575 research outputs found
Logic in the Tractatus
I present a reconstruction of the logical system of the Tractatus, which differs from classical logic in two ways. It includes an account of Wittgenstein’s “form-series” device, which suffices to express some effectively generated countably infinite disjunctions. And its attendant notion of structure is relativized to the fixed underlying universe of what is named.
There follow three results. First, the class of concepts definable in the system is closed under finitary induction. Second, if the universe of objects is countably infinite, then the property of being a tautology is \Pi^1_1-complete. But third, it is only granted the assumption of countability that the class of tautologies is \Sigma_1-definable in set theory.
Wittgenstein famously urges that logical relationships must show themselves in the structure of signs. He also urges that the size of the universe cannot be prejudged. The results of this paper indicate that there is no single way in which logical relationships could be held to make themselves manifest in signs, which does not prejudge the number of objects
What price profits?
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/prism/1639/thumbnail.jp
Entanglement of mechanical oscillators coupled to a non-equilibrium environment
Recent experiments aim at cooling nanomechanical resonators to the ground
state by coupling them to non-equilibrium environments in order to observe
quantum effects such as entanglement. This raises the general question of how
such environments affect entanglement. Here we show that there is an optimal
dissipation strength for which the entanglement between two coupled oscillators
is maximized. Our results are established with the help of a general framework
of exact quantum Langevin equations valid for arbitrary bath spectra, in and
out of equilibrium. We point out why the commonly employed Lindblad approach
fails to give even a qualitatively correct picture
Galactic emission at 19 GHz
We cross-correlate a 19 GHz full sky Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) survey
with other maps to quantify the foreground contribution. Correlations are
detected with the Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE) 240, 140 and
100 micron maps at high latitudes (|b|>30degrees), and marginal correlations
are detected with the Haslam 408 MHz and the Reich & Reich 1420 MHz synchrotron
maps. The former agree well with extrapolations from higher frequencies probed
by the COBE DMR and Saskatoon experiments and are consistent with both
free-free and rotating dust grain emission.Comment: 4 pages, with 4 figures included. Accepted for publication in ApJL.
Color figure and links at http://www.sns.ias.edu/~angelica/foreground.html#19
or from [email protected]
Acute kidney injury after ingestion of rhubarb: secondary oxalate nephropathy in a patient with type 1 diabetes
Background: Oxalosis is a metabolic disorder characterized by deposition of oxalate crystals in various organs including the kidney. Whereas primary forms result from genetic defects in oxalate metabolism, secondary forms of oxalosis can result from excessive intestinal oxalate absorption or increased endogenous production, e.g. after intoxication with ethylene glycol. Case presentation: Here, we describe a case of acute crystal-induced renal failure associated with excessive ingestion of rhubarb in a type 1 diabetic with previously normal excretory renal function. Renal biopsy revealed mild mesangial sclerosis, but prominent tubular deposition of oxalate crystals in the kidney. Oxalate serum levels were increased. Conclusion: Acute secondary oxalate nephropathy due to excessive dietary intake of oxalate may lead to acute renal failure in patients with preexisting renal disease like mild diabetic nephropathy. Attention should be payed to special food behaviors when reasons for acute renal failure are explored
Learning a Tracking Controller for Rolling bots
Micron-scale robots (bots) have recently shown great promise for
emerging medical applications. Accurate controlling bots, while critical
to their successful deployment, is challenging. In this work, we consider the
problem of tracking a reference trajectory using a bot in the presence of
disturbances and uncertainty. The disturbances primarily come from Brownian
motion and other environmental phenomena, while the uncertainty originates from
errors in the model parameters. We model the bot as an uncertain unicycle
that is controlled by a global magnetic field. To compensate for disturbances
and uncertainties, we develop a nonlinear mismatch controller. We define the
model mismatch error as the difference between our model's predicted velocity
and the actual velocity of the bot. We employ a Gaussian Process to learn
the model mismatch error as a function of the applied control input. Then we
use a least-squares minimization to select a control action that minimizes the
difference between the actual velocity of the bot and a reference
velocity. We demonstrate the online performance of our joint learning and
control algorithm in simulation, where our approach accurately learns the model
mismatch and improves tracking performance. We also validate our approach in an
experiment and show that certain error metrics are reduced by up to .Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure
The use of circulating cell-free tumor DNA in routine diagnostics of metastatic melanoma patients
Modern advances in technology such as next-generation sequencing and digital PCR make detection of minor circulating cell-free tumor DNA amounts in blood from cancer patients possible. Samples can be obtained minimal-invasively, tested for treatment-determining genetic alterations and are considered to reflect the genetic constitution of the whole tumor mass. Furthermore, tumor development can be determined by a time course of the quantified circulating cell-free tumor DNA. However, systematic studies which prove the clinical relevance of monitoring patients using liquid biopsies are still lacking. In this study, we collected 115 samples from 47 late stage melanoma patients over 1.5 years alongside therapy-associated clinical routine monitoring. Mutation status was confirmed by molecular analysis of primary tumor material. We can show that detectable levels of circulating cell-free tumor DNA correlate with clinical development over time. Increasing levels of circulating cell-free tumor DNA during melanoma treatment with either targeted therapy (BRAF/MEK inhibitors) or immunotherapy, during recovery time or the intervals between last treatment cycle and second-line treatment point towards clinical progression before the progression becomes obvious in imaging. Therefore, this is a further possibility to closely screen our patients for tumor progression during therapy, in therapy-free phases and in earlier stages before therapy initiation
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