Project description:Correlations are ubiquitous in nature and their principled study is of paramount importance in scientific development. The seminal contributions from John Bell offer a framework for analyzing the correlations between the components of quantum mechanical systems and have instigated an experimental tradition which has recently culminated with the Nobel Prize in Physics (2022). In physics, Bell's framework allows the demonstration of the non-classical nature of quantum systems just from the analysis of the observed correlation patterns. Bell's ideas need not be restricted to physics. Our contribution is to show an example of a Bell approach, based on the insight that correlations can be broken down into a part due to common, ostensibly significant causes, and a part due to noise. We employ data from finance (price changes of securities) as an example to demonstrate our approach, highlighting several general applications: first, we demonstrate a new measure of association, informed by the assumed causal relationship between variables. Second, our framework can lead to streamlined Bell-type tests of widely employed models of association, which are in principle applicable to any discipline. In the area of finance, such models of association are Factor Models and the bivariate Gaussian model. Overall, we show that Bell's approach and the models we consider are applicable as general statistical techniques, without any domain specificity. We hope that our work will pave the way for extending our general understanding for how the structure of associations can be analyzed.
Project description:Endornaviruses include viruses that infect fungi, oomycetes, and plants. The genome of plant endornaviruses consists of linear ssRNA ranging in size from approximately 13-18 kb and lacking capsid protein and cell-to-cell movement capability. Although, plant endornaviruses have not been shown to cause detectable changes in the plant phenotype, they have been associated with alterations of the host physiology. Except for the association of cytoplasmic vesicles with infections by Vicia faba endornavirus, effects on the plant cell ultrastructure caused by endornaviruses have not been reported. Bell pepper endornavirus (BPEV) has been identified in several pepper (Capsicum spp.) species. We conducted ultrastructural analyses of cells from two near-isogenic lines of the bell pepper (C. annuum) cv. Marengo, one infected with BPEV and the other BPEV-free, and found cellular alterations associated with BPEV-infections. Some cells of plants infected with BPEV exhibited alterations of organelles and other cell components. Affected cells were located mainly in the mesophyll and phloem tissues. Altered organelles included mitochondrion, chloroplast, and nucleus. The mitochondria from BPEV-infected plants exhibited low number of cristae and electron-lucent regions. Chloroplasts contained plastoglobules and small vesicles in the surrounding cytoplasm. Translucent regions in thylakoids were observed, as well as hypertrophy of the chloroplast structure. Many membranous vesicles were observed in the stroma along the envelope. The nuclei revealed a dilation of the nuclear envelope with vesicles and perinuclear areas. The organelle changes were accompanied by membranous structure rearrangements, such as paramural bodies and multivesicular bodies. These alterations were not observed in cells from plants of the BPEV-free line. Overall, the observed ultrastructural cell alterations associated with BPEV are similar to those caused by plant viruses and viroids and suggest some degree of parasitic interaction between BPEV and the plant host.
Project description:The application of pressure can achieve novel structures and exotic phenomena in condensed matters. However, such pressure-induced transformations are generally reversible and useless for engineering materials for ambient-environment applications. Here, we report comprehensive high-pressure investigations on a series of Dion-Jacobson (D-J) perovskites A'A n-1Pb n I3n+1 [A' = 3-(aminomethyl) piperidinium (3AMP), A = methylammonium (MA), n = 1, 2, 4]. Our study demonstrates their irreversible behavior, which suggests pressure/strain engineering could viably improve light-absorber material not only in situ but also ex situ, thus potentially fostering the development of optoelectronic and electroluminescent materials. We discovered that the photoluminescence (PL) intensities are remarkably enhanced by one order of magnitude at mild pressures. Also, higher pressure significantly changes the lattices, boundary conditions of electronic wave functions, and possibly leads to semiconductor-metal transitions. For (3AMP)(MA)3Pb4I13, permanent recrystallization from 2D to three-dimensional (3D) structure occurs upon decompression, with dramatic changes in optical properties.
Project description:Organic-inorganic hybrid halide perovskites are emerging as promising materials for next-generation light-emitting diodes (LEDs). However, the poor stability of these materials has been the main obstacle challenging their application. Here, we performed first-principles calculations, revealing that the molecule dissociation energy of Dion-Jacobson (DJ) structure using 1,4-bis(aminomethyl)benzene molecules as bridging ligands is two times higher than the typical Ruddlesden-Popper (RP) structure based on phenylethylammonium ligands. Accordingly, LEDs based on the DJ structure show a half-lifetime over 100 hours, which is almost two orders of magnitude longer compared with those based on RP structural quasi-two-dimensional perovskite. To the best of our knowledge, this is the longest lifetime reported for all organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites operating at the current density, giving the highest external quantum efficiency (EQE) value. In situ tracking of the film composition in operation indicates that the DJ structure was maintained well after continuous operation under an electric field.
Project description:We investigate the steerability of two-qubit Bell-diagonal states under projective measurements by the steering party. In the simplest nontrivial scenario of two projective measurements, we solve this problem completely by virtue of the connection between the steering problem and the joint-measurement problem. A necessary and sufficient criterion is derived together with a simple geometrical interpretation. Our study shows that a Bell-diagonal state is steerable by two projective measurements iff it violates the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality, in sharp contrast with the strict hierarchy expected between steering and Bell nonlocality. We also introduce a steering measure and clarify its connections with concurrence and the volume of the steering ellipsoid. In particular, we determine the maximal concurrence and ellipsoid volume of Bell-diagonal states that are not steerable by two projective measurements. Finally, we explore the steerability of Bell-diagonal states under three projective measurements. A simple sufficient criterion is derived, which can detect the steerability of many states that are not steerable by two projective measurements. Our study offers valuable insight on steering of Bell-diagonal states as well as the connections between entanglement, steering, and Bell nonlocality.
Project description:Incorporating organic semiconducting spacer cations into layered lead halide perovskite structures provides a powerful approach to mitigate the typical strong dielectric and quantum confinement effects by inducing charge-transfer between the organic and inorganic layers. Herein we report the synthesis and characterization of thin films of novel DJ-phase organic-inorganic layered perovskite semiconductors using a naphthalene diimide (NDI) based divalent spacer cation, which is shown to accept photogenerated electrons from the inorganic layer. With alkyl chain lengths of 6 carbons, an NDI-based thin film exhibited electron mobility (based on space charge-limited current for quasi-layered 〈n〉 = 5 material) was found to be as high as 0.03 cm2 V-1 s-1 with no observable trap-filling region suggesting trap passivation by the NDI spacer cation.