Two-qubit mixed states and teleportation fidelity: Purity, concurrence, and beyond

To explore the properties of a two-qubit mixed state, we consider quantum teleportation. The fidelity of a teleported state depends on the resource state purity and entanglement, as characterized by concurrence. Concurrence and purity are functions of state parameters. However, it turns out that a state with larger purity and concurrence, may have comparatively smaller fidelity. By computing teleportation fidelity, concurrence and purity for two-qubit X-states, we show it explicitly. We further show that fidelity changes monotonically with respect to functions of parameters - other than concurrence and purity. A state with smaller concurrence and purity, but larger value of one of these functions has larger fidelity. These functions, thus characterize nonlocal classical and/or quantum properties of the state that are not captured by purity and concurrence alone. In particular, concurrence is not enough to characterize the entanglement properties of a two-qubit mixed state

FeynGKZ: a Mathematica package for solving Feynman integrals using GKZ hypergeometric systems

In the Lee-Pomeransky representation, Feynman integrals can be identified as a subset of Euler-Mellin integrals, which are known to satisfy Gel'fand-Kapranov-Zelevinsky (GKZ) system of partial differential equations. Here we present an automated package to derive the associated GKZ system for a given Feynman diagram and solve it in terms of hypergeometric functions using two equivalent algorithms, namely the triangulation method and the Gr\"obner deformation method. We present our code in the form of a Mathematica package FeynGKZ.wl which requires the softwares polymake, Macaulay2 and TOPCOM, and the packages AMBRE and Olsson.wl as dependencies. As applications of the package, we find series solutions to the GKZ systems of several one-loop and two-loop Feynman integrals. These are included in the file Examples.nb that can be downloaded along with the package from https://github.com/anant-group/FeynGKZ.Comment: 26 pages, 1 figure, code repository: https://github.com/anant-group/FeynGK

Mean platelet volume as a marker of Kawasaki disease in children

Background: Kawasaki disease (KD) is a clinical diagnosis, with common confusion among other causes of febrile illnesses. There are no confirmatory laboratory parameters for diagnosing KD. Objective: To investigate whether low mean platelet volume (MPV) is associated more with fever due to KD than due to the other common causes. Methods: This retrospective case-control study was done on febrile children between 6 months and 6 years of age admitted from January 2015 to January 2017. The MPV values of 28 KD and 50 non-KD febrile children admitted to our hospital were obtained from the hospital records. The diagnosis of KD was accepted only when (1) two pediatricians had agreed upon the diagnosis independently based on the American Heart Association guidelines 2004, (2) no other cause of fever coexisted with KD in a particular patient, and (3) prompt clinical response within 48 h of administration of intravenous immunoglobulin. Using suitable statistical software, the range of MPV in KD fever and non-KD fevers was compared. Results: MPV was lower in the KD group (9.75±0.98 femtoliter) than in the non-KD fever group (11.14±1.53 femtoliter). From the receiver operating characteristic curve, it was found that at MPV ≤10.0 fl, KD can be diagnosed with 75% sensitivity and 80% specificity. This means that lower the value of MPV, lower is the probability that a non-KD patientwill be wrongly diagnosed as KD. Conclusion: Our study shows that low MPV is associated with KD. Hence, a low MPV can raise the index of suspicion for KD in febrile children, especially in cases of incomplete KD. Further, prospective studies involving larger sample size are needed to ascertain its diagnostic utility

Plasmodium falciparum OTU‐like cysteine protease (PfOTU) is essential for apicoplast homeostasis and associates with noncanonical role of Atg8

The metabolic pathways associated with the mitochondrion and the apicoplast in Plasmodium, 2 parasite organelles of prokaryotic origin, are considered as suitable drug targets. In the present study, we have identified functional role of a novel ovarian tumour unit (OTU) domain-containing cysteine protease of Plasmodium falciparum (PfOTU). A C-terminal regulatable fluorescent affinity tag on native protein was utilised for its localization and functional characterization. Detailed studies showed vesicular localization of PfOTU and its association with the apicoplast. Degradation-tag mediated knockdown of PfOTU resulted in abnormal apicoplast development and blocked development of parasites beyond early-schizont stages in subsequent cell cycle; downregulation of PfOTU hindered apicoplast protein import. Further, the isoprenoid precursor-mediated parasite growth-rescue experiments confirmed that PfOTU knockdown specifically effect development of functional apicoplast. We also provide evidence for a possible biological function of PfOTU in membrane deconjugation of Atg8, which may be linked with the apicoplast protein import. Overall, our results show that the PfOTU is involved in apicoplast homeostasis and associates with the noncanonical function of Atg8 in maintenance of parasite apicoplast

Parametric optimization of yield percent of chitosan extracted from fish scale (Labeo rohita) through central composite design approach

Fish scales are extensively found waste materials that take a lot of time to degrade, thereby causing environmental pollution. A sequence of chemical processes involving Demineralization, Deproteinization, and Deacetylation can be effectively used to extract chitosan from the waste fish scale. This study elaborates on the extraction of chitosan from Labeo rohita. The obtained chitosan is efficiently characterized by SEM, FTIR, XRD, TGA, XRF and proximate, analysis. The small particle size (3.3748 µm) and the high surface area (4.046 m2/g) of the produced cost-effective chitosan (0.26 USD/g) justified its use as an antimicrobial filler in producing food-grade plastic. The degree of deacetylation is found to be 52.11%. The biodegradability is explained by its high capacity for water binding (160%) and fat binding (457%). The individual effect of the essential parameters like deacetylation time, deacetylation temperature, and amount of NaOH added, influencing the yield percent,is studied using Central Composite Design approach of Response Surface Methodology. The influence of autolysis time and the ratio of fish scale to HCl acid is also visualized. ANOVA (Analysis of variance) study suggested that the obtained equation for the maximum yield percent is quadratic in nature and is significant for the process. The maximum yield percent of 29.63% is found at optimized conditions of 4.48% of NaOH content, 6.624 hrdeacetylation time and 58.2°C deacetylation temperature

Parametric optimization of yield percent of chitosan extracted from fish scale (Labeo rohita) through central composite design approach

358-373Fish scales have been extensively reported as waste material that takes a lot of time to degrade, causing environmental pollution. This work has been substantiated to summarize a sequence of chemical processes (demineralization, deproteinization, and deacetylation) used for the extraction of useful product like chitosan from fish scale (Labeo rohita). The obtained chitosan have been efficiently characterized by SEM, FTIR, XRD, TGA, XRF, and proximate analysis. The small particle size (3.3748 μm) and the high surface area (4.046 m2/g) of the produced cost-effective chitosan (0.26 USD/g) have justified its applicability as an antimicrobial filler. The degree of deacetylation have been reported to be 52.11% along with a high capacity of water binding (160%) and fat binding (457%), indicating its biodegradable nature. The individual effect of the essential parameters like deacetylation time, deacetylation temperature, and amount of NaOH added, influencing the yield percent have been studied using the central composite design approach of response surface methodology. The maximum yield percent have been reported to be 29.63% for the optimized conditions of 4.48% of NaOH content, 6.624 hr deacetylation time, and 58.2°C deacetylation temperature

Testing CMB Anomalies in E-mode Polarization with Current and Future Data

In this paper, we explore the power of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization (E-mode) data to corroborate four potential anomalies in CMB temperature data: the lack of large angular-scale correlations, the alignment of the quadrupole and octupole (Q-O), the point-parity asymmetry, and the hemispherical power asymmetry. We use CMB simulations with noise representative of three experiments -- the Planck satellite, the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS), and the LiteBIRD satellite -- to test how current and future data constrain the anomalies. We find the correlation coefficients $\rho$ between temperature and E-mode estimators to be less than $0.1$, except for the point-parity asymmetry ($\rho=0.17$ for cosmic-variance-limited simulations), confirming that E-modes provide a check on the anomalies that is largely independent of temperature data. Compared to Planck component-separated CMB data (SMICA), the putative LiteBIRD survey would reduce errors on E-mode anomaly estimators by factors of $\sim 3$ for hemispherical power asymmetry and point-parity asymmetry, and by $\sim 26$ for lack of large-scale correlation. The improvement in Q-O alignment is not obvious due to large cosmic variance, but we found the ability to pin down the estimator value will be improved by a factor $\gtrsim100$. Improvements with CLASS are intermediate to these.Comment: 23 pages, 15 figures, 6 table

On-sky performance of new 90 GHz detectors for the Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS)

The Cosmology Large Angular Scale Surveyor (CLASS) is a polarization-sensitive telescope array located at an altitude of 5,200 m in the Chilean Atacama Desert and designed to measure the polarized Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) over large angular scales. The CLASS array is currently observing with three telescopes covering four frequency bands: one at 40 GHz (Q); one at 90 GHz (W1); and one dichroic system at 150/220 GHz (HF). During the austral winter of 2022, we upgraded the first 90 GHz telescope (W1) by replacing four of the seven focal plane modules. These new modules contain detector wafers with an updated design, aimed at improving the optical efficiency and detector stability. We present a description of the design changes and measurements of on-sky optical efficiencies derived from observations of Jupiter.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2208.0500