1,294 research outputs found
Some Remarks on Quantum Coherence
There are many striking phenomena which are attributed to
``quantum coherence''. It is natural to wonder if there are new quantum
coherence effects waiting to be discovered which could lead to interesting
results and perhaps even practical applications. A useful starting point for
such discussions is a definition of ``quantum coherence''. In this article I
give a definition of quantum coherence and use a number of illustrations to
explore the implications of this definition. I point to topics of current
interest in the fields of cosmology and quantum computation where questions of
quantum coherence arise, and I emphasize the impact that interactions with the
environment can have on quantum coherence.Comment: 25 pages plain LaTeX, no figures. More references have been added and
typos have been corrected. Journal of Modern Optics, in press.
Imperial/TP/93-94/1
Structure formation by cosmic strings with a cosmological constant
Final published version.Comment: 4 Page
Long non-coding RNA structure and function: Is there a link?
RNA has emerged as the prime target for diagnostics, therapeutics and the development of personalized medicine. In particular, the non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) that do not encode proteins, display remarkable biochemical versatility. They can fold into complex structures and interact with proteins, DNA and other RNAs, modulating the activity, DNA targets or partners of multiprotein complexes. Thus, ncRNAs confer regulatory plasticity and represent a new layer of epigenetic control that is dysregulated
in disease. Intriguingly, for long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs, >200 nucleotides length) structural conservation rather than nucleotide sequence conservation seems to be crucial for maintaining their function. LncRNAs tend to acquire complex secondary and
tertiary structures and their functions only impose very subtle sequence constraints. In the present review we will discuss the biochemical assays that can be employed to determine the lncRNA structural configurations. The implications and challenges of
linking function and lncRNA structure to design novel RNA therapeutic approaches will also be analyzed
Locating Overlap Information in Quantum Systems
When discussing the black hole information problem the term ``information
flow'' is frequently used in a rather loose fashion. In this article I attempt
to make this notion more concrete. I consider a Hilbert space which is
constructed as a tensor product of two subspaces (representing for example
inside and outside the black hole). I discuss how the system has the capacity
to contain information which is in NEITHER of the subspaces. I attempt to
quantify the amount of information located in each of the two subspaces, and
elsewhere, and analyze the extent to which unitary evolution can correspond to
``information flow''. I define the notion of ``overlap information'' which
appears to be well suited to the problem.Comment: 25 pages plain LaTeX, no figures. Imperial/TP/93-94/2
Doppler peaks from active perturbations
We examine how the qualitative structure of the Doppler peaks in the angular
power spectrum of the cosmic microwave anisotropy depends on the fundamental
nature of the perturbations which produced them. The formalism of Hu and
Sugiyama is extended to treat models with cosmic defects. We discuss how
perturbations can be ``active'' or ``passive'' and ``incoherent'' or
``coherent'', and show how causality and scale invariance play rather different
roles in these various cases. We find that the existence of secondary Doppler
peaks and the rough placing of the primary peak unambiguously reflect these
basic properties.Comment: uufile, 8pages, 3 figures. Now available at
http://euclid.tp.ph/Papers/index.html; Changes: URL added, Eqn. (8) expanded,
grant numbers include
Bacillary angiomatosis in HIV-infected patients - An epidemiological and clinical study
Background: No data were available on the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of bacillary angiomatosis (BA) in Germany. Objective:To determine epidemiological and clinical data on HIV-associated BA. Methods: A chart review of all BA cases between 1990 and 1998 was performed in 23 German AIDS treatment units. Results: A total of 21 cases of BA was diagnosed. During th is period, the participating HIV centers treated about 17,000 HIV-infected patients. As a result, a BA prevalence of 1.2 cases/1,000 patients can be assumed. 19 BA were localized in the skin; in 5 cases bones and in 4 cases the liver were involved. Out of 20 patients who received antibiotic therapy, 13 had complete remission. The median time of duration up to complete remission was 32 days (9-82), During the follow-up of the 20 patients, 7 relapses were observed, Conclusion: BA is a rare HIV-associated disease with a prevalence of 1,2 cases/1,000 patients in the presented study. Copyright (C) 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel
Exploring Parameter Constraints on Quintessential Dark Energy: The Exponential Model
We present an analysis of a scalar field model of dark energy with an
exponential potential using the Dark Energy Task Force (DETF) simulated data
models. Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling techniques we examine the
ability of each simulated data set to constrain the parameter space of the
exponential potential for data sets based on a cosmological constant and a
specific exponential scalar field model. We compare our results with the
constraining power calculated by the DETF using their ``''
parametrization of the dark energy. We find that respective increases in
constraining power from one stage to the next produced by our analysis give
results consistent with DETF results. To further investigate the potential
impact of future experiments, we also generate simulated data for an
exponential model background cosmology which can not be distinguished from a
cosmological constant at DETF ``Stage 2'', and show that for this cosmology
good DETF Stage 4 data would exclude a cosmological constant by better than
3.Comment: 11 pages including 10 figure
A Firefly-inspired method for protein structure prediction in lattice models
We introduce a Firefly-inspired algorithmic approach for protein structure prediction over two different lattice models in three-dimensional space. In particular, we consider three-dimensional cubic and three-dimensional face-centred-cubic (FCC) lattices. The underlying energy models are the Hydrophobic-Polar (H-P) model, the MiyazawaâJernigan (M-J) model and a related matrix model. The implementation of our approach is tested on ten H-P benchmark problems of a length of 48 and ten M-J benchmark problems of a length ranging from 48 until 61. The key complexity parameter we investigate is the total number of objective function valuations required to achieve the optimum energy values for the H-P model or competitive results in comparison to published values for the M-J model. For H-P instances and cubic lattices, where data for comparison are available, we obtain an average speed-up over eight instances of 2.1, leaving out two extreme values (otherwise, 8.8). For six M-J instances, data for comparison are available for cubic lattices and runs with a population size of 100, where, a priori, the minimum free energy is a termination criterion. The average speed-up over four instances is 1.2 (leaving out two extreme values, otherwise 1.1), which is achieved for a population size of only eight instances. The present study is a test case with initial results for ad hoc parameter settings, with the aim of justifying future research on larger instances within lattice model settings, eventually leading to the ultimate goal of implementations for off-lattice models
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