Since the development of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique, genomic information has been retrievable from lesser amounts of DNA than previously possible. PCR-based amplifications require high-precision instruments to perform temperature cycling reactions; further, they are cumbersome for routine clinical use. However, the use of isothermal approaches can eliminate many complications...

For a two-level quantum mechanical system, we derive microscopically the exact expression for the fluctuation of microscopic work in a multistep nonequilibrium process, and we rigorously prove that in an isothermal process, the fluctuation is vanishingly small and the most probabilistic work is just equal to the difference of the free energy. Our study demonstrates that the convergence of the m...

For a family F (a collection of subsets of Z+), the notion of Findependence is defined both for topological dynamics (t.d.s.) and measurable dynamics (m.d.s.). It is shown that there is no non-trivial {syndetic}-independent m.d.s.; a m.d.s. is {positive-density}-independent if and only if it has completely positive entropy; and a m.d.s. is weakly mixing if and only if it is {IP}independent. For...

We prove that C-robustly transitive diffeomorphisms on surfaces with boundary do not exist, and we exhibit a class of diffeomorphisms of surfaces with boundary which are C−robustly transitive, with k ≥ 2. This class of diffeomorphisms are examples where a version of Palis’ conjecture on surfaces with boundary, about homoclinic tangencies and uniform hyperbolicity, does not hold in the C−topolog...

The renormalization, at the next-to-leading order in α s , of the ∆B = 2 operators at the lowest order in the heavy quark expansion, namely in the static theory, is computed taking into account previously missed contributions. These operators are relevant for the calculation of the B 0 – ¯ B 0 mixing on the lattice.

The NOMAD experiment collected unprecedent neutrino data samples, matching both the large statistics of massive calorimeters and the reconstruction quality of bubble chambers. This paper describes the determination of the weak mixing angle which is ongoing in NOMAD, with a target precision of ∼ 1%. In addition, measurements of the νµ quasi-elastic cross-section and of neutrino Charged Current d...

Status of the problem of neutrino masses, mixing and oscillations is discussed. Future perspectives are briefly considered.