Polarized ensembles of random pure states

A new family of polarized ensembles of random pure states is presented. These ensembles are obtained by linear superposition of two random pure states with suitable distributions, and are quite manageable. We will use the obtained results for two purposes: on the one hand we will be able to derive an efficient strategy for sampling states from isopurity manifolds. On the other, we will characterize the deviation of a pure quantum state from separability under the influence of noise.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figur

Towards a Smarter organization for a Self-servicing Society

Traditional social organizations such as those for the management of healthcare are the result of designs that matched well with an operational context considerably different from the one we are experiencing today. The new context reveals all the fragility of our societies. In this paper, a platform is introduced by combining social-oriented communities and complex-event processing concepts: SELFSERV. Its aim is to complement the "old recipes" with smarter forms of social organization based on the self-service paradigm and by exploring culture-specific aspects and technological challenges.Comment: Final version of a paper published in the Proceedings of International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion (DSAI'16), special track on Emergent Technologies for Ambient Assisted Living (ETAAL

Attorneys\u27 Fees in Environmental Citizen Suits: Should Prevailing Defendants Recover?

Attorneys\u27 fees in environmental citizen suits enable private citizens to enforce environmental legislation. First introduced in the federal Clean Air Act, attorney s fee provisions are now included in virtually all environmental legislation. Without provisions for the award of attorneys\u27 fees, legislation allowing for private citizen enforcement would be practically meaningless. Attorneys\u27 fees provisions typically allow for prevailing parties to be awarded attorneys\u27 fees when it is appropriate. The appropriateness standard has routinely justified awarding attorneys\u27 fees to prevailing plaintiffs, while defendants have commonly been awarded fees only when a suit is deemed frivolous, harassing, or without merit. This Comment explores how prevailing defendants continue to rely on the language of the applicable statutes to argue that they are entitled to attorneys\u27 fees as prevailing parties, and how the principles of equity can provide a better basis for awarding attorneys\u27 fees to prevailing defendants

Liposomal delivery of hydrophobic RAMBAs provides good bioavailability and significant enhancement of retinoic acid signalling in neuroblastoma tumour cells

Retinoid treatment is employed during residual disease treatment in neuroblastoma, where the aim is to induce neural differentiation or death in tumour cells. However, although therapeutically effective, retinoids have only modest benefits and suffer from poor pharmacokinetic properties. In vivo, retinoids induce CYP26 enzyme production in the liver, enhancing their own rapid metabolic clearance, while retinoid resistance in tumour cells themselves is considered to be due in part to increased CYP26 production. Retinoic acid metabolism blocking agents (RAMBAs), which inhibit CYP26 enzymes, can improve retinoic acid pharmacokinetics in pre-clinical neuroblastoma models. Here we demonstrate that in cultured neuroblastoma tumour cells, RAMBAs enhance retinoic acid action as seen by morphological differentiation, AKT signalling and suppression of MYCN protein. Although active as retinoid enhancers, these RAMBAs are highly hydrophobic and their effective delivery in humans will be very challenging. Here we demonstrate that such RAMBAs can be loaded efficiently into cationic liposomal particles, where the RAMBAs achieve good bioavailability and activity in cultured tumour cells. This demonstrates the efficacy of RAMBAs in enhancing retinoid signaling in neuroblastoma cells and shows for the first time that liposomal delivery of hydrophobic RAMBAs is a viable approach, providing novel opportunities for their delivery and application in humans

Robust gates for holonomic quantum computation

Non Abelian geometric phases are attracting increasing interest because of possible experimental application in quantum computation. We study the effects of the environment (modelled as an ensemble of harmonic oscillators) on a holonomic transformation and write the corresponding master equation. The solution is analytically and numerically investigated and the behavior of the fidelity analyzed: fidelity revivals are observed and an optimal finite operation time is determined at which the gate is most robust against noise.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Robustness against parametric noise of non ideal holonomic gates

Holonomic gates for quantum computation are commonly considered to be robust against certain kinds of parametric noise, the very motivation of this robustness being the geometric character of the transformation achieved in the adiabatic limit. On the other hand, the effects of decoherence are expected to become more and more relevant when the adiabatic limit is approached. Starting from the system described by Florio et al. [Phys. Rev. A 73, 022327 (2006)], here we discuss the behavior of non ideal holonomic gates at finite operational time, i.e., far before the adiabatic limit is reached. We have considered several models of parametric noise and studied the robustness of finite time gates. The obtained results suggest that the finite time gates present some effects of cancellation of the perturbations introduced by the noise which mimic the geometrical cancellation effect of standard holonomic gates. Nevertheless, a careful analysis of the results leads to the conclusion that these effects are related to a dynamical instead of geometrical feature.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, several changes made, accepted for publication on Phys. Rev.

Classical Statistical Mechanics Approach to Multipartite Entanglement

We characterize the multipartite entanglement of a system of n qubits in terms of the distribution function of the bipartite purity over balanced bipartitions. We search for maximally multipartite entangled states, whose average purity is minimal, and recast this optimization problem into a problem of statistical mechanics, by introducing a cost function, a fictitious temperature and a partition function. By investigating the high-temperature expansion, we obtain the first three moments of the distribution. We find that the problem exhibits frustration.Comment: 38 pages, 10 figures, published versio

Statistical mechanics of multipartite entanglement

We characterize the multipartite entanglement of a system of n qubits in terms of the distribution function of the bipartite purity over all balanced bipartitions. We search for those (maximally multipartite entangled) states whose purity is minimum for all bipartitions and recast this optimization problem into a problem of statistical mechanics.Comment: final versio