The Association Between Dental Coverage and Self-reported Health in Older Adults jGPHA

Background: For the older population of the United States, lack of dental insurance coverage is a substantial health problem. The purpose of the present study was to examine the longitudinal relationship between dental coverage and self-reported health among older adults. Methods: The Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative biennial cohort study of community-dwelling individuals, includes 19,595 adults (aged 50 and older) living in the United States. For the 2010, 2012, and 2014 waves, the independent variable of dental coverage and the outcome of self-reported health were examined. Results: At each time point, dental coverage for older adults had a positive association with self-reported health (parameter estimate, β=0.340, standard error (SE)=0.039, p\u3c0.0001), controlling for sociodemographic variables of age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, and the status of edentulism. There were no significant longitudinal effects for dental coverage associated with selfreported health. Conclusions: At each time point, the results show a positive association between having dental coverage and better self-reported health of older adults. This is relevant, because, in the United States, there is an increasing population of older people

Comparison of Reproductive Performance of Crossbred Ewes Bred for Either Fall or Spring Lambing at Two Different Locations: Progress Report

The objective of the current study was to measure the performance of crossbred ewes lambing in the fall compared to similar ewes lambing in the spring at two different locations

Mapping coherence in measurement via full quantum tomography of a hybrid optical detector

Quantum states and measurements exhibit wave-like --- continuous, or particle-like --- discrete, character. Hybrid discrete-continuous photonic systems are key to investigating fundamental quantum phenomena, generating superpositions of macroscopic states, and form essential resources for quantum-enhanced applications, e.g. entanglement distillation and quantum computation, as well as highly efficient optical telecommunications. Realizing the full potential of these hybrid systems requires quantum-optical measurements sensitive to complementary observables such as field quadrature amplitude and photon number. However, a thorough understanding of the practical performance of an optical detector interpolating between these two regions is absent. Here, we report the implementation of full quantum detector tomography, enabling the characterization of the simultaneous wave and photon-number sensitivities of quantum-optical detectors. This yields the largest parametrization to-date in quantum tomography experiments, requiring the development of novel theoretical tools. Our results reveal the role of coherence in quantum measurements and demonstrate the tunability of hybrid quantum-optical detectors.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Higher-order binding corrections to the Lamb shift of 2P states

We present an improved calculation of higher-order corrections to the one-loop self energy of 2P states in hydrogen-like systems with small nuclear charge Z. The method is based on a division of the integration with respect to the photon energy into a high- and a low-energy part. The high-energy part is calculated by an expansion of the electron propagator in powers of the Coulomb field. The low-energy part is simplified by the application of a Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation. This transformation leads to a clear separation of the leading contribution from the relativistic corrections and removes higher order terms. The method is applied to the 2P_{1/2} and 2P_{3/2} states in atomic hydrogen. The results lead to new theoretical values for the Lamb shifts and the fine structure splitting.Comment: 18 pages, LaTeX. In comparison to the journal version, it contains an added note (2000) which reflects the current status of Lamb shift calculation

Proton Pump Inhibitors in the Management of Tachypnoea following Panproctocolectomy: A Case of High Output Ileostomy

High output ileostomies are important complications of stoma formation following bowel surgery. Adequate management of such stomas might prevent severe morbidity and mortality when this potentially fatal complication develops. In this case report, we describe a female patient with a recent ileostomy formation following panproctocolectomy for ulcerative colitis who presented with progressively increasing shortness of breath. The patient was found to have a hypochloraemic metabolic acidosis on arterial blood gases. She rapidly improved with adequate sodium and fluid replacement and with the use of a course of proton pump inhibitors. This case highlights the importance of recognising high output ileostomies early and important management issues in their regard

Rank-based model selection for multiple ions quantum tomography

The statistical analysis of measurement data has become a key component of many quantum engineering experiments. As standard full state tomography becomes unfeasible for large dimensional quantum systems, one needs to exploit prior information and the "sparsity" properties of the experimental state in order to reduce the dimensionality of the estimation problem. In this paper we propose model selection as a general principle for finding the simplest, or most parsimonious explanation of the data, by fitting different models and choosing the estimator with the best trade-off between likelihood fit and model complexity. We apply two well established model selection methods -- the Akaike information criterion (AIC) and the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) -- to models consising of states of fixed rank and datasets such as are currently produced in multiple ions experiments. We test the performance of AIC and BIC on randomly chosen low rank states of 4 ions, and study the dependence of the selected rank with the number of measurement repetitions for one ion states. We then apply the methods to real data from a 4 ions experiment aimed at creating a Smolin state of rank 4. The two methods indicate that the optimal model for describing the data lies between ranks 6 and 9, and the Pearson $\chi^{2}$ test is applied to validate this conclusion. Additionally we find that the mean square error of the maximum likelihood estimator for pure states is close to that of the optimal over all possible measurements.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures, 3 table

Measuring measurement

Measurement connects the world of quantum phenomena to the world of classical events. It plays both a passive role, observing quantum systems, and an active one, preparing quantum states and controlling them. Surprisingly - in the light of the central status of measurement in quantum mechanics - there is no general recipe for designing a detector that measures a given observable. Compounding this, the characterization of existing detectors is typically based on partial calibrations or elaborate models. Thus, experimental specification (i.e. tomography) of a detector is of fundamental and practical importance. Here, we present the realization of quantum detector tomography: we identify the optimal positive-operator-valued measure describing the detector, with no ancillary assumptions. This result completes the triad, state, process, and detector tomography, required to fully specify an experiment. We characterize an avalanche photodiode and a photon number resolving detector capable of detecting up to eight photons. This creates a new set of tools for accurately detecting and preparing non-classical light.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures,see video abstract at http://www.quantiki.org/video_abstracts/0807244