3,221 research outputs found
Increasing prevalence of asthma diagnosis and symptoms in children is confined to mild symptoms
BACKGROUND: The prevalence of childhood asthma is increasing but few studies have investigated trends in asthma severity. We investigated trends in asthma diagnosis and symptom morbidity between an eight year time period in a paired prevalence study.
METHODS: All children in one single school year aged 8-9 years in the city of Sheffield were given a parent respondent questionnaire in 1991 and 1999 based on questions from the International Survey of Asthma and Allergy in Children (ISAAC). Data were obtained regarding the prevalence of asthma and wheeze and current (12 month) prevalences of wheeze attacks, speech limiting wheeze, nocturnal cough and wheeze, and exertional symptoms.
RESULTS: The response rates in 1991 and 1999 were 4580/5321 (85.3%) and 5011/6021 (83.2%), respectively. There were significant increases between the two surveys in the prevalence of asthma ever (19.9% v 29.7%, mean difference 11.9%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 10.16 to 13.57, p<0.001), current asthma (10.3% v 13.0%, mean difference 2.7%, 95% CI 1.44 to 4.03, p<0.001), wheeze ever (30.3% v 35.8%, mean difference 5.7%, 95% CI 3.76 to 7.56, p<0.001), wheeze in the previous 12 months (17.0% v 19.4%, mean difference 2.5, 95% CI 0.95 to 4.07, p<0.01), and reporting of medication use (16.9% v 20%, mean difference 3.0%, 95% CI 1.46 to 4.62, p<0.001). There were also significant increases in reported hayfever and eczema diagnoses.
CONCLUSIONS: Diagnostic labelling of asthma and lifetime prevalence of wheeze has increased. The current 12 month point prevalence of wheeze has increased but this is confined to occasional symptoms. The increased medication rate may be responsible for the static prevalence of severe asthma symptoms. The significant proportion of children receiving medication but reporting no asthma symptoms identified from our 1999 survey suggests that some children are being inappropriately treated or overtreated
Remote state preparation and teleportation in phase space
Continuous variable remote state preparation and teleportation are analyzed
using Wigner functions in phase space. We suggest a remote squeezed state
preparation scheme between two parties sharing an entangled twin beam, where
homodyne detection on one beam is used as a conditional source of squeezing for
the other beam. The scheme works also with noisy measurements, and provide
squeezing if the homodyne quantum efficiency is larger than 50%. Phase space
approach is shown to provide a convenient framework to describe teleportation
as a generalized conditional measurement, and to evaluate relevant degrading
effects, such the finite amount of entanglement, the losses along the line, and
the nonunit quantum efficiency at the sender location.Comment: 2 figures, revised version to appear in J.Opt.
Nanocalorimetric Evidence for Nematic Superconductivity in the Doped Topological Insulator SrBiSe
Spontaneous rotational-symmetry breaking in the superconducting state of
doped has attracted significant attention as an
indicator for topological superconductivity. In this paper, high-resolution
calorimetry of the single-crystal
provides unequivocal evidence of a two-fold rotational symmetry in the
superconducting gap by a \emph{bulk thermodynamic} probe, a fingerprint of
nematic superconductivity. The extremely small specific heat anomaly resolved
with our high-sensitivity technique is consistent with the material's low
carrier concentration proving bulk superconductivity. The large basal-plane
anisotropy of is attributed to a nematic phase of a two-component
topological gap structure and caused by a
symmetry-breaking energy term .
A quantitative analysis of our data excludes more conventional sources of this
two-fold anisotropy and provides the first estimate for the symmetry-breaking
strength , a value that points to an onset transition of
the second order parameter component below 2K
On the "Fake" Inferred Entanglement Associated with the Maximum Entropy Inference of Quantum States
The inference of entangled quantum states by recourse to the maximum entropy
principle is considered in connection with the recently pointed out problem of
fake inferred entanglement [R. Horodecki, {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. A {\it 59}
(1999) 1799]. We show that there are operators , both diagonal and non
diagonal in the Bell basis, such that when the expectation value is
taken as prior information the problem of fake entanglement is not solved by
adding a new constraint associated with the mean value of (unlike
what happens when the partial information is given by the expectation value of
a Bell operator). The fake entanglement generated by the maximum entropy
principle is also studied quantitatively by comparing the entanglement of
formation of the inferred state with that of the original one.Comment: 25 Revtex pages, 5 Postscript figures, submitted to J. Phys. A (Math.
Gen.
Reconstruction of field theory from excitation spectra of defects
We show how to reconstruct a field theory from the spectrum of bound states
on a topological defect. We apply our recipe to the case of kinks in 1+1
dimensions with one or two bound states. Our recipe successfully yields the
sine-Gordon and field theories when suitable bound state
spectra are assumed. The recipe can also be used to globally reconstruct the
inflaton potential of inflationary cosmology if the inflaton produces a
topological defect. We discuss how defects can provide ``smoking gun'' evidence
for a class of inflationary models.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures. Included proof (Appendix B) that wall
fluctuation potentials have supersymmetric form. Added reference
Conditional q-Entropies and Quantum Separability: A Numerical Exploration
We revisit the relationship between quantum separability and the sign of the
relative q-entropies of composite quantum systems. The q-entropies depend on
the density matrix eigenvalues p_i through the quantity omega_q = sum_i p_i^q.
Renyi's and Tsallis' measures constitute particular instances of these
entropies. We perform a systematic numerical survey of the space of mixed
states of two-qubit systems in order to determine, as a function of the degree
of mixture, and for different values of the entropic parameter q, the volume in
state space occupied by those states characterized by positive values of the
relative entropy. Similar calculations are performed for qubit-qutrit systems
and for composite systems described by Hilbert spaces of larger dimensionality.
We pay particular attention to the limit case q --> infinity. Our numerical
results indicate that, as the dimensionalities of both subsystems increase,
composite quantum systems tend, as far as their relative q-entropies are
concerned, to behave in a classical way
Di-electron and two-photon widths in charmonium
The vector and pseudoscalar decay constants are calculated in the framework
of the Field Correlator Method. Di-electron widths:
keV, keV,
keV, in good agreement with experiment, are obtained with the same coupling,
, in QCD radiative corrections. We show that the larger
is needed to reach agreement with experiment for
keV, keV, keV, and
also for keV,
keV. Meanwhile even larger gives rise to good description of
keV, keV, and
provides correct ratio of the branching fractions: Comment: 8 pages, no figure
Security of quantum bit string commitment depends on the information measure
Unconditionally secure non-relativistic bit commitment is known to be
impossible in both the classical and the quantum world. However, when
committing to a string of n bits at once, how far can we stretch the quantum
limits? In this letter, we introduce a framework of quantum schemes where Alice
commits a string of n bits to Bob, in such a way that she can only cheat on a
bits and Bob can learn at most b bits of information before the reveal phase.
Our results are two-fold: we show by an explicit construction that in the
traditional approach, where the reveal and guess probabilities form the
security criteria, no good schemes can exist: a+b is at least n. If, however,
we use a more liberal criterion of security, the accessible information, we
construct schemes where a=4 log n+O(1) and b=4, which is impossible
classically. Our findings significantly extend known no-go results for quantum
bit commitment.Comment: To appear in PRL. Short version of quant-ph/0504078, long version to
appear separately. Improved security definition and result, one new lemma
that may be of independent interest. v2: added funding reference, no other
change
Nonet Symmetry and Two-Body Decays of Charmed Mesons
The decay of charmed mesons into pseudoscalar (P) and vector (V) mesons is
studied in the context of nonet symmetry. We have found that it is badly broken
in the PP channels and in the P sector of the PV channels as expected from the
non-ideal mixing of the \eta and the \eta'. In the VV channels, it is also
found that nonet symmetry does not describe the data well. We have found that
this discrepancy cannot be attributed entirely to SU(3) breaking at the usual
level of 20--30%. At least one, or both, of nonet and SU(3) symmetry must be
very badly broken. The possibility of resolving the problem in the future is
also discussed.Comment: 9 pages, UTAPHY-HEP-
Searching for the MSW Enhancement
We point out that the length scale associated with the MSW effect is the
radius of the Earth. Therefore to verify matter enhancement of neutrino
oscillations, it will be necessary to study neutrinos passing through the
Earth. For the parameters of MSW solutions to the solar neutrino problem, the
only detectable effects occur in a narrow band of energies from 5 to 10 MeV. We
propose that serious consideration be given to mounting an experiment at a
location within 9.5 degrees of the equator.Comment: 10 pages, RevTe
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