Generation of 1.5-um band time-bin entanglement using spontaneous fiber four-wave mixing and planar lightwave circuit interferometers

This paper reports 1.5-um band time-bin entanglement generation. We employed a spontaneous four-wave mixing process in a dispersion shifted fiber, with which correlated photon pairs with very narrow bandwidths were generated efficiently. To observe two-photon interference, we used planar lightwave circuit based interferometers that were operated stably without feedback control. As a result, we obtained coincidence fringes with 99 % visibilities after subtracting accidental coincidences, and successfully distributed entangled photons over 20-km standard single-mode fiber without any deterioration in the quantum correlation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Quantum secret sharing based on modulated high-dimensional time-bin entanglement

We propose a new scheme for quantum secret sharing (QSS) that uses a modulated high-dimensional time-bin entanglement. By modulating the relative phase randomly by {0,pi}, a sender with the entanglement source can randomly change the sign of the correlation of the measurement outcomes obtained by two distant recipients. The two recipients must cooperate if they are to obtain the sign of the correlation, which is used as a secret key. We show that our scheme is secure against intercept-and-resend (I-R) and beam splitting attacks by an outside eavesdropper thanks to the non-orthogonality of high-dimensional time-bin entangled states. We also show that a cheating attempt based on an I-R attack by one of the recipients can be detected by changing the dimension of the time bin entanglement randomly and inserting two "vacant" slots between the packets. Then, cheating attempts can be detected by monitoring the count rate in the vacant slots. The proposed scheme has better experimental feasibility than previously proposed entanglement-based QSS schemes.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev.

Prompter: Utilizing Large Language Model Prompting for a Data Efficient Embodied Instruction Following

Embodied Instruction Following (EIF) studies how mobile manipulator robots should be controlled to accomplish long-horizon tasks specified by natural language instructions. While most research on EIF are conducted in simulators, the ultimate goal of the field is to deploy the agents in real life. As such, it is important to minimize the data cost required for training an agent, to help the transition from sim to real. However, many studies only focus on the performance and overlook the data cost -- modules that require separate training on extra data are often introduced without a consideration on deployability. In this work, we propose FILM++ which extends the existing work FILM with modifications that do not require extra data. While all data-driven modules are kept constant, FILM++ more than doubles FILM's performance. Furthermore, we propose Prompter, which replaces FILM++'s semantic search module with language model prompting. Unlike FILM++'s implementation that requires training on extra sets of data, no training is needed for our prompting based implementation while achieving better or at least comparable performance. Prompter achieves 42.64% and 45.72% on the ALFRED benchmark with high-level instructions only and with step-by-step instructions, respectively, outperforming the previous state of the art by 6.57% and 10.31%.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, submitted to ICRA202

Development of J-Assist, a statistical analysis support tool for Julia

Julia is a new programming language that was released in 2012. Similar to Python, in the future, Julia has the potential for use in numerical analysis applications. In this study, we developed a free software named J-Assist that automatically executes statistical analysis operations in Julia version 1.4, which could introduce and popularize Julia among researchers and clinicians in the field of health and medical welfare. J-Assist provides a simple graphical user interface and is easy to install. Through this study, we demonstrate that it is possible to configure a system that automatically executes calculations and scripts in Julia. We compare J-Assist with EZR and Jupyter Notebook. J-Assist can be considered a simpler version of EZR. However, the execution languages used in J-Assist and EZR are different. J-Assist is intended for users who are new to Julia and programming and want to use Julia for quick statistical analysis; by contrast, Jupyter Notebook is suitable for users who want to develop complex programs and perform other complex analyses in Julia. This study also discusses the limitations of the current J-Assist software and functions that might be added to it in the future to expand its applicability for statistical analysis

Conservation Auctions and Compliance: Theory and Evidence from Laboratory Experiments

Poster prepared for presentation at the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association 2010 AAEA,CAES, & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado, July 25-27, 2010.Auctions, Conservation contracting, Compliance, Environmental Economics and Policy, C91, D44, Q24,

Suzaku X-Ray Observations of the Accreting NGC 4839 Group of Galaxies and the Radio Relic in the Coma Cluster

Based on Suzaku X-ray observations, we study the hot gas around the NGC4839 group of galaxies and the radio relic in the outskirts of the Coma cluster. We find a gradual decline in the gas temperature from 5 keV around NGC4839 to 3.6 keV at the radio relic, across which there is a further, steeper drop down to 1.5 keV. This drop as well as the observed surface brightness profile are consistent with a shock with Mach number M = 2.2 pm 0.5 and velocity vs = (1410 pm 110) km s^-1. A lower limit of B > 0.33 mu G is derived on the magnetic field strength around the relic from upper limits to inverse Compton X-ray emission. Although this suggests that the non-thermal electrons responsible for the relic are generated by diffusive shock acceleration (DSA), the relation between the measured Mach number and the electron spectrum inferred from radio observations are inconsistent with that expected from the simplest, test-particle theory of DSA. Nevertheless, DSA is still viable if it is initiated by the injection of a pre-existing population of non-thermal electrons. Combined with previous measurements, the temperature profile of Coma in the southwest direction is shallower outside NGC4839 and also slightly shallower in the outermost region. The metal abundance around NGC4839 is confirmed to be higher than in its vicinity, implying a significant peak in the abundance profile that decreases to 0.2 solar toward the outskirts. We interpret these facts as due to ram pressure stripping of metal-enriched gas from NGC4839 as it falls into Coma. The relic shock may result from the combined interaction of pre-existing intracluster gas, gas associated with NGC 4839, and cooler gas flowing in from the large-scale structure filament in the southwest.Comment: 13 page, accepted for publication in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japa

Psychosocial Factors and Change in Time Spent Studying by Students in Japan during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study examines predictive associations between psychosocial variables as independent variables and “Change in Time Spent Studying by Students” as the dependent variable. Data collected by the Cabinet Office of Japan amid the COVID-19 pandemic are analyzed with multivariate models to screen for the best combination of variables that can account for the effects on the dependent variable. A series of binary logistic regression analyses illuminates that the model with motivation to study, anxiety, life satisfaction, satisfaction with health status, and satisfaction with social bonds as explanatory variables is the fittest of all tested models. In particular, the importance of motivation, anxiety, and life satisfaction is deliberated regarding their effects on study-related variables. Furthermore, these variables’ implications for evidence-based school policies and curricula are discussed

Self-Assessed Reading Comprehension in English Among Adults in Japan : Implications of Lifestyle and Information Technology

This study commences with statistical data analysis of Japanese adults’ self-assessment of their English reading comprehension and various explanatory variables. Data from the Japanese General Social Survey (JGSS) were analyzed in two stages. In the first stage, a series of bivariate analyses were conducted with demographic, socio-economic, and lifestyle-related indicators as independent variables and self-assessed reading comprehension in English as the dependent variable. In the second stage, several multivariate models were constructed to determine which model best accounts for the effects on the dependent variable. The variables in the category of lifestyle-related factors—which includes the degree of information technology (IT) utilization—surfaced as predictive of the variable on self-assessed reading comprehension in English for Japanese adults. Subsequent to the analyses, implications and possibilities of IT as a reading resource for Japanese adult learners of English are discussed

SNARE-associated proteins and receptor trafficking

A wide variety of receptors that function on the cell surface are regulated, at least in part, through intracellular membrane trafficking including endocytosis, recycling and subsequent degradation. Soluble N-ethylmaleimide sensitive factor (NSF) attachment protein (SNAP) receptors (SNAREs) are essential molecules for the final step of intracellular membrane trafficking, i.e. fusion of transport vesicles with the target membrane. SNAREs on two opposing membranes form a trans-SNARE complex consisting of a four-helical bundle and drive a membrane fusion. The resultant cis-SNARE complex is disassembled through a process mediated by NSF and SNAPs. Cells contain families of SNAREs, and the interaction of cognate SNAREs at least contributes to the specificity of membrane fusion. The SNARE complex formation and dissociation are modulated by many SNARE-associated proteins at multiple steps including tethering, assembly and disassembly. Diverse molecular mechanisms, such as scaffolding, phosphorylation and ubiquitylation of SNARE proteins, and phosphoinositide production, are utilized for the modulation. In this review, we summarize recent progress in understanding the role of SNARE-associated proteins required for the endocytic recycling and degradation of epidermal growth factor receptor, transferrin receptor and integrins. We also discuss the physiological and pathological relevance of SNAREs and SNARE-associated proteins in the receptor trafficking