Aspects of the decoherence in high spin environments: Breakdown of the mean-field approximation

The study of the decoherence of qubits in spin systems is almost restricted to environments whose constituents are spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ particles. In this paper we consider environments that are composed of particles of higher spin, and we investigate the consequences on the dynamics of a qubit coupled to such baths via Heisenberg $XY$ and Ising interactions. It is shown that while the short time decay in both cases gets faster as the magnitude of the spin increases, the asymptotic behavior exhibits an improvement of the suppression of the decoherence when the coupling is through Heisenberg $XY$ interactions. In the case of a transverse Ising model, we find that the mean field approximation breaks down for high values of the spin.Comment: Preprint; 27 pages, 8 figure

Molecular Mechanisms of Nasal Epithelium in Rhinitis and Rhinosinusitis

Peer reviewe

Role of Innate Immunity in the Pathogenesis of Chronic Rhinosinusitis: Progress and New Avenues

Chronic rhinosinusitis is a heterogeneous and multifactorial disease with unknown etiology. Aberrant responses to microorganisms have been suggested to play a role in the pathophysiology of the disease. Research has focused on the presence, detection, response to, and eradication of these potential threats. Main topics seem to center on the contribution of structural cells such as epithelium and fibroblasts, on the consequences of activation of pattern-recognition receptors, and on the role of antimicrobial agents. This research should be viewed not only in the light of a comparison between healthy and diseased individuals, but also in a comparison between patients who do or do not respond to treatment. New players that could play a role in the pathophysiology seem to surface at regular intervals, adding to our understanding (and the complexity) of the disease and opening new avenues that may help fight this incapacitating disease

Measuring cystic fibrosis drug responses in organoids derived from 2D differentiated nasal epithelia

Cystic fibrosis is caused by genetic defects that impair the CFTR channel in airway epithelial cells. These defects may be overcome by specific CFTR modulating drugs, for which the efficacy can be predicted in a personalized manner using 3D nasal-brushing-derived airway organoids in a forskolin-induced swelling assay. Despite of this, previously described CFTR function assays in 3D airway organoids were not fully optimal, because of inefficient organoid differentiation and limited scalability. In this report, we therefore describe an alternative method of culturing nasal-brushing-derived airway organoids, which are created from an equally differentiated airway epithelial monolayer of a 2D air-liquid interface culture. In addition, we have defined organoid culture conditions, with the growth factor/cytokine combination neuregulin-1<i>β</i> and interleukin-1<i>β</i>, which enabled consistent detection of CFTR modulator responses in nasal-airway organoid cultures from subjects with cystic fibrosis