942 research outputs found
A bizarre foreign body in the appendix: A case report
Foreign bodies are rare causes of appendicitis and, in most cases, ingested foreign bodies pass through the alimentary tract asymptomatically. However, ingested foreign bodies may sometimes remain silent within the appendix for many years without an inflammatory response. Despite the fact that cases of foreign-body-induced appendicitis have been documented, sharp and pointed objects are more likely to cause perforations and abscesses, and present more rapidly after ingestion. Various materials, such as needles and drill bits, as well as organic matter, such as seeds, have been implicated as causes of acute appendicitis. Clinical presentation can vary from hours to years. Blunt foreign bodies are more likely to remain dormant for longer periods and cause appendicitis through obstruction of the appendiceal lumen. We herein describe a patient presenting with a foreign body in his appendix which had been swallowed 15 years previously. The contrast between the large size of the foreign body, the long clinical history without symptoms and the total absence of any histological inflammation was notable. We suggest that an elective laparoscopic appendectomy should be offered to such patients as a possible management optio
The Quantum Reverse Shannon Theorem based on One-Shot Information Theory
The Quantum Reverse Shannon Theorem states that any quantum channel can be
simulated by an unlimited amount of shared entanglement and an amount of
classical communication equal to the channel's entanglement assisted classical
capacity. In this paper, we provide a new proof of this theorem, which has
previously been proved by Bennett, Devetak, Harrow, Shor, and Winter. Our proof
has a clear structure being based on two recent information-theoretic results:
one-shot Quantum State Merging and the Post-Selection Technique for quantum
channels.Comment: 30 pages, 4 figures, published versio
Private quantum decoupling and secure disposal of information
Given a bipartite system, correlations between its subsystems can be
understood as information that each one carries about the other. In order to
give a model-independent description of secure information disposal, we propose
the paradigm of private quantum decoupling, corresponding to locally reducing
correlations in a given bipartite quantum state without transferring them to
the environment. In this framework, the concept of private local randomness
naturally arises as a resource, and total correlations get divided into
eliminable and ineliminable ones. We prove upper and lower bounds on the amount
of ineliminable correlations present in an arbitrary bipartite state, and show
that, in tripartite pure states, ineliminable correlations satisfy a monogamy
constraint, making apparent their quantum nature. A relation with entanglement
theory is provided by showing that ineliminable correlations constitute an
entanglement parameter. In the limit of infinitely many copies of the initial
state provided, we compute the regularized ineliminable correlations to be
measured by the coherent information, which is thus equipped with a new
operational interpretation. In particular, our results imply that two
subsystems can be privately decoupled if their joint state is separable.Comment: Child of 0807.3594 v2: minor changes v3: presentation improved, one
figure added v4: extended version with a lot of discussions and examples v5:
published versio
A Fully Abstract Symbolic Semantics for Psi-Calculi
We present a symbolic transition system and bisimulation equivalence for
psi-calculi, and show that it is fully abstract with respect to bisimulation
congruence in the non-symbolic semantics.
A psi-calculus is an extension of the pi-calculus with nominal data types for
data structures and for logical assertions representing facts about data. These
can be transmitted between processes and their names can be statically scoped
using the standard pi-calculus mechanism to allow for scope migrations.
Psi-calculi can be more general than other proposed extensions of the
pi-calculus such as the applied pi-calculus, the spi-calculus, the fusion
calculus, or the concurrent constraint pi-calculus.
Symbolic semantics are necessary for an efficient implementation of the
calculus in automated tools exploring state spaces, and the full abstraction
property means the semantics of a process does not change from the original
Orchestrating Tuple-based Languages
The World Wide Web can be thought of as a global computing architecture supporting the deployment of distributed networked applications. Currently, such applications can be programmed by resorting mainly to two distinct paradigms: one devised for orchestrating distributed services, and the other designed for coordinating distributed (possibly mobile) agents. In this paper, the issue of designing a pro-
gramming language aiming at reconciling orchestration and coordination is investigated. Taking as starting point the orchestration calculus Orc and the tuple-based coordination language Klaim, a new formalism is introduced combining concepts and primitives of the original calculi.
To demonstrate feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach, a prototype implementation of the new formalism is described and it is then used to tackle a case study dealing with a simplified but realistic electronic marketplace, where a number of on-line stores allow client
applications to access information about their goods and to place orders
Predicting global usages of resources endowed with local policies
The effective usages of computational resources are a primary concern of
up-to-date distributed applications. In this paper, we present a methodology to
reason about resource usages (acquisition, release, revision, ...), and
therefore the proposed approach enables to predict bad usages of resources.
Keeping in mind the interplay between local and global information occurring in
the application-resource interactions, we model resources as entities with
local policies and global properties governing the overall interactions.
Formally, our model takes the shape of an extension of pi-calculus with
primitives to manage resources. We develop a Control Flow Analysis computing a
static approximation of process behaviour and therefore of the resource usages.Comment: In Proceedings FOCLASA 2011, arXiv:1107.584
The development and evaluation of an online application to assist in the extraction of data from graphs for use in systematic reviews
These are the data we generated in our evaluation of the graphical user interface.
Please see our publication on Wellcome Open Research for information about the evaluations.These are the data we generated in our evaluation of the graphical user interface. Please see our publication on Wellcome Open Research for information about the evaluations
Why should we care about quantum discord?
Entanglement is a central feature of quantum theory. Mathematical properties
and physical applications of pure state entanglement make it a template to
study quantum correlations. However, an extension of entanglement measures to
mixed states in terms of separability does not always correspond to all the
operational aspects. Quantum discord measures allow an alternative way to
extend the idea of quantum correlations to mixed states. In many cases these
extensions are motivated by physical scenarios and quantum information
protocols. In this chapter we discuss several settings involving correlated
quantum systems, ranging from distributed gates to detectors testing quantum
fields. In each setting we show how entanglement fails to capture the relevant
features of the correlated system, and discuss the role of discord as a
possible alternative.Comment: Written for "Lectures on general quantum correlations and their
applications
Computing prime factors with a Josephson phase qubit quantum processor
A quantum processor (QuP) can be used to exploit quantum mechanics to find
the prime factors of composite numbers[1]. Compiled versions of Shor's
algorithm have been demonstrated on ensemble quantum systems[2] and photonic
systems[3-5], however this has yet to be shown using solid state quantum bits
(qubits). Two advantages of superconducting qubit architectures are the use of
conventional microfabrication techniques, which allow straightforward scaling
to large numbers of qubits, and a toolkit of circuit elements that can be used
to engineer a variety of qubit types and interactions[6, 7]. Using a number of
recent qubit control and hardware advances [7-13], here we demonstrate a
nine-quantum-element solid-state QuP and show three experiments to highlight
its capabilities. We begin by characterizing the device with spectroscopy.
Next, we produces coherent interactions between five qubits and verify bi- and
tripartite entanglement via quantum state tomography (QST) [8, 12, 14, 15]. In
the final experiment, we run a three-qubit compiled version of Shor's algorithm
to factor the number 15, and successfully find the prime factors 48% of the
time. Improvements in the superconducting qubit coherence times and more
complex circuits should provide the resources necessary to factor larger
composite numbers and run more intricate quantum algorithms.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Evidence summaries: the evolution of a rapid review approach
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Rapid reviews have emerged as a streamlined approach to synthesizing evidence - typically for informing emergent decisions faced by decision makers in health care settings. Although there is growing use of rapid review 'methods', and proliferation of rapid review products, there is a dearth of published literature on rapid review methodology. This paper outlines our experience with rapidly producing, publishing and disseminating evidence summaries in the context of our Knowledge to Action (KTA) research program.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The KTA research program is a two-year project designed to develop and assess the impact of a regional knowledge infrastructure that supports evidence-informed decision making by regional managers and stakeholders. As part of this program, we have developed evidence summaries - our form of rapid review - which have come to be a flagship component of this project. Our eight-step approach for producing evidence summaries has been developed iteratively, based on evidence (where available), experience and knowledge user feedback. The aim of our evidence summary approach is to deliver quality evidence that is both timely and user-friendly.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>From November 2009 to March 2011 we have produced 11 evidence summaries on a diverse range of questions identified by our knowledge users. Topic areas have included questions of clinical effectiveness to questions on health systems and/or health services. Knowledge users have reported evidence summaries to be of high value in informing their decisions and initiatives. We continue to experiment with incorporating more of the established methods of systematic reviews, while maintaining our capacity to deliver a final product in a timely manner.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The evolution of the KTA rapid review evidence summaries has been a positive one. We have developed an approach that appears to be addressing a need by knowledge users for timely, user-friendly, and trustworthy evidence and have transparently reported these methods here for the wider rapid review and scientific community.</p
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