From Nanofibrous Hollow Microspheres to Nanofibrous Hollow Discs and Nanofibrous Shells

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/115931/1/marc201500342.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/115931/2/marc201500342-sup-0001-S1.pd

Anyonic statistics with continuous variables

We describe a continuous-variable scheme for simulating the Kitaev lattice model and for detecting statistics of abelian anyons. The corresponding quantum optical implementation is solely based upon Gaussian resource states and Gaussian operations, hence allowing for a highly efficient creation, manipulation, and detection of anyons. This approach extends our understanding of the control and application of anyons and it leads to the possibility for experimental proof-of-principle demonstrations of anyonic statistics using continuous-variable systems.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, appear in Phys. Rev.

Designing ePortfolio 2.0: Integrating and Coordinating Web 2.0 Services with ePortfolio Systems for Enhancing Users\u27 Learning

An educational ePortfolio usually contains work that a student has collected, reflected, designed, and published to demonstrate personal learning and growth over time. However, previous studies have shown that traditional ePortfolio systems lack flexibility, peer review, and group collaboration. Without these features, ePortfolios do not have the benefits of social learning or Communities of Practice. In this paper, we propose a new design that integrates and coordinates emerging Web 2.0 services into ePortfolio systems to enable community-wide annotation, interaction, and collaboration, with the goal of enhancing the learning experience for individuals as well as the community. We review relevant literatures, theories, and development of traditional ePortfolio systems. We conduct a preliminary survey study to explore users\u27 perceived values in ePortfolio and Web 2.0 services. The survey results show opportunities to design a new generation of ePortfolio systems enabled with Web 2.0. We illustrate and discuss an ePortfolio 2.0 conceptual model, and a system prototype

A modified carrier-to-code leveling method for retrieving ionospheric observables and detecting short-term temporal variability of receiver differential code biases

Sensing the ionosphere with the global positioning system involves two sequential tasks, namely the ionospheric observable retrieval and the ionospheric parameter estimation. A prominent source of error has long been identified as short-term variability in receiver differential code bias (rDCB). We modify the carrier-to-code leveling (CCL), a method commonly used to accomplish the first task, through assuming rDCB to be unlinked in time. Aside from the ionospheric observables, which are affected by, among others, the rDCB at one reference epoch, the Modified CCL (MCCL) can also provide the rDCB offsets with respect to the reference epoch as by-products. Two consequences arise. First, MCCL is capable of excluding the effects of time-varying rDCB from the ionospheric observables, which, in turn, improves the quality of ionospheric parameters of interest. Second, MCCL has significant potential as a means to detect between-epoch fluctuations experienced by rDCB of a single receiver

Casual Agents and Management of Soybean Seedling Diseases

Seedling diseases are among the most widely distributed soybean diseases (Sinclair and Backman, 1989). Under field conditions favorable for seedling disease development, yield losses can be significant. As the use of no-till farming practices increases, there are increasing number of questions about potential problems of seedling disease in early planted soybean and in no-till soybean fields. Management of seedling diseases become an interesting topic for the soybean industry. In Iowa, no comprehensive survey on the causal agents of seedling disease has been conducted. Currently, seed treatment is the major method to control soybean seedling diseases, and effectiveness of the treatment relies on up-to-date information on the major causal agents

Detection of different quorum-sensing signal molecules in a virulent Edwardsiella tarda strain LTB-4

Aims: The aim of this study was to elucidate the potential quorum-sensing (QS) signal molecules of an emerging pathogen (Edwardsiella tarda strain LTB-4) of cultured turbot (Scophthalmus maximus). Methods and Results: A sensitive and rapid double-layer plate method using biosensor strain Agrobacterium tumefaciens KYC55 was developed to detect the N-acylhomoserine lactone (AHL)-related compounds in bacteria. LTB-4 was found to have two QS systems, one was based on the AHLs and the other was based on the autoinducer-2 (AI-2). The AI-2 activity produced by LTB-4 was growth phase dependent and topped at OD600 of 1 center dot 0. The protocol to detect cholerae autoinducer 1 (CAI-1) activity in bacteria was modified, lowering the background luminescence of biosensor strain Vibrio harveyi JAF375. CAI-1 activity could not be detected in LTB-4. Conclusion: Edwardsiella tarda LTB-4 produced at least four kinds of AHLs during its whole growth phase. In comparison with the AHL-inducing QS, AI-2 may be the first predominant signal, functioning at early exponential phase. LTB-4 did not produce any CAI-1 activity. Significance and Impact of the Study: Different QS signal molecules of Edw. tarda LTB-4 were clarified by improved bioassays. In contrast to earlier studies detecting two types of AHLs, strain LTB-4 produced at least four kinds of AHLs, which seemed to be C-4-HSL, C-6-HSL, 3-oxo-C-6-HSL and an uncharacterized AHL molecule

Discrete Razumikhin-type technique and stability of the Euler-Maruyama method to stochastic functional differential equations

A discrete stochastic Razumikhin-type theorem is established to investigate whether the Euler--Maruyama (EM) scheme can reproduce the moment exponential stability of exact solutions of stochastic functional differential equations (SFDEs). In addition, the Chebyshev inequality and the Borel-Cantelli lemma are applied to show the almost sure stability of the EM approximate solutions of SFDEs. To show our idea clearly, these results are used to discuss stability of numerical solutions of two classes of special SFDEs, including stochastic delay differential equations (SDDEs) with variable delay and stochastically perturbed equations

Local multiresolution order in community detection

Community detection algorithms attempt to find the best clusters of nodes in an arbitrary complex network. Multi-scale ("multiresolution") community detection extends the problem to identify the best network scale(s) for these clusters. The latter task is generally accomplished by analyzing community stability simultaneously for all clusters in the network. In the current work, we extend this general approach to define local multiresolution methods, which enable the extraction of well-defined local communities even if the global community structure is vaguely defined in an average sense. Toward this end, we propose measures analogous to variation of information and normalized mutual information that are used to quantitatively identify the best resolution(s) at the community level based on correlations between clusters in independently-solved systems. We demonstrate our method on two constructed networks as well as a real network and draw inferences about local community strength. Our approach is independent of the applied community detection algorithm save for the inherent requirement that the method be able to identify communities across different network scales, with appropriate changes to account for how different resolutions are evaluated or defined in a particular community detection method. It should, in principle, easily adapt to alternative community comparison measures.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figure