Impurity Effects in Two-Electron Coupled Quantum Dots: Entanglement Modulation

We present a detailed analysis of the electronic and optical properties of two-electron quantum dots with a two-dimensional Gaussian confinement potential. We study the effects of Coulomb impurities and the possibility of manipulate the entanglement of the electrons by controlling the confinement potential parameters. The degree of entanglement becomes highly modulated by both the location and charge screening of the impurity atom, resulting two regimes: one of low entanglement and other of high entanglement, with both of them mainly determined by the magnitude of the charge. It is shown that the magnitude of the oscillator strength of the system could provide an indication of the presence and characteristics of impurities that could largely influence the degree of entanglement of the system.Comment: Regular Article (Journal of Physics B, in press), 9 pages, 10 figure

The presence of toxic pollutants in buildings and construction materials increases the risk of cancer

To this day, construction materials that contain toxic and carcinogenic compounds are still used. These materials contribute to increase the levels of these compounds inside buildings, thus increasing the risk of cancer. It is necessary to avoid the use of these materials, carry out correct ventilation of buildings, improve energy efficiency, and design and build green buildings in order to reduce the risk of cancer and therefore to improve the health of the inhabitants

Smartphone sensors for monitoring cancer-related Quality of Life: App design, EORTC QLQ-C30 mapping and feasibility study in healthy subjects

[EN] Quality of life (QoL) indicators are now being adopted as clinical outcomes in clinical trials on cancer treatments. Technology-free daily monitoring of patients is complicated, time-consuming and expensive due to the need for vast amounts of resources and personnel. The alternative method of using the patients¿ own phones could reduce the burden of continuous monitoring of cancer patients in clinical trials. This paper proposes monitoring the patients¿ QoL by gathering data from their own phones. We considered that the continuous multiparametric acquisition of movement, location, phone calls, conversations and data use could be employed to simultaneously monitor their physical, psychological, social and environmental aspects. An open access phone app was developed (Human Dynamics Reporting Service (HDRS)) to implement this approach. We here propose a novel mapping between the standardized QoL items for these patients, the European Organization for the Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30) and define HDRS monitoring indicators. A pilot study with university volunteers verified the plausibility of detecting human activity indicators directly related to QoL.Funding for this study was provided by the authors' various departments, and partially by the CrowdHealth Project (Collective Wisdom Driving Public Health Policies (727560)) and the MTS4up project (DPI2016-80054-R).Asensio Cuesta, S.; Sánchez-García, Á.; Conejero, JA.; Sáez Silvestre, C.; Rivero-Rodriguez, A.; Garcia-Gomez, JM. (2019). Smartphone sensors for monitoring cancer-related Quality of Life: App design, EORTC QLQ-C30 mapping and feasibility study in healthy subjects. International Journal of Environmental research and Public Health. 16(3):1-18. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16030461S118163Number of Smartphone Users Worldwide from 2014 to 2020 (in Billions)https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/Mirkovic, J., Kaufman, D. R., & Ruland, C. M. (2014). Supporting Cancer Patients in Illness Management: Usability Evaluation of a Mobile App. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 2(3), e33. doi:10.2196/mhealth.3359Xing Su, Hanghang Tong, & Ping Ji. (2014). Activity recognition with smartphone sensors. Tsinghua Science and Technology, 19(3), 235-249. doi:10.1109/tst.2014.6838194Schmitz Weiss, A. (2013). Exploring News Apps and Location-Based Services on the Smartphone. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 90(3), 435-456. doi:10.1177/1077699013493788Higgins, J. P. (2016). Smartphone Applications for Patients’ Health and Fitness. The American Journal of Medicine, 129(1), 11-19. doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2015.05.038Rivenson, Y., Ceylan Koydemir, H., Wang, H., Wei, Z., Ren, Z., Günaydın, H., … Ozcan, A. (2018). Deep Learning Enhanced Mobile-Phone Microscopy. ACS Photonics, 5(6), 2354-2364. doi:10.1021/acsphotonics.8b00146Priye, A., Ball, C. S., & Meagher, R. J. (2018). Colorimetric-Luminance Readout for Quantitative Analysis of Fluorescence Signals with a Smartphone CMOS Sensor. Analytical Chemistry, 90(21), 12385-12389. doi:10.1021/acs.analchem.8b03521Measuring Quality of Life for Cancer Patients: Where Are We Today and Where Are We Headed Tomorrow?http://blog.mdsol.com/measuring-quality-of-life-for-cancer-patients-where-are-we-today-and-where-are-we-headed-tomorrow/Zulueta, J., Piscitello, A., Rasic, M., Easter, R., Babu, P., Langenecker, S. A., … Leow, A. (2018). Predicting Mood Disturbance Severity with Mobile Phone Keystroke Metadata: A BiAffect Digital Phenotyping Study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 20(7), e241. doi:10.2196/jmir.9775Caruso, R., GiuliaNanni, M., Riba, M. B., Sabato, S., & Grassi, L. (2017). Depressive Spectrum Disorders in Cancer: Diagnostic Issues and Intervention. A Critical Review. Current Psychiatry Reports, 19(6). doi:10.1007/s11920-017-0785-7THE WHOQOL GROUP. (1998). Development of the World Health Organization WHOQOL-BREF Quality of Life Assessment. Psychological Medicine, 28(3), 551-558. doi:10.1017/s0033291798006667Basic Issues Concerning Health-Related Quality of Life. (2017). Central European Journal of Urology, 70(2). doi:10.5173/ceju.2017.923Sloan, J. A. (2011). Metrics to Assess Quality of Life After Management of Early-Stage Lung Cancer. The Cancer Journal, 17(1), 63-67. doi:10.1097/ppo.0b013e31820e15dcBordoni, R., Ciardiello, F., von Pawel, J., Cortinovis, D., Karagiannis, T., Ballinger, M., … Rittmeyer, A. (2018). Patient-Reported Outcomes in OAK: A Phase III Study of Atezolizumab Versus Docetaxel in Advanced Non–Small-cell Lung Cancer. Clinical Lung Cancer, 19(5), 441-449.e4. doi:10.1016/j.cllc.2018.05.011Hartkopf, A. D., Graf, J., Simoes, E., Keilmann, L., Sickenberger, N., Gass, P., … Wallwiener, M. (2017). Electronic-Based Patient-Reported Outcomes: Willingness, Needs, and Barriers in Adjuvant and Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients. JMIR Cancer, 3(2), e11. doi:10.2196/cancer.6996Wallwiener, M., Matthies, L., Simoes, E., Keilmann, L., Hartkopf, A. D., Sokolov, A. N., … Brucker, S. Y. (2017). Reliability of an e-PRO Tool of EORTC QLQ-C30 for Measurement of Health-Related Quality of Life in Patients With Breast Cancer: Prospective Randomized Trial. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 19(9), e322. doi:10.2196/jmir.8210Gresham, G., Hendifar, A. E., Spiegel, B., Neeman, E., Tuli, R., Rimel, B. J., … Shinde, A. M. (2018). Wearable activity monitors to assess performance status and predict clinical outcomes in advanced cancer patients. npj Digital Medicine, 1(1). doi:10.1038/s41746-018-0032-6BOHANNON, R. W. (1997). Comfortable and maximum walking speed of adults aged 20—79 years: reference values and determinants. Age and Ageing, 26(1), 15-19. doi:10.1093/ageing/26.1.15Pérez-García, V. M., Fitzpatrick, S., Pérez-Romasanta, L. A., Pesic, M., Schucht, P., Arana, E., & Sánchez-Gómez, P. (2016). Applied mathematics and nonlinear sciences in the war on cancer. Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Sciences, 1(2), 423-436. doi:10.21042/amns.2016.2.00036Shin, W., Song, S., Jung, S.-Y., Lee, E., Kim, Z., Moon, H.-G., … Lee, J. E. (2017). The association between physical activity and health-related quality of life among breast cancer survivors. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 15(1). doi:10.1186/s12955-017-0706-9Wearable Fitness Monitors Useful in Cancer Treatment, Study Findswww.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180501130856.htmBade, B. C., Brooks, M. C., Nietert, S. B., Ulmer, A., Thomas, D. D., Nietert, P. J., … Silvestri, G. A. (2016). Assessing the Correlation Between Physical Activity and Quality of Life in Advanced Lung Cancer. Integrative Cancer Therapies, 17(1), 73-79. doi:10.1177/1534735416684016Fortner, B. V., Stepanski, E. J., Wang, S. C., Kasprowicz, S., & Durrence, H. H. (2002). Sleep and Quality of Life in Breast Cancer Patients. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 24(5), 471-480. doi:10.1016/s0885-3924(02)00500-6Mishra, S. I., Scherer, R. W., Snyder, C., Geigle, P., & Gotay, C. (2014). Are Exercise Programs Effective for Improving Health-Related Quality of Life Among Cancer Survivors? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Oncology Nursing Forum, 41(6), E326-E342. doi:10.1188/14.onf.e326-e342Ratcliff, C. G., Lam, C. Y., Arun, B., Valero, V., & Cohen, L. (2014). Ecological momentary assessment of sleep, symptoms, and mood during chemotherapy for breast cancer. Psycho-Oncology, 23(11), 1220-1228. doi:10.1002/pon.3525Cox, S. M., Lane, A., & Volchenboum, S. L. (2018). Use of Wearable, Mobile, and Sensor Technology in Cancer Clinical Trials. JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics, (2), 1-11. doi:10.1200/cci.17.00147Brown, W., Yen, P.-Y., Rojas, M., & Schnall, R. (2013). Assessment of the Health IT Usability Evaluation Model (Health-ITUEM) for evaluating mobile health (mHealth) technology. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 46(6), 1080-1087. doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2013.08.001Darlow, S., & Wen, K.-Y. (2016). Development testing of mobile health interventions for cancer patient self-management: A review. Health Informatics Journal, 22(3), 633-650. doi:10.1177/1460458215577994Martin Sanchez, F., Gray, K., Bellazzi, R., & Lopez-Campos, G. (2014). Exposome informatics: considerations for the design of future biomedical research information systems. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 21(3), 386-390. doi:10.1136/amiajnl-2013-001772Kim, H. H., Lee, S. Y., Baik, S. Y., & Kim, J. H. (2015). MELLO: Medical lifelog ontology for data terms from self-tracking and lifelog devices. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 84(12), 1099-1110. doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2015.08.005Kessel, K. A., Vogel, M. M., Alles, A., Dobiasch, S., Fischer, H., & Combs, S. E. (2018). Mobile App Delivery of the EORTC QLQ-C30 Questionnaire to Assess Health-Related Quality of Life in Oncological Patients: Usability Study. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 6(2), e45. doi:10.2196/mhealth.9486Elsbernd, A., Hjerming, M., Visler, C., Hjalgrim, L. L., Niemann, C. U., Boisen, K., & Pappot, H. (2018). Cocreated Smartphone App to Improve the Quality of Life of Adolescents and Young Adults with Cancer (Kræftværket): Protocol for a Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluation. JMIR Research Protocols, 7(5), e10098. doi:10.2196/1009

Role of SODC protein in antineoplastic drug resistance

Cells need homeostasis to survive, therefore, they use the different pathways available to obtain it. The SODC protein overexpression, which is implicated in this process, suggests that could be implicated in the process of acquisition resistance during chemotherapy.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

SPM to the heart: mapping of 4D continuous velocities for motion abnormality quantification

International audienceThis paper proposes to apply parallel transport and statistical atlas techniques to quantify 4D myocardial motion abnormalities. We take advantage of our previous work on cardiac motion , which provided a continuous spatiotemporal representation of velocities, to interpolate and reorient cardiac motion fields to an unbiased reference space. Abnormal motion is quantified using SPM analysis on the velocity fields, which includes a correction based on random field theory to compensate for the spatial smoothness of the velocity fields. This paper first introduces the imaging pipeline for constructing a continuous 4D velocity atlas. This atlas is then applied to quantify abnormal motion patterns in heart failure patients

Robotic Navigation Autonomy for Subretinal Injection via Intelligent Real-Time Virtual iOCT Volume Slicing

In the last decade, various robotic platforms have been introduced that could support delicate retinal surgeries. Concurrently, to provide semantic understanding of the surgical area, recent advances have enabled microscope-integrated intraoperative Optical Coherent Tomography (iOCT) with high-resolution 3D imaging at near video rate. The combination of robotics and semantic understanding enables task autonomy in robotic retinal surgery, such as for subretinal injection. This procedure requires precise needle insertion for best treatment outcomes. However, merging robotic systems with iOCT introduces new challenges. These include, but are not limited to high demands on data processing rates and dynamic registration of these systems during the procedure. In this work, we propose a framework for autonomous robotic navigation for subretinal injection, based on intelligent real-time processing of iOCT volumes. Our method consists of an instrument pose estimation method, an online registration between the robotic and the iOCT system, and trajectory planning tailored for navigation to an injection target. We also introduce intelligent virtual B-scans, a volume slicing approach for rapid instrument pose estimation, which is enabled by Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). Our experiments on ex-vivo porcine eyes demonstrate the precision and repeatability of the method. Finally, we discuss identified challenges in this work and suggest potential solutions to further the development of such systems

Controlling the crystalline and magnetic texture in sputtered Fe 0.89 Ga 0.11 thin films: Influence of substrate and thermal treatment

In this work we present a careful study on the relationship between the magnetic and structural properties of a highly magnetostrictive Fe0.89Ga0.11 (Fe-Ga) alloy deposited onto glass, Si and MgO substrates. When grown on glass, the films are polycrystalline with randomly oriented grains without any texture, while the ones on Si and MgO present preferred growth directions. Fe-Ga/Si films show a [1 1 3] fibre-like texture, and Fe-Ga/MgO presents a quasi monocrystalline behavior with the (1 0 0) film plane direction parallel to the substrate surface. When Fe-Ga/MgO films are annealed an additional (1 1 0) texture is also observed. Magnetometry and ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) show that the magnetic behavior is closely related to the structural observed textures. Furthermore, the structural analysis allowed us to get a deeper understanding of the magnetic behavior. This point is very important to get the ability of controlling the crystalline texture by means of growing onto different substrates and/or thermal treatments, which in turns opens the possibility of handling the magnetic texture which is particularly important in magnetostrictive materials for electronic devices.Fil: Ramírez Chamorro, Gerardo Alexis. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología; ArgentinaFil: Malamud, Florencia. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; ArgentinaFil: Gomez, Javier Enrique. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología; ArgentinaFil: Rodríguez, Luis M.. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Fregenal, Daniel Eduardo. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Centro Atómico Bariloche; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; ArgentinaFil: Butera, Alejandro Ricardo. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología; ArgentinaFil: Milano, Julian. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología; Argentin

Replica Cluster Variational Method: the Replica Symmetric solution for the 2D random bond Ising model

We present and solve the Replica Symmetric equations in the context of the Replica Cluster Variational Method for the 2D random bond Ising model (including the 2D Edwards-Anderson spin glass model). First we solve a linearized version of these equations to obtain the phase diagrams of the model on the square and triangular lattices. In both cases the spin-glass transition temperatures and the tricritical point estimations improve largely over the Bethe predictions. Moreover, we show that this phase diagram is consistent with the behavior of inference algorithms on single instances of the problem. Finally, we present a method to consistently find approximate solutions to the equations in the glassy phase. The method is applied to the triangular lattice down to T=0, also in the presence of an external field.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figure

Proteins involved in carbon metabolism induce bleomycin resistance

S. cerevisiae acquires bleomycin resistance after a long-term exposure to this drug which causes overexpression of TPIS protein. It could be involved in the resistance process. For this reason, it could be good candidates as bleomycin chemo-resistance biomarker. Knowing of the homologous gene in humans facilitates more studies of the expression of this protein in tumors.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech