13,630 research outputs found
Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal cell differentiation toward myogenic lineages: Facts and perspectives
Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) are valuable platforms for new therapies based on regenerative medicine. BM-MSCs era is coming of age since the potential of these cells is increasingly demonstrated. In fact, these cells give origin to osteoblasts, chondroblasts, and adipocyte precursors in vitro, and they can also differentiate versus other mesodermal cell types like skeletal muscle precursors and cardiomyocytes. In our short review, we focus on the more recent manipulations of BM-MSCs toward skeletal and heart muscle differentiation, a growing field of obvious relevance considering the toll of muscle disease (i.e., muscular dystrophies), the heavier toll of heart disease in developed countries, and the still not completely understood mechanisms of muscle differentiation and repair
Calcium, Orai1, and Epidermal Proliferation
Ca2+ influx controls essential epidermal functions, including proliferation, differentiation, cell migration, itch, and barrier homeostasis. The Orai1 ion channel allows capacitive Ca2+ influx after Ca2+ release from the endoplasmic reticulum, and it has now been shown to modulate epidermal atrophy. These findings reveal new interactions among various Ca2+ signaling pathways and uncover novel functions for Ca2+ signaling via the Orai1 channel
Passing quantum correlations to qubits using any two-mode state
We draw an explicit connection between the statistical properties of an
entangled two-mode continuous variable (CV) resource and the amount of
entanglement that can be dynamically transferred to a pair of non-interacting
two-level systems. More specifically, we rigorously reformulate entanglement
transfer process by making use of covariance matrix formalism. When the
resource state is Gaussian, our method makes the approach to the transfer of
quantum correlations much more flexible than in previously considered schemes
and allows the straightforward inclusion of the effects of noise affecting the
CV system. Moreover, the proposed method reveals that the use of de-Gaussified
two-mode states is almost never advantageous for transferring entanglement with
respect to the full Gaussian picture, despite the entanglement in the
non-Gaussian resource can be much larger than in its Gaussian counterpart. We
can thus conclude that the entanglement-transfer map overthrows the "ordering"
relations valid at the level of CV resource states.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, RevTeX4, Accepted for publication in Physical
Review
Eco-friendly gas mixtures for Resistive Plate Chambers based on Tetrafluoropropene and Helium
Due to the recent restrictions deriving from the application of the Kyoto
protocol, the main components of the gas mixtures presently used in the
Resistive Plate Chambers systems of the LHC experiments will be most probably
phased out of production in the coming years. Identifying possible replacements
with the adequate characteristics requires an intense R&D, which was recently
started, also in collaborations across the various experiments. Possible
candidates have been proposed and are thoroughly investigated. Some tests on
one of the most promising candidate - HFO-1234ze, an allotropic form of
tetrafluoropropane- have already been reported. Here an innovative approach,
based on the use of Helium, to solve the problems related to the too elevate
operating voltage of HFO-1234ze based gas mixtures, is discussed and the
relative first results are shown.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 1 tabl
YF-12 cooperative airframe/propulsion control system program, volume 1
Several YF-12C airplane analog control systems were converted to a digital system. Included were the air data computer, autopilot, inlet control system, and autothrottle systems. This conversion was performed to allow assessment of digital technology applications to supersonic cruise aircraft. The digital system was composed of a digital computer and specialized interface unit. A large scale mathematical simulation of the airplane was used for integration testing and software checkout
Transferring entanglement to the steady-state of flying qubits
The transfer of entanglement from optical fields to qubits provides a viable
approach to entangling remote qubits in a quantum network. In cavity quantum
electrodynamics, the scheme relies on the interaction between a photonic
resource and two stationary intracavity atomic qubits. However, it might be
hard in practice to trap two atoms simultaneously and synchronize their
coupling to the cavities. To address this point, we propose and study
entanglement transfer from cavities driven by an entangled external field to
controlled flying qubits. We consider two exemplary non-Gaussian driving
fields: NOON and entangled coherent states. We show that in the limit of long
coherence time of the cavity fields, when the dynamics is approximately
unitary, entanglement is transferred from the driving field to two atomic
qubits that cross the cavities. On the other hand, a dissipation-dominated
dynamics leads to very weakly quantum-correlated atomic systems, as witnessed
by vanishing quantum discord.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, RevTeX
Operational distance and fidelity for quantum channels
We define and study a fidelity criterion for quantum channels, which we term
the minimax fidelity, through a noncommutative generalization of maximal
Hellinger distance between two positive kernels in classical probability
theory. Like other known fidelities for quantum channels, the minimax fidelity
is well-defined for channels between finite-dimensional algebras, but it also
applies to a certain class of channels between infinite-dimensional algebras
(explicitly, those channels that possess an operator-valued Radon--Nikodym
density with respect to the trace in the sense of Belavkin--Staszewski) and
induces a metric on the set of quantum channels which is topologically
equivalent to the CB-norm distance between channels, precisely in the same way
as the Bures metric on the density operators associated with statistical states
of quantum-mechanical systems, derived from the well-known fidelity
(`generalized transition probability') of Uhlmann, is topologically equivalent
to the trace-norm distance.Comment: 26 pages, amsart.cls; improved intro, fixed typos, added a reference;
accepted by J. Math. Phy
Two proposals for testing quantum contextuality of continuous-variable states
We investigate the violation of non-contextuality by a class of continuous
variable states, including variations of entangled coherent states (ECS's) and
a two-mode continuous superposition of coherent states. We generalise the
Kochen-Specker (KS) inequality discussed in A. Cabello, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf
101}, 210401 (2008) by using effective bidimensional observables implemented
through physical operations acting on continuous variable states, in a way
similar to an approach to the falsification of Bell-CHSH inequalities put
forward recently. We test for state-independent violation of KS inequalities
under variable degrees of state entanglement and mixedness. We then demonstrate
theoretically the violation of a KS inequality for any two-mode state by using
pseudo-spin observables and a generalized quasi-probability function.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, RevTeX
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