22,499 research outputs found
Suppressed Andreev Reflection at the Normal-Metal / Heavy-Fermion Superconductor CeCoIn Interface
Dynamic conductance spectra are taken from Au/CeCoIn point contacts in
the Sharvin limit along the (001) and (110) directions. Our conductance
spectra, reproducibly obtained over wide ranges of temperature, constitute the
cleanest data sets ever reported for HFSs. A signature for the emerging
heavy-fermion liquid is evidenced by the development of the asymmetry in the
background in the normal state. Below , an enhancement of the sub-gap
conductance arising from Andreev reflection is observed, with the magnitude of
13.3 % and 11.8 % for the (001) and the (110) point contacts,
respectively, an order of magnitude smaller than those observed in conventional
superconductors but consistent with those in other HFSs. Our zero-bias
conductance data for the (001) point contacts are best fit with the extended
BTK model using the d-wave order parameter. The fit to the full conductance
curve of the (001) point contact indicates the strong coupling nature
(). However, our observed suppression of both the
Andreev reflection signal and the energy gap indicates the failure of existing
models. We provide possible directions for theoretical formulations of the
electronic transport across an N/HFS interface. Several qualitative features
observed in the (110) point contacts provide the first clear spectroscopic
evidence for the symmetry.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, LaTeX, paper invited and submitted to SPIE
Conference on Strongly Correlated Electron Materials: Physics and
Nanoengineering, in San Diego, California, July 31 - August 4, 200
Desmoglein 3 acts as a potential oncogene in promoting cancer cell migration and invasion through regulating AP-1 and PKC dependent-Ezrin activation
Conference: 20th Anniversary Conference of the British-Skin-Foundation on Skin Deep - 20 Years of Research
Location: Roayl Coll Phys, London, ENGLAND
Date: OCT 13, 2016British Skin Fd
Seasonal and spatial dynamics of the primary vector of plasmodium knowlesi within a major transmission focus in Sabah, Malaysia
Background
The simian malaria parasite Plasmodium knowlesi is emerging as a public health problem in Southeast Asia, particularly in Malaysian Borneo where it now accounts for the greatest burden of malaria cases and deaths. Control is hindered by limited understanding of the ecology of potential vector species.
Methodology/Principal Findings
We conducted a one year longitudinal study of P. knowlesi vectors in three sites within an endemic area of Sabah, Malaysia. All mosquitoes were captured using human landing catch. Anopheles mosquitoes were dissected to determine, oocyst, sporozoites and parous rate. Anopheles balabacensis is confirmed as the primary vector of. P. knowlesi (using nested PCR) in Sabah for the first time. Vector densities were significantly higher and more seasonally variable in the village than forest or small scale farming site. However An. balabacensis survival and P. knowlesi infection rates were highest in forest and small scale farm sites. Anopheles balabacensis mostly bites humans outdoors in the early evening between 1800 to 2000hrs.
Conclusions/Significance
This study indicates transmission is unlikely to be prevented by bednets. This combined with its high vectorial capacity poses a threat to malaria elimination programmes within the region.
Author Summary
The first natural infection of Plasmodium knowlesi was reported 40 years ago. At that time it was perceived that the infection would not affect humans. However, now P. knowlesi is the predominant malaria species (38% of the cases) infecting people in Malaysia and is a notable obstacle to malaria elimination in the country. Plasmodium knowlesi has also been reported from all countries in Southeast Asia with the exception of Lao PDR and Timor Leste. In Sabah, Malaysian Borneo cases of human P. knowlesi are increasing. Thus, a comprehensive understanding of the bionomics of the vectors is required so as to enable proper control strategies. Here, we conducted a longitudinal study in Kudat district, Sabah, to determine and characterize the vectors of P. knowlesi within this transmission foci. Anopheles balabacensis was the predominant mosquito in all study sites and is confirmed as vector for P. knowlesi and other simian malaria parasites. The peak biting time was in the early part of the evening between1800 to 2000. Thus, breaking the chain of transmission is an extremely challenging task for the malaria elimination programme
Theory of the "honeycomb chain-channel" reconstruction of Si(111)3x1
First-principles electronic-structure methods are used to study a structural
model for Ag/Si(111)3x1 recently proposed on the basis of transmission electron
diffraction data. The fully relaxed geometry for this model is far more
energetically favorable than any previously proposed, partly due to the unusual
formation of a Si double bond in the surface layer. The calculated electronic
properties of this model are in complete agreement with data from
angle-resolved photoemission and scanning tunneling microscopy.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett (the ugly postscript
error on page 4 has now been repaired
Efficient Photon Coupling from a Diamond Nitrogen Vacancy Centre by Integration with Silica Fibre
A central goal in quantum information science is to efficiently interface
photons with single optical modes for quantum networking and distributed
quantum computing. Here, we introduce and experimentally demonstrate a compact
and efficient method for the low-loss coupling of a solid-state qubit, the
nitrogen vacancy (NV) centre in diamond, with a single-mode optical fibre. In
this approach, single-mode tapered diamond waveguides containing exactly one
high quality NV memory are selected and integrated on tapered silica fibres.
Numerical optimization of an adiabatic coupler indicates that
near-unity-efficiency photon transfer is possible between the two modes.
Experimentally, we find an overall collection efficiency between 18-40 % and
observe a raw single photon count rate above 700 kHz. This integrated system
enables robust, alignment-free, and efficient interfacing of single-mode
optical fibres with single photon emitters and quantum memories in solids
Classification of Overlapped Audio Events Based on AT, PLSA, and the Combination of Them
Audio event classification, as an important part of Computational Auditory Scene Analysis, has attracted much attention. Currently, the classification technology is mature enough to classify isolated audio events accurately, but for overlapped audio events, it performs much worse. While in real life, most audio documents would have certain percentage of overlaps, and so the overlap classification problem is an important part of audio classification. Nowadays, the work on overlapped audio event classification is still scarce, and most existing overlap classification systems can only recognize one audio event for an overlap. In this paper, in order to deal with overlaps, we innovatively introduce the author-topic (AT) model which was first proposed for text analysis into audio classification, and innovatively combine it with PLSA (Probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis). We propose 4 systems, i.e. AT, PLSA, AT-PLSA and PLSA-AT, to classify overlaps. The 4 proposed systems have the ability to recognize two or more audio events for an overlap. The experimental results show that the 4 systems perform well in classifying overlapped audio events, whether it is the overlap in training set or the overlap out of training set. Also they perform well in classifying isolated audio events
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