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Beyond viral suppression: the quality of life of people living with HIV in Sweden
Sweden has one of the best HIV treatment outcomes in the world and an estimated 95% of all diagnosed people living with HIV are virally suppressed, but the quality of life (QoL) is understudied. The aim of this study was to examine the associations between variables within sociodemographic, behavioural, clinical, psychological, sexual life, social support and personal resource component and the QoL of people living with HIV in Sweden. Data were derived from a cross-sectional, nation-wide survey completed by 15% (n = 1096) of all people living with HIV and collected at 15 infectious disease clinics and 2 needle exchange sites during 2014. Ordinal univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to examine associations between potential contributors and QoL. Respondents reported high QoL: 63% rated their QoL 7 or higher on a scale ranging from 0 to 10. QoL was independent of gender, age, mode of HIV transmission and country of origin. Lower QoL was associated with recent homelessness, hazardous alcohol consumption, comorbidities, treatment side-effects, HIV-related physical symptoms, hopelessness, negative self-image, sexual dissatisfaction, and negative changes in sex life after HIV. The QoL of people living with HIV in Sweden was high overall, but still significantly influenced by HIV
Inhibition of Nuclear Factor of Activated T-Cells (NFAT) Suppresses Accelerated Atherosclerosis in Diabetic Mice
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY: Diabetic patients have a much more widespread and aggressive form of atherosclerosis and therefore, higher risk for myocardial infarction, peripheral vascular disease and stroke, but the molecular mechanisms leading to accelerated damage are still unclear. Recently, we showed that hyperglycemia activates the transcription factor NFAT in the arterial wall, inducing the expression of the pro-atherosclerotic protein osteopontin. Here we investigate whether NFAT activation may be a link between diabetes and atherogenesis. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes in apolipoprotein E(-/-) mice resulted in 2.2 fold increased aortic atherosclerosis and enhanced pro-inflammatory burden, as evidenced by elevated blood monocytes, endothelial activation- and inflammatory markers in aorta, and pro-inflammatory cytokines in plasma. In vivo treatment with the NFAT blocker A-285222 for 4 weeks completely inhibited the diabetes-induced aggravation of atherosclerosis, having no effect in non-diabetic mice. STZ-treated mice exhibited hyperglycemia and higher plasma cholesterol and triglycerides, but these were unaffected by A-285222. NFAT-dependent transcriptional activity was examined in aorta, spleen, thymus, brain, heart, liver and kidney, but only augmented in the aorta of diabetic mice. A-285222 completely blocked this diabetes-driven NFAT activation, but had no impact on the other organs or on splenocyte proliferation or cytokine secretion, ruling out systemic immunosuppression as the mechanism behind reduced atherosclerosis. Instead, NFAT inhibition effectively reduced IL-6, osteopontin, monocyte chemotactic protein 1, intercellular adhesion molecule 1, CD68 and tissue factor expression in the arterial wall and lowered plasma IL-6 in diabetic mice. CONCLUSIONS: Targeting NFAT signaling may be a novel and attractive approach for the treatment of diabetic macrovascular complications
Delocalization power of global unitary operations on quantum information
We investigate how originally localized two pieces of quantum information
represented by a tensor product of two unknown qudit states are delocalized by
performing two-qudit global unitary operations. To characterize the
delocalization power of global unitary operations on quantum information, we
analyze the necessary and sufficient condition to deterministically relocalize
one of the two pieces of quantum information to its original Hilbert space by
using only LOCC. We prove that this LOCC one-piece relocalization is possible
if and only if the global unitary operation is local unitary equivalent to a
controlled-unitary operation. The delocalization power and the entangling power
characterize different non-local properties of global unitary operations.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figur
Asymptotic quasinormal modes of Reissner-Nordstr\"om and Kerr black holes
According to a recent proposal, the so-called Barbero-Immirzi parameter of
Loop Quantum Gravity can be fixed, using Bohr's correspondence principle, from
a knowledge of highly-damped black hole oscillation frequencies. Such
frequencies are rather difficult to compute, even for Schwarzschild black
holes. However, it is now quite likely that they may provide a fundamental link
between classical general relativity and quantum theories of gravity. Here we
carry out the first numerical computation of very highly damped quasinormal
modes (QNM's) for charged and rotating black holes. In the Reissner-Nordstr\"om
case QNM frequencies and damping times show an oscillatory behaviour as a
function of charge. The oscillations become faster as the mode order increases.
At fixed mode order, QNM's describe spirals in the complex plane as the charge
is increased, tending towards a well defined limit as the hole becomes
extremal. Kerr QNM's have a similar oscillatory behaviour when the angular
index . For the real part of Kerr QNM frequencies tends to
, being the angular velocity of the black hole horizon, while
the asymptotic spacing of the imaginary parts is given by .Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures. Added result on the asymptotic spacing of the
imaginary part, minor typos correcte
Enhancement of singly and multiply strangeness in p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions at 158A GeV/c
The idea that the reduction of the strange quark suppression in string
fragmentation leads to the enhancement of strange particle yield in
nucleus-nucleus collisions is applied to study the singly and multiply strange
particle production in p-Pb and Pb-Pb collisions at 158A GeV/c. In this
mechanism the strange quark suppression factor is related to the effective
string tension, which increases in turn with the increase of the energy, of the
centrality and of the mass of colliding system. The WA97 observation that the
strange particle enhancement increases with the increasing of centrality and of
strange quark content in multiply strange particles in Pb-Pb collisions with
respect to p-Pb collisions was accounted reasonably.Comment: 8 pages, 3 PostScript figures, in Latex form. submitted to PR
Secure quantum signatures using insecure quantum channels
Digital signatures are widely used in modern communication to guarantee authenticity and transferability of messages. The security of currently used classical schemes relies on computational assumptions. We present a quantum signature scheme that does not require trusted quantum channels. We prove that it is unconditionally secure against the most general coherent attacks, and show that it requires the transmission of significantly fewer quantum states than previous schemes. We also show that the quantum channel noise threshold for our scheme is less strict than for distilling a secure key using quantum key distribution. This shows that “direct” quantum signature schemes can be preferable to signature schemes relying on secret shared keys generated using quantum key distribution.This work was supported by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under EP/G009821/1 and EP/K022717/1. P.W. gratefully acknowledges support from the COST Action MP1006. A.K. was partially supported by a grant from FQXi and by Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Research at Perimeter Institute is supported by the Government of Canada through Industry Canada and by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Research and Innovation.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the American Physical Society via http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.03232
Fertility of frozen-thawed stallion semen cannot be predicted by the currently used laboratory methods
The aim of the project was to use current simple and practical laboratory tests and compare results with the foaling rates of mares inseminated with commercially produced frozen semen. In Exp. 1, semen was tested from 27 and in Exp. 2 from 23 stallions; 19 stallions participated in both experiments. The mean number of mares per stallion in both experiments was 37 (min. 7, max. 121). Sperm morphology was assessed and bacterial culture performed once per stallion. In Exp. 1, progressive motility after 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 h of incubation using light microscopy, motility characteristics measured with an automatic sperm analyzer, plasma membrane integrity using carboxyfluorescein diacetate/propidium iodide (CFDA/PI) staining and light microscopy, plasma membrane integrity using PI staining and a fluorometer, plasma membrane integrity using a resazurin reduction test, and sperm concentration were evaluated. In Exp. 2, the same tests as in Exp. 1 and a hypo-osmotic swelling test (HOST) using both light microscopy and a fluorometer were performed immediately after thawing and after a 3-h incubation. Statistical analysis was done separately to all stallions and to those having ≥ 20 mares; in addition, stallions with foaling rates < 60 or ≥ 60% were compared. In Exp. 1, progressive motility for all stallions after a 2 – 4-h incubation correlated with the foaling rate (correlation coefficients 0.39 – 0.51), (p < 0.05). In stallions with > 20 mares, the artificial insemination dose showed a correlation coefficient of -0.58 (p < 0.05). In Exp. 2, the HOST immediately after thawing showed a negative correlation with foaling rate (p < 0.05). No single test was consistently reliable for predicting the fertilizing capacity of semen, since the 2 experiments yielded conflicting results, although the same stallions sometimes participated in both. This shows the difficulty of frozen semen quality control in commercially produced stallion semen, and on the other hand, the difficulty of conducting fertility trials in horses
Decomposing the Sources of Earnings Inequality: Assessing the Role of Reallocation
This paper exploits longitudinal employer-employee matched data from the U.S. Census Bureau to investigate the contribution of worker and firm reallocation to changes in earnings inequality within and across industries between 1992 and 2003. We find that factors that cannot be measured using standard cross-sectional data, including the entry and exit of firms and the sorting of workers across firms, are important sources of changes in earnings distributions over time. Our results also suggest that the dynamics driving changes in earnings inequality are heterogeneous across industries.inequality, linked employer-employee data, sorting
Entanglement of distant optomechanical systems
We theoretically investigate the possibility to generate non-classical states
of optical and mechanical modes of optical cavities, distant from each other. A
setup comprised of two identical cavities, each with one fixed and one movable
mirror and coupled by an optical fiber, is studied in detail. We show that with
such a setup there is potential to generate entanglement between the distant
cavities, involving both optical and mechanical modes. The scheme is robust
with respect to dissipation, and nonlocal correlations are found to exist in
the steady state at finite temperatures.Comment: 12 pages (published with minor modifications
Cloning and Joint Measurements of Incompatible Components of Spin
A joint measurement of two observables is a {\it simultaneous} measurement of
both quantities upon the {\it same} quantum system. When two quantum-mechanical
observables do not commute, then a joint measurement of these observables
cannot be accomplished by projective measurements alone. In this paper we shall
discuss the use of quantum cloning to perform a joint measurement of two
components of spin associated with a qubit system. We introduce a cloning
scheme which is optimal with respect to this task. This cloning scheme may be
thought to work by cloning two components of spin onto its outputs. We compare
the proposed cloning machine to existing cloners.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PR
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