Detector's quantum backaction effects on a mesoscopic conductor and fluctuation-dissipation relation

When measuring quantum mechanical properties of charge transport in mesoscopic conductors, backaction effects occur. We consider a measurement setup with an elementary quantum circuit, composed of an inductance and a capacitor, as detector of the current flowing in a nearby quantum point contact. A quantum Langevin equation for the detector variable including backaction effects is derived. Differences with the quantum Langevin equation obtained in linear response are pointed out. In this last case, a relation between fluctuations and dissipation is obtained, provided that an effective temperature of the quantum point contact is defined

Calving time identified by the automatic detection of tail movements and rumination time, and observation of cow behavioural changes

The use of electronic devices to improve animal health,welfare and farmefficiency in precision livestock farming is a developing area of great scientific and commercial interest. In particular, the use of on-site dairy farm instruments to detect calving is a tool in reproduction livestock farming. The primary aim of this study was to validate the ability of theMoocall device (MD) to detect calving cows. In addition, behavioural changes in parturient dairy cows were evaluated using video-based observations. TheMD was applied approximately 9 days before cow delivery. Observational sessionswere conducted three times a day for each cowfromthe day beforeMD application to calving time. The sensitivity (Se) and specificity (Sp) at 3 and 24 h before calving were measured to test the effectiveness of the MD. In addition, behavioural changes were investigated before and after the MD application aswell as before and during calving time. The 3 h Se and the 3 h Sp obtainedwere 95.2 and 71.4%, respectively. No false negatives were observed in the 24 h before delivery (24 h Se=100%) while the 3 h Se was 95.2%. The MD was well tolerated by the dairy cows since no change in behaviours was observed in this study among the cows with or without the MD, except for an increase in eating behaviour in the animals with the MD. As regards, the behavioural pattern during calving time (8 h before calving) in comparisonwith the previous phases, a significant increase in tail contraction frequency and raised tail position, and a decrease in eating behaviour and rumination time were observed. The first principal component (PC) was primarily explained by these variables, and calving cows best contributed to this PC. According to the results of the present study, the use of the MD can be a useful tool in detecting the moment of calving

The TDC based integrated trigger system of the NA62 experiment at CERN

The main goal of the NA62 experiment is to measure the branching ratio of the K + \u2192 \u3c0 +\u3bd\u3bd - decay, collecting O(100) events in two years of data taking. Efficient online selection of interesting events and loss-less readout at high rate will be key issues for such experiment. An integrated trigger and data acquisition system has been designed, where the processing of timing information from the subdetectors is a key element. Only the very first trigger stage will be implemented in hardware, in order to reduce the total rate for the software levels on PC farms. Readout uniformity among different subdetectors and scalability were taken into account in the architecture design. \ua92009 IEEE

Gastrointestinal and non-gastrointestinal presentation in patients with celiac disease.

Background: Celiac disease (CD) may have a variety of different presentations. This study has aimed to explore the prevalence of gastrointestinal (GI) and non-GI symptoms in patients with CD according to data collected in Italy and Romania (Europe) and Iran (Middle East). Methods: This is a retrospective cross-sectional study conducted in Iran, Romania and Italy with data collection during the period from May 2009 \u2013 May 2011. For each center we included only patients with CD that was con\ubfrmed by endoscopy, small bowel biopsies and positive serology. GI symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, nausea and vomiting, weight loss and \uc0atulence, as well as additional signs and symptoms of iron de\ubfciency anemia (IDA), osteoporosis, hypertransaminasemia, and other related abnormalities were collected. Results: Overall, 323 women and 127 men, whose mean age at diagnosis was 34.2 \ub1 16.47 years were included in this study. Of these, 157 subjects (34.9%) reported at least one GI symptom. The majority of cases had the following primary presenting GI symptoms: diarrhea (13.6%), dyspepsia and constipation (4.0%). Other disease symptoms were reported by 168 (37.3%) patients. The most presenting non-GI symptoms in the majority of cases were anemia (20.7%) and osteopenia (6%). There were statistically signi\ubfcant differences between the majority of symptoms when we compared the reported clinical symptoms from different countries. Conclusion: This study indicated that upper abdominal disorders such as abdominal pain and dyspepsia were the most common primary complaints among European patients, whereas Iranian patients had complaints of diarrhea and bloating as the classic presentations of CD. For non-GI symptoms, anemia was the most frequent complaint for both Iranian and Italian patients; however it was significantly higher in Iranians