Fixed Point and Aperiodic Tilings

An aperiodic tile set was first constructed by R.Berger while proving the undecidability of the domino problem. It turned out that aperiodic tile sets appear in many topics ranging from logic (the Entscheidungsproblem) to physics (quasicrystals) We present a new construction of an aperiodic tile set that is based on Kleene's fixed-point construction instead of geometric arguments. This construction is similar to J. von Neumann self-reproducing automata; similar ideas were also used by P. Gacs in the context of error-correcting computations. The flexibility of this construction allows us to construct a "robust" aperiodic tile set that does not have periodic (or close to periodic) tilings even if we allow some (sparse enough) tiling errors. This property was not known for any of the existing aperiodic tile sets.Comment: v5: technical revision (positions of figures are shifted

Exact scaling in the expansion-modification system

This work is devoted to the study of the scaling, and the consequent power-law behavior, of the correlation function in a mutation-replication model known as the expansion-modification system. The latter is a biology inspired random substitution model for the genome evolution, which is defined on a binary alphabet and depends on a parameter interpreted as a \emph{mutation probability}. We prove that the time-evolution of this system is such that any initial measure converges towards a unique stationary one exhibiting decay of correlations not slower than a power-law. We then prove, for a significant range of mutation probabilities, that the decay of correlations indeed follows a power-law with scaling exponent smoothly depending on the mutation probability. Finally we put forward an argument which allows us to give a closed expression for the corresponding scaling exponent for all the values of the mutation probability. Such a scaling exponent turns out to be a piecewise smooth function of the parameter.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figure

Detectability of non-differentiable generalized synchrony

Generalized synchronization of chaos is a type of cooperative behavior in directionally-coupled oscillators that is characterized by existence of stable and persistent functional dependence of response trajectories from the chaotic trajectory of driving oscillator. In many practical cases this function is non-differentiable and has a very complex shape. The generalized synchrony in such cases seems to be undetectable, and only the cases, in which a differentiable synchronization function exists, are considered to make sense in practice. We show that this viewpoint is not always correct and the non-differentiable generalized synchrony can be revealed in many practical cases. Conditions for detection of generalized synchrony are derived analytically, and illustrated numerically with a simple example of non-differentiable generalized synchronization.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, submitted to PR

Therapeutic limitations in tumor-specific CD8+ memory T cell engraftment

BACKGROUND: Adoptive immunotherapy with cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) represents an alternative approach to treating solid tumors. Ideally, this would confer long-term protection against tumor. We previously demonstrated that in vitro-generated tumor-specific CTL from the ovalbumin (OVA)-specific OT-I T cell receptor transgenic mouse persisted long after adoptive transfer as memory T cells. When recipient mice were challenged with the OVA-expressing E.G7 thymoma, tumor growth was delayed and sometimes prevented. The reasons for therapeutic failures were not clear. METHODS: OT-I CTL were adoptively transferred to C57BL/6 mice 21 – 28 days prior to tumor challenge. At this time, the donor cells had the phenotypical and functional characteristics of memory CD8+ T cells. Recipients which developed tumor despite adoptive immunotherapy were analyzed to evaluate the reason(s) for therapeutic failure. RESULTS: Dose-response studies demonstrated that the degree of tumor protection was directly proportional to the number of OT-I CTL adoptively transferred. At a low dose of OT-I CTL, therapeutic failure was attributed to insufficient numbers of OT-I T cells that persisted in vivo, rather than mechanisms that actively suppressed or anergized the OT-I T cells. In recipients of high numbers of OT-I CTL, the E.G7 tumor that developed was shown to be resistant to fresh OT-I CTL when examined ex vivo. Furthermore, these same tumor cells no longer secreted a detectable level of OVA. In this case, resistance to immunotherapy was secondary to selection of clones of E.G7 that expressed a lower level of tumor antigen. CONCLUSIONS: Memory engraftment with tumor-specific CTL provides long-term protection against tumor. However, there are several limitations to this immunotherapeutic strategy, especially when targeting a single antigen. This study illustrates the importance of administering large numbers of effectors to engraft sufficiently efficacious immunologic memory. It also demonstrates the importance of targeting several antigens when developing vaccine strategies for cancer

MILEPOST GCC: machine learning based research compiler

International audienceTuning hardwired compiler optimizations for rapidly evolving hardware makes porting an optimizing compiler for each new platform extremely challenging. Our radical approach is to develop a modular, extensible, self-optimizing compiler that automatically learns the best optimization heuristics based on the behavior of the platform. In this paper we describe MILEPOST GCC, a machine-learning-based compiler that automatically adjusts its optimization heuristics to improve the execution time, code size, or compilation time of specific programs on different architectures. Our preliminary experimental results show that it is possible to considerably reduce execution time of the MiBench benchmark suite on a range of platforms entirely automatically

Derivation of the Effective Chiral Lagrangian for Pseudoscalar Mesons from QCD

We formally derive the chiral Lagrangian for low lying pseudoscalar mesons from the first principles of QCD considering the contributions from the normal part of the theory without taking approximations. The derivation is based on the standard generating functional of QCD in the path integral formalism. The gluon-field integration is formally carried out by expressing the result in terms of physical Green's functions of the gluon. To integrate over the quark-field, we introduce a bilocal auxiliary field Phi(x,y) representing the mesons. We then develop a consistent way of extracting the local pseudoscalar degree of freedom U(x) in Phi(x,y) and integrating out the rest degrees of freedom such that the complete pseudoscalar degree of freedom resides in U(x). With certain techniques, we work out the explicit U(x)-dependence of the effective action up to the p^4-terms in the momentum expansion, which leads to the desired chiral Lagrangian in which all the coefficients contributed from the normal part of the theory are expressed in terms of certain Green's functions in QCD. Together with the existing QCD formulae for the anomaly contributions, the present results leads to the complete QCD definition of the coefficients in the chiral Lagrangian. The relation between the present QCD definition of the p^2-order coefficient F_0^2 and the well-known approximate result given by Pagels and Stokar is discussed.Comment: 16 pages in RevTex, some typos are corrected, version for publication in Phys. Rev.

Continuation for thin film hydrodynamics and related scalar problems

This chapter illustrates how to apply continuation techniques in the analysis of a particular class of nonlinear kinetic equations that describe the time evolution through transport equations for a single scalar field like a densities or interface profiles of various types. We first systematically introduce these equations as gradient dynamics combining mass-conserving and nonmass-conserving fluxes followed by a discussion of nonvariational amendmends and a brief introduction to their analysis by numerical continuation. The approach is first applied to a number of common examples of variational equations, namely, Allen-Cahn- and Cahn-Hilliard-type equations including certain thin-film equations for partially wetting liquids on homogeneous and heterogeneous substrates as well as Swift-Hohenberg and Phase-Field-Crystal equations. Second we consider nonvariational examples as the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, convective Allen-Cahn and Cahn-Hilliard equations and thin-film equations describing stationary sliding drops and a transversal front instability in a dip-coating. Through the different examples we illustrate how to employ the numerical tools provided by the packages auto07p and pde2path to determine steady, stationary and time-periodic solutions in one and two dimensions and the resulting bifurcation diagrams. The incorporation of boundary conditions and integral side conditions is also discussed as well as problem-specific implementation issues

Update on HER-2 as a target for cancer therapy: HER2/neu peptides as tumour vaccines for T cell recognition

During the past decade there has been renewed interest in the use of vaccine immunotherapy for the treatment of cancer. This review focuses on HER2/neu, a tumour-associated antigen that is overexpressed in 10–40% of breast cancers and other carcinomata. Several immunogenic HER2/neu peptides recognized by T lymphocytes have been identified to be included in cancer vaccines. Some of these peptides have been assessed in clinical trials of patients with breast and ovarian cancer. Although it has been possible to detect immunological responses against the peptides in the immunized patients, no clinical responses have so far been described. Immunological tolerance to self-antigens like HER2/neu may limit the functional immune responses against them. It will be of interest to determine whether immune responses against HER2/neu epitopes can be of relevance to cancer treatment