Multicritical Points And Reentrant Phenomenon In The BEG Model

The Blume - Emery - Griffiths model is investigated by use of the cluster variation method in the pair approximation. We determine the regions of the phase space where reentrant phenomenon takes place. Two regions are found, depending on the sign of the reduced quadrupole - quadrupole coupling strength $\xi$. For negative $\xi$ we find Para-Ferro-Para and Ferro-Para-Ferro-Para transition sequences; for positive $\xi$, a Para$_-$-Ferro-Para$_+$ sequence. Order parameters, correlation functions and specific heat are given in some typical cases. By-products of this work are the equations for the critical and tricritical lines.Comment: 14 pages, figures available upon reques

On the group theoretic structure of a class of quantum dialogue protocols

Intrinsic symmetry of the existing protocols of quantum dialogue are explored. It is shown that if we have a set of mutually orthogonal $n$-qubit states {\normalsize $\{|\phi_{0}>,|\phi_{1}>,....,|\phi_{i}\}$ and a set of $m-qubit$ ($m\leq n$) unitary operators $\{U_{0},U_{2},...,U_{2^{n}-1}\}:U_{i}|\phi_{0}>=|\phi_{i}>$ and $\{U_{0},U_{2},...,U_{2^{n}-1}\}$ forms a group under multiplication then it would be sufficient to construct a quantum dialogue protocol using this set of quantum states and this group of unitary operators}. The sufficiency condition is used to provide a generalized protocol of quantum dialogue. Further the basic concepts of group theory and quantum mechanics are used here to systematically generate several examples of possible groups of unitary operators that may be used for implementation of quantum dialogue. A large number of examples of quantum states that may be used to implement the generalized quantum dialogue protocol using these groups of unitary operators are also obtained. For example, it is shown that GHZ state, GHZ-like state, W state, 4 and 5 qubit Cluster states, Omega state, Brown state, $Q_{4}$ state and $Q_{5}$ state can be used for implementation of quantum dialogue protocol. The security and efficiency of the proposed protocol is appropriately analyzed. It is also shown that if a group of unitary operators and a set of mutually orthogonal states are found to be suitable for quantum dialogue then they can be used to provide solutions of socialist millionaire problem.Comment: 15 page

A structure-guided approach for protein pocket modeling and affinity prediction

Binding affinity prediction is frequently addressed using computational models constructed solely with molecular structure and activity data. We present a hybrid structure-guided strategy that combines molecular similarity, docking, and multiple-instance learning such that information from protein structures can be used to inform models of structure–activity relationships. The Surflex-QMOD approach has been shown to produce accurate predictions of binding affinity by constructing an interpretable physical model of a binding site with no experimental binding site structural information. We introduce a method to integrate protein structure information into the model induction process in order to construct more robust physical models. The structure-guided models accurately predict binding affinities over a broad range of compounds while producing more accurate representations of the protein pockets and ligand binding modes. Structure-guidance for the QMOD method yielded significant performance improvements, both for affinity and pose prediction, especially in cases where predictions were made on ligands very different from those used for model induction

Lab-on-a-Chip Optical Biosensor Platform: Micro Ring Resonator Integrated with Near-Infrared Fourier Transform Spectrometer

A micro-ring-resonator (MRR) optical biosensor based on the evanescent field sensing mechanism has been extensively studied due to its high sensitivity and compact device size. However, a suitable on-chip integrated spectrometer device has to be demonstrated for the lab-on-a-chip applications, which can read the resonance wavelength shift from MRR biosensors based on minuscule changes in refractive index. In this paper, we demonstrated the design and experimental results of the near-infrared lab-on-a-chip optical biosensor platform that monolithically integrates the MRR and the on-chip spectrometer on the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafer, which can eliminate the external optical spectrum analyzer for scanning the wavelength spectrum. The symmetric add-drop MRR biosensor is designed to have a free spectral range (FSR) of ~19 nm, and a bulk sensitivity of ~73 nm/RIU; then the drop-port output resonance peaks are reconstructed from the integrated spatial-heterodyne Fourier transform spectrometer (SHFTS) with the spectral resolution of ~3.1 nm and bandwidth of ~50 nm, which results in the limit of detection of 0.042 RIU. The MRR output spectrum with air- and water-claddings are measured and reconstructed from the MRR-SHFTS integrated device experimentally to validate the wavelength shifting measurement.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures including supplementar

Capacitated Center Problems with Two-Sided Bounds and Outliers

In recent years, the capacitated center problems have attracted a lot of research interest. Given a set of vertices $V$, we want to find a subset of vertices $S$, called centers, such that the maximum cluster radius is minimized. Moreover, each center in $S$ should satisfy some capacity constraint, which could be an upper or lower bound on the number of vertices it can serve. Capacitated $k$-center problems with one-sided bounds (upper or lower) have been well studied in previous work, and a constant factor approximation was obtained. We are the first to study the capacitated center problem with both capacity lower and upper bounds (with or without outliers). We assume each vertex has a uniform lower bound and a non-uniform upper bound. For the case of opening exactly $k$ centers, we note that a generalization of a recent LP approach can achieve constant factor approximation algorithms for our problems. Our main contribution is a simple combinatorial algorithm for the case where there is no cardinality constraint on the number of open centers. Our combinatorial algorithm is simpler and achieves better constant approximation factor compared to the LP approach

A Room-Temperature High-Conductivity Metal Printing Paradigm with Visible-Light Projection Lithography

Fabricating electronic devices require integrating metallic conductors and polymeric insulators in complex structures. Current metal-patterning methods such as evaporation and laser sintering require vacuum, multistep processes, and high temperature during sintering or postannealing to achieve desirable electrical conductivity, which damages low-temperature polymer substrates. Here reports a facile ecofriendly room-temperature metal printing paradigm using visible-light projection lithography. With a particle-free reactive silver ink, photoinduced redox reaction occurs to form metallic silver within designed illuminated regions through a digital mask on substrate with insignificant temperature change (<4 °C). The patterns exhibit remarkably high conductivity achievable at room temperature (2.4 × 107 S m−1, ≈40% of bulk silver conductivity) after simple room-temperature chemical annealing for 1–2 s. The finest silver trace produced reaches 15 µm. Neither extra thermal energy input nor physical mask is required for the entire fabrication process. Metal patterns were printed on various substrates, including polyethylene terephthalate, polydimethylsiloxane, polyimide, Scotch tape, print paper, Si wafer, glass coverslip, and polystyrene. By changing inks, this paradigm can be extended to print various metals and metal–polymer hybrid structures. This method greatly simplifies the metal-patterning process and expands printability and substrate materials, showing huge potential in fabricating microelectronics with one system

New perspectives on citizen journalism: Introduction to special issue

In the aftermath of the South Asian tsunami of 26 December 2004, the term ‘citizen journalism’ swiftly gained currency with global news organisations finding themselves in the difficult position of being largely dependent on ‘amateur’ photographs, video footage and eyewitness accounts to tell the story of what was transpiring on the ground in the most severely affected areas. Despite its ambiguities, the term was widely perceived to capture the countervailing ethos of the ordinary person’s capacity to contribute to professional news coverage, thereby providing commentators with a useful label to characterise an ostensibly new genre of user-generated content

New perspectives on citizen journalism

In the aftermath of the South Asian tsunami of 26 December 2004, the term ‘citizen journalism’ swiftly gained currency with global news organisations finding themselves in the difficult position of being largely dependent on ‘amateur’ photographs, video footage and eyewitness accounts to tell the story of what was transpiring on the ground in the most severely affected areas. Despite its ambiguities, the term was widely perceived to capture the countervailing ethos of the ordinary person’s capacity to contribute to professional news coverage, thereby providing commentators with a useful label to characterise an ostensibly new genre of user-generated content