The high energy limit of the trajectory representation of quantum mechanics

The trajectory representation in the high energy limit (Bohr correspondence principle) manifests a residual indeterminacy. This indeterminacy is compared to the indeterminacy found in the classical limit (Planck's constant to 0) [Int. J. Mod. Phys. A 15, 1363 (2000)] for particles in the classically allowed region, the classically forbiden region, and near the WKB turning point. The differences between Bohr's and Planck's principles for the trajectory representation are compared with the differences between these correspondence principles for the wave representation. The trajectory representation in the high energy limit is shown to go to neither classical nor statistical mechanics. The residual indeterminacy is contrasted to Heisenberg uncertainty. The relationship between indeterminacy and 't Hooft's information loss and equivalence classes is investigated.Comment: 12 pages of LaTeX. No figures. Incorporated into the "Proceedings of the Seventh International Wigner Symposium" (ed. M. E. Noz), 24-29 August 2001, U. of Maryland. Proceedings available at http://www.physics.umd.edu/robo

The Equivalence Postulate of Quantum Mechanics

The Equivalence Principle (EP), stating that all physical systems are connected by a coordinate transformation to the free one with vanishing energy, univocally leads to the Quantum Stationary HJ Equation (QSHJE). Trajectories depend on the Planck length through hidden variables which arise as initial conditions. The formulation has manifest p-q duality, a consequence of the involutive nature of the Legendre transform and of its recently observed relation with second-order linear differential equations. This reflects in an intrinsic psi^D-psi duality between linearly independent solutions of the Schroedinger equation. Unlike Bohm's theory, there is a non-trivial action even for bound states. No use of any axiomatic interpretation of the wave-function is made. Tunnelling is a direct consequence of the quantum potential which differs from the usual one and plays the role of particle's self-energy. The QSHJE is defined only if the ratio psi^D/psi is a local self-homeomorphism of the extended real line. This is an important feature as the L^2 condition, which in the usual formulation is a consequence of the axiomatic interpretation of the wave-function, directly follows as a basic theorem which only uses the geometrical gluing conditions of psi^D/psi at q=\pm\infty as implied by the EP. As a result, the EP itself implies a dynamical equation that does not require any further assumption and reproduces both tunnelling and energy quantization. Several features of the formulation show how the Copenhagen interpretation hides the underlying nature of QM. Finally, the non-stationary higher dimensional quantum HJ equation and the relativistic extension are derived.Comment: 1+3+140 pages, LaTeX. Invariance of the wave-function under the action of SL(2,R) subgroups acting on the reduced action explicitly reveals that the wave-function describes only equivalence classes of Planck length deterministic physics. New derivation of the Schwarzian derivative from the cocycle condition. "Legendre brackets" introduced to further make "Legendre duality" manifest. Introduction now contains examples and provides a short pedagogical review. Clarifications, conclusions, ackn. and references adde

Unexpected cell type-dependent effects of autophagy on polyglutamine aggregation revealed by natural genetic variation in C. elegans.

BACKGROUND: Monogenic protein aggregation diseases, in addition to cell selectivity, exhibit clinical variation in the age of onset and progression, driven in part by inter-individual genetic variation. While natural genetic variants may pinpoint plastic networks amenable to intervention, the mechanisms by which they impact individual susceptibility to proteotoxicity are still largely unknown. RESULTS: We have previously shown that natural variation modifies polyglutamine (polyQ) aggregation phenotypes in C. elegans muscle cells. Here, we find that a genomic locus from C. elegans wild isolate DR1350 causes two genetically separable aggregation phenotypes, without changing the basal activity of muscle proteostasis pathways known to affect polyQ aggregation. We find that the increased aggregation phenotype was due to regulatory variants in the gene encoding a conserved autophagy protein ATG-5. The atg-5 gene itself conferred dosage-dependent enhancement of aggregation, with the DR1350-derived allele behaving as hypermorph. Surprisingly, increased aggregation in animals carrying the modifier locus was accompanied by enhanced autophagy activation in response to activating treatment. Because autophagy is expected to clear, not increase, protein aggregates, we activated autophagy in three different polyQ models and found a striking tissue-dependent effect: activation of autophagy decreased polyQ aggregation in neurons and intestine, but increased it in the muscle cells. CONCLUSIONS: Our data show that cryptic natural variants in genes encoding proteostasis components, although not causing detectable phenotypes in wild-type individuals, can have profound effects on aggregation-prone proteins. Clinical applications of autophagy activators for aggregation diseases may need to consider the unexpected divergent effects of autophagy in different cell types

Beyond Severe Disabilities: National Approaches and Networking Guide

As we studied these programs, it became clear to us that most of these programs have some intrinsic values and that it would not be practical or advisable for us to evaluate the programs, Instead of rating programs, we selected programs that met at least one of our ten critical factors for program selection, and many of them met several. Our decisions were also based on a desire to present a variety of programs, especially those that seemed to be appropriate for program planners in Nebraska. We thought that it would be best to have program personnel describe their programs. Thus, a principal staff member wrote the description of each program, Some program personnel did not respond in time to meet our publication deadlines. Therefore, some programs which may be known to many rehabilitation professionals may be missing from our listing. Our listing is not intended to be exhaustive nor is it intended to include only those programs that are considered noteworthy

Research Notes : United States : Evaluation of soybean germplasm for stress tolerance and biological efficiency : To evaluate soybean germplasm for biological efficiency in - Nitrogen Fixation

Twenty commercial soybean cultivars from maturity groups IV through VIII were screened for nitrogen-fixation in a growth chamber using Rhizobium strains 3IlB 6,122 and combination of 6 and 122. The data on nodule number, nodule weight, shoot fresh weight, shoot dry weight, and acetylene reduction were recorded. Among twenty cultivars, \u27Lee 74\u27 (MG IV), \u27Bay\u27 (MG V), and \u27Essex\u27 (MG V) were identified as high N-fixers, based on more nodules and high acetylene reduction

Age grading \u3cem\u3eAn. gambiae\u3c/em\u3e and \u3cem\u3eAn. arabiensis\u3c/em\u3e using near infrared spectra and artificial neural networks

Background Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is currently complementing techniques to age-grade mosquitoes. NIRS classifies lab-reared and semi-field raised mosquitoes into \u3c or ≥ 7 days old with an average accuracy of 80%, achieved by training a regression model using partial least squares (PLS) and interpreted as a binary classifier. Methods and findings We explore whether using an artificial neural network (ANN) analysis instead of PLS regression improves the current accuracy of NIRS models for age-grading malaria transmitting mosquitoes. We also explore if directly training a binary classifier instead of training a regression model and interpreting it as a binary classifier improves the accuracy. A total of 786 and 870 NIR spectra collected from laboratory reared An. gambiae and An. arabiensis, respectively, were used and pre-processed according to previously published protocols. The ANN regression model scored root mean squared error (RMSE) of 1.6 ± 0.2 for An. gambiae and 2.8 ± 0.2 for An. arabiensis; whereas the PLS regression model scored RMSE of 3.7 ± 0.2 for An. gambiae, and 4.5 ± 0.1 for An. arabiensis. When we interpreted regression models as binary classifiers, the accuracy of the ANN regression model was 93.7 ± 1.0% for An. gambiae, and 90.2 ± 1.7% for An. arabiensis; while PLS regression model scored the accuracy of 83.9 ± 2.3% for An. gambiae, and 80.3 ± 2.1% for An. arabiensis. We also find that a directly trained binary classifier yields higher age estimation accuracy than a regression model interpreted as a binary classifier. A directly trained ANN binary classifier scored an accuracy of 99.4 ± 1.0 for An. gambiae and 99.0 ± 0.6% for An. arabiensis; while a directly trained PLS binary classifier scored 93.6 ± 1.2% for An. gambiae and 88.7 ± 1.1% for An. arabiensis. We further tested the reproducibility of these results on different independent mosquito datasets. ANNs scored higher estimation accuracies than when the same age models are trained using PLS. Regardless of the model architecture, directly trained binary classifiers scored higher accuracies on classifying age of mosquitoes than regression models translated as binary classifiers. Conclusion We recommend training models to estimate age of An. arabiensis and An. gambiae using ANN model architectures (especially for datasets with at least 70 mosquitoes per age group) and direct training of binary classifier instead of training a regression model and interpreting it as a binary classifier

Sustainability of programs to reach high risk and marginalized populations living with HIV in resource limited settings: implications for HIV treatment and prevention

The experiences of the past 10 years have shown that it is feasible to treat HIV infected patients with ART even in severely resource constrained settings. Achieving the levels of antiretroviral coverage necessary to impact the course of the HIV epidemic remains a challenge and antiretroviral therapy coverage in most nations remains short of even current recommendations. Though treatment as prevention and seek, test, treat and retain strategies are attractive, realization of the benefits of these strategies will require the ability to successfully engage key hard to reach populations such as sex workers. The successes engaging these populations in research settings as seen in the article by Huet et al are encouraging, however key questions remain regarding the sustainability of these efforts as patients are transitioned back to national HIV control programs, many of which are struggling even to maintain the current panels in care in the face declining external funding for HIV care. To achieve the critical goals of increasing treatment uptake and retention and thereby curtail the epidemic of HIV, advocacy from both medicine and public health providers will be critical to generate the support and political will necessary to sustain and enhance the necessary HIV care programs worldwide

The environmental security debate and its significance for climate change

Policymakers, military strategists and academics all increasingly hail climate change as a security issue. This article revisits the (comparatively) long-standing “environmental security debate” and asks what lessons that earlier debate holds for the push towards making climate change a security issue. Two important claims are made. First, the emerging climate security debate is in many ways a re-run of the earlier dispute. It features many of the same proponents and many of the same disagreements. These disagreements concern, amongst other things, the nature of the threat, the referent object of security and the appropriate policy responses. Second, given its many different interpretations, from an environmentalist perspective, securitisation of the climate is not necessarily a positive development

A Miniature Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer for in Situ Analysis of Mars Surface Composition and Identification of Hazard in Advance of Future Manned Exploration

Future landed missions to Mars will be guided by two strategic directions: (1) sample return to Earth, for comprehensive compositional analyses, as recommended by the 2011 NRC Planetary Decadal Survey; and (2) preparation for human exploration in the 2030s and beyond, as laid out by US space policy. The resultant mission architecture will likely require high-fidelity in situ chemical/organic sample analyses within an extremely constrained resource envelope. Both science goals (e.g., MEPAG Goal 1, return sample selection, etc.) as well as identification of any potential toxic and biological hazards to humans, must be addressed. Over the past several years of instrument development, we have found that the adaptable, compact, and highly capable technique of laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LD-TOF-MS) has significant potential to contribute substantially to these dual objectives. This concept thus addresses Challenge Area 1: instrumentation and Investigation Approaches