Dynamics of multipartite quantum correlations under decoherence

Quantum discord is an optimal resource for the quantification of classical and non-classical correlations as compared to other related measures. Geometric measure of quantum discord is another measure of quantum correlations. Recently, the geometric quantum discord for multipartite states has been introduced by Jianwei Xu [arxiv:quant/ph.1205.0330]. Motivated from the recent study [Ann. Phys. 327 (2012) 851] for the bipartite systems, I have investigated global quantum discord (QD) and geometric quantum discord (GQD) under the influence of external environments for different multipartite states. Werner-GHZ type three-qubit and six-qubit states are considered in inertial and non-inertial settings. The dynamics of QD and GQD is investigated under amplitude damping, phase damping, depolarizing and flipping channels. It is seen that the quantum discord vanishes for p>0.75 in case of three-qubit GHZ states and for p>0.5 for six qubit GHZ states. This implies that multipartite states are more fragile to decoherence for higher values of N. Surprisingly, a rapid sudden death of discord occurs in case of phase flip channel. However, for bit flip channel, no sudden death happens for the six-qubit states. On the other hand, depolarizing channel heavily influences the QD and GQD as compared to the amplitude damping channel. It means that the depolarizing channel has the most destructive influence on the discords for multipartite states. From the perspective of accelerated observers, it is seen that effect of environment on QD and GQD is much stronger than that of the acceleration of non-inertial frames. The degradation of QD and GQD happens due to Unruh effect. Furthermore, QD exhibits more robustness than GQD when the multipartite systems are exposed to environment.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, 4 table

Multi-parameter optimization: Development of a morpholin-3-one derivative with an improved kinetic profile for imaging monoacylglycerol lipase in the brain

Monoacylglycerol lipase (MAGL) is a gatekeeper in regulating endocannabinoid signaling and has gained sub-stantial attention as a therapeutic target for neurological disorders. We recently discovered a morpholin-3-one derivative as a novel scaffold for imaging MAGL via positron emission tomography (PET). However, its slow kinetics in vivo hampered the application. In this study, structural optimization was conducted and eleven novel MAGL inhibitors were designed and synthesized. Based on the results from MAGL inhibitory potency, in vitro metabolic stability and surface plasmon resonance assays, we identified compound 7 as a potential MAGL PET tracer candidate. [11C]7 was synthesized via direct 11CO2 fixation method and successfully mapped MAGL dis-tribution patterns on rodent brains in in vitro autoradiography. PET studies in mice using [11C]7 demonstrated its improved kinetic profile compared to the lead structure. Its high specificity in vivo was proved by using MAGL KO mice. Although further studies confirmed that [11C]7 is a P-glycoprotein (P-gp) substrate in mice, its low P-gp efflux ratio on cells transfected with human protein suggests that it should not be an issue for the clinical translation of [11C]7 as a novel reversible MAGL PET tracer in human subjects. Overall, [11C]7 ([11C] RO7284390) showed promising results warranting further clinical evaluation.Molecular Physiolog

Human health and ocean pollution

Background: Pollution – unwanted waste released to air, water, and land by human activity – is the largest environmental cause of disease in the world today. It is responsible for an estimated nine million premature deaths per year, enormous economic losses, erosion of human capital, and degradation of ecosystems. Ocean pollution is an important, but insufficiently recognized and inadequately controlled component of global pollution. It poses serious threats to human health and well-being. The nature and magnitude of these impacts are only beginning to be understood. Goals: (1) Broadly examine the known and potential impacts of ocean pollution on human health. (2) Inform policy makers, government leaders, international organizations, civil society, and the global public of these threats. (3) Propose priorities for interventions to control and prevent pollution of the seas and safeguard human health. Methods: Topic-focused reviews that examine the effects of ocean pollution on human health, identify gaps in knowledge, project future trends, and offer evidence-based guidance for effective intervention. Environmental Findings: Pollution of the oceans is widespread, worsening, and in most countries poorly controlled. It is a complex mixture of toxic metals, plastics, manufactured chemicals, petroleum, urban and industrial wastes, pesticides, fertilizers, pharmaceutical chemicals, agricultural runoff, and sewage. More than 80% arises from land-based sources. It reaches the oceans through rivers, runoff, atmospheric deposition and direct discharges. It is often heaviest near the coasts and most highly concentrated along the coasts of low- and middle-income countries. Plastic is a rapidly increasing and highly visible component of ocean pollution, and an estimated 10 million metric tons of plastic waste enter the seas each year. Mercury is the metal pollutant of greatest concern in the oceans; it is released from two main sources – coal combustion and small-scale gold mining. Global spread of industrialized agriculture with increasing use of chemical fertilizer leads to extension of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) to previously unaffected regions. Chemical pollutants are ubiquitous and contaminate seas and marine organisms from the high Arctic to the abyssal depths. Ecosystem Findings: Ocean pollution has multiple negative impacts on marine ecosystems, and these impacts are exacerbated by global climate change. Petroleum-based pollutants reduce photosynthesis in marine microorganisms that generate oxygen. Increasing absorption of carbon dioxide into the seas causes ocean acidification, which destroys coral reefs, impairs shellfish development, dissolves calcium-containing microorganisms at the base of the marine food web, and increases the toxicity of some pollutants. Plastic pollution threatens marine mammals, fish, and seabirds and accumulates in large mid-ocean gyres. It breaks down into microplastic and nanoplastic particles containing multiple manufactured chemicals that can enter the tissues of marine organisms, including species consumed by humans. Industrial releases, runoff, and sewage increase frequency and severity of HABs, bacterial pollution, and anti-microbial resistance. Pollution and sea surface warming are triggering poleward migration of dangerous pathogens such as the Vibrio species. Industrial discharges, pharmaceutical wastes, pesticides, and sewage contribute to global declines in fish stocks. Human Health Findings: Methylmercury and PCBs are the ocean pollutants whose human health effects are best understood. Exposures of infants in utero to these pollutants through maternal consumption of contaminated seafood can damage developing brains, reduce IQ and increase children’s risks for autism, ADHD and learning disorders. Adult exposures to methylmercury increase risks for cardiovascular disease and dementia. Manufactured chemicals – phthalates, bisphenol A, flame retardants, and perfluorinated chemicals, many of them released into the seas from plastic waste – can disrupt endocrine signaling, reduce male fertility, damage the nervous system, and increase risk of cancer. HABs produce potent toxins that accumulate in fish and shellfish. When ingested, these toxins can cause severe neurological impairment and rapid death. HAB toxins can also become airborne and cause respiratory disease. Pathogenic marine bacteria cause gastrointestinal diseases and deep wound infections. With climate change and increasing pollution, risk is high that Vibrio infections, including cholera, will increase in frequency and extend to new areas. All of the health impacts of ocean pollution fall disproportionately on vulnerable populations in the Global South – environmental injustice on a planetary scale. Conclusions: Ocean pollution is a global problem. It arises from multiple sources and crosses national boundaries. It is the consequence of reckless, shortsighted, and unsustainable exploitation of the earth’s resources. It endangers marine ecosystems. It impedes the production of atmospheric oxygen. Its threats to human health are great and growing, but still incompletely understood. Its economic costs are only beginning to be counted. Ocean pollution can be prevented. Like all forms of pollution, ocean pollution can be controlled by deploying data-driven strategies based on law, policy, technology, and enforcement that target priority pollution sources. Many countries have used these tools to control air and water pollution and are now applying them to ocean pollution. Successes achieved to date demonstrate that broader control is feasible. Heavily polluted harbors have been cleaned, estuaries rejuvenated, and coral reefs restored. Prevention of ocean pollution creates many benefits. It boosts economies, increases tourism, helps restore fisheries, and improves human health and well-being. It advances the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). These benefits will last for centuries. Recommendations: World leaders who recognize the gravity of ocean pollution, acknowledge its growing dangers, engage civil society and the global public, and take bold, evidence-based action to stop pollution at source will be critical to preventing ocean pollution and safeguarding human health. Prevention of pollution from land-based sources is key. Eliminating coal combustion and banning all uses of mercury will reduce mercury pollution. Bans on single-use plastic and better management of plastic waste reduce plastic pollution. Bans on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have reduced pollution by PCBs and DDT. Control of industrial discharges, treatment of sewage, and reduced applications of fertilizers have mitigated coastal pollution and are reducing frequency of HABs. National, regional and international marine pollution control programs that are adequately funded and backed by strong enforcement have been shown to be effective. Robust monitoring is essential to track progress. Further interventions that hold great promise include wide-scale transition to renewable fuels; transition to a circular economy that creates little waste and focuses on equity rather than on endless growth; embracing the principles of green chemistry; and building scientific capacity in all countries. Designation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) will safeguard critical ecosystems, protect vulnerable fish stocks, and enhance human health and well-being. Creation of MPAs is an important manifestation of national and international commitment to protecting the health of the seas

The performance of the jet trigger for the ATLAS detector during 2011 data taking

The performance of the jet trigger for the ATLAS detector at the LHC during the 2011 data taking period is described. During 2011 the LHC provided proton–proton collisions with a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and heavy ion collisions with a 2.76 TeV per nucleon–nucleon collision energy. The ATLAS trigger is a three level system designed to reduce the rate of events from the 40 MHz nominal maximum bunch crossing rate to the approximate 400 Hz which can be written to offline storage. The ATLAS jet trigger is the primary means for the online selection of events containing jets. Events are accepted by the trigger if they contain one or more jets above some transverse energy threshold. During 2011 data taking the jet trigger was fully efficient for jets with transverse energy above 25 GeV for triggers seeded randomly at Level 1. For triggers which require a jet to be identified at each of the three trigger levels, full efficiency is reached for offline jets with transverse energy above 60 GeV. Jets reconstructed in the final trigger level and corresponding to offline jets with transverse energy greater than 60 GeV, are reconstructed with a resolution in transverse energy with respect to offline jets, of better than 4 % in the central region and better than 2.5 % in the forward direction

Volume I. Introduction to DUNE

The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early universe, the dynamics of the supernovae that produced the heavy elements necessary for life, and whether protons eventually decay—these mysteries at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early evolution of our universe, its current state, and its eventual fate. The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is an international world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions as it searches for leptonic charge-parity symmetry violation, stands ready to capture supernova neutrino bursts, and seeks to observe nucleon decay as a signature of a grand unified theory underlying the standard model. The DUNE far detector technical design report (TDR) describes the DUNE physics program and the technical designs of the single- and dual-phase DUNE liquid argon TPC far detector modules. This TDR is intended to justify the technical choices for the far detector that flow down from the high-level physics goals through requirements at all levels of the Project. Volume I contains an executive summary that introduces the DUNE science program, the far detector and the strategy for its modular designs, and the organization and management of the Project. The remainder of Volume I provides more detail on the science program that drives the choice of detector technologies and on the technologies themselves. It also introduces the designs for the DUNE near detector and the DUNE computing model, for which DUNE is planning design reports. Volume II of this TDR describes DUNE\u27s physics program in detail. Volume III describes the technical coordination required for the far detector design, construction, installation, and integration, and its organizational structure. Volume IV describes the single-phase far detector technology. A planned Volume V will describe the dual-phase technology

Impact of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination of children ages 5–11 years on COVID-19 disease burden and resilience to new variants in the United States, November 2021–March 2022: A multi-model study

Background: The COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub convened nine modeling teams to project the impact of expanding SARS-CoV-2 vaccination to children aged 5–11 years on COVID-19 burden and resilience against variant strains. Methods: Teams contributed state- and national-level weekly projections of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in the United States from September 12, 2021 to March 12, 2022. Four scenarios covered all combinations of 1) vaccination (or not) of children aged 5–11 years (starting November 1, 2021), and 2) emergence (or not) of a variant more transmissible than the Delta variant (emerging November 15, 2021). Individual team projections were linearly pooled. The effect of childhood vaccination on overall and age-specific outcomes was estimated using meta-analyses. Findings: Assuming that a new variant would not emerge, all-age COVID-19 outcomes were projected to decrease nationally through mid-March 2022. In this setting, vaccination of children 5–11 years old was associated with reductions in projections for all-age cumulative cases (7.2%, mean incidence ratio [IR] 0.928, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.880–0.977), hospitalizations (8.7%, mean IR 0.913, 95% CI 0.834–0.992), and deaths (9.2%, mean IR 0.908, 95% CI 0.797–1.020) compared with scenarios without childhood vaccination. Vaccine benefits increased for scenarios including a hypothesized more transmissible variant, assuming similar vaccine effectiveness. Projected relative reductions in cumulative outcomes were larger for children than for the entire population. State-level variation was observed. Interpretation: Given the scenario assumptions (defined before the emergence of Omicron), expanding vaccination to children 5–11 years old would provide measurable direct benefits, as well as indirect benefits to the all-age U.S. population, including resilience to more transmissible variants. Funding: Various (see acknowledgments)

Evaluation of the US COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub for informing pandemic response under uncertainty

Our ability to forecast epidemics far into the future is constrained by the many complexities of disease systems. Realistic longer-term projections may, however, be possible under well-defined scenarios that specify the future state of critical epidemic drivers. Since December 2020, the U.S. COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub (SMH) has convened multiple modeling teams to make months ahead projections of SARS-CoV-2 burden, totaling nearly 1.8 million national and state-level projections. Here, we find SMH performance varied widely as a function of both scenario validity and model calibration. We show scenarios remained close to reality for 22 weeks on average before the arrival of unanticipated SARS-CoV-2 variants invalidated key assumptions. An ensemble of participating models that preserved variation between models (using the linear opinion pool method) was consistently more reliable than any single model in periods of valid scenario assumptions, while projection interval coverage was near target levels. SMH projections were used to guide pandemic response, illustrating the value of collaborative hubs for longer-term scenario projections

Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), far detector technical design report, volume III: DUNE far detector technical coordination

The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early universe, the dynamics of the supernovae that produced the heavy elements necessary for life, and whether protons eventually decay—these mysteries at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early evolution of our universe, its current state, and its eventual fate. The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is an international world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions as it searches for leptonic charge-parity symmetry violation, stands ready to capture supernova neutrino bursts, and seeks to observe nucleon decay as a signature of a grand unified theory underlying the standard model. The DUNE far detector technical design report (TDR) describes the DUNE physics program and the technical designs of the single- and dual-phase DUNE liquid argon TPC far detector modules. Volume III of this TDR describes how the activities required to design, construct, fabricate, install, and commission the DUNE far detector modules are organized and managed. This volume details the organizational structures that will carry out and/or oversee the planned far detector activities safely, successfully, on time, and on budget. It presents overviews of the facilities, supporting infrastructure, and detectors for context, and it outlines the project-related functions and methodologies used by the DUNE technical coordination organization, focusing on the areas of integration engineering, technical reviews, quality assurance and control, and safety oversight. Because of its more advanced stage of development, functional examples presented in this volume focus primarily on the single-phase (SP) detector module