Exponential suppression of thermal conductance using coherent transport and heterostructures

We consider coherent thermal conductance through multilayer photonic crystal heterostructures, consisting of a series of cascaded non-identical photonic crystals. We show that thermal conductance can be suppressed exponentially with the number of cascaded crystals, due to the mismatch between photonic bands of all crystals in the heterostructure.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Traffic simulation of connected and autonomous freight vehicles to increase traffic throughput via road tunnel networks

This paper simulates traffic at the Dartford-Thurrock Crossing Tunnel, Kent, UK. Using a traffic simulation model, Connected and Autonomous Freight Vehicles (CAV-F) are simulated alongside conventional light goods vehicles, to determine the feasibility of increasing the traffic throughput at the tunnel. The results show that with the use of CAV-F, the overall traffic flow is increased by --33% from current flow of --5,000 vehicles/hr. With the reduction in the headway and standstill distance and increase in scope of intelligent connectivity and traffic speed limit, the average congestion and travel time are reduced even at a higher traffic concentration. By analysing the results, it has thus been possible to highlight the benefits to traffic management and road utilisation by introducing CAV-F into our road network, in the long term

A roadmap towards the smart factory

Industry 4.0 is the transformation of industrial manufacturing through digitisation and the use of different emerging technological advancement, when coupled together forms the smart factory. However, the roadmap of adoption is a journey rather than an absolute solution. The objectives of this paper are to give general insights and a roadmap towards the smart factory. A six-gear roadmap concept is proposed and discussed together with different challenges and practical ways of overcoming them. The significance of this paper can serve as a steppingstone for a detailed strategic roadmap for a successful implementation and transformation into a smart factory

Simultaneous automatic scoring and co-registration of hormone receptors in tumour areas in whole slide images of breast cancer tissue slides

Aims: Automation of downstream analysis may offer many potential benefits to routine histopathology. One area of interest for automation is in the scoring of multiple immunohistochemical markers in order to predict the patient's response to targeted therapies. Automated serial slide analysis of this kind requires robust registration to identify common tissue regions across sections. We present an automated method for co-localised scoring of Estrogen Receptor and Progesterone Receptor (ER/PR) in breast cancer core biopsies using whole slide images. Methods and Results: Regions of tumour in a series of fifty consecutive breast core biopsies were identified by annotation on H&E whole slide images. Sequentially cut immunohistochemical stained sections were scored manually, before being digitally scanned and then exported into JPEG 2000 format. A two-stage registration process was performed to identify the annotated regions of interest in the immunohistochemistry sections, which were then scored using the Allred system. Overall correlation between manual and automated scoring for ER and PR was 0.944 and 0.883 respectively, with 90% of ER and 80% of PR scores within in one point or less of agreement. Conclusions: This proof of principle study indicates slide registration can be used as a basis for automation of the downstream analysis for clinically relevant biomarkers in the majority of cases. The approach is likely to be improved by implantation of safeguarding analysis steps post registration

SWIPE: a bolometric polarimeter for the Large-Scale Polarization Explorer

The balloon-borne LSPE mission is optimized to measure the linear polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background at large angular scales. The Short Wavelength Instrument for the Polarization Explorer (SWIPE) is composed of 3 arrays of multi-mode bolometers cooled at 0.3K, with optical components and filters cryogenically cooled below 4K to reduce the background on the detectors. Polarimetry is achieved by means of large rotating half-wave plates and wire-grid polarizers in front of the arrays. The polarization modulator is the first component of the optical chain, reducing significantly the effect of instrumental polarization. In SWIPE we trade angular resolution for sensitivity. The diameter of the entrance pupil of the refractive telescope is 45 cm, while the field optics is optimized to collect tens of modes for each detector, thus boosting the absorbed power. This approach results in a FWHM resolution of 1.8, 1.5, 1.2 degrees at 95, 145, 245 GHz respectively. The expected performance of the three channels is limited by photon noise, resulting in a final sensitivity around 0.1-0.2 uK per beam, for a 13 days survey covering 25% of the sky.Comment: In press. Copyright 2012 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibite

CRL4-like Clr4 complex in Schizosaccharomyces pombe depends on an exposed surface of Dos1 for heterochromatin silencing

Repressive histone H3 lysine 9 methylation (H3K9me) and its recognition by HP1 proteins are necessary for pericentromeric heterochromatin formation. In Schizosaccharomyces pombe, H3K9me deposition depends on the RNAi pathway. Cryptic loci regulator 4 (Clr4), the only known H3K9 methyltransferase in this organism, is a subunit of the Clr4 methyltransferase complex (CLRC), whose composition is reminiscent of a CRL4 type cullin-RING ubiquitin ligase (CRL) including its cullin Cul4, the RING-box protein Pip1, the DNA damage binding protein 1 homolog Rik1, and the DCAF-like protein delocalization of Swi6 1 (Dos1). Dos2 and Stc1 have been proposed to be part of the complex but do not bear similarity to canonical ubiquitin ligase components. CLRC is an active E3 ligase in vitro, and this activity is necessary for heterochromatin assembly in vivo. The similarity between CLRC and the CRLs suggests that the WD repeat protein Dos1 will act to mediate target recognition and substrate specificity for CLRC. Here, we present a pairwise interaction screen that confirms a CRL4-like subunit arrangement and further identifies Dos2 as a central component of the complex and recruiter of Stc1. We determined the crystal structure of the Dos1 WD repeat domain, revealing an eight-bladed beta-propeller fold. Functional mapping of the putative target-binding surface of Dos1 identifies key residues required for heterochromatic silencing, consistent with Dos1's role as the specificity factor for the E3 ubiquitin ligase

Persistent homology for fast tumor segmentation in whole slide histology images

Automated tumor segmentation in Hematoxylin & Eosin stained histology images is an essential step towards a computer-aided diagnosis system. In this work we propose a novel tumor segmentation approach for a histology whole-slide image (WSI) by exploring the degree of connectivity among nuclei using the novel idea of persistent homology profiles. Our approach is based on 3 steps: 1) selection of exemplar patches from the training dataset using convolutional neural networks (CNNs); 2) construction of persistent homology profiles based on topological features; 3) classification using variant of k-nearest neighbors (k-NN). Extensive experimental results favor our algorithm over a conventional CNN