1,087 research outputs found
Coherent manipulation of electron spins up to ambient temperatures in Cr(S=1/2) doped KNbO
We report coherent spin manipulation on Cr (\emph{S} = 1/2, \emph{I} =
0) doped KNbO, which constitutes a dilute two-level model relevant for
use as a spin qubit. Rabi oscillations are observed for the first time in a
spin system based on transition metal oxides up to room temperature. At liquid
helium temperature the phase coherence relaxation time \emph{} reaches
s and, with a Rabi frequency of 20 MHz, yields a single qubit
figure of merit \emph{} of about 500. This shows that a diluted ensemble
of Cr (\emph{S} = 1/2) doped KNbO is a potential candidate for
solid-state quantum information processing.Comment: 4 page
Fifteen years of NESDA Neuroimaging:An overview of results related to clinical profile and bio-social risk factors of major depressive disorder and common anxiety disorders
The longitudinal Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA) Neuroimaging study was set up in 2003 to investigate whether neuroanatomical and functional abnormalities during tasks of primary emotional processing, executive planning and memory formation, and intrinsic brain connectivity are i) shared by individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) and common anxiety disorders; and ii) characterized by symptomatologyspecific abnormalities. Furthermore, questions related to individual variations in vulnerability for onset, comorbidity, and longitudinal course could be investigated.& nbsp; Between 2005 and 2007, 233 individuals fulfilling a diagnosis of MDD, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder and/or generalized anxiety disorder and 68 healthy controls aging between 18 and 57 were invited from the NESDA main sample (n = 2981). An emotional faces processing task, an emotional word-encoding task, and an executive planning task were administered during 3T BOLD-fMRI acquisitions. In addition, resting state BOLDfMRI was acquired and T1-weighted structural imaging was performed. All participants were invited to participate in the two-year and nine-year follow-up MRI measurement.& nbsp; Fifteen years of NESDA Neuroimaging demonstrated common morphological and neurocognitive abnormalities across individuals with depression and anxiety disorders. It however provided limited support for the idea of more extensive abnormalities in patients suffering from both depression and anxiety, despite their worse prognosis. Risk factors including childhood maltreatment and specific risk genes had an emotion processing modulating effect, apparently stronger than effects of diagnostic labels. Furthermore, brain imaging data, especially during emotion processing seemed valuable for predicting the long-term course of affective disorders, outperforming prediction based on clinical information alone
Zinc Finger Artificial Transcription Factor-Mediated Chloroplast Genome Interrogation in Arabidopsis thaliana
The large majority of core photosynthesis proteins in plants are encoded by nuclear genes, but a small portion have been retained in the plastid genome. These plastid-encoded chloroplast proteins fulfill essential roles in the process of photochemistry. Here, we report the use of nuclear-encoded, chloroplast-targeted zinc finger artificial transcription factors (ZF-ATFs) with effector domains of prokaryotic origin to modulate the expression of chloroplast genes, and to enhance the photochemical activity and growth characteristics of Arabidopsis thaliana plants. This technique was named chloroplast genome interrogation. Using this novel approach, we obtained evidence that ZF-ATFs can indeed be translocated to chloroplasts of Arabidopsis plants, can modulate their growth and operating light use efficiency of PSII, and finally can induce statistically significant changes in the expression levels of several chloroplast genes. Our data suggest that the distortion of chloroplast gene expression might be a feasible approach to manipulate the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants
An Arabidopsis mutant with high operating efficiency of Photosystem II and low chlorophyll fluorescence
Mycobacterial type VII secretion systems
Mycobacteria, such as the pathogen M. tuberculosis, utilize up to five paralogous type VII secretion systems to transport proteins across their cell envelope. Since these proteins associate in pairs that depend on each other for transport to a different extent, the secretion pathway to the bacterial surface remained challenging to address. Structural characterization of the inner-membrane embedded secretion machineries along with recent advances on the substrates' co-dependencies for transport allow for the first time more detailed and testable models for secretion.Biophysical Structural Chemistr
Multiphoton coherent manipulation in large-spin qubits
Large spin Mn2+ ions (S=5/2) diluted in a non-magnetic MgO matrix of high
crystalline symmetry are used to realize a six level system that can be
operated by means of multi-photon coherent Rabi oscillations. This spin system
has a very small anisotropy which can be tuned in-situ to reversibly transform
the system between harmonic and non-harmonic level configurations. Decoherence
effects are strongly suppressed as a result of the quasi-isotropic electron
interaction with the crystal field and with the 55Mn nuclear spins. These
results suggest new ways of manipulating, reading and resetting spin quantum
states which can be applied to encode a qubit across several quantum levels.Comment: Published versio
Immunoglobulin G fragment crystallizable glycosylation after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is dissimilar to donor profiles
Immunoglobulin G (IgG) fragment crystallizable (Fc) N-glycosylation has a large influence on the affinity of the antibody for binding to Fcγ-receptors (FcγRs) and C1q protein, thereby influencing immune effector functions. IgG Fc glycosylation is known to be partly regulated by genetics and partly by stimuli in the microenvironment of the B cell. Following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), and in the presence of (almost) complete donor chimerism, IgG is expected to be produced by, and glycosylated in, B cells of donor origin. We investigated to what extent IgG glycosylation in patients after transplantation is determined by factors of the donor (genetics) or the recipient (environment). Using an IgG subclass-specific liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry method, we analyzed the plasma/serum IgG Fc glycosylation profiles of 34 pediatric patients pre-HSCT and at 6 and 12 months post-HSCT and compared these to the profiles of their donors and age-matched healthy controls. Patients treated for hematological malignancies as well as for non-malignant hematological diseases showed after transplantation a lower Fc galactosylation than their donors. Especially for the patients treated for leukemia, the post-HSCT Fc glycosylation profiles were more similar to the pre-HSCT recipient profiles than to profiles of the donors. Pre-HSCT, the leukemia patient group showed as distinctive feature a decrease in sialylation and in hybrid-type glycans as compared to healthy controls, which both normalized after transplantation. Our data suggest that IgG Fc glycosylation in children after HSCT does not directly mimic the donor profile, but is rather determined by persisting environmental factors of the host
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