30,945 research outputs found
Scaling Laws for Non-Intercommuting Cosmic String Networks
We study the evolution of non-interacting and entangled cosmic string
networks in the context of the velocity-dependent one-scale model. Such
networks may be formed in several contexts, including brane inflation. We show
that the frozen network solution , although generic, is only a
transient one, and that the asymptotic solution is still as in the
case of ordinary (intercommuting) strings, although in the present context the
universe will usually be string-dominated. Thus the behaviour of two strings
when they cross does not seem to affect their scaling laws, but only their
densities relative to the background.Comment: Phys. Rev. D (in press); v2: final published version (references
added, typos corrected
The walking robot project
A walking robot was designed, analyzed, and tested as an intelligent, mobile, and a terrain adaptive system. The robot's design was an application of existing technologies. The design of the six legs modified and combines well understood mechanisms and was optimized for performance, flexibility, and simplicity. The body design incorporated two tripods for walking stability and ease of turning. The electrical hardware design used modularity and distributed processing to drive the motors. The software design used feedback to coordinate the system and simple keystrokes to give commands. The walking machine can be easily adapted to hostile environments such as high radiation zones and alien terrain. The primary goal of the leg design was to create a leg capable of supporting a robot's body and electrical hardware while walking or performing desired tasks, namely those required for planetary exploration. The leg designers intent was to study the maximum amount of flexibility and maneuverability achievable by the simplest and lightest leg design. The main constraints for the leg design were leg kinematics, ease of assembly, degrees of freedom, number of motors, overall size, and weight
Irreversibility in asymptotic manipulations of entanglement
We show that the process of entanglement distillation is irreversible by
showing that the entanglement cost of a bound entangled state is finite. Such
irreversibility remains even if extra pure entanglement is loaned to assist the
distillation process.Comment: RevTex, 3 pages, no figures Result on indistillability of PPT states
under pure entanglement catalytic LOCC adde
Entanglement required in achieving entanglement-assisted channel capacities
Entanglement shared between the two ends of a quantum communication channel
has been shown to be a useful resource in increasing both the quantum and
classical capacities for these channels. The entanglement-assisted capacities
were derived assuming an unlimited amount of shared entanglement per channel
use. In this paper, bounds are derived on the minimum amount of entanglement
required per use of a channel, in order to asymptotically achieve the capacity.
This is achieved by introducing a class of entanglement-assisted quantum codes.
Codes for classes of qubit channels are shown to achieve the quantum
entanglement-assisted channel capacity when an amount of shared entanglement
per channel given by, E = 1 - Q_E, is provided. It is also shown that for very
noisy channels, as the capacities become small, the amount of required
entanglement converges for the classical and quantum capacities.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, RevTex
On the origin of noisy states whose teleportation fidelity can be enhanced through dissipation
Recently Badziag \emph{et al.} \cite{badziag} obtained a class of noisy
states whose teleportation fidelity can be enhanced by subjecting one of the
qubits to dissipative interaction with the environment via amplitude damping
channel (ADC). We show that such noisy states result while sharing the states
(| \Phi ^{\pm}> =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(| 00> \pm | 11>)) across ADC. We also show
that under similar dissipative interactions different Bell states give rise to
noisy entangled states that are qualitatively very different from each other in
the sense, only the noisy entangled states constructed from the Bell states (|
\Phi ^{\pm}>) can \emph{}be made better sometimes by subjecting the unaffected
qubit to a dissipative interaction with the environment. Importantly if the
noisy state is non teleporting then it can always be made teleporting with this
prescription. We derive the most general restrictions on improvement of such
noisy states assuming that the damping parameters being different for both the
qubits. However this curious prescription does not work for the noisy entangled
states generated from (| \Psi ^{\pm}> =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(| 01> \pm | 10>)).
This shows that an apriori knowledge of the noisy channel might be helpful to
decide which Bell state needs to be shared between Alice and Bob. \emph{}Comment: Latex, 18 pages: Revised version with a new result. Submitted to PR
Calcium-sensing receptor activation increases cell-cell adhesion and ß-cell function
Background/Aims: The extracellular calcium-sensing receptor (CaR) is expressed in pancreatic β-cells where it is thought to facilitate cell-to-cell communication and augment insulin secretion. However, it is unknown how CaR activation improves β-cell function. Methods: Immunocytochemistry and western blotting confirmed the expression of CaR in MIN6 β-cell line. The calcimimetic R568 (1µM) was used to increase the affinity of the CaR and specifically activate the receptor at a physiologically appropriate extracellular calcium concentration. Incorporation of 5-bromo-2’-deoxyuridine (BrdU) was used to measure cell proliferation, whilst changes in non-nutrient-evoked cytosolic calcium were assessed using fura-2-microfluorimetry. AFM-single-cell-force spectroscopy related CaR-evoked changes in epithelial (E)-cadherin expression to improved functional tethering between coupled cells. Results: Activation of the CaR over 48hr doubled the expression of E-cadherin (206±41%) and increased L-type voltage-dependent calcium channel expression by 70% compared to control. These changes produced a 30% increase in cell-cell tethering and elevated the basal-to-peak amplitude of ATP (50µM) and tolbutamide (100µM)-evoked changes in cytosolic calcium. Activation of the receptor also increased PD98059 (1-100µM) and SU1498 (1-100µM)-dependent β-cell proliferation. Conclusion: Our data suggest that activation of the CaR increases E-cadherin mediated functional tethering between β-cells and increases expression of L-type VDCC and secretagogue-evoked changes in [Ca2+]i. These findings could explain how local changes in calcium, co-released with insulin, activate the CaR on neighbouring cells to help ensure efficient and appropriate secretory function
Semantic categories underlying the meaning of ‘place’
This paper analyses the semantics of natural language expressions that are associated with the intuitive notion of ‘place’. We note that the nature of such terms is highly contested, and suggest that this arises from two main considerations: 1) there are a number of logically
distinct categories of place expression, which are not always clearly distinguished in discourse about ‘place’; 2) the many non-substantive place count nouns (such as ‘place’, ‘region’, ‘area’, etc.) employed in natural
language are highly ambiguous. With respect to consideration 1), we propose that place-related expressions
should be classified into the following distinct logical types: a) ‘place-like’ count nouns (further subdivided into abstract, spatial and substantive varieties), b) proper names of ‘place-like’ objects, c) locative property phrases, and d) definite descriptions of ‘place-like’ objects. We outline possible formal representations for each of these. To address consideration 2), we examine meanings, connotations and ambiguities of the English vocabulary of abstract and generic place count nouns, and identify underlying elements of meaning, which explain both
similarities and differences in the sense and usage of the various terms
Angular Power Spectrum of the Microwave Background Anisotropy seen by the COBE Differential Microwave Radiometer
The angular power spectrum estimator developed by Peebles (1973) and Hauser &
Peebles (1973) has been modified and applied to the 2 year maps produced by the
COBE DMR. The power spectrum of the real sky has been compared to the power
spectra of a large number of simulated random skies produced with noise equal
to the observed noise and primordial density fluctuation power spectra of power
law form, with . Within the limited range of spatial scales
covered by the COBE DMR, corresponding to spherical harmonic indices 3 \leq
\ell \lsim 30, the best fitting value of the spectral index is with the Harrison-Zeldovich value approximately
0.5 below the best fit. For 3 \leq \ell \lsim 19, the best fit is . Comparing the COBE DMR at small to
the at from degree scale anisotropy experiments
gives a smaller range of acceptable spectral indices which includes .Comment: 22 pages of LaTex using aaspp.sty and epsf.sty with appended
Postscript figures, COBE Preprint 94-0
Teleportation and Secret Sharing with Pure Entangled States
We present two optimal methods of teleporting an unknown qubit using any pure
entangled state. We also discuss how such methods can also have succesful
application in quantum secret sharing with pure multipartite entangled states.Comment: Latex, 13 pages, submitted to PRA. One sub section already appeared
in the archive: quant-ph /990701
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