1,425 research outputs found
Secrecy content of two-qubit states
We analyze the set of two-qubit states from which a secret key can be
extracted by single-copy measurements plus classical processing of the
outcomes. We introduce a key distillation protocol and give the corresponding
necessary and sufficient condition for positive key extraction. Our results
imply that the critical error rate derived by Chau, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 66},
060302 (2002), for a secure key distribution using the six-state scheme is
tight. Remarkably, an optimal eavesdropping attack against this protocol does
not require any coherent quantum operation.Comment: 5 pages, RevTe
Plasticity of the human visual system after retinal gene therapy in patients with Leber's congenital amaurosis.
Much of our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying plasticity in the visual cortex in response to visual impairment, vision restoration, and environmental interactions comes from animal studies. We evaluated human brain plasticity in a group of patients with Leber's congenital amaurosis (LCA), who regained vision through gene therapy. Using non-invasive multimodal neuroimaging methods, we demonstrated that reversing blindness with gene therapy promoted long-term structural plasticity in the visual pathways emanating from the treated retina of LCA patients. The data revealed improvements and normalization along the visual fibers corresponding to the site of retinal injection of the gene therapy vector carrying the therapeutic gene in the treated eye compared to the visual pathway for the untreated eye of LCA patients. After gene therapy, the primary visual pathways (for example, geniculostriate fibers) in the treated retina were similar to those of sighted control subjects, whereas the primary visual pathways of the untreated retina continued to deteriorate. Our results suggest that visual experience, enhanced by gene therapy, may be responsible for the reorganization and maturation of synaptic connectivity in the visual pathways of the treated eye in LCA patients. The interactions between the eye and the brain enabled improved and sustained long-term visual function in patients with LCA after gene therapy
A correlation of the cosmic microwave sky with large scale structure
We cross correlate the large-scale cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky
measured by WMAP with two probes of large-scale structure at z ~ 1. The hard
X-ray background, measured by the HEAO-1 satellite, is positively correlated
with the WMAP data at the 2.5-3.0 sigma level. The number counts of radio
galaxies in the NVSS survey are also correlated at a slightly weaker level
(2.-2.5 sigma). These correlations appear to arise from both hemispheres on the
sky and are resilient to changes in the levels of masking of the Galaxy and
point sources, suggesting that foregrounds are not responsible for the signal.
The implication is that some of the observed CMB fluctuations arise at low
redshifts. The level of the correlations is consistent with that expected for
the cosmological constant (Omega_Lambda = 0.72) concordance model resulting
from the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect. Thus, we may be observing dark energy's
effect on the growth of structure.Comment: 8 pages, 3 postscript figure
Device-independent quantum key distribution secure against collective attacks
Device-independent quantum key distribution (DIQKD) represents a relaxation
of the security assumptions made in usual quantum key distribution (QKD). As in
usual QKD, the security of DIQKD follows from the laws of quantum physics, but
contrary to usual QKD, it does not rely on any assumptions about the internal
working of the quantum devices used in the protocol. We present here in detail
the security proof for a DIQKD protocol introduced in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98,
230501 (2008)]. This proof exploits the full structure of quantum theory (as
opposed to other proofs that exploit the no-signalling principle only), but
only holds again collective attacks, where the eavesdropper is assumed to act
on the quantum systems of the honest parties independently and identically at
each round of the protocol (although she can act coherently on her systems at
any time). The security of any DIQKD protocol necessarily relies on the
violation of a Bell inequality. We discuss the issue of loopholes in Bell
experiments in this context.Comment: 25 pages, 3 figure
An area law for entanglement from exponential decay of correlations
Area laws for entanglement in quantum many-body systems give useful
information about their low-temperature behaviour and are tightly connected to
the possibility of good numerical simulations. An intuition from quantum
many-body physics suggests that an area law should hold whenever there is
exponential decay of correlations in the system, a property found, for
instance, in non-critical phases of matter. However, the existence of quantum
data-hiding state--that is, states having very small correlations, yet a volume
scaling of entanglement--was believed to be a serious obstruction to such an
implication. Here we prove that notwithstanding the phenomenon of data hiding,
one-dimensional quantum many-body states satisfying exponential decay of
correlations always fulfil an area law. To obtain this result we combine
several recent advances in quantum information theory, thus showing the
usefulness of the field for addressing problems in other areas of physics.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures. Short version of arXiv:1206.2947 Nature Physics
(2013
Development of a New Tacaribe Arenavirus Infection Model and Its Use to Explore Antiviral Activity of a Novel Aristeromycin Analog
Background
A growing number of arenaviruses can cause a devastating viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) syndrome. They pose a public health threat as emerging viruses and because of their potential use as bioterror agents. All of the highly pathogenic New World arenaviruses (NWA) phylogenetically segregate into clade B and require maximum biosafety containment facilities for their study. Tacaribe virus (TCRV) is a nonpathogenic member of clade B that is closely related to the VHF arenaviruses at the amino acid level. Despite this relatedness, TCRV lacks the ability to antagonize the host interferon (IFN) response, which likely contributes to its inability to cause disease in animals other than newborn mice. Methodology/Principal Findings
Here we describe a new mouse model based on TCRV challenge of AG129 IFN-α/β and -γ receptor-deficient mice. Titration of the virus by intraperitoneal (i.p.) challenge of AG129 mice resulted in an LD50 of ∼100 fifty percent cell culture infectious doses. Virus replication was evident in the serum, liver, lung, spleen, and brain 4–8 days after inoculation. MY-24, an aristeromycin derivative active against TCRV in cell culture at 0.9 µM, administered i.p. once daily for 7 days, offered highly significant (P\u3c0.001) protection against mortality in the AG129 mouse TCRV infection model, without appreciably reducing viral burden. In contrast, in a hamster model of arenaviral hemorrhagic fever based on challenge with clade A Pichinde arenavirus, MY-24 did not offer significant protection against mortality. Conclusions/Significance
MY-24 is believed to act as an inhibitor of S-adenosyl-L-homocysteine hydrolase, but our findings suggest that it may ameliorate disease by blunting the effects of the host response that play a role in disease pathogenesis. The new AG129 mouse TCRV infection model provides a safe and cost-effective means to conduct early-stage pre-clinical evaluations of candidate antiviral therapies that target clade B arenaviruses
Reproducibility of measurements of potential doubling time of tumour cells in the multicentre National Cancer Institute protocol T92-0045
We compared the flow cytometric measurement and analysis of the potential doubling time (Tpot) between three centres involved in the National Cancer Institute (NCI) protocol T92-0045. The primary purpose was to understand and minimize the variation within the measurement. A total of 102 specimens were selected at random from patients entered into the trial. Samples were prepared, stained, run and analysed in each centre and a single set of data analysed by all three centres. Analysis of the disc data set revealed that the measurement of labelling index (LI) was robust and reproducible. The estimation of duration of S-phase (Ts) was subject to errors of profile interpretation, particularly DNA ploidy status, and analysis. The LI dominated the variation in Tpot such that the level of final agreement, after removal of outliers and ploidy agreement, reached correlation coefficients of 0.9. The sample data showed poor agreement within each of the components of the measurement. There was some improvement when ploidy was in agreement, but correlation coefficients failed to exceed values of 0.5 for Tpot. The data suggest that observer-associated analysis of Ts and tissue processing and tumour heterogeneity were the major causes of variability in the Tpot measurement. The first two aspects can be standardized and minimized, but heterogeneity will remain a problem with biopsy techniques. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaig
Routes for breaching and protecting genetic privacy
We are entering the era of ubiquitous genetic information for research,
clinical care, and personal curiosity. Sharing these datasets is vital for
rapid progress in understanding the genetic basis of human diseases. However,
one growing concern is the ability to protect the genetic privacy of the data
originators. Here, we technically map threats to genetic privacy and discuss
potential mitigation strategies for privacy-preserving dissemination of genetic
data.Comment: Draft for comment
Physical Foundations of Landauer's Principle
We review the physical foundations of Landauer's Principle, which relates the
loss of information from a computational process to an increase in
thermodynamic entropy. Despite the long history of the Principle, its
fundamental rationale and proper interpretation remain frequently
misunderstood. Contrary to some misinterpretations of the Principle, the mere
transfer of entropy between computational and non-computational subsystems can
occur in a thermodynamically reversible way without increasing total entropy.
However, Landauer's Principle is not about general entropy transfers; rather,
it more specifically concerns the ejection of (all or part of) some correlated
information from a controlled, digital form (e.g., a computed bit) to an
uncontrolled, non-computational form, i.e., as part of a thermal environment.
Any uncontrolled thermal system will, by definition, continually re-randomize
the physical information in its thermal state, from our perspective as
observers who cannot predict the exact dynamical evolution of the microstates
of such environments. Thus, any correlations involving information that is
ejected into and subsequently thermalized by the environment will be lost from
our perspective, resulting directly in an irreversible increase in total
entropy. Avoiding the ejection and thermalization of correlated computational
information motivates the reversible computing paradigm, although the
requirements for computations to be thermodynamically reversible are less
restrictive than frequently described, particularly in the case of stochastic
computational operations. There are interesting possibilities for the design of
computational processes that utilize stochastic, many-to-one computational
operations while nevertheless avoiding net entropy increase that remain to be
fully explored.Comment: 42 pages, 15 figures, extended postprint of a paper published in the
10th Conf. on Reversible Computation (RC18), Leicester, UK, Sep. 201
R-parity Conservation via the Stueckelberg Mechanism: LHC and Dark Matter Signals
We investigate the connection between the conservation of R-parity in
supersymmetry and the Stueckelberg mechanism for the mass generation of the B-L
vector gauge boson. It is shown that with universal boundary conditions for
soft terms of sfermions in each family at the high scale and with the
Stueckelberg mechanism for generating mass for the B-L gauge boson present in
the theory, electric charge conservation guarantees the conservation of
R-parity in the minimal B-L extended supersymmetric standard model. We also
discuss non-minimal extensions. This includes extensions where the gauge
symmetries arise with an additional U(1)_{B-L} x U(1)_X, where U(1)_X is a
hidden sector gauge group. In this case the presence of the additional U(1)_X
allows for a Z' gauge boson mass with B-L interactions to lie in the sub-TeV
region overcoming the multi-TeV LEP constraints. The possible tests of the
models at colliders and in dark matter experiments are analyzed including
signals of a low mass Z' resonance and the production of spin zero bosons and
their decays into two photons. In this model two types of dark matter
candidates emerge which are Majorana and Dirac particles. Predictions are made
for a possible simultaneous observation of new physics events in dark matter
experiments and at the LHC.Comment: 38 pages, 7 fig
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