Statistical Mechanics Analysis of LDPC Coding in MIMO Gaussian Channels

Using analytical methods of statistical mechanics, we analyse the typical behaviour of a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Gaussian channel with binary inputs under LDPC network coding and joint decoding. The saddle point equations for the replica symmetric solution are found in particular realizations of this channel, including a small and large number of transmitters and receivers. In particular, we examine the cases of a single transmitter, a single receiver and the symmetric and asymmetric interference channels. Both dynamical and thermodynamical transitions from the ferromagnetic solution of perfect decoding to a non-ferromagnetic solution are identified for the cases considered, marking the practical and theoretical limits of the system under the current coding scheme. Numerical results are provided, showing the typical level of improvement/deterioration achieved with respect to the single transmitter/receiver result, for the various cases.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figure

Population inversion of a NAHS mixture adsorbed into a cylindrical pore

A cylindrical nanopore immersed in a non-additive hard sphere binary fluid is studied by means of integral equation theories and Monte Carlo simulations. It is found that at low and intermediate values of the bulk total number density the more concentrated bulk species is preferentially absorbed by the pore, as expected. However, further increments of the bulk number density lead to an abrupt population inversion in the confined fluid and an entropy driven prewetting transition at the outside wall of the pore. These phenomena are a function of the pore size, the non-additivity parameter, the bulk number density, and particles relative number fraction. We discuss our results in relation to the phase separation in the bulk.Comment: 7 pages, 8 Figure

Spatial and temporal variations of trace element distribution in soils and street dust of an industrial town in NW Spain: 15years of study

Extensive spatial and temporal surveys, over 15 years, have been conducted in soil in urban parks and street dusts in one of the most polluted cities in western Europe, Avilés (NW Spain). The first survey was carried out in 1996, and since then monitoring has been undertaken every five years. Whilst the sampling site is a relatively small town, industrial activities (mainly the steel industry and Zn and Al metallurgy) and other less significant urban sources, such as traffic, strongly affect the load of heavy metals in the urban aerosol. Elemental tracers have been used to characterise the influence of these sources on the composition of soil and dust. Although PM10 has decreased over these years as a result of environmental measures undertaken in the city, some of the “industrial” elements still remain in concentrations of concern for example, up to 4.6% and 0.5% of Zn in dust and soil, respectively. Spatial trends in metals such as Zn and Cd clearly reflect sources from the processing industries. The concentrations of these elements across Europe have reduced over time, however the most recent results from Avilés revealed an upward trend in concentration for Zn, Cd, Hg and As. A risk assessment of the soil highlighted As as an element of concern since its cancer risk in adults was more than double the value above which regulatory agencies deem it to be unacceptable. If children were considered to be the receptors, then the risk nearly doubles from this element

Breakdown of the semiclassical approximation at the black hole horizon

The definition of matter states on spacelike hypersurfaces of a 1+1 dimensional black hole spacetime is considered. The effect of small quantum fluctuations of the mass of the black hole due to the quantum nature of the infalling matter is taken into account. It is then shown that the usual approximation of treating the gravitational field as a classical background on which matter is quantized, breaks down near the black hole horizon. Specifically, on any hypersurface that captures both infalling matter near the horizon and Hawking radiation, quantum fluctuations in the background geometry become important, and a semiclassical calculation is inconsistent. An estimate of the size of correlations between the matter and gravity states shows that they are so strong that a fluctuation in the black hole mass of order exp[-M/M_{Planck}] produces a macroscopic change in the matter state.Comment: Latex, 31 pages + 5 uuencoded figure

WadD, a New Brucella Lipopolysaccharide Core Glycosyltransferase Identified by Genomic Search and Phenotypic Characterization

Brucellosis, an infectious disease caused by Brucella, is one of the most extended bacterial zoonosis in the world and an important cause of economic losses and human suffering. The lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of Brucella plays a major role in virulence as it impairs normal recognition by the innate immune system and delays the immune response. The LPS core is a branched structure involved in resistance to complement and polycationic peptides, and mutants in glycosyltransferases required for the synthesis of the lateral branch not linked to the O-polysaccharide (O-PS) are attenuated and have been proposed as vaccine candidates. For this reason, the complete understanding of the genes involved in the synthesis of this LPS section is of particular interest. The chemical structure of the Brucella LPS core suggests that, in addition to the already identified WadB and WadC glycosyltransferases, others could be implicated in the synthesis of this lateral branch. To clarify this point, we identified and constructed mutants in 11 ORFs encoding putative glycosyltransferases in B. abortus. Four of these ORFs, regulated by the virulence regulator MucR (involved in LPS synthesis) or the ByrR/ByrS system (implicated in the synthesis of surface components), were not required for the synthesis of a complete LPS neither for virulence or interaction with polycationic peptides and/or complement. Among the other seven ORFs, six seemed not to be required for the synthesis of the core LPS since the corresponding mutants kept the O-PS and reacted as the wild type with polyclonal sera. Interestingly, mutant in ORF BAB1_0953 (renamed wadD) lost reactivity against antibodies that recognize the core section while kept the O-PS. This suggests that WadD is a new glycosyltransferase adding one or more sugars to the core lateral branch. WadD mutants were more sensitive than the parental strain to components of the innate immune system and played a role in chronic stages of infection. These results corroborate and extend previous work indicating that the Brucella LPS core is a branched structure that constitutes a steric impairment preventing the elements of the innate immune system to fight against Brucella

Evidence for dark matter in the inner Milky Way

The ubiquitous presence of dark matter in the universe is today a central tenet in modern cosmology and astrophysics. Ranging from the smallest galaxies to the observable universe, the evidence for dark matter is compelling in dwarfs, spiral galaxies, galaxy clusters as well as at cosmological scales. However, it has been historically difficult to pin down the dark matter contribution to the total mass density in the Milky Way, particularly in the innermost regions of the Galaxy and in the solar neighbourhood. Here we present an up-to-date compilation of Milky Way rotation curve measurements, and compare it with state-of-the-art baryonic mass distribution models. We show that current data strongly disfavour baryons as the sole contribution to the galactic mass budget, even inside the solar circle. Our findings demonstrate the existence of dark matter in the inner Galaxy while making no assumptions on its distribution. We anticipate that this result will compel new model-independent constraints on the dark matter local density and profile, thus reducing uncertainties on direct and indirect dark matter searches, and will shed new light on the structure and evolution of the Galaxy.Comment: First submitted version of letter published in Nature Physics on Febuary 9, 2015: http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphys3237.htm

Solvent contribution to the stability of a physical gel characterized by quasi-elastic neutron scattering

The dynamics of a physical gel, namely the Low Molecular Mass Organic Gelator {\textit Methyl-4,6-O-benzylidene-$\alpha$ -D-mannopyranoside ($\alpha$-manno)} in water and toluene are probed by neutron scattering. Using high gelator concentrations, we were able to determine, on a timescale from a few ps to 1 ns, the number of solvent molecules that are immobilised by the rigid network formed by the gelators. We found that only few toluene molecules per gelator participate to the network which is formed by hydrogen bonding between the gelators' sugar moieties. In water, however, the interactions leading to the gel formations are weaker, involving dipolar, hydrophobic or $\pi-\pi$ interactions and hydrogen bonds are formed between the gelators and the surrounding water. Therefore, around 10 to 14 water molecules per gelator are immobilised by the presence of the network. This study shows that neutron scattering can give valuable information about the behaviour of solvent confined in a molecular gel.Comment: Langmuir (2015

Holographic studies of quasi-topological gravity

Quasi-topological gravity is a new gravitational theory including curvature-cubed interactions and for which exact black hole solutions were constructed. In a holographic framework, classical quasi-topological gravity can be thought to be dual to the large $N_c$ limit of some non-supersymmetric but conformal gauge theory. We establish various elements of the AdS/CFT dictionary for this duality. This allows us to infer physical constraints on the couplings in the gravitational theory. Further we use holography to investigate hydrodynamic aspects of the dual gauge theory. In particular, we find that the minimum value of the shear-viscosity-to-entropy-density ratio for this model is $\eta/s \simeq 0.4140/(4\pi)$.Comment: 45 pages, 6 figures. v2: References adde

Clinical and ultrasound-based composite disease activity indices in rheumatoid arthritis: Results from a multicenter, randomized study

Objective: To evaluate the metrologic properties of composite disease activity indices in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), utilizing information derived from clinical, gray-scale (GS), and power Doppler (PD) ultrasound examinations, and to assess the classification of patients according to disease activity using such indices. Methods This ancillary study utilized data from a multicenter, prospective, randomized, parallel-group study conducted in subjects with moderate RA randomized to receive etanercept and methotrexate (ETN + MTX) or usual care (various disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs [DMARDs]). In multimodal indices, the 28 swollen joint count was either supplemented or replaced by clinically nonswollen joints in which the presence of synovitis was detected either by GS and/or PD and was calculated according to the Disease Activity Score in 28 joints (DAS28) or the Simplified Disease Activity Index (SDAI). Reliability, external validity, and discriminative capacity were calculated at baseline/screening by intraclass correlation coefficient, Pearson's correlation, and standardized response mean, respectively. Results: Data from 62 patients (mean ± SD age 53.8 ± 13.2 years, mean ± SD disease duration 8.8 ± 7.7 years, mean ± SD disease activity 4.6 ± 0.5 [DAS28] and 20.9 ± 5.9 [SDAI]) were analyzed, with 32 receiving ETN + MTX and 30 receiving DMARDs. The metrologic properties were at least as good for GS- and/or PD-based indices as for their clinical counterparts. Using GS- and PD-supplemented indices, an additional 67.8% and 32.3% of patients (DAS28-derived and SDAI-derived indices, respectively) could be classified as having high disease activity at the screening visit. Conclusion: Multimodal indices incorporating ultrasound and clinical data had similar metrologic properties to their clinical counterparts; certain indices allowed for a significantly larger number of patients to be classified to either high or moderate disease activity at the screening visit. Copyright © 2013 by the American College of Rheumatology