rare-earth tritellurides are tetragonal materials with a quasi two dimensional (2D) band structure, they have a "hidden" 1D character. The resultant near-perfect nesting of the Fermi surface leads to the formation of a charge density wave (CDW) state. We show that for this band structure, there are two possible ordered phases: A bidirectional "checkerboard" state would occur if the CDW transition temperature were sufficiently low, whereas a unidirectional "striped" state, consistent with what is observed in experiment, is favored when the transition temperature is higher. This result may also give some insight into why, in more strongly correlated systems, such as the cuprates and nickelates, the observed charge ordered states are generally stripes as opposed to checkerboards.Comment: Added contents and references, changed title and figures. Accepted to PR

The Digital Rosetta Stone: A Model for Maintaining Long-term Access to Static Digital Documents

In the past several decades, and at an increasing pace, many records that used to be stored on paper have been stored digitally on computer information systems, instead. As older technologies are replaced by newer generations of hardware and software, new schemes for storing and coding the data are introduced. Because of the rapid evolution of technology, future digital systems may not be able to read and/or interpret the digital records made and stored on these older systems, even if those records are still in good condition. We are losing the knowledge of how the old systems stored and coded information. Increasingly, therefore, when we attempt to access and recover those aging documents, we will find that we no longer have the necessary information to do that. This paper addresses the problem of maintaining long-term access to digital documents and provides a methodology for overcoming access difficulties due to technological obsolescence. We created a model, called the Digital Rosetta Stone, that provides a methodology for maintaining long-term access to digital documents. The underlying principle of the model is that knowledge preserved about different storage devices and file formats can be used to recover data from obsolete media and to reconstruct the digital documents. We describe three processes that are necessary for maintaining long-term access to digital documents in their native formats--knowledge preservation, data recovery, and document reconstruction

Summary of the CKM 2010 Working Group on Rare Decays

Rare decays were essential in the discovery of the CKM mechanism of flavour and CP violation and are highly sensitive probes of physics beyond the Standard Model. In this summary the current status and future prospects of experimental measurements and the Standard Model theory predictions of various rare B, D and K decay observables are discussed. The specific new physics sensitivities of each mode are also briefly reviewed

Extracurricular Undergraduate Research: Student Perspectives and Experiences

This qualitative research examined the experiences and perspectives of undergraduate researchers to understand why they engaged in their research, what benefits they gained from the experience, and what challenges they faced in the conduct of their research