j_psi Suppression and the Quark-Gluon Plasma

All measured Feynman x_f distributions of the ratio, R, of j_psi production in nuclei relative to production on protons fall off with x_f. They show [2] that absorption of charmonium cannot be the only source of j_psi suppression and that energy loss of the constituents of the incident proton prior to the j_psi production, because of the exponential sqrt(s) dependence of the charmonium cross section, should not be neglected. Including the effects of initial state energy loss we find that the latest measured Pb-Pb j_psi cross sections do not provide any evidence for deconfinement.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, additional material, accepted by Physics Letter

Study of J/ψJ/\psi Production in sNN=200\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200 GeV p+pp+p and d+Aud+Au Collisions in PHENIX

$J/\psi$ measurements in $p+p$ and $d+Au$ collisions serve as crucial references to understand the $J/\psi$ production in $Au+Au$ collisions at RHIC where quark gluon plasma (QGP) is expected to be formed. They also provide important clues to study various interesting phenomena such as the gluon shadowing and color glass condensate. We report the latest results from PHENIX experiment on $J/\psi$ production in $p+p$ and $d+Au$ collisions at forward, backward and midrapidity.Comment: 4pages, 6 figures, proceeding of the 18th International Conference on Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (QM2005), Aug.4-9, Budapest, Hungar

The Future of Hard and Electromagnetic Probes at RHIC

Potential near- and long-term physics opportunities with jets, heavy flavors and electromagnetic probes at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are presented. Much new physics remains to be unveiled using these probes, due to their sensitivity to the initial high density stage of RHIC collisions, when quark-gluon plasma (QGP) formation is expected. Additional physics will include addressing deconfinement, chiral symmetry restoration, properties of the strongly-coupled QGP and a possible weakly-interacting QGP, color glass condensate in the initial state, and hadronization. To fully realize the physics prospects of the RHIC energy regime, new detector components must be added to existing experiments, the RHIC machine luminosity upgraded, and a possible new detector with significantly extended coverage and capabilities added.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Hard Probes 2004, International Conference on Hard and Electromagnetic Probes of High Energy Nuclear Collision

Kakutani Dichotomy on Free States

Two quasi-free states on a CAR or CCR algebra are shown to generate quasi-equivalent representations unless they are disjoint.Comment: 12 page

Goodness-of-Fit Tests for Symmetric Stable Distributions -- Empirical Characteristic Function Approach

We consider goodness-of-fit tests of symmetric stable distributions based on weighted integrals of the squared distance between the empirical characteristic function of the standardized data and the characteristic function of the standard symmetric stable distribution with the characteristic exponent $\alpha$ estimated from the data. We treat $\alpha$ as an unknown parameter, but for theoretical simplicity we also consider the case that $\alpha$ is fixed. For estimation of parameters and the standardization of data we use maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) and an equivariant integrated squared error estimator (EISE) which minimizes the weighted integral. We derive the asymptotic covariance function of the characteristic function process with parameters estimated by MLE and EISE. For the case of MLE, the eigenvalues of the covariance function are numerically evaluated and asymptotic distribution of the test statistic is obtained using complex integration. Simulation studies show that the asymptotic distribution of the test statistics is very accurate. We also present a formula of the asymptotic covariance function of the characteristic function process with parameters estimated by an efficient estimator for general distributions

Risk factors for fecal carriage of drug-resistant Escherichia coli: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BackgroundAntimicrobial resistance is a serious public health problem. Fecal carriage of drug-resistant bacteria has been suggested as an important source of antimicrobial resistant genes (ARGs). We aimed to identify risk factors associated with fecal carriage of drug-resistant commensal Escherichia coli among healthy adult population.MethodsWe conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis following the PRISMA guideline. We identified observational studies published from 2014 to 2019 through PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science. Studies were eligible if they investigated and reported risk factors and accompanying measure of associations for fecal carriage of drug-resistant E. coli for healthy population aged 18-65. Data on risk factors assessed in three or more studies were extracted.ResultsFifteen of 395 studies involving 11480 healthy individuals were included. The pooled prevalence of drug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae was 14% (95% confidence interval [CI] 8-23%). Antimicrobial use within the 12 months prior to stool culture (odds ratio [OR] 1.84 [95%CI 1.35-2.51]), diarrhea symptoms (OR 1.56 [95%CI 1.09-2.25]), travel to India (OR 4.15 [95%CI 2.54-6.78]), and vegetarian diet (OR 1.60 [95%CI 1.00(1.0043)-2.56(2.5587)]) were associated with increased risk of fecal carriage of drug-resistant E. coli. Among travellers, antimicrobial use (OR 2.81 [95%CI 1.47-5.36]), diarrhea symptoms (OR 1.65 [95%CI 1.02-2.68]), travel to India (OR 3.80 [95%CI 2.23-6.47]), and vegetarian diet (OR 1.92 [95%CI 1.13-3.26]) were associated with increased risk. Among general adult population, antimicrobial use (OR 1.51 [95%CI 1.17-1.94]), diarrhea symptoms (OR 1.53 [95%CI 1.27-1.84]), and travel to Southeast Asia (OR 1.67 [95%CI 1.02-2.73]) were associated with the increased risk of drug-resistant E. coli carriage.ConclusionsThe findings indicate that dietary habit as well as past antimicrobial use and travel to high-risk country are associated with the risk of fecal carriage of drug-resistant commensal E. coli

Machine Learning Mitigants for Speech Based Cyber Risk

Statistical analysis of speech is an emerging area of machine learning. In this paper, we tackle the biometric challenge of Automatic Speaker Verification (ASV) of differentiating between samples generated by two distinct populations of utterances, those of an authentic human voice and those generated by a synthetic one. Solving such an issue through a statistical perspective foresees the definition of a decision rule function and a learning procedure to identify the optimal classifier. Classical state-of-the-art countermeasures rely on strong assumptions such as stationarity or local-stationarity of speech that may be atypical to encounter in practice. We explore in this regard a robust non-linear and non-stationary signal decomposition method known as the Empirical Mode Decomposition combined with the Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients in a novel fashion with a refined classifier technique known as multi-kernel Support Vector machine. We undertake significant real data case studies covering multiple ASV systems using different datasets, including the ASVSpoof 2019 challenge database. The obtained results overwhelmingly demonstrate the significance of our feature extraction and classifier approach versus existing conventional methods in reducing the threat of cyber-attack perpetrated by synthetic voice replication seeking unauthorised access

Elastic Tensor of Sr2_2RuO4_4

The six independent elastic constants of Sr$_2$RuO$_4$ were determined using resonant ultrasound spectroscopy on a high-quality single-crystal specimen. The constants are in excellent agreement with those obtained from pulse-echo experiments performed on a sample cut from the same ingot. A calculation of the Debye temperature using the measured constants agrees well with values obtained from both specific heat and M\"{o}ssbauer measurements.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, submitted to PR

Subtle changes in chromatin loop contact propensity are associated with differential gene regulation and expression.

While genetic variation at chromatin loops is relevant for human disease, the relationships between contact propensity (the probability that loci at loops physically interact), genetics, and gene regulation are unclear. We quantitatively interrogate these relationships by comparing Hi-C and molecular phenotype data across cell types and haplotypes. While chromatin loops consistently form across different cell types, they have subtle quantitative differences in contact frequency that are associated with larger changes in gene expression and H3K27ac. For the vast majority of loci with quantitative differences in contact frequency across haplotypes, the changes in magnitude are smaller than those across cell types; however, the proportional relationships between contact propensity, gene expression, and H3K27ac are consistent. These findings suggest that subtle changes in contact propensity have a biologically meaningful role in gene regulation and could be a mechanism by which regulatory genetic variants in loop anchors mediate effects on expression

Quark-Hadron Duality and Parity Violating Asymmetry of Electroweak Reactions in the Delta Region

A dynamical model of electroweak pion production reactions in the Delta(1232) region has been extended to include the neutral current contributions for examining the local Quark-Hadron Duality in neutrino-induced reactions and for investigating how the axial N-Delta form factor can be determined by the parity violating asymmetry of N(\vec{e},e') reactions. We first show that the recent data of (e,e') structure functions F_1 and F_2, which exhibit the Quark-Hadron Duality, are in good agreement with our predictions. For possible future experimental tests, we then predict that the structure functions F_1, F_2, and F_3 for (\nu,e) and (\nu,\nu') processes also show the similar Quark-Hadron Duality. The spin dependent structure functions g_1 and g_2 of (e,e') have also been calculated from our model. It is found that the local Quark-Hadron Duality is not seen in the calculated g_1 and g_2, while our results for g_1 and some polarization observables associated with the exclusive p(\vec{e},e' pi) and \vec{p}(\vec{e},e' pi) reactions are in reasonably good agreement with the recent data. In the investigation of parity violating asymmetry A of N(\vec{e},e') reactions, it is found that the non-resonant contribution is small at the Delta peak and a measurement of A can be used to distinguish two previously determined axial N-Delta transition form factors. The predicted asymmetry A are also compared with the Parton Model predictions for future experimental investigations of Quark-Hadron Duality.Comment: 28 pages, 19 figures v2; figures and references adde