1,758 research outputs found
Orphanhood and caregiver loss among children based on new global excess COVID-19 death estimates
The availability of new excess mortality data enables us to update global minimum estimates of COVID-19 orphanhood and caregiver death among children.1-4 Consequences for children can be devastating, including institutionalization, abuse, traumatic grief, mental health problems, adolescent pregnancy, poor educational outcomes, and chronic and infectious diseases.4,5 Global totals and country comparisons were previously hampered by inconsistencies in COVID-19 testing and incomplete death reporting. The new orphanhood estimates derived here based on excess deaths provide a comprehensive measure of COVID-19’s long-term impact on orphanhood and caregiver loss
Adaptive walks on time-dependent fitness landscapes
The idea of adaptive walks on fitness landscapes as a means of studying
evolutionary processes on large time scales is extended to fitness landscapes
that are slowly changing over time. The influence of ruggedness and of the
amount of static fitness contributions are investigated for model landscapes
derived from Kauffman's landscapes. Depending on the amount of static
fitness contributions in the landscape, the evolutionary dynamics can be
divided into a percolating and a non-percolating phase. In the percolating
phase, the walker performs a random walk over the regions of the landscape with
high fitness.Comment: 7 pages, 6 eps-figures, RevTeX, submitted to Phys. Rev.
From quantum cellular automata to quantum lattice gases
A natural architecture for nanoscale quantum computation is that of a quantum
cellular automaton. Motivated by this observation, in this paper we begin an
investigation of exactly unitary cellular automata. After proving that there
can be no nontrivial, homogeneous, local, unitary, scalar cellular automaton in
one dimension, we weaken the homogeneity condition and show that there are
nontrivial, exactly unitary, partitioning cellular automata. We find a one
parameter family of evolution rules which are best interpreted as those for a
one particle quantum automaton. This model is naturally reformulated as a two
component cellular automaton which we demonstrate to limit to the Dirac
equation. We describe two generalizations of this automaton, the second of
which, to multiple interacting particles, is the correct definition of a
quantum lattice gas.Comment: 22 pages, plain TeX, 9 PostScript figures included with epsf.tex
(ignore the under/overfull \vbox error messages); minor typographical
corrections and journal reference adde
Quantum mechanics of lattice gas automata. I. One particle plane waves and potentials
Classical lattice gas automata effectively simulate physical processes such
as diffusion and fluid flow (in certain parameter regimes) despite their
simplicity at the microscale. Motivated by current interest in quantum
computation we recently defined quantum lattice gas automata; in this paper we
initiate a project to analyze which physical processes these models can
effectively simulate. Studying the single particle sector of a one dimensional
quantum lattice gas we find discrete analogues of plane waves and wave packets,
and then investigate their behaviour in the presence of inhomogeneous
potentials.Comment: 19 pages, plain TeX, 14 PostScript figures included with epsf.tex
(ignore the under/overfull \vbox error messages), two additional large
figures available upon reques
Interrogating cortical function with transcranial magnetic stimulation: insights from neurodegenerative disease and stroke
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is an accessible, non-invasive technique to study cortical function in vivo. TMS studies have provided important pathophysiological insights across a range of neurodegenerative disorders and enhanced our understanding of brain reorganisation after stroke. In neurodegenerative disease, TMS has provided novel insights into the function of cortical output cells and the related intracortical interneuronal networks. Characterisation of cortical hyperexcitability in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and altered motor cortical function in frontotemporal dementia, demonstration of cholinergic deficits in Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease are key examples where TMS has led to advances in understanding of disease pathophysiology and potential mechanisms of propagation, with the potential for diagnostic applications. In stroke, TMS methodology has facilitated the understanding of cortical reorganisation that underlie functional recovery. These insights are critical to the development of effective and targeted rehabilitation strategies in stroke. The present review will provide an overview of cortical function measures obtained using TMS and how such measures may provide insight into brain function. Through an improved understanding of cortical function across a range of neurodegenerative disorders, and identification of changes in neural structure and function associated with stroke that underlie clinical recovery, more targeted therapeutic approaches may now be developed in an evolving era of precision medicine
Lyapunov spectral analysis of a nonequilibrium Ising-like transition
By simulating a nonequilibrium coupled map lattice that undergoes an
Ising-like phase transition, we show that the Lyapunov spectrum and related
dynamical quantities such as the dimension correlation length~ are
insensitive to the onset of long-range ferromagnetic order. As a function of
lattice coupling constant~ and for certain lattice maps, the Lyapunov
dimension density and other dynamical order parameters go through a minimum.
The occurrence of this minimum as a function of~ depends on the number of
nearest neighbors of a lattice point but not on the lattice symmetry, on the
lattice dimensionality or on the position of the Ising-like transition. In
one-space dimension, the spatial correlation length associated with magnitude
fluctuations and the length~ are approximately equal, with both
varying linearly with the radius of the lattice coupling.Comment: 29 pages of text plus 15 figures, uses REVTeX macros. Submitted to
Phys. Rev. E
Deletion of the eIFiso4G subunit of the Arabidopsis eIFiso4F translation initiation complex impairs health and viability
Arabidopsis thaliana knockout lines for the plant-specific eukaryotic translation initiation factors eIFiso4G1 (i4g1) and eIFiso4G2 (i4g2) genes have been obtained. To address the potential for functional redundancy of these genes, homozygous double mutant lines were generated by crossing individual knockout lines. Both single and double mutant plants were analyzed for changes in gross morphology, development, and responses to selected environmental stressors. Single gene knockouts appear to have minimal effect on morphology, germination rate, growth rate, flowering time, or fertility. However, double mutant i4g1/i4g2 knockout plants show reduced germination rates, slow growth rates, moderate chlorosis, impaired fertility and reduced long term seed viability. Double mutant plants also exhibit altered responses to dehydration, salinity, and heat stress. The i4g2 and i4g1/i4g2 double mutant has reduced amounts of chlorophyll a and b suggesting a role in the expression of chloroplast proteins. General protein synthesis did not appear to be affected as the levels of gross protein expression did not appear to change in the mutants. The lack of a phenotype for either of the single mutants suggests there is considerable functional overlap. However, the strong phenotypes observed for the double mutant indicates that the individual gene products may have specialized roles in the expression of proteins involved in plant growth and development
Data incongruence and the problem of avian louse phylogeny
Recent studies based on different types of data (i.e. morphological and molecular) have supported conflicting phylogenies for the genera of avian feather lice (Ischnocera: Phthiraptera). We analyse new and published data from morphology and from mitochondrial (12S rRNA and COI) and nuclear (EF1-) genes to explore the sources of this incongruence and explain these conflicts. Character convergence, multiple substitutions at high divergences, and ancient radiation over a short period of time have contributed to the problem of resolving louse phylogeny with the data currently available. We show that apparent incongruence between the molecular datasets is largely attributable to rate variation and nonstationarity of base composition. In contrast, highly significant character incongruence leads to topological incongruence between the molecular and morphological data. We consider ways in which biases in the sequence data could be misleading, using several maximum likelihood models and LogDet corrections. The hierarchical structure of the data is explored using likelihood mapping and SplitsTree methods. Ultimately, we concede there is strong discordance between the molecular and morphological data and apply the conditional combination approach in this case. We conclude that higher level phylogenetic relationships within avian Ischnocera remain extremely problematic. However, consensus between datasets is beginning to converge on a stable phylogeny for avian lice, at and below the familial rank
Size and shape constancy in consumer virtual reality
With the increase in popularity of consumer virtual reality headsets, for research and other applications, it is important to understand the accuracy of 3D perception in VR. We investigated the perceptual accuracy of near-field virtual distances using a size and shape constancy task, in two commercially available devices. Participants wore either the HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift and adjusted the size of a virtual stimulus to match the geometric qualities (size and depth) of a physical stimulus they were able to refer to haptically. The judgments participants made allowed for an indirect measure of their perception of the egocentric, virtual distance to the stimuli. The data show under-constancy and are consistent with research from carefully calibrated psychophysical techniques. There was no difference in the degree of constancy found in the two headsets. We conclude that consumer virtual reality headsets provide a sufficiently high degree of accuracy in distance perception, to allow them to be used confidently in future experimental vision science, and other research applications in psychology
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