Search for: All records

Abstract The accurate simulation of additional interactions at the ATLAS experiment for the analysis of proton–proton collisions delivered by the Large Hadron Collider presents a significant challenge to the computing resources. During the LHC Run 2 (2015–2018), there were up to 70 inelastic interactions per bunch crossing, which need to be accounted for in Monte Carlo (MC) production. In this document, a new method to account for these additional interactions in the simulation chain is described. Instead of sampling the inelastic interactions and adding their energy deposits to a hard-scatter interaction one-by-one, the inelastic interactions are presampled, independent of the hardmore »scatter, and stored as combined events. Consequently, for each hard-scatter interaction, only one such presampled event needs to be added as part of the simulation chain. For the Run 2 simulation chain, with an average of 35 interactions per bunch crossing, this new method provides a substantial reduction in MC production CPU needs of around 20%, while reproducing the properties of the reconstructed quantities relevant for physics analyses with good accuracy.« less

We propose an innovative machine learning paradigm enabling precision medicine for AD biomarker discovery. The paradigm tailors the imaging biomarker discovery process to individual characteristics of a given patient. We implement this paradigm using a newly developed learning-to-rank method 𝙿𝙻𝚃𝚁 . The 𝙿𝙻𝚃𝚁 model seamlessly integrates two objectives for joint optimization: pushing up relevant biomarkers and ranking among relevant biomarkers. The empirical study of 𝙿𝙻𝚃𝚁 conducted on the ADNI data yields promising results to identify and prioritize individual-specific amyloid imaging biomarkers based on the individual’s structural MRI data. The resulting top ranked imaging biomarker has the potential to aid personalizedmore »diagnosis and disease subtyping.« less

Brain imaging genetics is an important research topic in brain science, which combines genetic variations and brain structures or functions to uncover the genetic basis of brain disorders. Imaging data collected by different technologies, measuring the same brain distinctly, might carry complementary but different information. Unfortunately, we do not know the extent to which phenotypic variance is shared among multiple imaging modalities, which might trace back to the complex genetic mechanism. In this study, we propose a novel dirty multi-task SCCA to analyze imaging genetics problems with multiple modalities of brain imaging quantitative traits (QTs) involved. The proposed method canmore »not only identify the shared SNPs and QTs across multiple modalities, but also identify the modality-specific SNPs and QTs, showing a flexible capability of discovering the complex multi-SNP-multi-QT associations. Compared with the multi-view SCCA and multi-task SCCA, our method shows better canonical correlation coefficients and canonical weights on both synthetic and real neuroimaging genetic data. This demonstrates that the proposed dirty multi-task SCCA could be a meaningful and powerful alternative method in multi-modal brain imaging genetics.« less

ABSTRACT We searched for an isotropic stochastic gravitational wave background in the second data release of the International Pulsar Timing Array, a global collaboration synthesizing decadal-length pulsar-timing campaigns in North America, Europe, and Australia. In our reference search for a power-law strain spectrum of the form $h_c = A(f/1\, \mathrm{yr}^{-1})^{\alpha }$, we found strong evidence for a spectrally similar low-frequency stochastic process of amplitude $A = 3.8^{+6.3}_{-2.5}\times 10^{-15}$ and spectral index α = −0.5 ± 0.5, where the uncertainties represent 95 per cent credible regions, using information from the auto- and cross-correlation terms between the pulsars in the array. For a spectral index of α =more »−2/3, as expected from a population of inspiralling supermassive black hole binaries, the recovered amplitude is $A = 2.8^{+1.2}_{-0.8}\times 10^{-15}$. None the less, no significant evidence of the Hellings–Downs correlations that would indicate a gravitational-wave origin was found. We also analysed the constituent data from the individual pulsar timing arrays in a consistent way, and clearly demonstrate that the combined international data set is more sensitive. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this combined data set produces comparable constraints to recent single-array data sets which have more data than the constituent parts of the combination. Future international data releases will deliver increased sensitivity to gravitational wave radiation, and significantly increase the detection probability.« less

Dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) has enabled enormous gains in magnetic resonance signals and led to vastly accelerated NMR/MRI imaging and spectroscopy. Unlike conventionalcw-techniques, DNP methods that exploit the full electron spectrum are appealing since they allow direct participation of all electrons in the hyperpolarization process. Such methods typically entail sweeps of microwave radiation over the broad electron linewidth to excite DNP but are often inefficient because the sweeps, constrained by adiabaticity requirements, are slow. In this paper, we develop a technique to overcome the DNP bottlenecks set by the slow sweeps, using a swept microwave frequency comb that increases themore »effective number of polarization transfer events while respecting adiabaticity constraints. This allows a multiplicative gain in DNP enhancement, scaling with the number of comb frequencies and limited only by the hyperfine-mediated electron linewidth. We demonstrate the technique for the optical hyperpolarization of¹³C nuclei in powdered microdiamonds at low fields, increasing the DNP enhancement from 30 to 100 measured with respect to the thermal signal at 7T. For low concentrations of broad linewidth electron radicals [e.g., TEMPO ((2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-yl)oxyl)], these multiplicative gains could exceed an order of magnitude.

« less