As quantum coherence times of superconducting circuits have increased from nanoseconds to hundreds of microseconds, they are currently one of the leading platforms for quantum information processing. ...However, coherence needs to further improve by orders of magnitude to reduce the prohibitive hardware overhead of current error correction schemes. Reaching this goal hinges on reducing the density of broken Cooper pairs, so-called quasiparticles. Here, we show that environmental radioactivity is a significant source of nonequilibrium quasiparticles. Moreover, ionizing radiation introduces time-correlated quasiparticle bursts in resonators on the same chip, further complicating quantum error correction. Operating in a deep-underground lead-shielded cryostat decreases the quasiparticle burst rate by a factor thirty and reduces dissipation up to a factor four, showcasing the importance of radiation abatement in future solid-state quantum hardware.
•Some rats exhibit greater aversive taste reactivity to a cocaine-paired cue.•Greater conditioned aversive taste reactivity can occur immediately.•Greater conditioned aversive taste reactivity ...predicts escalation of drug taking.•Early onset of this opponent process predicts later vulnerability to drug.
Evidence suggests that the addiction process may begin immediately in some vulnerable subjects. Specifically, some rats have been shown to exhibit aversive taste reactivity (gapes) following the intraoral delivery of a cocaine-predictive taste cue after as few as 1–2 taste-drug pairings. After only 3–4 trials, the number of gapes becomes a reliable predictor of later cocaine self-administration. Given that escalation of drug-taking behavior over time is recognized as a key feature of substance use disorder (SUD) and addiction, the present study examined the relationship between early aversion to the cocaine-predictive flavor cue and later escalation of cocaine self-administration in an extended-access paradigm. The data show that rats who exhibit the greatest conditioned aversion early in training to the intraorally delivered cocaine-paired cue exhibit the greatest escalation of cocaine self-administration over 15 extended-access trials. This finding suggests that early onset of the conditioned opponent process (i.e., the near immediate shift from ingestion to rejection of the drug-paired cue) is a reliable predictor of future vulnerability and resilience to cocaine addiction-like behavior. Future studies must determine the underlying neural mechanisms associated with this early transition and, hence, with early vulnerability to the later development of SUD and addiction. In so doing, we shall be in position to discover novel diagnostics and novel avenues of prevention and treatment.
•We evaluated heroin-induced suppression in OPRM1 A118G mice.•Suppression was similar between the genotypes with a 24h pairing interval.•118AA mice exhibited significant suppression with a 48h ...pairing interval.•118GG mice did not exhibit suppression with a 48h pairing interval.
The single nucleotide polymorphism of the μ-opioid receptor, OPRM1 A118G, has been associated with greater drug and alcohol use, increased sensitivity to pain, and reduced sensitivity to the antinociceptive effects of opiates. In the present studies, we employed a ‘humanized’ mouse model containing the wild-type (118AA) or variant (118GG) allele to examine behavior in a model of heroin-induced devaluation of an otherwise palatable saccharin cue when repeated saccharin-heroin pairings occurred every 24h (Experiment 1) or every 48h (Experiment 2). The results showed that, while both the 118AA and 118GG mice demonstrated robust avoidance of the heroin-paired saccharin cue following daily taste-drug pairings, only the 118AA mice suppressed intake of the heroin-paired saccharin cue when 48h elapsed between each taste-drug pairing. Humanized 118GG mice, then, defend their intake of the sweet cue despite saccharin-heroin pairings and this effect is illuminated by the use of spaced, rather than massed, trials. Given that this pattern of strain difference is not evident with saccharin-cocaine pairings (Freet et al., 2015), reduced avoidance of the heroin-paired saccharin cue by the 118GG mice may be due to an interaction between the opiate and the subjects’ drive for the sweet or, alternatively, to differential downstream sensitivity to the aversive kappa mediated properties of the drug. These alternative hypotheses are addressed.
We present here a characterization of the low background NaI(Tl) crystal NaI-33 based on a period of almost one year of data taking (891 kg
×
days exposure) in a detector configuration with no use of ...organic scintillator veto. This remarkably radio-pure crystal already showed a low background in the SABRE Proof-of-Principle (PoP) detector, in the low energy region of interest (1–6 keV) for the search of dark matter interaction via the annual modulation signature. As the vetoable background components, such as
40
K, are here sub-dominant, we reassembled the PoP setup with a fully passive shielding. We upgraded the selection of events based on a Boosted Decision Tree algorithm that rejects most of the PMT-induced noise while retaining scintillation signals with > 90% efficiency in 1–6 keV. We find an average background of 1.39 ± 0.02 counts/day/kg/keV in the region of interest and a spectrum consistent with data previously acquired in the PoP setup, where the external veto background suppression was in place. Our background model indicates that the dominant background component is due to decays of
210
Pb, only partly residing in the crystal itself. The other location of
210
Pb is the reflector foil that wraps the crystal. We now proceed to design the experimental setup for the physics phase of the SABRE North detector, based on an array of similar crystals, using a low radioactivity PTFE reflector and further improving the passive shielding strategy, in compliance with the new safety and environmental requirements of Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso.
Abstract
Limited information is available about the effect of mid-pregnancy viral infections on the placental expression of efflux transporters and offspring behavior. We hypothesized that maternal ...exposure to polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid poly(I:C), a synthetic double-stranded RNA viral mimic, would impair placental cell turnover, the expression of selected ABC transporters and adult offspring behavior. C57BL/6 mice were administered poly(I:C) (10 mg/Kg;ip) or vehicle at gestational day (GD) 13.5 (mid-pregnancy). Dams were euthanized for blood collection 4 h after injection, fetal and placental collection at GD18.5 or allowed to deliver spontaneously at term. At GD 13.5, poly(I:C) induced an acute pro-inflammatory response characterized by an increase in maternal plasma levels of IL-6, CXCL-1 and CCL-2/MCP-1. At GD 18.5, poly(I:C) decreased cell proliferation/death in the labyrinthine and increased cell death in the junctional zones, characterizing a disruption of placental cell turnover. Abca1 and Abcg1 immunolabelling was decreased in the labyrinthine zone, whereas Abca1, Abcg1 and breast cancer resistance transporter (Bcrp) expression increased in the junctional zone. Moreover, adult offspring showed motor and cognitive impairments in the Rotarod and T-water maze tests. These results indicate that viral infection during mid-pregnancy may disrupt relevant placental efflux transporters, as well as placental cell turnover and offspring behavior in adult life.
Optimization of a single module of CUPID Ressa, Alberto; Armatol, A.; Armengaud, E. ...
Journal of physics. Conference series,
12/2021, Letnik:
2156, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Abstract
CUPID is the next generation experiment which will use scintillating cryogenic calorimeters to search for the neutrinoless double β decay. This unobserved process would shed light on the ...nature of the neutrino, which up to our knowledge could be a Majorana or a Dirac particle, and would give us an important hint to explain the lack of antimatter in the universe. This ambitious search needs a detector with unique characteristics such as an extremely low background level and an excellent energy resolution. CUPID is now in advanced R&D state to optimize the detector design in order to completely exploit the potentialities of scintillating cryogenic calorimeters. In the following I will describe the test performed at the LNGS (Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso) of a single module of the future CUPID detector. In this contribution we present the performance obtained with a novel assembly concept, proving that it matches the requirements for CUPID.
Radioactivity was recently discovered as a source of decoherence and correlated errors for the real-world implementation of superconducting quantum processors. In this work, we measure levels of ...radioactivity present in a typical laboratory environment (from muons, neutrons, and
γ
-rays emitted by naturally occurring radioactive isotopes) and in the most commonly used materials for the assembly and operation of state-of-the-art superconducting qubits. We present a GEANT-4 based simulation to predict the rate of impacts and the amount of energy released in a qubit chip from each of the mentioned sources. We finally propose mitigation strategies for the operation of next-generation qubits in a radio-pure environment.
A sampling calorimeter using cerium fluoride scintillating crystals as active material, interleaved with absorber plates made of tungsten, and read out by wavelength-shifting fibres has been tested ...with high-energy electron beams at the CERN SPS H4 beam line, as well as with lower-energy beams at the INFN Frascati Beam Test Facility in Italy. Energy resolution studies revealed a low stochastic term (<10%/E). This result, combined with high radiation hardness of the material used, marks this sampling calorimeter as a good candidate for the detectors׳ forward regions during the high luminosity phase of LHC.
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