6,109 research outputs found
Exact results for the Barabasi queuing model
Previous works on the queuing model introduced by Barab\'asi to account for
the heavy tailed distributions of the temporal patterns found in many human
activities mainly concentrate on the extremal dynamics case and on lists of
only two items. Here we obtain exact results for the general case with
arbitrary values of the list length and of the degree of randomness that
interpolates between the deterministic and purely random limits. The
statistically fundamental quantities are extracted from the solution of master
equations. From this analysis, new scaling features of the model are uncovered
Effect of sweep angle on the pressure distributions and effectiveness of the ogee tip in diffusing a line vortex
Low-speed wind tunnel tests were conducted to study the influence of sweep angle on the pressure distributions of an ogee-tip configuration with relation to the effectiveness of the ogee tip in diffusing a line vortex. In addition to the pressure data, performance and flow-visualization data were obtained in the wind tunnel tests to evaluate the application of the ogee tip to aircraft configurations. The effect of sweep angle on the performance characteristics of a conventional-tip model, having equivalent planform area, was also investigated for comparison with the ogee-tip configuration. Results of the investigation generally indicate that sweep angle has little effect on the characteristics of the ogee in diffusing a line vortex
Optimization to low temperature activity in psychrophilic enzymes
Psychrophiles, i.e., organisms thriving permanently at near-zero temperatures, synthesize cold-active enzymes to sustain their cell cycle. These enzymes are already used in many biotechnological applications requiring high activity at mild temperatures or fast heat-inactivation rate. Most psychrophilic enzymes optimize a high activity at low temperature at the expense of substrate affinity, therefore reducing the free energy barrier of the transition state. Furthermore, a weak temperature dependence of activity ensures moderate reduction of the catalytic activity in the cold. In these naturally evolved enzymes, the optimization to low temperature activity is reached via destabilization of the structures bearing the active site or by destabilization of the whole molecule. This involves a reduction in the number and strength of all types of weak interactions or the disappearance of stability factors, resulting in improved dynamics of active site residues in the cold. Considering the subtle structural adjustments required for low temperature activity, directed evolution appears to be the most suitable methodology to engineer cold activity in biological catalysts
Deuxième contribution é l'étude de Formica bruni Kutter (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)
Formica bruni décrite en 1966 par Kutter appartient au sous-genre Coptoformica Müll. connue de Forel sous le nom de Formica pressilabris "un peu exsecta ". La biologie de cette espèce est demeurée inconnue jusqu'à nous jours. La découverte d'une nouvelle station au Bois de Chênes, près de Nyon (Vaud, Suisse), nous a poussé à entreprendre une série de travaux afin de savoir dans quelle mesure cette espèce diffère des autres espèces de Coptoformica. La zone étudiée comportait 61 nids en 1978, 18 nids habités par 7 sociétés en 1983 et 2 nids occupés par deux sociétés en juillet 1984. F. bruni est une espèce vraisemblablement polygyne et facultativement polycalique; aucune agressivité n'a été observée entre les sociétés qui, d'autre part, exploitent en commun un même territoire trophique. Les sociétés sont de petites tailles et leur territoire exploité ainsi que leur taux d'activité dépendent principalement de la quantité de nourriture à disposition. Différents facteurs susceptibles de la quasi extinction de cette espèce dans cette station sont discutés (fauchage, pâturage, etc...)
Self-organization of intrinsically disordered proteins with folded N-termini
Thousands of human proteins lack recognizable tertiary structure in most of their chains. Here we hypothesize that some use their structured N-terminal domains (SNTDs) to organise the remaining protein chain via intramolecular interactions, generating partially structured proteins. This model has several attractive features: as protein chains emerge, SNTDs form spontaneously and serve as nucleation points, creating more compact shapes. This reduces the risk of protein degradation or aggregation. Moreover, an interspersed pattern of SNTD-docked regions and free loops can coordinate assembly of sub-complexes in defined loop-sections and enables novel regulatory mechanisms, for example through posttranslational modifications of docked regions
Caribbean Marine Occurrence in Mangroves of a Typically Fresh-water Synbranchiform Fish
The capture of the swamp eel Ophisternon aenigmaticum in the hypersaline waters of a mangrove island 15 km off the coast of Belize, Central America, is the first marine record for any of the New World species of Synbranchiformes, with dispersal from the mainland through sea water sometime in the past 7,000 years the likely explanation for its island occurrence
Quantum computers can search arbitrarily large databases by a single query
This paper shows that a quantum mechanical algorithm that can query
information relating to multiple items of the database, can search a database
in a single query (a query is defined as any question to the database to which
the database has to return a (YES/NO) answer). A classical algorithm will be
limited to the information theoretic bound of at least O(log N) queries (which
it would achieve by using a binary search).Comment: Several enhancements to the original pape
Green's Relations in Finite Transformation Semigroups
We consider the complexity of Green's relations when the semigroup is given
by transformations on a finite set. Green's relations can be defined by
reachability in the (right/left/two-sided) Cayley graph. The equivalence
classes then correspond to the strongly connected components. It is not
difficult to show that, in the worst case, the number of equivalence classes is
in the same order of magnitude as the number of elements. Another important
parameter is the maximal length of a chain of components. Our main contribution
is an exponential lower bound for this parameter. There is a simple
construction for an arbitrary set of generators. However, the proof for
constant alphabet is rather involved. Our results also apply to automata and
their syntactic semigroups.Comment: Full version of a paper submitted to CSR 2017 on 2016-12-1
Exact moments in a continuous time random walk with complete memory of its history
We present a continuous time generalization of a random walk with complete
memory of its history [Phys. Rev. E 70, 045101(R) (2004)] and derive exact
expressions for the first four moments of the distribution of displacement when
the number of steps is Poisson distributed. We analyze the asymptotic behavior
of the normalized third and fourth cumulants and identify new transitions in a
parameter regime where the random walk exhibits superdiffusion. These
transitions, which are also present in the discrete time case, arise from the
memory of the process and are not reproduced by Fokker-Planck approximations to
the evolution equation of this random walk.Comment: Revtex4, 10 pages, 2 figures. v2: applications discussed, clarity
improved, corrected scaling of third momen
Edgeworth expansions for slow-fast systems with finite time scale separation
We derive Edgeworth expansions that describe corrections to the Gaussian limiting behaviour of slow-fast systems. The Edgeworth expansion is achieved using a semi-group formalism for the transfer operator, where a Duhamel-Dyson series is used to asymptotically determine the corrections at any desired order of the time scale parameter ε. The corrections involve integrals over higher-order auto-correlation functions. We develop a diagrammatic representation of the series to control the combinatorial wealth of the asymptotic expansion in ε and provide explicit expressions for the first two orders. At a formal level, the expressions derived are valid in the case when the fast dynamics is stochastic as well as when the fast dynamics is entirely deterministic. We corroborate our analytical results with numerical simulations and show that our method provides an improvement on the classical homogenization limit which is restricted to the limit of infinite time scale separation
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