Catalysis in non--local quantum operations

We show how entanglement can be used, without being consumed, to accomplish unitary operations that could not be performed with out it. When applied to infinitesimal transformations our method makes equivalent, in the sense of Hamiltonian simulation, a whole class of otherwise inequivalent two-qubit interactions. The new catalysis effect also implies the asymptotic equivalence of all such interactions.Comment: 4 pages, revte

Optimized methods to measure acetoacetate, 3-hydroxybutyrate, glycerol, alanine, pyruvate, lactate and glucose in human blood using a centrifugal analyser with a fluorimetric attachment

Optimized methods are described for the analysis of glucose, lactate, pyruvate, alanine, glycerol, D-3-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate in perchloric acid extracts of human blood using the Cobas Bio centrifugal analyser. Glucose and lactate are measured using the photometric mode and other metabolites using the fluorimetric mode. The intra-assay coefficients of variation ranged from 0.7 to 4.1%, except with very low levels of pyruvate and acetoacetate where the coefficients of variation were 7.1 and 12% respectively. All seven metabolites can be measured in a perchloric acid extract of 20 μl of blood. The methods have been optimized with regard to variation in the perchloric acid content of the samples. These variations arise from the method of sample preparation used to minimize changes occurring in metabolite concentration after venepuncture

Associations of Infant Nutrition with Insulin Resistance Measures in Early Adulthood: Evidence from the Barry-Caerphilly Growth (BCG) Study

Background: Previous studies suggest that over-nutrition in early infancy may programme long-term susceptibility to insulin resistance. Objective: To assess the association of breast milk and quantity of infant formula and cows ’ milk intake during infancy with insulin resistance measures in early adulthood. Design: Long-term follow-up of the Barry Caerphilly Growth cohort, into which mothers and their offspring had originally been randomly assigned, between 1972–1974, to receive milk supplementation or not. Participants were the offspring, aged 23–27 years at follow-up (n = 679). Breastfeeding and formula/cows ’ milk intake was recorded prospectively by nurses. The main outcomes were insulin sensitivity (ISI0) and insulin secretion (CIR30). Results: 573 (84%) individuals had valid glucose and insulin results and complete covariate information. There was little evidence of associations of breastfeeding versus any formula/cows ’ milk feeding or of increasing quartiles of formula/cows’ milk consumption during infancy (,3 months) with any outcome measure in young adulthood. In fully adjusted models, the differences in outcomes between breastfeeding versus formula/cows ’ milk feeding at 3 months were: fasting glucose (20.07 mmol/l; 95 % CI: 20.19, 0.05); fasting insulin (8.0%; 28.7, 27.6); ISI0 (26.1%; 211.3, 12.1) and CIR30 (3.8%; 219.0, 32.8). There was also little evidence that increasing intakes of formula/cows ’ milk at 3 months were associated with fastin

Low levels of cardiovascular risk factors and coronary heart disease in a UK Chinese population.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors and coronary heart disease in Chinese and Europid adults. DESIGN: Population based, cross sectional survey. SETTING: Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, 1991-93. SUBJECTS: Altogether 380 Chinese and 625 Europid adults, aged 25-64 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Fasting lipid levels, blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), the proportions who smoked, and the prevalence of coronary heart disease based on the Rose angina questionnaire and major electrocardiographic abnormalities on resting 12 lead electrocardiogram (Minnesota codes 1.1-1.2). All figures were age adjusted to the 1991 England and Wales population. RESULTS: Altogether 183 and 197 Chinese, and 310 and 315 Europid men and women respectively were seen. Compared with Europid men, Chinese men had a lower mean total cholesterol concentration (5.1 versus 5.6 mmol/l, p 0.05) and diastolic (75 versus 68 mmHg, p < 0.001) blood pressures. The prevalence of coronary heart disease was significantly lower in Chinese than Europid men (4.9% versus 16.6%, p < 0.001) but not significantly different in women (7.3% versus 11.1%, p = 0.16). CONCLUSION: Strategies for UK Chinese are needed to maintain this favourable risk factor profile and prevent any potential increase in the risk of coronary heart disease associated with increasing acculturation

On the variability of the leaf relative uptake rate of carbonyl sulfide compared to carbon dioxide: Insights from a paired field study with two soybean varieties

Carbonyl sulfide (COS) has been proposed as a promising tracer for the estimation of the gross primary productivity (GPP) from ecosystem to global scale in recent years. Despite substantial work at spatial scales from leaf to regions, the uncertainty of COS-based GPP estimates are poorly known compared to widely used GPP estimates derived from the net ecosystem CO2 exchange. One key uncertainty in this context is the leaf relative uptake (LRU) of the COS with respect to the GPP, which must be known a priori. To investigate the influence of environmental factors, like drought, on the variability of the LRU, we conducted an experiment using ecosystem flux measurements of COS, CO2 and H2O from two eddy covariance towers above a soybean field, growing a commercial cultivar and a chlorophyll deficient mutant variety, in two separate plots. Our findings suggest that the LRU does not only differ between plant varieties due to differences in the ratio of the internal to ambient CO2 mole fraction and the internal resistance to COS, but also changes in response to drought. We also found the internal resistance to COS uptake to be a significant factor in controlling the total COS flux for both varieties, but more so for the commercial cultivar. Our study indicates that species-specific differences in the LRU need to be investigated further, and that environmental stress might complicate the usage of COS as a tracer for predicting GPP at ecosystem and global scale

Functional Liftings of Vectorial Variational Problems with Laplacian Regularization

We propose a functional lifting-based convex relaxation of variational problems with Laplacian-based second-order regularization. The approach rests on ideas from the calibration method as well as from sublabel-accurate continuous multilabeling approaches, and makes these approaches amenable for variational problems with vectorial data and higher-order regularization, as is common in image processing applications. We motivate the approach in the function space setting and prove that, in the special case of absolute Laplacian regularization, it encompasses the discretization-first sublabel-accurate continuous multilabeling approach as a special case. We present a mathematical connection between the lifted and original functional and discuss possible interpretations of minimizers in the lifted function space. Finally, we exemplarily apply the proposed approach to 2D image registration problems.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures; accepted at the conference "Scale Space and Variational Methods" in Hofgeismar, Germany 201