Lifting the Franck-Condon blockade in driven quantum dots

Electron-vibron coupling in quantum dots can lead to a strong suppression of the average current in the sequential tunneling regime. This effect is known as Franck-Condon blockade and can be traced back to an overlap integral between vibron states with different electron numbers which becomes exponentially small for large electron-vibron coupling strength. Here, we investigate the effect of a time-dependent drive on this phenomenon, in particular the effect of an oscillatory gate voltage acting on the electronic dot level. We employ two different approaches: perturbation theory based on nonequilibrium Keldysh Green's functions and a master equation in Born-Markov approximation. In both cases, we find that the drive can lift the blockade by exciting vibrons. As a consequence, the relative change in average current grows exponentially with the drive strength.S.W. acknowledges financial support by the Marie Curie ITN cQOM and the ERC OPTOMECH. P.H. and T.L.S. are supported by the National Research Fund Luxembourg (ATTRACT 7556175). A.N. holds a University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society and acknowledges support from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability

Lifting the Franck-Condon blockade in driven quantum dots

Electron-vibron coupling in quantum dots can lead to a strong suppression of the average current in the sequential tunneling regime. This effect is known as Franck-Condon blockade and can be traced back to an overlap integral between vibron states with different electron numbers which becomes exponentially small for large electron-vibron coupling strength. Here, we investigate the effect of a time-dependent drive on this phenomenon, in particular the effect of an oscillatory gate voltage acting on the electronic dot level. We employ two different approaches: perturbation theory based on nonequilibrium Keldysh Green's functions and a master equation in Born-Markov approximation. In both cases, we find that the drive can lift the blockade by exciting vibrons. As a consequence, the relative change in average current grows exponentially with the drive strength.S.W. acknowledges financial support by the Marie Curie ITN cQOM and the ERC OPTOMECH. P.H. and T.L.S. are supported by the National Research Fund Luxembourg (ATTRACT 7556175). A.N. holds a University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society and acknowledges support from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability

Bohler´s angle and the crucial angle of Gissane in paediatric population

Bohler angle and the crucial angle of Gissane are used on the evaluation of calcaneus fractures. However, few authors have described the variation of the angles when the calcaneus is growing. In this study, Bohler angle and the crucial angle of Gissane in paediatric population were measured using lateral foot radiographs of 429 patients, from 0 to 16 years of age. The control group was composed of 70 adult patients. The sample had a mean Bohler angle of 35.4° ± 5.9° and a mean crucial angle of Gissane of 110.5° ± 7.4°. The greater mean difference was identified for Bohler angle (8°) in the age group of 5 to 8 years (39.6° ± 5.7°) and for the crucial angle of Gissane (5°-6°) in the age group of 0 to 4 years (115.8° ± 7.3) (P < .05). The influence of the ossification centres on the geometry of the calcaneus across age groups makes Bohler angle and the crucial angle of Gissane higher in young children. The increase in Bohler angle points out the relative development of the posterior facet in young children and the importance of the reconstruction of the posterior facet height in the intra-articular calcaneus fractures

Projecting coral responses to intensifying marine heatwaves under ocean acidification

Over this century, coral reefs will run the gauntlet of climate change, as marine heatwaves (MHWs) become more intense and frequent, and ocean acidification (OA) progresses. However, we still lack a quantitative assessment of how, and to what degree, OA will moderate the responses of corals to MHWs as they intensify throughout this century. Here, we first projected future MHW intensities for tropical regions under three future greenhouse gas emissions scenario (representative concentration pathways, RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) for the near-term (2021-2040), mid-century (2041-2060) and late-century (2081-2100). We then combined these MHW intensity projections with a global data set of 1,788 experiments to assess coral attribute performance and survival under the three emissions scenarios for the near-term, mid-century and late-century in the presence and absence of OA. Although warming and OA had predominately additive impacts on the coral responses, the contribution of OA in affecting most coral attributes was minor relative to the dominant role of intensifying MHWs. However, the addition of OA led to greater decreases in photosynthesis and survival under intermediate and unrestricted emissions scenario for the mid- and late-century than if intensifying MHWs were considered as the only driver. These results show that role of OA in modulating coral responses to intensifying MHWs depended on the focal coral attribute and extremity of the scenario examined. Specifically, intensifying MHWs and OA will cause increasing instances of coral bleaching and substantial declines in coral productivity, calcification and survival within the next two decades under the low and intermediate emissions scenario. These projections suggest that corals must rapidly adapt or acclimatize to projected ocean conditions to persist, which is far more likely under a low emissions scenario and with increasing efforts to manage reefs to enhance resilience

Improving Fetal Head Contour Detection by Object Localisation with Deep Learning

Ultrasound-based fetal head biometrics measurement is a key indicator in monitoring the conditions of fetuses. Since manual measurement of relevant anatomical structures of fetal head is time-consuming and subject to inter-observer variability, there has been strong interest in finding automated, robust, accurate and reliable method. In this paper, we propose a deep learning-based method to segment fetal head from ultrasound images. The proposed method formulates the detection of fetal head boundary as a combined object localisation and segmentation problem based on deep learning model. Incorporating an object localisation in a framework developed for segmentation purpose aims to improve the segmentation accuracy achieved by fully convolutional network. Finally, ellipse is fitted on the contour of the segmented fetal head using least-squares ellipse fitting method. The proposed model is trained on 999 2-dimensional ultrasound images and tested on 335 images achieving Dice coefficient of$$97.73 \pm 1.32$$. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed deep learning method is promising in automatic fetal head detection and segmentation

Assessing stimulus–stimulus (semantic) conflict in the Stroop task using saccadic two-to-one color response mapping and preresponse pupillary measures

© 2015, The Psychonomic Society, Inc. Conflict in the Stroop task is thought to come from various stages of processing, including semantics. Two-to-one response mappings, in which two response-set colors share a common response location, have been used to isolate stimulus–stimulus (semantic) from stimulus–response conflict in the Stroop task. However, the use of congruent trials as a baseline means that the measured effects could be exaggerated by facilitation, and recent research using neutral, non-color-word trials as a baseline has supported this notion. In the present study, we sought to provide evidence for stimulus–stimulus conflict using an oculomotor Stroop task and an early, preresponse pupillometric measure of effort. The results provided strong (Bayesian) evidence for no statistical difference between two-to-one response-mapping trials and neutral trials in both saccadic response latencies and preresponse pupillometric measures, supporting the notion that the difference between same-response and congruent trials indexes facilitation in congruent trials, and not stimulus–stimulus conflict, thus providing evidence against the presence of semantic conflict in the Stroop task. We also demonstrated the utility of preresponse pupillometry in measuring Stroop interference, supporting the idea that pupillary effects are not simply a residue of making a response

Intercomparison of the northern hemisphere winter mid-latitude atmospheric variability of the IPCC models

We compare, for the overlapping time frame 1962-2000, the estimate of the northern hemisphere (NH) mid-latitude winter atmospheric variability within the XX century simulations of 17 global climate models (GCMs) included in the IPCC-4AR with the NCEP and ECMWF reanalyses. We compute the Hayashi spectra of the 500hPa geopotential height fields and introduce an integral measure of the variability observed in the NH on different spectral sub-domains. Only two high-resolution GCMs have a good agreement with reanalyses. Large biases, in most cases larger than 20%, are found between the wave climatologies of most GCMs and the reanalyses, with a relative span of around 50%. The travelling baroclinic waves are usually overestimated, while the planetary waves are usually underestimated, in agreement with previous studies performed on global weather forecasting models. When comparing the results of various versions of similar GCMs, it is clear that in some cases the vertical resolution of the atmosphere and, somewhat unexpectedly, of the adopted ocean model seem to be critical in determining the agreement with the reanalyses. The GCMs ensemble is biased with respect to the reanalyses but is comparable to the best 5 GCMs. This study suggests serious caveats with respect to the ability of most of the presently available GCMs in representing the statistics of the global scale atmospheric dynamics of the present climate and, a fortiori, in the perspective of modelling climate change.Comment: 39 pages, 8 figures, 2 table

A General Framework for Formal Tests of Interaction after Exhaustive Search Methods with Applications to MDR and MDR-PDT

The initial presentation of multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) featured cross-validation to mitigate over-fitting, computationally efficient searches of the epistatic model space, and variable construction with constructive induction to alleviate the curse of dimensionality. However, the method was unable to differentiate association signals arising from true interactions from those due to independent main effects at individual loci. This issue leads to problems in inference and interpretability for the results from MDR and the family-based compliment the MDR-pedigree disequilibrium test (PDT). A suggestion from previous work was to fit regression models post hoc to specifically evaluate the null hypothesis of no interaction for MDR or MDR-PDT models. We demonstrate with simulation that fitting a regression model on the same data as that analyzed by MDR or MDR-PDT is not a valid test of interaction. This is likely to be true for any other procedure that searches for models, and then performs an uncorrected test for interaction. We also show with simulation that when strong main effects are present and the null hypothesis of no interaction is true, that MDR and MDR-PDT reject at far greater than the nominal rate. We also provide a valid regression-based permutation test procedure that specifically tests the null hypothesis of no interaction, and does not reject the null when only main effects are present. The regression-based permutation test implemented here conducts a valid test of interaction after a search for multilocus models, and can be applied to any method that conducts a search to find a multilocus model representing an interaction

In vivo multiphoton imaging reveals gradual growth of newborn amyloid plaques over weeks

The kinetics of amyloid plaque formation and growth as one of the characteristic hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are fundamental issues in AD research. Especially the question how fast amyloid plaques grow to their final size after they are born remains controversial. By long-term two-photon in vivo imaging we monitored individual methoxy-X04-stained amyloid plaques over 6 weeks in 12 and 18 months old Tg2576 mice. We found that in 12 months old mice, newly appearing amyloid plaques were initially small in volume and subsequently grew over time. The growth rate of plaques was inversely proportional to their volume; thus amyloid plaques that were already present at the first imaging time point grew over time but slower compared to new plaques. Additionally, we analyzed 18 months old Tg2576 mice in which we neither found newly appearing plaques nor a significant growth of pre-existing plaques over 6 weeks of imaging. In conclusion, newly appearing amyloid plaques are initially small in size but grow over time until plaque growth can not be detected anymore in aged mice. These results suggest that drugs that target plaque formation should be most effective early in the disease, when plaques are growing