669 research outputs found
Conditional Lot Splitting to Avoid Setups While Reducing Flow Time
Previous research has clearly and consistently shown that flow time advantages accrue from splitting production lots into smaller transfer batches or sub-lots. Less extensively discussed, and certainly undesired, is the fact that lot splitting may dramatically increase the number of setups required, making it impractical in some settings. This paper describes and demonstrates a primary cause of these “extra” setups. It then proposes and evaluates decision rules which selectively invoke lot splitting in an attempt to avoid extra setups. For the closed job shop environment tested, our results indicate that conditional logic can achieve a substantial portion of lot splitting’s flow time improvement while avoiding the vast majority of the additional setups which would be caused by previously tested lot splitting schemes
Experimental Realization of A Two Bit Phase Damping Quantum Code
Using nuclear magnetic resonance techniques, we experimentally investigated
the effects of applying a two bit phase error detection code to preserve
quantum information in nuclear spin systems. Input states were stored with and
without coding, and the resulting output states were compared with the
originals and with each other. The theoretically expected result, net reduction
of distortion and conditional error probabilities to second order, was indeed
observed, despite imperfect coding operations which increased the error
probabilities by approximately 5%. Systematic study of the deviations from the
ideal behavior provided quantitative measures of different sources of error,
and good agreement was found with a numerical model. Theoretical questions in
quantum error correction in bulk nuclear spin systems including fidelity
measures, signal strength and syndrome measurements are discussed.Comment: 21 pages, 17 figures, mypsfig2, revtex. Minor changes made to appear
in PR
Ancient and novel small RNA pathways compensate for the loss of piRNAs in multiple independent nematode lineages.
Small RNA pathways act at the front line of defence against transposable elements across the Eukaryota. In animals, Piwi interacting small RNAs (piRNAs) are a crucial arm of this defence. However, the evolutionary relationships among piRNAs and other small RNA pathways targeting transposable elements are poorly resolved. To address this question we sequenced small RNAs from multiple, diverse nematode species, producing the first phylum-wide analysis of how small RNA pathways evolve. Surprisingly, despite their prominence in Caenorhabditis elegans and closely related nematodes, piRNAs are absent in all other nematode lineages. We found that there are at least two evolutionarily distinct mechanisms that compensate for the absence of piRNAs, both involving RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RdRPs). Whilst one pathway is unique to nematodes, the second involves Dicer-dependent RNA-directed DNA methylation, hitherto unknown in animals, and bears striking similarity to transposon-control mechanisms in fungi and plants. Our results highlight the rapid, context-dependent evolution of small RNA pathways and suggest piRNAs in animals may have replaced an ancient eukaryotic RNA-dependent RNA polymerase pathway to control transposable elements.We thank Sylviane Moss for high-throughput sequencing support. We thank Charles Bradshaw
for help with computation and IT. We thank Marie-Anne Felix and Frank Jiggins for critical
comments on the manuscript. We thank Matt Berriman (Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre,
Hinxton, Cambridge, UK) for allowing us to use unpublished genomic sequencing data for
N. brasiliensis. We thank Einhardt Schierenberg (University of Cologne, Germany) and Werner
Armonies (Alfred Wegener Institute, Sylt, Germany) for help with collection of E. brevis.This is the final version of the article, originally published in PLoS Biology, 2015, 13(2): e1002061. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.100206
Archaeological Excavations on the Long Green (18TA314), 2005-2008, Talbot County, Maryland, 2009
Four site reports are included in the one document. Locus 1: Tulip Poplar slave quarter; Locus 3: the North Building slave quarter; Locus 4: Red Overseer’s House, named by Frederick Douglas, home of Overseer Sevier; and Shovel Test Pits from 2005-2008
Planetary Construction Zones in Occultation: Discovery of an Extrasolar Ring System Transiting a Young Sun-like Star and Future Prospects for Detecting Eclipses by Circumsecondary and Circumplanetary Disks
The large relative sizes of circumstellar and circumplanetary
disks imply that they might be seen in eclipse in stellar light curves. We
estimate that a survey of ~10^4 young (~10 Myr old) post-accretion pre-MS stars
monitored for ~10 years should yield at least a few deep eclipses from
circumplanetary disks and disks surrounding low mass companion stars. We
present photometric and spectroscopic data for a pre-MS K5 star (1SWASP
J140747.93-394542.6), a newly discovered ~0.9 Msun member of the ~16 Myr-old
Upper Cen-Lup subgroup of Sco-Cen at a kinematic distance of 128 pc. SuperWASP
and ASAS light curves for this star show a remarkably long, deep, and complex
eclipse event centered on 29 April 2007. At least 5 multi-day dimming events of
>0.5 mag are identified, with a >3.3 mag deep eclipse bracketed by two pairs of
~1 mag eclipses symmetrically occurring +-12 days and +-26 days before and
after. Hence, significant dimming of the star was taking place on and off over
at least a ~54 day period in 2007, and a strong >1 mag dimming event occurred
over a ~12 day span. We place a firm lower limit on the period of 850 days
(i.e. the orbital radius of the eclipser must be >1.7 AU and orbital velocity
must be <22 km/s). The shape of the light curve is similar to the lop-sided
eclipses of the Be star EE Cep. We suspect that this new star is being eclipsed
by a low-mass object orbited by a dense inner disk, girded by at least 3 dusty
rings of lower optical depth. Between these rings are at least two annuli of
near-zero optical depth (i.e. gaps), possibly cleared out by planets or moons,
depending on the nature of the secondary. For possible periods in the range
2.33-200 yr, the estimated total ring mass is ~8-0.4 Mmoon (if the rings have
optical opacity similar to Saturn's rings), and the edge of the outermost
detected ring has orbital radius ~0.4-0.09 AU.Comment: Astronomical Journal, in press, 13 figure
Measurement of Pion Enhancement at Low Transverse Momentum and of the Delta-Resonance Abundance in Si-Nucleus Collisions at AGS Energy
We present measurements of the pion transverse momentum (p_t) spectra in
central Si-nucleus collisions in the rapidity range 2.0<y<5.0 for p_t down to
and including p_t=0. The data exhibit an enhanced pion yield at low p_t
compared to what is expected for a purely thermal spectral shape. This
enhancement is used to determine the Delta-resonance abundance at freeze-out.
The results are consistent with a direct measurement of the Delta-resonance
yield by reconstruction of proton-pion pairs and imply a temperature of the
system at freeze-out close to 140 MeV.Comment: 12 pages + 4 figures (uuencoded at end-of-file
Cytotoxic mAb from Rheumatic Carditis Recognizes Heart Valves and Laminin
Anti-streptococcal antibodies cross-reactive with N-acetyl-bD-glucosamine (GlcNAc) and myosin are present in the sera of patients with rheumatic fever (RF). However, their role in tissue injury is not clear. In this study, we show that anti-GlcNAc/anti-myosin mAb 3.B6 from a rheumatic carditis patient was cytotoxic for human endothelial cell lines and reacted with human valvular endothelium and underlying basement membrane. Reactivity of mAb 3.B6 with the valve was inhibited by human cardiac myosin \u3e laminin \u3e GlcNAc. The mAb 3.B6 epitopes were localized in fragments of human cardiac myosin, including heavy meromyosin (HMM), the S1 subfragment, and two light meromyosin (LMM) peptides containing amino acid sequences KEALISSLTRGKLTYTQQ (LMM 1) and SERVQLLHSQNTSLINQK (LMM 33). A novel feature of mAb 3.B6 was its reactivity with the extracellular matrix protein laminin, which may explain its reactivity with the valve surface. A laminin A-chain peptide (HTQNT) that includes homology to LMM33 inhibited the reactivity of mAb 3.B6 with human valve. These data support the hypothesis that cross-reactive antibodies in rheumatic carditis cause injury at the endothelium and underlying matrix of the valve
N-terminal pro–brain natriuretic peptide and exercise capacity in chronic heart failure: Data from the Heart Failure and a Controlled Trial Investigating Outcomes of Exercise Training (HF-ACTION) study
To examine the relationship between N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) and exercise capacity in a large contemporary cohort of patients with chronic heart failure
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