Generation of entangled squeezed states in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates

A method for producing entangled squeezed states (ESSs) for atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) is proposed by using a BEC with three internal states and two classical laser beams. We show that it is possible to generate two-state and multi-state ESSs under certain circumstances.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur

Prenatal influenza exposure and cardiovascular events in adulthood

Objectives: This study examined the association between prenatal exposure to pandemic influenza and cardiovascular events in adulthood. Design: Using Danish surveillance data to identify months when influenza activity was highest during three previous pandemics (1918, 1957, and 1968), persons were defined as exposed/unexposed based on whether they were in utero during peak months of one of the pandemics. Episodes of acute myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke were identified in the Danish National Registry of Patients covering all Danish hospitals since 1977. Setting/Sample Information from Danish national registries on all persons with a Civil Personal Registry number and birthdates in 1915 through 1922, 1954 through 1960, and 1966 through 1972 was collected. Main outcome measures Crude incidence rate ratios (IRRs) were calculated per pandemic. Generalized linear models were fit to estimate IRRs adjusted for sex. Results: For acute MI, sex-adjusted IRRs for persons in utero during peaks of the 1918, 1957, and 1968 pandemics, compared with those born afterward, were 1·02 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0·99, 1·05), 0·96 (95% CI: 0·87, 1·05), and 1·18 (95% CI: 0·96, 1·45), respectively. For stroke, the corresponding IRRs were 0·99 (95% CI: 0·97, 1·02), 0·99 (95% CI: 0·92, 1·05), and 0·85 (95% CI: 0·77, 0·94), respectively. Conclusions: There was generally no evidence of an association between prenatal influenza exposure and acute MI or stroke in adulthood. However, survivor bias and left truncation of outcomes for the 1918 pandemic are possible, and the current young ages of persons included in the analyses for the 1957 and 1968 pandemics may warrant later re-evaluation

Entanglement of spin waves among four quantum memories

Quantum networks are composed of quantum nodes that interact coherently by way of quantum channels and open a broad frontier of scientific opportunities. For example, a quantum network can serve as a `web' for connecting quantum processors for computation and communication, as well as a `simulator' for enabling investigations of quantum critical phenomena arising from interactions among the nodes mediated by the channels. The physical realization of quantum networks generically requires dynamical systems capable of generating and storing entangled states among multiple quantum memories, and of efficiently transferring stored entanglement into quantum channels for distribution across the network. While such capabilities have been demonstrated for diverse bipartite systems (i.e., N=2 quantum systems), entangled states with N > 2 have heretofore not been achieved for quantum interconnects that coherently `clock' multipartite entanglement stored in quantum memories to quantum channels. Here, we demonstrate high-fidelity measurement-induced entanglement stored in four atomic memories; user-controlled, coherent transfer of atomic entanglement to four photonic quantum channels; and the characterization of the full quadripartite entanglement by way of quantum uncertainty relations. Our work thereby provides an important tool for the distribution of multipartite entanglement across quantum networks.Comment: 4 figure

Autonomic response to walk tests is useful for assessing outcome measures in people with multiple sclerosis

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between changes in the autonomic control of cardiorespiratory system induced by walk tests and outcome measures in people with Multiple Sclerosis (pwMS). Methods: Electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings of 148 people with Relapsing-Remitting MS (RRMS) and 58 with Secondary Progressive MS (SPMS) were acquired using a wearable device before, during, and after walk test performance from a total of 386 periodical clinical visits. A subset of 90 participants repeated a walk test at home. Various MS-related symptoms, including fatigue, disability, and walking capacity were evaluated at each clinical visit, while heart rate variability (HRV) and ECG-derived respiration (EDR) were analyzed to assess autonomic nervous system (ANS) function. Statistical tests were conducted to assess differences in ANS control between pwMS grouped based on the phenotype or the severity of MS-related symptoms. Furthermore, correlation coefficients (r) were calculated to assess the association between the most significant ANS parameters and MS-outcome measures. Results: People with SPMS, compared to RRMS, reached higher mean heart rate (HRM) values during walk test, and larger sympathovagal balance after test performance. Furthermore, pwMS who were able to adjust their HRM and ventilatory values, such as respiratory rate and standard deviation of the ECG-derived respiration, were associated with better clinical outcomes. Correlation analyses showed weak associations between ANS parameters and clinical outcomes when the Multiple Sclerosis phenotype is not taken into account. Blunted autonomic response, in particular HRM reactivity, was related with worse walking capacity, yielding r = 0.36 r = 0.29 (RRMS) and r > 0.5 (SPMS). A positive strong correlation r > 0.7 r > 0.65 between cardiorespiratory parameters derived at hospital and at home was also found. Conclusion: Autonomic function, as measured by HRV, differs according to MS phenotype. Autonomic response to walk tests may be useful for assessing clinical outcomes, mainly in the progressive stage of MS. Participants with larger changes in HRM are able to walk longer distance, while reduced ventilatory function during and after walk test performance is associated with higher fatigue and disability severity scores. Monitoring of disorder severity could also be feasible using ECG-derived cardiac and respiratory parameters recorded with a wearable device at home

Roadmap for optofluidics

Optofluidics, nominally the research area where optics and fluidics merge, is a relatively new research field and it is only in the last decade that there has been a large increase in the number of optofluidic. applications, as well as in the number of research groups, devoted to the topic. Nowadays optofluidics applications include, without being limited to, lab-on-a-chip devices, fluid-based and controlled lenses, optical sensors for fluids and for suspended particles, biosensors, imaging tools, etc. The long list of potential optofluidics applications, which have been recently demonstrated, suggests that optofluidic technologies will become more and more common in everyday life in the future, causing a significant impact on many aspects of our society. A characteristic of this research field, deriving from both its interdisciplinary origin and applications, is that in order to develop suitable solutions a. combination of a deep knowledge in different fields, ranging from materials science to photonics, from microfluidics to molecular biology and biophysics,. is often required. As a direct consequence, also being able to understand the long-term evolution of optofluidics research is not. easy. In this article, we report several expert contributions on different topics. so as to provide guidance for young scientists. At the same time, we hope that this document will also prove useful for funding institutions and stakeholders. to better understand the perspectives and opportunities offered by this research field

Liver cirrhosis, other liver diseases, and risk of hospitalisation for intracerebral haemorrhage: A Danish population-based case-control study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Liver diseases are suspected risk factors for intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH). We conducted a population-based case-control study to examine risk of ICH among hospitalised patients with liver cirrhosis and other liver diseases.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We used data from the hospital discharge registries (1991–2003) and the Civil Registration System in Denmark, to identify 3,522 cases of first-time hospitalisation for ICH and 35,173 sex- and age-matched population controls. Among cases and controls we identified patients with a discharge diagnosis of liver cirrhosis or other liver diseases before the date of ICH. We computed odds ratios for ICH by conditional logistic regressions, adjusting for a number of confounding factors.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There was an increased risk of ICH for patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis (adjusted OR = 4.8, 95% CI: 2.7–8.3), non-alcoholic liver cirrhosis (adjusted OR = 7.7, 95% CI: 2.0–28.9) and non-cirrhotic alcoholic liver disease (adjusted OR = 5.4, 95%CI:3.1–9.5) but not for patients with non-cirrhotic non-alcoholic liver diseases (adjusted OR = 0.9, 95%CI:0.5–1.6). The highest risk was found among women with liver cirrhosis (OR = 8.9, 95%CI:2.9–26.7) and for patients younger than 70 years (OR = 6.1, 95%CI:3.4–10.9). There were no sex- or age-related differences in the association between other liver diseases (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) and hospitalisation with ICH.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Patients with liver cirrhosis and non-cirrhotic alcoholic liver disease have a clearly increased risk for ICH.</p

Bioinformatics-Driven Identification and Examination of Candidate Genes for Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

ObjectiveCandidate genes for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) identified by a bioinformatics approach were examined for variant associations to quantitative traits of NAFLD-related phenotypes.Research Design and MethodsBy integrating public database text mining, trans-organism protein-protein interaction transferal, and information on liver protein expression a protein-protein interaction network was constructed and from this a smaller isolated interactome was identified. Five genes from this interactome were selected for genetic analysis. Twenty-one tag single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) which captured all common variation in these genes were genotyped in 10,196 Danes, and analyzed for association with NAFLD-related quantitative traits, type 2 diabetes (T2D), central obesity, and WHO-defined metabolic syndrome (MetS).Results273 genes were included in the protein-protein interaction analysis and EHHADH, ECHS1, HADHA, HADHB, and ACADL were selected for further examination. A total of 10 nominal statistical significant associations (P&lt;0.05) to quantitative metabolic traits were identified. Also, the case-control study showed associations between variation in the five genes and T2D, central obesity, and MetS, respectively. Bonferroni adjustments for multiple testing negated all associations.ConclusionsUsing a bioinformatics approach we identified five candidate genes for NAFLD. However, we failed to provide evidence of associations with major effects between SNPs in these five genes and NAFLD-related quantitative traits, T2D, central obesity, and MetS

Mitochondrial Cox1 Sequence Data Reliably Uncover Patterns of Insect Diversity But Suffer from High Lineage-Idiosyncratic Error Rates

The demand for scientific biodiversity data is increasing, but taxonomic expertise is often limited or not available. DNA sequencing is a potential remedy to overcome this taxonomic impediment. Mitochondrial DNA is most commonly used, e.g., for species identification ("DNA barcoding"). Here, we present the first study in arthropods based on a near-complete species sampling of a family-level taxon from the entire Australian region. We aimed to assess how reliably mtDNA data can capture species diversity when many sister species pairs are included. Then, we contrasted phylogenetic subsampling with the hitherto more commonly applied geographical subsampling, where sister species are not necessarily captured. We sequenced 800 bp cox1 for 1,439 individuals including 260 Australian species (78% species coverage). We used clustering with thresholds of 1 to 10% and general mixed Yule Coalescent (GMYC) analysis for the estimation of species richness. The performance metrics used were taxonomic accuracy and agreement between the morphological and molecular species richness estimation. Clustering (at the 3% level) and GMYC reliably estimated species diversity for single or multiple geographic regions, with an error for larger clades of lower than 10%, thus outperforming parataxonomy. However, the rates of error were higher for some individual genera, with values of up to 45% when very recent species formed nonmonophyletic clusters. Taxonomic accuracy was always lower, with error rates above 20% and a larger variation at the genus level (0 to 70%). Sørensen similarity indices calculated for morphospecies, 3% clusters and GMYC entities for different pairs of localities was consistent among methods and showed expected decrease over distance. Cox1 sequence data are a powerful tool for large-scale species richness estimation, with a great potential for use in ecology and β-diversity studies and for setting conservation priorities. However, error rates can be high in individual lineages