Boston Hospitality Review: Summer 2013

Hospitality Management: Perspectives from Industry Advisors by Rachel Roginsky and Matthew Arrants -- Te Four ‘Ps’ of Hospitality Recruiting by John D. Murtha -- Te Morris Nathanson Design Collection by Christopher Muller -- Still Searching for Excellence by Bradford Hudso

Long-term prevalence and predictors of prolonged grief disorder amongst bereaved cancer caregivers: A cohort study

Context: The short-term impact of prolonged grief disorder (PGD) following bereavement is well documented. The longer term sequelae of PGD however are poorly understood, possibly unrecognized, and may be incorrectly attributed to other mental health disorders and hence undertreated. Objectives: The aims of this study were to prospectively evaluate the prevalence of PGD three years post bereavement and to examine the predictors of long-term PGD in a population-based cohort of bereaved cancer caregivers. Methods: A cohort of primary family caregivers of patients admitted to one of three palliative care services in Melbourne, Australia, participated in the study (n = 301). Sociodemographic, mental health, and bereavement-related data were collected from the caregiver upon the patient\u27s admission to palliative care (T1). Further data addressing circumstances around the death and psychological health were collected at six (T2, n = 167), 13 (T3, n = 143), and 37 months (T4, n = 85) after bereavement. Results: At T4, 5% and 14% of bereaved caregivers met criteria for PGD and subthreshold PGD, respectively. Applying the total PGD score at T4, linear regression analysis found preloss anticipatory grief measured at T1 and self-reported coping measured at T2 were highly statistically significant predictors (both p \u3c 0.0001) of PGD in the longer term. Conclusion: For almost 20% of caregivers, the symptoms of PGD appear to persist at least three years post bereavement. These findings support the importance of screening caregivers upon the patient\u27s admission to palliative care and at six months after bereavement to ascertain their current mental health. Ideally, caregivers at risk of developing PGD can be identified and treated before PGD becomes entrenched

The Quantum State of an Ideal Propagating Laser Field

We give a quantum information-theoretic description of an ideal propagating CW laser field and reinterpret typical quantum-optical experiments in light of this. In particular we show that contrary to recent claims [T. Rudolph and B. C. Sanders, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 077903 (2001)], a conventional laser can be used for quantum teleportation with continuous variables and for generating continuous-variable entanglement. Optical coherence is not required, but phase coherence is. We also show that coherent states play a priveleged role in the description of laser light.Comment: 4 pages RevTeX, to appear in PRL. For an extended version see quant-ph/011115

Associations between routinely collected dairy herd improvement data and insemination outcome in UK dairy herds

Milk constituent concentrations in samples taken during early lactation are often used to generate proxy measures for energy balance in dairy herds. This study aimed to explore associations between these and other measures routinely recorded by dairy herd improvement schemes and insemination outcome, with an emphasis on the likely predictiveness of such measures for conception risk (the proportion of inseminations that are successful) at herd level. Data from 312 United Kingdom (UK) dairy herds were restructured so that each unit of data represented an insemination at less than 100 DIM. Milk constituent concentrations from first and second test day (corrected for the effects of season and DIM at sampling) were used as potential predictors of insemination outcome in a logistic regression model. Other predictors included representations of milk yield and other information routinely collected by DHIAs; random effects were used to account for clustering at cow and herd level. The final model included a large number of predictors, with a number of interaction and non-linear terms. The relative effect sizes of the measures of early lactation milk constituent concentrations were small. The full model predicted just under 64% of observed variation in herd-year conception risk (i.e. the proportion of inseminations that were successful in each herd in each calendar year): however, around 40% was accounted for by the herd-level random effect. The predictors based on early lactation milk constituent concentrations accounted for less than 0.5% of observed variation, representations of milk yield (both overall level of yield and early lactation curve shape) for around 7%, with the remaining 15% accounted for by DIM at insemination, parity, inter-service interval, year and month. These results suggest that early lactation milk constituent information is unlikely to predict herd conception risk to a useful extent. The large proportion of observed variation explained by the herd-level random effect suggests that there are unmeasured (in this study) or unmeasurable factors which are consistent within herd and are highly influential in determining herd conception risk

HSV-1 Targets Lymphatic Vessels in the Eye and Draining Lymph Node of Mice Leading to Edema in the Absence of a Functional Type I Interferon Response

Herpes simplex virus type-1 (HSV-1) induces new lymphatic vessel growth (lymphangiogenesis) in the cornea via expression of vascular endothelial growth factor by virally infected epithelial cells. Here, we extend this observation to demonstrate the selective targeting of corneal lymphatics by HSV-1 in the absence of functional type I interferon (IFN) pathway. Specifically, we examined the impact of HSV-1 replication on angiogenesis using type I IFN receptor deficient (CD118−/−) mice. HSV-1-induced lymphatic and blood vessel growth into the cornea proper was time-dependent in immunocompetent animals. In contrast, there was an initial robust growth of lymphatic vessels into the cornea of HSV-1-infected CD118−/−mice, but such vessels disappeared by day 5 postinfection. The loss was selective as blood vessel integrity remained intact. Magnetic resonance imaging and confocal microscopy analysis of the draining lymph nodes of CD118−/− mice revealed extensive edema and loss of lymphatics compared with wild-type mice. In addition to a loss of lymphatic vessels in CD118−/− mice, HSV-1 infection resulted in epithelial thinning associated with geographic lesions and edema within the cornea, which is consistent with a loss of lymphatic vasculature. These results underscore the key role functional type I IFN pathway plays in the maintenance of structural integrity within the cornea in addition to the anti-viral characteristics often ascribed to the type I IFN cytokine family

Quantum probabilities as Bayesian probabilities

In the Bayesian approach to probability theory, probability quantifies a degree of belief for a single trial, without any a priori connection to limiting frequencies. In this paper we show that, despite being prescribed by a fundamental law, probabilities for individual quantum systems can be understood within the Bayesian approach. We argue that the distinction between classical and quantum probabilities lies not in their definition, but in the nature of the information they encode. In the classical world, maximal information about a physical system is complete in the sense of providing definite answers for all possible questions that can be asked of the system. In the quantum world, maximal information is not complete and cannot be completed. Using this distinction, we show that any Bayesian probability assignment in quantum mechanics must have the form of the quantum probability rule, that maximal information about a quantum system leads to a unique quantum-state assignment, and that quantum theory provides a stronger connection between probability and measured frequency than can be justified classically. Finally we give a Bayesian formulation of quantum-state tomography.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, final versio