Pitavastatin approved for treatment of primary hypercholesterolemia and combined dyslipidemia

Pitavastatin was first developed in Japan and is expanding the regions in which it is clinically available. A considerable number of clinical studies have been conducted and published to date on the usefulness of pitavastatin for patients with primary hypercholesterolemia or combined dyslipidemia. Pitavastatin demonstrates potent low-density lipoprotein cholesterol reduction at low doses of 1–4 mg/day. It also affects the regression of coronary plaques, as observed in intravascular ultrasound-guided percutaneous coronary intervention studies. Moreover, the persistent, long-term high-density lipoprotein cholesterol elevation observed in the populations treated with pitavastatin is worthy of further attention. The reported improvements in lipid profiles are consistent among the studies conducted in Japan, Korea, Thailand, and Europe. In light of accumulating clinical experience worldwide, pitavastatin is now expected to establish its position for preventing and treating cardiovascular disease

A quantum protocol to win the graph colouring game on all Hadamard graphs

This paper deals with graph colouring games, an example of pseudo-telepathy, in which two provers can convince a verifier that a graph $G$ is $c$-colourable where $c$ is less than the chromatic number of the graph. They win the game if they convince the verifier. It is known that the players cannot win if they share only classical information, but they can win in some cases by sharing entanglement. The smallest known graph where the players win in the quantum setting, but not in the classical setting, was found by Galliard, Tapp and Wolf and has 32,768 vertices. It is a connected component of the Hadamard graph $G_N$ with $N=c=16$. Their protocol applies only to Hadamard graphs where $N$ is a power of 2. We propose a protocol that applies to all Hadamard graphs. Combined with a result of Frankl, this shows that the players can win on any induced subgraph of $G_{12}$ having 1609 vertices, with $c=12$. Combined with a result of Frankl and Rodl, our result shows that all sufficiently large Hadamard graphs yield pseudo-telepathy games.Comment: 5pag

Experimental demonstration of entanglement assisted coding using a two-mode squeezed vacuum state

We have experimentally realized the scheme initially proposed as quantum dense coding with continuous variables [Ban, J. Opt. B \textbf{1}, L9 (1999), and Braunstein and Kimble, \pra\textbf{61}, 042302 (2000)]. In our experiment, a pair of EPR (Einstein-Podolski-Rosen) beams is generated from two independent squeezed vacua. After adding two-quadrature signal to one of the EPR beams, two squeezed beams that contain the signal were recovered. Although our squeezing level is not sufficient to demonstrate the channel capacity gain over the Holevo limit of a single-mode channel without entanglement, our channel is superior to conventional channels such as coherent and squeezing channels. In addition, optical addition and subtraction processes demonstrated are elementary operations of universal quantum information processing on continuous variables.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Empirical Analysis Of Leisure Driver Decision Structures Underlying Sa/Pa Choice Behaviors On Expressways In Japan

Recently, it has been recognized that leisure drivers have a variety of needs when using expressways and that service and parking areas (SA/PAs) are required to offer not only traditional rest stop services but also additional services, such as refreshments, dining, and souvenir shopping. As previous research on driver decisions related to SA/PA choice behaviors is limited, it is necessary to identify the factors determining SA/PA choice behaviors to develop marketing strategies for promoting SA/PA use. Therefore, one of the objectives of this research is to analyze leisure driver SA/PA choice behaviors and their level of customer satisfaction with SA/PA services. A paper-based questionnaire was administered to the drivers who stopped at the studied SA/PAs on the survey day; a web-based survey is planned as a complementary survey. Structural equation modeling was applied to represent the decision structure underlying SA/PA choice behavior. We also discuss marketing strategies to promote SA/PA use for leisure drivers. In addition, a SA/PA choice model was developed to identify whether a given driver would stop at any of the studied SA/PAs or not and to identify which SA/PA would be chosen

Direct control of fractal pattern generation on an optical fractal synthesizer

This paper was published in Optics Express and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of OSA. The paper can be found at the following URL on the OSA website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/AO.39.002959 Systematic or multiple reproduction or distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means is prohibited and is subject to penalties under law

Compressibility of Liquefied Sand

Laboratory measurement using CCD camera was conducted to trace the sedimentation process of sand grains in a liquefied model layer. The purpose of this measurement was basically intended to obtain a visual evidence of appearance of suspended state in upper part of the liquefied soil. For this purpose, glass bead particles were used as model ground material. The test results prevailed that the glass bead grains were suspended in pore water at the instant when complete liquefaction was brought about to the layer, then they began to settle in the water. The measured pore water kept high value until grains ceased moving. And the moving velocity was far slower than that estimated by Stokes equation for sedimentation of single particle. From these findings, a predicting method was proposed to obtain the compressibility of liquefied sand layer and the continuation time of suspended state of grains