A pilot study of a text messaging intervention to modify illness and medication beliefs amongst patients diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease

Intentional and unintentional medication non-adherence is a particular challenge for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Non-adherence can affect patients’ quality of life, which can result in unfavorable treatment outcomes, more hospitalizations, and higher healthcare-related costs. The purpose of this study was to assess whether a tailored text message intervention designed to modify illness and medication adherence beliefs in patients with IBD would increase treatment compliance and change patients’ illness perceptions and medication concerns. This pilot study utilized a pre-test-post-test non-randomized design. A sample of 32 IBD patients was recruited within the UK. Participants’ medication beliefs and illness perception scores determined the set of tailored daily text messages, which were sent to patients over duration of 12 weeks. Medication adherence increased post-intervention, as “forgetting to take medication” decreased while “never” forgetting to take medication increased over time. A significant increase in treatment control and coherence and a decreased level of concern surrounding their condition was evident. Participants’ level of concern towards their medications changed during the 12 weeks, with a baseline mean concern score of 3.08 (.57) in comparison to the 12 weeks mean concern score of 2.89 (.59), which is statistically different, t (31) = 2.16, p < .038, r = .36 (medium effect). Sixty-six percent of participants from the baseline were aware of the necessity of their medication: “without my medication I would become ill.” The results have direct implications for improving medication adherence and changing illness and medication beliefs. This study validated the benefits of text messages and highlighted the importance of addressing these beliefs in order to understand the reasons for non-adherence fully

Error Analysis For Encoding A Qubit In An Oscillator

In the paper titled "Encoding A Qubit In An Oscillator" Gottesman, Kitaev, and Preskill [quant-ph/0008040] described a method to encode a qubit in the continuous Hilbert space of an oscillator's position and momentum variables. This encoding provides a natural error correction scheme that can correct errors due to small shifts of the position or momentum wave functions (i.e., use of the displacement operator). We present bounds on the size of correctable shift errors when both qubit and ancilla states may contain errors. We then use these bounds to constrain the quality of input qubit and ancilla states.Comment: 5 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Physical Review

Transition from Icosahedral to Decahedral Structure in a Coexisting Solid-Liquid Nickel Cluster

We have used molecular dynamics simulations to construct a microcanonical caloric curve for a 1415-atom Ni icosahedron. Prior to melting the Ni cluster exhibits static solid-liquid phase coexistence. Initially a partial icosahedral structure coexists with a non-wetting melt. However at energies very close to the melting point the icosahedral structure is replaced by a truncated decahedral structure which is almost fully wet by the melt. This structure remains until the cluster fully melts. The transition appears to be driven by a preference for the melt to wet the decahedral structure.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Multipartite W states for chains of atoms conveyed through an optical cavity

We propose and work out a scheme to generate the entangled W states for a chain of N four-level atoms which are transported through an optical cavity by means of an optical lattice. This scheme is based on the combined laser-cavity mediated interaction between distant and equally separated atoms and works in a completely deterministic way for qubits encoded by two hyperfine levels of the atoms. Only two parameters, namely the distance between the atoms and the velocity of the chain, determine the effective interaction among the atoms and, therefore, the degree of entanglement that is obtained for the overall chain of N qubits. In particular, we work out the parameter regions for which the W states are generated most reliably for chains of N = 2,3,4 and 5 atoms. In addition, we analyze the sensitivity in the formation of entanglement for such chains of qubits due to uncertainties produced by the oscillations of atoms in optical lattices.Comment: 12 pages, revised version accepted in PR

Spherically symmetric trapping horizons, the Misner-Sharp mass and black hole evaporation

Understood in terms of pure states evolving into mixed states, the possibility of information loss in black holes is closely related to the global causal structure of spacetime, as is the existence of event horizons. However, black holes need not be defined by event horizons, and in fact we argue that in order to have a fully unitary evolution for black holes, they should be defined in terms of something else, such as a trapping horizon. The Misner-Sharp mass in spherical symmetry shows very simply how trapping horizons can give rise to black hole thermodynamics, Hawking radiation and singularities. We show how the Misner-Sharp mass can also be used to give insights into the process of collapse and evaporation of locally defined black holes.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure

Can the X(3872) be a 1^{++} four-quark state?

We use QCD spectral sum rules to test the nature of the meson X(3872), assumed to be an exotic four-quark (c\bar{c}q\bar{q}) state with J^{PC}=1^{++}. For definiteness, we work with the current proposed recently by Maiani et al [1], at leading order in \alpha_s, consider the contributions of higher dimension condensates and keep terms which are linear in the light quark mass m_q. We find M_X=(3925+- 127) MeV which is compatible, within the errors, with he experimental candidate X(3872), while the SU(3) breaking-terms lead to an unusual mass-splitting M_{X^{s}}-M_X=- (61+-30) MeV. The mass-difference between the neutral states due to isospin violation of about (2.6-3.9) MeV is much smaller than the value (8+-3) MeV proposed in [1]. For the b-quark, we predict M_{X_b}= (10144+-106) MeV for the X_b(b\bar{b}q \bar{q}), which is much below the {\bar B}B* threshold in contrast to the {\bar B}B* molecule prediction [2], and for the X_b^s(b\bar{b}s \bar{s}), a mass-splitting M_{X^s_{b}}-M_{X_b}=-(121+-182) MeV. Our analysis also indicates that the mass-splitting between the ground state and the radial excitation of about (225~250) MeV is much smaller than in the case of ordinary mesons and is (within the errors) flavour-independent. We also extract the decay constants, analogous to f_\pi, of such mesons, which are useful for further studies of their leptonic and hadronic decay widths. The uncertainties of our estimates are mainly due to the ones from the c and b quark masses.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures. Version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Monotonicity of quantum relative entropy revisited

Monotonicity under coarse-graining is a crucial property of the quantum relative entropy. The aim of this paper is to investigate the condition of equality in the monotonicity theorem and in its consequences such as the strong sub-additivity of the von Neumann entropy, the Golden-Thompson trace inequality and the monotonicity of the Holevo quantity.The relation to quantum Markovian states is briefly indicated.Comment: 13 pages, LATEX fil

Spin chains and channels with memory

In most studies of the channel capacity of quantum channels, it is assumed that the errors in each use of the channel are independent. However, recent work has begun to investigate the effects of memory or correlations in the error. This work has led to speculation that interesting non-analytic behaviour may occur in the capacity. Motivated by these observations, we connect the study of channel capacities under correlated error to the study of critical behaviour in many-body physics. This connection enables us the techniques of many-body physics to either completely solve or understand qualitatively a number of interesting models of correlated error. The models can display analogous behaviour to associated many-body systems, including `phase transitions'.Comment: V2: changes in presentation, some additional comments on generalisation. V3: In accordance with published version, most (but not all) details of proofs now included. A separate paper will shortly be submitted separately with all details and more result

Entanglement distribution by an arbitrarily inept delivery service

We consider the scenario where a company C manufactures in bulk pure entangled pairs of particles, each pair intended for a distinct pair of distant customers. Unfortunately, its delivery service is inept - the probability that any given customer pair receives its intended particles is S, and the customers cannot detect whether an error has occurred. Remarkably, no matter how small S is, it is still possible for C to distribute entanglement by starting with non-maximally entangled pairs. We determine the maximum entanglement distributable for a given S, and also determine the ability of the parties to perform nonlocal tasks with the qubits they receive.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. v2 includes minor change

Disentanglement and decoherence in two-spin and three-spin systems under dephasing

We compare disentanglement and decoherence rates within two-spin and three-spin entangled systems subjected to all possible combinations of local and collective pure dephasing noise combinations. In all cases, the bipartite entanglement decay rate is found to be greater than or equal to the dephasing-decoherence rates and often significantly greater. This sharpens previous results for two-spin systems [T. Yu and J. H. Eberly Phys. Rev. B 68, 165322 (2003)] and extends them to the three-spin context.Comment: 17 page