The cost of treating relapsed indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in an international setting: retrospective analysis of resource use

Background and Objectives. Few economic data exist on the treatment of indolent non-Hodgkin´s lymphoma (NHL) and there are none in the published literature concerning relapsed disease. This international analysis (Canada, Germany, Italy) was established to estimate the overall direct cost of treating patients with relapsed indolent NHL and determine the main cost components of treatment. Design and Methods. Telephone interviews were used to identify the most commonly used treatment regimens in each country. CHOP, CVP and fludarabine were chosen for economic analysis, which was based on retrospective data from 424 patients. Results. Overall treatment costs for a course of six cycles varied more than 5-fold, from EURO3,445 to 17,940 between regimens and countries. The treatment setting had a major impact on costs, with in-patient costs being up to three times greater than the equivalent out-patient values. Drug administration costs comprised 46-60% of the overall treatment costs in the in-patient setting. Adverse event management was the major cost component for out-patient CHOP and CVP therapy (52-75%), and a significant proportion (24-40%) of in-patient costs for these regimens. Drug acquisition accounted for less than half of treatment costs for most of the regimens analyzed. Interpretation and Conclusions. This study shows that not simply drug acquisition costs, but the costs of drug administration, particularly in the in-patient setting, and adverse event management are major contributors to the overall treatment costs for relapsed indolent NHL

Characterization of tomographically faithful states in terms of their Wigner function

A bipartite quantum state is tomographically faithful when it can be used as an input of a quantum operation acting on one of the two quantum systems, such that the joint output state carries a complete information about the operation itself. Tomographically faithful states are a necessary ingredient for tomography of quantum operations and for complete quantum calibration of measuring apparatuses. In this paper we provide a complete classification of such states for continuous variables in terms of the Wigner function of the state. For two-mode Gaussian states faithfulness simply resorts to correlation between the modes.Comment: 9 pages. IOPAMS style. Some improvement

Information-disturbance tradeoff in estimating a maximally entangled state

We derive the amount of information retrieved by a quantum measurement in estimating an unknown maximally entangled state, along with the pertaining disturbance on the state itself. The optimal tradeoff between information and disturbance is obtained, and a corresponding optimal measurement is provided.Comment: 4 pages. Accepted for publication on Physical Review Letter

Generating qudits with d=3,4 encoded on two-photon states

We present an experimental method to engineer arbitrary pure states of qudits with d=3,4 using linear optics and a single nonlinear crystal.Comment: 4 pages, 1 eps figure. Minor changes. The title has been changed for publication on Physical Review

Information-Disturbance Tradeoff in Quantum State Discrimination

When discriminating between two pure quantum states, there exists a quantitative tradeoff between the information retrieved by the measurement and the disturbance caused on the unknown state. We derive the optimal tradeoff and provide the corresponding quantum measurement. Such an optimal measurement smoothly interpolates between the two limiting cases of maximal information extraction and no measurement at all.Comment: 5 pages, 2 (low-quality) figures. Eq. (20) corrected. Final published versio

Optimal discrimination of quantum operations

We address the problem of discriminating with minimal error probability two given quantum operations. We show that the use of entangled input states generally improves the discrimination. For Pauli channels we provide a complete comparison of the optimal strategies where either entangled or unentangled input states are used.Comment: 4 pages, no figure

Protocols for entanglement transformations of bipartite pure states

We present a general theoretical framework for both deterministic and probabilistic entanglement transformations of bipartite pure states achieved via local operations and classical communication. This framework unifies and greatly simplifies previous works. A necessary condition for ``pure contraction'' transformations is given. Finally, constructive protocols to achieve both probabilistic and deterministic entanglement transformations are presented.Comment: 7 pages, no figures. Version slightly modified on Physical Review A reques

Mooring forces in horizontal interlaced multilayered Floating pipe breakwater with three layers

Source: ICHE Conference Archive - https://mdi-de.baw.de/icheArchiv

Evidence based treatment for unstable slipped upper femoral epiphysis : systematic review and exploratory patient level analysis

The management of slipped upper femoral epiphysis is controversial and evolving as insight into the condition develops. Loder introduced the concept of slip stability and demonstrated a strong association between poor outcome and instability. Almost half of patients with unstable slip developed femoral head osteonecrosis. This has been influential in surgeons' choice of treatments. Some surgeons have adopted a minimal intervention approach such as pinning in situ or gentle reduction and pinning whereas others advocated an urgent open reduction and stabilisation of slip using various surgical techniques. In this review we analysed the influence of various interventions, timing of surgery and severity of the slip on the outcome of unstable slip

Minimum error discrimination of Pauli channels

We solve the problem of discriminating with minimum error probability two given Pauli channels. We show that, differently from the case of discrimination between unitary transformations, the use of entanglement with an ancillary system can strictly improve the discrimination, and any maximally entangled state allows to achieve the optimal discrimination. We also provide a simple necessary and sufficient condition in terms of the structure of the channels for which the ultimate minimum error probability can be achieved without entanglement assistance. When such a condition is satisfied, the optimal input state is simply an eigenstate of one of the Pauli matrices.Comment: 8 pages, no figure