3,512 research outputs found
Non-Poissonian Quantum Jumps of a Fluxonium Qubit due to Quasiparticle Excitations
As the energy relaxation time of superconducting qubits steadily improves,
non-equilibrium quasiparticle excitations above the superconducting gap emerge
as an increasingly relevant limit for qubit coherence. We measure fluctuations
in the number of quasiparticle excitations by continuously monitoring the
spontaneous quantum jumps between the states of a fluxonium qubit, in
conditions where relaxation is dominated by quasiparticle loss. Resolution on
the scale of a single quasiparticle is obtained by performing quantum
non-demolition projective measurements within a time interval much shorter than
, using a quantum limited amplifier (Josephson Parametric Converter). The
quantum jumps statistics switches between the expected Poisson distribution and
a non-Poissonian one, indicating large relative fluctuations in the
quasiparticle population, on time scales varying from seconds to hours. This
dynamics can be modified controllably by injecting quasiparticles or by seeding
quasiparticle-trapping vortices by cooling down in magnetic field
Proteins associated with pancreatic cancer survival in patients with resectable pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a highly lethal disease with a dismal prognosis. However, while most patients die within the first year of diagnosis, very rarely, a few patients can survive for >10 years. Better understanding the molecular characteristics of the pancreatic adenocarcinomas from these very-long-term survivors (VLTS) may provide clues for personalized medicine and improve current pancreatic cancer treatment. To extend our previous investigation, we examined the proteomes of individual pancreas tumor tissues from a group of VLTS patients (survival ≥10 years) and short-term survival patients (STS, survival <14 months). With a given analytical sensitivity, the protein profile of each pancreatic tumor tissue was compared to reveal the proteome alterations that may be associated with pancreatic cancer survival. Pathway analysis of the differential proteins identified suggested that MYC, IGF1R and p53 were the top three upstream regulators for the STS-associated proteins, and VEGFA, APOE and TGFβ-1 were the top three upstream regulators for the VLTS-associated proteins. Immunohistochemistry analysis using an independent cohort of 145 PDAC confirmed that the higher abundance of ribosomal protein S8 (RPS8) and prolargin (PRELP) were correlated with STS and VLTS, respectively. Multivariate Cox analysis indicated that 'High-RPS8 and Low-PRELP' was significantly associated with shorter survival time (HR=2.69, 95% CI 1.46-4.92, P=0.001). In addition, galectin-1, a previously identified protein with its abundance aversely associated with pancreatic cancer survival, was further evaluated for its significance in cancer-associated fibroblasts. Knockdown of galectin-1 in pancreatic cancer-associated fibroblasts dramatically reduced cell migration and invasion. The results from our study suggested that PRELP, LGALS1 and RPS8 might be significant prognostic factors, and RPS8 and LGALS1 could be potential therapeutic targets to improve pancreatic cancer survival if further validated
Thermal/Electronic Transport Properties and Two-Phase Mixtures in La_{5/8-x}Pr_{x}Ca_{3/8}MnO_{3}
We measured thermal conductivity, k, thermoelectric power, S, and dc electric
conductivity, sigma, of La_{5/8-x}Pr_{x}Ca_{3/8}MnO_{3}, showing an intricate
interplay between metallic ferromagnetism (FM) and charge ordering (CO)
instability. The change of k, S and sigma with temperature (T) and x agrees
well with the effective medium theories for binary metal-insulator mixtures.
This agreement clearly demonstrates that with the variation of T as well as x,
the relative volumes of FM and CO phases drastically change and percolative
metal-insulator transition occurs in the mixture of FM and CO domains.Comment: 8 pages, 4 eps figures included, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
D'atri spaces of type k and related classes of geometries concerning jacobi operators
In this article we continue the study of the geometry of -D'Atri spaces,
( denotes the dimension of the manifold) began by
the second author. It is known that -D'Atri spaces, are related
to properties of Jacobi operators along geodesics, since she has shown
that , are invariant
under the geodesic flow for any unit tangent vector . Here, assuming that
the Riemannian manifold is a D'Atri space, we prove in our main result that
is also invariant under the geodesic flow if . In addition, other properties of Jacobi operators related to the
Ledger conditions are obtained and they are used to give applications to
Iwasawa type spaces. In the class of D'Atri spaces of Iwasawa type, we show two
different characterizations of the symmetric spaces of noncompact type: they
are exactly the -spaces and on the other hand they are -D'Atri
spaces for some In the last case, they are -D'Atri for all
as well. In particular, Damek-Ricci spaces that are -D'Atri
for some are symmetric.
Finally, we characterize -D'Atri spaces for all as the -spaces (geodesic symmetries preserve the principal curvatures of
small geodesic spheres). Moreover, applying this result in the case of 4%
-dimensional homogeneous spaces we prove that the properties of being a D'Atri
(1-D'Atri) space, or a 3-D'Atri space, are equivalent to the property of being
a -D'Atri space for all .Comment: 19 pages. This paper substitute the previous one where one Theorem
has been deleted and one section has been adde
Elevated level of anterior gradient-2 in pancreatic juice from patients with pre-malignant pancreatic neoplasia
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasias (PanINs) are precursors of malignant pancreatic cancer, an ideal stage for early cancer detection. We applied quantitative proteomics to identify aberrantly elevated proteins in pancreatic juice samples derived from patients with PanIN3.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Twenty proteins were found elevated in all three PanIN juices by at least two-fold. Among these proteins, anterior gradient-2 (AGR2) was found to be 2-10 fold elevated in PanIN3 juice samples analyzed by quantitative proteomics. An ELISA assay was developed to evaluate AGR2 levels in 51 pancreatic juice samples and 23 serum samples from patients with pancreatic cancer, pre-malignant lesions (including PanIN3, PanIN2, Intraductal Papillary Mucinous Neoplasms (IPMNs)) and benign disease controls (including chronic pancreatitis). AGR2 levels in the pancreatic juice samples were found significantly elevated in patients with pre-malignant conditions (PanINs and IPMNs) as well as pancreatic cancer compared to control samples (p ≤ 0.03). By ROC analysis, the AGR2 ELISA achieved 67% sensitivity at 90% specificity in predicting PanIN3 juice samples from the benign disease controls.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results suggest that elevation of AGR2 levels in pancreatic juice occurs in early pancreatic cancer progression and could be further investigated as a potential candidate juice biomarker for early detection of pancreatic cancer.</p
Anomalous field-dependent specific heat in charge-ordered PrCaMnO and LaCaMnO
We report low temperature specific heat measurements of
PrCaMnO () and
LaCaMnO with and without applied magnetic field. An
excess specific heat, , of non-magnetic origin associated with
charge ordering is found for all the samples. A magnetic field sufficient to
induce the transition from the charge-ordered state to the ferromagnetic
metallic state does not completely remove the contribution. This
suggests that the charge ordering is not completely destroyed by a "melting"
magnetic field. In addition, the specific heat of the
PrCaMnO compounds exhibit a large contribution linear in
temperature () originating from magnetic and charge disorder.Comment: submitted to PRL 5 pages, 3 figures include
Spin-wave scattering at low temperatures in manganite films
The temperature and magnetic field dependence of the resistivity
has been measured for LaSrMnO (y=0 and 0.128)
films grown on (100) SrTiO substrates. The low-temperature in the
ferromagnetic metallic region follows well with being the residual resistivity. We attribute the second and third term to
small-polaron and spin-wave scattering, respectively. Our analysis based on
these scattering mechanisms also gives the observed difference between the
metal-insulator transition temperatures of the films studied. Transport
measurements in applied magnetic field further indicate that spin-wave
scattering is a key transport mechanism at low temperatures.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. to appear in Phys. Rev.
Improvements to the APBS biomolecular solvation software suite
The Adaptive Poisson-Boltzmann Solver (APBS) software was developed to solve
the equations of continuum electrostatics for large biomolecular assemblages
that has provided impact in the study of a broad range of chemical, biological,
and biomedical applications. APBS addresses three key technology challenges for
understanding solvation and electrostatics in biomedical applications: accurate
and efficient models for biomolecular solvation and electrostatics, robust and
scalable software for applying those theories to biomolecular systems, and
mechanisms for sharing and analyzing biomolecular electrostatics data in the
scientific community. To address new research applications and advancing
computational capabilities, we have continually updated APBS and its suite of
accompanying software since its release in 2001. In this manuscript, we discuss
the models and capabilities that have recently been implemented within the APBS
software package including: a Poisson-Boltzmann analytical and a
semi-analytical solver, an optimized boundary element solver, a geometry-based
geometric flow solvation model, a graph theory based algorithm for determining
p values, and an improved web-based visualization tool for viewing
electrostatics
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