2,222 research outputs found
Directed evolution methods for overcoming trade‐offs between protein activity and stability
Engineered proteins are being widely developed and employed in applications ranging from enzyme catalysts to therapeutic antibodies. Directed evolution, an iterative experimental process composed of mutagenesis and library screening, is a powerful technique for enhancing existing protein activities and generating entirely new ones not observed in nature. However, the process of accumulating mutations for enhanced protein activity requires chemical and structural changes that are often destabilizing, and low protein stability is a significant barrier to achieving large enhancements in activity during multiple rounds of directed evolution. Here we highlight advances in understanding the origins of protein activity/stability trade‐offs for two important classes of proteins (enzymes and antibodies) as well as innovative experimental and computational methods for overcoming such trade‐offs. These advances hold great potential for improving the generation of highly active and stable proteins that are needed to address key challenges related to human health, energy and the environment.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154495/1/aic16814_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154495/2/aic16814.pd
Optimal classical-communication-assisted local model of n-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger correlations
We present a model, motivated by the criterion of reality put forward by
Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen and supplemented by classical communication,
which correctly reproduces the quantum-mechanical predictions for measurements
of all products of Pauli operators on an n-qubit GHZ state (or ``cat state'').
The n-2 bits employed by our model are shown to be optimal for the allowed set
of measurements, demonstrating that the required communication overhead scales
linearly with n. We formulate a connection between the generation of the local
values utilized by our model and the stabilizer formalism, which leads us to
conjecture that a generalization of this method will shed light on the content
of the Gottesman-Knill theorem.Comment: New version - expanded and revised to address referee comment
Entanglement of Dirac fields in non-inertial frames
We analyze the entanglement between two modes of a free Dirac field as seen
by two relatively accelerated parties. The entanglement is degraded by the
Unruh effect and asymptotically reaches a non-vanishing minimum value in the
infinite acceleration limit. This means that the state always remains entangled
to a degree and can be used in quantum information tasks, such as
teleportation, between parties in relative uniform acceleration. We analyze our
results from the point of view afforded by the phenomenon of entanglement
sharing and in terms of recent results in the area of multi-qubit
complementarity.Comment: 15 pages, with 8 figures (Mar 2006); accepted to Physical Review A,
July 2006 - slightly revise
Response to ‘A well-established fact: Rapid mineralization of organic inputs is an important factor for soil carbon sequestration’ by Angers et al.
Letter to the edito
Long-term effect of different soil management systems and winter crops on soil acidity and vertical distribution of nutrients in a Brazilian Oxisol
“Strategies” to sustain crop productivity by reducing the fertilizer and lime demands must be developed. The use of plant species that use more efficiently the soil nutrients and tillage systems that provide nutrients accumulation in more labile forms are prerequisites for sustainable agroecosystems. This study aimed to evaluate the long period effect of cultivating different winter species under different soil management systems on vertical distribution of soil nutrients and the soil acidity distribution in soil profile. The experiment was established in 1986 with six winter treatments (blue lupine, hairy vetch, oat, radish, wheat and fallow) under conventional tillage (CT) and no-tillage (NT) in a very clayey Rhodic Hapludox in Southern Brazil. As a result of 19 years of no soil disturbance, soil chemical attributes related to soil acidity and the availability of P and K were more favorable to crops growth up to 10 cm in the soil under no-tillage than in the conventional tillage. On other hand, lime applications in low doses on the soil surface were not efficient in neutralizing the aluminum toxicity below 10 cm depth. It shows that repeated use of lime on the soil surface under NT system can be a viable alternative strategy only when soil acidity and aluminum toxicity in subsurface has been previously eliminated using the adequate amount of lime and incorporating it into the arable layer. Moreover, in the conventional tillage system P and K availability were higher below 10 cm depth compared to the no-tillage system. Even after 19 years of no soil disturbance in the NT system the available P content below 10 cm soil layer was lower than the optimal content of available P recommended to cash crops. The reduced surface K application over time was sufficient to gain adequate crop yields and to maintain the optimal content of soil available K in both soil management systems. The effects of soil management systems were predominant on the soil acidity attributes, and no effects of winter cover crops were observed on soil acidity attributes. Black oat and blue lupine were more efficient in P cycling, increasing the soil available P content especially in the surface soil under NT. The lower amount of biomass produced over time when no cover crops were used in the winter period resulted in lower P and K availability in the soil, showing the important role of growing winter species to maintain soil fertility
Soil physical properties affected by soil management and crop rotation in a long term experiment in Southern Brazil
The main objective of this work is to evaluate soil
physical properties affected by cover crop rotations and soil management after 19 years of applying NoTill and Conventional Tillage systems with different winter species on a clayey Oxisol in South Brazil
Effets de la déforestation et des cultures sur la structure des sols argileux d'Amazonie brésilienne
Integrating local environmental observations and remote sensing to better understand the life cycle of a thermokarst lake in Arctic Alaska
On 29 June 2022, local observers reported the drainage of a 0.5 ha lake near Qikiqtaġruk (Kotzebue), Alaska, that prompted this collaborative study on the life cycle of a thermokarst lake in the Arctic. Prior to its drainage, the lake expanded from 0.13 ha in 1951 to 0.54 ha in 2021 at lateral rates that ranged from 0.25 to 0.35 m/year. During the drainage event, we estimate that 18,500 m3 of water drained from the lake into Kotzebue Sound, forming a 125-m-long thermo-erosional gully that incised 2 to 14 m in ice-rich permafrost. Between 29 June and 18 August 2022, the drainage gully expanded from 1 m to >10 m wide, mobilizing ~8,500 m3 of material through erosion and thaw. By reconstructing a pre-lake disturbance terrain model, we show that thaw subsidence occurs rapidly (0.78 m/year) upon transition from tundra to lake but that over a seventy-year period it slows to 0.12 m/year. The combination of multiple remote sensing tools and local environmental observations provided a rich data set that allowed us to assess rates of lake expansion relative to rates of sub-lake permafrost thaw subsidence as well as hypothesizing about the potential role of beavers in arctic lake drainage
Computing prime factors with a Josephson phase qubit quantum processor
A quantum processor (QuP) can be used to exploit quantum mechanics to find
the prime factors of composite numbers[1]. Compiled versions of Shor's
algorithm have been demonstrated on ensemble quantum systems[2] and photonic
systems[3-5], however this has yet to be shown using solid state quantum bits
(qubits). Two advantages of superconducting qubit architectures are the use of
conventional microfabrication techniques, which allow straightforward scaling
to large numbers of qubits, and a toolkit of circuit elements that can be used
to engineer a variety of qubit types and interactions[6, 7]. Using a number of
recent qubit control and hardware advances [7-13], here we demonstrate a
nine-quantum-element solid-state QuP and show three experiments to highlight
its capabilities. We begin by characterizing the device with spectroscopy.
Next, we produces coherent interactions between five qubits and verify bi- and
tripartite entanglement via quantum state tomography (QST) [8, 12, 14, 15]. In
the final experiment, we run a three-qubit compiled version of Shor's algorithm
to factor the number 15, and successfully find the prime factors 48% of the
time. Improvements in the superconducting qubit coherence times and more
complex circuits should provide the resources necessary to factor larger
composite numbers and run more intricate quantum algorithms.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
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